The kind of people that don’t care and want to stay blind.

Many people do not care about climate change for various reasons. People continue to buy big cars and trucks RVs and boats. We still need trains and ships and airplanes and then we need large amounts of electricity which mainly uses hydrocarbon fuels. Even the supposedly green people don't change their lifestyle they keep using large amounts of energy for their comfort. Now my thinking is since nobody wants to change their ways we need to plan for climate change move out of the low-lying lands and if you're lucky move higher into the mountains where it will be cooler. We need to quit draining freshwater off the land because we will need it for irrigation and other uses. The whole thing has gone too far and nobody is going to change the way they live until they are forced to. So let's start planning for a warmer world and if it doesn't happen and will be in good shape either way

Many people voluntarily put on blinders, and stuff their ears, and deny truths all around them, so as to not disturb their neatly laid out make-beliefs, and non-facts.

How would we have the orange creature in the White House otherwise ?

none so blind as those who will not see

Hi Misstuffy, alot of mis information has been put out by interest groups who benefit by denying climate change such as the oil barons,the factories that are spewing out and polluting the atmosphere and even paying some scientists to make those claims,so no wonder a lot of people are sucked in by it.

I had a doe drop triplet kids right before I got home from work It is -3F here so I brought the babies in the house and milked mom for colostrum. I have never had so much trouble keeping goats healthy as I am right now.

The discussion about climate seems to get me in hot water. There is climate, climate change, global warming, global cooling, man made climate change, man made global warming. You are the first to suggest climate warming". My sympathies for the animals that are suffering in your care.

I have heard conservatives say that it's a conspiracy to the extent that if you want a federal grant to deal research you best put climate change in the mix. This may be true to an extent. What they don't understand is science. All the world's scientists are not getting together to fool everyone. In fact if just one scientists could prove the data was wrong She would be the world's most important, sought after scientist on the planet..

If someone presents a hypothesis it becomes anyone, and everyone's opening to prove them wrong. They don't even have to be scientists. The ones who can have the most clout.

So it can't be a conspiracy because their is always some idiot out there that wants recognition, is a rival scientist, or comes from a rival country. There is a lot to be gained by many people for proving a scientific working hypothesis wrong.

But the right wing and evangelicals deny the evidence. Perhaps because they do not understand science.

Even the people that are supposedly going green do not reduce their energy consumption they all want air conditioning automatic washing machines automobiles recreational boats and RVs and all these products require large amounts of energy to produce nobody has any conception how much energy it takes to produce 1 ton of steel 1 ton of aluminum 100 yd.³ of cement and the list goes on and the rest of the world wants all these luxuries also. A real truth about CO2 emissions is it's growing at 1% to1.5% a year and nobody is going to stop using energy so we should be planning for global warming and learn to live in a warmer climate. The rest of the world wants the same thing Americans have. If you believe CO2 is causing global warming the best technology we have to eliminate carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere is nuclear energy. With a surplus of energy the oil companies can convert CO2 back to hydrocarbon fuels and other products. Nuclear energy can be done safely the French have been doing it for many years now.

So much to cover . . . First, the most basic question. Is Earth's climate changing? Of course it is. It always has. Earth's climate began to change from the moment Earth formed throughout time and is still changing today. In some respects it goes through cycles -- wetter vs. drier, warmer vs. cooler, etc. Climate change is not only happening, it is a normal occurrence. This is one of the reasons I bristle at the term "climate change denier." I don't think there are very many people who truly believe the climate is static.

Second, since climate change began long before humans appeared on the planet, no, climate change is not "caused" by humans. Stating this often riles people up, but the fact that the climate would change whether or not humans existed proves that it is not caused by humans. To claim otherwise is to claim that climate would not change if humans did not exist, which is false. This is why I bristle at the term "man-made climate change." It implies that the climate would not change if not for humans, which is entirely false.

Third, since we've established that climate change is a normal occurrence and that it is not caused by humans, the next question would then be, "Does human activity impact climate?" I've heard many claim that it does not, that the Earth is so vast and the atmosphere so voluminous that human impact, if any, is insignificant and that any climactic influence is localized at best. Basically, they are claiming that it is impossible for human activity to alter the natural climactic changes that are inherent to the planet. This is false. What I will typically point out to those who believe this is that at one time Earth had virtually no oxygen in its atmosphere, but the slow, gradual production of oxygen by early organisms that had evolved photosynthesis filled Earth's atmosphere with oxygen.

Sure, it took hundreds of thousands of years to increase the oxygen to levels sufficient to support respiration of animals, but it happened. So to think that continuous release into the atmosphere by humans of carbon dioxide, methane, and other compounds and general pollutants cannot have a significant effect on the composition of the atmosphere is either ignorance or simple denial. The evidence that human activity is slowly changing the composition of the atmosphere is plentiful and appears valid, and these changes have no less an impact on climate than other, more "natural" factors. However, human activity is one factor we can control, at least in principle.

Finally we get to the question about how to respond. Is it the responsibility of the governments of the world to combat climate change? I argue that it is not. Placing the responsibility with government is the wrong place to put it. Governments have historically created far more problems than they have solved. This is why governments tend to be rather short-lived on this planet. They rise and fall with regularity. If they were good at solving problems, don't you think they would last longer? What is needed here is not government trying to control who is doing what to the atmosphere. What is needed is innovative ways to change how things are being done to make them less impactful to the environment, innovative ways to "scrub" the atmosphere to at least partially reverse the damage that is done, and, perhaps most importantly, for people to realize that this isn't someone else's problem to solve but rather everyone's problem to solve. Each and every one of us, or our descendants, will either benefit from real solutions or suffer from the lack of them.

The issues are complex. Some regions of the planet are in a position to effect positive change through innovation and novel new solutions to the problem. Other regions, not so much. This seems too important of a problem to rely on the political will of others to solve the problem. We have seen many times in the past how bad outcomes can arise from putting too much trust in those who would rule the masses. The goal here, it seems to me, is not to stop climate change -- we would certainly fail in that endeavor. The goal is to minimize the impact of human activity on climate change.

Government is not where the solution will materialize. It is the people who must solve the problem or, alternatively, adapt to a warmer planet.

(Now stepping off of my soapbox. Thanks for reading.)

It use to be called 'Global Warming'

It seems likely to me, based on the layman's research I've done, that climate change is happening, and primarily through human-driven causes this time around.

I am always averse to use weather as evidence, though, because that's too easy for average non-scientists to counter in an argument. It's too incidental and transient to rely on there. Even weather trend data can't offer enough compelling evidence that human contribution is a factor.

This situation, like all other situations that require trusting sciences that can be difficult to comprehend, has to be approached in terms of risk management in order to win over the most difficult and unreasonable skeptics. In order to do that effectively, we have to STOP using arguments that are less reasonable, like incidental local weather patterns.

Frankly, I think they hurt the cause.

My daffodils were out last week - should be out around mid february.
Same last year too.

How sad. So cold today the wind just slapped my face-ouch.