Climate Science: What You Need To Know

Learn the basic science of climate change in 24 easy steps.

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that our climate is changing, Earth is getting warmer, sea levels are rising, and it's primarily because of humans putting lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Whether you already trust in the science, you're undecided, or you disagree with what all this, this video is for you!

Want to learn about the science of climate change and why humans are causing it, but in layman's terms? I recommend these books:

Produced for PBS Digital Studios

Joe Hanson - Creator/Host/Writer
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer, Spotzen IncKate Eads - Associate Producer
Andrew Matthews - Editing/Motion Graphics
Katie Graham - Director of Photography
John Knudsen - Gaffer
Dalton Allen - Post-Production Intern

Theme music:
"Ouroboros" by Kevin MacLeod

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[MrCal]

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
-Winston Churchill

[Erik-ywkj]

Ah, if only facts convinced people of stuff.

[sciencetroll]

It's like arguing with flat Earthers. Eventually they start yelling that you work for NASA and throwing things.

[Jesustanten]

I live in Sweden and over here almost everybody believes in climate change, I'm a twelve year old girl and at school everybody talks about it. Some are more worried than other but everybody agrees that something must be done. I didn't really know how many people in the U.S.A didn't believe in climate change until now. Truly eye opening to see how other people think about climate change and there's many who don't believe it! Thank you for this inspiring video!!!

[Azivegu]

I just want to say, I study Earth Sciences and we regularly look at climate change. While Joe Hanson did give it emphasis, probably not enough. The rising CO2 levels are bad, but it is really the dropping pH (the water getting more acidic) what is the true and utter terrifying prospect. I don't like fear mongering, but a more acidic ocean (from CO2 atmosphere to ocean transfer and gas methane hydrates) really will spell the end of life on earth as we know it. Will life end? Probably not. But will human life end? Most likely.

Edit: fixed some grammar errors

[mellaniemellbourne]

I live in Alaska, and when I was a kid, it snowed in September. End of story. But in the past 20 years, I have seen that average climb all the way up until November, with the snow falling less, having far more melting cycles through winter, and having spring start nearly a month earlier than it did when I was a kid. Yet people here, who have lived here and witnessed this, STILL believe it's not happening. People would rather believe a convenient and comforting lie than believe a disturbing and important truth.

[annanuel]

Hello, we are a group of English students from Granollers (Barcelona). We watched your video to learn about climate change and we answered your question in class, as a paper. Here are the students opinions:

Francesc:
Nothing changes suddenly on people’s lifes, so if they can’t see it they don’t believe it.

Marc: They don’t believe in climate change, because some politicians, say that it’s fake, or it’s the normal cycle of the Earth.

Noé: Because they suppose that this won’t change their lifes, or it is too difficult to this could happen...


I hope you like their comments!

[sbgrimsson]

"I don't want to believe, I want to know." Carl Sagan

[kevinchiem]

even if climate change isn't real, does it really hurt to move to renewables? If we protect ourselves now, we don't need to worry all that much about what the future holds, we either know what it is, or are already protected against it.

[jacktrades]

The part where this video fails is that it assumes that CO2 emissions are 100% to blame for out warming planet. No one is going to deny that humans pump out a lot of CO2, but you're assuming that the amount of CO2 we put out has a noticeable effect on the climate. It correlates, but is there causation?

[yttanel]

They're only gonna take action when it's too late

[matthewalan]

I have the utmost respect for science. I have never doubted the scientific consensus concerning the acidification of the oceans, rising temperatures, increasing severity of wild fires and hurricanes. I have never doubted that increasing levels of carbon dioxide is the cause and that human activity is the source of that increase. However, you must also weigh the consequences of reducing carbon emissions. That is what thoughtful people do.

The other day I heard someone claim that we must eliminate carbon emissions now. I thought to myself, "How could anyone be so stupid that they could actually say such a thing?" Think about it. What would I have to do to eliminate my carbon emissions. Well, first I would have to stop breathing. Every time I breathe out I am spewing carbon dioxide into the air. Let's leave this one though. Assume it's ok for me to breathe. Let's concentrate on activities that involve fossil fuels. So, I would not be able to drive my Toyota Prius because it uses gas. Perhaps I could drive an electric car? Well no. I live in an area where my electricity is generated by burning coal. So, while driving electric would be better than driving my Prius, it would not be allowed. Since my electricity come from coal, I would have to unplug my refrigerator and freezer. My potable water is pumped using fossil fuel energy so say goodbye to my water supply. I guess I would have hunt small game and cook it over a wood fire. I would be dead in a few days or few weeks at most. I do not have the skills to live without energy from fossil fuels.

The immediate consequences of not using fossil fuels are far far worse than the consequences of continuing to use them. This is also a fact every bit as much as the fact of global warming. Not recognizing this fact is just plain stupid.

The problem with climate change is that it is a huge problem with no simple solutions. Creating a world that does not depend on fossil fuels will require the energy of a lot of fossil fuel. Global warming is something that has already happened. As I write this California is having the worst wild fire season in history. But life goes on. Rising sea levels will not extinguish human life. People will move long before they are knee deep in water.

What we need is rationality. We need engineering. We need to know costs of doing nothing and the costs doing various somethings and then somehow make collective decisions about what should be done.

[paultepes]

Comments are painful. Proper science education in schools PLEASE.

[TheRealFaceyNeck]

So, I am not extremely educated on scientific matters. I didn't get a science degree in college. I studied philosophy.
As such, I don't feel qualified to personally understand what the causes of climate change are.
I do however have a decent amount of friends who are engineers, and I have seen the types of alternative energies there are available.
My opinion is; regardless of whether or not the use of fossil fuel and coal are causing the climate problems we see today; we should be using cleaner, safer, cheaper energy, even if our irresponsible use of resources has nothing to do with our environment changing.
Arguing about the cause of climate change makes no difference. Fossil fuels and coal are antiquated sources of fuel. There are FAR better options out there.

[ianezappa]

who went to the comments 2 find people denying climate change lol

[SicknastyFPS]

Sees video
*Proceeds to shower for 30 minutes*

[trmdtv]

And now I'd like the two hour version of this!

[Zerepzerreitug]

I'll talk off my elbows for a second here, and suggest that what we need to do is to find a way to _shift_ the whole discussion around the main culprit for climate change. I suggest:

*For us to stop trying to yank people off their addiction to fossil fuels and instead, find ways to make them addicted to renewable energies.*

Because I think that we're trying to replace fossil fuels for the _wrong_ kind of reasons...

Right now, any new source of non-fossil energy presents itself as either a solution to climate change, or as a handy replacement for when fossil fuel reserves run out.
_This_ wind turbine can replace _this_ coal plant! With _this_ electric car you replace _that_ gas car! With _this_ solar panel you don't need to worry about the sun _running out_ soon! And so on.

But are these the right arguments one should make to convince people to leave fossil fuels?
Aren't we dreaming a little *too small* with those ideas?
Because by continuously framing things like this, renewable energies keep looking, at best, like a replacement for fossil fuels, and at worst, as an inefficient but _necessary_ replacement for them. Something that we have to use we like it or not.
And so the solar panel/wind turbine/whatevs looks expensive, primitive, and as enjoyable as brushing your teeth or going to the doctor. It looks like "a backup", a desperate solution, a resource you will be _forced_ to use for when everything else fails.

And that's no way to sell the future to people.

So let us imagine, just for a moment, and just for the sake of argument, that renewable energy had been presented to us, not as a "replacement" for fossil fuels, not as a way to "save the planet" or "fight climate change", but rather, as an *improvement* beyond our good' ol gas engines.
Imagine if we thought of it as methods to obtain energy (and therefore, to get shit done) that not only does what fossil fuels do right now, but which can do _even more_ than they could ever dream of.
And before you slam me about how renewable energies are "not there yet", let me tell you the kicker:
We've already done this.
There was a time when a new kind of technology appeared which depended on unreliable sources of energy, which was expensive and technical and which was barely able to do what your old technology did with ease. Yet it became the default source of energy for centuries:

Fossil fuels.

People didn't replaced farm animals for machinery because machinery was "necessary" or good for the environment. People didn't began using cars instead of horses because horses were a "bad habit" or because cars were "saving the world". People switched to fossil fuels in the first place because they were _better_. Because they allowed you to build, move and produce faster, bigger, and on a scale unimaginable at the time.

And I think we're missing the same kind of opportunity here.
So forget about how renewable energy competes with gas or coal, forget about how expensive or technical it is in comparison to what you're used to, forget the initial investments or the mountains of research still to be done. These were all the same kind of problems people had to deal with when selling gas or coal engines in the first place. And they won by framing it like this:
What do the new source of energy does that the old one _cannot_ do? What does it _allows_ you to do as a person, or as a society, that you were _unable_ to do before?
What do renewable energies posses that will make fossil fuels looks not only obsolete, but _barbaric_?

Find THAT pitch, find that *unfair advantage* in renewable energy, and you can finally stop selling it like the backup or compensation prize that it feels like right now.
Find the unique characteristic that differentiates it from the rest. Stop competing with the old one, change the discussion and give people something they didn't know they needed before.
And as a bonus, we get to the save the planet.

[fra_nkster]

As a 15 year old girl, I really care about all of this, all the problems that affect the environment really upsets me. It's just upset to see that most of the people care about the EU and Brexit and politics, and yet people are blind just to see that climate change and plastic pollution is a bigger threat towards wildlife and the future generation. I wish that people over all the world can hopefully open their eyes from the darkness and see that this problem can be resolved. Climate change cant be stopped, it's got to a point where it will cause the wildlife and our population extinction just because we didn't understand the effects of our mess with CO². just because we "can't stop climate change "it doesn't mean that we should keep going with our ways. We all should take on the main problem and change it to make the whole planet a better place for both humans and the wildlife.
Thanks for reading :D

[paulford]

You haven't changed my mind at all! (Okay - because I already accept the facts of science anyway.)
But any time I've tried talking to a science denier, they immediately burst into a tirade of conspiracy theories. It's like trying to educate a brick.