text: They concluded that trends toward rising climate damages were mainly due to increased population and economic activity in the path of storms, that it was not currently possible to determine the portion of damages attributable to greenhouse gases, and that they didn’t expect that situation to change in the near future.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:237

evidence: Among other findings, the report concluded that sea level rises could be up to two feet higher by the year 2100, even if efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to limit global warming are successful; coastal cities across the world could see so-called "storm[s] of the century" at least once a year.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:358

evidence: "The IPCC Third Assessment Report'] conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue".

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:184

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: They state further that the "continuing reliance on combustion of fossil fuels as the world's primary source of energy will lead to much higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, which will, in turn, cause significant increases in surface temperature, sea level, ocean acidification, and their related consequences to the environment and society".

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:38

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: It said that Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:692

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: While ‘climate change’ can be due to natural forces or human activity, there is now substantial evidence to indicate that human activity – and specifically increased greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions – is a key factor in the pace and extent of global temperature increases.


text: Globally there’s no clear evidence of trends and patterns in extreme events such as droughts, hurricanes and floods.

claim_label: REFUTES

evidence_id: El Niño–Southern Oscillation:9

article: El Niño–Southern Oscillation

evidence: The extremes of this climate pattern's oscillations cause extreme weather (such as floods and droughts) in many regions of the world.

evidence_id: Natural disaster:0

article: Natural disaster

evidence: A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth; examples are floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, and other geologic processes.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:137

evidence_label: REFUTES

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: Documented long-term climate changes include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patterns and extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:693

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: Health impacts of climate change include the direct impacts of extreme events such as storms, floods, heatwaves and fires and the indirect effects of longer-term changes, such as drought, changes to the food and water supply, resource conflicts and population shifts.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:715

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: As the Earth's climate warms, we are seeing many changes: stronger, more destructive hurricanes; heavier rainfall; more disastrous flooding; more areas of the world experiencing severe drought; and more heat waves."


text: There’s no trend in hurricane-related flooding in the U.S.

evidence_id: 2008 Atlantic hurricane season:158

article: 2008 Atlantic hurricane season

evidence: Widespread heavy rainfall contributed to significant inland flooding from Louisiana into Arkansas.

evidence_id: 2008 Atlantic hurricane season:176

article: 2008 Atlantic hurricane season

evidence: Storm surge and heavy rainfall contributed to flooding, particularly in low-lying locales and across New Hampshire.

evidence_id: Atlantic hurricane:142

article: Atlantic hurricane

evidence: While the number of storms in the Atlantic has increased since 1995, there is no obvious global trend.

evidence_id: Hurricane Agnes:23

article: Hurricane Agnes

evidence: The most significant effects, by far, occurred in Pennsylvania, mostly due to intense flooding.

evidence_id: North Carolina:238

article: North Carolina

evidence: North Carolina experiences severe weather in both summer and winter, with summer bringing threat of hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rain, and flooding.


text: Nor is there evidence of an increase in floods globally.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming on human health:396

evidence: With the increase in temperatures worldwide due to climate change the increase in flooding is unavoidable.

evidence_id: Physical impacts of climate change:96

article: Physical impacts of climate change

evidence: The increase in global freshwater flow, based on data from 1994 to 2006, was about 18%.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:14

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Widespread coastal flooding is expected with several degrees of warming sustained for millennia.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:207

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Such impacts include increased coastal erosion, higher storm-surge flooding, inhibition of primary production processes, more extensive coastal inundation, changes in surface water quality and groundwater characteristics, increased loss of property and coastal habitats, increased flood risk and potential loss of life, loss of non-monetary cultural resources and values, impacts on agriculture and aquaculture through decline in soil and water quality, and loss of tourism, recreation, and transportation functions.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:227

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Sea level rise causes an increase in frequency and magnitude of floodings in the city that already spent more than 6 billion$ on the flood barrier system.


text: Since 1965, more parts of the U.S. have seen a decrease in flooding than have seen an increase.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming:232

article: Effects of global warming

evidence: More than 90 US coastal cities are already experiencing chronic flooding and that number is expected to double by 2030.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming:97

article: Effects of global warming

evidence: When this turns to rain, it tends to come in heavy downpours potentially leading to more floods.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming:99

article: Effects of global warming

evidence: In the United States and many other parts of the world there has been a marked increase in intense rainfall events which have resulted in more severe flooding.

evidence_id: New York City:243

article: New York City

evidence: The driest year on record is 1965, with 26.09 inches (663 mm) of rainfall.

article: Vermont

evidence: According the Vermont state government, rainfall has significantly increased in the last 50 years, storms and flooding have increased, and winters have become warmer and shorter.


text: And from 1940 to today, flood damage as a percentage of GDP has fallen to less than 0.05 per cent per year from about 0.2 per cent.

article: Assam

evidence: According to the recent estimates, Assam's per capita GDP is ₹6,157 at constant prices (1993–94) and ₹10,198 at current prices; almost 40% lower than that in India.

article: Macau

evidence: Export-oriented manufacturing previously contributed to a much larger share of economic output, peaking at 36.9 per cent of GDP in 1985 and falling to less than 1 per cent in 2017.

article: Malaysia

evidence: Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5 per cent annually from 1957 to 2005.

evidence_id: United Kingdom:406

article: United Kingdom

evidence: This compares to 0.3 per cent per year in the period 1991 to 2001 and 0.2 per cent in the decade 1981 to 1991.

article: Vietnam

evidence: In 1985, agriculture made up 37.2% of Vietnam's GDP; in 2008, that number had declined to 18.5%.


text: The bottom line is there’s no solid connection between climate change and the major indicators of extreme weather

evidence_id: Physical impacts of climate change:369

article: Physical impacts of climate change

evidence: “The bottom line is that things are not that complicated,” Dr. Knutti said.

evidence_id: Physical impacts of climate change:59

article: Physical impacts of climate change

evidence: Other likely changes are listed below: Increased areas will be affected by drought There will be increased intense tropical cyclone activity There will be increased incidences of extreme high sea level (excluding tsunamis) Storm strength leading to extreme weather is increasing, such as the power dissipation index of hurricane intensity.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:193

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:228

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: The letter goes on to warn of predicted impacts on the United States such as sea level rise and increases in extreme weather events, water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:721

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: This could lead to changing, and for all emissions scenarios more unpredictable, weather patterns around the world, less frost days, more extreme events (droughts and storm or flood disasters), and warmer sea temperatures and melting glaciers causing sea levels to rise.


text: This requires us to work towards avoiding catastrophic possibilities rather than looking at probabilities, as learning from mistakes is not an option when it comes to existential risks.

claim_label: SUPPORTS

evidence_id: Futures studies:183

article: Futures studies

evidence: "Wild cards" refer to low-probability and high-impact events, such as existential risks.

evidence_id: Human extinction:69

evidence_label: SUPPORTS

article: Human extinction

evidence: Nick Bostrom argues that it would be "misguided" to assume that the probability of near-term extinction is less than 25% and that it will be "a tall order" for the human race to "get our precautions sufficiently right the first time", given that an existential risk provides no opportunity to learn from failure.

evidence_id: Nick Bostrom:75

article: Nick Bostrom

evidence: This principle states that we ought to retard the development of dangerous technologies, particularly ones that raise the level of existential risk, and accelerate the development of beneficial technologies, particularly those that protect against the existential risks posed by nature or by other technologies.

article: Risk

evidence: Measurement of uncertainty: A set of probabilities assigned to a set of possibilities.

article: Risk

evidence: The measure of uncertainty refers only to the probabilities assigned to outcomes, while the measure of risk requires both probabilities for outcomes and losses quantified for outcomes.


text: With that in mind, they propose a plausible and terrifying “2050 scenario” whereby humanity could face irreversible collapse in just three decades.

evidence_id: Mind Meld:0

article: Mind Meld

evidence: Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime is a 2001 American documentary film in which actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy discuss the Star Trek science fiction franchise and its effects on their lives.

evidence_id: Mind–body dualism:131

article: Mind–body dualism

evidence: Naturalistic dualism comes from Australian philosopher, David Chalmers (born 1966) who argues there is an explanatory gap between objective and subjective experience that cannot be bridged by reductionism because consciousness is, at least, logically autonomous of the physical properties upon which it supervenes.

evidence_id: Mind–body dualism:163

article: Mind–body dualism

evidence: Chalmers' argument is that it seems plausible that such a being could exist because all that is needed is that all and only the things that the physical sciences describe and observe about a human being must be true of the zombie.

evidence_id: Quantum mind:0

article: Quantum mind

evidence: The quantum mind or quantum consciousness is a group of hypotheses which proposes that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness.

evidence_id: Quantum mind:142

article: Quantum mind

evidence: He proposed a scenario with a cat in a locked steel chamber, wherein the cat's life or death depended on the state of a radioactive atom, whether it had decayed and emitted radiation or not.


text: Their analysis calculates the existential climate-related security risk to Earth through a scenario set 30 years into the future.

evidence_id: Environmental sociology:152

article: Environmental sociology

evidence: They analyze the past 30 years of environmentalism and the different outcomes that the green movement has taken in different state contexts and cultures.

evidence_id: Future of Earth:130

article: Future of Earth

evidence: Christopher Scotese and his colleagues have mapped out the predicted motions several hundred million years into the future as part of the Paleomap Project.

evidence_id: Global catastrophic risk:161

article: Global catastrophic risk

evidence: The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will begin to have an effect on the world after 2020, and will become critical after 2050.

evidence_id: Global catastrophic risk:8

article: Global catastrophic risk

evidence: Those that are at least "trans-generational" (affecting all future generations) in scope and "terminal"[clarification needed] in intensity are classified as existential risks.

evidence_id: Global issue:97

article: Global issue

evidence: A global catastrophic risk is a hypothetical future event which could damage human well-being on a global scale, even crippling or destroying modern civilization.


text: North America suffers extreme weather events including wildfires, drought, and heatwaves.

evidence_id: 2010 Northern Hemisphere heat waves:269

article: 2010 Northern Hemisphere heat waves

evidence: The drought and heat wave combined to make wild fires inevitable.

evidence_id: 2014 California wildfires:20

article: 2014 California wildfires

evidence: In May 2014, a series of at least 20 wildfires broke out in San Diego County during severe Santa Ana Wind conditions, historic drought conditions, and a heat wave.

evidence_id: Extreme weather:5

article: Extreme weather

evidence: Yet, recent abnormally intense storms, hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, droughts and associated large-scale wildfires have led to unprecendente negative ecological consequences for tropical forests and coral reefs around the world.

evidence_id: Heat wave:0

article: Heat wave

evidence: A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries.

evidence_id: Heat wave:5

article: Heat wave

evidence: A heat wave is considered extreme weather that can be a natural disaster, and a danger because heat and sunlight may overheat the human body.


text: Monsoons in China fail, the great rivers of Asia virtually dry up, and rainfall in central America falls by half.

evidence_id: Climate of Asia:37

article: Climate of Asia

evidence: The monsoon accounts for 80% of the rainfall in India[citation needed].

article: Desert

evidence: A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area.

evidence_id: Humid subtropical climate:14

article: Humid subtropical climate

evidence: Rainfall often shows a summer peak, especially where monsoons are well developed, as in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

evidence_id: Humid subtropical climate:36

article: Humid subtropical climate

evidence: Summer rainfall comes from the East Asian Monsoon and from frequent typhoons.

article: Monsoon

evidence: Over three-quarters of annual rainfall in Northern Australia falls during this time.


text: The knock-on consequences affect national security, as the scale of the challenges involved, such as pandemic disease outbreaks, are overwhelming.

article: Bioterrorism

evidence: These high-priority agents pose a risk to national security, can be easily transmitted and disseminated, result in high mortality, have potential major public health impact, may cause public panic, or require special action for public health preparedness.

evidence_id: Influenza A virus:233

article: Influenza A virus

evidence: A pandemic, or worldwide outbreak of a new influenza virus, could dwarf this impact by overwhelming our health and medical capabilities, potentially resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of hospitalizations, and hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs.

evidence_id: National security:45

article: National security

evidence: These include global environmental problems such as climate change due to global warming, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity.

evidence_id: National security:85

article: National security

evidence: For example, Sweden's national security strategy of 2017 declared: "Wider security measures must also now encompass protection against epidemics and infectious diseases, combating terrorism and organised crime, ensuring safe transport and reliable food supplies, protecting against energy supply interruptions, countering devastating climate change, initiatives for peace and global development, and much more."

article: Pandemic

evidence: A pandemic is an epidemic occurring on a scale which crosses international boundaries, usually affecting a large number of people.


text: Armed conflicts over resources may become a reality, and have the potential to escalate into nuclear war.

evidence_id: Cold War:19

article: Cold War

evidence: The Soviets suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and later more escalating crises occurred, such as the Suez Crisis (1956), the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which was perhaps the closest the two sides came to nuclear war.

evidence_id: Cold War:361

article: Cold War

evidence: The Cuban Missile Crisis (October–November 1962) brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before.

evidence_id: United Nations in popular culture:147

article: United Nations in popular culture

evidence: This led to rising international tensions over the coming decades and eventually to a global nuclear war in 2077, destroying civilization across the globe.

evidence_id: Vietnam War:152

article: Vietnam War

evidence: It was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command (SAC) forces to DEFCON 2.

article: Violence

evidence: War is fought as a means of resolving territorial and other conflicts, as war of aggression to conquer territory or loot resources, in national self-defence or liberation, or to suppress attempts of part of the nation to secede from it.


text: The most recent IPCC report lays out a future if we limit global heating to 1.5°C instead of the Paris Agreement’s 2°C.

claim_label: DISPUTED

evidence_id: Global warming:263

article: Global warming

evidence: In 2015 all UN countries negotiated the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep climate change well below 2 °C.

evidence_id: Global warming:282

article: Global warming

evidence: In 2018 the IPCC published a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C which warned that, if the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions is not mitigated, global warming is likely to reach 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) between 2030 and 2052, risking major crises.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:227

evidence: Meeting the Paris target of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) is possible but would require "deep emissions reductions", "rapid", "far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:229

evidence: Deep reductions in non-CO2 emissions (such as nitrous oxide and methane) will also be required to limit warming to 1.5 °C.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:231

evidence: Holding this rise to 1.5 °C avoids the worst effects of a rise by even 2 °C.


text: By 2050 there’s a scientific consensus that we reached the tipping point for ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic

evidence_id: Sea level rise:121

article: Sea level rise

evidence: A study published in 2017 concluded that Greenland's peripheral glaciers and ice caps crossed an irreversible tipping point around 1997, and will continue to melt.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:180

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Both the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica have tipping points for warming levels that could be reached before the end of the 21st century.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:639

article: Sea level rise

evidence: "A tipping point in refreezing accelerates mass loss of Greenland's glaciers and ice caps".

evidence_id: Tipping points in the climate system:10

article: Tipping points in the climate system

evidence: For example, at some level of temperature rise the melt of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet and/or West Antarctic Ice Sheet will become inevitable; but the ice sheet itself may persist for many centuries.

evidence_id: Tipping points in the climate system:81

article: Tipping points in the climate system

evidence: A 2019 UNEP study indicates that now at least for the Arctic and the Greenland ice sheet a tipping point has already been reached.


text: Like countless other organisms, we move and adapt when the environment changes.

evidence_id: Human impact on the environment:0

article: Human impact on the environment

evidence: Human impact on the environment or anthropogenic impact on the environment includes changes to biophysical environments and ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans, including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse.

evidence_id: Natural environment:105

article: Natural environment

evidence: Efforts have been increasingly focused on the mitigation of greenhouse gases that are causing climatic changes, on developing adaptative strategies to global warming, to assist humans, other animal, and plant species, ecosystems, regions and nations in adjusting to the effects of global warming.

evidence_id: Natural environment:135

article: Natural environment

evidence: Although there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life is characterized by organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction.

evidence_id: Natural environment:137

article: Natural environment

evidence: In biology, the science of living organisms, "life" is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity and the continual change preceding death.

evidence_id: Natural environment:139

article: Natural environment

evidence: Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations.


text: when 3 per cent of total annual global emissions of carbon dioxide are from humans and Australia produces 1.3 per cent of this 3 per cent, then no amount of emissions reduction here will have any effect on global climate.

article: Agriculture

evidence: The 2011 UNEP Green Economy report states that "[a]agricultural operations, excluding land use changes, produce approximately 13 per cent of anthropogenic global GHG emissions.

evidence_id: Climate change mitigation:101

article: Climate change mitigation

evidence: With a market share of 30% and (potentially) clean electricity, heat pumps could reduce global CO 2 emissions by 8% annually.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:109

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: In the modern era, emissions to the atmosphere from volcanoes are approximately 0.645 billion tonnes of CO 2 per year, whereas humans contribute 29 billion tonnes of CO 2 each year.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:229

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Cumulative anthropogenic (i.e., human-emitted) emissions of CO 2 from fossil fuel use are a major cause of global warming, and give some indication of which countries have contributed most to human-induced climate change.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:255

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Other countries with fast growing emissions are South Korea, Iran, and Australia (which apart from the oil rich Persian Gulf states, now has the highest percapita emission rate in the world).


text: whenever in the past there was an explosion of plant life, the carbon dioxide content was far higher than at present.

article: Botany

evidence: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is much lower than it was when plants emerged onto land during the Ordovician and Silurian periods.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:182

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation have caused the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to increase by about 43% since the beginning of the age of industrialization.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:21

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Since the Industrial Revolution anthropogenic emissions – primarily from use of fossil fuels and deforestation – have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming.

article: Eocene

evidence: The end of the PETM was met with a very large sequestration of carbon dioxide into the forms of methane clathrate, coal, and crude oil at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, that reduced the atmospheric carbon dioxide.

article: Eocene

evidence: A sharp increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide was observed with a maximum of 4000 ppm: the highest amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide detected during the Eocene.


text: If we halve the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, all life dies.

evidence_id: Atmosphere of Earth:2

article: Atmosphere of Earth

evidence: By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.

evidence_id: Atmosphere of Mars:1

article: Atmosphere of Mars

evidence: It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide (95.32%), molecular nitrogen (2.6%) and argon (1.9%).

evidence_id: Atmosphere of Venus:27

article: Atmosphere of Venus

evidence: The atmosphere of Venus is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen, and traces of other gases, most notably sulfur dioxide.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:187

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Currently, about half of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels remains in the atmosphere and is not absorbed by vegetation and the oceans.

article: Carbon dioxide


text: for thousands of millions of years the Earth has been changing, with cycles and one-off events such as an asteroid impact, super-volcano or a supernova explosion.

article: Earth

evidence: Tectonics and erosion, volcanic eruptions, flooding, weathering, glaciation, the growth of coral reefs, and meteorite impacts are among the processes that constantly reshape Earth's surface over geological time.

article: Earth

evidence: These dates change over time due to precession and other orbital factors, which follow cyclical patterns known as Milankovitch cycles.

article: Earth

evidence: This is predicted to produce changes such as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, more extreme temperature ranges, significant changes in weather and a global rise in average sea levels.

article: Earth

evidence: Between approximately 4.1 and 3.8 Bya, numerous asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the greater surface environment of the Moon and, by inference, to that of Earth.

article: Earth

evidence: High-latitude regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thaw, repeating about every 40,000–100,000 years.


text: [subsidies for wind and solar] add to emissions because coal-fired electricity needs to be on standby for when there is no wind or sunshine.

evidence_id: Energy subsidy:106

article: Energy subsidy

evidence: Though in 2007 some suggested that a subsidy shift would help to level the playing field and support growing energy sectors, namely solar power, wind power, and bio-fuels., by 2017 those sources combined had yet to provide 10% of U.S. electricity, and intermittency forced utilities to remain reliant on oil, natural gas, and coal to meet baseload demand.

evidence_id: Energy subsidy:25

article: Energy subsidy

evidence: Because fossil fuels are a leading contributor to climate change through greenhouse gases, fossil fuel subsidies increase emissions and exacerbate climate change.

evidence_id: Fossil fuel:66

article: Fossil fuel

evidence: Fossil fuel-fired electric power plants also emit carbon dioxide, which may contribute to climate change.

evidence_id: Renewable energy commercialization:175

article: Renewable energy commercialization

evidence: The Solar updraft tower (SUT) is a renewable-energy power plant for generating electricity from low temperature solar heat.

evidence_id: Renewable energy commercialization:252

article: Renewable energy commercialization

evidence: Shifting these subsidies to the development of climate-benign energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal power is the key to stabilizing the earth's climate."


text: The amount of energy used to construct solar and wind facilities is greater than they produce in their working lives.

evidence_id: Net metering:353

article: Net metering

evidence: The energy can be generated from a variety of renewable sources including solar, wind, and hydro.

evidence_id: Renewable energy:344

article: Renewable energy

evidence: They found producing all new energy with wind power, solar power, and hydropower by 2030 is feasible and existing energy supply arrangements could be replaced by 2050.

evidence_id: Wind power:221

article: Wind power

evidence: However, the estimated average cost per unit of electric power must incorporate the cost of construction of the turbine and transmission facilities, borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production, and other components, averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which may be in excess of twenty years.

evidence_id: Zero-energy building:10

article: Zero-energy building

evidence: Energy is usually harvested onsite through energy producing technologies like solar and wind, while reducing the overall use of energy with highly efficient lightning and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) technologies.

evidence_id: Zero-energy building:116

article: Zero-energy building

evidence: The production of goods under net zero fossil energy consumption requires locations of geothermal, microhydro, solar, and wind resources to sustain the concept.


text: “As soon as renewables were introduced into the grid, electricity prices increased and delivery became unreliable.

evidence_id: Electrical grid:108

article: Electrical grid

evidence: Electrical energy is stored during times when production (especially from intermittent power plants such as renewable electricity sources such as wind power, tidal power, solar power) exceeds consumption, and returned to the grid when production falls below consumption.

evidence_id: Electrical grid:152

article: Electrical grid

evidence: In this way, a microgrid can effectively integrate various sources of distributed generation, especially renewable energy sources, and can supply emergency power, changing between island and connected modes.

evidence_id: Smart grid:105

article: Smart grid

evidence: The improved flexibility of the smart grid permits greater penetration of highly variable renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind power, even without the addition of energy storage.

evidence_id: Smart grid:108

article: Smart grid

evidence: Smart grid technology is a necessary condition for very large amounts of renewable electricity on the grid for this reason.

evidence_id: Smart grid:94

article: Smart grid

evidence: While traditionally load balancing strategies have been designed to change consumers' consumption patterns to make demand more uniform, developments in energy storage and individual renewable energy generation have provided opportunities to devise balanced power grids without affecting consumers' behavior.


text: Renewables such as wind turbines are environmentally disastrous because they pollute a huge land area, slice and dice birds and bats, kill insects that are bird food, create health problems for humans who live within kilometres of them, leave toxins around the turbine site and despoil the landscape.

evidence_id: Environmental impact of wind power:105

article: Environmental impact of wind power

evidence: Fossil-fueled power plants, which wind turbines generally require to make up for their weather dependent intermittency, kill almost 20 times as many birds per gigawatt hour (GWh) of electricity according to Sovacool.

evidence_id: Human impact on the environment:138

article: Human impact on the environment

evidence: These insects accumulate toxins in their exoskeletons and pass them on to insectivorous birds and bats.

evidence_id: Raptor conservation:4

article: Raptor conservation

evidence: Because they are opportunistic carnivores, birds of prey are at high risk of secondary poisoning by eating organisms that have been killed or debilitated by pesticides.

evidence_id: Wind turbine:233

article: Wind turbine

evidence: Thousands of birds, including rare species, have been killed by the blades of wind turbines, though wind turbines contribute relatively insignificantly to anthropogenic avian mortality.

evidence_id: Wind turbine:238

article: Wind turbine

evidence: damaging Australia's Great Barrier Reef) and by water acidification from combustion monoxides.


text: We have also been told the problem is DEFINITELY NOT a billions-year-old planet running through cycles where the temperature might fluctuate a bit.

article: Earth

evidence: Each layer has a different lapse rate, defining the rate of change in temperature with height.

article: Earth

evidence: This is predicted to produce changes such as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, more extreme temperature ranges, significant changes in weather and a global rise in average sea levels.

evidence_id: Planetary habitability:124

article: Planetary habitability

evidence: The greater the eccentricity the greater the temperature fluctuation on a planet's surface.

evidence_id: Planetary habitability:145

article: Planetary habitability

evidence: If a day takes years, the temperature differential between the day and night side will be pronounced, and problems similar to those noted with extreme orbital eccentricity will come to the fore.

evidence_id: Planetary nebula:129

article: Planetary nebula

evidence: This may be explained by the presence of small temperature fluctuations within planetary nebulae.


text: there were no ice sheets covering either Greenland or West Antarctica, and much of the East Antarctic ice sheet was gone.

article: Antarctica

evidence: The mass balance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet as a whole is thought to be slightly positive (lowering sea level) or near to balance.

article: Antarctica

evidence: West Antarctica is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

article: Antarctica

evidence: East Antarctica is largely covered by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

evidence_id: West Antarctic Ice Sheet:0

article: West Antarctic Ice Sheet

evidence: Play media The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West (or Lesser) Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica on the side of the Transantarctic Mountains which lies in the Western Hemisphere.

evidence_id: West Antarctica:1

article: West Antarctica

evidence: It is separated from East Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains and is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.


text: a study that totally debunks the whole concept of man-made Global Warming

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:131

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: (2012) concluded that human activities had likely led to a warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures at the global scale.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:156

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: Global Change Research Program concluded that "[global] warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced."

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:443

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: "Warming 'very likely' human-made".

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:462

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: "U.N. Report: Global Warming Man-Made, Basically Unstoppable".

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:837

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: Scientists Reach 100% Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming.


text: nothing we can do to stop the Earth’s naturally occurring climate cycles.

article: Earth

evidence: High-latitude regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thaw, repeating about every 40,000–100,000 years.

evidence_id: Ice age:1

article: Ice age

evidence: Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods, during which there are no glaciers on the planet.

evidence_id: Ice age:182

article: Ice age

evidence: The Milankovitch cycles are a set of cyclic variations in characteristics of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

evidence_id: John D. Hamaker:238

article: John D. Hamaker

evidence: The next ice age may be virtually upon us – a natural 100,000 year cycle which we are accelerating in many ways.

evidence_id: Natural environment:191

article: Natural environment

evidence: Shifting from meat-intensive diets to largely plant-based diets in order to help mitigate biodiversity loss and climate change.


article: Climatology

evidence: The study of contemporary climates incorporates meteorological data accumulated over many years, such as records of rainfall, temperature and atmospheric composition.

article: Climatology

evidence: Climatology deals with the aggregate data that meteorology has collected.

article: Climatology

evidence: As measuring technology changes over time, records of data cannot be compared directly.

article: Climatology

evidence: It uses monthly temperature and precipitation data.

evidence_id: The Western Journal:12

article: The Western Journal

evidence: In February 2019, The Western Journal published an article which alleged "Climate Change ‘Heat Records’ Are a Huge Data Manipulation."


text: The idea that climate change is producing heat records across the Earth is among the most egregious manipulations of data in the absurd global warming debate.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:0

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: Attribution of recent climate change is the effort to scientifically ascertain mechanisms responsible for recent global warming and related climate changes on Earth.

evidence_id: Climate change (general concept):213

article: Climate change (general concept)

evidence: This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

evidence_id: Global warming controversy:236

article: Global warming controversy

evidence: Using the long-term temperature trends for the earth scientists and statisticians conclude that it continues to warm through time.

evidence_id: Global warming controversy:241

article: Global warming controversy

evidence: Over several decades of development, models have consistently provided a robust and unambiguous picture of significant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases.

evidence_id: Global warming controversy:78

article: Global warming controversy

evidence: According to the United States National Research Council, [T]here is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities.


text: On Feb. 7, several major newspapers carried stories of the declaration by NASA and NOAA that the past five years have been the warmest on record.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:16

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: In January 2017, several scientific agencies around the world, including NASA and the NOAA in the United States and the Met Office in the United Kingdom, named 2016 the warmest year recorded.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:22

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: Consistent with Schmidt's comment, the NASA / NOAA announcement stated that "globally-averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean" and that the impact of El Niño warming was estimated to have "increased the annual global temperature anomaly for 2016 by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.12 degrees Celsius)."

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:23

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: Comments from climate scientists reported in The Washington Post showed strong agreement in attributing the warming primarily to anthropogenic climate change, with some contribution from El Niño warming, though there were differing views on the significance of individual records.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:84

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: Even accounting for the presence of internal climate variability, recent years rank among the warmest on record.

evidence_id: Syracuse, New York:104

article: Syracuse, New York

evidence: The latter was the warmest winter day on record.


text: Actual weather records over the past 100 years show no correlation between rising carbon dioxide levels and local temperatures.

evidence_id: Global cooling:5

article: Global cooling

evidence: The general public had little awareness of carbon dioxide's effects on climate, but Science News in May 1959 forecast a 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000, with a consequent warming trend.

evidence_id: Global warming controversy:130

article: Global warming controversy

evidence: Correlation of CO 2 and temperature is not part of this evidence.

evidence_id: Global warming:42

article: Global warming

evidence: Throughout this period ocean heat storage continued to progress steadily upwards, and in subsequent years surface temperatures have spiked upwards.

evidence_id: Physical impacts of climate change:82

article: Physical impacts of climate change

evidence: (2013) estimated that global warming had increased the probability of local record-breaking monthly temperatures worldwide by a factor of 5.

evidence_id: Regional effects of global warming:0

article: Regional effects of global warming

evidence: Regional effects of global warming are long-term significant changes in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region due to global warming.


text: as time progresses and fossil fuel emissions increase, the number of record highs should increase and record lows should decrease.

evidence_id: Global warming:62

article: Global warming

evidence: These levels are much higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years, the period for which reliable data have been collected from ice cores.

evidence_id: Global warming:67

article: Global warming

evidence: The 10th Emissions Gap Report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) predicts that if emissions continue to increase at the same rate as they have in 2010–2020, global temperatures would rise by as much as 4° by 2100.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:117

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Recent data also shows that the concentration is increasing at a higher rate.

evidence_id: Peak oil:0

article: Peak oil

evidence: Peak oil is the theorized point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline.

evidence_id: Peak oil:459

article: Peak oil

evidence: "Oil Production Is at Record Levels.


text: From 1970 until 1998 there was a warming period that raised temperatures by about 0.7 F that helped spawn the global warming alarmist movement.

article: Eocene

evidence: These isotope changes occurred due to the release of carbon from the ocean into the atmosphere that led to a temperature increase of 4-8 °C (7-14 °F) at the surface of the ocean.

evidence_id: Global warming:22

article: Global warming

evidence: Currently, surface temperatures are rising by about 0.2 °C per decade.

evidence_id: Global warming:41

article: Global warming

evidence: An example of such an episode is the slower rate of surface temperature increase from 1998 to 2012, which was dubbed the global warming hiatus.

article: Paleocene

evidence: The Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum was an approximate 200,000 year long event where the global average temperature rose by some 5 to 8 °C (9 to 14 °F), and mid-latitude and polar areas may have exceeded modern tropical temperatures of 24–29 °C (75–84 °F).

article: Paleocene

evidence: For comparison, the average global temperature for the period between 1951 and 1980 was 14 °C (57 °F).


text: However, since 1998, little warming has occurred while carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:21

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Since the Industrial Revolution anthropogenic emissions – primarily from use of fossil fuels and deforestation – have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming.

evidence_id: Global warming:218

article: Global warming

evidence: CO2 emissions are continuing to rise due to the burning of fossil fuels and land-use change.

article: Global warming

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:244

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: The sharp acceleration in CO 2 emissions since 2000 to more than a 3% increase per year (more than 2 ppm per year) from 1.1% per year during the 1990s is attributable to the lapse of formerly declining trends in carbon intensity of both developing and developed nations.

evidence_id: Kyoto Protocol:0

article: Kyoto Protocol

evidence: The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have predominantly caused it.


text: describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040

evidence_id: Coral bleaching:43

article: Coral bleaching

evidence: During this period, 19 percent of coral reefs worldwide were lost, and 60 percent of the remaining reefs are at immediate risk of being lost.

article: Drought

evidence: Malnutrition, dehydration and related diseases Mass migration, resulting in internal displacement and international refugees Reduced electricity production due to reduced water-flow through hydroelectric dams Shortages of water for industrial users Snake migration, which results in snake-bites Social unrest War over natural resources, including water and food Wildfires, such as Australian bushfires, become more common during times of drought and may cause human deaths.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming on human health:350

evidence: With degradation of protective coral reefs through acidic erosion, bleaching and death, salt water is able to infiltrate fresh ground water supplies that large populations depend on.

evidence_id: Great Barrier Reef:845

article: Great Barrier Reef

evidence: Battle for the Reef – Four Corners – ABC.au Great Barrier Reef scientists confirm largest die-off of corals recorded.

evidence_id: Wild fisheries:136

article: Wild fisheries

evidence: A recent paper published by the National Academy of Sciences of the USA warns that: "Synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, introduced species, warming, acidification, toxins, and massive runoff of nutrients are transforming once complex ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests into monotonous level bottoms, transforming clear and productive coastal seas into anoxic dead zones, and transforming complex food webs topped by big animals into simplified, microbially dominated ecosystems with boom and bust cycles of toxic dinoflagellate blooms, jellyfish, and disease".


text: But the heads of small island nations, fearful of rising sea levels, had also asked scientists to examine the effects of 2.7 degrees of warming.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming:150

article: Effects of global warming

evidence: In 2015, a study by Professor James Hansen of Columbia University and 16 other climate scientists said a sea level rise of three metres could be a reality by the end of the century.

evidence_id: Global warming:9

article: Global warming

evidence: The effects of global warming include rising sea levels, regional changes in precipitation, more frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves, and expansion of deserts.

evidence_id: Regional effects of global warming:428

article: Regional effects of global warming

evidence: "Rising sea levels threaten small Pacific island nations".

article: Tuvalu

evidence: Tuvaluan leaders have been concerned about the effects of rising sea levels.

article: Tuvalu

evidence: Sopoaga said in his speech to the meeting of heads of state and government: Tuvalu's future at current warming, is already bleak, any further temperature increase will spell the total demise of Tuvalu ... For Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries and many others, setting a global temperature goal of below 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels is critical.


text: International Energy Agency, a global analysis organization, “continue to see a role for coal for the foreseeable future.”

evidence_id: International Energy Agency:105

article: International Energy Agency

evidence: This publication on renewable energy – "which is now the fastest growing sector of the energy mix and accounts for almost a fifth of all electricity produced worldwide – will join annual medium-term reports on oil, gas and coal, which the IEA already produces".

evidence_id: International Energy Agency:132

article: International Energy Agency

evidence: "Fatih Birol ushers in new era for IEA—Takes office as Executive Director of global energy authority".

evidence_id: International Energy Agency:5

article: International Energy Agency

evidence: The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources (including renewable energy), rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation.

evidence_id: International Energy Agency:62

article: International Energy Agency

evidence: Environmental groups have become critical of the IEA's 450 Scenario (created to align with the 2009 Copenhagen Accord), contending that it does not align with up-to-date climate science, nor is it consistent with the Paris climate agreement that aspires to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

evidence_id: International Energy Agency:70

article: International Energy Agency

evidence: He further said that the IEA is overstating the role of shale in a global market, and how the core job of the IEA, is not to take things out of context.


text: Duffy pointed out that his chart was from a single tide gauge station, near San Francisco, and that sea levels rise at different rates around the world

evidence_id: 1906 San Francisco earthquake:24

article: 1906 San Francisco earthquake

evidence: An offshore epicenter is supported by the occurrence of a local tsunami recorded by a tide gauge at the San Francisco Presidio; the wave had an amplitude of approximately 3 in (8 cm) and an approximate period of 40–45 minutes.

evidence_id: San Francisco Bay:35

article: San Francisco Bay

evidence: As the great ice sheets began to melt, around 11,000 years ago, the sea level started to rise.

evidence_id: San Francisco Bay:36

article: San Francisco Bay

evidence: By 5000 BC the sea level rose 300 feet (90 m), filling the valley with water from the Pacific.

article: Tide

evidence: Mean sea level (MSL) – This is the average sea level.

article: Tide

evidence: To make accurate records, tide gauges at fixed stations measure water level over time.


text: Brooks added that Antarctic ice is growing.

evidence_id: Antarctic ice sheet:12

article: Antarctic ice sheet

evidence: The glaciation was favored by an interval when the Earth's orbit favored cool summers but oxygen isotope ratio cycle marker changes were too large to be explained by Antarctic ice-sheet growth alone indicating an ice age of some size.

evidence_id: Antarctic ice sheet:25

article: Antarctic ice sheet

evidence: The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica, causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink.

evidence_id: Antarctic ice sheet:26

article: Antarctic ice sheet

evidence: A 2006 paper derived from satellite data, measuring changes in the gravity of the ice mass, suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years.

evidence_id: Antarctic ice sheet:7

article: Antarctic ice sheet

evidence: Satellite measurements by NASA indicate a still increasing sheet thickness above the continent, outweighing the losses at the edge.

evidence_id: Second Grinnell expedition:54

article: Second Grinnell expedition

evidence: The brig was periodically chain-lifted above the ice to prevent it from being crushed by the growing ice.


text: “But there are plenty of studies that have come that show with respect to Antarctica that the total ice sheet, particularly that above land, is increasing, not decreasing.

article: Antarctica

evidence: "A 40-y record reveals gradual Antarctic sea ice increases followed by decreases at rates far exceeding the rates seen in the Arctic".

article: Antarctica

evidence: found instead that the net change in ice mass is slightly positive at approximately 82 gigatonnes per year (with significant regional variation) which would result in Antarctic activity reducing global sea-level rise by 0.23 mm per year.

article: Antarctica

evidence: A satellite record revealed that the overall increase in Antarctic sea ice extents reversed in 2014, with rapid rates of decrease in 2014–2017 reducing the Antarctic sea ice extents to their lowest values in the 40-y record.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:88

article: Sea level rise

evidence: All datasets generally show an acceleration of mass loss from the Antarctic ice-sheet, but with year-to-year variations.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:92

article: Sea level rise

evidence: A 2019 study, however, using different methodology, concluded that East Antarctica is losing significant amounts of ice mass.


text: Climate scientists use the 20th-century average as a benchmark for global temperature measurements.

article: Climate

evidence: Climate is the long-term average of weather, typically averaged over a period of 30 years.

evidence_id: Global warming:0

article: Global warming

evidence: Global warming is the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system.

evidence_id: Global warming:20

article: Global warming

evidence: The IPCC has adopted the baseline reference period 1850–1900 as an approximation of pre-industrial global mean surface temperature.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:5

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: The global average and combined land and ocean surface temperature, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C, in the period 1880 to 2012, based on multiple independently produced datasets.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:719

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: On the basis of available data, climate scientists are now projecting an average global temperature rise over this century of 2.0 to 4.5°C.


text: It’s also a sufficiently long period to include several cycles of climate variability.

evidence_id: Climate variability:67

article: Climate variability

evidence: Another longer-term near-millennial oscillation involves the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, occurring on roughly 1,500-year cycles during the last glacial maximum.

evidence_id: Climate variability:97

article: Climate variability

evidence: During the Pleistocene, cycles of glaciations and interglacials occurred on cycles of roughly 100,000 years, but may stay longer within an interglacial when orbital eccentricity approaches zero, as during the current interglacial.

evidence_id: Global Energy and Water Exchanges:153

article: Global Energy and Water Exchanges

evidence: There are also longer-term cycles, the mini ice-age that preceded the medieval warm period may have been a transition to an ice age, the last ice-age lasted from ~130,000 years ago until the onset of the Holocene.

evidence_id: Global warming:1337

article: Global warming

evidence: "Multicentennial variability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and its climatic influence in a 4000 year simulation of the GFDL CM2.1 climate model".

evidence_id: Global warming:44

article: Global warming

evidence: By itself, the climate system experiences various cycles which can last for years (such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation) to decades or centuries.


text: NOAA’s analysis found last month was the 3rd-warmest April on record globally.

evidence_id: 2015 in science:286

article: 2015 in science

evidence: 21 July The latest global analysis of temperature data from NOAA shows that the first half of 2015 was the hottest such period on record, at 0.85 °C (1.53 °F) above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09 °C (0.16 °F).

evidence_id: 2015 in science:330

article: 2015 in science

evidence: 20 August July 2015 was the hottest month on Earth since records began in 1880, according to data from NOAA.

evidence_id: 2015 in science:412

article: 2015 in science

evidence: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that September's global average temperature was the largest departure from normal for any month on record.

evidence_id: 2019 in science:207

article: 2019 in science

evidence: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that July 2019 was the hottest month on record globally, at 0.95 °C (1.71 °F) above the 20th century average.

evidence_id: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:11

evidence: Understanding and describing Earth systems through research and analysis of that data.


text: The unusual heat was most noteworthy in Europe, which had its warmest April on record, and Australia, which had its second-warmest.

article: Australia

evidence: "Australia's extreme heat is sign of things to come, scientists warn".

article: Australia

evidence: According to the Bureau of Meteorology's 2011 Australian Climate Statement, Australia had lower than average temperatures in 2011 as a consequence of a La Niña weather pattern; however, "the country's 10-year average continues to demonstrate the rising trend in temperatures, with 2002–2011 likely to rank in the top two warmest 10-year periods on record for Australia, at 0.52 °C (0.94 °F) above the long-term average".

article: Australia

evidence: Furthermore, 2014 was Australia's third warmest year since national temperature observations commenced in 1910.

article: Australia

evidence: January 2019 was the hottest month ever in Australia with average temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F).

evidence_id: Climate of Australia:237

article: Climate of Australia

evidence: According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia's annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.90 °C (1.62 °F) above the 1961–90 average, making it the nation's second-warmest year since high-quality records began in 1910.


text: For the year-to-date, the Earth is seeing its 5th-warmest start to the year.

article: Earth

evidence: Earth's increasing surface temperature will accelerate the inorganic carbon cycle, reducing CO 2 concentration to levels lethally low for plants (10 ppm for C4 photosynthesis) in approximately 100–900 million years.

evidence_id: New Year:0

article: New Year

evidence: New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one.

evidence_id: Tropical year:0

article: Tropical year

evidence: A tropical year (also known as a solar year) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth; for example, the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice.

article: Year

evidence: This is currently on or close to January 1.

article: Year

evidence: Its average duration is 365.256363004 days (365 d 6 h 9 min 9.76 s) (at the epoch J2000.0 = January 1, 2000, 12:00:00 TT).


text: There is no empirical evidence that increasing greenhouse gases are the primary cause of Global Warming

evidence_id: Global warming:276

article: Global warming

evidence: In the scientific literature, there is an overwhelming consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused mainly by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.

evidence_id: Global warming:52

article: Global warming

evidence: Scientists have determined that the major factors causing the current climate change are greenhouse gases, land use changes, and aerosols and soot.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:229

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Cumulative anthropogenic (i.e., human-emitted) emissions of CO 2 from fossil fuel use are a major cause of global warming, and give some indication of which countries have contributed most to human-induced climate change.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:310

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: During the late 20th century, a scientific consensus evolved that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause a substantial rise in global temperatures and changes to other parts of the climate system, with consequences for the environment and for human health.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:70

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: There is a scientific consensus that climate is changing and that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.


text: “Today climate scientists are obsessed with the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a very very small part of the overall picture.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:127

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Measured atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are currently 100 ppm higher than pre-industrial levels.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:148

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: At the global level, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases have increased sharply since the Industrial Revolution.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:17

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: "Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years."

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:672

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: The changes in temperature have been associated with increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) and other GHGs in the atmosphere."

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:717

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: The world's most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels.


text: Carbon dioxide is a trace gas.”

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:0

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO 2) is a colorless gas with a density about 60% higher than that of dry air.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:177

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is a trace gas, currently (mid 2018) having a global average concentration of 409 parts per million by volume (or 622 parts per million by mass).

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:2

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: It occurs naturally in Earth's atmosphere as a trace gas.

evidence_id: Carbon monoxide:134

article: Carbon monoxide

evidence: It is now the most commonly used tracer of molecular gas in general in the interstellar medium of galaxies, as molecular hydrogen can only be detected using ultraviolet light, which requires space telescopes.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:12

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: They are trace gases that account for almost one tenth of 1% of Earth's atmosphere.


text: It’s not carbon dioxide, it’s not methane… Scientists estimate that somewhere between 75% and 90% of Earth greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor in clouds.”

evidence_id: Global warming:6

article: Global warming

evidence: The largest human influence has been the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

evidence_id: Global warming:65

article: Global warming

evidence: Of these emissions, 65% was carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and industry, 11% was carbon dioxide from land use change, which is primarily due to deforestation, 16% was from methane, 6.2% was from nitrous oxide, and 2.0% was from fluorinated gases.

evidence_id: Greenhouse effect:45

article: Greenhouse effect

evidence: By their percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect on Earth the four major gases are: water vapor, 36–70% carbon dioxide, 9–26% methane, 4–9% ozone, 3–7% It is not possible to assign a specific percentage to each gas because the absorption and emission bands of the gases overlap (hence the ranges given above).

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:172

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: Water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66% for clear sky conditions and between 66% and 85% when including clouds.

evidence_id: Natural gas:79

article: Natural gas

evidence: Excluding water vapor, about half of landfill gas is methane and most of the rest is carbon dioxide, with small amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, and variable trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide and siloxanes.


text: “Every day, nature puts twenty times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as all of Earth industries.

evidence_id: Air pollution:22

article: Air pollution

evidence: Pollutants emitted into the atmosphere by human activity include: Carbon dioxide (CO 2) – Because of its role as a greenhouse gas it has been described as "the leading pollutant" and "the worst climate pollutant".

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:21

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Since the Industrial Revolution anthropogenic emissions – primarily from use of fossil fuels and deforestation – have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming.

article: Coal

evidence: The coal industry damages the environment, including by climate change as it is the largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide, 14 Gt in 2016, which is 40% of the total fossil fuel emissions and almost 25% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

evidence_id: Global warming:59

article: Global warming

evidence: Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs, and nitrous oxide.

article: Nature

evidence: Air is mostly nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, with much smaller amounts of carbon dioxide, argon, etc.


text: So it’s clear now we’re not seeing dangerous global warming, and the climate models are wrong.

evidence_id: Effects of global warming:302

article: Effects of global warming

evidence: Tipping points are "perhaps the most ‘dangerous’ aspect of future climate changes", leading to irreversible impacts on society.

evidence_id: Global warming controversy:231

article: Global warming controversy

evidence: A 2007 study by David Douglass and coworkers, concluded that the 22 most commonly used global climate models used by the IPCC were unable to accurately predict accelerated warming in the troposphere although they did match actual surface warming, concluding "projections of future climate based on these models should be viewed with much caution".

evidence_id: Global warming:371

article: Global warming

evidence: Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:307

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: The IPCC has pointed out that many long-term climate scenario models require large-scale manmade negative emissions to avoid serious climate change.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:51

article: Sea level rise

evidence: This is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which predicted that sea level rise would accelerate in response to global warming.


text: If we double atmospheric carbon dioxide[…] we’d only raise global surface temperatures by about a degree Celsius.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:192

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO 2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide and ozone have correspondingly strengthened their absorption and emission of infrared radiation, causing the rise in average global temperature since the mid-20th century.

evidence_id: Carbon dioxide:194

article: Carbon dioxide

evidence: Not only do increasing carbon dioxide concentrations lead to increases in global surface temperature, but increasing global temperatures also cause increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide.

evidence_id: Global warming:22

article: Global warming

evidence: Currently, surface temperatures are rising by about 0.2 °C per decade.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:9

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: At current emission rates, temperatures could increase by 2 °C, which the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) designated as the upper limit to avoid "dangerous" levels, by 2036.

evidence_id: Svante Arrhenius:82

article: Svante Arrhenius

evidence: On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4°; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8°."


text: The idea that the much smaller carbon dioxide cycle is now controlling the water cycle is not very likely.

evidence_id: Carbon capture and storage:445

article: Carbon capture and storage

evidence: If CO 2 capture was part of a fuel cycle then the CO 2 would have value rather than be a cost.

article: Coal

evidence: The largest and most long term effect of coal use is the release of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change and global warming.

evidence_id: Ice age:6

article: Ice age

evidence: The amount of heat trapping gases emitted into Earth's oceans and atmosphere are predicted to prevent the next glacial period, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles.

evidence_id: Radiocarbon dating:102

article: Radiocarbon dating

evidence: At higher temperatures, CO 2 has poor solubility in water, which means there is less CO 2 available for the photosynthetic reactions.

evidence_id: Scuba diving:225

article: Scuba diving

evidence: This would be followed by a buildup in carbon dioxide, causing an urgent feeling of a need to breathe, and if this cycle is not broken, panic and drowning are likely to follow.


text: “So the bottom line of all this is that climate change is natural, not man-made.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:103

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: The clear message from fingerprint studies is that the observed warming over the last half-century cannot be explained by natural factors, and is instead caused primarily by human factors.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:125

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: Nevertheless, the bottom-line conclusion from climate fingerprinting is that most of the observed changes studied to date are consistent with each other, and are also consistent with our scientific understanding of how the climate system would be expected to respond to the increase in heat-trapping gases resulting from human activities.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:151

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: (2012) stated that a combination of natural weather variability and human-induced global warming was responsible for the Moscow and Texas heat waves.

evidence_id: Attribution of recent climate change:423

article: Attribution of recent climate change

evidence: "Penetration of human-induced warming into the world's oceans".

evidence_id: Sustainable development:73

article: Sustainable development

evidence: Environmental sustainability concerns the natural environment and how it endures and remains diverse and productive.


text: Man-made greenhouse gases play only an insignificant role.”

evidence_id: Global warming:59

article: Global warming

evidence: Human activity since the Industrial Revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radiative forcing from CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs, and nitrous oxide.

evidence_id: Global warming:6

article: Global warming

evidence: The largest human influence has been the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

evidence_id: Greenhouse gas:130

article: Greenhouse gas

evidence: It is likely that anthropogenic (i.e., human-induced) warming, such as that due to elevated greenhouse gas levels, has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:126

evidence: Atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenic (i.e., human-emitted) greenhouse gases have increased substantially.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:221

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: Human activities are now causing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases—including carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone, and nitrous oxide—to rise well above pre-industrial levels ... Increases in greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise ...


text: Climate scientists are telling us it’s likely we’re going to be in for a period of cooling.

evidence_id: Global warming:0

article: Global warming

evidence: Global warming is the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system.

evidence_id: Global warming:2631

article: Global warming

evidence: "The next five years will be 'anomalously warm,' scientists predict".

evidence_id: Global warming:7

article: Global warming

evidence: Climate model projections summarized in the report indicated that during the 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 0.3 to 1.7 °C (0.5 to 3.1 °F) in a moderate scenario, or as much as 2.6 to 4.8 °C (4.7 to 8.6 °F) in an extreme scenario, depending on the rate of future greenhouse gas emissions and on climate feedback effects.

evidence_id: Ice age:178

article: Ice age

evidence: The reflection of energy into space resulted in a global cooling, triggering the Pleistocene Ice Age.

evidence_id: Ice age:239

article: Ice age

evidence: Beside the expected cooling down in comparison with the current climate, a significant precipitation change happened here.


text: temperatures rise and they fall, and they rise and they fall… and for the last 400 years we’ve had a gentle warming as we’ve been coming out of the little ice age.

article: Global warming

evidence_id: Global warming:396

article: Global warming

evidence: Temperatures rose by 0.0 °C–0.2 °C from 1720–1800 to 1850–1900 (Hawkins et al., 2017).

evidence_id: Ice age:0

article: Ice age

evidence: An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers.

evidence_id: Little Ice Age:162

article: Little Ice Age

evidence: Orbital forcing from cycles in the earth's orbit around the sun has, for the past 2,000 years, caused a long-term northern hemisphere cooling trend that continued through the Middle Ages and the Little Ice Age.

evidence_id: Retreat of glaciers since 1850:6

article: Retreat of glaciers since 1850

evidence: The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cooler temperatures compared to the time before and after.


text: Temperatures cooled from about 1940 to 1975, and then they rose from about ’75 to about 2005 or so, and since then they’ve been flat or cooling.

article: Temperature

evidence: In fact the lowest temperature ever obtained in a macroscopic system was 20 nK, which was achieved in 1995 at NIST.

article: Temperature

evidence: A temperature of 450 ±80 pK in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of sodium atoms was achieved in 2003 by researchers at MIT.

evidence_id: Temperatures Rising:192

article: Temperatures Rising

evidence: September 16, 1972.

evidence_id: Temperatures Rising:196

article: Temperatures Rising

evidence_id: Temperatures Rising:232

article: Temperatures Rising

evidence: September 14, 1972.


text: “So now we’re able to explain from natural factors how we’ve had the 20th Century warming.

evidence_id: 20th century:6

article: 20th century

evidence: The average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) since 1880; Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20 °C per decade.

evidence_id: 20th century:94

article: 20th century

evidence: One argument is that of global warming occurring due to human-caused emission of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:130

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: The introduction includes this statement: There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:37

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: These, together with other anthropogenic drivers, are "extremely likely" (where that means more than 95% probability) to have been the dominant cause of the observed global warming since the mid-20th century.

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:507

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: Since the start of the 20th century, the global mean surface temperature of the Earth has increased by more than 0.7°C and the rate of warming has been largest in the last 30 years.


text: This is the South Pole ice, 90% of Earth’s ice, and it’s getting thicker.

evidence_id: Colonization of the Moon:111

article: Colonization of the Moon

evidence: It is estimated there is at least 600 million tons of ice at the north pole in sheets of relatively pure ice at least a couple of meters thick.

article: Greenland

evidence: Other research has shown that higher snowfalls from the North Atlantic oscillation caused the interior of the ice cap to thicken by an average of 6 cm or 2.36 in/y between 1994 and 2005.

article: Mars

evidence: The southern polar cap has a diameter of 350 km (220 mi) and a thickness of 3 km (1.9 mi).

evidence_id: Martian polar ice caps:40

article: Martian polar ice caps

evidence: This water ice is believed to be as much as three kilometers thick.

evidence_id: South Pole:14

article: South Pole

evidence: The ice is estimated to be about 2,700 metres (9,000 ft) thick at the Pole, so the land surface under the ice sheet is actually near sea level.


text: Ocean levels have been rising for the last 20,000 years[…] No climate scientist can tell you when natural sea level rise stopped and man-made sea level rise began.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:0

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Since at least the start of the 20th century, the average global sea level has been rising.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:1

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Between 1900 and 2016, the sea level rose by 16–21 cm (6.3–8.3 in).

evidence_id: Sea level rise:26

article: Sea level rise

evidence: Since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, the sea level has risen by more than 125 metres (410 ft), with rates varying from less than a mm/year to 40+ mm/year, as a result of melting ice sheets over Canada and Eurasia.

evidence_id: Sea level rise:28

article: Sea level rise

evidence: The rate of rise started to slow down about 8,200 years before present; the sea level was almost constant in the last 2,500 years, before the recent rising trend that started at the end of the 19th century or in the beginning of the 20th.

article: Sea

evidence: At the last glacial maximum, some 20,000 years ago, the sea level was 120 metres (390 ft) below its present-day level.


text: According to NASA, the globally averaged temperature of the land and ocean was 0.9˚C (1.62˚F) above the 20th century average.

article: 20th century

evidence_id: Global warming:22

article: Global warming

evidence: Currently, surface temperatures are rising by about 0.2 °C per decade.

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:22

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: Consistent with Schmidt's comment, the NASA / NOAA announcement stated that "globally-averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean" and that the impact of El Niño warming was estimated to have "increased the annual global temperature anomaly for 2016 by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.12 degrees Celsius)."

evidence_id: Instrumental temperature record:5

article: Instrumental temperature record

evidence: The global average and combined land and ocean surface temperature, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C, in the period 1880 to 2012, based on multiple independently produced datasets.

evidence_id: Sea surface temperature:78

article: Sea surface temperature

evidence: This value is well above 16.1 °C (60.9 °F), the long term global average surface temperature of the oceans.


text: La Niñas, on the other hand, feature cooler than average waters in the Pacific

evidence_id: Pacific Ocean:94

article: Pacific Ocean

evidence: Surface water temperatures in the Pacific can vary from −1.4 °C (29.5 °F), the freezing point of sea water, in the poleward areas to about 30 °C (86 °F) near the equator.

evidence_id: South Pacific convergence zone:41

article: South Pacific convergence zone

evidence: At its southeast edge, the circulation around the feature forces a salinity gradient in the ocean, with fresher and warmer waters of the western Pacific lying to its west.

evidence_id: South Pacific convergence zone:42

article: South Pacific convergence zone

evidence: Cooler and saltier waters lie to its east.

evidence_id: Tropical cyclone:49

article: Tropical cyclone

evidence: Water temperatures must be extremely high (near or above 30 °C, 86 °F), and water of this temperature must be sufficiently deep such that waves do not upwell cooler waters to the surface.

evidence_id: Tropical cyclone:74

article: Tropical cyclone

evidence: latent heat) at the temperature of the warm ocean surface (during evaporation, the ocean cools and the air warms).


text: Sea ice continued its declining trend, both in the Arctic and Antarctic.

article: Antarctica

evidence: "A 40-y record reveals gradual Antarctic sea ice increases followed by decreases at rates far exceeding the rates seen in the Arctic".

evidence_id: Arctic Ocean:249

article: Arctic Ocean

evidence: Polar Discovery "Continued Sea Ice Decline in 2005".

evidence_id: Arctic ice pack:5

article: Arctic ice pack

evidence: As well as the regular seasonal cycle there has been an underlying trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic in recent decades.

evidence_id: Climate change in the Arctic:22

article: Climate change in the Arctic

evidence: Sea ice is currently in decline in area, extent, and volume and summertime sea ice may cease to exist sometime during the 21st century.

evidence_id: Sea ice:120

article: Sea ice

evidence: Antarctic sea ice extent gradually increased in the period of satellite observations, which began in 1979, until a rapid decline in southern hemisphere spring of 2016.


text: Scientists say halting deforestation ‘just as urgent’ as reducing emissions

evidence_id: Avoided Deforestation Partners:5

article: Avoided Deforestation Partners

evidence: Leading scientists and economists say that ending deforestation is the most cost effective and scalable method of reducing greenhouse gases.

evidence_id: Climate change mitigation:129

article: Climate change mitigation

evidence: Reducing energy use is seen as a key solution to the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

evidence_id: Climate change mitigation:468

article: Climate change mitigation

evidence: In 2008, climate scientist Kevin Anderson raised concern about the growing effect of rapidly increasing global air transport on the climate in a paper, and a presentation, suggesting that reversing this trend is necessary to reduce emissions.

evidence_id: Deforestation and climate change:86

article: Deforestation and climate change

evidence: One attempt towards fighting climate change globally is the Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) efforts, and a few countries are already starting to implement and analyse ways to protect standing trees.

evidence_id: Deforestation in Indonesia:52

article: Deforestation in Indonesia

evidence: The general term for these sorts of programs is Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).


text: Protecting and restoring forests would reduce 18% of emissions by 2030

evidence_id: Climate change mitigation:35

article: Climate change mitigation

evidence: 10% per annum until zero emissions are reached around 2030.

evidence_id: Climate change mitigation:441

article: Climate change mitigation

evidence: Targets for the year 2030: Reduce GHG emission by 40% from the level of 1990.

evidence_id: Mangrove restoration:39

article: Mangrove restoration

evidence: The UN estimate deforestation and forest degradation to make up 17% of global carbon emissions, which makes it the second most polluting sector, following the energy industry.

article: Reforestation

evidence: Japan needs to reduce 26% of green house gas emission from 2013 by 2030 to accomplish Paris Agreement and is trying to reduce 2% of them by forestry.

evidence_id: Sustainable Development Goals:196

article: Sustainable Development Goals

evidence: The report mentioned that this would require global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching "net zero" around 2050, through “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.


text: It is expected the report will focus on required changes to the energy system, rather than forests.

evidence_id: Emissions trading:921

article: Emissions trading

evidence: "How will the changes impact on forestry?".

evidence_id: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report:133

article: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

evidence: There was high agreement and much evidence that a substantial fraction of these mitigation costs may be offset by benefits to health as a result of reduced air pollution, and that there would be further cost savings from other benefits such as increased energy security, increased agricultural production, and reduced pressure on natural ecosystems as well as, in certain countries, balance of trade improvements, provision of modern energy services to rural areas and employment.

evidence_id: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report:56

article: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

evidence: AR4 describes warming and cooling effects on the planet in terms of radiative forcing — the rate of change of energy in the system, measured as power per unit area (in SI units, W/m²).

evidence_id: Low-carbon economy:124

article: Low-carbon economy

evidence: Information on the environmental impacts of alternative models of treatment and service provision Some of the suggested changes needed are: Greater efficiency and lower ecological impact of energy, buildings, and procurement choices (e.g., in-patient meals, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment).

evidence_id: Low-carbon economy:17

article: Low-carbon economy

evidence: Low emission development strategies for the land use sector can prioritize the protection of carbon-rich ecosystems to not only reduce emissions, but also to protect biodiversity and safeguard local livelihoods to reduce rural poverty - all of which can lead to more climate resilient systems, according to a report by the Low Emission Development Strategies Global Partnership (LEDS GP).


text: “We almost take forests as a given but we lose forest every year, which means we are diminishing them as a carbon sink.

evidence_id: Carbon sink:33

article: Carbon sink

evidence: Forest fires release absorbed carbon back into the atmosphere, as does deforestation due to rapidly increased oxidation of soil organic matter.

evidence_id: Carbon sink:81

article: Carbon sink

evidence: Additionally, the amount of carbon released from harvesting is small compared to the amount of carbon lost each year to forest fires and other natural disturbances.

article: Deforestation

evidence: From the perspective of the developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services.

article: Forest

evidence: acting as a carbon sink.

evidence_id: Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation:418

evidence: A large and persistent carbon sink in the world's forests.


text: “It’s horrifying that we’d lose our biodiversity to avert climate change.

evidence_id: Climate change and ecosystems:19

article: Climate change and ecosystems

evidence: Studying the association between Earth climate and extinctions over the past 520 million years, scientists from the University of York write, "The global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries may trigger a new ‘mass extinction event’, where over 50 percent of animal and plant species would be wiped out."

evidence_id: Climate change and ecosystems:96

article: Climate change and ecosystems

evidence: Researchers expect that over time, climate change will affect mountain and lowland ecosystems, the frequency and intensity of forest fires, the diversity of wildlife, and the distribution of fresh water.

evidence_id: Climate change in Australia:177

article: Climate change in Australia

evidence: Australia has some of the world's most diverse ecosystems and natural habitats, and it may be this variety that makes them the Earth's most fragile and at-risk when exposed to climate change.

evidence_id: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:130

evidence: "Ecosystems and species are vulnerable to climate change and other stresses (as illustrated by observed impacts of recent regional temperature changes) and some will be irreversibly damaged or lost."

evidence_id: Scientific consensus on climate change:142

article: Scientific consensus on climate change

evidence: The integrity of essential natural systems is already at risk from climate change caused by the atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases.


text: Losing tropical forests is not somehow cheaper than putting up wind farms in the US or Sahara.”

article: Biodiversity

evidence: No longer do we have to justify the existence of humid tropical forests on the feeble grounds that they might carry plants with drugs that cure human disease.

article: Deforestation

evidence: In Central America, two-thirds of lowland tropical forests have been turned into pasture since 1950 and 40% of all the rainforests have been lost in the last 40 years.

article: Deforestation

evidence: The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation.

article: Deforestation

evidence: An ambitious proposal for China is the Aerially Delivered Re-forestation and Erosion Control System and the proposed Sahara Forest Project coupled with the Seawater Greenhouse.

evidence_id: Habitat destruction:106

article: Habitat destruction

evidence: A country may increase its food supply by converting forest land to row-crop agriculture, but the value of the same land may be much larger when it can supply natural resources or services such as clean water, timber, ecotourism, or flood regulation and drought control.


text: IPCC report warning last week the world is “nowhere near on track” to meet its Paris commitments

evidence_id: Global warming:18

article: Global warming

evidence: Although the parties to the UNFCCC have agreed that deep cuts in emissions are required and that global warming should be limited to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) in the Paris Agreement of 2016, the Earth's average surface temperature has already increased by about half this threshold and current pledges by countries to cut emissions are inadequate to limit future warming.

evidence_id: Paris Agreement:521

article: Paris Agreement

evidence: "World on track for 3 °C of warming under current global climate pledges, warns UN".

evidence_id: Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C:292

evidence: "Australia is not on track to reach 2030 Paris target (but the potential is there)".

evidence_id: Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C:85

evidence: Based on present knowledge, climate geoengineering techniques cannot be relied on to significantly contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement temperature goals".

evidence_id: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:13

evidence: In 2015 the Paris Agreement was adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), with a view of lowering the target to 1.5 °C.


text: But like most claims regarding global warming, the real effect is small, probably temporary, and most likely due to natural weather patterns

evidence_id: Global warming:183

article: Global warming

evidence: The effects of climate change on human systems, mostly due to warming and shifts in precipitation, have been detected worldwide.

evidence_id: Global warming:198

article: Global warming

evidence: Impacts include the direct effects of extreme weather, leading to injury and loss of life; and indirect effects, such as undernutrition brought on by crop failures.

evidence_id: Global warming:43

article: Global warming

evidence: The slower pace of warming can be attributed to a combination of natural fluctuations, reduced solar activity, and increased volcanic activity.

evidence_id: Global warming:832

article: Global warming

evidence: Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use."

evidence_id: Global warming:9

article: Global warming

evidence: The effects of global warming include rising sea levels, regional changes in precipitation, more frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves, and expansion of deserts.


text: Coastal lake sediments along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline from 1,000 to 2,000 years ago suggest more frequent and intense hurricanes than occur today.

article: Paleotempestology

evidence: In the Gulf of Mexico, catastrophic hurricane strikes at given locations occur once about every 350 years in the last 3,800 years or about 0.48%-0.39% annual frequency at any given site, with a recurrence rate of 300 years or 0.33% annual probability at sites in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico; category 3 or more storms occur at a rate of 3.9 - 0.1 category 3 or more storms per century in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

article: Paleotempestology

evidence: In the past, tropical cyclones were far more frequent in the Great Barrier Reef and the northern Gulf of Mexico than today; in Apalachee Bay, strong storms occur every 40 years, not every 400 years as documented historically.

article: Paleotempestology

evidence: The Gulf of Mexico saw increased activity between 3,800 - 1,000 years ago with a fivefold increase of category 4-5 hurricane activity, and activity at St. Catherines Island and Wassaw Island was also higher between 2,000 and 1,100 years ago.

article: Paleotempestology

evidence: "700 yr sedimentary record of intense hurricane landfalls in southern New England".

article: Paleotempestology

evidence: "Intense Southwest Florida hurricane landfalls over the past 1000 years".