Since this is the Trump era and Trump is trying to eliminate all things green as well as all things DEI, global warming has quietly disappeared from the radar screen.

Since we are coming up on hurricane season, that will change a little. Every hurricane, every heat wave, every drought is accompanied by endless speculation and drivel regarding the impact of global warming on that hurricane, heat wave or drought.

I'll save you time and effort by letting you in on a little secret - we don't know. (Actually, while we don't know about hurricanes and drought, the data indicate that there is a reasonable probability that increasing heat is caused by anthropogenic (human caused) global warming. The word, could, carries a lot of weight in essentially all discussions about global warming.)

We have actually had very little global warming, when compared to an average taken in the mid-1800s. Maybe 1.3 degrees C (2.3 degrees F), depending on the base measurement period. Basically, not much has happened.

Global warming acts over decades and centuries. What happens today or tomorrow is just noise - and there is a lot of noise in both weather and climate.

I decided to take on global warming - which is the term I will use instead of the politically correct "climate change," because global warming is the topic of interest - as a personal project way back in the early 2000s. Information supplied by the press and by politicians, yes, including and particularly Al Gore, did not add up. So, as I am wont to do, I set out to decide for myself. I read everything I could find - from Al Gore to Rush Limbaugh, tens of scientific papers, maybe 20 books. I don't remember the actual date - the earliest date stamp I can find on my computer is 2013 - I finished an (unpublished) book about my research and thoughts. That whole process took perhaps a decade.

Twelve years on, very little has changed:

• The concentration of carbon dioxide in the air continues to increase.

• The average atmospheric temperature continues to increase, as does the average temperature of the ocean.

• We affirmed something I wrote about in my book - as we clean up the atmosphere, warming will increase, since the particles shield us somewhat from warming.

We keep discussing and arguing about the same things over and over and over again, ad nauseum.

We argue because there is uncertainty and there is little new data.

And because the 24/7/365 news machine needs raw meat.

Let's review the bidding, and I will start by spoiling the plot.

In my opinion, the preponderance of the evidence is that anthropogenic global warming is real.

I started off my quest with an open mind, but a slight bias that global warming was just another instance of politically correct nonsense. Another bunch of the politically correct tearing after another cluster of windmills (nice metaphor, yes?).

I came to two conclusions:

• The facts and data generally support the premise of anthropogenic global warming.

• The politically correct are on a crusade, distorting facts and creating pressure groups and censoring around global warming. The deniers distort facts to counter the politically correct.

Political pressure has actually led to the UN's IPCC, the world's official scientific body on climate change, to distort data and conclusions.

My book includes an inventory of distortions and misinformation. Following are two examples:

• Former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, in his acceptance speech related to the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 2007 for his campaigning on climate change, said, “The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff. It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.” (As of 2025, the Arctic ice cap, while fluctuating in size, is still intact.)

• One of my favorite politicians, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator and Ambassador to the United Nations and to India, in a memorandum to Richard Nixon in 1969: “There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth’s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter. We have no data on Seattle.” (Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rose approximately 14% during the period from 1969 – 2000; atmospheric temperatures rose by approximately 1.2° F; sea level rose by approximately 68 mm (2.7 inches).)

Since I am all about balance, I wrote a Substack about how global warming "deniers" sometimes get it right.

One thing they get right is when they declare, "there is no climate emergency." As I said, above, not much is happening. However, if anthropogenic global warming is "true," the metaphor is driving in a car that is continually increasing speed toward a brick wall. No emergency today, but there will be a challenge in the future when you get to the point that the brakes will not be strong enough to stop the car before it hits the wall. My favorite metaphor is a guy who jumps off the top of the Empire State Building. As he is accelerating downward, someone on the 34th floor asks him how he is doing. His answer is, "So far, so good."

There really is uncertainty, and some of the arguments against global warming are in good faith.

The Earth has been hotter and colder in the past. What's the big deal?

Humans are the big deal.

Nature deals with heat and cold. Species come and go (nature does not care - we have lost over 90% of life on Earth several times), continents move around, massive glaciers move over large parts of the planet. There were likely times of "snowball Earth" when the entire planet was encased in ice. There was a time when the atmosphere contained no oxygen - historically, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were around four times current concentrations.

That's just the way it goes.

But humans require a status quo and we do care. There are so many of us that we are straining the resources of the planet. We are using immense amounts of artificial fertilizer to feed ourselves, and agriculture is by far humans' greatest use of water. So long as everything stays just so, we will be ok.

But, change the average temperature, and areas that are conducive to particular crops change - move, increase, decrease, appear and disappear.

Change the temperature and weather patterns change as well as water patterns.

Sure, sea level increases - very slowly. Although it will be expensive, that is just about money.

Food and water are about life - about survival.

And, here's the problem - we do not know what the changes will be or when.

Scientists have created impressive models of the climate, but the climate is extraordinarily complex, and may not be modellable, even in theory.

Hence, uncertainty.

And, where there is uncertainty, humans will argue, often passionately.

To me, the bigger issue is the timeframe.

For essentially everyone, this is an obscure, academic discussion, generating a lot of noise, that has no impact on my life today. So, I will deal with today's problems.

Ironically, this is the reason for all the noise. Those who are concerned about global warming need to make it an immediate problem with immediate impact to get people's attention. Therefore, today's hurricane MUST be worse due to global warming.

Worse, most people do not understand that an effective program against global warming will require perhaps a 90% reduction in the production of carbon dioxide and other global warming gasses. Once they catch on that an effective fight against global warming will require a dramatic reduction in living standards, global warming will be a non-starter - until it is too late.

And, it is probably already too late.

Following is an assertion that should blow your mind - if anthropogenic global warming is real, if the US ceased to exist today and ceased emitting all greenhouse gasses today, global warming would continue. At a slower pace, but it would continue. Although every little bit helps, this puts things like shower head flow and electric cars into perspective.

Please go over this sentence slowly and thoughtfully - an effective program against global warming will require perhaps a 90% reduction in the production of carbon dioxide and other global warming gasses.

We have to get to "net zero" in order for global warming to stop getting worse. We have to effectively emit no greenhouse gasses.

Ok, that's not going to happen, absent some gargantuan crisis.

So, in addition to trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we have to find some way to actively take greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere.

And we may have to employ a very risky approach called geoengineering. Geoengineering is  using technology to actively change the environment. Although there are several possibilities, the poster child is introducing some sun-blocker or another, like sulphur dioxide, into the upper atmosphere.

What could go wrong?

To summarize:

• Anthropogenic global warming is probably occurring.

• There is significant uncertainty as to its magnitude and timing.

• The cure to global warming is to achieve net zero, as a minimum.

• Achieving net zero will result in significant negative changes in standards of living.

• At the moment, we are actually going the wrong way as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase.

• Odds are, in the absence of crisis, nothing much will be done and warming will increase. Over the coming decades we will experience increased warming and the implications of global warming.

• Sooner or later, we will probably try geoengineering.

And there we are.

Democrats may be elected in 2028 and we will again have the opportunity for hysteria and running about, achieving very little, as opposed to Trump's denial, achieving essentially nothing.

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The real inconvenient truth: