Editor's note: This column was submitted to the Texan by a member of the UT community.
I have been working on and teaching about climate change for more than 35 years. My 1984 doctoral thesis was a numerical modeling study of how and why CO2-induced climate change will vary geographically. After my Ph.D., I continued climate studies at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University before moving into a faculty position at Cornell University. At Cornell I began writing a textbook on climate science, and I completed the book as a professor here at UT. All of this work, time and effort means that I know a lot more about the climate and how it changes than the vast majority of people on the planet.
So why am I writing this editorial? Two reasons. One is to make a clear statement about the reality of contemporary climate change and its cause from an undeniable position of knowledge. The other is to tell you about the single most important thing you can do to help the planet — and humanity — avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Earth’s climate is changing because human activity has modified the chemical composition of the atmosphere. The changes are well observed using a variety of platforms, both ground-based and satellite-borne, and they are undeniable. They include warming surface temperatures, melting glaciers and intensifying storms. We know that these changes are a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases, and they have been predicted by climate science for decades.
The geological record tells us that the climate is not static; it can change considerably and with great consequence to ecosystems — just ask the dinosaurs. These changes do not happen magically — there must be a factor driving climate change and the laws of physics must be obeyed. On time scales up to billions of years, climate change has been caused by such factors as the perturbation of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, the movements of the continents, the evolution of the sun and the development of the earth’s atmosphere. Because these factors act on scales of millennia, they cannot be the cause of the current climate change. We know from theory, observations and numerical modeling that the primary cause of the current climate change is the loading of additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. This is fact.
We are all witnessing the impacts of climate change, and concern is growing along with the accelerating destabilization of the global climate. Many are aware that the required action — transitioning our energy use to systems that do not release greenhouse gases — has been delayed to the point of peril. Individual volunteer efforts at conservation are helpful, but insufficient.
What can we do? The most important thing that anyone can do is to vote. Vote in local and national elections for people who rely on scientific facts for information. Vote for people who are talking about climate change and elevate this issue to the level it deserves. People who understand the uneven impacts of climate change on different communities, who will take on the imperative to restructure our energy systems. Vote as if your future — our collective future — depends on it.
Cook is a professor in the department of geological sciences.
