This week, I&rsquo;d like to share with you an <a href="http://www.inforum.com/news/3717238-wheeler-climate-discussion-needs-pierce-partisan-positions">editorial</a> written by a meteorologist based 70 miles north of my home town of Grand Forks, N.D. (and also Biomass Magazine headquarters).
John Wheeler works for WDAY in Fargo, and this week, he published what I thought was a very thoughtful and balanced piece on the climate change debate. I&rsquo;m going to pick it apart here, but I highly recommend visiting the link and reading it in full.
In summation, Wheeler recognizes truths&mdash;facts&mdash;to both sides of the argument, and makes the case that it should really be a bipartisan issue. In today&rsquo;s society, climate change (or global warming, global weirding, whatever you prefer) is largely a black and white issue to the majority of people. My dad, for example, thinks it is all a complete hoax. He is also is a staunch Republican, and is not open to considering much else. Same goes for my mom. I, on the other hand, believe wholeheartedly that it is a reality. Though I would not describe myself as a Democrat, I&rsquo;m more of a rarity&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think of one I know does not believe in climate change.
Wheeler begins his op-ed by instructing the reader to Google climate change, and predicts that most of the results will come from sources with a heavy political bias, both conservative and liberal, and journalists trying to avoid political bias (or not&hellip;)
&ldquo;Most people will only read the articles with headlines that reinforce their own previously conceived political opinion. Many people will then post links to these articles on social networking sites, often with hateful comments added. I find this frustrating.&rdquo;
I know what he means in regard to the hateful comments. More often than not, when the subject of climate change is mentioned in an article, Biomass Magazine receives these kinds of kill-the-messenger comments, even though a large majority of the time, we are simply quoting someone. And even reading reader comments on articles that aren&rsquo;t ours, it is quite remarkable the things people will say from behind a computer screen. Climate change is an oddly touchy subject.
Anyway, even though he has practiced meteorology for 30 years and has great interest in climatology, Wheeler admits that climate is extremely complex, more complex than most people can imagine, and that it is very hard to learn how it really works, and, even more difficult, to describe how it changes.
Here are some shortened points he makes, in regard to things we really know about climate:
-It has always been changing naturally.&nbsp; There have been times in the past when Earth's climate has changed radically in a very short time. We know that when climate changes, those changes can be different all around the world. Right now, for example, the Antarctic coast is warming rapidly even as the interior of the continent is getting colder.
-Changes to climate in one part of the world can have effects in other parts, and this makes it very difficult to single out one example of extreme weather and find a single blame for it&hellip;.
-It is somewhat circular to argue that any ongoing example of extreme weather is directly caused by people. Weather has always been prone to extremes and the climate system is full of feedback loops that make it very hard to show cause/effect relationships&hellip;We know, globally averaged, the level of the sea rose by approximately 6 inches and that most of that rise is due to thermal expansion and not from melting ice.
-We suspect that our weather has become, in some ways, more volatile than a few decades ago, but only in some ways and the increased volatility is difficult to quantify.
-There has been natural warming going on since the 1700s, so some of the changes are indeed natural, unrelated to CO2.
-Predictions of world sea level changes are simply that&mdash;predictions, and he suggests that it is possible to explain all the observed changes in climate, even the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap in summer, in terms of natural variability.
But Wheeler is quick to add that because these things can be explained with an all-natural answer, it should not be taken as proof of an all-natural cause.
It is undeniable that the chemical makeup of the atmosphere has been radically changed by the introduction and effects of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Climate scientists have known this for decades and have concluded that this ought to lead, at some point, to a warming of Earth's atmosphere. Despite whatever you have chosen to believe, this is accepted as fact by the vast majority in the scientific community. How much of the warming of the last century is natural is not known for certain. But most climatologists, meteorologists and other related scientists agree that a significant part of the warming since the second half of the 20th century is likely more than just a natural cycle.
And here&rsquo;s where I find the editorial most interesting: Wheeler says that of course natural cycles continue to operate, which helps explain why the general warming around the world has leveled off since 1999.
&nbsp;But that&rsquo;s not the real concern.
The concern are the things we do not know, and this is where I feel he hits the nail on the head.
&hellip;the real concern about climate change is not what is observable in the present. The concern is that future changes could be much larger and more difficult to deal with than the changes we have seen. And frankly, with 7 billion people on Earth today, big changes to our climate, natural or human-caused, would make life as we know it very difficult.
Wheeler continues by stating that he wishes climate change discussions would get more realistic and that people would stop condoning beliefs based on political party lines (unrealistic&mdash;perhaps,&nbsp; but a great thought), for political parties to stop pretending they know so much about climate and how it works, and for people in general to stop blaming climate change on every bad storm.
Just as important, all of us need to accept that humans are changing the atmosphere. Scientists who are a lot more knowledgeable than most of us on this topic have articulated serious concern over the future of our climate, and we would all be smart to take seriously what they say and not dismiss the climate forecasts because of political dogma&hellip;.we are a long way from knowing what the state of the climate will be in 20, 50 or a hundred years, but there are very legitimate concerns.
Meanwhile, as the scientists work on the answers, the politicians will have the task of deciding what should be done. All of us should feel obligated to engage in this political debate. But we should do so intelligently and with respect for other points of view. I am certain such a debate would be far more constructive than most of the ongoing nonsense.
Sadly, in today&rsquo;s political climate, Wheeler&rsquo;s wishes are likely to go unfulfilled. It will be interesting to follow the stances of presidential hopefuls on this issue, but, unlike the weather and climate, they're easy to predict.
&nbsp;

Biologue discusses an op-ed regarding climate change partisanship by N.D. meteorologist John Wheeler.

I Say Climate Change, You Say Climate Cycle

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