It's unfortunate that you feel the need to resort to name-calling and insults, as this reveals more about your insecurities than it does about the strength of your arguments. Personal attacks weaken your position and distract from serious discussion on the overwhelming evidence surrounding climate change. You cite an article claiming that Earth is the "coldest it’s been in 485 million years," but this is misleading. While Earth’s temperature has fluctuated over geological time scales, comparing today’s climate to periods like the Cambrian or Ordovician, when life and continental configurations were vastly different, ignores the real issue. The point isn’t whether Earth was warmer millions of years ago but that global temperatures today are rising rapidly and unnaturally due to human activity. Of course, the Earth is cooler now than when it was a molten ball of magma; no one is disputing that. The fact that you think this is a solid argument highlights a flawed understanding of climate science. We are in the Holocene epoch, which began about 11,700 years ago, a period that has been relatively stable, allowing civilization to develop. However, since the Industrial Revolution (~1850), Earth’s average global temperature has risen by 1.2°C (2.2°F), driven by fossil fuels and CO2 emissions. Comparing today’s climate to earlier geological periods distracts from the fact that, in the last 150 years, we’ve seen an unprecedented spike in temperatures. According to NOAA, the last decade (2011-2020) was the hottest on record, and 2020 tied with 2016 as the hottest year globally. NASA reports that today’s rate of warming is ten times faster than the average ice-age recovery, proving today’s changes are not natural. In 2019, global temperature was 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, and in 2020, it was 1.02°C above the 20th-century average, making it one of the hottest years ever. Five of the six hottest years on record occurred between 2015 and 2020. The rapid warming we see today, driven by human activity, is far outside the natural variations of the Holocene.
Your comparisons to the Dust Bowl of the 1920s and the Medieval Warm Period (900-1300 AD) are flawed. The Dust Bowl was a regional environmental disaster caused by drought and poor land management, not global warming. While temperatures during the Dust Bowl were high, they were regional anomalies, not global patterns. For instance, 2020 was 0.6°C (1.08°F) warmer than 1920 globally, according to NOAA. The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a regional event confined to the North Atlantic and parts of Europe. Paleoclimatology studies using ice cores and tree rings show global temperatures during the MWP were much cooler than today. A 2019 study in Nature confirmed that today’s warming far exceeds anything observed during the MWP, which occurred over centuries, while today’s warming has occurred over just 150 years, with most of it in the last 50. During the MWP, global temperatures were 0.2°C to 0.4°C lower than today.
You mock the 0.77 mm/year sea-level rise, implying it’s insignificant, but this ignores scientific data and the projected consequences. According to NASA’s Sea Level Change Team, global sea levels have risen 21-24 cm (8-9 inches) since 1880, with the rate accelerating in recent decades. Sea levels are currently rising at approximately 3.3 mm/year, four times faster than the 20th-century average. Greenland is losing ice at 286 gigatons/year, contributing 0.77 mm/year to sea-level rise, while Antarctica is losing 150 gigatons/year, adding another 0.4 mm/year. While 0.77 mm/year may seem small, the cumulative effect is critical. Over the next 100 years, sea levels could rise between 0.61 meters and 1.10 meters (2-4 feet) if emissions continue unchecked, according to the IPCC. A 1-meter rise would displace millions of people in low-lying regions, flood coastal cities, and cause trillions in economic losses. For example, the World Bank estimates that $1 trillion in assets are at risk in coastal cities by 2050. The Marshall Islands face 4.5 mm/year sea-level rise, already threatening homes. Miami and other parts of Florida face frequent flooding due to rising seas. Bangladesh, home to 160 million people, risks losing significant territory and displacing 18 million people by 2050. These “small” increases lead to catastrophic impacts over the next few decades.
Your claim that CO2 emissions don’t cause climate change is refuted by overwhelming scientific evidence. CO2’s role as a greenhouse gas has been known since the 19th century when scientists like John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius discovered its heat-trapping properties. CO2 absorbs infrared radiation in the 4.26 μm and 15 μm bands, within the thermal IR spectrum emitted by Earth. A 2015 Nature study confirmed that increasing CO2 levels have directly increased downwelling longwave radiation at Earth’s surface, validating the greenhouse effect. The Keeling Curve shows atmospheric CO2 levels rising from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 420 ppm today, largely due to fossil fuel combustion. This increase is supported by carbon isotope analysis, distinguishing human-emitted CO2 from natural sources. The physics of CO2’s role in the greenhouse effect is well-established: CO2 molecules absorb infrared radiation, re-radiating it back to Earth’s surface, which leads to rising atmospheric and surface temperatures.
You claim hurricanes are declining and patterns are cyclical. While hurricane activity varies year to year, the long-term trend shows hurricane intensity increasing due to warmer sea surface temperatures. The number of named storms may fluctuate, but hurricanes are becoming more intense. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, with 30 named storms and 12 U.S. landfalls. A 2020 PNAS study shows that Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have become more frequent as rising ocean temperatures provide more energy for storms. NOAA confirms that warmer waters and higher moisture levels due to climate change make hurricanes more destructive. For example, Hurricane Harvey (2017) was amplified by sea surface temperatures 1-4°C above average, causing unprecedented flooding.
You argue that climate change is unfalsifiable because it accommodates opposite outcomes (e.g., more or less rainfall). This reflects a misunderstanding of how climate systems work. Climate change doesn’t mean all regions experience the same impacts; it means weather patterns shift and become more extreme, with regional variability. Climate change is falsifiable; models predict changes like more frequent heatwaves or rising sea levels, and these predictions are validated by data. IPCC models predicted more intense heatwaves and droughts in Mediterranean regions, which have been confirmed by real-world data. A 2020 study predicted that climate change made the 2019 European heatwave five times more likely; this was tested by analyzing temperature data and climate models. The evidence strongly supports these predictions.
Your arguments fail to account for the overwhelming scientific consensus. Global temperatures are rising due to human activity, CO2 is the primary driver, and the impacts—rising seas, more intense hurricanes, increasing heatwaves—are being observed now. Ignoring this evidence doesn’t invalidate the science; it only obscures the urgency of addressing the problem, such as reinforcing infrastructure to withstand increasingly extreme climate events. Perhaps then, your cousin wouldn’t be left in the dark.