Environment Flashcards
Keystone XL Pipeline Explained - NRDC - 2022
Keystone XL pipeline project canceled: After more than a decade of protests, legal battles, and executive orders across three U.S. administrations, TC Energy officially abandoned the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline in June 2021 following President Biden’s revocation of a critical permit.
Environmental risks: KXL faced opposition due to its potential environmental damage, including leaks of tar sands oil, which is more corrosive and difficult to clean, posing threats to rivers, ecosystems, and drinking water sources like the Ogallala Aquifer.
Climate impact: Tar sands oil extraction produces 3-4 times more carbon pollution than conventional oil, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Building the pipeline would have increased these emissions and been detrimental to climate goals.
Public opposition: Protests from environmentalists, Indigenous communities, and local stakeholders, along with political and legal challenges, helped prevent the pipeline’s construction.
Economic viability: The project’s cancellation also reflected shifting market conditions, with major oil companies pulling out of tar sands investments due to low oil prices and rising climate concerns.
Political flip-flop: The pipeline was initially vetoed by President Obama, revived by President Trump, and ultimately revoked again by President Biden, reflecting its political controversy.
Job creation claims: Despite industry claims that KXL would create nearly 119,000 jobs, a State Department report revealed it would generate only about 35 permanent jobs after construction.
Biden Funding for Hurricane Helene Relief - NC Newsline
President Joe Biden pledged federal support for the Southeast’s recovery from Hurricane Helene, stating that the government would provide resources for as long as necessary. Speaking from the White House, he announced plans to request emergency funding from Congress and is expected to visit North Carolina later in the week once it wouldn’t disrupt recovery efforts. Federal aid, including FEMA and other agencies, is already on the ground, with 3,600 personnel deployed so far.
The United States is producing more oil than any country in history - CNN; 2023
The U.S. is on track to produce a record 13.3 million barrels per day of oil in Q4 2023, surpassing previous records. In October, U.S. production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, just above the Trump-era peak of 13.1 million. This robust output, driven largely by shale oil in Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin, helps maintain relatively stable crude and gasoline prices, with gas prices recently averaging $3.08 per gallon.
Despite this, President Biden faces criticism from Republicans, who argue his policies hinder domestic production, especially on federal lands. They claim his administration’s energy stance undermines U.S. energy security. However, the record production is largely due to market dynamics and efficient drilling technologies, not presidential actions. The Biden administration’s policies have evolved, including approving the controversial Willow drilling project in Alaska, as global events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising gas prices prompted a more pragmatic approach to fossil fuels.
The U.S. is also exporting as much oil as Saudi Arabia or Russia produces, underlining the strength of its energy sector. However, experts caution that while Biden’s energy policy initially leaned toward climate action, geopolitical realities have forced shifts in strategy.
(According to Chat GPT, “The U.S. both uses and exports the oil it produces. While domestic consumption still makes up the majority of U.S. oil use, the country has increasingly been exporting oil as production has risen. As of recent years, U.S. oil exports have been growing significantly, with the U.S. exporting as much crude oil, refined products, and natural gas liquids as major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia. This has become a notable aspect of the U.S. energy landscape, with energy exports reaching levels that were once unimaginable.
In terms of energy independence, the U.S. is indeed more energy-independent than it has been in decades, primarily due to the surge in oil production, particularly from shale oil. While the U.S. still imports some oil, particularly from countries like Canada, it now produces enough to meet a significant portion of its domestic needs and even exports surplus production. This shift has reduced the reliance on foreign oil, a key measure of energy independence. However, the U.S. remains interconnected with global energy markets, which means that while it’s less dependent on foreign oil, it still plays a role in global oil dynamics).
7 undeniable climate change facts - Environmental Defense Fund; 2022
Social media spreads misinformation rapidly — a 2018 MIT study found that false stories spread six times faster than true ones, making it vital to counter climate change myths by consistently sharing verified information. First, climate change is real, human-made, and backed by overwhelming scientific consensus: NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, and nearly 97% of climate scientists worldwide agree on this (Fact 1). Second, major reports like the National Climate Assessment (NCA) — authored by NOAA, NASA, the Department of Defense, and experts from 10 other agencies — are rigorously based on up-to-date, peer-reviewed science and match findings from thousands of scientists globally (Fact 2). For instance, the NCA cited studies showing human influence increased Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall by 15–38%. Third, climate studies are highly transparent: the NCA report underwent public comment periods, external expert review, and required authors to respond to every public comment (Fact 3).
Fourth, addressing climate change will boost the economy rather than harm it. Citibank projects that failing to act could cost more than $40 trillion by 2060, while investment in clean energy already supports over 4 million American jobs, far exceeding employment in coal (Fact 4). Fifth, climate scientists often volunteer their time — authors of the NCA, for example, were not paid for their contributions (Fact 5). Sixth, federal climate reports are credible because they are written by career scientists, not politicians. These independent civil servants base their work on evidence, not political agendas. Even peer-reviewed internal studies from ExxonMobil (1977–2014) acknowledged the human role in climate change in 83% of cases (Fact 6).
Finally, seventh, climate reports consider a wide range of future scenarios. Both the NCA and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assess multiple outcomes — from technological innovations removing atmospheric CO₂, to catastrophic futures driven by inaction (Fact 7). The article emphasizes that combating misinformation requires not just rebuttal, but continually reinforcing accurate, credible science at every opportunity.
What Is the Evidence for Human-Caused Climate Change? - CalTech
NASA’s Global Climate Change website provides the public with accurate and timely news and information about Earth’s changing climate along with current data and visualizations presented from the unique perspective of one of the world’s leading climate research agencies. The website is produced by a team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech manages for NASA. The following information is sourced from the Global Climate Change website. that 97 percent or more of climate scientists agree: human-caused climate change is real and ongoing.
Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.
Rapid and large changes in warming
Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. In the past 650,000 years, there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era—and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that alter the amount of energy our planet receives from the sun. But the warming we’ve seen over the past few decades is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit and too large to be caused by solar activity.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last ice age.
Observable evidence of rapid climate change includes:
Global temperature rise
Warming ocean
Shrinking ice sheets
Retreating glaciers
Decreased snow cover
Sea level rise
Declining arctic sea ice
Extreme weather events
Ocean acidification
Greenhouse effect
Scientists attribute the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century to the human expansion of the “greenhouse effect”—warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. Certain gases in the atmosphere block heat from escaping. The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.
Over the past century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). This happens because the coal- or oil-burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2.
The role of human activity
CO2 levels in Earth’s atmosphere have increased from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 414 ppm in the past 150 years. (Scientists use ppm to measure what fraction of the air is made up of a certain molecule, in this case CO2. One ppm of CO2 would mean that for every 1 million air molecules you breathe in, one would be CO2.)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization that includes 195 member countries and thousands of independent scientific experts, published a Synthesis Report in March 2023. It concluded that human activities, principally through greenhouse gas emissions, have unequivocally caused global warming. The main drivers of these emissions are energy use, land use, and the consumption and production of goods.
Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people - Yale Climate Connections; 2022
The scientific consensus that climate change is real and human-caused has been firmly established through decades of research. Climate investigation began in the 19th century, and by the early 2000s, it had coalesced into widespread agreement on the causes and effects of global warming. Core data comes from satellite records, ocean and air temperatures, ice cores, atmospheric composition, and climate models. In 1988, the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to regularly assess this science. In 2013, the IPCC concluded that the evidence for climate warming is “unequivocal,” primarily driven by human burning of fossil fuels.
The IPCC is not alone in its findings. According to NASA, over 200 scientific organizations, 11 international science academies, and 18 U.S. science associations have issued statements supporting the consensus on human-caused climate change. Amanda Staudt, senior director at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, noted that the U.S. first studied warming from CO₂ increases in 1979. Remarkably, that early study predicted the warming accurately, and its conclusions have only grown stronger. Staudt emphasized that the scientific process is inherently skeptical, requiring multiple layers of peer review, expert committee discussions, and resolution of critiques before any conclusions are accepted.
Further support for this consensus comes from a major study led by John Cook at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University. Cook and colleagues analyzed nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed climate papers and found that 97% of those taking a position endorsed the view that humans are the primary cause of recent warming. According to NASA, this 97% agreement among actively publishing climate scientists is consistent across multiple peer-reviewed studies. Cook observed that by 2013, the consensus had become so robust that many scientists no longer even felt the need to state it explicitly in new papers—a testament to how settled the science has become.
The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia. - Nasa: Global Climate Change
The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.
Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.
The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia.1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.
Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.
Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century.2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.
“Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.
It’s important to remember that scientists always focus on the evidence, not on opinions. Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate. This is based on over a century of scientific evidence forming the structural backbone of today’s civilization.
NASA Global Climate Change presents the state of scientific knowledge about climate change while highlighting the role NASA plays in better understanding our home planet. This effort includes citing multiple peer-reviewed studies from research groups across the world,1 illustrating the accuracy and consensus of research results (in this case, the scientific consensus on climate change) consistent with NASA’s scientific research portfolio.
With that said, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.
AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
Statement on Climate Change from 18 Scientific Associations
“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.” (2009)
American Association for the Advancement of Science
“Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening.” (2014
American Chemical Society
“The Earth’s climate is changing in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter in the atmosphere, largely as the result of human activities.” (2016-2019)
American Geophysical Union
“Based on extensive scientific evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. There is no alterative explanation supported by convincing evidence.” (2019)
American Medical Association
“Our AMA … supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.” (2019)
American Meteorological Society
“Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades … The IPCC (2013), USGCRP (2017), and USGCRP (2018) indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century.” (2019)
American Physical Society
“Earth’s changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century.” (2015)
The Geological Society of America
“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Melillo et al., 2014) that global climate has warmed in response to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases … Human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) are the dominant cause of the rapid warming since the middle 1900s (IPCC, 2013).” (2015)
SCIENCE ACADEMIES
International Academies: Joint Statement
“Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001).” (2005, 11 international science academies)
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
“Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions.”
U.S. Global Change Research Program
“Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.” (2018, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
“It is unequivocal that the increase of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the industrial era is the result of human activities and that human influence is the principal driver of many changes observed across the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere.
“Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact.”
200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action.
10 MYTHS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE - World Wildlife Fund
Debunked Climate Myths & Key Facts
Myth 1: “The Earth’s climate has always changed”
It’s true that Earth’s climate has changed over geological time, but the current rate of warming is unprecedented—what once happened over hundreds of thousands of years is now happening in decades.
17 of the 18 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, closely tracking with increased atmospheric CO₂ from human activity.
This is anthropogenic climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels and deforestation.
Myth 2: “Plants need carbon dioxide, so more is good”
While plants do require CO₂, there’s a limit to how much they can absorb, especially as deforestation continues.
The current level of atmospheric CO₂ is higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years, making the problem about quantity, not the existence of CO₂.
Myth 3: “Global warming isn’t real because it’s still cold sometimes”
Global warming refers to the rise in Earth’s average temperature, which leads to more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns.
Climate change is causing more intense storms, heatwaves, droughts, and paradoxically, increased snowfall in some regions due to changes in atmospheric circulation.
Myth 4: “Climate change is a future problem”
Climate change is already affecting food security, migration, public health, and global stability.
A 2018 IPCC report warned that we had 12 years to limit warming to 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic effects.
Immediate action is needed—this is the defining environmental crisis of our time.
Myth 5: “Renewable energy is just a money-making scheme”
Contrary to this belief, solar and wind power are now among the cheapest energy sources, outperforming fossil fuels in cost efficiency.
Despite this, governments like the UK still heavily subsidize fossil fuels—in the UK’s case, over €12 billion annually, the highest in the EU.
Myth 6: “Polar bear numbers are increasing”
Climate change is the primary threat to polar bears as melting Arctic sea ice limits their access to food and suitable denning conditions.
Sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year, affecting both polar bears and their main prey, seals.
Scientists project a 30% decline in polar bear populations by mid-century.
Myth 7: “Renewables only work when it’s sunny or windy”
Advances in energy storage and smart grid technology allow us to manage electricity supply effectively, even during low wind or sun periods.
In the UK, for instance, switching to a green energy provider ensures your usage is matched with renewable energy added to the grid.
Myth 8: “Animals will adapt to climate change”
Some species are adapting, but many can’t move fast enough or lack the habitat mobility needed to survive.
Urbanization and infrastructure like roads and dams prevent migration.
The speed of climate change is outpacing natural adaptation for many plants and animals.
Myth 9: “Getting rid of humans would solve climate change”
This fatalistic view ignores our capacity to fix the problem.
According to WWF, the necessary technology and systems for sustainability and 100% renewable energy by 2045 already exist.
The challenge is political and economic will, not technical feasibility.
Myth 10: “China is the only country responsible for climate change”
While China is a major emitter, it is also a top investor in renewable energy and is responding to domestic pollution concerns.
Climate change is a global issue, and responsibility lies with all nations, including historically high emitters like the U.S. and EU.
Global cooperation and action are essential to effective climate solutions.
Additional Key Insight: Food and Emissions
Food production accounts for 25% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, impacting climate, biodiversity, and ecosystems.
To support a healthy planet, we must rethink what we eat and how it’s produced.
