CLAIM: A post is shared on Twitter, with a claim that climate change has been happening since the start of time and therefore, it can’t be helped.
The post, created on Oct. 23, has been retweeted 173 times, and liked by 186 tweeps with 307 comments as of Nov. 2, 2022.
“Climate change has been happening since the start of time it can’t be helped,” the claim is simply put.
Climate change has been happening since the start of time it can’t be helped.
— warren (@WarrenUK17) October 23, 2022
VERIFICATION: Climate change is the significant variation of average weather conditions, becoming, for example, warmer, wetter, or drier—over several decades or longer. It is the longer-term trend that differentiates climate change from natural weather variability.
It is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.
The variations in the temperatures over time are changing weather patterns and disrupting the usual balance of nature. This poses many risks to human beings and all other forms of life on Earth.
Causes
Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – according to the United Nations, are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
“As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the Earth, they trap the sun’s heat. This leads to global warming and climate change. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history,” the global intergovernmental organisation said on its website.
The starting point of Climate Change in the world
Changes in Earth’s climate according to NASA are observed since the middle of 20th century, and they are driven by human activities, notably fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperature.
Also, based on the CarbonBrief study, scientists generally regard the later part of the 19th century as the point at which human activity started influencing the climate. But a new study brings that date forward to the 1830s, these two dates still fall within the 19th century.
The study, published in the journal Nature, draws on a new record of tropical sea surface temperature dating back to 1500, captured in fossilised corals and tiny marine organisms.
The findings suggest the climate system responds to greenhouse gases quicker than thought, say the authors, with consequences for understanding future climate change.
Tracing The Origin
Scientists use observations from the ground, air, and space, along with computer models, to monitor and study past, present, and future climate change.
NASA states that climate data records provide evidence of climate change key indicators, such as global land and ocean temperature increases; rising sea levels; ice loss at Earth’s poles and in mountain glaciers; frequency and severity changes in extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover changes.
Is It Too Late To Prevent Climate Change?
Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still.
Nevertheless, NASA notes, if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years.
Temperatures, it said would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.
The US agency observed, however, that there is a time lag between what we do and when we feel it, but that lag is less than a decade.
“While the effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are irreversible on the timescale of humans alive today, every little bit of avoided future temperature increases results in less warming that would otherwise persist for essentially forever.
“The benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions occur on the same timescale as the political decisions that lead to those reductions.
Without major action to reduce emissions, global temperature is on track to rise by 2.5 °C to 4.5 °C (4.5 °F to 8 °F) by 2100, according to the latest estimates,” said the airspace research agency.
CONCLUSION: The claim that climate change has been happening since the start of time, and it can’t be helped is FALSE. Studies have traced the start point of the global phenomenon to between the mid of 19th century to the early 20th. Advanced researches also suggest that climate change can be reversed, but only if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases.