Nine contrarians, some of whom are funded by oil industry sponsored think tanks, others who have zero scientific qualifications (Peter Thiel B.A, Alex Epstein B.A, I mean, come on), don't stack up against the thousands of qualified climate scientists of the IPCC.
The science is pretty straightforward. CO2 absorbs infrared energy from the sun, raising its temperature (If you want to measure the amount of CO2 in an air sample, guess how we do that? Shine infrared light through it from one side and measure how much is missing on the other end). That heat is transmitted to the rest of the atmosphere through collisions with the other molecules, N2, O2 etc.
We use 100 million barrels of oil a day, approximately 70% of which is burned. About 22 million tonnes of coal and 11 million cubic meters of natural gas are also burned per day. Add in methane and you're looking at almost 140 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent entering the atmosphere every day. We've been building up to this level gradually over the last century or more. That CO2 that we're burning every day sits in the atmosphere anywhere between 20 to 200 years, absorbing heat from the sun every minute of every day.
Nine contrarians, some of whom are funded by oil industry sponsored think tanks, others who have zero scientific qualifications (Peter Thiel B.A, Alex Epstein B.A, I mean, come on), don't stack up against the thousands of qualified climate scientists of the IPCC.
The science is pretty straightforward. CO2 absorbs infrared energy from the sun, raising its temperature (If you want to measure the amount of CO2 in an air sample, guess how we do that? Shine infrared light through it from one side and measure how much is missing on the other end). That heat is transmitted to the rest of the atmosphere through collisions with the other molecules, N2, O2 etc.
We use 100 million barrels of oil a day, approximately 70% of which is burned. About 22 million tonnes of coal and 11 million cubic meters of natural gas are also burned per day. Add in methane and you're looking at almost 140 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent entering the atmosphere every day. We've been building up to this level gradually over the last century or more. That CO2 that we're burning every day sits in the atmosphere anywhere between 20 to 200 years, absorbing heat from the sun every minute of every day.