Unveiling the Real Cause of Climate Change, It Isn’t Carbon Dioxide

The scientific community doesn’t all agree on the core causes of climate change, and according to climate expert Willie Soon, humanity should look beyond Earth to find the source. The Earth’s rotation around the sun affects the planet’s temperature, says Soon, a visiting fellow on the Science Advisory Committee of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation. Glaciers, for example, “melted away because the sun started to get … brighter and provided more solar energy to the climate system,” according to Soon. Throughout his career, Soon, a former researcher with the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, says he has sought to pursue the facts surrounding shifts in the climate because “science is not about belief.” “Science is about data,” he said. Many people think that it is “rising carbon dioxide that is the main factor … that affects climate change, and that is wholly untrue,” Soon says. “That is such a distorted view that I think it needs to be corrected.” Climate change has strayed from being a scientific conversation to a hot-button political debate. But what are the facts surrounding climate change? Is climate change real? And if it is, what is causing the climate to change? Do we need to live in fear of climate change? Experts in the fields of climate and meteorology explain the history of climate change, its root causes, and the appropriate response to it. David Legates—a visiting fellow with the Science Advisory Committee in the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation and a former director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware—explains the history of climate change. According to Legates, “the climate is changing because it always has changed, and it always will change.” “We’ve gone through periods of lots of tornadoes, for example, and then a period where we have almost none,” Legates says. “We’ve gone through periods where we have lots of hurricanes. We have floods, we have droughts. We go through periodic cycles. So, the climate is sort of the backdrop on which weather plays its randomness, if you want. So, climate does change, always has changed, and as far as I’m concerned, always will change.” Legates goes on to explain what is known about climate change through the ages and the similarities between climate change patterns today and those seen in the past.