I know that climate changes. I see it every week. Right now, I’m seeing cool and wet weather. Two weeks ago, it was super hot and dry.

But then you say "climate isn’t weather". Oh yeah, I agree. Climate implies trends over a long period of time. So while you would say that I can’t call climate what happens over the period of weeks, why can’t I say climate happens longer than 100 years?

Greenland was once green. Maybe several times it was green since we don’t clearly know. We weren’t there and the ice cores don’t always show everything.

"Woolly" mammoths in Siberia (which is usually perpetually cold) had tropical vegetation in their guts and surrounding their bodies. So why tropical vegetation? Because it was once very warm. Many think that extinctions, including the dinosaurs, was due to a drastic climate change. And like we often do, we speculate, often without proof. So the mammoths were supposed to have woolly fur, like a yak, but they didn’t find fur. It was just graphically depicted like that because that is their hypothesis. When, in reality, it could have looked more like an elephant or a rhinoceros with a thick, mostly-hairless skin.

We see extreme rising levels of the Great Lakes this year. But we don’t have glaciers that melt around these lakes. Instead, it was a snowy Winter and a very wet Spring. In fact, in some places in Michigan, it was the 5th wettest Spring on record. Haha!!! So this brings me to another point. When you see the 5th wettest, or 2nd hottest, or whatever rank in history, often you look at the previous record as 1896 or 1910 A.D. That means first of all it was recorded. But, often these hottest, coldest, wettest, driest times were before the industrial revolution (early 1900’s). So if humans causes global temperature change, then what caused these changes in the past?

Cause and effect. They say people in France live long because of their diet. However, recent evidence shows that high levels of Resveratrol from red wine may cause an increase in longevity "despite their diet". In other words, they eat crappy, but the Resveratrol counters their excess. The scientific method states that we develop a hypothesis, one or more alternates hypotheses, and a null hypothesis. Then you test all of these hypotheses, not just the one that supports your supposition. Instead, non-scientists tend to only find a way to support their theory to call it a fact. When, in fact, this is not the case.

Want to know a secret? When I was part of the research faculty of a large university, I had to find problems. Or I had to create problems that weren’t problems. Then, I would propose research to solve those problems. So if I want money, I thrive on problems. The more you can convince the government and the public there is a problem, the more support you’ll get. Most research is biased toward continuing a research area with a perpetual problem and solutions that only you can solve. So if global warming is your expertise, you do everything you can to make this forefront in everyone’s minds. Its how research works.

Climate changes, but what is the true cause? To a toddler walking with mom down the street–they see a garbage truck go by and see smoke coming out of the exhaust. The elementary hypothesis they devise is, all pollution is from garbage trucks. But that’s how a toddler thinks.

I listened to a show on the radio yesterday. Some guy called in decrying plastics and ocean pollution caused by the U.S. When the real fact is that by a huge margin, many developing countries are responsible for a majority of the world’s pollution and plastics in the ocean. To some, its only greedy white people who cause problems. They can’t find it in themselves to look at facts. Everything is driven by emotion. And the science of emotion is futile.

Both myself and my wife got sick in Thailand from air pollution. We started to track our days and locations and even times of the day by how much air pollution there was. There are apps that show the Air Quality Index (AQI). If you look globally, nearly all of Asia, including China and India, are perpetually in the red (dangerous zone). The AQI in Thailand when we were there was near 700 at times. They closed the schools and universities the week before we arrived. We almost cancelled our trip. A research report shows that respiratory problems of native Thailanders is at epidemic levels. The same is likely true of most of Asia. When Thailand had an AQI of 700, back home in Illinois the AQI was 35, which is almost nil in comparison. So when we start pointing fingers at pollution at a global level, you need to point in the right direction.

Of course, you aren’t going to get this kind of education in colleges or the media. They are biased toward their research endeavors or books they write. Instead, its our fault. Everything is our fault. The first thing I’d do is start to really educate yourself because the education taught in schools is lacking. Its actually not that hard to find. You also need to learn the scientific method and a basic understanding of statistics. Its a better way to develop a framework for thought than solely abiding by emotions. All I see on social media and mainstream news is emotion. Emotion doesn’t pay the bills.

Climate is changing. It always has. But it will change whether we are here or not. Its much more complicated than a solely anthropocentric self-centeredness.