Misconceptions about Climate Change - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep. 43) | Mental Floss

Hi, I'm Elliot, and this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Today, I'm going to talk about some misconceptions about climate change, which I know is sometimes a controversial subject

but we're going to have a lot of fun together, I promise. Misconception number one, climate is the same as weather

The main difference is that weather is short-term and climate is long-term. So, weather is what the atmosphere is doing right now

It's what you might look outside and describe. Sunny, rainy, hot, cold, etc. Climate, on the other hand, is a long-term pattern of weather in a location

To get an average like that, experts like to observe weather for at least 30 years

So they'll determine how much an area sees rain, heat, snow, etc. So when we talk about global warming, that's a reference to the increase in the Earth's temperature from year to year

That leads to climate change. Changes in things like seasonal conditions and precipitation. Misconception number two

Winters are cold, so global warming can't be real. When people say this, they're failing to understand the difference between climate and weather that I just described

It might be snowing where you are, but on average, temperatures are getting warmer

Every year, the Earth gets warmer by about 0.02 degrees Celsius, which might not sound like a lot

but according to the World Meteorological Organization, the warmest decade since modern temperature measurements were invented in 1850 was 2001 to 2010

You might not experience this depending on where you live, though. Like in 2014 the U had its 34th warmest year ever but it was one of the hottest years ever on Earth Misconception number three scientists disagree that climate change is happening This might seem like an obvious one but apparently it not because a 2011 survey found that

40% of Americans agreed with the statement, there is a lot of disagreement among scientists

about whether or not global warming is happening. In fact, scientists are very much in agreement that global warming and climate change are happening

In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environmental Program created

an intergovernmental panel on climate change. The panel published a paper claiming that the scientific consensus was that the Earth

was getting warmer thanks to human activity. Later, a group yzed 928 abstracts from scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 that

contained the phrase climate change. They found that exactly zero of these papers claimed that global warming was still a point

of disagreement among scientists. Misconception at number four, there's a hole in the ozone layer which is why there's climate change

So, the ozone layer is basically a shield in the Earth's stratosphere protecting us from the UV radiation that comes from the sun. In the 80s, experts discovered that this layer was being

depleted largely due to chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. But after an international effort to ban

CFCs, the hole has started to recover. And actually, it's this recovery that might cause

some warming by trapping more heat. The warming should be minor, largely limited to Antarctica

and it's universally agreed that this tiny bit of warming is preferable to having an ozone hole

Scientists primarily blame climate change on the carbon dioxide that gets emitted when humans use things like electricity transportation and industrial processes So let talk about carbon dioxide Misconception number five Carbon dioxide is natural so it not bad for the environment

So, carbon dioxide is natural and it exists in the Earth's atmosphere. But when humans pollute the air with tons of carbon dioxide, it's bad because that

can mess up the Earth's carbon cycle, which impacts everything from the atmosphere to

oceans to animals. And we do emit a lot of it. Like, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 82% of all greenhouse gas

emissions from the US were carbon dioxide in 2013. And that directly leads to global warming

Misconception at number 6, global warming is just a response to Europe's Little Ice Age

It's true that Europe had a Little Ice Age, as you will remember from our episode on the United States

No one knows exactly when it started, but experts think it ended during the late 19th century or early 20th century

So some believe that global warming is just a natural bounce back from those cold temperatures

But according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming cannot simply

be considered as a recovery from the Little Ice Age. Misconception number seven, climate change is just a natural process

It's true that climate naturally fluctuates, that's why we have things like the Little Ice Age in Europe, but scientists are able to include these fluctuations in their calculations

when they study climate change. Because that's their jobs, okay? So they know that in addition to natural processes, humans are speeding up climate change by increasing

carbon dioxide in the air. Misconception at number eight, the sun causes global warming

The sun does get brighter and dimmer. This can be measured in total solar irradiance or TSI NASA has observed that this tends to happen in an 11 solar cycle But right now we actually in a dimming phase so it probably not making the Earth warmer And again this has been going on for so long that scientists can take it into consideration

when they calculate climate change. According to the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a report written in 2009 by 26 climate scientists

the incoming solar radiation has been almost constant over the past 50 years

apart from the well-known 11-year solar cycle. In fact, it has slightly decreased over this period

Misconception at number nine, nuclear power contributes to climate change. Actually, some experts would prefer if we used nuclear power because it is low carbon

electricity, which doesn't burn fossil fuels. 20% of the United States power comes from nuclear plants, and according to expert James

Hansen of Columbia University, this saves us about 64 billion metric tons of greenhouse

gas pollution each year. Misconception number 10, it's too late to solve climate change

This is definitely the most controversial one on the list, but we have to end on a happy note

Obviously, some scientists are more optimistic than others. Many world leaders have pledged to prevent global warming from increasing over 2 degrees

Celsius by 2050. But according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that means

greenhouse gases will need to be reduced between 40 and 70 percent worldwide by that time

Hey, if you have a topic for an upcoming Misconceptions episode that you would like to see, leave it in the comments. And thank you for watching Misconceptions on Mental Floss

on YouTube, and I will see you next week. Bye