KEY CONCEPTS FOR COMMUNICATING THE ESSENCE AND URGENCY OF THE GLOBAL-WARMING CHALLENGE

Compelling evidence of climate change caused by human activity leads climate scientists to warn that humanity has a narrow window for effective action to stabilize anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to avoid unacceptable worldwide impacts. Meeting this challenge will require the understanding and active participation of an educated citizenry. It is incumbent upon the geosciences, whose disciplines are uniquely qualified to address the interrelated issues of climate and energy, to assume leadership in education at every level to raise public awareness of the challenges imposed by global warming.

Lucid explanation of selected key concepts has proven highly successful in communicating the essence and urgency of the global-warming challenge to science students and to the general public. These key concepts include: (1) the history of global warming science -- it is not new but is founded on theory, experimentation, calculation, measurement and rational analysis developed over nearly two centuries; (2) the roles of atmospheric greenhouse gases; (3) the importance of time and rate to the genesis, natural sequestration, and human release of fossil carbon and energy (“time travel”); (4) current atmospheric concentration and rate of increase of CO2 are far outside the range of natural variability (as archived by air bubbles in ice cores for 800,000 years); (5) climate models approximate the rapid rise of global temperature in the last three decades only if anthropogenic forcings are included; (6) delay in stabilizing GHG emissions ( a “business as usual” approach) may enable accumulating concentrations to push Earth's climate system past critical tipping points and trigger irreversible feedbacks that yield extreme consequences; (7) meeting the global-warming challenge will require relatively rapid and fundamental changes in global energy policy; and (8) the “third energy revolution” provides exciting opportunities for creativity and innovation in emerging energy technologies that will revitalize and expand existing industrial economies and stimulate developing economies.