Friend to Friend

What can I say to a new friend who is not familiar with climate change, but who is neutral and open-minded? How can I help her understand the magnitude and urgency of the issues without overwhelming her or worse still sounding like a raving fanatic? What should I say to an unbiased person who genuinely wants to understand what climate change is all about? Here are a few bullet points:

1. The Earth's climate has been stable for ten thousand years.
2. Since 1900, the Earth's average temperature has increased substantially, a trend even more noticeable since 1980.
3. Almost all of the warming is attributable to human activities, particularly emissions of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide and methane.
4. Already we are seeing the destructive effects on human existence of climate change related to global warming.
5. The dire consequences of continuing at this pace are hard to imagine and almost impossible to exaggerate.

The Science

1. Consensus: 97% of climate scientists are in full agreement with points 1-3 above and in substantive agreement with points 4 and 5.
2. Most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.
3. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports provide detailed discussions of this position.
4. The National Climate Assessment (NCA) Report of 2014 summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future.

The Politics

1. To mitigate climate change, aggressive reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are needed by the United States and other nations.
2. The threatened fossil (carbon) fuel industry has been bankrolling an immense campaign of disinformation using "doubt and delay" tactics.
3. This campaign is precisely reminiscent of a similar campaign by Big Tobacco against the health risks of tobacco several decades ago.
4. Technology is available now to economically and effectively switch to renewable clean energy sources if we have the political will to do so.

The Moral Choices

1. The effects of global warming will persist for hundreds of years. What are our responsibilities and duties today to help safeguard the distant future?
2. The devastations of climate change disproportionately affect the vulnerable and disadvantaged. What are our responsibilities to "the least of these?"

The March

1. In a bottom-up approach, nations take on self-determined obligations based on national priorities and circumstances: a “mosaic world.”
2. In a top-down process, a growing set of nations take on increasingly ambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets and carbon markets playing a central role.
3. Tension over these approaches are on display as nations commence serious negotiations to develop a post-2020 agreement to be concluded in Paris in late 2015.
4. "UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders, from government, finance, business, and civil society to Climate Summit 2014 this 23 September to galvanize and catalyze climate action."
5. The People's Climate March is "an invitation to change everything."

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