In October 2011, I posted a link to preliminary findings from the Berkeley Earth Project in which they concluded warming was indeed occurring. Why was this a big deal given that the scientific community had long been in consensus on climate change? The study was largely funded by Koch Industries - a company owned by conservative oil magnates, David and Charles Koch.
On July 29 of this year, the Berkeley Earth Project released new analysis of warming over the previous 250 years:
The good match between the new temperature record and historical carbon dioxide records suggests that the most straight forward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions.
The principal investigator, Richard A. Muller, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in conjunction with that report. In his essay, Dr. Muller details the study’s methodologies, the findings, and how his personal worldview on climate changed has evolved:
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.
Maybe now we can shift partisan nonsense from the science to the policy surrounding climate change. Given the political climate in this country and the fact that many have been told what to think on the subject by career politicians, my guess is that isn’t likely anytime soon. Still, the thoughts from Dr. Muller offer hope.