global-warming

Reporting on the issue of climate change has sometimes been characterized by “false balance” — the tendency to cover scientific findings as if there were always two “sides” that each legitimately differed over facts. But over the past decade, the scientific consensus has grown even clearer: Global warming is happening and humans are the cause.

Current LED lamps are five times more efficient than incandescent lamps and have a much longer lifespan than compact fluorescent light bulbs. To evaluate a product’s true efficiency, however, its entire life must be taken into consideration, from manufacture through disposal.

Researchers from George Mason University asked nearly 500 scientists about climate change and the results were unequivocal: 84% agreed that human-induced global warming is occurring; and only 5% disagreed that human activity is a significant contributor. Yet when the Americans are asked what the most important problem facing society is, the answer is rarely climate change.

As anyone who lives on Earth can attest, weather is rarely “average.” However mild or extreme a climate may be, it can be relatively warm one day and cool the next; clouds appear or the sun breaks through; precipitation, if it occurs, tends to do so in bursts. Yet many climate models focus on “average” weather for a particular time and place, something that occurs only rarely in the real world.

On summer days, city air can be 5 or more degrees warmer than that in surrounding areas. Known as the “urban heat island effect,” it results in part from limited shade trees and the large surface area of pavement and dark roofing materials.