One could ramble on all day with examples of change, but it probably wouldn’t do a thing to alter fixed beliefs.
That's true. In order to alter fixed beliefs, one has to have an enquiring mind and do one's own research using one's own capacity for rational thinking and common sense.
Why would anyone disbelieve the opinion of qualified scientists in a particular field of study? I certainly didn't when the alarm about CO2 emissions became a major issue in the media, around 20 to 30 years ago.
However, I found the subject interesting, and the alarming issues raised by certain scientist interviewed in the media caused me to do some research to find answers to questions that were never raised during such interviews.
One of the first examples that I remember was the danger of 'ocean acidification'. The scientists being interviewed were never asked what the current pH of the oceans are. However, I asked myself, because I have an enquiring mind. Are the oceans normally acidic, or alkaline, or neutral?
After searching on the internet and Google Scholar, I was amazed to find that most scientific research claimed the pH of the ocean surfaces, on average, have fallen from a pH of 8.2 to 8.1 since the beginning of the industrial revolution. A pH of 7 is neutral. Below 7 is acidic, and above 7 is alkaline. However, further research revealed that the pH of the oceans varies, up and down, by far more than 0.1 pH, according to the depth of the ocean, the location of the ocean, and the season of the year.
A change of 0.1 pH over 150 years doesn't sound alarming to me, and I suspect it wouldn't sound alarming to the public in general, which is why such basic facts were never mentioned during the interviews.
After many investigations on alarming issues associated with rising CO2 levels, it became very obvious to me that there is a very strong bias in the media, and politics, and certain scientific organizations that are funded on the basis that CO2 emissions are an existential threat.
Anything that is good about rising CO2 levels and a warming climate, tends to be ignored by the mainstream media and by politicians. The focus is always on the bad aspects. That's not good science, and I hope Trump will fix this.
For example, how often have you heard that more people are now dying from heat waves due to global warming, and how often have you heard that, globally, far more people die from excessive cold, so it's likely that fewer people, in total, are now dying from extreme temperature events, as a result of global warming?
How often have you heard on the MSM that CO2 is a trace gas that is essential for all life and that all plants thrive in elevated CO2 levels (some types more than others of course)? How often have you heard that satellite imagery during the past 35 years reveals that the leaf coverage on our planet has dramatically increased by an area equivalent to the entire continent of the USA, mainly due to rising CO2 levels? In other words, despite our urbanization and deforestation, the planet is greening due to our use of fossil fuels. How terrible!
Don't you think it is silly to call CO2 a pollutant?
