The Science of Global Warming
July was the hottest month ever recorded in the Lower 48 states, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Wednesday. Last month broke a record set during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, according to records that go back to 1895.
"Call me a converted skeptic," Richard Muller wrote in a July 30 op-ed published by The New York Times. In a turnabout last year, the UC Berkley physics professor concluded that global warming was, in fact, occurring. Now, he wrote, "I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause." NASA's James Hansen also recently confessed error. "When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind's use of fossil fuels. But I have a confession to make," Hansen admitted in The Washington Post. "I was too optimistic. My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather."
Sen. Bernie Sanders has citied both scientists as he pressed Congress to take climate change seriously and to counter claims by Sen. James Inhofe that global warming is a "hoax."
