Climate Change is Real

Warnings about climate change are not new. In the late 19^th century, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a greenhouse effect, altering the surface temperature of the earth. By 1938, the English engineer and inventor Guy Callendar noted that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere would cause global warming.  

A memo dated January 13, 1965 to President Lyndon Johnson is the earliest known communication to the White House regarding carbon-dioxide-induced climate change.

In a 1969 memo to President Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel John Erlichman, Senator Daniel Moynihan stated, “Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the effect of a pane of glass in a greenhouse. The CO₂ content is normally in a stable cycle, but recently man has begun to introduce instability through the burning of fossil fuels. ... It is now pretty clearly agreed that the CO₂ content will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter. We have no data on Seattle.”

By 1979, The World Climate Conference of the World Meteorological Organization concluded that the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would impact earth by the end of the 20^th Century and become “significant” by the middle of the 21^st Century.

On August 1, 2018, The New York Times Magazine was devoted to one story:  “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.” The 30,000 word article, by author and journalist Nathaniel Rich, was a comprehensive narrative delineating the causes and dangers of climate change. Hundreds of scientists, academics, activists and politicians were interviewed. Derived from 18 months of Rich’s investigative reporting, his article covered the decades from 1979 to 1989, and was supported with graphic aerial photographs and videos. 

Rich’s article showed how close we came to solving climate change, but for a myriad of reasons it just did not happen. The reasons why climate change wasn’t slowed or stopped was most certainly related to corporate interests, but another reason for failure was the inability of experts and policy makers to develop a cohesive vision and plan for the future.

The article written by Nathaniel Rich evolved to become a book LOSING EARTH: A Climate History.  Rich’s book asserts that climate change is more than a tragedy; it’s a crime. Bad people knowingly and intentionally make the problem worse for their own short-term personal gain. There is also the assertion that the sins causing climate change are so egregious and outrageous that future generations will not forgive the perpetrators. 

Fast forward to 2025, the people who are in power would have you believe that climate change is a hoax, a con job, but they are intent on protecting their own financial interests. The crushing weight of the incontrovertible evidence of climate change proves it is a very real crisis. 

We are facing the inevitable collapse of ice sheets that will result in a 13 percent cut of the global G.D.P. per capita. Four hundred million people will suffer from lack of water. Major cities along the equator will become uninhabitable. In the northern regions, heat waves will kill thousands each summer. The changing migration patterns will impact every country in the world. Those who are in power have the exorbitant wealth to insulate themselves from the devastating effects of climate change, the rest of us do not share that privilege. 

According to a 2019 US Army report, “Americans could face a horrifically grim future from climate change involving blackouts, disease, thirst, starvation and war.” In 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers that climate change is a serious threat facing the United States. The Joint Chiefs of Staff further elaborated that climate change was the most serious threat facing the United States.

As of October 2025, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, has not issued any warnings about climate change. Over the duration of both of Trump’s presidencies, the administration has downplayed the threat of global warming and gutted both climate and environmental regulations. Many republicans deny the mounting evidence of climate change. For the republicans to deal with climate change would mean creating legislation that does not serve the financial interests of their donors—those powerful individuals and corporations—who contribute massive sums of money to their political campaigns.   

President Donald Trump lambasted world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly for pursuing solutions to combat climate change. During an address at the United Nations General Assembly, he claimed that climate change was a “con job,” and called people “stupid” for trying to take positive steps to reduce emissions. “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” he warned the UN General Assembly. 

Pope Leo XIV has recently spoken out in support of the Catholic Church’s environmental concerns and called for greater pressure to be placed on politicians to continue the work of his predecessor, Pope Francis. He asked world leaders to “act with courage” to fight climate change. “There is no room for indifference or resignation,” he said, inaugurating an international conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical ‘Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.

In a symbolic gesture, Pope Leo XIV blessed a large chunk of ice that had broken away from a glacier as a result of global warming. The ice block was found in the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland after becoming detached from the ice sheet. MAGA swiftly retaliated, calling him the “woke pope.”

The real scam is being perpetuated by a madman in the White House who is completely disconnected from reality. Rather, he is only concerned with his own reality, one that encompasses the very bad people who are making climate change worse for their own financial gain. The concept of taking care of the earth is not new. It is both normal and sane to take care of those things that have been entrusted to us. We must exhaust every remedy to fight to protect the earth, for all of us who live now, and for our future generations. 

LINKS:

Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change by Nathaniel Rich https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html   

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/28/energy-department-climate-change-emissions-banned-words-00583649

MAGA Has Come for the Woke Pope https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/pope-leo-woke-block-ice-maga-b2837946.html

Pope Leo XIV takes aim at climate skeptics as he embraces predecessor's environmental legacy https://www.the-independent.com/news/rome-pope-francis-god-donald-trump-jesus-christ-b2837483.html

Trump bashes ‘con job’ climate change during his UN speech and says ‘stupid people’ have cost countries by buying in https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-general-assembly-speech-climate-change-b2832185.html

World must come together to fight climate change, Pope Leo says https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/world-must-come-together-to-fight-climate-change-pope-leo-says