Marshall Shepherd on Climate Change

James Hansen's role in the debate about climate change started after studying the atmosphere of Venus with NASA. Hansen went to the University of Iowa and studied under Professor Van Allan, who taught him about climates, which led to his work with NASA, but it was not until he began to realize that the climate of his own planet was undergoing a serious and dramatic change that he really entered into the climate change debate. Hansen discovered that greenhouse gases on Earth were responsible for elevating the Earth's temperature to a dangerous level. He became particularly critical of the coal industry, whose pollutants into the atmosphere were viewed as very damaging to the protective layer.

Hansen is more than just a scientist, however; he is also an activist and has been arrested for protesting outside the White House. Thus, Hansen became involved in the climate change debate after first studying the atmosphere of Venus and noting the sulfuric conditions of that planet's atmosphere. Then it came to his attention that the atmosphere of Earth was much more interesting and relevant because it was ours and things were happening on our planet that are effectively harming the atmosphere. Thus, as an informed scientist, Hansen gives talks and demonstrations in order to raise awareness about climate change and steps that can be done in terms of carbon controls of certain industries in order to save the atmosphere.

Zombie theories are, according to Marshall Shepherd, "those theories that scientists have refuted or disproven time and time again, but they live on like zombies in the blogs and on the radio stations." Some zombie theories are theories such as "the world hasn't warmed in 16 years" and "Antarctic ice is growing" -- neither of which is true, according Shepherd. He looks at data from NASA, which illustrates the change in temperature of the globe over the past 100 years. This is how Shepherd disproves zombie theories -- using empirical data, hard facts, and gathered evidence. Shepherd also points that we cannot "cherry pick" the data, which some do in order to "disprove" climate change. What Shepherd emphasizes is that one must look at the data objectively. What he does in terms of the "hockey stick" graph regarding the planet's temperature is show that beginning with the Industrial Revolution, when so many unhealthy elements began being released into the atmosphere by Big Industry, the planet has been warming because of the damage done to the atmosphere. Shepherd looks at the overall big picture rather than at individual events. He does not look at individual storms or hurricanes and say this is because of climate change. Instead, he looks at the trends and shows that the trends indicate climate change.