Is the earth's climate changing? Yes, and it has been changing since the earth formed 4,600,000,000 years ago. And it will continue to change long after the petroleum age is forgotten.
This book summarizes the science of climate change and the theory of global warming in a way that is understandable to ordinary people using a simple question and answer format. For those desirous of learning more, references to cited peer-reviewed scientific articles are provided. The book takes a geologic point of view, intentionally elevating data above predictions and forecasts, for this is what has made the scientific method so successful in advancing the human condition. The book does not discuss the politics of climate change, the economics, the merits of any particular policy direction or any point of view intentionally meant to favor one political party over another, whether liberal or conservative. Plenty of other books cover such topics. The book makes it clear that today's climate is changing, just as has been true for the entire history of the earth, climate has always changed. This is the way of the earth. For nearly all of earth history, climate changed without human intervention. Today, however, many who seem to know nothing of earth history argue that today's slight change in climate is due to human use of coal and oil. They say all one has to do is to look at the science. That's exactly what this book does. Let's see where it takes us.
"Beware of false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance."-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903 "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Unintentionally one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."-Sherlock Holmes in Sir Author Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia, 1891

"The tragedy of beautiful theories is that they are often destroyed by ugly facts."-Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a group of impoverished islands inhabited by some 70 million hungry people...If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."-Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute for Biology, September 1971