Environment It is a well accepted theory that climate change is being accelerated by humans, but is not known what the

rapid acceleration of climate change might be. This has led some scientists to back down somewhat on the urgency of the issue. On the other end of the spectrum, there are many people in the general public who disregard the idea that humans have had any effect on our climate. On average over the past 50 years, the global temperature has gone up. On the other hand, we have been in a period of little warmth over the past 15 years. Many believe that this is normal for the earth: alternating periods of warming and cooling. Kevin Trenberth, part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says otherwise. He estimates that human-induced changes to global temperature are happening 100 times faster than they would in nature, and this heat has been flowing into the oceans, explaining the period of little warmth. According to Trenberth, these periods cannot go on for more than 20 years, ending in a big jump of temperature. The warming of the oceans is not without its dangers. Trenberth estimates that Hurricane Sandy was 5 to 10 percent more powerful due to this warming. I reckon that without climate change, we would not have exceeded thresholds that caused the flooding of the subways in Manhattan and the tunnels from Manhattan to New Jersey and to Brooklyn, he says. Another scientist, Judith Curry, is not so certain about the climate change debate. She, along with other scientists, isnt certain about the effects of global warming on the climate. Because climate change occurs naturally, Curry says, the warming that humans cause may not have any real dangers to the planet. Curry believes that we shouldnt jeopardize our economic future to solve something that may not even be an issue.