We both recently attended “The Ecological and Evolutionary Implications of Climate Change Symposium”, where we had the pleasure of watching world-renowned speakers present their recent research advances and discuss some of the implications of future climatic change on global ecosystems.  After observing the unreceptive responses of the audience towards anyone who offered question or comment critical of the ‘causes’ of climate change, we feel that some of the student body at Lakehead University may be generally misinformed about certain aspects of the climate change paradigm, which prompted us to write a short article in the hope of ‘bringing to light’ some of the misconceptions surrounding the causes of climate change.
Somehow, possibly due to the desire of popular media and certain non-governmental organizations to connect climate change with human activity in order to sell stories and facilitate their personal agendas, respectively, ‘natural climatic change’ has become synonymous with ‘anthropogenic- or human-caused climatic change’ among the general public.  However, there is an important distinction between the two.  Natural climatic change is undeniable, as the earth’s climate is a dynamic system which has always been changing, and will continue to do so in the future, regardless of human activity.  Global mean annual temperatures, even during the past 500,000 years, have reached highs that have surpassed current values, while the earth has been generally warming since the end of the last ice age approximately 10,000 years ago.  Human-caused climatic change, in contrast, is the premise that recent changes in our climate can be totally or partially attributed to human activity via increased emissions of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and land-use change.  While there is no doubt that carbon dioxide levels have increased in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution, whether or not these increases are responsible for recent warming trends is not as clear as the media and local politicians would have you believe.
There are plenty of peer-reviewed articles in good journals by respected scientists that have studied the effects of climate change on various terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (many of which we have reviewed during our graduate studies), and rightly so, since we need to know the potential future impacts of climate change on our ecosystems in order to develop effective mitigation policies and procedures.  However, there are very few peer-reviewed articles which make the direct link between the recent observed changes in the earth’s climate and human activities.  Although various correlations have been drawn between these two variables, bear in mind that they are just correlations, and that correlation does not necessarily imply causality.
We do not deny that the human race as a whole must change their ways, as we can no longer continue to degrade our air, water, and soil and expect the integrity of the planet to not suffer dramatically.  We are also not denying that the earth is indeed warming, and that this warming will have tremendous consequences for all life on earth.  We are simply saying that the ‘human-caused climate change link’ is not as strong as many would have you believe.  It may eventually be shown that human activity has accelerated natural rates of global climatic warming; however, it is equally possible that humans are having no significant effect on the earth’s natural warming patterns.  Only greater research will resolve this critically-important question.
We recognize that there are propaganda machines at work for both sides of this argument, each with their own prejudices and personal biases that drive their respective agendas.  As students at an institution for higher learning, we must remember the importance of keeping our minds open to new ideas, while striving to evaluate the validity of new (and old) ideas critically.  However, even at universities, which regard ‘free exchange of ideas’ as a sacred tenet, it has become socially unpopular, and almost unacceptable, to take a stance critical of human-caused climatic change.  This lack of tolerance among the university community towards disbelievers of the existence of human-caused climate change (which became clearly prevalent at the aforementioned symposium) should be alarming for all.  If discussion of this topic has become ‘off-limits’, what could be next?

Brian Brassard
B.Sc., M.Sc.F.

and

Anthony Taylor
B.Sc., M.Sc.F.

Ph.D. Candidates in Forest Sciences
Faculty of Forestry and the Forest Environment