It's difficult to talk seriously about global warming and about the means to ameliorate the process to head off the disasters predicted.
Political adherence prevents people who otherwise have the requisite science and math skills from acknowledging that human activities are causing global warming despite the fact that 97 per cent of climate scientists (e.g. IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change) have come to that conclusion. Among the other 3 per cent are some whose doubts are honestly derived. That's to be expected as science, properly done, is tentative and measured in its conclusions and encouraging of contrary opinion. That contrary opinion, however, must be based in fact.
Far more nefarious are the efforts of some scientists, often with little expertise in climate science, to disseminate doubt and controversy where little or none exists. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, both professors of History of Science, spells out in detail how a handful of scientists - physicists with no medical experience - employed by the public relations firm for big tobacco companies, acted to obscure the truth about the relationship of smoking and cancer. Now the same cast of characters - the same physicists - employed by a consortium of fossil fuel companies, is doing its best to invent false controversy to discredit the scientific conclusion that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, i.e. human activity.
We are beginning to see the impact of global warming. The seas are rising. The tidal surge in Miami now results in seawater overpowering the sewerage system and flooding the streets. Some low-lying islands in the South Pacific are threatened with actual disappearance.
As the earth warms, the combination of cold air and warm water generates storms. Cyclones are becoming more frequent, more powerful and more devastating. Australia and California are seeing longer fire seasons. Droughts are becoming more prolonged and commonplace. Meanwhile, snowfalls are greater in some parts along with consequent spring floods.