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The scientists working for Exxon got exactly the same results and made the same predictions as everyone else, but the fossil fuel industry put on a massive PR campaign denying their own findings.

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In retirement, I’ve been occupied with climate studies and communication. My business card has this legend: It’s real! It’s us! Experts agree! It’s bad! There’s hope! Yes, it (climate change) is real. The science is basic physics, and to cut to the chase, do you accept the validity of the science personally? Hmm?

Here’s the test: If you “believe” in refrigerators (Got a cold one?), and if you “believe” in airplanes (Would you let your grandkids fly to see you?), then, yup, you are, in fact, on board with the science.

It’s us. Yes. On a geologic time scale, the earth should be cooling toward the next ice age. But, beginning with our massive burning of coal/fossil fuels, we have put enough CO2 in the atmosphere, we have trapped and are trapping so much extra heat, that we have overcome the earth’s natural carbon cycle and the planet is warming instead.

Experts agree. Yes. Ninety-seven percent of practicing scientists and their research support warming and that human activity is the cause.

It’s bad. Yes. The earth’s global average temperature has been remarkably stable (+/- half a degree Celsius) over the last 10,000 years. This has given people the stability and predictability to develop agriculture, build (and lose) civilizations, learn to cope with weather patterns, pests and pestilences. Basically, everything our planet needs to support life. We are now outside that historical safe zone and facing an unpredictable future.

There’s hope. Most assuredly. The strategies are known: Get off fossil fuel and transition to renewables. Make everything more energy efficient, reducing the energy we need. Sixty percent of energy used to generate power is lost as waste heat.

Wind power alone could power the earth 40 times over. Earth gets enough solar energy in one hour to power the earth for a year. We are realizing essentially unlimited geothermal energy (heat in the earth) is readily available. All the technology needed is now available, off the shelf. The terror we face is that we have wasted decades not taking action. The science is well known. The scientists working for Exxon got exactly the same results and made the same predictions as everyone else, but the fossil fuel industry put on a massive PR campaign denying their own findings.

President Lyndon Johnson, in 1965, was the first president to get a direct warning from science. The first Earth Day was in 1972 as a national “teach-in” on environmental issues — followed by establishment of the Environmental Protections Agency, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, all under a Republican president.

Earth Day is now celebrated in 141 countries worldwide and has morphed to include 192 countries signing on to the Paris Agreement on climate in 2015.

Going forward, we need to appreciate that the climate challenge gives us the motivation to rebuild civilization around new, better approaches to energy generation and management, using an efficiency imperative to put us more into a mode of cooperating with nature instead of fighting with nature.

The Netherlands are sharing their enlightened approach to living with flooding worldwide. Cities are recognizing the value in co-locating shops, recreation, health services and schools such that we burn less energy driving around. The world is showing that generating wind and solar power closer to where it is consumed makes the power infrastructure simpler, cheaper and much more resilient.

So. Got climate? Yes, we all do, and we all have a stake in looking forward to and demanding a healthier, cleaner, quieter and more equitable future for grandkids everywhere.