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The Truth Behind the Headlines: Fact, Fiction, and the Future of Our Planet

Top: crowded political protest with signs and confrontation; bottom: vibrant green landscape with people planting, biking, and promoting clean energy

Real issues are constantly being manipulated by politicians to hold themselves in a more favorable light. The larger the issue, the more it is manipulated. Climate change is a real issue, but recently it has diverged into a political debate centered more on opposing parties than on the issue itself^[¹^,²^]. While democratic politicians have used fear mongering to gain power, republican politicians have claimed that climate change is not real at all.

Recently, when scientists decided that the worst possible outcome was no longer expected^[⁵^,⁶^], Trump and other republican politicians used this as a chance to claim that all negative outcomes of climate change are not possible^[⁷^]. This manipulation of data is common in the political world, but a problem arises when changes are made based on the manipulated data.

Trump and other republican politicians have used manipulated data to stop almost all action towards climate change^[³^,⁸^], withdrawing from the Paris Agreement^[³^,⁴^] (of which all countries except for Iran, Libya, and Yemen were part of)^[⁸^], halting important research on climate change relating to human health and wellbeing, and dismissing nearly 400 scientists who are dedicated to researching climate change^[⁹^,¹⁰^]. Because climate change is so often manipulated by politicians, a source of truth is needed now more than ever. Below, we will state the facts and leave you to draw your own conclusions. Here is the truth, unedited.

Over their many years of research, scientists have assembled a prediction database of the most realistic climate change predictions. As new changes are made and more data is gathered, some of these predictions are naturally vetoed, slowly working towards the most likely climate change scenario. As more and more predictions are rejected, the remaining predictions have higher probabilities of becoming true. In this way, scientists have been slowly narrowing down predictions to give the most likely scenarios.

In the past few years, climate scientists, economists, energy systems modellers, and other researchers from all over the globe have collaboratively compiled the most likely scenarios likely to occur in the next 100 years. These are known as the “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways”^[⁶^,¹¹^].

Name	Status	CO₂ Emissions	Warming (°C)
SSP1-1.9	Best Scenario	Net zero is achieved by 2050.	1.4°C by 2100
SSP1-2.6	Possible Scenario	Net zero is achieved in the time period 2050–2100.	1.8°C by 2100
SSP2-4.5	Current Baseline	Emissions stay at current levels until 2050, then begin to slowly decline. Fail to reach net zero by 2100.	2.7°C by 2100
SSP3-7.0	Possible Scenario	Carbon & Methane emissions double by 2100.	~3.6°C (2.8 – 4.6°C) by 2100
SSP5-8.5	Retracted Scenario	CO₂ emissions triple by 2075.	4.4–5.7°C by 2100 (Catastrophic).

Above: Table of top 5 Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP). For reference, the Paris Agreement aims for 1.5°C of warming by 2100^[¹^,¹²^].

In the journal “Nature”, scientists had originally published a worst case scenario, known as SSP5-8.5. This predicted that CO₂ emissions would double by 2075, and there would be catastrophic warming by 2100. However, Nature recently retracted the article^[¹³^] after finding flawed data in the study. The study would require global coal consumption to expand unrealistically, as well as unexpected surges in greenhouse gas economic activity.

Though this singular study was found to be flawed, the other scenarios remain equally valid, if not more. The remaining scenarios are all still real concerns and predictions. As more scenarios are rejected, the remaining scenarios simply grow more likely^[⁵^,⁶^].

However, this data was arguably manipulated upon releasement. Media and politicians adjusted how they released the data to represent them in favorable ways^[⁶^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^].

The democratic party has historically taken the data scientists have given related to climate change and twisted it to make it appear as if climate change is an extreme crisis.^[⁶^,¹¹^,¹³^,¹⁶^] In order to secure more votes and public support, the democratic party has made climate change appear as an irreparable crisis only solvable by themselves^[¹⁴^,¹⁵^]. This has inspired fear mongering^[¹⁷^,¹⁶^], and, as these unrealistic predictions made by the democratic party have failed to come true, has sparked distrust from US citizens^[¹⁵^,¹⁸^].

On the other hand, the republican party, and specifically Trump, have twisted the data as well to make it seem as though climate change is a hoax and utterly nonexistent^[³^,⁴^,⁸^,¹⁰^]. Trump has attempted to convince the public that climate change does not exist, stating, “The ‘carbon footprint’ is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions…”, and “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”. These statements, intended to spark support to pull money away from combating climate change, are simply another form of political propaganda^[¹⁸^,¹⁵^].

Both parties have used different methods to gain support^[¹⁹^]. While the democratic party has attempted to use fear to their advantage, they have ultimately lost trust in doing so. The republican party has taken advantage of this to expand the distrust of the democratic party, and pull critical money from efforts to combat climate change.

The USA is not two separate parties of citizens and politicians who must constantly disagree. The first word in the name, “United”, signifies what the USA is modeled after. We are not two different parties against each other. Just because a citizen is democratic does not mean they must agree with everything democratic politicians claim; nor must they disagree with anything republican politicians claim, and vice versa. Throughout the countless disagreements and discussions which have taken place in the USA, the citizens have split into two disagreeing parties.

Recall the definition of republican and democratic: they simply represent different types of government. Democrats emphasize state’s rights while republicans support tax reductions. These parties are not meant to drive citizens against each other; instead, they are meant to capture the overall wish of the USA with opposing politicians.^[²⁰^,²¹^]

It is imperative that we retain a clear, open-minded perspective and are not blinded by our support for one specific party. No person is ever always right; no party is ever always right. There will inevitably always be scenarios where you are proven wrong, and scenarios when you are proven right, and political statements must always be listened to with skepticism.

In conclusion, scientists have developed 5 possible scenarios relating to the future of climate change. However, after one of the scenarios was found to be flawed, the journal Nature retracted the publication on it. Because there is one less possibility to take into account, the remaining 4 possible scenarios are more likely than before. Climate change is very real. While it is not as exaggerated as the democratic party has led citizens to believe, it is also existent. The republican party’s claims that climate change is a hoax is likewise not true. Throughout this debate, we have forgotten who we represent; Not a politician, or a specific party, but the United States of America as a whole, and it is in the mutual interest of improving our country that we must act.