“I get calls in the office asking me if climate change is a hoax or a liberal plot and those kinds of things,” said Vega.

Global change is real.

“What I’m going to tell you is the of result of consensus science — it’s observation — it’s data analysis,” said Vega.  “It stems from thousands of researchers across the world.  Every country on earth is involved in data collection for the world meteorological organizations as well as climate analysis.  There are only two countries not part of that – Iran and North Korea.”

Vega presented extensive historical records on weather patterns that show a marked increase in the temperature of the earth over many years, starting with its growth during the industrial revolution and increased use of fossil fuels.  The U.S. and China are the leaders in the use of fossil fuels in the world. There is no real debate among the scientific community that the earth is getting warmer.

Vega presented the following information:

• Anthropogenic carbon emissions have increased over 60% since 1990.

• Today equals 9.8 billion tons (gigatonnes) per year.

• Total atmospheric carbon from all volcanoes is .26 billion tons per year.

• Every 2.5 hours humanity releases about the same amount of carbon to the atmosphere that was injected into the atmosphere by the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.

• It would take 3504 Mount Saint Helens eruptions to add the same amount of human CO2 each year.

• Other greenhouse gases – CH4 and N2O – also increasing from human sources.

• As the earth warms, it also causes rising ocean levels.

One of the solutions to slow global climate change, according to Vega, is to wean ourselves from fossil fuels.