EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report will discuss the evidence for and history of global warming in the broad sense of the term. It will make the case for the claims of climate scientists, and will also discuss dissenting arguments, misconceptions about global warming and the effects of climate change on Washington state (from the impacts on the state’s environment
to the potential repercussions on the social and economic fronts).

A significant portion of the report will also detail the history of the theory, from the Irish physicist’s John Tyndall’s first model of the greenhouse effect to the overt politicization of the subject around the late twentieth century. This will include examination of the methods used for measuring the planet’s warming phenomenon, from the increasing trends in
heat that has been trapped in the atmosphere to other direct effects such as the acidification of oceans and the detrimental effects on the polar ice caps.

A Streamlined Explanation of AGW

View of Olympia Capitol Building through the dew from a west side hill.

View from atop a Seattle rooftop urban farm, juxtaposing organic life with an urban landscape.

Wintry decay on an Evergreen beach.

Treetops near the Evergreen State College.

Murky waters in Capitol Lake.