The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

By RICHARD A. MULLER

Published: July 28, 2012

The New York Times

“CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.”

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Richard A. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow. He is the author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.”