[“I am a failure!” Nye exclaimed when reflecting back on the shows he created over two decades ago about the Earth’s warming.]
First step in CCA (Climate Change Anonymous)
Some things are just doomed to failure from the first. And anthropogenic climate change is among that number.
First of all, there are SO many variables that are a part of climate change, that whatever actions that mankind takes to either enhance or diminish the effects of climatic conditions are all probably self-canceling. Admittedly, in a very small scale and in a very limited way, it may be possible to affect a microclimate, withing a specified and strictly delimited space, but these effects are simply lost in comparison to all the other factors, like spitting in the ocean is going to change the sea level. While you were in the act of spitting, the effect of evaporation taking up water vapor for the ocean’s surface has already offset that act, and the rains falling elsewhere on the planet have restored the levels that were not perceptibly altered to begin with.
The conditions of the climate in Year 1920, or 1950, or 1980, or 2010, are not carved in stone. And even if they were, stone does erode over time. There are plenty of factors the may impact the climate that alter over time, and mankind is in no position to halt or accelerate that change.
And certainly, more than any thing else that has been offered as a “change agent”, carbon dioxide simply is not an agent of sufficient impact, in and of itself, to effect ANY change. It is but a marker of change that has occurred in conjunction with other much more powerful change agents, most particularly solar radiation, and volcanic eruptions.
Considering he is not an actual scientist, but an actor, he shouldn’t be so hard on himself.