Happer and his colleagues did not challenge that CO2 causes warming, but argued current warming was within the bounds of natural variability and that
human additions of greenhouse gases were an extremely small share of what nature throws up every year.
This is so because in
addition to the theological reasons given by Pope Francis recently: (a) it is a problem mostly caused by some nations and people emitting high - levels
of greenhouse gases (ghg) in one part
of the world who are harming or threatening tens
of millions
of living people and countless numbers
of future generations throughout the world who include some
of the world's poorest people who have done little to cause the problem, (b) the harms to many
of the world's most vulnerable victims
of climate change are potentially catastrophic, (c) many people most at risk from climate change often can't protect themselves by petitioning their governments; their best hope is that those causing the problem will see that justice requires them to greatly lower their ghg emissions, (d) to protect the world's most vulnerable people nations must limit their ghg emissions to levels that constitute their fair share
of safe global emissions, and, (e) climate change is preventing some people from enjoying the most basic
human rights including rights to life and security among others.
In
addition, this NOAA dataset also makes it perfectly clear that global climate change is not some simple linear function
of human greenhouse gases, as proposed by low - information elites and media.