It is a general agreement among scientists that climate change has come into reality and is accelerating. According to Live Science, global temperature averages are creeping upward, seas are warming, rising, and becoming more acidic, and extreme weather events, such as droughts, wildfires, floods, and powerful storms, seem to be more commonplace. However, there is still disagreement about what is the principal cause of this climate change: human activity or natural processes. 

Although the rise of sea levels is evidence of climate change, some do not believe that human activity is largely to blame. Some people mistakenly think that sea levels are getting higher because human-produced greenhouse gasses are heating the planet. However, interestingly, sea levels have been steadily rising for thousands of years, and the increase has little or nothing to do with humans. A 2014 report by Global Warming Policy Foundation found that a slow global sea level rise has been going on for the last 10,000 years. Scientists have also shown that in the past there have been periods of significant sea level change due to natural factors, such as the seasonal melting of ice sheets and glaciers which increases the amount of water in the oceans.

Adding on, people who oppose human activity as the principal cause of climate change claim that rising levels of atmospheric CO2 do not necessarily cause global warming. This statement contradicts the main argument of human-caused climate change. Earth's climate record shows that warming has preceded, not followed, a rise in CO2. According to a 2003 study published in “Science”, measurements of ice core samples show that over the last four climatic cycles (past 240,000 years), periods of natural global warming came before global increases in CO2. As ecologist Patrick Moore noted, "There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia." Furthermore, the Heartland Institute's 2013 report states that the earth "has not warmed significantly for the past 16 years despite an 8% increase in atmospheric CO2." Thus, increased levels of CO2, much of it from human activity, do not seem to significantly impact climate change. 

As the debate further develops, it seems to be important to reconsider the main motive of climate change.

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