About the Site This site was born of a desire to teach. It was also born of frustration that my students (and the public) were being inundated with disinformation about climate change, and that they had little background to instantly evaluate every single claim themselves.  And why should they? The complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the topic is monumental, as is the amount of information (of all sorts). A search of the peer-reviewed literature for "climate change" or "global warming" finds over 54,000 scientific articles. A web search? Tens of millions of pages! This came to a head during one week in the Fall of 2009 when I attended a screening of the film, Not Evil Just Wrong, and then a talk given by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Here were my students, being told that global warming is a big lie by a man who subsequently wasn't able to correctly explain the greenhouse effect when asked!  That's like getting investment advice from somebody who can't explain what interest is...  Out of these two events came a flood of claims, one quickly after the other:  It was warmer in the 1930s (no it wasn't).  Humans have only contributed 3.4% of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (no, it's around 27%, whoops!). Global warming stopped (there's no evidence). Arctic sea ice is fine (it's been plummeting for 30 years!). And on and on.... My desire to explain the bases of these claims and to evaluate them on scientific grounds initially involved a month of intense research.  Having spent almost a decade studying the ecological effects of climate change and following the climate change literature, I still wanted to make sure that my information was accurate, up-to-date, and my conclusions sound.  I eventually compiled a presentation to address 11 claims frequently put forth by climate change skeptics, and first presented this at Wellesley College in November of 2009.  Since then I have given expanded and updated versions of this talk several times to various audiences and classes. Encouraged by my colleagues and students, I created this site to make my presentation available to the public in audio slideshow installments.  It is my goal to show the entire story, to take the time to explain and teach, and to let the data speak for themselves. -Alden Griffith Academic Background I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at Wellesley College.  Prior to this, I received my B.A. in biology from Wesleyan University and my Ph.D. from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  Primarily an ecologist, my original research includes ecological effects of climate and climate change and mechanisms/effects of invasive species.  I have authored/coauthored papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Ecology, Oecologia, and Biogeochemistry.