In Wake of Important Climate Change Study, Analyzing an Instance of Big Oil's Misinformation Campaign

One of the world's leading climatologists published a study this week that proves the increase in "extreme weather events" in recent years cannot be statistically attributed to anything other than anthropogenic climate change.

James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, professor at Columbia University, and the man whom many consider the "godfather of global warming," has shown that there is no other explanation for the unprecedented rash of recent heat waves. The European heat wave of 2003, theRussian heat wave of 2010, and the Texas droughts in 2011 were the direct results of climate change, plain and simple.

And data suggest that there's much more where that came from.

"In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures," wrote Hansen in the Washington Post, "my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

"This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened," Hansen continued. "Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

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Harry Stevens is a Media Consultant for 3BL Media / Justmeans. After earning his Bachelors of Arts in international relations from the University of Puget Sound, Harry moved to Guatemala to do business development for Mercado Global, a fair trade fashion organization. Harry has written on social enterprise, sustainable finance, and fair trade for a number of popular blogs, including Justmeans and The Fair Trade Times. A serial road-tripper, Harry has been to forty-seven of the forty-eight contiguous states, and is actively seeking an excuse to visit Oklahoma. You can follow Harry on Twitter: @Harry_Stevens