Okay, so sometimes the media gets things wrong. An eye-popping study appears on the wire and they're off and running. The media mostly has to - being the first to report and getting the most eyeballs is how part of their business model is structured.
The thing about global climate change is that it's not just the media who's reporting it, it's also the scientists who are originally studying it. Don't believe me? Take a look at the long list of prestigious scientific organizations on the NASA website who agree that global climate change is happening.1 There are statements issued by 18 of them and includes statements by the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science2, the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Association, the American Physical Society3, and The Geological Society of America.
Now look at when the statements were issued. The oldest one was issued in 2004 by the American Chemical Society. The chemists belong to this society. Their statement is the following:
Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem.
The newest statements were published in 2014 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (It's an intergovernmental organization which is probably why it took so long to reach consensus ...) They released two statements that year:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.
and
Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.
The most prestigious of the scientific societies in the United States is the US National Academy of Sciences. For those of you aren't familiar with them, they're the ones who publish the rather-exclusive-to-scientists journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their statement was issued in 2005:
The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
"Clearly indicate that climate change is real", "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", "recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history", "sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" - these quotations all come from people whose business model is structured on reporting scientific findings. The organizations are not governmental agencies, they're professional societies for scientists.
Just as important to remember is that strong wording like this is not usually found in the scientific literature. Oftentimes, words like "potential", "possible", or "worth further study" are the norm. Scientists are very cautious about making pronouncements. So, if they're using words like "clearly" or "unequivocal", it means we better pay attention.
Thanks to xkcd, here's another way to look at climate change.
Yep, climate change is not only scientific, it's real.
1Scientific consensus: Earth's climate is warming. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2017, from http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
2American Association for the Advancement of Science. (Dec 9 2006). AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change. Retrieved January 28, 2017, from http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/migrate/uploads/aaas_climate_sta...
3American Physical Soceity. (November 18, 2007). Climate Change. Retrieved January 28, 2017, from http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm