A report released by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 shows that more than one-quarter of American citizens are climate change skeptics. These skeptics deny that the planet’s climate is changing, despite the fact that the scientific community as a whole is as certain as it can be that global warming is very much a problem. In fact, the discussion in the scientific community is not whether climate change is occurring, but how much of an impact humans are having and how problematic any changes we are making will be. Despite this, as few as 42% of the population of the United Stated believe that the majority of scientists are in agreement on the basic facts about global warming (Leiserowitz et al., 2013). There are several reasons …show more content…
Why are people unable to see past their false ideas? And why are the majority of these deniers political conservatives? One study by McCright et al. looked at the influence different ways of framing anthropogenic climate change (ACC) affect the views of the general public. They found that although none of the four positive frames used showed any consistent effects, exposure to an ACC denial counter-frame significantly reduced participants’ belief in ACC, trust in climate scientists, awareness of the consequences of ACC, and support for reducing our country’s green house gas emissions. I believe this is a result of humans’ generally stronger reactions to negative stimuli and emotions than positive – in this case, we are more convinced by arguments against a topic than we are for it. There is also the issue of cognitive dissonance – the feeling of discomfort caused by two or more inconsistent thoughts or actions. Climate change prevention measures pose a threat to many things right-wing conservatives are in support of: free markets, private property rights, and, especially, industrial capitalism – an economic system which thrives off of the consumption of fossil fuels. Taking serious actions against climate change would require a complete overturn of how our economy, government, and the economies and governments of other nations are structured – it would, for all intents and purposes, bring an end to the free-trade market. Rather than confront that their economic view is an unfortunately large contributing factor to global warming, it is easier to deny the phenomenon altogether. This is why, for change to occur, our first steps must be to inform and persuade these global warming skeptics of the
Many people’s opinions are influenced by political leaders and their beliefs, which can have a negative effect on science’s efforts. Mere word changes have shown to make a difference in people’s willingness to pay for taxes that they don’t necessarily support or are even aware of. The use of storytelling has shown to be a powerful means in communicating science to the public as well. Although education and science understanding are not directly correlated with the acceptance of climate science, there is evidence that shows that a brief explanation of greenhouse effects “enhance acceptance across the political spectrum”. Researching source credibility has also boosted the political acceptance of certain scientific information.
Mr. McKibben provides a strong argument call of action for everyone to take action against global warming. But he doesn 't just want action, Mr. Mckibben is demanding action now, and lots of it. Throughout the passage, Meltdown: Running Our of Time on Global Warming, the reader can examine the many ways that McKibben attempts to persuade others to join his movement. When one examines Bill McKibben 's use of rhetoric appeals, persuasive fallacies, and counter augments, A reader can analyze and understand the real claim that the writer is attempting to address.
Ehrlich, P. R., & Ehrlich, A. H. (1996). Betrayal of science and reason: How anti-environmental rhetoric threatens our future. Washington, D.C: Island Press.
Seeing climate change as an emergency doesn't always make people make actions because of many psychological barriers that limit the mitigation of climate change. Frantz and Mayer in their article" The Emergency of Climate Change: Why are We Failing to Take action? "Published in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (2009) and Gifford in " The Dragons of Inaction. Psychological Barriers That Limit Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation" published in American Psychology (2011), discussed the reasons why the American public are failing to take action to Climate Change even though they know that it is a grave issue. They also offered some suggestions that help in getting over those barriers.
Alleged Global Warming has been a hot topic and been widely reported in the American media since the 1970s. In March 2014, TED, a nonprofit committed to expanding ideas with short talks, gave a powerful presentation of the alleged current consequences of Global Warming in Gavin Schmidt’s (2014) talk: The emergent patterns of climate change. His claims are stark and he implores his audience to take the grave predictions of Global Warming seriously and not just write it off as insignificant. While Google Trends (2014) shows (graph 1) that search terms for global warming in the United States (red) have decreased while worldwide (blue) interest (image 1) fluctuates with India showing the most curiosity. Yet, not everyone agrees that Global Warming is real just as not everyone agrees that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health when scientific studies show otherwise. By defining Global Warming, giving the major arguments on both sides of the topic, and offering an overview of scientific studies, this paper will help one think critically and thoughtfully about Global Warming.
Climate change has been nothing, but controversial in the last fifty years. Climate change is a change in the average weather of a region or city. Scientists have opted to use the term "climate change" instead of global warming because as the Earth's average temperature changes, winds and ocean currents move heat around the globe in ways that can cool some areas, as well as warm others. There is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on the global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change. Ninety-seven percent of published scientific research concluded that climate change is real, problematic for the planet, and has been exacerbated by human activity. But what about the three percent that contradicts that?
Global warming and climate change in general is one of those subjects that I hold very close to my heart; not because I go around in my spare time hugging trees and gathering vegans in Toyota Priuses to form a peaceful protest against big oil, but because climate change is a subject that everyone and their mom likes to chime in on without really knowing that much about. If you even mention that term “global warming” in a group of people, even the person who you wouldn’t believe can even form a sentence has an opinion. People must feel like it makes them better than others because they can regurgitate whatever CNN and Fox tells them. I’ve done about two or three papers on climate change and global warming in my highschool career, and even though I was lucky enough to get to not talk about the subject since my freshman year, I guess this is the direction I chose to take for myself. Hopefully by the end of this I’ll convince you that there’s no reason to ever bring it up again and we’ll put the issue aside and worry about the real problems like getting the homeless jobs or deciding if we should just pass Marijuana and tax it until our economy stimulates.
Climate change created by human activity is one of, is the single biggest threat to life on earth, sea levels are rising at a rate double then that of the last century,400,000 people die a year from climate change related causes, and if we don’t do anything about it within 25 years, millions of people will suffer from disease, fall into poverty, and suffer from extreme hunger. Despite all the evidence, one of our country’s major political party refuses to acknowledge that climate change is man made or a threat.
For these reasons, global warming stands as one of the most daunting policy issues facing our world today. This is compounded by the debate over the very existence of climate change. While countless sources of empirical evidence testify to the very real presence of climate change the world over, considerable denial of the phenomenon still exists. The argument has been made that evidence about climate change is a gross overstatement, or in some cases, a complete fabrication. Despite the evidence to the contrary, many interest groups with considerable political clout have successfully perpetuated the argument that documented changes in the environment are a product of natural cyclical changes in climate, and are not associated with human activities. However, even the acceptance of this particular brand of reality is no grounds for the disregard of environmental consciousness. Even if one accepts the premise that recent climate change is not resultant of human activity, the rationale behind environmental conservation remains ...
Public Perception, Politics, and Policy Response Public perception of climate change is extremely important when it comes to the policy’s that are created in response to it. Without public support, it is very difficult to implement any real change in the fight against climate change. Schneider et al. , (2013) states that “public risk perceptions can fundamentally compel or constrain political, economic, and social action to address particular risks. For example, public support or opposition to climate policies will be greatly influenced by public perceptions of the risks and dangers of climate change” (Schneider et al., 2013, p. 177).
Though the scientific evidence seems overwhelming in favor of global warming, there are those, for various reasons, who believe that global warming is a hoax or not empirically verified. According to Renee Cho, who posted an article on the website, phys.org, four years ago, 23 percent of Americans did not believe global warming was happening and 33 percent believed that if it was happening, it was mostly caused by natural changes in the environment. An improvement from 2013, seventy percent of Americans now believe global warming is occurring, and more than half understand that it is mainly caused by human activity, a new report reveals. A 2017 survey reveals that 13 percent of Americans still do not believe global warming is happening,
Many people dedicate their lives to spread the message about climate change being real. Even though some change in the climate is natural, many events that have happened cannot be explained away by nature. Climate change is causing damage to the world that is completely irreversible. Nasa says, “Most scientists say it 's very likely that most of the warming since the mid-1900s is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. Burning these fuels is how we produce most of the energy that we use every day” (nasa). The energy that we use daily makes our life easier, but it hurts the earth. Why does the government still allow us to use these things? Science has shown us that sea levels are rising in many parts of the world. Warm weather is causing glaciers to melt which results in the sea level rising. Earth 's average temperature has been rising for the last century in a half; and there has also been a steady rise in ocean temperature since 1969. It is said that climate control is man made and it is dangerous. On the other side of the argument, many people do not believe that climate change is real. They argue that their has not been a big temperature change in almost two decades. They also bring up the point of there not being enough data in the climate history to draw the conclusion of what is happening in the climate now is abnormal. Scientist started to record climate change around the 1800’s which many people believe is not enough data to do a comparison. Another reason some believe that climate change is not real is because of some instances where a scientist predicts a date of a significant climate change never happens. Rinkesh writes, “ For example:- Al Gore predicted that all Arctic ice would be gone by 2013. But, on contrary Arctic ice is up by 50% since 2012” (conserve-energy-future). Many people find that these reasons are why climate change is not
The Earth is currently locked in perpetuating spiral of climate change. While the global climate has unarguably been changing since the dawn of it's manifestation, the once steadied ebb and flow of climate change has become increasingly more unpredictable.The risk of rising sea levels, and drought plaguing the fresh water supply, during the time that flooding and sporadic storm conditions turn once fully inhabited regions into uninhabitable death traps. Climate change catalyzed by human's increased production of carbon dioxide, is more noticeable than ever in our recorded history (United States, 2014 National Climate Assessment). Thankfully however, with the changing weather conditions due to carbon related emissions, the change in public opinion about their personalized influence on climate change is also increasing. Kevin Liptak Jethro Mullen, and Tom Cohen note that In reaction to the most recent governmental report on climate change, even the U.S. government believes that a stronger approach needs to be taken to correct our self-generated cataclysm.
The controversial subject of global warming according to a large amount of scientists is not a prominent concern. Over 31,000 scientists have signed on to a petition saying humans aren't causing global warming. More than 1000 scientists signed on to another report saying there is no global warming at all. There are tens of thousands of well-educated, mainstream scientists who do not agree that global warming is occurring at all. If so many scientists believe it is not a concern then why should we think any different? Well, a consensus shows that in reality 97% of all climate scientists agree that global warming is an issue and that it is most likely due to ...
Truth is regarded as bad news in most society today because people are ever trying to silence it and keep it repressed. The evasion of truth has many modern equivalents, one being our denial of the fact that our methods of producing and using energy are sickening our planets. We slip and slide around this idea. Deep inside, we whisper to ourselves: “if global warming is a real threat to future generations, what does that make me?”