Because decisions can be made by governmental agencies concerning actions that reduce human impact on global warming, individuals have a responsibility to seek out factual information to aid them in voting decisions. This is a challenging endeavor; because much of today’s media coverage concerning human effect on global warming and climate change is vague, uses rhetorical devices, and offers fallacious reasoning, which influence society towards making decisions regardless of factual information. Because of this, it is important for citizens to think critically when evaluating media coverage pertaining to human impact on climate change and global warming. Human impact of global warming and climate change (now simply referred to as GWCC) has become a political issue because not all individuals and business are willing to voluntarily take the actions necessary that could help slow the rate of GWCC trends. According to Milfont (2012), these necessary actions “would require stringent policy interventions, which in democratic societies, would only be possible by widespread public support for at least the broad and long-term goals of such interventions” (p.1003). Media greatly influences this public support. To illustrate, COIN (2014) reveals that “right-leaning media are far more likely to carry skeptical opinion” (para.1), on the other hand, “skeptical opinions are rarely to be found” in left-leaning media, and sometimes to the point of exaggeration (para.1). Furthermore, survey results to measure public opinion can be misleading simply due to the wording of survey questions. A study conducted by Schuldt, Konrath, and Schwarz (2011) concludes that “partisan divide on the [GWCC] issue dropped from 42.9 percentage points under a... ... middle of paper ... .... (2014). Interests, ideology and climate. The opinion pages NYTimes. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/opinion/krugman-interests-ideology-and-climate.html Milfont, T. L. (2012). The Interplay Between Knowledge, Perceived Efficacy, and Concern About Global Warming and Climate Change: A One-Year Longitudinal Study. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 32(6), 1003-1020. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01800.x Riebeek, H., (2010). Global warming. Feature articles. NASA Earth observatory. Retrieved from http://Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/ Schuldt, J. P., Konrath, S. H., & Schwarz, N. (2011). “Global warming” or “climate change”?. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(1), 115-124. Stossel, J. (2014). Let’s chill out about global warming. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/22/let-chill-out-about-global-warming/
It is obvious from the tone of this report that Michael Pollan really wants to stop climate change; he just doesn’t know how to make a lasting effect. Even so, he never ceases to pull at the readers’ heartstrings. The author does a great job at coercing the readers to jump on board; the only problem is there is no destination in mind. So, instead of inciting his readers to act out against this problem, Pollan leaves them dumbfounded and uncertain on how to
Large American media conglomerates have been growing increasingly polarized on the political spectrum, each network presenting information and reporting on stories using angles that benefit the political party that they support (Prior). Most notably, Fox News is infamous for being a partisan news channel that strongly supports the conservative Republican Party, despite the fact that its motto is “fair and balanced” (“Fox News.”). According to a New York Times editorial, “[Fox News’] claim to be fair and balanced is no more than a knowing wink to its audience, and has no higher master than the dollar” (Crossman). For example, in 2012, during the presidential election, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity blatantly lied to his audience, claiming that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had stated that if President Barack Obama won a second term, “[t]axes [would] go up 30 percent” (Uwimana). In reality, the CBO report had merely been talking about fiscal bills that were in effect at the time, and had not mentioned anything about President Obama (Uwimana). However, Hannity still falsified information in order to support his own conservative agenda. Such political polarization in the media leads to a public that is increasingly misinformed. Further exacerbating the problem, Fox News often stages debates over facts rather than over opposing viewpoints (Scherer). There have been numerous occasions in which Hannity and other anchors have called into question the legitimacy of the scientific consensus on global warming (Rudman). By calling the legitimacy and reality of such facts into question, Fox News casts doubt on scientifically established principles such as climate change, and on other important facts that could potentially help clarify the true nature of
“Climate change is real. It is human-caused. We’re seeing the effects now.” (Romm, 2014). Climate change is an important issue the public is aware of, but do not see how their individual responses can have an impact on such a large global issue. Changing people’s temporal habits and attitudes about climate change will be a challenge. As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change are felt more often in our daily lives, people around the world will begin to adjust their temporal habits for greater sustainability of the natural environment we solely depend on for our survival.
Our world faces many issues consisting of political issues, economic crisis, poverty, world wars, and environmental issues for example. Global warming is one of the many environment issues that many pay little attention to. Mr. Al Gore in his documentary directed by David Guggenheim brings to light this climate crisis and how affective it can be to the earth and how we must address it as soon as possible as it may lead to the destruction of our world’s environment. Al Gore does a great job in identifying global warming, what are the cause and effects, and how we should address the issue that can potentially save our planet earth. Overall, Al Gore offers a credible argument and one of the many reasons Al Gore’s argument is credible is because
Today’s mainstream media has a deep influence on numerous aspects of economical and social life, it provides information and data almost on everything that happens on our planet. Mainstream media became one of the most important and influential instruments in our society, as the news stories reach a large numbers of people in a short time. Different people are using mainstream media as a first source of information; humans need the information, which is why there is a great deal of trust on media. We follow the news because it is our duty as citizens to be informed; it gives us the facts that help us make the right decisions and also gives us something to talk about. The media has a great public responsibility in front of their audience; therefore, they are expected to provide information that is accurate, reliable and free from bias. It is essential that the public is truly informed about the controversial topics on environmental issues, like DDT and GMOs. Media informs the public with regard to science and technology, which further impacts policy making within the society. The drawback with today’s mainstream media is that it tends to provide information that is far from what is happening in the real world. Current news media misrepresent some news report in order to gain attention and they omit the most important news from television, newspapers or radio that the public deserves to know. The articles “Environmentalism for the 21st Century” by Dr. Patrick Moore, “Rachel Carson’s Environmental Genocide” by Lisa Makson, “Lawrence Solomon: For global warming believers, 2013 was the year from Hell” by Lawrance Solomon and “Global warming at work: how climate change affects the economy and labour” by Raveena Aulakh will be discussed ...
Weingart, P., Engels, A., & Pansegrau, P. (2000). Risks of communication: discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media. Public understanding of science, 9(3), 261-283.
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.
The mass media plays an enormous role in influencing the public. In the age of globalization many technologies like Internet, television, newspapers, magazines, radio and so on, make news available and accessible for everyone around the world. The media can easily get any information out there to the public regarding any subject such as political views, health issues, entertainment, education, human tragedies…and those information do have an impact on our everyday life decisions, opinions and raise our awareness on a subject. The media is most of the time the only way people can get information on subject that they cannot fully understand such as science. Because “science is an encoded form of knowledge that requires translation in order to be understood” (Ungar 2000), many studies have shown that the media plays a very crucial role in raising people understanding of the scientific world and the environmental issues, especially the climate change and global warming. Climate change has become an important issue today and people need to understand how serious it is in order to take actions to prevent it from getting worse; and the only way the information can get to the public is via the mass media. Today global warming is raising many concerns and the media coverage is increasing but yet many scientists complain about the limited coverage of the subject because it seems that it is not enough compared to the gravity of the situation. Because of the lack of information, many people are still very skeptical and some are just very confused about the global warming and how it affect our atmosphere.
Although it is often a topic for contention in politics, global warming over the span of several decades, has led to climate change, which has had an alarming impact globally. Climate change needs to ...
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.
Subpoint A: Not long ago, a documentary film called “An Inconvenient truth” came out in 2006. This film raised international public awareness of climate change and reenergizing the environmental movement. A former U.S Vice president Al Gore campaigned to educate citizens about global warming through a simp...
Spotts, Pete. "Global warming? Public attitudes often at mercy of the weather, study finds." Christian Science Monitor 13 Jan. 2014: N.PAG. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 June 2014.
Global warming has become on of the most controversial issues in the media today. While most of the Western world countries have generally accepted the premise that man's chemical emissions in the atmosphere can and are affected by the world’s climate patterns, in the United States, the issue has become so politicized with many republicans challenging the science behind the theory. Global warming is a greenhouse effect whereby gases are trapped on the earth’s surface causing it to heat up (Maslin 14). It is based on the worldwide temperature records that have been maintained by human beings through their activities since the 1880,s. In addition, global warming is not only caused by human activities only but also through climate changes in solar radiance. The problem is that, humans continue to contribute to the global warming phenomenon. All citizens should work in reducing human activities that cause global warming and also support the development of nuclear power. Scientists deem that, global warming is mainly caused by human activities which accelerate the natural process by creating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Human activities have become a great contribution to the greenhouse effect and this means that climate changes are inevitable. They further argue that, if these activities continue and are not reduced, it will lead to more trapping of energy radiated from the earth and this will likely lead to extreme weather and global warming. Global warming should be at reduced levels or else, it will be catastrophic.
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 ...
Climate change has been an extremely controversial topic in recent history and continues to create much debate today. Many questions concerning climate change’s origins and its potential affect on the globe are not fully understood and remain unanswered. What is climate change? Is climate change happening? Is it a natural cycle of the world or are there other catalysts involved such as human activity? What proof is there? What data correlations show climate change is accelerated by humans? How serious is climate change and how will it affect the future of our globe? What are we doing to address climate change? Should we really be concerned about climate change? Questions such as these have made climate change a very serious issue in today’s world and created the ideology of climatism. The issue of climate change has affected many different aspects of our lives and the world we live in. Policymaking, human activism, technologies, emission control, global warming, alternative energy sources and many other things have been greatly affected by the mania of climate change. This research report will present climate change in a light of common sense and rationality that will take a grounded discussion of the science behind climate change, global warming, human activity, and how the ideology of climatism has corrupted and driven the actions to combat climate change.