Arguing Both Sides of an Issue - Global Warming

Climate change is one of today’s most hotly debated topic. Scientists for many decades have made supposed claims that current energy creation and reliance on fossil fuels will lead to inevitable changes to the planet. Today, climate change denial is still a popular to most of the world despite the mounds of evidence to support that it exists. The climate change issue suffers from being mismanaged by various parties through focusing on the wrong issues and the lack of true commitment from the general public, according to Sandra Steingraber.

In his essay titled “Climate of Denial”, Al Gore, a well known environmental advocate and former vice president, verifies the reality of climate change and global warming. The piece is an attack on corrupt companies and news outlets that attempt to persuade the public that global warming is not a critical issue. Gore also earnestly conveys our environment’s current state and offers possible solutions that would increase awareness about global warming and begin to revert the planet back to a healthier, more sustainable state. The overarching purpose of Gore’s work is to call attention to the widespread climate change that is occurring. However, he also focuses on the corruption and bias within the media, and their attempts to conceal the truth about global warming. Writing to those who are conflicted about who to believe, he makes a valid argument that defends the beliefs of he and his fellow activists and encourages others to become more active in the climate change issue.

In 2010, Al Gore wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times claiming that global warming is a matter our generation must concentrate on in order to halt the rapid increases of change to our planet’s climate. He creates a strong, convincing argument by addressing and exemplifying issues pertaining to global climate change.

In regards to scientific facts, Gore explains that when it comes to samples and the analyses of many articles and studies on the matter, “the number of those that disagreed with the scientific consensus that we are causing global warming and that, it is indeed a serious problem” is zero. (Gore) At first, he also uses overemphasis and exaggeration when referring to mass media and its claims that, many

Daniel Botkin and Al Gore have very different views on the issues of global warming. Botkin contends that the scare tactics used by Gore and many similar thinking environmentalists are simply a desperate means intended to alarm the public and force governments to take actions that are unnecessary and misdirected. Gore alleges that immediate action is necessary to avoid increases in the plant and animal extinction and the spread of diseases. Botkin admits that global warming is a fact, but as a scientist, he cannot agree on the severity and negative effects of the condition. While both men present compelling different arguments for their views on global warming, Gore has seized the attention of the public laymen by writing books and

The election of 2000 took place during a time that was mostly peaceful, unemployment rates were historically low, but however, there were a record number of terrorist threats (Muhlhausen). Despite all of these headlining topics presidential candidate Al Gore and Vice President Joe Lieberman were far more concerned about global climate change (“Al”). Gore was, and still, is very passionate about this topic (“Al”, 9). He has challenged the two biggest polluters in the world, China and The United States to, “Make the boldest move in climate change.” Figure 5

Al Gore asked three questions, his first question was do we really have to change? His second was, can we change? And his third was, will we change? Throughout his argument Gore answers these questions for his audience. Gore’s argumentative presentation on climate change and his opinion as to what could be done about it gave his audience and listeners insight to the problem with climate change.

Lately scientists and politicians have stated, that the earth is not merely warming up, it is experiencing Climate Change or shifts in long-term climate patterns. These climate shifts could include air temperature, precipitation, and weather patterns (Baranski). Vice President Al Gore, is a leading advocate of climate change. His book and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has been rewarded for, “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change” (“Al Gore”).

These last two election cycles have demonstrated the importance of climate change in relation to politics and the american people. What is unfortunate is that what seems to be a very crucial and real problem in our human survival, according to scientists, is being debated by people who do not have the scientific credentials to even discuss the science behind the reality of climate change. Those behind the skeptics, have funded a successful campaign against the reality of the facts and have introduce doubt into the sciences.

Climate change, a global scale challenge that is most important due to its present and long-term dangers, deserves not only much discussion, but attention as well. In particular, one former president who wanted to fight this challenge head on was Al Gore. When speaking to this challenge, former President Al Gore stated, “It is wrong to use the sky as an open sewer, it is wrong to condemn future generations to a lifetime haunted by continual declines in their standard of living, and give them a world of political disruption and all the chaos that scientists have warned us about” (Carrington 2017). To put it differently, Al Gore is simply implying that climate change is the leading force of great destruction to come. For this reason, Al Gore

Because of the most recent election season, there has been a renewed interest in the topic of climate change. In the 2016 Presidential election, the green party received over 1.2 million popular votes nationwide, when they usually receive only 100 thousand or so. With an increased interest in the topic of climate change, I feel it is necessary to provide factual data and projections on the path climate change will take to decrease misinformation. I proclaim the correct course of action to solve the problem of climate change is to do nothing.

Gore first became interested in the climate and global warming while at Harvard University. In the 1950’s, one of his college professors, Roger Revelle, began sending up weather balloons in the Pacific to measure CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels. Revelle’s results showed a direct correlation between the large increases in population and the atmospheric

In 2008 Eminent climatologist James Hansen urged U.S. President Barack Obama to support a carbon tax. Hansen was the first climate scientist to state publicly that greenhouse gas emissions were causing climate change, at a hearing before the U.S. Senate 20 years ago. All reputable scientists agree that climate change is man-made, and a huge challenge for human civilization. Political efforts for an international agreement to limit climate change have

This doesn't necessarily mean that every scientist sees eye to eye on each component of the climate change problem, but broad agreement exists that climate change is happening and is primarily caused by excess greenhouse gases from human activities.” (EPA)

Climate change is a massive controversy in the United States. There are multiple groups, organizations, and political leaders who believe that climate change is a hoax. For example, take U.S. Senator, Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who brought in a ball of snow to the senate floor and stated that “It’s very, very cold out” (C-Span 2015). The wide variety of misinformation about climate change has produced a large scale of climate change skeptics. Most notably are those located in Woodward County, Oklahoma. Thirty percent of the residents in Woodward Country believe that climate change is not really happening (Yale 2014). CNN reporter, John D. Sutter (2015), was sent on a mission to understand why so many in Woodward County are skeptical about climate change. At the end of his journey, Sutter realized that most of the residents were confused and had been fed misinformation. The climate change skeptics were the loudest voices and all those who may have thought differently kept their opinions to themselves out of fear of going against the oil and natural gas industries (Sutter 2015). Nevertheless, skeptics are in need of being informed with the right information about climate change. It is imperative for climate change to be in the forefront not only because 97 percent of climate scientists say that climate change is very real and caused by humans, but because we only have one Earth to call our home (Sutter 2015). In order to convince skeptics to support clean energy policies,