Climate Change Rhetorical Analysis

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.

Global Warming is a huge problem for the environment. The earth’s temperature has risen about 1-degree Fahrenheit since 1900 the temperatures are continuing to rise setting record temperature (Biello). This image is a public service announcement to turn off lights because it is a cause to global warming. In the image a penguin is pulling on a plug to turn out a light. This image evokes an emotional response because it has a baby penguin looking scared behind its mom, while the ice they are on is melting. It also illustrates a point that leaving lights on can cause global warming because it states it in the text. The light shining on the penguins looks like it is melting the ice they are standing on. I selected this image because it caught my eye and then made me read the text, which shows that it is an effective PSA. I also think global warming is a problem and I did not know that leaving lights on made such a big impact. This image can be analyzed by looking at the six rhetorical factors: character and action, setting, point of view, use of color, special effects, and image presentation.

On one side of the argument we have we have scientists, who recognise that climate change is present in our society today and realise the importance of direct action. They provide us with important and relevant data and statistics that are evidence that climate change is real.

The problem that the pro- global warming theorists have created is that of social standing and little else. While there may be scientific backing to support some of the theory, the media presents the problem with great sensationalism. Global warming and energy conservation has thus become a trend and losses some of its validity through this. The scare tactics used by the media to “promote awareness” are just that, a linguistic ploy to gain favor. “Awareness of this global threat reinforced public concern and environmental problems and thereby provided environmental activists, scientists, and policy makers with new momentum in their efforts to promote environmental protection.” (McCright, 2000) This statement draws line to the potential benefits that would be received if the pro-global warming theorists were to draw enough attention to the issue. Driven by social empowerment and conviction to environmental protection, these activists misrepresent the actual threat and paint it as being much more

The argument about man’s role in climate change and the role of government, the role of industry and the role of citizens is a significant challenge that crosses all levels of government, crosses all geopolitical boundaries and crosses all sectors of business. National governments across the globe are dealing with the issue in different ways, but one overarching aspect of control and mitigation can be seen in the oversight and regulation of the electric energy industry. One significant challenge facing each nation is the cost to lower carbon emissions and the question of who will pay the additional cost for compliance. Though the cost issue is significant, a much more difficult question is whether any decision on lowering emissions can make

Patterson expresses a fear that “Man will be convinced by these climate cultists to turn his back on the very political, economic, and scientific institutions that made him so powerful, so wealthy, so healthy”. By framing his argument in a way that transitions from highlighting the scientific ignorance of global warming to the policies that such a worldview could impact, Patterson attempts to establish a chain of logic that justifies his concern for global warming as an influence on government. The language used in the sentence (“climate cultists” trying to convince “Man”, turning their back on beneficial institutions) also implies to the reader that the proponents of global warming are actively attempting to undermine the institutions that have allowed humankind to thrive in the modern world. This opinion is underlined later in the article, when Patterson contemplates why many “hope” for climate change catastrophe.

Through his research, McCright proves that that there is sizable political divide between liberals/Democrats and conservatives/Republicans on the issue of global warming, which consequently has caused the divide between the public. The constant flow of political messages and media coverage of political debates, especially those concerning climate change, highly contribute to the growing divide between the public. Americans’ political orientations, moderate educational attainment and self-reported understanding are completely consistent with the predictions of the politicians’ hypothesis and information-processing theory. Given the bifurcated flow of conflicting information on climate change from the politicians on both sides of the political spectrum, ideological and partisan camps in the general public receive completely different information on climate change, which reinforces their existing political differences. This provides strong evidence of both ideological and political polarization on climate change beliefs and concern over the past decade. It demonstrates that since political ideologies so heavily influence people’s opinions and

The issue of scarcity in the face of climate change is something that cannot be completely solved without the contribution and sacrifice from every single living being on this planet. The rate at which climate change is occurring, is significantly increasing due too various factors, like "biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions. Certain human activities have also been identified as significant causes of recent climate change, often referred to as global warming." While there is a significant amount of damage that has already impacted our planet, there are still various ways that we the living beings that inhabit the planet can take action in the hopes of halting the rate at

For instance, the article, “Man made global warming ‘a myth’ says weather channel founder,” states, “There is no significant man-made global warming at this time, there has been none in the past and there is no reason to fear any in the future. Efforts to prove CO2 is a significant “greenhouse” gas and pollutant causing significant warming or weather effects have failed. There has been no global warming in over 18 years” (John Coleman). In other words, John Coleman, the founder of the weather channel, states that global warming has not been an issue nor will it ever be, it shows that there is no reason to fear global warming because he is such a notable figure for weather. This explains why some may not believe that the destruction of earth is possible.

In “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore begins to express his goal towards his audience on the topic of global warming. This issue was Al Gore’s main focus throughout the entirety of the video, and was explained thoroughly while ethos and pathos was used as a tool to connect with the audience. Gore uses ethos as a tool to concern global warming as more of an ethical and moral motivation rather than a political one. Throughout the video, Gore uses great amounts of information based on the issues of global warming and its great disadvantages. Issuing this, Gore uses pathos in order to get his point across on how the Earth and life on it might be affected. Due to Gore’s audience being younger minded non-scientists, Gore stated his arguments on global warming by creating a humorous cartoon video which gave more of an easier explanation on the serious matter. Gore continues to give explanations by also relating back into his past life experiences.

     The argument against global warming is divided into two schools of thought. The first is that scientific evidence proves that the earth is not warming and the issue has been artificially manufactured. The second school of thought is that warming is occurring. However, this warming is naturally occurring regardless of how we treat the environment and this warming is beneficial to us for a variety of reasons which I will explain.

A technique that Gore used to get his message across to the readers was that the tone of the story was both motivational and disgusted. Throughout the story Gore tone was disgusted in that he was baffled on how we could have let global warming start in the first place. Another thing that Gore did was that he used real life examples of the catastrophic events that happened in our world such as hurricane Katrina that was a category 5 hurricane that killed a lot of people. Another thing Gore did was that he did not just talk about catastrophic events that happened in the United States he talked about events that were happening across the world such as record rainfall that happened in India that killed more than one thousand people. Gore did this to not only captivate America but help captivate the world because as a whole we can help stop Global Warming.

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.

Though scientific evidence has been found to have its flaws, there is still a substantive basis for sizable global warming due to the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be disputed.

Climate change has undoubtedly become one of the most prominent debate topics in the world today. With that being said, there are multiple aspects of climate change currently being discussed; causes of climate change, the idea that climate change may be a hoax, and whether or not climate change affects human health are three of the many ongoing debates about climate change. Climate change is surrounded by negative connotations, but Jay Leno, former host of NBC’s The Tonight Show, shed some light on the darkness of climate change, saying "According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.” Although his first statement is rather true, Leno manages to lighten its load with a less true, but hilarious, comment. His words force one to realize that climate change impacts everyone in any area of the health triangle, whether it be through a joke such as Leno’s, or directly through issues such as pollution and pollen; the areas of the health triangle include physical health, mental/emotional health, and social health. Therefore, climate change is a threat to all aspects of human health; social health, mental/emotional health, and physical health.