Global Warming: The Conservative Movement

The globe is being rocked by extreme weather and the hottest temperatures on record. As the average global temperature soars, there are floods, droughts, unusually cold winters, forest fires, and huge storms. Are all of these horrors being caused by human-induced global warming?

As a kid who has cared about nature his entire life, and an avid modern environmentalist for four years and counting, this issue has been at the center of my psyche for quite some time. I have seen public perspective on this issue change before my eyes. From the original rejection of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie on “global warming” to personally marching alongside 300,000 people in our nation's capital to raise awareness on climate change. However, despite all of these avenues the issue is still spoken about as this distant idea that eventually will be a disaster. Many politicians and news networks speak of the need for slow implementation of policies and programs to right our environmental wrongs. The best way to paraphrase the common narrative of this issue would be to say, climate change is going to happen down the road, it will probably be bad and trying to fix it in the near future would be a good idea. That weak call to action shoves climate change onto the long to-do list of the leaders of our world. Not only does it not create the urgency needed to actually curb the effects of our environmental ignorance, but it does not accurately describe the threat of a changing climate. Treating this like a political issue will not allow for the rigorous changes needed to address such a problem in the timely manner that is required.

The North American Drought of 1988 marked the very first time global warming crossed over from scientists to mass media coverage. Following an American professor’s address to the Senate correlating abnormal weather to global warming, European nations addressed the issue, and many countries began to reduce greenhouse gas. The European Union ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to make it legally binding. In Europe, global warming was acknowledged as a problem, with the only debate centered around how serious of a problem it was- 87% said it was a very serious problem, where around 10%

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

Global Warming has changed American’s perspectives in many ways though-out the past centuries including: the way society views our environment, technology, cultural values, as well as expectations. According to Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein, The Real World; An Intro to Sociology; 4th Edition (pg.45), a paradigm shifts, “occur when new data force new ways of looking at the world”. In the 1950’s increased awareness was placed on global warming and the Green House Effect due to new technology showing that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were rising each year (Encyclopedia of Global Warming). As a result Americans were concerned with pollution for the first time in history; and in return, our cultures perspectives slowly started to change the way we look at the world.

Often, the public and “political debate over what to do about global warming is far different from the scientific debate surrounding the issue” (Taylor) as the media publishes discourse relating to global warming which asserts a rhetorical influence through the ideological screen by which such information is subjectively presented to the public. In the example of a New York Times article on the topic of climate change, the author’s decision to discerningly highlight the fact “that concentrations of major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase to record levels […] [and] that Arctic sea ice remain[s] at very low levels” (Chan) reflects a selective rhetorical emphasis and dissemination of information that does not include or illuminate other data suggesting a contrary or skeptical perception of global warming. As such, the public depends primarily on the media’s capricious determination of salience and rhetorical delivery to inform personal understanding and opinion regarding the validity and imminence of climate

Throughout history climates have drastically changed. There have been shifts from warm climates to the Ice Ages (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.204). Evidence suggests there have been at least a dozen abrupt climate changes throughout the history of the earth. There are a few suspected reasons for these past climate changes. One reason may be that asteroids hitting the earth and volcanic eruptions caused some of them. A further assumption is that 22-year solar magnetic cycles and 11-year sunspot cycles played a part in the changes. A further possibility is that a regular shifting in the angle of the moon orbiting earth causing changing tides and atmospheric circulation affects the global climate (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009,

U.S. policies towards climate change has continued to develop throughout the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and currently Barack Obama. In this paper I will focus specifically on Clinton. One of the Clinton administration’s main goals was to make the United States the global leader in protecting the environment.  Throughout Clinton’s administration from 1993 to 2001, the ambitious goals of environmental protection had many highs and lows. The United States had to make decisions about how it would go about tackling climate change and what roles of other countries would play. There was opposition in congress about how the U.S. economy would fare with many of the ideas the Clinton administration was coming

While mitigating global warming is not as easy to pin point what type of politics it should be considered. In Ryan Lizza’s article, “As the World Burns”, he explains why it was difficult for the Obama administration to pass a policy of mitigation of global warming. One of the issues was that the public did not particularly care as much about the policy as did smaller groups in the US. For the public, the issue was the least of their concerns making it difficult to motivate politics towards global

Imagine the world's major cities completely underwater. Imagine storms so violent that parts of the world became unlivable. Theses are images that one would expect to find in movie house, but environmental scientists tell us what is now a good setting for science fiction could soon be reality due to global warming. Environmental scientists warn that humans are not only making the Earth inhabitable for animals and plants, but that if humans continues with their current practices, the Earth will soon be inhabitable for humans as well. Environmental scientists warn that if the Earth's citizens do not act swiftly and decisively the damage maybe irreversible for humans.

In December 2015, almost 200 countries around the world, gathered in Paris to sign an accord to slow global warming. Only three developed countries did not agree with the accord. To most, it may seem that preventing global warming is necessary to protect future generations from heat waves, super storms, and extreme flooding. Classical liberalism can provide the best explanation of why some countries choose to ignore global warming.

There is an issue on this planet that will define this generation. The issue is climate change. Global warming. A world on the collapse as our oceans are acidified, our air polluted, our forests disappearing, and human rights issues getting worse. It seems that people are not aware of how big climate change actually is. It’s not something that only takes place on the ice caps or in the forests on the far corners of the world. This is an issue that happens here, and now. It’s real. It’s happening.

Both Al Gore and Daniel Botkin have different arguments on global warming. They are both think very similar on the same topic. Because one part of the argument is serious, and the other one is not so much. But, the point is that both of their stories are pointing out to their views on this issue. But, according to Webster Dictionary, Global Warming is when the increase in the world’s temperature that is to believe to increase by carbon dioxide. Both of the authors have a different view on this topic they have a different position, logic, and facts on what Global warming really is.

There is a dire divide between scientists politicians in America that has potential to seriously harm the entirety of the world. Nothing represents that divide as closely as the debate over climate change. An almost unanimous amount, 97%, of climate scientists believe there is strong evidence to support global warming (nasa.gov.) In congress, over quarter of Representatives and Senators obstinately believe the opposite, no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary (thinkprogress.org.) The depth of the issue became especially apparent when Senator Jim Inhofe, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, brought a snowball into congress as testimony against global warming. Even after thousands of people have pointed out the

The issue of global warming should be on the list of our top priorities. Studies show that the average of global temperatures have risen since the Industrial Revolution began. Since the Industrial Revolution, human emissions has quadrupled the frequency of certain heat extremes and many scientists have warned that a failure to bring greenhouse gases under control could eventually lead to a 62-fold increase in extreme heat blasts (Gillis Justin A17). Most of the increase is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. These activities contribute to a build-up in carbon dioxide and other gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere is made of gases like nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen. These gases act as a blanket that covers and gives us warmth, but once these gases such as carbon dioxide absorbs heat, but does not release it back into space in which causes the increase in global temperature. This is called the greenhouse effect because it only traps heat but does not release it.