Institutionalized Road Blocks On Addressing Climate Change

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.

Dr James Hansen’s argumentative essay, “A Solution to the Climate Problem,” discusses his premise that it is imperative for humankind to deal with carbon dioxide emissions, which he believes needs to be phased out by the mid-21st century. He begins with the current paradigm in government efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and claims that so far it has been a lot of talk and action in the other direction. Dr Hansen argues that while governments pay lip service to agreements such as the Kyoto Accord, they are going full steam ahead with projects that will result in increased carbon dioxide emissions, such as going forth with coal-fired power plants, coal-to-liquids, hydraulic fracturing, and tar sands oil extraction. Dr Hansen believes

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 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

In recent years , there is a colossal upsurge in the number of environmental concerns with climate change being a pivotal one. Although convergent efforts, be it an individual , company or a government, are made to ease this concern. I think government play a vital role in this regard.

The main claim of Pamela Chaseks’s presentation was that through government and industry climate change can be stopped. Chasek discusses several instances when governments united regarding climate change as well as how these governments have impacted climate change, if at all. For example,a successful negotiation was Lima 2014, the United States and China agreed to reduce emissions; however, at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009 developed countries made an agreement that left developing countries out of the loop. This caused smaller states weary of states who hold more power. This displays that government cooperation and communication is needed to successfully execute the issue of climate change. Without concise agreements and negotiations

On the surface big business and climate change seem like fundamentally different issues, but upon deeper investigation, we can see that these issues have an underlying direct correlation. How can two ideas that are fundamentally different interact so thoroughly on one topic? Naomi Klein dedicates her work to investigate how these two issues interact, and what microcosms of our society encourage this interaction. Klein has a revelation about the issues with big businesses dominance over our society. She also suggests ways for us to change our lifestyle to be more environmentally friendly and prevent massive damages to the environment. Klein’s works have the power to change how we think about these big businesses’ presence in our society

We have all heard statistics over how unmitigated global warming can lead to rising sea levels, increased temperatures, lower rates of precipitation. The Congressional Budget Office recently found that climate change, if unmitigated, would create costly damage not only to the United States’s economy, but also to the world as a whole (source). Despite a scientific and general consensus that climate change is real and a problem, actual committed action against climate change has been disappointingly slow, until recently. We also know the cause of climate change. The United States EPA finds that “Carbon dioxide accounts for most of the nation’s emissions and most of the increase since 1990” (EPA). What we don’t know is a solution.

Lust for power is most commonly seen in businessmen or politicians and in today's world money is power. Recently, politician’s desire for power can be seen in the global climate change issue. Many U.S. officials, including our current President, do not believe in global climate change, or are ignoring this large issue because of the immense amount of money they receive from one of the main causes of climate change: fossil fuels. In 2014 oil, gas, and coal companies spent a total of $151,437,335 on Congress’ campaigns (“Funding Fossil Fuels”). The people involved in our government system are letting their lust for money and power cloud their judgement on the future of our planet.

As scientific technology increased scientist were able to study the effects of fossil fuels on the atmosphere. In their findings they found that the buildup of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) had been building up in the atmosphere which became known as the greenhouse effect that resulted in global warming. Which has further created more problems by raising the average temperature of the world which in turn has been melting ice caps and continuing environmental harm.

Years of deregulation and unchecked capitalism has left our political system under the control of multinational fossil fuel corporations who use money to exert influence over our legislative process. In her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein blames unchecked free market capitalism and neoliberal policies. “The three policy pillars of this new era are familiar to us all: privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and lower corporate taxation, paid for with cuts to public spending” (Klein pp. 19 2014) The corporate world exerts its stranglehold influence by controlling not only our political process through powerful lobbies but through the mainstream media as well. Our media outlets are reluctant to report the effects of climate change or any mass movements to stop it because they are financially at the mercy of the fossil fuel corporations. The corporate oligarchy of fossil fuel companies is so powerful that our leaders have become financially dependent puppets of these companies. In a sense, the United States is no longer a democracy but a form of oligarchy with an addiction to growth and profits trumping the wellbeing of the masses. Our country’s obsession with consumerism makes it difficult for people to sacrifice their comfortable lives for the sake of a more sustainable economic model.

Climate change, specifically in reference to C02 Emissions released by human use of fossil fuels and their consequential effects on the environment, is perhaps one of the most pressing issues we, not just as Americans, but as human beings face in our lifetimes. Though it may sound like a sensationalist statement the facts are hard to deny. In May of 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The climate change impacts of greenhouse gases threaten the economic development and environmental quality. These threats indicate that all nations regardless their economic growth should work collaboratively to reduce the emission to a certain level. Hare et al. (2011) argued that “climate change is a collective action problem” thus requires a global coordination from all countries. This indicates that actions from several countries would never be sufficient to address the climate change problem. If a global target to limit warming to 2°C or below is about to achieve (UNFCCC 2010, p.4) a broad range of participation is required (Hare et al., 2011). However, the increasing complexity of negotiation processes is inevitable. Each country will pursue its own interests during the

The issue of climate change is a recurring topic in the news, there have been scientist trying to gain support from politicians and the general public to combat this issue for years. There are several reasons why there is a lack of support and policy to address the problem relating to climate change. The issue of climate change is so divisive because people are uneducated about the topic. While there are numerous sources of information that is available to the general public, people are still ill-informed. To add, the general public and politicians may disregard conversations of climate change because they may think there are other issues that are more important. To make the public understand and to gain support for control climate change,

The concept of global warming has become one of the most widely debated and controversial topics of our time. Scientists learned long ago that the earth’s climate has powerfully shaped the history of humanity. However, it is only in the past few decades that research has revealed that humans have a significant influence on the climate as well. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that since 1950, the world’s climate has been warming, primarily as a result of emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of tropical forests. More importantly, an article titled "Global Warming" published in the New York Times shows that methane, a gas that is emitted from landfills, livestock and oil gas facilities,