Koch, Money, Denialism and Climate Change.
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.
As of recently, the Paris Climate Talks gathered several of world’s leading nations to discuss the effects and measures needed to be taken to combat the on going threat of
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Those who are the most vocal about debunking the science in the United States tend to be mostly to be coming from the right. A recent study by Politifact determined that a remarkable 8 out of 278 republican congress members believed that man made climate change is actually happening. While all other 270 republican congressman in 2014 having a large sense of skepticism against the issue. This is certainly alarming considering that the majority of congress in 2016 are republican and several key environmental issues in the United States require approval from congress. The most notable issue recently was one regarding the congressional approval of Keystone Pipeline XL, an extension of the disastrous environmental pipeline that goes from Texas and into Canada that was vetoed by President Obama. Many of those standing against the truth of climate change in congress include Jim Inhofe, a senator from Oklahoma. Jim Inhofe is arguably the posterboy in the fight for climate denialism. Ironically, Inhofe is in charge of the Senate committee on Environmental Policy, and is infamously remembered as the guy who “proved” that climate change is giant hoax by bringing in a snowball to the senate floor as justification, saying that “this ball of snow” definitely proves that “it is certainly cold outside”. When looking
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.
Climate change is the long term shift in global climate patterns attributed mainly to the use of fossil fuels. Many people are aware of this issue, however, there has been an increase in the amount of people who deny climate change. 23 percent of Americans (compared to last year’s 16 percent) believe that climate change is not a problem (Atkin). To conclude that people do not accept climate change because they do not understand it or need to be educated about it, is reasonable. However, I believe that it isn’t skepticism driving this denial. Rather, it is the phenomenon of reaffirming one’s identity. Instead of analyzing the evidence, it is intentionally interpreted in such a way as to maintain a pre-existing belief.
Even scientists who think human activity is the main cause of climate change don't deny that natural changes will cause temperature fluctuations on Earth. However, their argument is that in the current cycle of climate change, the impact caused by man is far greater. But there’s no indication that the two sides of the climate change debate will reach any common ground in the near future on what scientific evidence is showing, or what policy decisions should be adopted.
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%
Michael E. Mann is a climate scientist and has been confronted by many climate change skeptics over the years. In the article “Besieged by Climate Denies, a Scientist Decision to Fight Back”, he discusses his position on why he thinks that attacks on science have no place in a functioning democratic society. He also discusses why he believes the “truth” about global warming will, without a doubt, gain wide acceptance in our society.
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.
Supporters of the Global Warming Hoax claim that climate change is not due to human activities, instead it is produced with biased data for the purpose of financial or political gain. In this paper, nine sources, including reports from organizations, a speech from a senator, news articles and blog posts, are presented to discuss . These sources come from three perspectives: 1. Those who support the idea of global warming as a hoax; 2. Those who support the idea of global warming as a reality; 3. Academics who provide data and research relating to the issue.
For many years there has been a great debate between scientists who believe that human activity has major negative effects on climate change, and those who argue that climate change is caused by a variety of factors, not just harmful human activity. Those who support that belief that activities such as the burning of fossil fuels could cause disastrous climate changes and global warming and those who believe that research has been skewed to alter the way findings are presented fiercely debate when and how climate change should be addressed by governments. These debates have caused the idea of Global Warming to become not only a scientific concern, but a political concern as well. With both sides having strong convictions with respect to how the issues are addressed, it has allowed events such as “Climate-Gate” come to pass.
When thinking about the topic of climate change, my mind tends to go in twenty different places. I want to have a complete and honest understanding of climate change, but being such a dynamic topic with so many aspects, that may be hard to achieve. These aspects include scientific research, the economy, the government’s contribution, and society’s contribution to it. My prior knowledge of what exactly climate change and global warming is, comes from brief explanations in science classes and research that I have done on my own so I do not sound completely clueless while discussing this issue. From my understanding, the two sides of this debate are the politicians and the scientists. In my opinion, I will always stand on the environment’s side,
Climate change is not something we think about everyday and can be a complex and confusing topic to research or understand. Many of us do not understand the daily implications of climate or what the future climate may look like. Regardless, most people have strong opinions on the climate change topic and many are adamant about their decisions. All across the world, people wonder, is global warming a threat to our lives as we know them? Is the majority of it caused by humans? While some sources say that 97 percent of climate change scientists agree, other sources say it’s more like 40 percent. That is a very large difference in statistics that ranges from almost 100 percent to well under 50.(percent quote) There is still a large amount of controversy
We live in a country where a large group of people thinks that climate change is a hoax, but what all those people have in common is that none of them are climate scientists. Climate change is not a democratic issue where everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Climate change is a scientific issue, that is why the nonscientific population doesn’t have a saying on this. 97% of climate scientist agree that climate change is real, is an imminent threat, and is manmade. We need to act immediately and a good way to start is in this election, making sure that a person that despite all the scientific evidence denies the existence of climate change, never puts a foot in the White House.
Abstract: For last 37 years as a world we have spent lot of time in studying climate change and fixing a blame. First World Climate Conference was held on 12-23 February 1979 in Geneva. (wikipedia) It was one of the first major international meetings on climate change. We are studying climate change, it’s impact, causes and how to fix mess created by us. But now it 's high time for us to move forward and act on controlling Human contribution to Greenhouse Gases(GHG) which is major contributing factor to climate change.This way we are giving back to society and future generations.
The phenomenon of climate change is one that “refers to the long-term change in Earth’s climate or region…including warming, cooling and changes besides temperature” (NASA). As a topic of concern for many, there has been major dispute on whether human activity is further contributing to climate changes. On the liberal side, individuals trust human activity as one of the many factors damaging the environment, leading to natural disasters effecting the world today. To combat climate change, altering human activity into eco-friendly decisions is essential. On the other hand, conservatives believe climate change is a hoax, therefore climate relief is deemed unnecessary.
On December 12 of 2015, 195 countries made history by committing to the first truly global international climate change agreement (Paris Agreement, 2015). This agreement took place in Paris and was adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome of the Paris Conference on Climate Change was described as “revolutionary” (Venezuela) “marvelous act” (China) and as “a tremendous collective achievement” (European Union) that introduced a “new era of global climate governance” (Egypt) while “restoring the global community’s faith of accomplishing things multilaterally” (USA) (Paris Agreement, 2015).