Public Opinion On The Topic Of Climate Change Remains Divided

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.

The climate change is overall change, which has taken place in global climate pattern due to increase of carbon dioxide in many folds. Whether it is responsibility of individual or the government to control the climate change has become a moot point for many years. Proponents and opponents of both the views have their own strong arguments. Before coming to an end, I would like to light on both the views in my imminent paragraphs.

Media coverage of climate change has effects on public attitude on the issue, as it mediates scientific opinion on climate change. The media uses interactions between climate science, policy, statistical scientific texts, data, scientific language and the appearances of scientific personalities. Such as work and stories from scientists that are personally known. It is clear that science and policy shape media reporting and public understanding. Whether people believe in it or not is their

Although the climate scientists who say that the climate is changing (about 97 percent by some estimates) far outnumber those who don’t, Gore's comments indicate the strength of the

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.

2. Some possible ways of climate change will be plate tectonics, volcanic activity, variation in Earth’s orbit, solar variability and human activities. Human activities

The Earth has been experiencing a considerable amount of climate change for the last several decades. Natural factors that contribute to the climate system consist of: solar output, volcanic activity and earth’s orbit around the sun. The two factors relevant on timescales of contemporary climate exist in volcanic activity and changes in solar radiation. The earth’s energy balance primarily influences the amount of incoming energy from volcanic eruptions, which have a relatively short-term effect on climate. Changes in solar output have contributed greatly to climate trends over the past century. The effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been at least ten times that of changes in the Sun’s output and the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface, receiving twice the amount of earth’s radiation. Although the sun is the engine that drives all the weather, oceans and atmosphere control the sun 's energy along certain

Climate change has been a subject of discussion in the media for many years, supported with the use of arguments against oil polluting the environment and extreme scare tactics of Polar ice caps flooding civilians backyards. The issue has been ignored by the majority of lay people as seeming too complicated, and with all the conflicting information in the media in the past, who can blame them? However, scientifically, climate change and what perpetrates it is fairly simple to understand and society as a whole is beginning to come to a clear consensus on climate change. Thanks in part to more readily available forms of media and information, people have become cognizant of the fact that climate change is a legitimate problem which requires immediate amelioration. While this may seem melodramatic, society is realizing that climate change is an issue which can no longer be denied if the human race wishes to continue.

Climate change is evident throughout the world and is a major issue. It is no secret that our planet is getting warmer. Global warming is now recognized in the scientific community as a real problem. There are multiple aspects that are causing this issue. Majority of the warming is caused by greenhouse gases. Volcanic eruptions and changes in the intensity of solar radiation have offset the warming partially. It is estimated that average annual temperatures will increase 3.5°F-9.5°F by the century’s end.

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 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change not only reported about the occurrence of global warming, but also stated that it is caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. The Gallup poll has tracked the views of Americans on this issue since the year 2001 and it has been consistent. Fewer people who were surveyed in 2008 said that global warming is due to human activities than natural causes, than people who were surveyed back in 2001. Republicans’ belief in human-caused global warming has decreased from 2001 to 2008 while the Democrats’ belief has risen in the same period of time (Dunlap&McCright, 2008, pg 29).

Likewise, Chris Mooney, a journalist and author who evaluated the relationship between scientists and the public, discusses the similar issue about climate change in his article, “"If Scientists Want to Educate the Public, they Should Start by Listening.” He begins by gathering information generated from scientists and the public to determine why most people refuse to believe scientists on

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,

97% of climate scientists agree that such increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration are man-made (Global Climate Change: Consensus). Why then is it that the news media treats such widely held views by experts as debate rather than consensus? The answer may lie in the media’s current and skewed standards of what constitutes “objectivity” and “balance”.

The planet has been experiencing considerable climate change for the last several decades. There have been many explanations toward the main causes of the increased warming of the planet. On one hand are the environmentalists who believe that the major cause of this increased warming of the planet is the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere induced by human activities. On the other hand, the scientists believe that there are natural causes of global climate change. While the supporters of the man-made theory of global climate change reason that the major greenhouse gas causing global warming is carbon dioxide, the advocates of natural causes