The argument put forward by John Coleman, in his article “Global Warming Greatest Scam in History!”, is flawed mainly due to numerous logical fallacies. “Ad Hominem”, “Guilt by Association”, “Red Herring”, “Appeal to Irrelevant Authority”, “Hasty Generalization”, and “Genetic Fallacy” are some of the logical fallacies that can be observed to prevail in Coleman’s argument. As a consequence, the soundness, validity, clarity, reasoning and consistency of the whole article are insubstantial. Coleman’s premises fail to support his proposition that global warming is a scam, making the whole argument distorted and faulty.
The first defective premise that Coleman uses to support his claim, is that the scientists are “dastard”, “manipulative” and “wacko”, who are only “eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding”. Coleman states that those scientists, who claim that global warming is happening, are only after their own agenda. They are lunatics, only after fame and glory. As such, he reasons that their findings must therefore not be trustworthy. That flawed logic is an example of “Abusive Ad Hominem”. By describing the scientists as being “dastard”, “manipulative” and “wacko”, Coleman attacks the scientists on a personal level in an attempt to discredit their findings. The logical fallacy is to assume that a person’s argument has a direct correlation with their character, when it does not. In this case, the strength of a scientist’s argument should not be assumed to be determined by his character. These types of abusive comments do not strengthen Coleman’s argument at all, but instead shows how groundless his premise is.
Furthermore, another type of “Ad Hominem” can be observ...
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...e “dastard”, “manipulative” and “wacko”, which in itself is based off the premise of PHDs being part of a “single minded culture”. Coleman did not present any facts, data or references to his numerous premises but used a lot of flawed logic to convince the reader. Due to the various logical fallacies in the article “Global Warming Greatest Scam in History!” by John Coleman, it becomes clear that it is a flawed argument. John Coleman does not have a convincing argument that global warming is a scam.
Works Cited
Almossawi, A. (2014). An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. Retrieved from https://bookofbadarguments.com/
Coleman, J. (2014). Global Warming Greatest Scam in History!. Retrieved from http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/arguments-against-global-warming.htm.
Sneesby, J. (2013). Creating and evaluating arguments [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
A similar message that appears in his book that appeared in the aforementioned speech was the impact of the media speculation. The book addresses this in two examples. One was presented with the news of a lawsuit that an island called Vantu would file against the EPA; yet the lawsuit would never move forward due to it only serving a purpose to launder money and raise awareness to global warming that was never proven to affect the island. The other was shown to be environmental scientist who received their funding from environmental organizations, such as NERF in the book. These scientists would often have to go against their findings and report what the organizations wanted them to, or possibly lose their funding. Additionally, the book profoundly took opposition to the claim of global warming. This is presented in the form of the main character, Peter Evans, who has been manipulated into believing everything that the media has told him about global warming. It isn’t until John Kenner is introduced, that Peter begins got learn the truth about global warming. The author uses specific evidence to back his claims, specifically he uses a wide array of resources to verify his claim that Antarctica is not in fact melting, but getting colder and thickening. Furthermore, another essential concept that that book introduces is environmental extremists, or bioterrorism. These characters in the book would stop at nothing to make sure that everyone believed in global warming, and tried to destroy parts of the world to succeed in their mission. Bioterrorists are best represented as a warning of what could happen if people continue to buy into the media’s lies without having conclusive evidence to back up their
Mr. McKibben provides a strong argument call of action for everyone to take action against global warming. But he doesn 't just want action, Mr. Mckibben is demanding action now, and lots of it. Throughout the passage, Meltdown: Running Our of Time on Global Warming, the reader can examine the many ways that McKibben attempts to persuade others to join his movement. When one examines Bill McKibben 's use of rhetoric appeals, persuasive fallacies, and counter augments, A reader can analyze and understand the real claim that the writer is attempting to address.
In the essay, “Global Warming is Eroding Glacial Ice,” Andrew C. Revkin argues that global warming is the primary cause for many of the world’s natural disasters; including flash floods, climate change, and the melting of the polar ice caps. He includes multiple accounts of expert testimony as well as a multitude amount of facts and statistics to support his theory that global warming is a threat to the world. However, in the essay “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott makes the complete opposite argument. He argues that global warming is nothing to be worried about and the melting of the polar icecaps is caused by the interglacial period we are currently in. After reading both of these essays and doing extensive research on both viewpoints, I completely agree with Revkin that global warming is an enormous threat to our world today. My research not only helped me to take a stand but it also showed me the invalidity in Stott’s essay.
He includes references from scientists with different backgrounds and public statements from government officials to support the claims that he made. Not only that, Scranton is a doctoral candidate in English at Princeton University, and he has written for The New York Times, Boston Review, and Theory & Event. Also, Scranton has published a novel about the Iraq war. His achievements and academic background certainly increase his credibility. His scientific and political sources add to his credibility even more so. The examples included in the logos paragraph is only a representation of the evidence featured in his article hence the use of the plural version of scientists and government officials in this essay. Even though Dr. Scranton has credible sources, he does fail to consider a portion of UTA readers. He mentions that the “question is no longer whether global warming exists” but instead questions how we are going to deal with it (par. 9). As a result, Scranton ignores the readers that might not believe in global warming; he does not recognize this small audience in his article, and as a consequence, readers might find Scranton to be slightly arrogant. Despite the failure to acknowledge this alternate view, Scranton does have the public’s interests at heart. The purpose of the article is to convince readers to take action and help save humanity
Global warming is one of the most terrifying dangers that determines the future of life on Planet Earth. This gradual warming of planet Earth is due to excessive Carbon Dioxide which makes the Ozone layer thinner. The ozone layer is a thin layer located in the Stratosphere which reduces solar radiation to enter the earth (Owen). Al Gore, the 45th Vice President of the US, won a Nobel Prize on December 1, 2007 for raising awareness for climate change. His winning prize, $1.6 million went towards a new non-profit organization, Climate Reality Project, whose sole purpose is to take action on climate change (Biography.com Editors). He mentions his upcoming strategies for reducing CO2(Carbon Dioxide) emissions in his Global Warming is an Immediate
...nd by our position. However, the battle against global warming, GMOs and DDT alarmism is unfortunately far from the end. The alarmist environmental movements have been endorsing these swindles for many years that include some influential groups in the government, science, business and liberal media. Up to this point, the majority of the debates were based on predictions and now we are at the point where the actual facts are showing that the predictions are incorrect. The real picture of these debatable topics are becoming more clear and unless something major occurs in the near future it is going to be difficult for the environmental groups to continue to support their untruthful stories. Solomon’s article proves that today’s governments that used to support the idea of global warming are reconsidering their position and aiming to steer in a different direction.
This video successfully uses the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos and logos to support its claims on climate change. The way National Geographic uses ethos, or credibility, for this video is strong and thought out. The main speaker is none other than Bill Nye, who most students grew up watching in elementary school; to learn different aspects of science; and is a very respectable and credible speaker for this topic, of climate change. Nye graduated from Cornell University with a degree in mechanical engineering, then moved to Seattle, Washington to work as an engineer for Boeing and ultimately became a science educator, winning educational awards for his famous program, “Bill Nye the Science Guy”(Biography.com). Nye has extremely credible credentials to be able to speak about this topic of science, who speaks in a serious, concerned and informative manner to grab the attention of the viewer and explain that climate change is a serious affair that needs to be acted upon.
Sallie Baliunas of the Marshall Institute fits Altermann’s think tank scholar profile well. Regarding her involvement in the global warming debate, she has spent less time on the scholarship of global warming and more time advocating the idea that it is simply a myth. She is a senior scientist at the Marshall Institute, which supports her writing of articles against the Kyoto treaty (“Bush right to oppose [Kyoto] treaty”)2 and the promotion of the idea that global warming is a natural process caused by increased radiation from the sun (“The Sun Also Warms”).3 Though she has published relatively little in academic journals on the issue, articles such as these are numerous in conservative political forums, such as the website TechCentralStation.com, “where free markets meet technology.”4 Though she is not considered a global warming expert by professional climate scientists, she is oft quoted by the anti-Kyoto folks as the expert voice that proves global warming is a hoax (see any article by Charli Coon of the Heritage Foundation5 or by Chris de Freitas6). Her global warming research has been funded, in part, by corporate oil interests.
Global warming was a scare tactic created by the government in order to enforce grants and programs that would give them money. There is no signs of it actually happening and if it is how can we actually believe what they are saying? There are so
For these reasons, global warming stands as one of the most daunting policy issues facing our world today. This is compounded by the debate over the very existence of climate change. While countless sources of empirical evidence testify to the very real presence of climate change the world over, considerable denial of the phenomenon still exists. The argument has been made that evidence about climate change is a gross overstatement, or in some cases, a complete fabrication. Despite the evidence to the contrary, many interest groups with considerable political clout have successfully perpetuated the argument that documented changes in the environment are a product of natural cyclical changes in climate, and are not associated with human activities. However, even the acceptance of this particular brand of reality is no grounds for the disregard of environmental consciousness. Even if one accepts the premise that recent climate change is not resultant of human activity, the rationale behind environmental conservation remains ...
Jeffrey Salmon is the executive director of the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington D. C. This is an organization that conducts scientific research on issues that affect public policy. Salmon disagrees that global warming poses a serious threat to human health or the environment (Salmon 23). He believes that there is no solid scientific evidence to support the theory that the Earth is warming because of man-made greenhouse gases. Salmon says that environmentalists and politicians have seized the very few scientific findings and promoted a sense of crisis in order to further their own agendas. A lot of the talk about how the world will only be saved if humans reduce fossil fuel emissions is only out there because of these people putting getting the word out and striking fear in people. The truth is that the Earth is not experiencing rapid enough changes for all of that to be necessary (Salmon 25). Salmon also compared the global warming threat to a weekly weather prediction. He says that just like a weatherman is often wrong about the weather of the week, the predictions about Earth’s future weather is a little sketchy. If weather cannot always be predicted a few days in advance, then there is no way the claims of Earth’s weather in several years can be determined true (Salmon
The opposing party would like you to believe that the scientists are 90% certain that extreme heat periods will increase worldwide. They say that this is causing increased danger of wildfires, human deaths, and algal blooms. This of course is utterly false on many different levels. These scientists that the opposing party was actually paying a select group of scientists to testify for them meaning the “90% of Scientists” were actually lying because they were being paid off. The real majority agreed against these paid scientists, but they were not included in the vote for agreement in this statistic. These statistics are not nearly as dire as described because they won’t happen. This is because the CO2 emissions are no where near to where they are portrayed in the Al Gore video.
Al Gore mentions Mark Twain’s quote, “what gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so”; we sometimes think we know what something is but we have no clue about what’s true and what’s not. Many people know what global warming is but when asked to go in depth they just say “oh it has to do with heat and it affecting our environment”. “Even if humans were causing global warming, and we are not, this could be maybe the greatest hoax ever perpetrated.”- Senator James Inhofe. How ignorant must this senator be? There is evidence supporting the fact that global warming is occurring. It’s not until the world is ending that people that have the same mind set as this man will finally understand that global warming is happening. Yet, they will still have the audacity to say “I didn’t think global warming was THAT important.” “If a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water, it jumps right out again because it senses the danger. But the very same frog if it jumps into a pot of lukewarm water that is slowly brought to a boil, will just sit there and it won’t move. It’ll just sit there even as the temperature continues to go up and up. It’ll stay there, until it’s rescued. People are like the frog, we’ll jolt sometimes before we become aware of a danger; however, if it seems gradual even if it’s happening quickly, we’re capable of just sitting there and not
Global warming has become on of the most controversial issues in the media today. While most of the Western world countries have generally accepted the premise that man's chemical emissions in the atmosphere can and are affected by the world’s climate patterns, in the United States, the issue has become so politicized with many republicans challenging the science behind the theory. Global warming is a greenhouse effect whereby gases are trapped on the earth’s surface causing it to heat up (Maslin 14). It is based on the worldwide temperature records that have been maintained by human beings through their activities since the 1880,s. In addition, global warming is not only caused by human activities only but also through climate changes in solar radiance. The problem is that, humans continue to contribute to the global warming phenomenon. All citizens should work in reducing human activities that cause global warming and also support the development of nuclear power. Scientists deem that, global warming is mainly caused by human activities which accelerate the natural process by creating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Human activities have become a great contribution to the greenhouse effect and this means that climate changes are inevitable. They further argue that, if these activities continue and are not reduced, it will lead to more trapping of energy radiated from the earth and this will likely lead to extreme weather and global warming. Global warming should be at reduced levels or else, it will be catastrophic.
The controversial subject of global warming according to a large amount of scientists is not a prominent concern. Over 31,000 scientists have signed on to a petition saying humans aren't causing global warming. More than 1000 scientists signed on to another report saying there is no global warming at all. There are tens of thousands of well-educated, mainstream scientists who do not agree that global warming is occurring at all. If so many scientists believe it is not a concern then why should we think any different? Well, a consensus shows that in reality 97% of all climate scientists agree that global warming is an issue and that it is most likely due to ...