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More handpicked essays just for you.
How the media has influenced public opinion on climate change
Impacts of fossil fuels on the environment
Climate change causes and effects
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Is climate change a hoax? Unfortunately, climate change is not a democracy therefore the popular vote does not matter. On the other hand, facts and scientific evidence do. The subject of climate change is inarguably a controversial one. Despite the data provided, people believe it’s a conspiracy but it’s opposition arises from politics, not science.
Undoubtedly, the media is a major influence in the dilemma. The democratic links between mass opinion and policy allow a conspiracy-believing public to steer policy away from addressing climate change (Douglas & Sutton, 2015). Many factors have contributed to climate change, some natural such as vibrations in the orbit. However, scientific facts might lead us to believe that the vast majority is thanks to mankind. The greenhouse effect being one of them, such effect is defined as the trapping of the sun’s warmth in a planet’s lower atmosphere due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible radiation from the sun than to infrared radiation emitted from the planet’s surface. For hundreds of years we have been aware that greenhouse gases such as CO2 trap heat but be
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“Political leaders cast doubt on the science.” (Blij, 2012) For instance, current U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in 2012 "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." In like manner, many other political figures have disagreed with the scientific facts being presented, many believing they are being created by scientist with the aim of continued funding. Not unlike these theories, many people believe the government has intentionally caused climate change. For example, some people believe that oil companies are hiding technology that could make cars run without oil (Furnham, 2013). Due to the many different conspiracy theories, the issue does not only exist between believers and
In the article “Climate of Complete Certainty” by Bret Stephens, he argues upon the topic that politicians exaggerate scientific certitude to benefit themselves. Stephens uses Clinton’s campaign loss and the climatic debate as illustrations to show that scientific fact doesn’t always give the defining factor of gains or losses. As stated by Stephens, Brexit showed the Clinton campaign that the populist tide causes a major surprise factor when determining the end result. With this example in mind, Stephens conveys that the end result strayed away from absolute certainty. Another instance in which scientific certitude is altered is within the topic of climate change.
Many people’s opinions are influenced by political leaders and their beliefs, which can have a negative effect on science’s efforts. Mere word changes have shown to make a difference in people’s willingness to pay for taxes that they don’t necessarily support or are even aware of. The use of storytelling has shown to be a powerful means in communicating science to the public as well. Although education and science understanding are not directly correlated with the acceptance of climate science, there is evidence that shows that a brief explanation of greenhouse effects “enhance acceptance across the political spectrum”. Researching source credibility has also boosted the political acceptance of certain scientific information.
The climate crisis of the 21st century seems to be all about climate change and or global warming. Many people think the most of the manmade climate is being caused by the world’s largest companies that use the most power, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests. The companies range from investor owned firms, household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP to state owned and government ran companies. The analysis say that, which has been welcomed by the former Vice President Al Gore as a "crucial step forward" found that most of the majority of the companies were in the business of producing oil, gas or coal. (Kenny)
Climate change has been nothing, but controversial in the last fifty years. Climate change is a change in the average weather of a region or city. Scientists have opted to use the term "climate change" instead of global warming because as the Earth's average temperature changes, winds and ocean currents move heat around the globe in ways that can cool some areas, as well as warm others. There is an ongoing dispute about the effects of humans on the global climate and about what policies should be implemented to avoid possible undesirable effects of climate change. Ninety-seven percent of published scientific research concluded that climate change is real, problematic for the planet, and has been exacerbated by human activity. But what about the three percent that contradicts that?
Like most popular false ideas in American politics, the idea that climate change isn't man made was created by the fossil fuel companies funding think tanks, scientists, and politicians to deny climate change to shape public opinion
Earth’s climate is determined by the physics and chemistry of its atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere consists of four layers; troposphere which is closest to earth, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. Hardy says, “During the past 100 years we humans, as a result of burning coal, oil, and gas and clearing forests, have greatly changed the chemical composition of the thin atmospheric layer.” There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels. The atmosphere is made up of many gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. It also consists of trace gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, chlorofluorocarbons and, ozone. The trace gases have the greatest effect on our climate (Hardy 5). Up to a certain level, these gases help to keep the planet warm by absorbing certain infrared wavelengths, so that there can be life on the planet. Thus, they trap heat in the troposphere and stop it from escaping to space (Hardy 7). Therefore, the greater amount of greenhouse gases, the more heat trapped in the atmosphere. Earth’s temperature is increasing due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide released into the air from burning fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report projects “global average surface temperature increases ranging from 1.4 to 5.8 degrees
Climate change. The two letter word so feared by scientists, so ignored by the average human being. What is it that makes scientists fear this phrase so much? For the concept of “climate change” has been seen throughout the history of the earths existence. For centuries, our climate has fluctuated through increasing and decreasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and climatic cycles. So what is the big deal? The problem, and the reason why this concept instills fear directly into the core of scientists is the rate at which over the past 1,300 years atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen. This unnatural increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to the immense amount of anthropogenic burning of oil and coal, affects the transfer
There were several examples in the film, “Climate of Doubt” of climate change framings such as Al Gore’s Pandora’s Box, and there are also several framings that exist in real life also mentioned in the film such as; Democrats and Environmentalists, and the Public health’s framing. In the film, Al Gore set the stone rolling for the modern debate on climate change over a decade ago. As an avid proponent against global warming,
The challenge throughout history has been integrating science into the general public discourse by breaking it down into layman’s terms. Why then, despite the widely dispersed evidence that the Earth is going through climate change and the way humans are consuming resources is unsustainable, is it still rejected by large portions of the American population?
Many people dedicate their lives to spread the message about climate change being real. Even though some change in the climate is natural, many events that have happened cannot be explained away by nature. Climate change is causing damage to the world that is completely irreversible. Nasa says, “Most scientists say it 's very likely that most of the warming since the mid-1900s is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. Burning these fuels is how we produce most of the energy that we use every day” (nasa). The energy that we use daily makes our life easier, but it hurts the earth. Why does the government still allow us to use these things? Science has shown us that sea levels are rising in many parts of the world. Warm weather is causing glaciers to melt which results in the sea level rising. Earth 's average temperature has been rising for the last century in a half; and there has also been a steady rise in ocean temperature since 1969. It is said that climate control is man made and it is dangerous. On the other side of the argument, many people do not believe that climate change is real. They argue that their has not been a big temperature change in almost two decades. They also bring up the point of there not being enough data in the climate history to draw the conclusion of what is happening in the climate now is abnormal. Scientist started to record climate change around the 1800’s which many people believe is not enough data to do a comparison. Another reason some believe that climate change is not real is because of some instances where a scientist predicts a date of a significant climate change never happens. Rinkesh writes, “ For example:- Al Gore predicted that all Arctic ice would be gone by 2013. But, on contrary Arctic ice is up by 50% since 2012” (conserve-energy-future). Many people find that these reasons are why climate change is not
The commonly debated “greenhouse effect” refers to “the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more” (Spencer). President Barack Obama addressed the issue as an effort to highlight its severity, "We have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we’re going to suffer the consequences – together” (Leader). The earth’s increasing atmospheric and oceanic temperatures result in climate changes due to cumulative amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
My parents grew up in small town in Mexico. There was a little river that went through part of the town when they were growing up. Every weekend or so they would go out and would go swimming with their families, it almost became a tradition to go swimming there until they noticed that the river 's water level was becoming smaller and smaller. Today there is no river anymore, instead it 's a road that travels through the town. Every time I visit my family in Mexico it would alway be nice and warm up until this year when I went in December. I remember waking up and getting ready to go to my aunt 's house in clothes for warm weather. As I open the door, the cold air punch me and I saw snowflakes falling down. It 's not supposed to snow in that
Even if the reason of climate change may be the natural cycles, we humans are the major determinant to it. The huge amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing the climate change and this amount is rising day by day, as a result of our actions. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, generally absorb and emit the heat in the atmosphere to keep the Earth’s climate habitable. However, as we continue to burn fossil fuels, this habitable Earth’s temperature will blow up, and as a result, some species will die out due to various problems which are caused by climate change. According to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the most obvious consequence of climate change is the rising sea levels, which will cause some seashore habitats to become unavailable to live to its species.
There are still some believers that support that climate change is not real and that they are just made up facts so people can grab the opportunity to make money with new products that will help the world to become “cleaner.” Their arguments are that the earth always had these types of climate changes just like a natural cycle. When asked about if there is any link on how in the past decades, when humans started using fossil fuels and the changes became worst and worst, they come with a response that it is just a
A report released by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 shows that more than one-quarter of American citizens are climate change skeptics. These skeptics deny that the planet’s climate is changing, despite the fact that the scientific community as a whole is as certain as it can be that global warming is very much a problem. In fact, the discussion in the scientific community is not whether climate change is occurring, but how much of an impact humans are having and how problematic any changes we are making will be. Despite this, as few as 42% of the population of the United Stated believe that the majority of scientists are in agreement on the basic facts about global warming (Leiserowitz et al., 2013). There are several reasons