Media Coverage of Climate Change & Global Warming

1935 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Media and global warming

Because decisions can be made by governmental agencies concerning actions that reduce human impact on global warming, individuals have a responsibility to seek out factual information to aid them in voting decisions. This is a challenging endeavor; because much of today’s media coverage concerning human effect on global warming and climate change is vague, uses rhetorical devices, and offers fallacious reasoning, which influence society towards making decisions regardless of factual information. Because of this, it is important for citizens to think critically when evaluating media coverage pertaining to human impact on climate change and global warming. Human impact of global warming and climate change (now simply referred to as GWCC) has become a political issue because not all individuals and business are willing to voluntarily take the actions necessary that could help slow the rate of GWCC trends. According to Milfont (2012), these necessary actions “would require stringent policy interventions, which in democratic societies, would only be possible by widespread public support for at least the broad and long-term goals of such interventions” (p.1003). Media greatly influences this public support. To illustrate, COIN (2014) reveals that “right-leaning media are far more likely to carry skeptical opinion” (para.1), on the other hand, “skeptical opinions are rarely to be found” in left-leaning media, and sometimes to the point of exaggeration (para.1). Furthermore, survey results to measure public opinion can be misleading simply due to the wording of survey questions. A study conducted by Schuldt, Konrath, and Schwarz (2011) concludes that “partisan divide on the [GWCC] issue dropped from 42.9 percentage points under a... ... middle of paper ... .... (2014). Interests, ideology and climate. The opinion pages NYTimes. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/opinion/krugman-interests-ideology-and-climate.html Milfont, T. L. (2012). The Interplay Between Knowledge, Perceived Efficacy, and Concern About Global Warming and Climate Change: A One-Year Longitudinal Study. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 32(6), 1003-1020. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2012.01800.x Riebeek, H., (2010). Global warming. Feature articles. NASA Earth observatory. Retrieved from http://Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/ Schuldt, J. P., Konrath, S. H., & Schwarz, N. (2011). “Global warming” or “climate change”?. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(1), 115-124. Stossel, J. (2014). Let’s chill out about global warming. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/22/let-chill-out-about-global-warming/

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Motivated Rejection Of Science

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Why Bother Michael Pollan Analysis

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is obvious from the tone of this report that Michael Pollan really wants to stop climate change; he just doesn’t know how to make a lasting effect. Even so, he never ceases to pull at the readers’ heartstrings. The author does a great job at coercing the readers to jump on board; the only problem is there is no destination in mind. So, instead of inciting his readers to act out against this problem, Pollan leaves them dumbfounded and uncertain on how to

    Read More

  • The Media's Misrepresentation of Environmental Issues

    1989 Words  | 4 Pages

    Today’s mainstream media has a deep influence on numerous aspects of economical and social life, it provides information and data almost on everything that happens on our planet. Mainstream media became one of the most important and influential instruments in our society, as the news stories reach a large numbers of people in a short time. Different people are using mainstream media as a first source of information; humans need the information, which is why there is a great deal of trust on media. We follow the news because it is our duty as citizens to be informed; it gives us the facts that help us make the right decisions and also gives us something to talk about. The media has a great public responsibility in front of their audience; therefore, they are expected to provide information that is accurate, reliable and free from bias. It is essential that the public is truly informed about the controversial topics on environmental issues, like DDT and GMOs. Media informs the public with regard to science and technology, which further impacts policy making within the society. The drawback with today’s mainstream media is that it tends to provide information that is far from what is happening in the real world. Current news media misrepresent some news report in order to gain attention and they omit the most important news from television, newspapers or radio that the public deserves to know. The articles “Environmentalism for the 21st Century” by Dr. Patrick Moore, “Rachel Carson’s Environmental Genocide” by Lisa Makson, “Lawrence Solomon: For global warming believers, 2013 was the year from Hell” by Lawrance Solomon and “Global warming at work: how climate change affects the economy and labour” by Raveena Aulakh will be discussed ...

    Read More

  • Al Gore's Credible Argument on Global Warming

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    Our world faces many issues consisting of political issues, economic crisis, poverty, world wars, and environmental issues for example. Global warming is one of the many environment issues that many pay little attention to. Mr. Al Gore in his documentary directed by David Guggenheim brings to light this climate crisis and how affective it can be to the earth and how we must address it as soon as possible as it may lead to the destruction of our world’s environment. Al Gore does a great job in identifying global warming, what are the cause and effects, and how we should address the issue that can potentially save our planet earth. Overall, Al Gore offers a credible argument and one of the many reasons Al Gore’s argument is credible is because

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Big Heat By Elizabeth Morbert

    588 Words  | 2 Pages

    Just because it is not happening here, it does not mean it is not happening. That is what reporter Elizabeth Kolbert would have said to the entire American population on climate change if she could go back in time. Kolbert, in her New Yorker article “The Big Heat”, argues that Americans have been extremely busy handling insignificant situations happening in their regional level that they have forgotten to deal with the most atrocious social issue of all: global warming.

    Read More

  • Pros and Cons: Global Warming

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alleged Global Warming has been a hot topic and been widely reported in the American media since the 1970s. In March 2014, TED, a nonprofit committed to expanding ideas with short talks, gave a powerful presentation of the alleged current consequences of Global Warming in Gavin Schmidt’s (2014) talk: The emergent patterns of climate change. His claims are stark and he implores his audience to take the grave predictions of Global Warming seriously and not just write it off as insignificant. While Google Trends (2014) shows (graph 1) that search terms for global warming in the United States (red) have decreased while worldwide (blue) interest (image 1) fluctuates with India showing the most curiosity. Yet, not everyone agrees that Global Warming is real just as not everyone agrees that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health when scientific studies show otherwise. By defining Global Warming, giving the major arguments on both sides of the topic, and offering an overview of scientific studies, this paper will help one think critically and thoughtfully about Global Warming.

    Read More

  • Commentary 3 Climate Science As Culture War

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    This has caused individuals to become disengaged on the scientific reasoning of climate change and instead rely heavily on their own opinion, values and ethics to reach a conclusion. “We must understand that people’s opinions on this and other complex scientific issues are based on their prior ideological preferences, personal experience, and values,” says Hoffman, A. (2012). Therefore the debate on climate change cannot continue to polarize human society and science, both must be addressed to ensure aligned future action on this

    Read More

  • Jonathan Ellis Arguments Against Climate Change

    564 Words  | 2 Pages

    It has all become so real so quick. Just a few years ago climate change was taken by people as something preventable, or at least reversible. Today there is no doubt it is a major threat not just to humankind but to the whole planet and every living thing on it. In the article “Stepping into the Vacuum,” Jonathan Ellis collected all the latest events, decisions, and reactions concerning the Trump’s decision not to participate in Paris climate accord. In spite of the choice the president of the US had made on June 1st several States, along with leaders of some big companies, and many americans by themselves decided to support the union of counties in their fight against climate change. THere are 321 million of people in this country, sure we can make a noticeable difference, if everyone of us will follow the simple rules: don’t fly on the plane, be more economic with electricity, use less of “one time use” things

    Read More

  • Nick Anderson's Cartoon Analysis

    333 Words  | 1 Pages

    (4) In Nick Anderson’s cartoon, he is able to convey the idea of how politicians and humans alike are ignoring the unsettling fact that climate change is very real and is happening right in front of our very eyes. He shows how mankind is very clearly able to see the effects of our actions, such as, melting ice caps, habitat alteration, and diminishing quality of life for animals in affected areas. Despite these harrowing images, however, people have done nothing to change their behaviors or attitudes on the matter, and instead, turn a blind eye to protect their own comfort and convenience, and it is this kind of thought process that is destroying planet Earth.

    Read More

  • Media Coverage of Climate Change

    1742 Words  | 4 Pages

    The mass media plays an enormous role in influencing the public. In the age of globalization many technologies like Internet, television, newspapers, magazines, radio and so on, make news available and accessible for everyone around the world. The media can easily get any information out there to the public regarding any subject such as political views, health issues, entertainment, education, human tragedies…and those information do have an impact on our everyday life decisions, opinions and raise our awareness on a subject. The media is most of the time the only way people can get information on subject that they cannot fully understand such as science. Because “science is an encoded form of knowledge that requires translation in order to be understood” (Ungar 2000), many studies have shown that the media plays a very crucial role in raising people understanding of the scientific world and the environmental issues, especially the climate change and global warming. Climate change has become an important issue today and people need to understand how serious it is in order to take actions to prevent it from getting worse; and the only way the information can get to the public is via the mass media. Today global warming is raising many concerns and the media coverage is increasing but yet many scientists complain about the limited coverage of the subject because it seems that it is not enough compared to the gravity of the situation. Because of the lack of information, many people are still very skeptical and some are just very confused about the global warming and how it affect our atmosphere.

    Read More

  • National Security And Threat Assessment Process

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although it is often a topic for contention in politics, global warming over the span of several decades, has led to climate change, which has had an alarming impact globally. Climate change needs to ...

    Read More

  • Climate Change Frames

    448 Words  | 1 Pages

    The authors are trying to investigate how the different frames of climate change affect the opinion of the members of the public on the issue. They aim to use global climate impacts, as well as, frames to determine the perceptions of individuals on the issue of climate change. The authors argue that impact frames that focus on the issue of climate change help to influence public opinion. Furthermore, the use of local frames contributes to increasing people's perception regarding the severity of the problem. Additionally, it contributes to encouraging more individuals to support local policy action in a bid to address the impacts of climate change. On the other hand, providing

    Read More

  • Global Speech: An Informative Speech On Climate Change

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    Subpoint A: Not long ago, a documentary film called “An Inconvenient truth” came out in 2006. This film raised international public awareness of climate change and reenergizing the environmental movement. A former U.S Vice president Al Gore campaigned to educate citizens about global warming through a simp...

    Read More

  • The Reality of Global Warming

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    Al Gore addresses this issue in a Rolling Stone magazine essay that was published online. Even though he believes that the media and government have the greatest influence and impact on Global Warming, he also believes that the general public should be more aware of the dilemma at hand. He expresses to the public the solutions to help solve this problem and what they can do to better the society in a “greener” way.

    Read More

  • Global Warming: A Global Crisis

    1668 Words  | 4 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

More about Media Coverage of Climate Change & Global Warming

Open Document