Climate Change
Introduction and Claim
Climate change has occurred throughout the earth's history. Ice ages and other radical transformations to the earth's atmosphere have led to dramatic consequences of life on the planet. Ample scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring rapidly now, and that much of it has been driven by human activities. Moreover, climate change can have serious consequences for life on earth. According to NASA, the recent climate change pattern has been causing a wide range of problems ranging from ocean acidification to extreme weather events.
However, many people and especially those in the United States still believe that climate change is a hoax, an exaggerated claim, or a result of natural fluctuations in weather patterns. While natural fluctuations in climate and localized weather have occurred and still are occurring, there is virtually no disagreement among scientists, in a number of different fields of expertise, that the current climate change patterns are directly caused by human activity (Cook et al.). It is important to reach consensus on climate change because its effects are devastating, and denial prevents proactive solutions. Overwhelming scientific evidence proves climate change exists and is affecting human and non-human life.
Background
Climate change is real, but nevertheless, it has become a divisive political issue. The political reasons for denying climate change range from short-range economic expediency to poor logic. Those who claim global warming is a hoax do so for various ideological, political, or economic reasons.
Global warming/climate change is not about belief, it is about recognizing factual evidence and acknowledging the truth. There are several components to the climate change debate. The first component is related to the simple existence of climate change. The second is what causes climate change, and the third is what to do about climate change, if anything.
Data
Data on climate change is ample and includes information from all fields of science. The NASA earth sciences divisions outline the various parameters of climate change, which the organization claims is "unequivocal," (NASA). Since the Industrial Revolution, ocean waters have become thirty percent more acidic, due to increased levels of carbon dioxide making their way into the sea via processes of evaporation and precipitation (NASA). These rates of acidification are becoming more rapid. In fact, the rate at which the climate change is occurring is "unprecedented in the past 1300 years," (NASA).
Although 2014 may have been the "warmest year on record," the impact of climate change might not seem like global warming trends ("Climate Oscillations and the Global Warming Faux Pause"). Climate change affects each area of the world differently, and is not necessarily going to manifest uniformly across all geographic regions. It is important to remember that extreme cold can be a result of climate change, which is why the term "global warming" can be misleading and why it is important to debunk myths claiming that cold winters disprove global warming ("Climate Oscillations and the Global Warming Faux Pause"). In fact, a wide range of weather patterns including droughts and storms can be attributed to global shifts in atmospheric gases. NASA mentions decreased snow cover on mountains, extreme weather events like storms, glacial retreats, declining arctic sea ice, decreasing ice sheets, net global rises in temperatures, warming oceans, and rising sea levels as the most obvious and measurable effects of climate change.
Warrant and Backing
Because there is a scientific consensus, climate change cannot be denied except by denying science. As Cook et al. discovered in a thorough analysis of almost 12,000 scientific reports, there are virtually no scientists who reject anthropogenic global warming. Global warming is real; the debate is mainly about what to do about it. The mainstream media, distinct from scientific journals, has presented the views of those who believe that global warming may be a hoax. This does not mean that there is any validity to those claims. As Evans puts it, "There is no debate about the existence! The media has been partially responsible for implying there's a debate on climate change. There are great debates to be had on solutions," (Evans). McCright and Dunlop found that liberals and Democrats believe in scientific data, whereas Republicans and conservatives do not. The nature of this polarized debate has created roadblocks for public policy related to climate change.
Counterclaim and Rebuttal
Booker claims that climate data has been deliberately falsified, and that global warming is "one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time," (1). If Booker were correct, it would mean millions of scientists and their associates including scholars, laboratory technicians, and students, would be engaging in a massive conspiracy theory. The likelihood of such a grandiose operation is far less than the likelihood...
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2009). At the same time, a careful scientific study that attempted to account for the natural temperature cycle of the Earth, which is mainly driven by oceanic currents, found that even with natural variability accounted for the trend in the twentieth century has been an unrelenting warming trend (Swanson et al. 2009). Discussion These results lead to varying conclusions regarding the causes of global warming and the effects it will have
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