¶ … global climate change and the polarized viewpoints that result when some members of the media and other publicly visible individuals cast doubts on the existing scientific findings. A thesis is not offered in this paper but the juxtaposition of viewpoints presented allows the reader to judge the quality of the arguments based on the choice of language, the tone, the relevant data and the source. Global climate change has become a highly controversial issue -- and has confused many citizens because bona fide scientific findings are frequently rejected and even ridiculed by high-profile media pundits and some conservative politicians -- hence this paper compares and contrasts scientific reports with attacks from individuals who deny the existence of climate change (and are in denial as to the fact that human activities are responsible). A recent 18-page report released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) -- the world's largest scientific body with 120,000 members -- asserts that world leaders "must act more swiftly to slow greenhouse gas emissions" lest "potentially irreversible changes" occur (Barboza, 2014). But, on the other hand, U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican from Oklahoma, insists that he has "…offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is...
That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation's top climate scientists" (Inhofe, 2003). Inhofe, the ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, went on to say that "not fossil fuel" but "natural variability" is the "overwhelming factor influencing climate change" (Senate speech, 2003). Meanwhile the AAAS cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the leading international body for the assessment of climate change -- as having reported through empirical research (including ice core research dating back thousands of years) that the planet has "…warmed about 1.4 degrees since the late 1800s" (Barboza). The IPCC's "Fifth Assessment Report" (March, 2014) concludes that "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal…each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850" (IPCC, 2014). Notwithstanding the empirical data presented by the IPCC, media pundit Rush Limbaugh, whose daily radio show is aired on approximately 600 stations, insists that "…there's absolutely no evidence. It's a total hoax…an…
However, the type and evolution of the particular nature of the climate change experienced by the earth seems clearly due to the impact of human existence. Ruddiman takes a roughly chronological approach, and slowly takes the reader through the history of climatic shifts -- before humans became tillers of the land and afterwards. Major milestones in human history correspond with major anomalies in the earth's climate and atmospheric levels
Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Strategies for Global WarmingEven diehard climate change deniers are forced to concede the reality of global warming today, and many members of the scientific community cautions that the tipping point towards unpreventable climate change has already been reached and crossed. Nevertheless, efforts are underway on numerous fronts to identify effective mitigation strategies to address global warming to prevent a worst-case scenario from developing in the near
TRANSITION FROM MODERN WESTERN INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION TO a POSTMODERN GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION, AS DESCRIBED IN THE WRITINGS OF ORESKES & CONWAY, KLEIN, AND BERRY Humanity has faced a number of crises throughout history, and some of these such as the Black Death in the early 1330s and the Great Plague of 1665-1666 were of sufficient magnitude to kill large percentages of humankind. Even these disasters, though, did not rise to
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