Climate change, global warming, greenhouse effect—even if you only watch the news periodically, these are phrases that you have most likely become aware of. In short, climate change is the change global and regional patterns regarding climate; this is due to possible changes in the Earth’s axis, human activity modifying the composition of the atmosphere, or geographical activity such as volcanic eruptions [1]. Many have speculated and argued whether climate change actually exists. Regardless of your opinion, a staggering amount of scientists have accepted climate change as a reality. In fact, the much-admired astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson claims that individuals denying scientific facts is the “beginning of the end of an informed democracy” [2]. The article Climate Change: No Hiding Place supports Neil deGrasse Tyson’s notion stating “those who doubt that greenhouse gases are quite the problem they have been cracked up to be by most of the world's climatologists” [3]. While it may be difficult to see climate change presently, there are many indicators of its existence with the higher temperatures and acidity levels in the ocean, the melting of Arctic ice caps, …show more content…
My opposition would argue that fluctuations in warmth and acidity are normal and climate change is irrelevant. Though fluctuations are normal, “researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous”[5]; this is warmth does not show up on meteorologists' thermometers since it is so deep in the ocean [3]. The acidity level is also noticeably higher. Since the start of fossil use levels in the oceans have been 25-30% higher [6]. These factors also contribute to the rise of sea
Climate change is not a new concept. It has been mostly referred to as global warming in the past. As much as people would like to file this issue away as something to deal with at a later date, it simply cannot wait. This problem we face is costing us billions of dollars, forests and wildlife are being eliminated, and people are dying. Starting to sound like a big deal, right? Future generations will be affected the most. People who do not even exist will have to pay for what we, all people, have done to this earth. To begin to make changes, one must realize the severity of the issue. Bill Mckibben, author of “Recalculating the Climate Math,” conveys that “We’ve already raised the world’s temperature by one degree—enough to melt almost half the ice in the Arctic, kill off huge swaths of the world’s coral, and unleash lethal floods and drought. July and August tied for the hottest months ever recorded on our planet, and scientists think they were almost certainly the hottest in the history of human civilization” (Page 3 of 5). Global climate change is a serious problem because it increases natural disasters and is the cause of extreme weather.
According to The Framework Convention on Climate Change, “[climate change is] a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and that is in addition to natural climate variability over comparable time periods” (Pielke 31). Many climate change deniers like to focus on the latter portion of this definition, claiming that the warming changes currently being experienced throughout earth’s climate are a naturally occurring phenomenon, and that the earth goes through periods of
You may have heard people talking about how the weather is very different today than it was ten years ago. You may have noticed changes in the weather yourself. The earth's climate has changed many times over millions of years. And you may have heard about Global Warming. You may ask what Global Warming is. I remember the first time I ever saw and heard about Global Warming when I was just a little girl. I was watching the TV and a commercial came on, it was a cartoon with two kids and an adult. They were in the park enjoying the day. The adult started talking about Global Warming, the kids didn’t know what he was talking about, so he fast forward the time and showed them what the earth is going to look like when they are
Climate change is now at a point of being undeniable by anyone who gives it a serious look. Ten of the hottest years since they began keeping records of global temperatures in 1880 have occurred just since 1998. What's more, 2014 was the hottest year in the record books according to NASA and NOAA. These simple facts cannot be refuted by a simpleton Senator bringing a snowball onto the floor of the U.S. Senate and seemingly thinking that snow still exists therefore climate change must be a hoax. One area of serious study by climate scientists currently is the degree to which it is causing extremes in weather patterns around the world.
Everybody has heard of global warming and the anecdote that our grandchildren will never see a polar bear. Near apocalyptic warnings of the future we will have if we allow it to continue unchecked. However, there is a large faction of people who go out of their way to try to downplay the effects of global warming; these people are known as climate change deniers. Predominantly conservative, these people do everything in their power to undermine global warming for economic gain. Climate change denial has a big effect on the scientific community’s ability to focus on a solution to global warming and stems from misinformation and a value of public/personal opinion over scientific research.
The world is full of controversial topics. One topic has been discussed for nearly decades among the American people. The conversation on the matters of climate change has plagued the nation. Americans have set a record high for the level of concern toward climate change. Up eight percentage points, an average of forty-five percent of Americans are greatly worried about climate change and the effects that it will have on the earth (Gallup 2017). Recently, the cause of climate change has become a hot topic. Climate change can be generally defined as the changing weather patterns over a long period of time. Usually when people discuss global warming, they are actually referring to climate change since global warming is the change in the temperature of earth’s surface, one factor in climate change. Other factors of climate change include but are not limited to: changes in precipitation, severe weather patterns, and changes in the earth’s oceans. A definite answer to how these changing factors, or whether these changes are occurring, has not been presented, but that does not mean that there have not been attempts. Many people and groups of people have offered their personal opinions. Some simply share opinions with the partisan, political, group they belong to while some spend countless hours researching to form their own opinions. This has led to a melting pot of conflicting opinions. The American people have created a divide among themselves by arguing over whether climate
Climate change has been the topic of debate on the international stage for decades now. Although, in the last 30 years climate change has become a very controversial topic in the world of politics and business. This topic has went from scientist observing small changes in the weather, to a multi-billion dollar campaigns ran by the world’s governments and private industries. The topic of climate change has influenced everything from business decisions to new laws being put into place. The debate in climate change is usually found on the worldwide political stage. Rarely does one see two political parties agree on this subject. There is always a side that says climate change is destroying the world and it has to be stopped at all costs. Then there is a side that yells hoax whenever the topic is brought up. Both sides have logical explanations to their arguments, but bias and agendas always seems to taint the evidence so to speak.
The idea that the earths climate is consistently changing is widely accepted by nearly every scientist around the world due to sufficient evidence and long term weather trends backing this conclusion. Climate change can be noted by the several juristic changes that are currently occurring within nature. It is causing an intensification of natural disasters-such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, and many more-due to warmer temperatures allowing for more moisture to be held within the air. It also causes a decrease in biodiversity within nature, causing several species of animals to become endangered or even extinct due to habitat loss. Both of these are just some of the many ways climate change is negatively impacting nature and ultimately us as a human race. Despite all of this evidence, there is still a sizeable group of people that do not believe in such climate change. Some, on the other hand, may believe in the issue, but ignorantly assume that it is not of any importance to them. They are wrong. There is more than an ample amount of evidence to prove that climate change is occurring now more than ever across the world, effecting ourselves as well as ecosystems more than we know. There are several organizations that meet to address and solve the global issue of climate change. Still, a wide majority of nations around the world choose not to become involved in these foundations, making them just as large of a problem, as they feed off of others contributions.
For many years, global warming has become a more popular debate among people and scientists everywhere. Many people argue that global warming is happening because of human activities and others believe that there is no real proof that it is occurring. Global warming is a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. This is largely due to the increased levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the atmosphere. All over the world, temperatures have risen, severe droughts, and heavy rainfall has occurred. The rise in average temperatures and ocean temperatures, rise in sea level due to melting glaciers, and oceans becoming more acidic are reasons why many scientists believe that global warming is occurring. On the other hand, scientists argue that there is simply not enough historical data to prove that this is true. These scientists claim that early predictions and models are unrealistic and unreliable. Global warming is a real issue that has caused rising global temperatures, rising ocean temperatures, melting glaciers, and ocean acidification.
Is climate change a relevant issue that contemporary society needs to focus on; or is climate change merely a form of propaganda created to instill fear in society? For years, the ongoing debate of scientists creating a hoax has been a heated topic. I chose to research this to verify my beliefs and hopefully discover why deniers believe in what they believe. Climate change is the idea that the earth is trapping the gas CO2. When CO2 gas is trapped in the earth, the planet absorbs heat instead of releasing it into the atmosphere: like a heated blanket that covers our planet, this is the idea of global warming. As stated by NASA, some of the effects that are now occurring as a result of climate change as predicted by scientists such as more intense heat waves and the melting of ice causing increased sea levels.
Before discussing skepticism, it’s important to know what global warming and climate change are. Global warming is essentially the change in the Earth’s surface temperature due to the increasing use of greenhouse gases. Climate change on the other hand also focuses on the Earth’s temperature change, but does not primarily focus the effect of greenhouse gases, and is more tuned towards the long term changes of climate. Climate change can be studied through ice cores to show the history of the Earth 's climate by examining air bubbles that were trapped by snow and preserved in these ice cores. CO2 concentrations have varied between 180-330
All that needs to be done for a person to see that climate change is upon the world is to look outside. The seasons that used to be defined by their drastically different weather have started to blend into a year-long battle for hot and cold, along with unusual rainfall during typically dry spells. Climate change is the change in global or regional climate patterns. Global warming is the idea that the world is being heated by a few degrees every year brought on by an increase in carbon dioxide levels from the growing use of fossil fuels. Together these two things will begin to change the habitats as we know them and could devastate the world as we know it. There have been many studies on the changing climate, and people have begun to realize how significant of an issue this is in present time. The government and the EPA have released many bulletins on changes that are currently taking place, and have projected that it will only continue to escalate to the point that humankind will have a minuscule chance of survival. There are those who do not agree that people are causing the shut-down of the climates, or adding to the breakdown of the ozone layer that protects us from radiation in the atmosphere. Some scientists refuse to accept that taking any preventative measures will have any impact on the climate changes, in lieu of the astounding evidence that points to us being the major contributors of the carbon dioxide buildup in the air. Despite what some scientists believe,
The terms “global warming”, “climate change” or “greenhouse effect” have become more than just parts of the popular lexicon as they rather are subject of public discussions, scientific research or political debates. Despite the popularity and the ubiquity of these terms, the public’s theoretical and conceptual understanding of them and their causal relations is often based on superficial knowledge and buzzwords or caricatures outlined and depicted in several popular media. To take account for the latent threat that global warming embodies to humanity, wildlife and the whole environment, it is important to understand the science behind this occurrences. This abstract describes in short the terms mentioned above,
Climate change could be described as any process that causes adjustment to climate system be it a volcanic eruption to a change in the solar activity. Today, however, the phrase is most often used as climate change caused by humans. Climate change is also used commonly with another phrase – "global warming" – reflecting scientific observations of strong warming trends over the past century or so. Indicators like rising sea levels, retreating snow cover and glaciers, longer growing seasons and shifting wildlife has alarmed scientific community unanimously agreeing that the earth has warmed in the last century. Experts however are of the opinion that climate change is a more accurate phrase than global warming as the latter is just one component affecting the larger climate systems of the earth.
“When taking the heating of the entire climate system into account, our planet has warmed at a rate equivalent to 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations per second over the past 15 years” (Cook). Our planet is becoming warmer. When scientists add up all the heat warming the land, oceans, atmosphere, ice melting, earth is accumulating heat equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second. Global warming is a serious issue faced by our world as there has been a significant increase in temperature over the years. But the article published by Dr. Mark Sircus on “Global Warming -largest science scandal in the history” refutes the theory of global warming. Dr. Sircus states that there is no linkage between carbon dioxide and temperature leading to global warming, the sea level is not rising, arctic sea ice extent is now higher and climate change is due to solar activity. Dr. Sircus also points out that that the recent weather changes are not in line with global warming and “we are in the beginning of a deep freeze” (Global Warming - Largest Science Scandal in US History). NASA and the scientific community states that global warming is not a hoax and there is a rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to greenhouse gases released as people burn fossils. NASA states that the “key indicators of global warming are based on surface, satellite, and ocean temperature measurements, satellite measurements of energy imbalance and of receding glaciers, sea ice, and