Last Week Tonight With John Oliver : Climate Change

Climate change is one of today’s most hotly debated topic. Scientists for many decades have made supposed claims that current energy creation and reliance on fossil fuels will lead to inevitable changes to the planet. Today, climate change denial is still a popular to most of the world despite the mounds of evidence to support that it exists. The climate change issue suffers from being mismanaged by various parties through focusing on the wrong issues and the lack of true commitment from the general public, according to Sandra Steingraber.

Since the mining of Natural gases and energy, Emissions of greenhouse gasses have been slowly releasing into the atmosphere. This happens by burning the natural gases to create energy for our vehicles or even lawnmowers. On Earth we utilize a lot of energy to maintain a lifestyle we know and love today. But most forms of energy, cars and Farming produce large amounts of green-house gases that can heat and change the earth's atmosphere permanently and cause the ice caps to slowly melt because of constant heating.

Climate change is the long term shift in global climate patterns attributed mainly to the use of fossil fuels. Many people are aware of this issue, however, there has been an increase in the amount of people who deny climate change. 23 percent of Americans (compared to last year’s 16 percent) believe that climate change is not a problem (Atkin). To conclude that people do not accept cli­mate change because they do not under­stand it or need to be educated about it, is reasonable. However, I believe that it isn’t skepticism driving this denial. Rather, it is the phenomenon of reaffirming one’s identity. Instead of analyzing the evidence, it is intentionally interpreted in such a way as to maintain a pre-existing belief.

As a lover of meteorology, I have always paid attention to the weather and natural world around me. I have noticed and taken record of the change of temperature, major weather events, and the changes in my backyard. When people mention climate change, I automatically think of a phenomenon that is true, and because of my personal experience with observation. I also have believed this to be true because those around me have never presented me with evidence to the contrary. The way that I know climate change is real is because of my perception. While others may perceive no significant change in the environment or the weather patterns that surround them, I recognize a change. I would therefore present the argument of climate change as one that is not just obvious, but supported by many scientists as well. Because of the way I would present this, my statements would not be left open to interpretation, as the way that scientists often present factual

Global warming is hot topic nowadays. Alarmists and scientists fight to make their statements known, but while the alarmists avoid the scientist, non-governmental organizations pass themselves as scientist. They not only give out exaggerated data, they also have the nerve to accuse humans of being the cause of global warming. Also, we cannot be certain that we are being told the truth without knowing exactly what is really going on behind the scenes. We blindly trust those in authority because we think that they have our greater good in mind and that whatever they say must be the truth.

For those individuals who doubt climate change is real, I would strongly recommend they watch this documentary; it just might change their perspective on climate change and how it has led to extreme weather changes. Research shows that "Eighty-eight percent of natural resource professionals in this study agree or strongly agree that the science indicates that our climate is changing" (Allred et al. 10). The problem is most people do not truly believe the facts that are discovered by scientist. President Donald Trump is one example, you hear it over news reports saying that us as people do

Climate change is not real. The ice caps are not melting. Animals are not becoming endangered. Food is abundant on the land and in the sea. These are the arguments by naysayers and climate change deniers. These are the people who refuse to listen to generations of history and scientific research. These are the political administrations that will stop scientific advancements.

Koonin, who was the undersecretary for science in the Energy Department, a professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, a chief scientist of BP, and is currently director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. With all those positions, Koonin appears to be a very credible proponent for delaying climate change. He argues that climate science is not settled and society should, in turn, hold off in making brash decisions. Koonin states that there are three challenges to why climate change is not settled: the climate systems variability, the poor understanding of oceans regarding climate, and the uncertainties regarding positive and negative feedback loops (2). In other words, Koonin is saying that there are many things we do not know when we predict the climate. Koonin adds that “although most [computer] models are tuned to reproduce the gross features of the Earth’s climate, the marked differences in their details and projections reflect” all the things he stated that climate science is not settled on (3). Ergo, he concludes by saying “any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties but also the uncertainties, especially in projecting the future” (5). Koonin is concerned less with the certainties of climate change than with the uncertainties of climate change. This is troubling because it delays and perhaps halts the general public from agreeing towards a sensible solution in dealing with climate change. Primarily, all humans fear uncertainties -- nothing is scarier than not knowing what can happen. So if humans are scared due to the uncertainty of a situation, they hold off from making decisions which are vital to their future. Nonetheless, life is filled with uncertainties and that should not prevent society from making progress on climate change. After all, it would be wiser to

Some might argue that the Green House Effect is needed because it allows the earth to trap greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which are needed in order for the earth to stay warm and avoid extremes; however, it has never resulted in year that has been labeled to be the “hottest year on record” (Rampell). Some argue that it’s just a part of the natural process the has been occurring since the beginning of time, the earth warms up and cools off it happens. However, not at such an alarming rates NASA has been looking at records that indicate that the “warming trend over the last 50 years” is “nearly twice that for the last 100 years”. Meaning the earth is warmer today than it was 100 years ago. The larger the amount of carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gasses, that is in the atmosphere the warmer the earth becomes (Talking to Children about Climate Change).

These last two election cycles have demonstrated the importance of climate change in relation to politics and the american people. What is unfortunate is that what seems to be a very crucial and real problem in our human survival, according to scientists, is being debated by people who do not have the scientific credentials to even discuss the science behind the reality of climate change. Those behind the skeptics, have funded a successful campaign against the reality of the facts and have introduce doubt into the sciences.

There have been plenty of disputes regarding the infamous topic global warming, despite the fact that there is a unanimous scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. A history professor at UCSD, Naomi Oreskes, discusses this in her article, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”. She begins her investigation by researching credible experts and environmental organizations, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences, and several others. By utilizing these various sources as evidence it strengthens her argument about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. In this case, Oreskes audience consists of

Regardless of how visible the changes are presently there are changes occurring constantly. The climate has been changing for decades and that is only what we have scientific data on so the changing could potentially be going on for much longer. The people that favor this denial strategy are simply uncritical thinkers who either don’t want to accept the state of the world and the destination that we are heading or that they have too much financially at stake. Those who are in the latter situation have an ethical dilemma because they should agree with the facts, therefore agreeing with global warming but this would then call for action which for businesses especially will be costly. In our day in age, with our technology, it is difficult to claim you don’t believe in climate change. The acceptance of global warming is scary because it’s the acceptance of the destruction and distortion humans have cause to Earth but even more difficult is the response to the enlightenment. However, that is only half of the

The author mentioned that people generally have difficulty accepting facts that they have not previously believed in, no matter how strong the evidence happens to be. This applies to many issues, including climate change. People who believe that climate change is not an issue (or who believe that it is not real) generally have difficulty acknowledging the fact that it could be an issue. This phenomenon is called “solution aversion” and it makes things much more difficult when decisions are trying to be made on a subject.

Brimming with absorbing and educative statistics and facts, What We Know About Climate Change first chooses to challenge the

It is reported that nearly three quarters of green house gases are a result of humans burning fossil fuels from nonrenewable energy, cars, and electricity (LaMeaux, 2014). The effects of carbon emission on climate change are having devastating and many irreversible