Analysis Of The Huffington Post 's Article : 5 Reasons Why Climate Change Is A Social Issue

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.

Climate change has been a subject of discussion in the media for many years, supported with the use of arguments against oil polluting the environment and extreme scare tactics of Polar ice caps flooding civilians backyards. The issue has been ignored by the majority of lay people as seeming too complicated, and with all the conflicting information in the media in the past, who can blame them? However, scientifically, climate change and what perpetrates it is fairly simple to understand and society as a whole is beginning to come to a clear consensus on climate change. Thanks in part to more readily available forms of media and information, people have become cognizant of the fact that climate change is a legitimate problem which requires immediate amelioration. While this may seem melodramatic, society is realizing that climate change is an issue which can no longer be denied if the human race wishes to continue.

The essay “The Climate emergency” is based on a speech made by Al Gore at Yale University in April 2004 to a room full of students. Al Gore is the former Vice President of the United States under President Bill Clinton. He is also an environmental rights activist. In the beginning of the speech the former vice president shares a story about his trip to a Shoneys Restaurant with his wife Tipper to draw the audience in. (300-301). Once he captures their attention he is able to focus them on his real message.

As Earths average temperature increases every year, the discussion of climate change has become a significant topic in the scientific community. Human activities such as powering factories, running automobiles or something as simple as burning wood for heat, emit dangerous greenhouse gases. What makes these greenhouse gases so detrimental is that they absorb the heat radiating off of Earth and keep it in the lower atmosphere creating a “blanket” of warmth around the Earth’s surface. This causes a drastic increase in the Earths average temperature. Due to the rise in temperature, the polar caps have been melting faster than ever, this is dangerous not only because of the risk of floods and sea level increase but ocean water will become less saline and ecosystems will be destroyed, impacting humans just as much as marine life. In the article, Understand faulty thinking to tackle climate change by George Marshall, Marshall states that most people in our world today do not care about climate change because it will not affect them, “Which points to the real problem: climate change is exceptionally amorphous, … no deadlines, no geographic location, no single cause or solution.” (Marshall 2014). Because the author makes it clear that climate change is indeed a great plight, and fails to be acknowledged by people, it is a significant matter that should be discussed

Climate change is defined as a change in weather patterns. I am going to write about climate change and controversies surrounding it. Climate change is one of the most important topic which would be discussed around the world and would be important for a longer time to come. Political parties have different point of views about climate change. The person I chose to interview for this essay is Professor Jonathan Taylor and he teaches geography classes at Cal State Fullerton. Climate change is not happening worldwide because of natural causes but it is happening because of human activities.

Global Warming has changed American’s perspectives in many ways though-out the past centuries including: the way society views our environment, technology, cultural values, as well as expectations. According to Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein, The Real World; An Intro to Sociology; 4th Edition (pg.45), a paradigm shifts, “occur when new data force new ways of looking at the world”. In the 1950’s increased awareness was placed on global warming and the Green House Effect due to new technology showing that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were rising each year (Encyclopedia of Global Warming). As a result Americans were concerned with pollution for the first time in history; and in return, our cultures perspectives slowly started to change the way we look at the world.

With the rise of calamitous news regarding extremists groups taking over certain states, countries threatening to go to war, and viruses spreading throughout the world; the outlook of humanity does not look good. In addition to these dire headlines is the matter of climate change, which, unfortunately, is not as alarming to the public eye. Nonetheless, climate change is a pressing matter as it will impact every facet of society from economy to even human survival. Perhaps the general public find climate change as a vapid subject because of its nature to react belatedly to human activity, and how it is often represented with numbers, graphs, and projections; things that are not compelling to those that do not understand its importance. Even

When I polled a few of my friends about “what is the single most critical problem facing us today?” I got a frequent response that’s not so shocking, climate change. So why climate change? Why not obesity, or population control, or education? While all of those are problems that deserve discussion, no single topic is so fundamental to us as humans as climate change. In 2007 Al Gore stated in his person of the year interview that “Today we 're dumping 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the environment, and tomorrow we will dump more, and there is no effective worldwide response. Until we start sharply reducing global-warming pollution, I will feel that I have failed.” (Walsh) Perhaps the paradigm has changed. Climate change is now talked about at every level of government, in large and small businesses, and communities across the globe. It’s a topic that functions to affect our economy and our environment. Moving forward, it’s important to understand why our way of life will be affected by the way we tackle these issues surrounding climate change. Climate change is the single most important issue affecting the human race today due to its widespread impact on our survival; impacting food sources, transportation, weather, geography and other life forms on the earth.

Throughout this article, most of it pertained to how the environmental community has shown that global warming is a social problem, while the public determined that global warming is a legitimate problem and supports policies that work against it. However, during the 1990s, the United State’s policies and beliefs on global warming were put into question. This is a result of the conservative movement challenging the notion whether or not climate change and global warming are social problems. The conservative movement pushes this further by using the media, creating policy forums, and sponsoring press conferences for policy makers in order to emphasize their point on how global warming is not a serious social issue.

Michael Pollan author of “Why Bother?” (an article from The New York Times) was very clear on delivering his message on climate change. Throughout his article he uses many different sources and reasons to explain, not only what is happening, but things we should be doing to create solutions to the problems we created. Micheal directs us to think about his thoughts about how climate change is a real problem, and demonstrates with examples from other authors, consequences that we could very soon be facing, and what we can do to evade these problems that are coming our way. With the few solutions we are presented with it is unrealistic to try to solve the climate change problem we have arrived to.

Throughout history climates have drastically changed. There have been shifts from warm climates to the Ice Ages (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.204). Evidence suggests there have been at least a dozen abrupt climate changes throughout the history of the earth. There are a few suspected reasons for these past climate changes. One reason may be that asteroids hitting the earth and volcanic eruptions caused some of them. A further assumption is that 22-year solar magnetic cycles and 11-year sunspot cycles played a part in the changes. A further possibility is that a regular shifting in the angle of the moon orbiting earth causing changing tides and atmospheric circulation affects the global climate (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009,

Climate change has been a widely debated, controversial topic. Some think that it is not an issue that should be payed much attention to. With climate changing being caused naturally and by humans, the climate has been widely changing due to ample amounts of CO2 emissions. Where the burning of fossil fuels is the main source of the human impact. As well as volcanoes being a majority the of natural emissions. Although nature contributes to the climate change humans have more widely contributed to the change of climate abroad.

We as a society have reached one of the most crucial time periods in the history of our world. Due to the way we have used the resources on this earth we have created a situation in which our climate is drastically changing. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil has caused gases like carbon dioxide to become trapped in the atmosphere causing a natural greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect has caused the earth’s average temperature to rise and has resulted in arctic glaciers melting. These glaciers had gases trapped inside them that are now being released into the atmosphere further raising the earth's temperature. Due to the way we are polluting our air we have caused global warming. This global warming has caused stronger natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires putting our society in more danger than ever before.

Climate change otherwise known as global warming has been an ongoing issue for decades. Beginning in the 19th century, climate change has increasingly affected Earth and its atmosphere. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are warming the Earth’s atmosphere, causing rising sea-levels, melting snow and ice, extreme fires and droughts, and intense rainfall and floods. Climate change has and will continue to affect food production, availability of water, and can add to many health risks in humans and animals. In fact, in an article by Justin Gillis titled, “Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries” he focuses on a paper written by a former NASA climate scientist, James E. Hansen, explaining the effects of climate change on Earth today. Although many believe Hansen’s theories in the paper are quite far-fetched, the author mentions, “Despite any reservations they might have about the new paper, virtually all climate scientists agree with Dr. Hansen’s group that society is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, posing grave risks” (Gillis). Gillis validates the fact that climate change has been rapidly expanding throughout Earth and society has not been able to reduce it fast enough. Many negative risks are being posed and will continue to mount if the issue of climate change is not taken seriously. Although climate change negatively affects nearly all aspects of Earth, it poses a big

“There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate.” - Barack Obama. Climate change has been a popular topic of discussion, because of the threat to our environment. The world will forever be changed if climate change isn’t taken into serious consideration and not in a good way. Climate change has been a popular topic of discussion, because of the threat to our environment. Climate change has had many negative effects, for example, damage to coral reefs, the increase of wildfires, and most importantly rising sea levels. The damage to our earth cannot always be undone nevertheless it can make some things disappear forever.