Climate Change Denial And Identity

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.

In Michael Pollan’s article “Why Bother?”, he addresses the issue of climate change and the inner reasoning behind those who don’t acknowledge or bother with the crisis. Pollan intertwines a discussion of the rising danger of global warming with a psychological discussion of personal virtue. He emphasis his main point of climate crisis by providing examples and data stating, “we have only ten years left to start cutting—not just slowing—the amount of carbon we’re emitting…So:eight years left and a great deal to do.” (117). His discussion of personal reasoning to the problem of people not responding to global warming is intertwined through the direct question that is the title and by other experiences such as Wendell Berry’s comments on the

It is well known that politics and religion are two topics to never to be discussed with someone one does not know well. In today’s society, it feels as if this list of topics that are socially deemed inappropriate to discuss seems to be growing, with climate change now being a conservation to avoid. This aversion to discussing climate change appears to stem from the fact that the issue tends to polarize opinions, in which people fall into one of two groups: climate change skeptics and climate change believers. This paper seeks to address and analyze the ways in which climate skeptics speak about and understand climate change as well as how climate scientists understand climate change phenomena. More specifically, this paper focuses on how climate skeptics comprehend the relationships between grasslands, livestock, methane and nutrient cycling and how these interconnected concepts do not lead to the type of climate change that “green urbanities /green politicians/green activists/green elite” predict. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of the two differing positions between climate skeptics and climate scientists, in which I will determine which argument I find to be the most accurate.

This lecture was hosted by Dr. Andrew Hoffman from University of Michigan. As suggested by the title, this lecture was a “diluted” version of considerable research from his book, which focused on understanding the effects of culture and politics on the notion of climate change. Dr. Hoffman started the lecture by providing many scientific studies and facts proving the reality and seriousness of climate change. So the question is, why do some people choose to not believe and oppose the scientific consensus on issues of climate change, while all the proofs are present? And the simple answer he gave was that, the debate over climate change right now is not about science, is not about climate models, but about politics and the conflicting worldviews of these people and the values that are threatened by the notion of climate change. Dr. Hoffman then explained that one of the key arguments is that a scientific consensus does not necessarily reflect social consensus.

In his essay titled “Climate of Denial”, Al Gore, a well known environmental advocate and former vice president, verifies the reality of climate change and global warming. The piece is an attack on corrupt companies and news outlets that attempt to persuade the public that global warming is not a critical issue. Gore also earnestly conveys our environment’s current state and offers possible solutions that would increase awareness about global warming and begin to revert the planet back to a healthier, more sustainable state. The overarching purpose of Gore’s work is to call attention to the widespread climate change that is occurring. However, he also focuses on the corruption and bias within the media, and their attempts to conceal the truth about global warming. Writing to those who are conflicted about who to believe, he makes a valid argument that defends the beliefs of he and his fellow activists and encourages others to become more active in the climate change issue.

People have become unconvinced about climate change due to the fact that people believe it is over exaggerated when talked about, when really it is reality. Being a unconvinced society prevents people from wanting to become more educated and aware of the issue. Some people believe that climate change is not real due to the stupidity of uneducated and opinionated members of our society.

Climate change deniers will often search for stories on “how climate change is a myth”, “how scientists are wrong about climate change”, or “why climate change is not man made.” I know first-hand because I used to be one of those people. However, once I opened my mind to skepticism and debate with the purpose of learning, instead of confirming my own beliefs, I decided that the evidence accepting climate change held more merit, and was more pressing, than the evidence denying it. As I continue to research, however, I’m convinced that understanding confirmation bias will help me keep my mind open and pliable. Once a mind and heart are hardened and consumed with confirmation bias, there is little hope for learning, growth, and contributing to a better world.

Matt Patterson argues in “Global Warming – The Great Delusion” that the alleged scientific consensus surrounding the theory of global warming is based not on fact, but rather on a web of mass hysteria and deceit. Patterson contends that “In fact, global warming is the most widespread mass hysteria in our species’ history”, and that the beliefs of global warming proponents are the result of their own delusional imaginations and a subconscious apocalyptic yearning toward which masses of people tend to subject themselves. While Patterson worries that what he perceives to be the

"The pace of global warming is accelerating and the scale of the impact is devastating. The time for action is limited - we are approaching a tipping point beyond which the opportunity to reverse the damage of CO2 emissions will disappear."

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 problem that the pro- global warming theorists have created is that of social standing and little else. While there may be scientific backing to support some of the theory, the media presents the problem with great sensationalism. Global warming and energy conservation has thus become a trend and losses some of its validity through this. The scare tactics used by the media to “promote awareness” are just that, a linguistic ploy to gain favor. “Awareness of this global threat reinforced public concern and environmental problems and thereby provided environmental activists, scientists, and policy makers with new momentum in their efforts to promote environmental protection.” (McCright, 2000) This statement draws line to the potential benefits that would be received if the pro-global warming theorists were to draw enough attention to the issue. Driven by social empowerment and conviction to environmental protection, these activists misrepresent the actual threat and paint it as being much more

Some people believe that global warming is a myth or hoax. They believe that global warming is being used to generate fear and panic and that those behind this movement are using it to control people 's lives and for financial gain. “Within the community of scientists and others concerned about anthropogenic climate change, those who are skeptics are more commonly termed

‘We must acknowledge that the debate over climate change, like almost all environmental issues, is a debate over culture, worldviews, and ideology’ (Hoffman, 2012: 32)

This increase is due to the giant and ever growing, uncontrollable, hairy, monster that is global warming. Climate changes are escalating the ocean and atmosphere temperatures, creating more intense storms of all types. Those in the developed world are not invulnerable. The severe temperatures, heat waves, flooding and droughts expose vast numbers to the life of an eco-refugee (Meinhold, 2013). The human’s green eye and rapid relocations to undeveloped land and fertile soil additionally cause this deadly increase. People are poking the bear by tempting the flood-prone regions with rapid urbanization. As cement engulfs and devours the earth’s floor, becoming our primary terrain, soil is unable to act as the designated natural sponge to the excessive run-off. The consequences of human’s environmental alterations are wreaking havoc.

Climate change and global warming are terms often tossed around in common parlance by non-scientists in the western world as having a singular meaning: that the planet is warming up, that humans may (or may not) have caused it; that something must be done at once. Climate change is presented and discussed as a single phenomenon, disingenuous to its multifaceted nature. Complicated and sometimes seemingly random, climate change is both chaotic and complex, characterized by nonlinearity, feedback loops and emergent phenomena. Rind (1999) defines a complex system as one where there are “multiple interactions between many different components.” Earth’s climate is the same way: clouds, wind, precipitation, sunlight and geography—each affect climate, but each also affects the other, and so forth—interactions that form an intricate latticework of mutual dependency.