Nadia Karzouz
English 111- 1W3
8 October 2017
No Right Way to Deny Climate Change:
The History of Global Warming’s Politicization in The United States
The North American Drought of 1988 marked the very first time global warming crossed over from scientists to mass media coverage. Following an American professor’s address to the Senate correlating abnormal weather to global warming, European nations addressed the issue, and many countries began to reduce greenhouse gas. The European Union ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to make it legally binding. In Europe, global warming was acknowledged as a problem, with the only debate centered around how serious of a problem it was- 87% said it was a very serious problem, where around 10%
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Bush campaigned for the 2000 election, he explicitly opposed Kyoto as it “would cause serious harm to the US economy” (Borger, 2001). The international issue of global warming was thusly labeled as something that could be ignored in favor of local economic profit, and emission reduction was assumed to be impossibly expensive. Bill Clinton signing the Kyoto Protocol and George W. Bush refusing to sign it (ignoring that the Senate refused to ratify the protocols both times) polarized the issue of global warming into a Republican and Democratic issue, where Republicans either downplayed or denied the issue of global warming and Democrats vied for it to be regarded as a problem (Dunlap & McCright 2010). In December 2007, the Christian Science Monitor (an international news organization without Christianity-related bias) revealed that George W. Bush actively suppressed climate scientists to maintain public opinion that global warming wasn’t an issue (Clayton, 2007). This study revealed a series of abuses dating as far back as within a month of him coming into office- the first being a contradiction between what the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reported on global warming evidence found by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and what was released to the public. When the NAS affirmed that their findings were true and accurate, the Bush administration maintained the idea that global warming is
Climate change is a monumental problem in today’s American society, as it took center stage in the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Both candidates had separate ways of going about the problem, introducing contrasting platforms. Hillary Clinton focused on continuing the regulations we have today through the Environmental Protection Agency, while Donald Trump wanted to roll back the regulatory funds considerably given to the agency.
An urgent issue, climate change is undoubtedly a sweeping global dilemma of paramount importance. Though most people are aware of this fact, many either choose to ignore it, or acknowledge it, but take no action against it. Those who do choose to take action usually attempt to combat climate change by using the methods that are most commonly discussed: becoming more energy efficient, recycling, and reducing emissions through using more sustainable transportation. Though these actions are helpful, they are not the most efficient way to counter climate change.
Global Warming has been highly accepted as an inconvenient truth that if not resolved, will have serious consequences for the future of the human race. Recently, however, America’s newest president, Donald Trump, has openly coined Global Warming as a “hoax”. Therefore, Trump has pulled the United States out of an agreement made between numerous countries to make actions to lower carbon emissions. This agreement is called the Paris Accord. President Trump’s decision to pull the United States of America out of the Paris Accord Agreement has sparked many discussions on how just his actions were and how valid the agreement really is. A surplus of news organizations have provided their opinions on the matter as well as all the facts associated with it.
The first issue of this poor decision is President Trump’s refusal to join the consensus that global warming is threatening
Alleged Global Warming has been a hot topic and been widely reported in the American media since the 1970s. In March 2014, TED, a nonprofit committed to expanding ideas with short talks, gave a powerful presentation of the alleged current consequences of Global Warming in Gavin Schmidt’s (2014) talk: The emergent patterns of climate change. His claims are stark and he implores his audience to take the grave predictions of Global Warming seriously and not just write it off as insignificant. While Google Trends (2014) shows (graph 1) that search terms for global warming in the United States (red) have decreased while worldwide (blue) interest (image 1) fluctuates with India showing the most curiosity. Yet, not everyone agrees that Global
Global warming and climate change in general is one of those subjects that I hold very close to my heart; not because I go around in my spare time hugging trees and gathering vegans in Toyota Priuses to form a peaceful protest against big oil, but because climate change is a subject that everyone and their mom likes to chime in on without really knowing that much about. If you even mention that term “global warming” in a group of people, even the person who you wouldn’t believe can even form a sentence has an opinion. People must feel like it makes them better than others because they can regurgitate whatever CNN and Fox tells them. I’ve done about two or three papers on climate change and global warming in my highschool career, and even
The Zombie theories are conspiracy theories that that have been disproven by scientists in the scientific community for many years now. Despite, social media and news stations continue to broadcast it this is how the theories live on. With the age of technology and cellphones, the news tends to feed off people’s emotions anyway they can to gain viewers and trends. As more zombie theories become developed, they more they all become proven incorrect. Dr. Marshall explained several zombie theories to ease the tension and fears, but it is proving to be challenging for some. The one theory that has stuck in my head that has been disproven is that the Earth has not become warmer since 1998 (T, 2013). I found this to be funning because of what I learned as a child in middle school and people still believe that the planet isn’t warming.
Climate change is the biggest problem in the world today. There have been two draconian storms, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey. Masses of peoples’ lives and futures were mutilated in these tremendous storms which leads us to think why these storms were so powerful. Climate change. An article from CNN deliberates what climate change is affecting. Climate change is causing “rising sea levels and warmer oceans, [making] storms far more destructive than they would have in previous decades” (Drash). Without change the storms will only continue to get larger and larger as the decades go on. In The current 2016 documentary, Before the Flood they focus on the pressing issue of climate change and essentially why we need to have an environmental
In our world today, one of our biggest issues is climate change. Climate change is caused by releasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. The atmosphere traps the gases and too much of these gases can cause the atmosphere to heat up. About 97% of scientists agree that global warming is human-caused (“Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: News”). These scientists also have found evidence to prove that climate change is human-caused. Yet, there are still some people who think that climate change is just all a big hoax or it was made up by scientists. Climate change is real and a reason why some people deny it is because it can benefit them.
Scientific studies have proven that the earth’s climate is increasing and claim that humans are the blame as their activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels affect the earth. Nearly two weeks ago, the United States had one of its most important days of the year: Election day. The vote came down to Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and now, President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump. Before Trump won the election, one of the most controversial issues he and Clinton argued upon was on climate change. Rebecca Harrington of Business Insider writes that Clinton said, “Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.” Harrington then adds that Trump responded by saying, “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.” The article continues and explains that Trump “does not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.” Hillary on the contrary, according to writers Steven Mufson and Brady Dennis, “had been adamant that she would follow through on the promises Obama made under the Paris climate accord, and vowed to defend and implement the Clean Power Plan and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third by 2025, relative to 2005 levels.” This issue is very relevant in today’s
In the 1980’s, scientists discovered three important pieces of information that would shape American politics and the environment for years to come. The Earth was getting warmer, the warming was caused by human pollution to the air and sea, and future generations would suffer (Hansen). Few believed these environmentalists at first, but as science progressed, the signs that climate change was a real threat became more and more apparent. Today, the debate on climate change is a popular topic, especially in national politics. Although one may assume the first step to fixing these environmental problems is to talk about it, evidence shows that political debate over the issue actually masks it
The Kyoto protocol to the United Nations was a legally binding policy that establishes limits for industrialized countries on emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other gases such as methane, nitrous oxides, hydrofluorocarbons and other chlorofluorocarbons that exhibit greenhouse characteristics to the environment (Houghton, Jenkins and Ephrams, 1990). Kyoto was a multi-faceted and very complicated policy which attempted to mold together political, socio-economic and legal issues associated with climate change. It was an effort to address climate change from a global scale, barring least economically able nations. (Houghton, Jenkins and Ephrams 1990).
The pattern of climate change denialism and the Trump administration’s stance on climate change policy indicates a bleak outcome for climate change mitigation policy. Trump, on Twitter, has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and even said “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive” (Trump). Recently, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement intended to lead a worldwide effort to reduce global warming. The United States and China, the largest CO2 emitters, do not view climate change as a very serious problem compared to the global median, according to a report by the Pew Research Center. In this same report, however, it states that “even in China and the United States, where overall concern about climate
The abundance of greenhouse gas emissions are known to be the highest in America and in 2001 shortly after President Bush took office he rejected the Kyoto treaty, President Bush’s reason for the rejection was his claim that it would harm the U.S. economy. “The carbon emissions trading – the buying and selling of permits to emit greenhouse gasses caused by fossil fuels – has been a top strategy for reducing pollution” (Weeks, 1). But this is not the case for carbon trading as “the protocol, most of the world’s wealthy countries agreed to reduce their GHG emissions by fixed percentage” (Weeks, 6), states Weeks as well as
The United States has regularly shown doubt that global warming is a legitimate concern, with Scott Pruitt, the current head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, stating that “The debate is far from settled.” in a recent Op-ed. This doubt is further illustrated by the United States’ recent announcement that they would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.