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Kevin Alexander Jensen
Carolyn Hollway
ENGL 2010
July 8th 2015
Why beliefs have no place in the Global Warming Crisis
“Now we have a time where people are cherry picking science, the science is not political. That’s
like repealing gravity because you gained ten pounds last week.” Said the astrophysicist Neil
Degrasse Tyson. He said this in response to Florida Governor Rick Scott’s administrative ban on
use of the phrase “climate change”. Why would an astrophysicist, be so concerned with the
politics being pushed into science? Why would a Florida governor ban the use of “climate
change” in all conversation and correspondence?
Belief, in science, is poison. It’s an acid that eats away facts, data, and the truth. A person cannot
believe something to be true. A person cannot simply will the facts to change, the data to
rearrange, or the evidence to be last damning. People with the least knowledge, and most to gain
have the loudest voices, and that is clearly demonstrated in the denial of climate change. Four of
the five major religions in the world preach about the end of times, and the purifying of earth, and
the end of the cycle, and the coming of Jesus. Why does this matter? Think for a moment. If God
is going to destroy this earth to purify it for a new era, or if Jesus is going to come again and all
the sinners will burn, then what’s the point of taking care of the earth?
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Fig 2. Picture of Earth from space. (NASA 2015)
Religion and Science
On February 16th 1600, an Italian man is led from his cell. It has been eight long years since his
imprisonment. He is in the city of Rome, and he knows it’s the last time he will see it. He is led
by the Roman Catholic Church officials to the Campo dei Fiori, or the “field of flowers”. This
man, in the field of flowers, is burned alive at the stake. What was his crime? What horrible thing
must he have done to merit such a demise? Giordano Bruno, was a philosopher and scientist in
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the late 1500’s who supported the ideas of the Copernican System of Astronomy which placed
the sun at the center of the solar system, instead of the earth. This man was murdered as a heretic
and blasphemer for something that everyone knows and believes is truth today.
Religion has not just been problematic, it has been a poison to science and the science community
since the first people tens of thousands of years ago started making up stories to explain the
phenomena they were witnessing. The problem doesn’t lie in the existence of Religion. There is
no reason that religion and science can’t exist together. It’s clear from the narrative above that
religion has halted and even destroyed scientific progress and breakthroughs many times in the
past. How can religion and science exist together?
Politics, capitalism, and Science
Where there’s muck, there’s brass. Where there are dirty jobs to be done, there is money to be
made. Politicians, don’t just understand this, they live by it. The sad part is, the politicians are just
hired goons. From a New York Times article from January of 2015 (Confessore), the Koch
Brothers had plans to spend, and a budget close to 900 million dollars for campaign donations. To
put that in perspective, the average American household makes around $60,000 a year. To give an
idea of how much money that is. How long would it take for an American family making $60,000
a year to make 900 million dollars? The answer; 15,000 years. Men who funded the climate
change denial research that supposedly disproved climate change, have more money to spend on
a campaign than 15,000 US households combined. It’s clear the voice isn’t from the people, but
from the cash.
Oil. One of the largest, and most environmentally hazardous industries, has a lot of money to be
made. The oil companies are smart enough to understand their situation. They have a monopoly
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on a market that the ENTIRE PLANET relies on. If you had a license to print money, why would
you ever stop? All the oil companies and politicians have to do is use the tools at their disposal to
convince people that they aren’t the bad guys. How do we get politicians, and oil companies to
stop destroying the earth so that they can afford their 9th mansion on their own chain of private
islands?
Science and Education
“Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”- Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change.
Humanity knows that climate change is real, and it’s a problem. Religion’s solution to the
problem is to let God handle it. Politicians and millionaires want to solve it, by pretending it’s not
there. How do we solve the political corruption, and religious intrusion on the issues of climate
change?
Education, education, and education. People must educate themselves on the issues. People need
to understand that it’s not up for debate in the science community. True scientists all agree that
climate change is happening and it’s a problem. Educating one’s self also removes the influences
of politics and capitalism. If people understood the true crisis this pale blue dot in the universe
was going through, there would be no need for this paper.
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Fig. 1 Graph based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more
recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the
industrial revolution. (NASA, 2015)
A Brighter Future
Scientists, and people willing to educate themselves care so deeply about global warming because
they understand the consequences. They understand that the earth cannot sustain and filter out the
amount of pollution and corruption that earth’s children have created. Politicians understand that
there is money to be made off of oil, and climate denial. It is time to convince them to invest in
clean, green energy. It’s time the voice of the people, is heard over the voice millionaires.
Religion and science can exist when, the religious person makes their religion fit science and not
the other way around. Universal laws cannot be bent, changed or broken to accommodate
someone’s personal belief. The earth isn’t 6,000 years old, people share common descent with
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monkeys, and global warming is a crisis. It’s clear that people who don’t believe any of those
three facts, all have something in common. Faith. As long as faith doesn’t not stand in the way of
progress, then both religion and science can peacefully exist, however, when faith ties a man to a
stake and burns him alive, it’s a problem.
We move forward into this new millennium on the brink of disaster. It is clear, the earth is dying,
and it’s our responsibility to fix it. Do we want our children, and grandchildren to learn in school
about how we saved the world? Or do we want to do what our parents and grandparents did to us,
and leave their problems for the next generation? We can start the healing now while the
pollution is treatable, or we can wait until this cancer becomes terminal and destroys our pale
blue dot. Act now. Educate yourself. Save the world.
Works Cited
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“Standing Up in the Milky Way” Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Fox. March 9th 2014.
Television.
“The World Set Free” Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Fox. June 1st 2014. Television.
Confessore, Nicholas. Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both
Parties’ Spending. New York; NY Times. Web.
Fig 1. NASA. CO2 Graph. Digital image. NASA Climate. NASA, n.d. Web.
Fig 2. NASA. Earth From Space. Digital image. Spaceplace. Nasa, n.d. Web.