No Big Deal?
Global warming is one of the biggest topics being discussed today. It is probably the most argued about
topic in the scientific community. But if global warming is such a big topic, then why is society so
unconcerned about this so-called “important issue”. An increase in global warming could have drastic
consequences in the future. Global warming should be presented to the public as a pressing issue. Instead
society is blinded by the media, thanks to the work of fossil fuel industries. Even though some progress
has been made in trying to prevent further damage due to global warming, it is still not enough. Global
warming should play a bigger role in political agendas and the public needs to see just how critical the
issue of global warming really is.
Most people do not really know the damage that global warming can cause. The part of global warming
that people are most familiar with is the greenhouse effect. When greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide,
water vapor, methane, etc.) are released into the atmosphere they trap solar radiation within the earth’s
atmosphere. This causes the temperature to warm on earth’s surface. Another part of global warming that
most people have heard about is that greenhouse gases also aid in the breakdown in the molecule called
ozone. Ozone molecules are what make up the ozone layer. The ozone layer protects the earth’s surface
from ultraviolet radiation that is emitted from the sun. With the breakdown of ozone, it allows the
ultraviolet rays from the sun to enter the earth’s atmosphere which increases the temperature on the
surface.
The part of global warming that most people do not know about is that global warming can cause the
melting of the polar ice caps. The ice caps have good reflective surfaces which aids in the reflection of solar
radiation back out of the earth’s atmosphere. This helps to keep the temperature on earth from warming.
The polar ice caps also contain about 1.7 percent of the total water on earth. It may not seem like a lot but
if the ice caps melt it would cause a significant increase in ocean water levels which could be detrimental
to all coastal areas. With an increase in surface temperature, it would also cause more evaporation, thus
releasing more water vapor into the atmosphere. This would create the formation of more cumulus clouds
which absorb the reflected solar radiation from the earth. Because these cumulus clouds absorb the
reflected radiation, it does not allow this heat energy to escape the earth’s atmosphere. Since the heat
energy is still in the earth’s atmosphere it would cause the temperature on the surface to warm.
If all of this is true then why is there such a big controversy on this topic? It seems like it would be obvious
to fix this problem. However, this controversy over global warming is not new to the scientific community.
Scientists have always argued over the main cause of global warming for decades. The main argument is
about mankind and its greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide. Scientists argue that human
greenhouse gas emitions are one of the main contributing factors in global warming. Charles W. Schmidt
describes the argument as “skeptics in the media deride global warming as a monumental hoax, while
those who believe in the evidence for human-induced climate change accuse the skeptics of being
industry-funded hacks” (Schmidt).
It all started in 1896 when a Swedish physical chemist named Svante Arrhenius wrote a paper stating that
if the levels of carbon dioxide doubled, due to human industrial greenhouse gas emissions, then the global
temperature would become higher. At that time people did not take him seriously due to the many other
possibilities for the atmosphere to warm. They had other views about nature and the environment.
During this period in time most of the world believed that nature would balance itself out. This made
Svante Arrhenius’s prediction of the warming of the atmosphere due to human industrial greenhouse gas
emissions, not likely. People believed that “the vast climate system of atmosphere, ocean, rock, and ice
was self-regulating, maintaining its temperature and chemical composition over millennia. This grand
equilibrium seemed far beyond anything mere humans could affect” (Weart 42).
With advances in technology in 1956 a physicist named Gilbert N. Plass proved that when carbon dioxide
is added to the upper parts of the atmosphere, the carbon dioxide would keep additional heat from exiting
the planet. People felt that their impact on the environment would still be minimal and therefore would
not have a significant impact.
Other skeptics were still not convinced that this would cause an increase in global temperature to occur.
Since the ocean dissolves most of the carbon dioxide on Earth, most people believed that an increase in
carbon dioxide would not be a problem. Roger Revelle and Han Suess later proved that was incorrect.
They showed that the continued adding of carbon dioxide would change its acidity and make carbon
dioxide harder to break down. Charles David Keeling continued their work and proved that carbon
dioxide levels were in fact rising over time.
Skepticism still followed until 1980. Scientists examined ice cores that were drilled in Greenland and the
Antarctic ice caps. They discovered that when levels of carbon dioxide were high, so was the temperature
and when the levels of carbon dioxide were low, the temperature was as well. From then on global
warming was no longer just a small prediction, it grew into an important issue.
Gregory Weart states that “by 1989 the scientific community had formed a rough consensus, which the
public knew and largely accepted. As with many surprising findings, a few experts dissented” (Weart 45).
The idea of global warming had become an accepted theory. There was not much opposition the idea.
Fossil fuel companies became worried about the idea of taxes and limits that would be put on them due to
the possible increase in global warming. They felt that they would lose money and eventually go out of
business. Fossil fuel industries devised ways to make society doubt the scientific community and their
consensus involving global warming. Their goal was to make the public question the legitimacy of the
consensus of global warming. In 1989 the Global Climate Coalition was formed. This group funded
scientists that were skeptical about the global warming consensus. The Global Climate Coalition gathered
results from these scientists and sent the results to journalists who then informed the public of their
findings. Weart states that fossil fuel companies “sponsored pamphlets, press releases, public lectures and
books, all arguing that claims of global warming were a ‘scare tactic’ worked up for selfish purposes by
power-seeking bureaucrats and radicals. Nobody needed to worry about global warming, for it was all
nothing but ‘junk science’” (Weart 45-46).
Weart describes these skeptics as either being cognitive bias or cognitive dissonance. Cognitive bias is the
“deliberate cherry-picking of data” (Weart 46). This means that once a person believes what is correct,
even when they are shown data or other options, that person will not consider those options but stick by
their belief of what is right. Schmidt also believes that skeptics choose “isolated events and statements to
undermine the evidence for global warming” (Schmidt). Weart explains cognitive dissonance when
“people are deeply engaged in a certain behavior (such as defending a particular view), they are likely to
find anything that is incompatible with that behavior (such as contradictory evidence) simply too
disturbing to accept” (Weart 46).
Even with all of the new evidence that global warming is indeed occurring, many still did not believe.
Scientists who did not agree with the consensus “proceeded in the manner of lawyers, considering nothing
that would not bolster their case” (Weart 46). It got so bad that Weart described these people as deniers,
“people whose only interest was in casting doubt upon what other scientists agreed was true” (Weart 47).
In 1996 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the effects humans have on
climate are noticeable. The author of the report Ben Santer was criticized and insulted by the public
relations faction of the fossil fuel companies. Weart reports that “Frederick Seitz in the Wall Street
Journal accused Santer of blatant ‘corruption,’ falsely claiming that Santer had fraudulently altered the
report’s conclusions in order to ‘deceive policy makers and the public’” (Weart 47). This led people to
believe that the global warming consensus was a “dishonest conspiracy, driven by ideological bias and
naked self interest” (Weart 47).
This eventually led to the argument being represented in different ways, including a novel written by
Michael Crichton called State of Fear. The movie played out the global warming consensus as if it were
just a way for the scientific community to scare the public and to make money. It also made it seem like
“the scientific establishment was arrogant and untrustworthy, corrupted by a lust for fame and political
power on behalf of liberalism” (Weart 47). This type of media coverage really hurt the goal of the scientific
community, which was trying to convince people about the legitimacy of their consensus.
Further research conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made their reports on
global warming a lot harder to disprove. Their findings made the idea of global warming more convincing.
Weart states that “many experts in 2001 were 90 percent convinced that humans were causing global
warming had become 95 or 99 percent convinced by 2007. Every scientist, even perennial skeptics, agreed
at least that the world had grown significantly warmer since the 1960s. Yet more than a third of the
American public now believed that ‘most scientists are unsure about whether global warming is occurring
or not’” (Weart 48-49). Parts of the public that did believe the consensus still did nothing to help the
situation. They believed that global warming was farther down the line and it would not affect them in
their life.
In 2009 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made an error on one of their reports. The
report “stated that all 15,000 Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035, which is implausible under even the
worst climate scenarios” (Schmidt). This error was only a typo; it was supposed to be 2350. Even though it
was such a small error, the media blew up this mistake in their reports. Later in 2010 almost one
thousand hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit was leaked onto the
internet. They university is the main resource on global temperatures for the IPCC. The media also blew
this story up in their headlines. These two incidents really hurt the IPCC’s reputation.
Because of all of these incidents and past fossil fuel funded media interference, the public’s belief in global
warming has dropped significantly. Schmidt states that “a 2010 poll by the Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies found that 57 percent of respondents answered yes to ‘Do you think that global
warming is happening?’ compared with 71 percent in 2008” (Schmidt). Schmidt also mentions a study
done by Nicholas Britain, who is a professor at Cadiff University in Great Britain. “Pidgeon found the
number of British respondents who answered yes to the question ‘As far as you know, do you personally
think the world’s climate is changing, or not?’ dropped from 91 percent in 2005 to 78 percent in 2010”
(Schmidt).
Gregory Mone explains that “the concept of rapid, full-scale mobilization against global warming is a hard
sell; dramatic actions are normally driven by immediate threats, not distant, uncertain trends” (Mone).
This means that if it is not necessary at the moment, people will put the issue of global warming off until
later. Scientists, however, are trying to solve this problem before it gets to that point where it would be
absolutely necessary to tend to the effects of global warming. “To most climate scientists, though, the
changes (effects of global warming like temperature change) are real and upsetting, even if they are years
or decades away” (Mone).
The consequences of not doing anything about could be drastic. There are many future consequences of
global warming if things continue the way it is now. These are the consequences predicted by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that I felt stood out the most. “The accompanying rise in sea
level [from global warming] ranges from about 0.18 meters (7.1 inches) to 0.59 meters (23.2 inches) by
the end of the century. Even a modest increase in sea level, however will cause widespread retreat of
shorelines, inundating many heavily populated coastal areas and increasing vulnerability to storms such
as hurricanes” (Hess 230). They also predicted that “heat waves, heavy precipitation events, and hot
extremes will occur more frequently” (Hess 230). “Tropical diseases may become more prevalent in
regions beyond their current ranges” (Hess 230).
Although some steps have been made to help prevent further global warming, it has not been enough.
With all of the future predictions for global warming consequences, why do people, politicians included,
pay so little attention to this issue? Very little has been done to make a significant change in carbon
dioxide emitions. Schmidt also feels that financial problems are another reason why global warming is not
being tended to. Since the economy is not doing as well, financial issues are considered as a bigger
problem by most people. Schmidt also explains that “efforts to impose cuts on greenhouse gas emissions
are failing to get off the ground. Global leaders attending the United Nations Copenhagen Climate
Conference in December 2009 were unable to negotiate a binding agreement on how to reduce these
emissions” (Schmidt). Politicians try to make an effort to put global warming higher on their agendas but
most times it is pushed to the side. Schmidt uses President Obama as an example. “Despite President
Obama’s campaign pledge to make climate change a priority for his administration, bills aimed at
transforming U.S. energy policy are stuck in Congress” (Schmidt).
One of the earlier attempts to help curb carbon emissions around the world was the Kyoto Protocol. In
1997 the pwas2articipating countries in the Kyoto Protocol agreed that they would cut carbon dioxide
emissions by about five percent by the year 2012. At that time the top carbon dioxide emitters were China,
the United States, Russia, Japan and Germany. In 2009, 185 of the participating countries have approved
the agreement but the United States has not. Even though this is a step forward in dealing with global
warming, it would only help to postpone global warming at best.
There is also an argument between countries that are new to industrialization and those that are already
industrialized. The newly industrialized countries feel that they should not have to meet the same goal of
greenhouse gas reductions as other more wealthy industrialized countries. “These nations argue that the
rich industrialized countries created the problem of global warming through their unfettered use of fossil
fuel and ‘dirty’ technology” (Hess 230). This also seems to be an argument of money and profit. If newly
industrialized companies curb their greenhouse gas emissions then it would surely mean a smaller profit.
It would take them a lot longer to reach the status of the more wealthy industrialized countries.
The media may be getting in the way of influencing people to do something about our impact on the
planet, if we present global warming as a pressing issue, it could change the views of the public. Robert
MacFarlane feels that global warming should be presented artistically, for example: plays, novels or songs.
It allows for a way for people to understand the situation and possibly convince them to act in the
prevention of human greenhouse gas emitions. MacFarlane explains that “an imaginative repertoire is
urgently needed b which the causes and consequences of climate change can be debated, sensed, and
communicated” (MacFarlane 268). Once global warming is explained in an artistic way, it might open up
more discussions about the issue. It would be an effective way to inform the public about global warming.
The public is so unaware of global warming due to the interference of the media and the fossil fuel
industry. There is so much evidence but yet, this current controversy blinds society from the truth that
global warming is in fact a pressing issue. It also does not help that the issue of global warming is always
pushed to the side in political agendas. It is as if global warming is not an important issue at all. It has
been proven that due to mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions, we are in fact accelerating the effects of
global warming. It is important for politicians to include global warming as a part of their agenda and for
the public to see just how big of an issue global warming really is. The debate should not be a question of
money and business; it should be about survival and what needs to be done to stop further damage to our
planet by global warming.
Hess, D. (2011). Physical geography: a landscape appreciation. (pp. 226-232). Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey: Pearson.
Macfarlane, R. (2010). The burning question. L. Bergman (Ed.), Academic Research and Writing (pp.
267-270). Longman, New York: Pearson.
Mone, G. (2011, June). 2 degrees of separation. Discover, 32(5), 46-76.
Moriarty, P., & Kennedy, D. (2004). The web, the public, and the global warming debate. Cybernetics and
Systems, 35(7/8), 723-735.
Patterson, N. R. (2011). Global warming: a critique of the anthropogenic model and its
consequences. Geoscience Canada, 38(1), 41-48.
Weart, S. (2011). Global warming: how skepticism became denial. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 67(1),
41-50.