Climate Change In American Culture
About 97% of scientist have agreed that climate change is real: that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming at an increasing rate and that it is due to man-made pollution. However, when polled on beliefs on global warming, only about 48% of people in the United States said they believed in man-made climate change, while 31% of the public believed in climate change due to natural causes. Alternatively, 20% of Americans said they did not believe that there is any evidence for climate change at all (Funk and Kennedy). Why is there such a large gap of belief between the scientific community’s consensus and the consensus of the American people? Fossil fuel industries and companies who profit off of unrenewable energy are perpetuating climate science
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Anchors begin to coin their own terms, similar to the way advertisers create new words in order to sell their products. A popular phrase news anchors use is “global cooling,” where they contradict the idea of global warming by insisting that the Earth’s climate is actually cooling. They cite fierce snow storms to support these claims, and invite the viewer to ponder on whether or not the weather seems cold (Media Matters). The genius in this is that it invites the viewer to make observations; the audience feels they can contribute and observe climate change, or the lack-there-of, first-hand. “A major problem in recognizing climate change as a big problem is that people cannot directly experience it. This explanation…is based on human psychology. Human psychology is probably the most important source of climate denialism. Short-term thinking, self-deception, and the unwillingness to sacrifice achieved goods are all human vices” (Trygve). In fact, weather and climate are completely different animals. The common person has a hard time distinguishing the difference between weather and climate due to the lack of direct observation on climate, since it is measured on average over time. In fact, an increase severe storms and intense weather conditions are a side effect of advancing global warming (Riebeek). The overall condition of the climate cannot be observed in a few snowy days. When news anchors bring up snow storms and cold weather, they are exploiting this scientific illiteracy on climate
Anchors begin to coin their own terms, similar to the way advertisers create new words in order to sell their products. A popular phrase news anchors use is “global cooling,” where they contradict the idea of global warming by insisting that the Earth’s climate is actually cooling. They cite fierce snow storms to support these claims, and invite the viewer to ponder on whether or not the weather seems cold (Media Matters). The genius in this is that it invites the viewer to make observations; the audience feels they can contribute and observe climate change, or the lack-there-of, first-hand. “A major problem in recognizing climate change as a big problem is that people cannot directly experience it. This explanation…is based on human psychology. Human psychology is probably the most important source of climate denialism. Short-term thinking, self-deception, and the unwillingness to sacrifice achieved goods are all human vices” (Trygve). In fact, weather and climate are completely different animals. The common person has a hard time distinguishing the difference between weather and climate due to the lack of direct observation on climate, since it is measured on average over time. In fact, an increase severe storms and intense weather conditions are a side effect of advancing global warming (Riebeek). The overall condition of the climate cannot be observed in a few snowy days. When news anchors bring up snow storms and cold weather, they are exploiting this scientific illiteracy on climate