Climate Change, Global Warming, the Greenhouse Effect – hardly any day can pass during which we are not confronted with one of those terms, be it in the news, television, or in a commercial… Talking about the environment has become trendy and one of the most popular themes within that topic is climate change.
However, because it became almost an element of popular culture, it is very difficult nowadays to determine how to make sense of the claims we encounter. I honestly am not sure how knowledgeable Leonardo Di Caprio is in terms of the scientific realms of the issue, but I do understand that E News prefers to show his statement than that of some science geek at MIT (sorry for the stereotyping...).
While the two sources for this weeks assignment, the “Friends of Science” website Grit’s “How to talk to a Climate Skeptic” do immediately suggest greater legitimacy for their claims than the former Titanic star, I still find myself lost in my intellectual quest on determining whom to believe.
My stomach tells me that Grit’s “How to talk to a Climate Skeptic” “feels” more accurate, but I might be mislead by its intriguing writing style and the much more appealing design of the website itself, compared to “Friends of Science.” Also Leah’s conclusion of favoring Grit’s position because it reflects her own viewpoint better rings very true to me.
Thus, I’m still left with the question of who actually speaks the truth? How can I as a educated but not particularly scientifically-knowledgeable individual evaluate the scientific claims these two competing pages make?
Initially, I noticed that “Friends of Science” did not cite sources for their claims, such as in their section “Providing Insights into Climate Change: Myths/Facts. ” Although they counter every “myth” with a “fact”, they do not disclose neither the source nor the evidence supporting their claim that supposedly disprove the validity of commonly held climate change believes.
However, once clicking on the link on the bottom of the page, I was redirected to a well-founded, scientific research paper by C.R De Freitas of the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Auckland, and I had to admit that each of his arguments was grounded in convincing research results.
Consequently, as I am not capable of determining the scientific accuracy of the information provided on either page, I have to determine which site is more convincing in another way. After having thoroughly “surfed” through the content of both pages, I think it is fair to say that “How to talk to a Climate Skepic” provides a more inclusive perspective on the debate than “Friends of Science,” acknowledging the vast amount of different opinions on the topic and using a variety if resources to counter them.
Especially when considering that no “absolute truth” has been produced yet on the topic of climate change (an I’m not sure if this will ever be the case), I feel that a scholar is obliged to at least acknowledge and mention the other view points, without immediately condemning them to non-sense. Although, “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic” does this to some extent – referring to some argument as silly or naïve – I believe that it does so less than “Friends of Science,” who refer to any other view on the issues as myth.
However, the question remains of why there actually exists such a fierce competition around the science of climate change? Being confronted with a possibly extremely harmful phenomenon for not only human beings but also the environment and the planet earth in general, one would assume that scientists are motivated to investigate this phenomenon to determine whether a danger truly exists and if so, what, if anything, can be done to prevent it from having the detrimental effects it potentially could have.
Nevertheless, when looking at the current debate on climate change, well-being – be it of human beings, animals, nature, or our planet – seems to be one of the last items on the agenda of scientists. Instead, it seems more important to win the competition against all other researchers and thus proving to be better and more intelligent than anyone else than gaining knowledge of importance to life in general. One calls the other liar, other refers to fellow scientists as cherry-pickers – but the actual issue at stack seems to be lost.
Moreover, I believe that although the competitive nature of science nowadays might spur motivation in the short run, it also prevents the most brilliant minds of out time to collaborate together on this issue that truly concerns humanity as a whole. If not even one profession itself, that of scientific researchers, is able to identify climate change as a human problem that concerns humanity as a whole and instead makes it their personal egocentric quest for achieving fame over others, how should we expect people from different backgrounds, countries, cultures, social classes, genders, etc. to work together to make a change in their attitudes that impact our environment? Only when we overcome our self-centered viewpoint of the world around us and our role in it will we be able to truly engage in a “green” revolution.
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