English for Academic Purposes
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| Assignment Type | Term Paper |
|---|---|
| Subject | English (composition, Etc.) |
| Academic Level | Undergraduate |
| Format | Harvard |
| Length | 4 pages |
| Word Count | 1,307 |
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Oil and Gas Management: Is Global Warming a Myth?
Introduction
The nature of global warming, as scientists have defined it, is the overall rise in the average temperature of the Earth, and the rate at which it is changing, since the industrial revolution at the end of the nineteenth century (Ralston, 2009). The reason that this shift is occurring, according to the majority of today’s experts and scientists, is that the cause is anthropogenic; it is tied to the way in which we, as a global society, have increased our reliance on machines that produce carbon exhaust from burning fossil fuels, which, in turn, creates a greenhouse effect in our atmosphere that increases temperatures and accelerates decay on earth. The global change in the current weather patterns can be said to be extremely disheartening. As noted by Myers and Patz (2009), the climate change that we are current experiencing is likely to lead to “exposure to infectious disease, water scarcity, food scarcity, natural disasters, and population displacement” (p. 223). This means that if nothing is done to change the current global warming trends, we will face disaster as a species. To this end, the thesis of this essay is that global warming is not a myth, and that changes need to be made to our current way of managing resources so that we will not hobble future generations with its effects. The main arguments made by this essay will be that it can be proven through evidence based research that human activities are likely to be having the most significant negative effect on the climate, and that any arguments to the contrary are therefore influenced by self-serving confirmation bias.
Analysis
The primary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that there have been no measurable changes in temperatures in their region, and therefore it cannot be possible for it to be happening. For example, many people argue that the spate of snowstorms on the eastern seaboard of the United States over the last few years is evidence that global warming is not occurring, but rather that there is a global cooling taking place instead. This argument is fallacious because it is based on confirmation bias rather than on fact. As noted by NASA (2016), the mean surface temperature change from 1880 to 2015 has shown a rapid increase on a global basis, one that is unprecedented in all of human history. The amount of change in terms of geological, chemical, and atmospheric shifts that has occurred in the last three decades in particular is massive, and there is no evidence of global cooling. NASA (2016) also states that its own measurements are parallel to those from geologists and chemists around the world, and that 99 percent of all scientists have drawn the same conclusions. This means that those individuals who make claims that global warming are false, based on their own observations, are either not aware of the facts supported by the world’s scientific community, or that they are willfully ignorant because they do not want to face the challenging reality of the effects of global warming.
The secondary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that climate change may be happening, but that it is a natural occurrence rather than one caused by human beings. This is linked to the knowledge that we are at the end of a natural ice age in the planet’s history, which lasted approximately ten thousand years, and as a result there has been an increase in temperatures. As explained by Bain, Hornsey, Bongiorno, and Jeffries (2012), individuals want to push away the responsibility of taking care of this issue by changing their personal lifestyles, so this form of global warming denial is self-serving. Nonetheless, this argument has been disproven by scientific research as well. As noted by NASA (2016), the speed at which the increase has occurred, and the way that it can be tied to the industrial revolution and all of the fossil fuel use that has followed, is proof that climate change is not a natural occurrence. There is no evidence in the history of temperature collection, or in the natural or fossil record, to show an equally rapid increase in temperature at the end of an ice age. Such changes happen slowly enough that life on earth can adapt. But, as noted by McCauley, Pinsky, Palumbi et al. (2015), we are on the verge of a global extinction event in which thousands of species of animals will be lost because of the speed of global warming. This means that the denial of the reality of climate change is likely to have adverse effects on our own species as well (Bain et al., 2012).
The tertiary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that, if it could happen, it is possible to reverse it through large scale geoengineering practices. This argument suggests that global warming is not going to have an effect on human life, but that we have control over our own destinies and therefore there is no need for concern (Ralston, 2009). Nonetheless, field research has shown that all of the current large scale geoengineering practices that have been proposed, such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), are flawed, and likely could not be put into practice because of a lack of agreement between the major nations that would be required to put them into place. The challenge with CDR, for example, is that it could lead to further environmental degradation because of the fact that the methods that have been proposed involve stratospheric aerosol emission and could therefore impact the ozone. SRM, as well, could be problematic because it could change weather patterns and its reflective particles may hurt oceans and other earth surfaces (Kunzig, 2008).
Conclusion
This essay has argued that global warming is not a myth, and that changes need to be made to our current way of managing resources so that we will not hobble future generations with its effects. The essay has shown this to be the case because of the fact that the geological, chemical, and atmospheric shifts that has occurred in the last three decades in particular have been massive, and that there is absolute consensus on this topic from the scientific community. All of the changes have been shown to be attributable to human actions and choices, and few solutions have been able to be discovered other than supporting changes in fossil fuel use and human consumption and demand for good. The recommendations for addressing this challenging topic require additional public information and education, but it also means that strong policies need to be put into place by governments if the challenges associated with global warming are to be avoided. At the same time, the scientific literature has shown that there is likely to have already been a tipping point, and many of these effects are not reversible because of the self-serving nature of human opinion on this topic. To this end, new solutions to this challenge need to be proposed by the scientific community.
References
Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., Bongiorno, R., & Jeffries, C. 2012. Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers. Nature Climate Change, 2(8), pp.600-603.
Kunzig, R., 2008. A sunshade for planet Earth. Scientific American, 299(5), pp.46-55.
McCauley, D. J., Pinsky, M. L., Palumbi, S. R., Estes, J. A., Joyce, F. H., & Warner, R. R. 2015. Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean. Science, 347(6219), 1255641.
Myers, S. S., & Patz, J. A. 2009. Emerging threats to human health from global environmental change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34, pp.223-252.
NASA. 2016. GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). Retrieved from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.
Ralston, S. J. 2009. Engineering an artful and ethical solution to the problem of global warming. Review of Policy Research, 26(6), pp.821-837.
Introduction
The nature of global warming, as scientists have defined it, is the overall rise in the average temperature of the Earth, and the rate at which it is changing, since the industrial revolution at the end of the nineteenth century (Ralston, 2009). The reason that this shift is occurring, according to the majority of today’s experts and scientists, is that the cause is anthropogenic; it is tied to the way in which we, as a global society, have increased our reliance on machines that produce carbon exhaust from burning fossil fuels, which, in turn, creates a greenhouse effect in our atmosphere that increases temperatures and accelerates decay on earth. The global change in the current weather patterns can be said to be extremely disheartening. As noted by Myers and Patz (2009), the climate change that we are current experiencing is likely to lead to “exposure to infectious disease, water scarcity, food scarcity, natural disasters, and population displacement” (p. 223). This means that if nothing is done to change the current global warming trends, we will face disaster as a species. To this end, the thesis of this essay is that global warming is not a myth, and that changes need to be made to our current way of managing resources so that we will not hobble future generations with its effects. The main arguments made by this essay will be that it can be proven through evidence based research that human activities are likely to be having the most significant negative effect on the climate, and that any arguments to the contrary are therefore influenced by self-serving confirmation bias.
Analysis
The primary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that there have been no measurable changes in temperatures in their region, and therefore it cannot be possible for it to be happening. For example, many people argue that the spate of snowstorms on the eastern seaboard of the United States over the last few years is evidence that global warming is not occurring, but rather that there is a global cooling taking place instead. This argument is fallacious because it is based on confirmation bias rather than on fact. As noted by NASA (2016), the mean surface temperature change from 1880 to 2015 has shown a rapid increase on a global basis, one that is unprecedented in all of human history. The amount of change in terms of geological, chemical, and atmospheric shifts that has occurred in the last three decades in particular is massive, and there is no evidence of global cooling. NASA (2016) also states that its own measurements are parallel to those from geologists and chemists around the world, and that 99 percent of all scientists have drawn the same conclusions. This means that those individuals who make claims that global warming are false, based on their own observations, are either not aware of the facts supported by the world’s scientific community, or that they are willfully ignorant because they do not want to face the challenging reality of the effects of global warming.
The secondary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that climate change may be happening, but that it is a natural occurrence rather than one caused by human beings. This is linked to the knowledge that we are at the end of a natural ice age in the planet’s history, which lasted approximately ten thousand years, and as a result there has been an increase in temperatures. As explained by Bain, Hornsey, Bongiorno, and Jeffries (2012), individuals want to push away the responsibility of taking care of this issue by changing their personal lifestyles, so this form of global warming denial is self-serving. Nonetheless, this argument has been disproven by scientific research as well. As noted by NASA (2016), the speed at which the increase has occurred, and the way that it can be tied to the industrial revolution and all of the fossil fuel use that has followed, is proof that climate change is not a natural occurrence. There is no evidence in the history of temperature collection, or in the natural or fossil record, to show an equally rapid increase in temperature at the end of an ice age. Such changes happen slowly enough that life on earth can adapt. But, as noted by McCauley, Pinsky, Palumbi et al. (2015), we are on the verge of a global extinction event in which thousands of species of animals will be lost because of the speed of global warming. This means that the denial of the reality of climate change is likely to have adverse effects on our own species as well (Bain et al., 2012).
The tertiary counter-argument that is used by those who do not believe in global warming is that, if it could happen, it is possible to reverse it through large scale geoengineering practices. This argument suggests that global warming is not going to have an effect on human life, but that we have control over our own destinies and therefore there is no need for concern (Ralston, 2009). Nonetheless, field research has shown that all of the current large scale geoengineering practices that have been proposed, such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), are flawed, and likely could not be put into practice because of a lack of agreement between the major nations that would be required to put them into place. The challenge with CDR, for example, is that it could lead to further environmental degradation because of the fact that the methods that have been proposed involve stratospheric aerosol emission and could therefore impact the ozone. SRM, as well, could be problematic because it could change weather patterns and its reflective particles may hurt oceans and other earth surfaces (Kunzig, 2008).
Conclusion
This essay has argued that global warming is not a myth, and that changes need to be made to our current way of managing resources so that we will not hobble future generations with its effects. The essay has shown this to be the case because of the fact that the geological, chemical, and atmospheric shifts that has occurred in the last three decades in particular have been massive, and that there is absolute consensus on this topic from the scientific community. All of the changes have been shown to be attributable to human actions and choices, and few solutions have been able to be discovered other than supporting changes in fossil fuel use and human consumption and demand for good. The recommendations for addressing this challenging topic require additional public information and education, but it also means that strong policies need to be put into place by governments if the challenges associated with global warming are to be avoided. At the same time, the scientific literature has shown that there is likely to have already been a tipping point, and many of these effects are not reversible because of the self-serving nature of human opinion on this topic. To this end, new solutions to this challenge need to be proposed by the scientific community.
References
Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., Bongiorno, R., & Jeffries, C. 2012. Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers. Nature Climate Change, 2(8), pp.600-603.
Kunzig, R., 2008. A sunshade for planet Earth. Scientific American, 299(5), pp.46-55.
McCauley, D. J., Pinsky, M. L., Palumbi, S. R., Estes, J. A., Joyce, F. H., & Warner, R. R. 2015. Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean. Science, 347(6219), 1255641.
Myers, S. S., & Patz, J. A. 2009. Emerging threats to human health from global environmental change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34, pp.223-252.
NASA. 2016. GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). Retrieved from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.
Ralston, S. J. 2009. Engineering an artful and ethical solution to the problem of global warming. Review of Policy Research, 26(6), pp.821-837.