The Global Climate Change Hype
The hype is definitely in the media. Global Warming is here, now, and devastating. According to a TIME magazine article published in 2006, "Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it." Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth also touts the alleged fact that Global Warming will kill us all.
The first issue we come to when looking at global climate changes is the constant position switching that the media apparently does. Four times in the last 150 years the major news outlets have carried stories of impending doom and destruction resulting from global climate change. The first big scare was in 1895, when the New York Times carried warnings of a new ice age. The second came in the 1930s, when the media and scientists warned that the earth was heating up. "The earth is growing steadily warmer. As all the ice at the pole melts a stupendous volume of water will be released...sea level will rise fifty feet" (New York Times: Next Great Deluge). This was after the average temperature increased one half of a degree.
Then came the third wave of hysteria in the mid-1970s, after some 20 years of changing scientific views, when the New York Times reported that a "major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable" (Scientists Ask). Newsweek magazine stated: "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth." Then check out TIME magazine: "As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval."
These are all headlines supporting the general consensus on which the alleged "majority" or "leading" scientists agreed. The consensus was that the earth was cooling rapidly and a miniature ice age would most likely occur. Then, what do you know, not a decade later and the media and scientists are screaming about global warming, and how carbon dioxide (which is what we expel out of our lungs every time we breathe) is causing a temperature shift. We are all going to die because the ice caps are melting and the sea is going to rise 20 feet – flooding the coastline cities (Gore 190). Does it not strike you as peculiar that in only 100 years, we’ve changed the alarm four times? We’ve gone from global cooling to global warming to global cooling, and now, most likely not so finally, back to global warming.
So, is global climate change – or more specifically, global warming – happening? Justin Titus, a meteorology student at University of Missouri – Columbia, says "I was taught and believe that we are in a long standing climate cycle. We are in the warmest part of the cycle right now, and researchers now believe that there has been no increase or decrease in average global temperatures since the late 1990’s."
Climate change is caused for the most part by two things. The sun is first and foremost. It provides the earth with much needed energy and heat. Without the sun, the earth’s temperature would average out at about zero degrees Fahrenheit. Without it, our weather system would not exist. This energy affects the local weather, the greenhouse gases, and most importantly, it shapes our entire climate.
The second thing that you will hear a lot about is the infamous greenhouse gases, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Much of the media hype of today centers around anthropogenic carbon dioxide production. In fact, Al Gore’s entire book is based on the premise that anthropogenic carbon dioxide production is pushing the earth past its delicate tipping point. Do these greenhouse gases really play such an important role in our climate?
The two most prevalent greenhouse gases are water vapor and carbon dioxide. According to meteorologist Roy Spencer, a former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA, water vapor "accounts for about 70 percent to 90 percent of the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect" (52). How does water vapor affect the warming of the atmosphere? Titus says, "Atmospheric water vapor content is also related to the amount of cloud cover in the atmosphere. Proponents of runaway global warming seem to conveniently ignore this relationship in what is called ‘negative feedback.’ Here is how negative feedback works: The atmosphere can contain more water vapor at higher temperatures than at low temperatures. When global temperatures increase, global water vapor content increases as a result. When global water vapor increases, global cloud cover increases. Clouds have a very high albedo that reflects sunlight, thus decreasing the amount that the sun warms the Earth’s surface. The global temperature is lowered, and we are again at the beginning of our cycle."
Carbon Dioxide is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Unlike water vapor, it makes up only two to five percent of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Approximately 50 percent of that number is natural carbon dioxide production, and the other half is anthropogenic. In response to the question of how carbon dioxide affects the warming of the atmosphere, Titus has this to say. "Theoretically, increasing carbon dioxide would cause an increase in temperature. How much of an increase is caused by a certain volume of carbon dioxide is unknown, since there has only been monitoring of carbon dioxide for the last 50 years. If you have ever seen the famous graph of CO2 and temperature over the last 600,000 years that Al Gore uses a lot, you would see that carbon dioxide and temperature are directly related (Gore 67). But what many of the anthropogenic proponents do not realize is that on that graph the temperature rises before the CO2 rises. For this reason, climate experts believe that carbon dioxide rises after temperature rises, not the other way around."
What do we know about global warming in connection to anthropogenic carbon dioxide production? Spencer asserts that we can at least know two things. First, we know that "mankind is producing carbon dioxide as a result of our use of a wide variety of fuels, from coal, and petroleum to natural gas and wood" (Spencer 80). Second, we are certain that "the carbon dioxide content of the global atmosphere has been slowly increasing" (Spencer 81). But to those who worry about that, Spencer points out that "today’s carbon dioxide concentration is still very tiny, amounting to only 38 molecules of carbon dioxide for each 100,000 molecules of air. To those 38, mankind is adding about one molecule of carbon dioxide every five years or so" (81).
Does man contribute to global climate change, and if so, how does he do it? Titus thinks that "it is obvious that humans are doing something to the atmosphere and the environment, but it is clearly stated by many scientists, and even the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Control, that nobody knows what the effect of mankind is on [global] warming. In respect to carbon dioxide, if you look at a graph of carbon dioxide levels in Al Gore’s book compared to global temperatures over the last 100 years, you will see that carbon dioxide levels have risen drastically but temperatures haven’t responded to the rise in carbon dioxide (Gore 67). I believe that humans are having some impact, but not a noticeable one."
There is nothing wrong with being concerned about anthropogenic carbon dioxide production and its connection to climate change. And there is nothing wrong with trying to reduce your carbon footprint. But as Titus pointed out, we don’t really know for sure that our carbon dioxide production is actually a problem. I think the issue is something that we should pay attention to in the future, but not necessarily something that needs to have millions of dollars pumped into it. We certainly don’t need it thrown in our faces all the time with dire predictions of death and misery in the next ten years for our failure to do something.
And as to the media and their frequent change of position, Titus had this to say: "I believe that this just goes to show that the media is a completely unreliable source on this subject. The media likes doom and gloom stories. Let face it, it's good for ratings. The media jumps on the bandwagon with the story that will get them the most viewers."
Works Cited
- Anderson, R. Warren. "Fire and Ice." Business and Media Institute (2006). 22 Nov. 2008.
- "Another Ice Age?" TIME 24 June 1974 [New York] .
- "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again." New York Times 24 Feb. 1895: 6.
- "Global Warming Heats Up." Editorial. TIME 26 Mar. 2006 [New York] . 24 Nov. 2008.
- Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006.
- Gwynne, Peter. "The Cooling World." Newsweek 28 Apr. 1975: 64.
- Hieb, Monte. "Global Warming: a closer look at the numbers."
- "Next Great Deluge Forecast By Science." New York Times 15 May 1932.
- Spencer, Roy W. Climate Confusion. New York: Encounter Books, 2008.
- Sullivan, Walter. "Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead." New York Times 21 May 1975.
- Titus, Justin. Personal Interview. 15 Sep. 2008.
