Lindsey 1

Daniel Lindsey Irene Peterson English 1010 December 1, 2013 Is Climate Change Bad? Or Just A Normal Occurrence Climate change has been an ongoing debate for a long time. But why should the general public care? Will it ever affect us in our life times or even in hundreds of years to come? These questions are some of the many brought up in the lengthy debates that have come from the topic of climate change. This topic is very interesting to me because it is one that we hear of often. It is portrayed in extreme forms in movies, but it is a topic I know very little about. One of the main topics of debates concerning climate change is the argument as to whether this climate change or global warming is a factual, provable concern. Or is there is too much concern over an unrealistic or false threat. The side of the issue that believes this to be a threat is constantly pushing the governments of the world to make changes in our use of material that they believe is causing the climate change. The other side of the debate is that the entire subject and threat of global climate change is being blown out of proportion and that the information being used to propagate the fear of climate change isnt accurate or being properly evaluated and reviewed. There are also many who believe climate change to be a problem that needs fixing, but they dont believe the problems are as drastic as the more radical groups make them out to be. This group in the middle ground of the debate is in favor of making changes to lessen our impact on the environment but they dont go to the extremes of predicting severe and imminent weather changes like those often depicted in the movies.

Lindsey 2

The United States Environmental Protection Agency in the article Climate Change Science is a very neutral and credible source to gain good general information on this topic. The article uses scientific findings to show that the climate is changing. It also shows that natural causes alone cannot explain the recent changes but human cause can explain why these changes are happening. It goes on to explain why climate will continue to change unless we reduce our emissions. The article also touches on the many impacts that climate change has on our health, environment, and economy. This is the United States Governmental agency that has been established to research and inform the U.S. of issues that could be threatening the environment. This gives it a lot of credibility and strength behind the points made in the article. The article is written and presented in a way that is to inform someone who is new to the topic of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their article Climate Change 2013 The Physical Science Basis poses the threat of climate change as very imminent and with drastic effects. The IPCC is the organization from which the UN pulls most of, if not all of, its data and information concerning the issue of climate change. The summary of their fifth assessment report is very detailed and specifically intended for governmental use as it is labeled a report for policy makers. They cover the entire issue of climate change in a very detailed manner. They also use this assessment to make the threat of global warming appear very serious and in the close future. This summary is written using words like extremely likely, medium confidence and virtually certain as ways to describe the different environmental changes that are being caused by climate change. The use of these words makes it easier to discredit. It is the UNs primary source of information which helps give credibility. But their lack of solid facts and figures in

Lindsey 3

their reports makes it harder to believe. There are also several articles from different news channels that have reports of the statistics in the IPCC reports being overstated and exaggerated. My personal newfound opinion and beliefs on the matter go closely in hand with Dr. Eric Karlstrom who has many articles on the matter but one in particular called Natural Climate Change points out many interesting facts and ideas that I agree with. For example in his article he states: From a historical as well as a geological perspective, warming trends are beneficial for humans, for agriculture, and for plants and animals. No tipping points were reached during past geologic intervals when temperatures and CO2 concentrations were much higher than present. In fact, life flourished during these relatively warmer conditions.

Many of his other points and facts go off of long term history of the earth and not just recent changes. He points out that we cant assume that changes over several thousand years are going to cause drastic life altering occurrences when the earth has been changing and life evolving for millions of years. Now to compare some of the points made between the two contrasting opinions, the IPCC and Dr. Karlstroms articles. Dr. Karlstrom uses the definition of Climate Change from the IPCC report to prove one of his main points. According to the IPCC: Climate change: A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.

Lindsey 4

Karlstrom uses this definition to bring up the point that the entire issue of climate change has been only looked at with a strong bias towards human rather than natural causes. And natural cause is the cause for which Karlstrom and his followers attribute climate change. Karlstrom has a chart on his website from NASA that shows the last 1000 years of Arctic temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations. This chart shows that the average temperature in the Arctic 1000 years ago was about 1 degree Celsius higher than present. It also shows that there is no correlation between carbon dioxide levels and the earths temperature. The graph also shows that the warming trend that we are currently in started 300 years ago which is long before coal powered electricity was invented. In Karlstroms opinion, and mine also, this shows that the current warming of the earth is a completely natural occurrence that has happened in the past and is nothing to worry about. One quote that sticks out to me above all the rest is what Dr. Ian Plimer says in Karlstroms article: All this may appear to be nitpicking. However, this is the way scientific data is evaluated. If there are claims that the global temperature has risen by 0.7 C over the last century, then we need to know if the measurements of the temperature are accurate, can be validated and can be repeated. Measurement errors are 0.5 C, errors due to citing of a Stevenson Screen may be 0.3 C, errors due to wood or plastic may be 0.1 C, and errors due to the urban heat island effect may be 0.4 C. The total errors are 1.3 C. Therefore, over the last century, global temperatures have therefore risen by 0.7 1.3 C. This is a meaningless figure. The only valid scientific conclusion is that temperature may have increased, been static, or decreased over the 20th century.

Lindsey 5

This just goes to confirm mine and Karlstroms beliefs that the information and science that the IPCC uses is too limited and exclusive to draw such drastic conclusions. The IPCC has a history of past data that has already been completely disproven by what has happened in reality. Predictions made in 2000 by the IPCC are drastically off when compared to the actual graphs of what has happened with our climate in the past 13 years. In conclusion, I can see why there are concerns over the state of our planet and the emissions that we are disposing into our atmosphere. I do believe that we should do more to control the pollution that we are making as pollution destroys and defaces the natural beauty that our earth contains, especially when it comes to the other life that our earth contains. I also can see that these pollutions are causing changes in our earth. But I do not believe that these changes are going to result in large scale consequences such as sea levels rising 10 meters in 50 years. Instead, I believe that the earth will find a way to counteract these pollutions which we have produced. We all just need to be more conservation minded in keeping the earth as close to the same as it has been for the past millions and millions of years because the earth has survived just fine before we lived here. But we do not need to resort to drastic measures to achieve this goal. In the end, I have gained an entirely new opinion and outlook on the subject of global climate change. I now believe that climate change is a purely over exaggerated and false notion that has been perpetuated by falsely accrued science.

Lindsey 6

Works Cited

Climate Change 2013 The Physical Science Basis. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 11 Nov. 2013. Web. Accessed Nov. 12, 2013. ,<climatechange2013.org>. Dr. Eric Karlstrom. Natural Climate Change. 28 Feb. 2013. Web. Accessed Nov. 11, 2013. <naturalclimatechange.us.> United Sates. Environmental Protection Agency. Climate Change Science. 2013. Web. Accessed Nov. 12, 2013. <www.epa.gov/climatechange/science>.