It is blatantly clear that too many people have common misconceptions about global warming.
Last week’s Minaret article on global warming portrays perfectly what many non-science people believe.
It is obviously not their fault, but making statements about such a huge event requires that you do your homework.
It is true that the media has often falsely advertised global warming as some incident, some unnatural event.
What Alyssa’s article illustrates is that she has erroneously attributed the problems of global warming to a bunch of ‘Marketing Environmentalists’ who are inciting populist outrage in order to destroy our economy.’
I agree with her point that the media has over used the term global warming to inappropriately raise excessive fear within the community.
Media obviously is a business that sells a product.
They have to stimulate human emotions to get people to buy into the green economy out of fear that their actions will lead to their eventual demise.’
It is also true that the earth is, in fact, coming out of an ice age and warming and cooling periods are quite characteristic of our planet.
Heating at this quick rate, however, is not.
To deny that humans haven’t played a substantial role in the increased rate of warming is to make an example of our nature to justify behavior that we know is bad.
What we don’t realize is that the evolution of our species is directly related to more oxygen and less carbon dioxide in the air.
We owe our existence to a decrease in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and no; we cannot live with a huge increase in carbon dioxide levels.
Without algae and plants taking in this gas, we wouldn’t be here today!
So, when we see that carbon dioxide levels have been higher in the past than they are today, we also need to acknowledge that the organisms that lived then are likely quite different from what exists today.
In the past, the earth has reached very high temperatures, but this usually happens over a very long time.
This gives organisms on earth a chance to evolve and adapt to environmental changes.
By increasing how quickly the earth heats, we’re not giving a lot of organisms enough time to adapt and this is a serious problem.
However, attacking global warming as not a danger as she has is completely inappropriate.’
It is not a clever marketing guise to confuse the population. ‘
It is a legitimate concern that raises awareness about an incredibly destructive capability of mankind.’
We are currently living in a period of mass extinction that parallels the loss of species that the earth experienced during the ice age that killed the dinosaurs and ravaged the planet.’
We have the ability to make the earth uninhabitable for other species just as a cataclysmic natural event can.
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Alyssa’s claim that humans have little effect on how the earth develops is absolutely false.’
It definitely does not ‘adjust whenever it feels like it, much like a college kid adjusts without having enough sleep.’
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The earth will do what it’s always done, but it does listen to us.
We think our planet is so large and our presence has no effect on it, but this couldn’t be more false.
We’re lucky.
Our wasteful behavior will likely have little serious impact on our lives before we die.
Does that make it OK?
Fear is a great motivator.
While it is really irresponsible for the media to feed people false information, a little fear may just be what we need to keep us moving in the right direction.
‘mdash;Tanya Brunner and Jason Creighton
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