In Alyssa Lum’s article last week, she claimed that she disliked the term global warming, but she didn’t attack the term, she attacked the scientific basis for global warming.
If her piece had been analyzing the media impact of inciting fear and using incendiary language to excite people about global warming, she would have criticized the media portrayal of global warming, not the science behind global warming.
The science that proves earth is warming and that humans have a tangible and measurable impact upon the earth is undeniably evident, and the entire peer-reviewed community of legitimate scientists agrees.
She also claimed that each individual should be responsible for researching global warming for themselves, which unfortunately leads to opinions such as hers.’
She is not a climate scientist, nor is she a clinical researcher.
I wouldn’t ask her for her opinion on the toxic dose of epinephrine, nor would I ask for her for her opinion on global warming.’
I would ask a climate scientist how global warming works.
How ironic is it that she is doing the same exact function that she was criticizing in her original piece: allowing the media to be a mouthpiece for misinformation dissemination.
Alyssa’s arguments are fundamentally lacking substance to them.
When she uses obscure references to facts without correlating them to their effect upon the environment, she is misleading people.
There are many integral parts that few people have the capability of understanding, and that is the biggest reason why the media doesn’t adequately portray the factors at play within global warming.
It’s not that they don’t care; it is that they don’t have an audience who can comprehend it.
Unfortunately the superficial surface is all the majority of people are capable of understanding in a 30 second spot in a newscast.’
Alyssa’s statements mimic what is the biggest problem with these anti-intellectuals who refute global warming’s existence.
They use seemingly benign arguments that abstract the dangers within global warming.
Her comments come right from Rush Limbaugh’s playbook, and they are loaded with logical fallacies such as hasty generalizations.
These statements defraud an uncritical mind who is incapable of rationally connecting the different concepts in order to have a comprehensive picture of how global warming actually operates.
Her dismissive tone toward global warming is improperly used as a ‘term’ undermines the legitimacy of the science surrounding global warming.’
Her assertion that ‘the earth doesn’t listen to us,’ is a dangerous premise.
The assumptions inherent within that statement show that she lacks the depth to be able to identify how global warming operates.
When she claims ‘our emissions have only caused carbon dioxide levels to rise between five and ten percent,’ it shows her inability to critically analyze the cause and effect relationships that are integral to comprehending the mechanisms that affect global warming.
Having a rise in carbon dioxide levels between five and ten percent is absolutely meaningless unless you correlate that statement to the following:
1.) the cause that this increase in carbon dioxide levels would have on global warming,
2.) the rate at which this accelerated carbon dioxide output is increasing,
3.) the future implications of heightened carbon dioxide output, and
4.) whether this dynamic is either linear or exponential in its accelerated deterioration of the current delicate equilibrium that is the optimal environment for humans to live in.
Alyssa mentioned ice ages and other dramatic climate events very nonchalantly, however humans are adapted to this environment and we would not be able to thrive very well in arctic tundra, intense desert heat, or living underwater.
Finally, Alyssa claims that my arguments contradict themselves, which is erroneous.
There are multiple factors at play here, and the point I was making in my previous response was that we have to moderate between the incendiary tone that the media uses and the actual objective truth that is behind global warming.
‘
Unfortunately, Alyssa was incapable of identifying the meaning behind that statement, so I could see why she would be confused. I suggest that Alyssa be more careful before she spreads more ignorance next time.
Robert Creighton may be reached at rcreighton@ut.edu.
“