Climate Change vs. Global Climate Change?
Americans at large are really wishy-washy about the subject of global climate change. Currently, belief in the fact of Global Climate Change is on the wane, as the northern hemisphere had a cold winter. No matter that November 2013 was the hottest November on record. I think that this is due to many factors.
The first is pretty obvious. Americans do not know the difference between 'weather' and 'climate.' We certainly had a cold winter in North America this last season. That's weather, not climate.
Secondly, since Americans know so little math and science, they fall prey to notions that they want to believe. This isn't really the fault of scientist's(more about that in a bit). It has much more to do with the non-scientist cum climate change expert casting doubts on the fact of global warming as being specious. Oft cited things have been resoundingly answered by real climate scientists, but it's the first message that garners all the attention. A sound bite is easy, science is far more nuanced, and hence takes much longer to explain.
Third, the scientific community needs to be much more vocal. The data is in. Anthropogenic global warming is a fact. No one likes this fact, but not liking a fact doesn't falsify it.
I'll add one more. It is perhaps not in the best interest of entrenched businesses to embrace the seismic shift that they must undertake in order to thrive in the new reality. These legacy businesses are both huge and powerful. It is perhaps these interests that have done the most to cast doubt about the reality of global warming. They have paid for bad science in an attempt to overturn mountains of date that point in one direction. The direction for climate change occurring even as these studies are being paid for ought to be criminal.
NYT Blog Post on American views of Global Climate Change
THE most important website on the Internet: Real Climate: Climate science from climate scientists
Real Climate is more important than Google by orders of magnitude. Go and learn.
The first is pretty obvious. Americans do not know the difference between 'weather' and 'climate.' We certainly had a cold winter in North America this last season. That's weather, not climate.
Secondly, since Americans know so little math and science, they fall prey to notions that they want to believe. This isn't really the fault of scientist's(more about that in a bit). It has much more to do with the non-scientist cum climate change expert casting doubts on the fact of global warming as being specious. Oft cited things have been resoundingly answered by real climate scientists, but it's the first message that garners all the attention. A sound bite is easy, science is far more nuanced, and hence takes much longer to explain.
Third, the scientific community needs to be much more vocal. The data is in. Anthropogenic global warming is a fact. No one likes this fact, but not liking a fact doesn't falsify it.
I'll add one more. It is perhaps not in the best interest of entrenched businesses to embrace the seismic shift that they must undertake in order to thrive in the new reality. These legacy businesses are both huge and powerful. It is perhaps these interests that have done the most to cast doubt about the reality of global warming. They have paid for bad science in an attempt to overturn mountains of date that point in one direction. The direction for climate change occurring even as these studies are being paid for ought to be criminal.
NYT Blog Post on American views of Global Climate Change
THE most important website on the Internet: Real Climate: Climate science from climate scientists
Real Climate is more important than Google by orders of magnitude. Go and learn.