5 2 1 3 W


C


The climate change debate Evaluating credibility; Identifying bias


1 Read three statements regarding climate change. Which one is most similar to your own view?


a Climate change is caused by humans and it is the greatest danger facing the world. b Changes in the climate are natural and the problems are exaggerated. c Climate change is being taken seriously and the outlook is positive.


Look at three newspaper headlines. Which statement in 1 do you think each article supports? What helped you to choose?


Climate change scientist speaks up about deniers – and why he’s still hopeful


2


It’s true: global warming in Antarctica not in evidence


3


The climate crisis has started – but we’re denying it.


Skim read an article about climate change and match it with a headline from 2. Then read the article again more carefully. Make a note of the parts that are fact rather than personal opinion.


ith climate, it’s hard to point to a single year and say ‘this was the moment it changed’. But this year, I can say: it has begun. Sometime in the


first two decades of this century, the warming of our planet from greenhouse gas emissions went from something models predicted and scientists detected, to something palpable, a clear and present change that no observant person can ignore. For each of the past eight months, global average


temperatures have shattered – not just exceeded, but shattered – the records for that month in the past 150 years. Snow this spring retreated at a blistering pace, and covered less area than in any year since satellites began snapping pictures in the mid-1960s. Sea-ice cover in the Arctic has set a record – the least ice ever seen for the day – nearly every day since 1st


April. The evidence could not be clearer. Yet uncertainty about climate change in the public


mind has continued, fuelled by groups that either detest consensus or have a vested interest in the status quo. There are messages, or web-posted comments or


tweets, that seek solely to obfuscate. ‘Climate changes all the time.’ Quite true, but we’ve never


had seven billion people depending on a moderate climate before. ‘It hasn’t warmed since 1998.’ True… for a few years.


78 English for the 21st Century • Unit 5


Then we had nine of the ten warmest years on record. After so much exposure to the vague, incoherent arguments of climate change deniers, it long saddened me to think that they collectively might have slowed our progress toward agreements and solutions. Now, though, I realize there is, in fact, real hope emerging


for the problem of climate change, and the reason is innovation and entrepreneurship. Wind power growth has been astonishing because it is profitable. Solar power growth looks similar. The deniers and delayers have lost simply because they could not hide the economic logic of addressing the problem, or convince entrepreneurs not to invent. Today we have many options and, most importantly, we have a global generation of people who understand world climate change and are looking eagerly for ways to mitigate it.


ResearchGate, 25th


by Ted Scambos July 2016


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