Saturday, November 7, 2009

Chapter 5: Global Weirding

In chapter five, Friedman describes the controversy that ensued when meteorologist Heidi Cullen tried to educate her audience about global warming. What is the best way to inform those who tune out such messages, which they believe are tantamount to "politicizing the weather"?

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. K.

    The best way to educate the people about global warming is to objectively approach the issue. Science and politics are best kept separate, yet many add political elements to science and complicate what should be simple and straightforward. Maybe if people start to listen to scientists who have concrete evidence and professionally study weather patterns for their whole lives rather than politicians or pundits who are likely to distort information to their liking can the people notices the lies that come out of politics. More scientists like climatologist Heidi Cullen need to speak out more and inform the public that global warming is a serious issue. If people decide to shut out anything to do with global warming instead of listening to what science has to offer, then there is definitely something wrong about our society, something politics can provide a solution for.

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  3. Unfortunately I think the only real way to get people to understand global warming is by constantly reminding them of this problem. When people cut on the tv they should see a commercial about Mcdonalds, burger king, global warming, and then global warming again. We live in a time period where people text and wat tv ch so the best way to advertise Global Warming is to put it on tv, the problem now is people don't hear enough about this major problem. I think that Kevin was right about keeping it separate from politics. Politics complicates thing because politicians have there own agendas and the true message that we want to convey could get watered down. Cullen has it exactly right when she says you cant mess around with earth with out paying for it later. The problem with that is that we are paying for it now, but people still think that we can push it off. They won't suffer but there kids will and so as long as the earth as we no it doesn't end people will continue to shrug off global warming. The more people see that global warming is a problem the better.

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  4. As Friedman suggests, the best way to keep people informed about the real and catastrophic effects of global warming is to keep science and politics separate. Unfortunately the divide between these two fields has already been a bit blurred; because Al Gore took such a major public stance on the issue critics, especially conservative ones, were quick to not only disagree with the idea of global warming but to deny it altogether. If we can keep politics out of the playing field completely, skeptics will have no choice but to listen to the hard and true scientific facts behind the problems at hand (I hope).
    As physicist John Ramm says, most American scientists do their best to stay out of the media. This is what needs to continue to happen. The media is oftentimes unreliable and easily corruptible, and if scientists meddle too heavily in political publicity the true facts risk losing credibility.

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  5. I think that if scientists were to come out of their fear of taking a stance and promoting it to the public, then people would be more aware of the impacts of global climate change. Even if as a society we are unable to name three top scientists currently working, that is also because scientists are relatively reclusive. Even if the public currently takes scientists who promote their ideas on climate change as a political stance, if more scientists and more researchers were to come out and promote their ideas and the facts on global climate change, it would be inevitable to see that they are not taking a political stance instead they are objectively trying to make us aware of the dangers that lie ahead. Due to the growing intertwinement of politics and science, their credibility is in question. That is not their fault, the information they are presenting us is still true but the doubt it instilled by a society plagued by commercial and personal interests. Science by definition is supposed to be objective and if so many people are coming up with similar data that there is climate change and there could be potentially something bad, how are we not to believe that? Jokingly I commented to myself when reading this chapter, why hasn't herd mentality come to some use in this case?

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  6. Good question. If there is a clear trend that people think that global warming is a political issue, than it is not something that can be done by someone who has been an elected official. But this is hazy because Al Gore had such success with the opening the eyes of so many people to global warming. In looking back on this movie, I think there are a couple of reasons that it was so successful. First, the science of global warming was explained in such a way that people with a very minimal understanding of science could comprehend it. More importantly though, I think that Gore presented the dangers of global warming in the least objective way possible. I think that much of Friedman’s writing fails in this area. He can sometimes present ideas in a sarcastic way that can polarize people and make them defensive.

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  7. Yes, people think this is about politics. And by the way, there was an essay about scientists debating whether or not to speak out about global warming on the SAT, so I guess I was wrong about people not paying attention to test questions. The essay was about how people see science as objective and trust it because it ISN'T political, and some scientists are afraid that if they start telling people about global warming they will be discredited. But since scientists ARE the ones we see as completely objective, if they start telling us that global warming is happening and educating people about its causes and effects, at some point I think people will have to get that it is a scientific issue. Because right now there are some scientists speaking out about the effects of global warming, but not very many. As Friedman pointed out, most Americans don't know the names of any top scientists -- I certainly don't. Most people aren't going to read scientific reports and analyze them to see what scientists are finding -- if scientists want their findings to have an effect on what people do, they have to state their findings in terms people understand and publish or talk about them so that people know. Because, as Friedman says, when the most visible spokesperson for the truth of climate change is a democratic political figure, climate change doesn't seem as objective as it is.

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  8. I think that the best way to educate those who don’t want to listen to the concerns about global warming is to constantly remind them that global warming is not a minor problem. Brandon is right, people need to see something about global warming every time they turn on the television or computer. And I am not saying that people should be bombarded with material to scare them, but at the same time a large portion of America does need a reality check. Maybe a little fear would go a long way, after all global warming is a serious concern, and not one to be taken lightly. As well I also agree with Friedman, for global warming education to work politics need to not be involved. People will just see it as a liberal movement, when in reality it is a problem that will effect everyone even individuals who don’t want to hear about it.

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  10. Sorry i didn't post sooner, my internet has been funky. I think it is very unfortunate that for a number of reasons, there exists a large portion of people who are misinformed regarding climate change. The existence of wide spread misnomers regarding cliamte change are not the product of shear ignorance, they are the direct result of incorrect information propogated by climate change skeptics. I think Friedman does a very nice job of breaking down the climate change sceptics into 3 camps. Those with a vested financial interest in continuing to mislead the public, the few scientists with some legitimate reason to disagree with climate change, and the politiicans who would rather not deal with the political reprecussions and neccesary (and possibly unpopular) action that would be required if they were to admit the existence of global warming. This first camp is an unfortunate and inevitable product of our capitalist system, and will remain devout in their beleifs as long as they continue to receive a paycheck. This group has heled significat sway over American policy, and been succesful in misinforming millions of people. The second camp of uncertain scientisits, is a relatively insignificant group whose numbers continue to dwindle. The final group of politicians has also played a significant role in misinforming the American public. One of the most powerful weapons of the first and 3rd groups has been the false interjection of politics into science. No average Joe will go against something when he is told that something is cold hard science. But tell that same guy that what he is being told is not science, but politcal propaganda and he'll hardly pay any attention to what he's been told. I think the fact is that it will be nearly impossible to get rid of these three groups, and a large portion people will continue to be led on by their incorrect claims. With this in mind I think it will be very difficult to convince many American's of the truth, and that no amount of education, or common sense or anything else will bring some people to see the truth. I think the only thing that will actually have enough impact to hammer home the message that global warming is real is global warming its self. Until cities start going under water, and entire swaths of our natural habitats start to disappear, many people simply won't beleive that there is anything to fear, or any reason to change their lifestyle. As Freidman mentions in this chapter some people are starting to take notice, fisherman can't fish, hunters can't hunt, and people can't get enough water. But this isn't enough. As the effects of global warming continue to advance more people will slowly start to open their eyes and see that maybe they should start to change their lifestlyes. I think its really unfortunate that the situation might have to get alot worse before it can get better. I just hope that when enough people finally see that change is neccessary, it isn't too late.

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  11. Politicians will always do what benefits them personally before they go out of their way for the greater good. This is my personal opinion, but I think it sets up two possibilities. We can either do as Friedman suggests and separate politics completely from the topic of global warming, or we can use politics (and the specific "faults" of politicians) to convey the importance of curbing global warming. The first approach may be necessary because, as we have seen, politicians work for their own advantage, and it is often much more advantageous for them not to address global warming. Another benefit of this approach is taking the political tension out of the decision of whether or not to work against global warming (i.e. a Republican chosing not to because the Democrats are endorsing it...).
    The second approach however, is to keep politics very involved in the debate. My opinion is that if politicians are going to work to benefit themselves, then we can make it beneficial to endorse the fight against global warming. Because politics influence many people greatly, if politicians are openly supporting fighting global warming, (because it helps them of course) then that may get many more people involved in the issue or at least aware of it.

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