Global Warming as a Political Conspiracy

Global Warming as a Political Conspiracy Global warming and climate change have been a topic long debated, especially in the political realm. Several conspiracy theories have developed over time that surround the topic, mainly formulated by those that deny the existence of global warming and climate change. These conspiracy theories have gained a following and have evolved over time through several modes of dissemination, and continue to be debunked using the facts shared by climate researchers. The theory of human induced global warming was proposed by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in the late nineteenth century (Graham, 2000). He stated that he believed that emissions from industrial processes might cause alterations in the Earths climate. Since this proposal, scientists have argued over the issue. Later, Dr. S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist, spoke out against the theory of human induced global warming and climate change (Interview Dr. S. Fred Singer n.d.). He stated that the process was completely natural and that humans would be able to find a way to adapt to the changes. He sparked a new wave of climate change denial in the mass media. Several theories have been formed suggesting that global warming and climate change are not a real threat. These include that scientists are hiding or altering climate date to push their agendas, climate scientists are using alarmism for their own economic gain, that global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese to help them outcompete United States manufacturing, that climate change is an elaborate scam against tax payers, and that the theory of climate change itself is an invention of activists, university researchers, and profiteers for their own economic gain. Typically, these theories center around politics and the political and/or economic agendas of scientists and climate change believers. All of these theories have been shared by their adherents through various outlets, including books, newspaper articles, and other internet sources including social media and partisan news websites. Most adherents of the global warming conspiracy are conservatives or lean more toward right wing political association. However, the opinions of these adherents are not shared by a majority of scientists. In fact, multiple studies have shown that approximately ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that the current trends in global temperature are due to human activities (Scientific consensus: Ea rths climate is warming, 2016). In November 2009, it was discovered that over a thousand emails and documents were stolen and/or leaked from the University of East Anglias Climatic Research Unit, or CRU (Carrington, 2011). The correspondence was published online, and this caused the public to question science and scientists. This scandal was termed Climategate. This scandal gave climate change deniers the opportunity to give evidence to their claims surrounding the phenomenon. Climategate involved CRU staff that were in correspondence with other leading climate scientists around the world. Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, was one of the staff members principally under investigation for his correspondence. The CRU typically specializes in utilizing past thermometer data and other data sets to aid in reconstructing more accurate and precise records of Earths temperature from the past. This scandal was particularly upsetting to the public because it posed questions surrounding access to scientific data and the scienti fic research review process. Scientific research requires that data be checked by various researchers to see if the results are similar. This requires access to any and all raw data, but in the case of the CRUs temperature data, not all of it was publicly available. Since their data sets had been put together over a long period of time by utilizing several different resources, the scientists working at the CRU were hesitant to share their temperature data with people that they thought were not going to use the information responsibly. During the peer review process of several other papers, it appeared as though the email correspondence between these scientists also served as a way for them to figure out how to stop other papers from being published. Those papers appeared to critical of the CRUs research. There were four separate investigations that looked into the issues surrounding Climategate. The House of Commons science and technology select committee was the first to report the ir investigations. They questioned Phil Jones and other CRU workers in person and ultimately concluded that the CRUs reputation was intact but that they had data access issues that needed to be resolved, which fell on the University (Carrington, 2011). Another report concluded that making the data that was used by the CRU public was the responsibility of the scientists that collected it, not necessarily the responsibility of the scientists that were reconstructing it. The biggest investigation was done by the university, which found that the scientists had not altered results or silenced anyone who disagreed with them, but that scientists needed to be more open about their research. The final investigation was conducted by Norfolk police where they tried to determine how the emails became public in the first place. As far as the content in the emails is concerned, there was nothing that was found that would indicate that scientists were hiding things or attempting to keep other scie ntists from being published. While some incriminating phrases were used in the emails, such as trick and hiding the decline, the emails give no indication that climate scientists were trying to keep information from the public (Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails, n.d.). The term trick in these emails, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, refers to a technique that was being used by the climate researchers while pooling data together (Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails, n.d.). They decided that comparing temperature data that was collected from thermometers to that collected from tree rings would give other scientists and researchers the opportunity to better understand climate prior to the widespread use of thermometers to record global temperature data. Combining these data sets would allow older data to be interpreted more accurately. Hiding the decline refers to the omission of data that was collected from some trees in Siberia after 1960 because there were some trees that acted as outliers (Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails, n.d.). Some trees had thinner rings than the researchers expected as compared to the actual thermometer data, and scientists are still trying to figure out why these trees specifically are outliers in this data set. Overall, there was no conclusive evidence of a violation of scientific integrity by researchers at the CRU. Climate alarmism is the use of scare tactics by believers in climate change to convince people to take action and make changes to slow the effects of climate change on the human population. Some examples of these tactics include reporting lists of things that could go extinct thanks to climate change and trying to convince people that without changing habits, we could lose the ability to eat certain foods or do certain things (Williams, 2016). There are some conspiracy theories surrounding the use of these tactics. There is a theory that claims that climate scientists are using this alarmism as a way to make money (Black, 2014). Theorists believe that climate scientists are prolonging the life of the ruse because the grant money that they get to pursue the science is somehow making them rich. However, there is no evidence to support these claims. There is evidence to support claims that climate change in costing money, but not on the research itself. Extreme weather events associated with climate change have already cost millions of dollars on infrastructure. This includes taking precautionary measures against rising sea level. If anything, scientists have worked hard to inform the public about the impending negative effects of global warming and climate change, giving governments the tools they need to implement legislation assisting in reducing these effects. In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted that he believed that China is using the concept of global warming to reduce and/or eliminate manufacturing competition in the United States (Wong, 2016). He has since said that it was a joke and that he just believes that it is just a very, very expensive form of tax and that China couldnt care less about what carbon wastes they put into the environment (Jacobson, 2016). Trumps claims about China have caused the country to come forward to explain that they plan to continue trying to put an end to the negative effects of climate change, no matter what (Wong, 2016). This seems to be a role reversal for the United States and China, and China may need to take on a leadership role in worldwide efforts to slow the effects of global warming and climate change. Despite saying that he was joking, Trump has continued to question the existence of global warming several times since he posted this tweet, and even claimed that colder weather patterns forced people be hind the hoax to coin the phrase climate change as a way to be more inclusive of all changes in temperature (Scherer, 2016). Some conspiracy theorists have shared beliefs that global warming is a tax scam that is costing taxpayers over $1.5 trillion a year. In his speech published to Breitbart News, James Delingpole explains how global warming is negatively affecting taxpayers (2016). He first calls global warming an industry, saying that the money we spend on the global warming industry is roughly the amount we spend every year on the online shopping industry (Delingpole, 2016). He goes on to say that the difference between online shopping and global warming is that the former provides people with something that they want, while the latter is a con. If the government were to stop funding the global warming industry through grants and taxpayer subsidies, then it would be worth almost nothing, according to Delingpole. He uses wind farms as an example, saying that theyre expensive, hazardous, and environmentally unfriendly because they kill birds and bats and utilize rare earth metals from China (Delingpole, 2016). Later in his speech, he asks his audience if they truly want to live in a world where those that work hard for their money have it taken from them to be spent on frivolities like the global warming industry, and then he says that this use of funds is causing harm in other ways as well. These include his beliefs that teaching climate science in schools is a sort of brainwashing of schoolchildren and that the misallocation of resources is similar to that of Communist countries (Delingpole, 2016). Steve Bannon and Breitbart News have claimed that global warming is actually invented by activists, scientists, and climate researchers to gain economic and government power (Lavelle, 2016). Bannon has said that government bills and other legislation that combat climate change are madness (Lavelle, 2016). At one point, Breitbart News actually suggested that a group of Marxists had taken control of the Vatican after Pope Francis urged people to work toward stopping climate change and protecting the environment. Bannon blames capitalism for causing so many issues with alternative energy, saying that members of private businesses have been receiving government subsidies for investing in or utilizing forms of alternative energy. However, subsidies for fossil fuels are actually higher than those for alternative energy sources. Fossil fuel subsidies are currently totaling at almost $500 billion, which is more than four times the amount spent on subsidies for renewable energy sources. Breit bart News has also claimed that the recent signing of the Paris climate agreement is a threat to U.S. sovereignty because it was created to evade the U.S. Constitutions requirement that treaties must be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the Senate (Pollak, 2015). There are several ways in which the issues surrounding global warming and climate change have arisen in pop culture and society, other than typical arguments on social media and rants from partisan news sources. Al Gores documentary An Inconvenient Truth highlights the impacts that humans are having on average global temperature rise, which is having devastating effects on the planet. Leonardo DiCaprio released his own documentary on climate change in late 2016 in which he discusses the ways in which humans have affected global climate, and also the ways that humans can help to resolve the issue. Coined by Science Friday, the cli-fi genre is a genre of movies, books, and even some music that utilize climate change as an integral part of the plot. Some examples of the movies from this genre include The Matrix and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Echter, 2016). The long debated topic of global warming and climate change has sparked the creation of several conspiracy theories. These theories have been disseminated by conservatives or right-wing groups that deny the science behind climate change, or believe that liberal or left-wing groups are using the science to push their agendas. While many of these theories have been debunked, people continue to believe that the government is wasting tax money on research, most likely because of a constant distrust in government. References Black, D. (2014, May 20). Vast global warming conspiracy exposed: Column. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/05/20/climate-change-blame-effects-column/9325981/ Carrington, D. (2011, November 22). QA: Climategate Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/07/climate-emails-question-answer Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the Climategate Manufactured Controversy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html#.WK28DfkrLIV Delingpole, J. (2016, March 28). Climate Change: The Greatest-Ever Conspiracy Against The Taxpayer. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/28/climate-change-the-biggest-conspiracy-against-the-taxpayer-in-history/ Echter, B. (2016, April 8). 16 Pieces of Pop Culture About Climate Change, From Atwood to Spielberg to the Pixies. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/16-pieces-of-pop-culture-about-climate-change-from-atwood-to-spielberg-to-the-pixies/ Graham, S. (2000, January 18). Svante Arrhenius. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/ Interview Dr. S. Fred Singer. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/debate/singer.html Jacobson, L. (2016, June 3). Did Trump say climate change was a Chinese hoax? Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/ Lavelle, M. (2016, November 16). Steve Bannons amazing trip from climate conspiracy theorist to a Trump White House post. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112016/steve-bannon-trump-white-house-climate-conspiracy Pollak, J. (2015, December 13). Climate Change Deal Is a Threat to U.S. Sovereignty. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/13/climate-change-deal-is-a-threat-to-u-s-sovereignty/ Scherer, J. (2016, November 17). China tells Trump climate change is not a Chinese hoax. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/17/china-tells-trump-climate-change-is-not-a-chinese-hoax/?utm_term=.8ac0a22e8a55 Scientific consensus: Earths climate is warming. (2016, July 29). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ Williams, T., Ph.D. (2016, November 7). The Real Politics of Fear? Climate Alarmism. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/07/real-politics-fear-climate-alarmism/ Wong, E. (2016, November 18). Trump Has Called Climate Change a Chinese Hoax. Beijing Says It Is Anything But. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/world/asia/china-trump-climate-change.html?_r=0

5 R’s Strategy Essay

It is proven that stress has a major effect on our overall health. In order to live the healthiest possible, people must find ways to eliminate or reduce the stress in their daily lives. The PowerPoint we are to reflect on provides a great method for coping with stress. According to the PowerPoint, adopting the 5 R’s is the best way to manage daily stress. These 5 â€Å"R’s† stand for reorganize, rethink, reduce, relax, and release. These â€Å"R’s† are different strategies that can be used together or independently to cope with stress. The first â€Å"R â€Å", reorganize, focuses on reorganizing yourself into a healthy, custom lifestyle. This strategy suggests the importance of making life easier on you. For instance, if you take things one at a time, plan events ahead of time, and do your best while letting go of the outcome, your stress/anxiety level will decrease significantly. By reorganizing your priorities you’re ultimately eliminat ing long term stress. See more: The Issues Concerning Identity Theft Essay The next â€Å"R† strategy that can be used to cope with stress is rethink. In order to rethink, a person must start from within. The rethink strategy is all about charging the positive energy within ourselves. By using daily affirmations, visualizing your goal, talking about negative feelings, or even journal writing we can change our way of thinking to help block the stress our of our minds. The third â€Å"R† used to shrink the stress is reduce. In order to reduce stress a person must be assertive and practice time management. With this strategy you can either avoid or abolish a stressor. The next â€Å"R† mentioned is relax, and is another effective way to manage stress. This is probably the easiest strategy to implement. This strategy calls for play time and ultimately taking time out of the day to appreciate you. This strategy to me stresses to simple fact that life is short but sweet for certain, and we should stop and appreciate it. The last â€Å"R† in the 5 R’s model is release. This can be achieved by walking the dog, taking a yoga class, hitting a pillow, or even screaming. Anyway to release the tension out of your body can greatly reduce the buildup of stress in the body. In my opinions these strategies are all interrelated. I try to use all of these strategies on a daily basis; however, there are two â€Å"R’s† that I have a hard time implementing in my daily stress struggle. Reorganizing and rethinking are the two strategies that I constantly need to remind myself to use. I think they are hard for me, because they are the two hardest strategies to make use of. It’s very hard sometimes to step back, take a look at the mess you created, and reorganize it. In the face paced world that we live in taking things slow isn’t really an option sometimes. For me one of the biggest stressors in my life is taking on too much. I’ll have a big list of things to do, and they will all catch up to me at the same time. I know that I can reorganize and eliminate a lot of this stress by trying to tackle a problem one at a time and accepting the outcome as it falls. Rethink is also a difficult strategy for me. This is because I am usually very hard on myself even over the smallest things. All this inner negative dialogue eventually brings my anxiety level to a tipping point, and I freak out and have a break down. I try to counteract this process by meditating and being nicer to myself. I’m also learning that it’s ok to ask for help, and rely on others not to respond negatively to it. To conclude I think the 5 R’s model is a great bade model to cope with stress, however, I think the hard part is remembering to use it in stressful situations.

Prima facie Essay

Introduction According to the article, Rhino poaching is in no way shown as moral. The ethical issues I see are that people are ignoring the fact that this horrible act is occurring and many people who do know about it won’t do anything about it, but are able to waste time watching pointless videos. The You Tube interventions took a moral approach to help with the petition. Although some were offended, the majority signed the petition and became more aware of the world around them. Utilitarianism When studying the supreme principle of morality as utility, we must first examine the definition of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism the effort to answer the question of man ought to do. For a utilitarian, the answer is simple: Act to produce the best consequences possible for the greatest number of people possible. In this, liberty and harm are treated as an equal. The end goal is to produce a general welfare or Arthur’s collective well- being. Jeremy Bentham, one philosophical view we examined defined utilitarianism as the ethical system that judges actions to be moral to the extent they maximize happiness, producing pleasures, and preventing pains. According to Bentham, there is a possibility of good and bad consequences however; preventing suffering is what matters through pleasure and the avoidance of pain. John Stuart Mill was a follower of Benthams, and he came up with the principle of utility. He stated that â€Å"Nature has places mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters† these masters are pain and pleasure. This is an experience based principle. We learn through experience that we are governed through pleasure and pain. According to Brandt’s view on utilitarianism, if all you do is add up numbers, there still a possibility of producing an immoral outcome. Singer’s principles also exemplified this. In the article â€Å"YouTube Interventions to Save the Rhino†, Utilitarianism is exemplified in that there was a greater outcome for a greater number of people. Sure, some were offended, however in the cases that the petition was signed, the rhinos and animal activists were impacted positively. Also, the new act allowing this method of communication will help when it come t other disastrous situations. Also, the whole world was able to be impacted. This effort had a mass effect on the petition. In the end, rhinos could be saved and a great idea was introduced, even the offended learned that their time was not being used effectively and therefore had somewhat of a positive outcome. Deontology In the study of deontology, we use Kant and Foot’s philosophical views. Deontology can be considered duty-based ethics, and reason alone should be used when finding the moral duty this concerns and reason in turn will cause a respect for rationality. Kant believed that morally you should act so that the maxim of your actions can and should be considered a universal law; morally you should have respect for human dignity. In this principle one should never for any reason intentionally harm someone who is believed to be innocent. Philippa Foot expands of Kant’s principle of hypothetical imperatives in an argument. She argues the Kant contrasts acting out of respect for moral law with acting from an alterior motive. Taking this into consideration she believes is crucial to shape Kant’s moral Philosophy. All in all, morality can only involve rational beings because only rationa l beings have the capacity to reason the way things are and should be and the ability to exercise freedom. Perfect categorical duties allow for no if’s and’s or but’s. Others are not, under any circumstances, to be used just as a means to acquire morality. In summary of this moral standing and the three forms of hypothetical morality according to Foot and Kant, â€Å"If you want x, you should do y, Because you want x you should do y, and because x is in your best interest, you should do y†. For Kant the second and third principles are one in the same. The article answers the supreme moral question â€Å"Did anyone use anyone merely as a means? † The answer is simply yes. The multiple videos that were altered were used as a means to get the communication across about animal poaching. The You Tube interventions had a positive outcome however in that a mass majority was made aware of what was going on in the world and how much time the viewers were actually wasting watching the highly viewed frivolous viral videos. Deontologists would agree with the interventions campaign. They wanted people to be aware of the issue of rhino poaching and wanted a petition signed so they included a link to the petition and urged people to sign it by noting that it wouldn’t take much time. They also wanted people to be aware that the silly videos were simply a waste of time and that was noted. Deontologists would have resolved these issues in a very similar manner because no one was hurt, they were just helped. Prima Facie Duties The prima facie duties introduced by W. D. Ross, a professor from Oxford University, argued that the right and the good are properties known intuitively and these duties may conflict holding only prima facie. There are no supreme principles involved. All focal points in the argument of what makes right acts right and wrong acts wrong are taken into account when looking into prima facie duty. Prima facie is judgment based on considered opinion. The article doesn’t really exemplify prima facie duties in that the article agrees completely with the study of deontology, and Ross argues with deontology. The duty to sign the petition however did arise from the obligation to save the rhino’s from poaching. This exemplifies the opinion Ross had on duty in itself. Conclusion I thought that the approach this article took was completely effective and I agree that the awareness of rhino poaching was done morally. When others want to make you aware of things like the animal fur industry, they walk down runways with imitation blood dripping from a fur coat. This was done in a way where most were not offended, a majority of people were impacted and action was taken. The petition was signed and an increase of 400% of the signatures was reached. I think that deontology supports the article the most. The x and y principles were exemplified as Foot and Kant had demonstrated. I think that all of the principles we studied in this section can be applied to the article. The article least agrees with prima facie ideas however. There are ways to apply it which I stated earlier in this essay. So what makes right acts right and wrong acts wrong? How many are influenced, how they are influenced, and act to include intent of agent and consent of person affected by act.

The Four Basic Types Of Parenting Styles - 1337 Words

According to Arnett’s book on human development, the four basic types of parenting styles that exist are categorized as neglectful, permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. Ideally, according to Arnett’s findings, most parents should aim to be authoritative parents, meaning they should aim to posses essential qualities in order to ensure successful communication with their child. Authoritative parents are described as flexible with their children, supportive, and democratic. However, they should also be assertive, set boundaries, and have high standards for their children as well. Even though being an authoritative parent best possible way to raise a child, according to Arnett’s articles, many parents are still permissive and†¦show more content†¦It is also clear to the reader that the decisions she makes for her children are one-sided and biased, causing the reader to believe she is right about her parenting style. Chua does not look back to reflect on how her actions may cause negative social and cognitive development deficiencies in her children. According to The Foundation Magazine, an article on parenting styles suggests that authoritarian parents tend to issue their children with the same responsibilities that they would give an adult. This can affect the child’s development negatively in the future because they are more prone to experience peer pressure in their later years. As children grow, they begin to get used to the idea of not going to their parents with problems that they face because they are expected to be â€Å"perfect†, thus giving them the idea that there should be no issues in their life. This makes the children afraid of speaking to their parents about problems in general, thus causing a chain of never ending frustration and stress while the child is still developing onto adolescent years. As a result, when children reach the point of adulthood, many begin to distance themselves from their family morals, values, beliefs, and expectations. Too much authority is similar to being a permissive parent in the way that they both lack a balance of respect in both the child and parent.