The Global Warming Paradise

Here's a segment from Fox News that may be interesting...

Demonstrated in this Fox News segment  is the single biggest misconception about climate change, or "global warming"

The term global warming has long been used to describe the average global temperature increase over the last century by scientists worldwide. However, because of it's terminology, confusion has run rampant throughout the media and the general public as to it's meaning. Many, (including Fox News apparently) are now under the impression that global warming always means warmer winters and less snow. Some go as far as believing that they will soon be able to go to the beach in the dead of winter. In some cases, like in the preceding video, any snowfall is perfect grounds for disproving global warming all-together. Such beliefs are tragically inaccurate and are simply a result of a lack of understanding of the concept.

I, as well as the scientific community now choose to use the term climate change rather than global warming to describe the increase  of average global temperature. This is to avoid confusing people with their previous notions of global warming as a tropical paradise. The real truth of global climate change is tragically different than is commonly believed. True, some places will receive less snow per year, but in return will be experiencing more, potentially devastating, climatic abnormalities. Chicago for instance, may have record low snowfall totals, but in the same year may experience their longest and hottest dry-spell. Global climate change can be better described by more extreme weather for places that never had such extremes. Massive snowstorms are not out of the question, as are not massive hurricanes like Sandy which devastated the east coast.

To put it simply, if people don't know that climate change exists, or if humans are the cause of it, they are unlikely to take measures to slow the process down. Fox News, and other news agencies, play a big roll in this misunderstanding. The difference between the general public, which is largely informed by the media, and scientists, educated on climate change, is evidenced by the graph below.

Figure 1. Response to the question, "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" The general public data come from a 2008 Gallup poll (see http://www.gallup.com/poll/1615/Environment.aspx) (Masters).

The graph above has been compiled from a survey of 3146 climate scientists and a 2008 Gallup poll (Masters). It clearly shows that scientists, that work in the field and have seen the evidence, overwhelmingly agree that climate change is  mostly caused by human activities. The general public however, does not have this sort of agreement. According to the graph, around 40% of the public don't believe that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures" (Masters). Less than 60% are in agreement with it, unlike 97% of actively publishing climatologists. People simply don't understand climate change enough to make educated decisions. It is very likely that the media is to blame.

Works cited

Masters, Jeff, Dr. "Opinion Polls on Climate Change." Web log post. Wunderground.com. N.p., n.d. Web.

           11 Feb. 2013.