Persuasive Climate Change

Al Gore’s well-known documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” premiered a few years ago to emphasize human impact on climate change and how it’s negatively affecting the rest of the world. Some people think it is brainwashing audiences with propaganda while others simply enjoyed the remarkable documentary. While the subject of man-made climate change did not start as a controversial topic, now another controversy is linked to it – whether teachers should teach climate change as fact or debatable to American students. Academic institutes, school boards, teachers, climatologists, scientists, and common citizens all rose to defend their opinions on the issue. While one side argues that climate change should be taught as fact and the other claims that
it should be taught as debatable, I personally believe this subject should be taught to students as factual.

One side of the debate was discussed in Neela Banerjee’s article “Climate Change Skeptism seeps into science classrooms”. The article states, “Scientific evidence shows fossil fuel consumption has caused climate to change”, meaning that there is evidence to support the fact that climate change is a result us fossil fuel digging, among other things. Though, even with ample evidence, skeptics say it’s too little or plainly refuse to believe it. Additionally, according to Susan Buhr of NOAA, even when there is evidence to prove man made climate change true, people refuse to believe it for they are bias and will not “believe” based on what they do and where they live. Especially along the South, Buhr stated, where “livelihoods have been built on extractive industries of fossil fuels”. Basically, even with evidence, people in the South will not accept that climate change is a valid point because once they admit that it is true, they will not be able to sustain themselves with the jobs of digging up fossil fuels. Climatologists also state that man-made climate change is not scientifically controversial. As said in the article, the climate change controversy is where the evolution controversy was twenty years ago. Though this time, despite all the evidence available, people refuse to believe it as they are bias, as people back then did not believe evolution for they believe in the literal reading of the Bible.

In contrast, those who disagree, like James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, think that climate change is scientifically controversial. He said that the pushback in schools and legislatures reflected public frustration at being told “only one side of the global warming debate”. As a result, Taylor and people like him want it to be taught as a controversy. Skeptics like James feel that teachers who teach climate change as fact are attempting “propaganda assault” on young helpless kids and making them think climate change is real. Since teachers are now only teaching only one side of the debate, students become upset, parents and the public reflects the students, and representatives have to represent them, tying the issue to politics. The controversial subject of climate change should be taught to students as a fact.
First off, there is a plentiful amount of scientific data and evidence to prove man-made climate change as a fact, even if skeptics say there is not enough or refuse to believe it for their mindless political reasons. Data collected by climatologists show that the climate is warming year after year due to high quantities of greenhouse gas from the burning of fossil fuels and other human-induced causes. Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. Studying these climate data collected over many years reveal the signals of a changing climate. Factors such as “rapid glacier melting at the poles, sea level rise, extreme weather, increasing hot summers, global temperature rise, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, ocean acidification, and declining artic sea ice” are just some of the results found affected by man-made climate change according to NASA. Moreover, there’s the percentage of folks in the South who believe that climate change is debatable. These people, according to the article, live lives that are depended on their jobs of digging fossil fuels and other resources. Susan Buhr said that resistance to the scientific consensus breaks down mostly along regional lines, with greater pushback in the South. As a result, people in these regions choose not to verify the truth behind climate change for they are bias. But is their being selfishly bias worth enough for the misguiding of students nationwide regarding the issue of man-made climate change? I do not think so. This controversy is bigger than all of the southern folks combined and its outcome will have a greater affect in education than the continuance of digging fossil fuels to sustain lives. Climate change is proven by plenty of evidence to be hard-core real! It must
be taught to the generations to follow as a fact, not a debatable topic, so people can resolve to make a change.

In summation, the topic of man-made climate change has been around for years, but now, as a new controversy has sprung to cause people to take sides. Some people support teaching climate change to American students as fact while others want the topic to be taught as debatable. I strongly believe climate change should be taught as a fact, not debatable. This is so because if man-made climate change were to be ruled debatable, who would take action to change the way we are? The ozone layer will burn out, greater natural disasters more frightening than the recent Japan tsunami will await us, the population will decline, organisms will become extinct, and the economy will fail. Would a majority of us stand by and watch the world collapse under our hands when the subject’s declared debatable, or would more people be more enthusiastic about making a change when it’s declared a hardcore fact? Climate change is a fire that will continue to burn us even further if we do not start to take action. We need to educate and let the world – in this case we can start with students – know about this, and the only way to spread the word and retrieve help for the future of our planet is by supporting the teaching of climate change as a fact in the U.S. science education.