Critical Analysis - Global Climate Change PDF

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An analysis of how global climate change is presented differently in the media depending on what the author's viewpoint is of the topic. Two specific news articles are discussed....

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BIOL 103 – Higgins Critical Analysis – Global Climate Change

April 7, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/opinion/climate-change-health-heat.html http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/02/11/robert-de-niro-says-us-suffering-temporaryinsanity-slams-trumps-climate-change-policy.html In “Climate Change is Bad for Your Health,” a New York Times article written by Jeff Nesbit, the author discusses a report coming from one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, called “The Lancet,” that states that “climate change is already harming human health on a vast scale.” Nesbit remarks on the importance of The Lancet and their work in bringing public attention to other medical issues over the years, such as the link between smoking and lung cancer. The author then cites specific evidence from the report, which said that “pollution of the air, water, and soil is ‘the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated nine million premature deaths,’” such as the fact that “outdoor labor capacity in rural areas fell, on average, by 5.3 percent over the past 16 years because of heat stress and other conditions making work more difficult.” In an article titled “Robert De Niro says US suffering ‘temporary insanity,’ slams Trump’s climate change policy” and found on Fox News’s website, Christopher Cabone, the author, stated that Robert De Niro, a Hollywood actor, had recently voiced his disapproval of the Trump administration’s stance on climate change during a speech. De Niro specifically pointed out that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency had suggested a week before the speech that “global warming may be a good thing for humanity.” The author then goes on to discuss the aforementioned EPA chief, Scott Pruit. Cabone brings up some of the statements Pruit has said in the past, such as “carbon is not to blame for global warming” and “there was a declared war on coal, a war on fossil fuels,” but then states that the EPA itself is in support of global climate change being a reality, despite its head not sharing the same belief. While this article was not explicitly denying climate change, the author seemed to portray De Niro in quite a negative light because his comments. Cabone used words like “blasted” and “expletive-laced” to describe De Niro’s speech, which paints the actor as unruly and incapable of having a sound argument because of his apparent anger towards President Trump and his administration. In the article denying global climate change, no empirical evidence was cited and while the presence of an opinion took a bit to spot, the author did show one opinion in a slightly more negative light. There was no “science” provided in the article and the author simply provided information about other people’s opinions. On the other hand, the article accepting global climate change provides multiple, reliable sources of evidence that climate change is a reality. The author cites specific statistics to support his viewpoint. This article was more reliable because the perspective expressed did not appear biased. While the article accepting climate change was accurate and precise in presenting its viewpoint and providing the proper evidence to support it, the article denying it was more in line with stating other people’s opinions without evidence. Because the author of the accepting article had a solid opinion on climate change, the information in the article was well-researched and scientific, but the denying article came off as less-researched. From the accepting article, I learned about the impact of global climate change on human health and how because of

increasing temperatures around the world, people are becoming more susceptible to diseases and death. This contributed to my already-existing opinion that global climate change is a reality that we need to accept. Overall, the accepting article would do a better job in informing the public, not only because of its viewpoint, but because more effort was put into the science of global warming. This course, which teaches me about this science, prepared me to be wary of those who deny climate change and seek out accurate information when needed....