Is climate change real and human caused?

Author: Hope Sardella, PHI103 Informal Logic, Professor Kelly Mink, June 25, 2018

Since the early 20th century, we have seen temperatures on Earth increase approximately 1.8°F. Additionally, over this same time period we’ve seen an increase in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). While both sides of the climate change debate seem to agree on these two points, there is little else they agree upon (ProCon.org, n.d.). This paper will begin to explore the specific question of whether climate change is real and caused by humans. It will explore articles that argue on each side in an effort to evaluate the quality of the reasoning of each argument towards the positions of the scientific community and climate change deniers. Presentation of an Argument Supporting Climate Change as Real and Human Cause Approximately 97% of climate scientists are convinced that human-caused climate change is occurring right now. Some studies suggest an even higher percentage of consensus among climate scientists. Additional research shows that more than 90% of meteorologists believe climate change is real, with 80% of those weathercasters indicating that climate change was human-caused (Maibach et al., 2017). However, a 2013 survey showed that less than half of American adults believe “most scientists think global warming is happening.” Two experiments were conducted that sought to determine how climate scientists could best communicate their message – that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is occurring and is caused by humans – to the American public. The study concluded that numeric descriptions were more effective than non-numeric and verbal descriptions. In short, quantitative measurements, like measurements showing the increase in temperature or greenhouses gases over time, is more effective than qualitative statements (Myers, Maibach, Peters, & Leiserowitz
2015).

The primary argument given may be represented in standard form as follows:

Premise 1: Nearly all climate scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by humans.

Premise 2: The majority of Americans don’t believe that most scientists think global warming is
real and caused by humans.

Premise 3: Climate scientists want the public to be better informed about their consensus
regarding human-caused climate change.

Premise 4: Numeric descriptions are more effective than non-numeric and verbal descriptions
when communicating a message.

Conclusion: In order to better communicate their consensus about human-caused climate change,
climate scientists should use more numeric descriptions.

Following the logical progression of the premises, the reasoning presented appears to be strong. To better communicate their position, it seems to reason that climate scientists would want to use more numeric descriptions, similar to the opening sentence of this paper that mentioned we’ve seen a 1.8°F temperature increase on Earth since the early 20th century (ProCon.org, n.d.). The premise is predicated on the fact that scientists are unbiased and simply relaying research findings after data was gathered. The article doesn’t delve into the specifics of why nearly all climate scientists believe in human-caused climate change though, so one could argue that climate scientists could be spreading false data using this newly-researched technique.

Presentation of an Argument Against Climate Change as Real and Human Caused

Between 1998 and 2012, data suggests that the surface of the Earth barely warmed; the term “global warming hiatus” was given to this phenomenon. This hiatus implies that global warming had stopped, or at the very least slowed down. Scientists in 2012 published an updated “decadal forecast” that downgraded the previous forecasts and stated that temperatures wouldn’t increase for another five years. This would imply that temperature fluctuations are random and not caused by humans. The study determined that various short-term factors contributed to this hiatus, such as heat uptake by the oceans, but in the end concluded that humans do influence long-term global warming (Medhaug, Stolpe, Fischer, & Knutti, 2017).

The primary argument given may be represented in standard form as follows:

Premise 1: A global warming hiatus occurred between 1998 and 2012 when the surface of the
Earth barely warmed.

Premise 2: During the global warming hiatus, global warming had stopped or slowed down.

Premise 3: Based on the global warming hiatus, scientists changed their forecasts and said that
temperatures wouldn’t increase for another five years.

Premise 4: Heat uptake by the oceans contributed to the Earth’s surface temperature not warming
as previously predicted.

Conclusion: Even though it seemed like there was barely an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature between 1998 and 2012, global warming did not stop or slow down. Rather, other factors like heat uptake by the oceans was the cause for this short-term warming slowdown. The logical progression of the premises and reasoning presented was extremely weak. Many of the premises seem to sway readers to believe one thing, but then took a sharp turn and presented evidence towards the opposite direction. The researchers used different measurements in terms of time, making their argument for short-term versus long-term effects. It seemed as though they were attempting to sound unbiased but ended up creating very confusing and illogical deductions.

Analysis of the Reasoning on Both Sides

Both of these scholarly sources supplied evidence for their conclusions, although the source for human-caused climate change seemed much more organized and cohesive by using adequate scientific evidence supportive of the claim of climate change is human caused. The non-scholarly sources representing the claims against climate change validity, by contrast, frequently made claims that were not supported at all and seemed biased. This allows non-scholarly sources to make it sound as though the case for their position is much stronger than it actually is. However, even scholarly sources are capable of contradicting each other, and in the case against climate change, it seemed to contradict itself. In fact, while reviewing the references of the article against climate change, I noticed that most if not all of the references were to non-scholarly sources. This fact poses fallacies in the position that climate change is not human-caused. Thus; coming to the evaluation based on evidence supported on each stance, that climate-change is human-caused just by the sheer credibility of the sources. If the opposing arguments against climate change science would have had sufficient scientific evidence to support their outlandish claims, then they may actually have a case but for now, there is not proper credible evidence to support the climate change deniers.

Conclusion:

Studying the reasoning on each side of the human-caused climate change issue has been illuminating. Though there doesn’t seem to be much debate among scientists regarding global warming, it has been extremely interesting to learn more about why some people don’t believe climate change is real and/or it isn’t caused by humans. It has been especially interesting to review very one-sided non-scholarly sources and compare them to peer-reviewed scholarly sources. In the future, I am more likely to go to scholarly sources in order to find fact-based evidence, but I believe that non-scholarly sources can be beneficial in some ways as well, as they can help you see that the “other side” thinks about the issue and perhaps even help you find fallacies in their evidence to further strengthen your belief in your position.

References

Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change? (n.d.). ProCon.org.
Retrieved from https://climatechange.procon.org/

Maibach, E., Mazzone, R., Drost, R., Myers, T., Seitter, K., Hayhoe, K., … Cullen, H. (2017).

TV Weathercasters’ Views of Climate Change Appear to Be Rapidly Evolving. Bulletin
Of The American Meteorological Society, 98(10), 2061-2064.

Medhaug, I., Stolpe, M. B., Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2017). Reconciling controversies about
the ‘global warming hiatus’. Nature, 545(7652), 41-47I.

Myers, T. A., Maibach, E., Peters, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2015). Simple Messages Help Set the
Record Straight about Scientific Agreement on Human-Caused Climate Change: The
Results of Two Experiments. PLoS ONE, 10(3), 1-18.