Scientific Debates Concerning The Existence Of Climate Change

Climate change, or to be more accurate, enhanced climate change due to anthropogenic actions is an extremely topical issue that leads to contentious debate within the societies of today. This is the context of all three texts as they were all created in the past three years and they are all opinionated pieces on said issue. It is most common to witness two sides of this debate; The first side of the debate is taken by the scientific community, who support the existence of enhanced climate change. They use empirical evidence, facts and consensus to present and model the effects of anthropogenic climate change. The existence of enhanced climate change is supported by 97% of the global scientific community. The other side of the debate takes the stand point that climate change does not exist, or that humans are not the cause of the effects of climate change. This stand point is often taken by large corporations, largely from the fossil fuel industry, conservative politicians, mining companies, big banks and some religious organisations. These groups attempt to disprove the existence of climate change from anthropogenic origins for multiple reasons. These include for personal benefit and to continue businesses as usual to turn a profit. Three texts that demonstrate these ideas yet present them throughout different mediums are; an article by Michael Brown titled “Why old school climate denial has had its day.” Brown is an associate professor of astronomy at Monash University. The second text is a Q&A debate between Brian Cox and Malcolm Roberts. Brian Cox is an English physicist and astronomer, he presents the scientific side of the debate. While Malcolm Roberts is an Australian politician, an ex-senator and a member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. The clip is named ‘Climate Clash: Brian Cox vs Malcolm Roberts’. The final text is a cartoon that expresses the societal debates over the past 6 centuries. It depicts the 15 century and the debate of the existence of the round earth, the 17 century and the debate of gravity, the 19th century and the debate of evolution before finishing on the 21st century with a man pointing to a snowflake and saying “If global warming is real, explain that”. The objective of these texts is to shift and or shape perspectives on the issue of anthropogenic climate change. Since these are all heavily opinionated towards either agreeing or disagreeing with the existence of enhanced climate change their purpose is to convince the receiver of their point of view. All of these texts exist in a societal context in which climate change is ‘the debate’ and a very topical issue that must be faced. The differences in perspectives on the existence of climate change due to individual contexts causes said debates to arise. All of these texts attempt to persuade and position the receiving viewers perspective on anthropogenic climate change through several literally techniques.

The use of evidence as a technique is present in all texts, yet it is most prevalent in the Q&A debate and the article by Michael Brown as empirical evidence is given in support of Anthropogenic climate change. Since the cartoon by ‘Adam Zyglis’ is a cartoon and relies on simple images and messages to provide an argument or point of view there is not much room to present cited peer reviewed scientific evidence. Instead it relies on the comparison between arguments used to attempt to disprove now proven science and enhanced climate change. This is itself is the evidence that it uses as a literally technique in order to shape perspectives. These texts all exist in a context of which climate change is a very topical issue. Even though the vast majority of people understand that climate change is caused by humans, this is represented through three fourths of the opinions in these texts, some do not, Roberts represents this minority. Cox in the Q&A debate uses evidence effectively in his arguments to firstly prove the points that he has made and to secondly disprove the myths and fallacies that Roberts postulates. This is seen when he says “I brought the graph” (Q&A 2016), as Cox presents the evidence he needs to prove his point he also disproves the Roberts’s claims of “We’ve had a pause in this so-called warming” (Q&A 2016). Cox effectively presents empirical statistical evidence to Roberts and the audience through the debate. During the debate he is not seen to try and convince the audience of the existence of climate change but to present all the evidence that he can. This allows audience members who perhaps do not believe in climate change a unique perspective into the scientific side of the debate. However, Roberts does not use evidence for his arguments. Instead he relies on the ‘evidence gap’, similar to the ‘God gap’ the evidence gap is used by people wishing to disprove the existence of anthropogenic climate change. The evidence gap relies on parts of the empirical evidence that have contention within the scientific community. This gap could be as small are as large as needed to create doubt in a viewer’s mind. One such gap used in the Cox vs Malcolm debate is when Malcolm cites the apparent discrepancies in the Hockey Stick temperature graph. He poses the statement to Cox and the audience that NASA and many other intergovernmental agencies had manipulated the data. While he does not present any evidence to back his point, despite declaring that Cox’s is corrupted he can still manage to create doubt in the mind of the viewer or to exploit points of contention by offering the alternative, that enhanced climate change does not exist. This is in essence the ‘evidence gap’. In direct opposition to Cox, Roberts uses this gap to influence the perspectives of the audience, by directly appealing to them to support his points that human educed climate change can be debated. The article by Brown effectively uses evidence in the form of statistics and models in order to explain why he believes that old school climate denial has had its day. He uses figures such as “only 4% [of Australians] believe there’s no such thing as climate change” (Brown 2019). These figures reinforce his points that the climate denial seen throughout the early 21st century and late 20th century is outdated since there is so much science readily available to prove that humans are largely responsible for climate change. In all these three texts effectively use the literally technique of evidence in order to back up their respective points and opinions. Through the use of evidence Cox, Brown and the cartoon all effectively position the viewer to have a sympathetic or active perspective on Sustainability as a whole, but also on the confirmed existence of anthropogenic climate change.

Another technique used effectively throughout all the texts is an appeal to logic. This technique is used by both the scientific side as well as the denialist side. This technique is used by the composers to appeal to the audience or viewers sense of what seems logical or correct based on the evidence present in order to push their point across. It’s use is seen multiple times throughout both the written text by Michael Brown and the Q&A debate yet it is best presented in the cartoon by ‘Zyglis’. This carton presents the societal debates over the past 6 centuries. It depicts the 15 century and the debate of the existence of the round earth, the 17 century and the debate of gravity, the 19th century and the debate of evolution before finishing on the 21st century with a man pointing to a snowflake and exclaiming “If global warming is real, explain that” (Zyglis 2019). This is a simple cartoon to appeals to people’s logic by presenting arguments that seem childish to society now. As the societies of today, with the exception of a few misguided individuals, all know and believe in gravity and the flat earth, with evolution being the next most contentious debate. The argument that the cartoon makes is a generalisation as it assumes that all people of the times disputed the science, yet it is effective in doing so. This is because it compares the absurdity of the other arguments from a different time, and a common argument by climate deniers today it attempts to say that arguments disproving human educed climate change are absurd. This is an extremely effective technique as it appeals to the common sense of society by showing how utterly ridiculous the arguments against anthropogenic climate change are. This technique is also explored by both Cox and Malcolm in their debate. While neither party directly appeal to the logic of the audience, appeal to the logical side of the audience is inferred throughout the debate. Brian Cox uses appeal to logic effectively when rebutting against the arguments put forward by Malcolm Roberts. This is most clearly demonstrated when Malcolm claims that NASA had corrupted several sets of data in order to demonstrate a warming climate. In this example Malcolm is seen to appeal to the common sense of the audience by presenting ideas that are almost other worldly yet then back them up with ‘just think about it’ and ‘it makes sense’ types of arguments. This successfully plants the seed of doubt in the audience’s mind ad to the validity of NASAs findings, which Malcolm then exploits by imploring them to view the information objectively. Cox on the other hand attempts to revert the audiences minds back to logic and what really makes sense. For example, when he says “NASA, really NASA” (Q&A 2016) and then “This is a serious allegation” (Q&A 2016) he combines mild humour with a logical appeal to both the host, Tony Jones, and the audience members. Both Cox and Malcolm use appeal to logic successfully throughout the debate. Overall appeal to logic is a literally technique that all texts successfully explore in order to try and persuade and convince their readers or viewers to agree with the points that they are making. This technique is particularly effective in persuading the receiver since an appeal to logic can easily cause the audience to doubt their current or previous understanding. Since all three of these texts want to convince their respective audiences they use this technique regularly. In all this technique is very effective in shaping and changing the perspectives of audiences.

In conclusion Browns article ‘Why old school climate denial has had its day’ and the cartoon by Zyglis both have one perspective, that of someone who is advocating for sustainability and a change in human behaviour toward the climate, as well as attempting to convert their respective audiences to their opinion through the literary techniques used. This is similar to that of the Q&A debate except the main objective is for Cox to convince Roberts of his opinion and vice-versa. Since all of these texts were created in the past three years and within Australia, they all of have the same context of creation, this is the same context as that of myself and the audience. Since they were created in Australia they mostly focus on the issues within our country.