How Should We Approach Global Climate Change?

By

Micah Michaud

English Composition I

Global Climate Change, there are few topics with more polarized opinions than this one.
There seems to be absolutely no middle ground that can be taken on the subject. Well, thats not
entirely true, you can take a middle ground position but people on both sides will just laugh and
throw things at you. This said how can we know which side to take? Especially considering the
fact that there seems to be a significant amount of conflicting research on the topic. This is by no
means a new topic, the debate regarding it has been ongoing for decades. There is no denial that
the earth goes through natural heating and cooling cycles. In recent history the Little Ice Age
which occurred from 1300-1450 is a well-documented event of climate change in Europe. The
bigger question underlying this is whether or not the new factor of human pollution in the
environment is going to drive these natural cycles out of control.

A Chinese tree ring study in 2011 was able to look back almost 2,500 years at the patterns
of temperature change. The study found that the average temperature currently is approaching
the highest level that has been seen in over two thousand years. These result concur with a
German stalagmite study which gave a fairly detailed temperature pattern over the last 250 years.
A worrying point about these graphs is that they do show a rapid shift in temperature in the last
75 years which could be contributed to human factors however there is no way to confirm
whether or not this rapid change is a result of human factors or just the normal pattern that we
have seen for thousands of years. If rates continue at the current increasing rate for the next fifty
years there is going to be little doubt that the new variables introduced by the human race are
having a profound effect on the environment. This said current estimates based on these studies

expect that over the next fifty years or so the rate of change will even out and begin declining to
a point similar to that of the Little Ice Age

Based on the available information and predictions it seems as though the causes of the
current shift in climate change rates will be determined over the next hundred years. Because of
how serious this issue could potentially be it would be foolish for anyone to entirely ignore it.
The current issue is the frame of thinking in which the issue has been approached. For the
majority of debates it seems to be more of a bitter conflict about how those that disagree with the
theory that it is human caused are insane and those that agree with it are just buying into scare
tactics. This bitter rivalry over the subject needs to come to an end. The approach needs to be in
the middle of the road. It needs to be accepted that we cannot be certain what the causes are
however it needs to be accepted that there could be a level of human involvement in the matter.
There is no single solution to fix this dilemma. The best approach is to continue with the fact in
mind that it could be a natural cycle but actions taken by people need to be to minimize our
continued impact.

Another contributing factor to the level of animosity between those in the debate over the
causes of climate change is the use of it to push through agendas that are not relevant to climate
change. If pollution needs to be addressed for public health purposes such as increased
occurrences of cancer than it needs to be addressed solely on that point while leaving climate
change out of the discussion because it is often used as a scare tactic with the connotation that we
are all going to die unless we stop polluting. This causes the motives for the original argument to
get lost and lessening the meaning of true debate on the topic of climate change because it is
over-used. This further worsens the polarization between stances on the issue causing those on

one side to no longer take the topic seriously and those on the other side treating it as the answer
to all problems. In the ensuing fight over the topic no actual progress is achieved.

In order to resolve the conflicts brought up by climate change we need to ensure that it is
viewed in a different light. There can be no certainty what is causing what does seem to be a
higher rate of change than we have seen in most past instances. The question about the causes
and severity can only be answered in time. The best action that can be taken is to proceed with
attempts to minimize the human factor in the event that the human variable is a significant factor
whilst not doing so with the attitude of impending doom. We cannot use it as a scapegoat or tool
for unrelated topics as this results in the current situation in which little action is taken by a large
group simply because they see it as the catch all for irrelevant issues and feel there is no reason
to even consider it as a potential problem as a result.

Resources

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