The Debate on the Big CC

The fierce competition around the science of climate change can be attributed to a few things. First, it is extremely complex by nature. There are clearly a number of factors that contribute to climate change that should not be looked at individually but instead they should be seen as interconnected. People try to look at the factors individually without looking at the big picture and try to discredit scientific data. Second, the effects of climate change are varied and are not the same around the world. Again, people who doubt the existence of climate change will attack a statement like the average global temperature is rising by pointing to the fact that the eastern seaboard had record snowfalls last winter. Finally, something that was mentioned in a previous post, it is just to difficult to believe for some people. The idea that the earth is changing so radically and its humanity's fault is a lot to take in for some people. Especially when the cause and effect is not so clear cut.

For both sites I believe there are some legitimate arguments. However, neither site is very convincing for its own reasons. The Friends of Science site is unconvincing to me because it does such a poor job of explaining the graphs. When I look at the graphs , I see the exact opposite of what the site is trying to prove. The site admits not doing any research itself and just taking scientific literature and putting it on their page. The problem is they don't site their sources. It could just be taking everything out of context to try and prove what it is saying (which it doesn't do very well). For the other site, the format is extremely informal, and gives the impression the the ideas and evidence presented are not legitimate and are not from legitimate sources. The blog/facebook style gives doubt that actual research is being presented and is not research taken out of context and re-construed to prove the point they want to make. However, many of the claims made by the sites are probably based on facts and research, but are not properly explained or backed up by evidence.