
Climate change is an extremely important issue occurring in our world today. Our nation’s leader has put this issue on the back burner and has labeled global warming as a hoax. If the people of our world don’t step up and make a difference our planet will see a ginormous depletion of wild life. Our leaders need to acknowledge that climate change is not a hoax but a real threat to our planet. Although “Bill Nye The Science Guy” is a children’s TV actor, he is an established scientist. He says, “Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.” This quote demonstrates how critical our involvement is regarding prevention in global warming. If our World leaders take initiative and help persuade the people to take charge of their part in helping prevent global warming our world could potentially last millions of years longer. 

In our world, today, many people have different viewpoints on climate change. Some believe it is real but not very serious, others believe it will completely destroy our world, and some do not even consider it to be true. A group of 16 scientists came together and published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal explaining how global warming is not real and how policies do not need to be created to help our planets warming. After this article was published, a well-known scientific book writer and a Yale economist, William Nordhaus, wrote an article arguing the group of scientists claim regarding global warming. Nordhaus states, 

One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly volatile. The presence of short-term volatility requires looking at long-term trends. A useful analogy is the stock market. Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade, which is true, it follows that there’s no upward trend. Here again, an examination of the long-term data quickly shows this to be incorrect. The last decade of temperature and stock market data are not representative of longer-term trends. The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is among the most robust findings of climate science and statistics” (1). 

This quote is important because not only does Nordhaus argue the other scientists claims, but he explains why in some instances it could seem like global warming isn’t occurring at a dangerous pace. Nordhaus read the graphs and checked the data the other scientists used, and he concluded that they had interpreted the graphs incorrectly thus giving them false information regarding how fast moving and dangerous the warming occurs.  Not only do some scientists claim climate change to be false and misleading, but so do some of the most influential people in our nation. 

Former President, Barack Obama, was one of the main participants in creating the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a contract of sorts holding almost every country accountable for their greenhouse gas emission. “Obama enacted rules to cut planet-heating emissions across much of the United States economy, from cars to coal plants” (1). Obama put so much effort into helping slow global warming; however, new President, Donald Trump has now dismantled his efforts. Within days of Trump being elected, multiple websites with Obama’s climate change initiative were completely deleted. Coral Davenport wrote an article for The New York Times explaining the technological turnover when Trump replaced Obama. Davenport states, 

“But the digital change, which flashed into place at noon on Friday, immediately placed into sharp relief some of the starkest differences between the old president and the new. And for advocates of climate change policy, it presented the first concrete sign that Mr. Trump remains, as he was on the campaign trail, skeptical and dismissive of the established science of human-caused climate change, and committed to blocking policies to curb it” (1).

This quote shows how Trump is slowly going to remove any initiative to prove that global warming is true. The quote also infers Trump’s full denial of human-caused climate change when it states he is fully skeptical and dismissive of the idea of global warming. If our Nation’s leaders continue to deny climate change and all the negatives that go along with it than our world will be in for a rude awakening. Davenport claims, 

“Scientists fear the online deletions will extend far beyond changes to introductory websites and into the realm of government data. Climate change data gathered and stored by the United States government is considered among the most authoritative in the world. But scientists worry the data will be deleted during the Trump administration.” This is a scary thought because if we keep denying and ignoring the facts our world will be at stake” (1).     

The United States Government is by far the most reliable and authoritative resource when discovering new and important data. With Donald Trump being the president of the United States, he is entitled to more than one can pertain, meaning if he were to delete the data informing the concern of global warming the word could potentially face major consequences. National Geographic published an article written by Michael Greshko disputing Trump’s stance on climate change. Donald Trump blatantly ignores statistics backing up how dangerous and serious global warming is. Greshko states,

“But Trump has long questioned whether climate change is real, and he has dismissed claims that it poses a major threat. In public statements and in his campaign platform, the New York real estate developer and reality TV star has extolled a resurgent U.S. fossil fuel industry, at the expense of existing policies combating climate change. He has also said that he will cut U.S. payments to United Nations climate change programs. The President-elect’s stance on climate change runs counter to physical evidence, near-universal scientific consensus, and analyses by military experts and the U.S. Department of Defense (1). 

This quote sparked controversy when funds were brought up regarding payments for climate change programs. If more leader’s follow in the footsteps of Trump our planet is slowly but surely going to die. They need to listen to what the statistics and data state and base their judgement off the scientific data. If our World leaders took the initiative to inform everyone how important warming prevention is, then other influential people would help spread the word. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in a documentary where the full impact of climate change is explained and analyzed. 

Leonardo DiCaprio joined forces with National Geographic in hopes to persuade not only America but other countries as well to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The documentary they created is called, “Before the Flood”. The film focuses on major cities in the world and analyzes their greenhouse gas output along with the endeavor to help them change their negative ways. In the film, Johan Rockstrom, an environmental scientist, states, “We are on average moving towards four degree warming this century. And we haven’t been in a four-degree warmer world for the past four million years” (Need to find hour and minute). The statistics behind this quote have been validated by many world-renowned scientists. The evidence proving global warming is substantial yet people still consider climate change to be fake. In the film, DiCaprio meets a Harvard economics professor, Gregory Mankiw. Mankiw comments, “Politicians, although we call them our elected leaders, are really our elected followers. they do what the people want them to do” (Need to find hour and minute). This quote furthers the argument referring to our nation’s leaders and how they do not believe in climate change. They could be trying to rectify the problem and start prevention policies, however they are ignoring it which could be detrimental to our world. Later in the documentary, DiCaprio flew to Miami and witnessed the climate’s warming first hand. The streets in Miami are constantly flooded resulting from the warming and rise in sea level, and it is referred to as “Sunny Day Flooding” (Foreign Policy Article). The documentary shows footage from DiCaprio attending the Paris Agreement. He gives a speech on his travels and what he witnessed while he filmed the documentary. “Before the Flood” helps show the detailed impact of global warming to the viewer’s eye, rather than graphs and charts. The documentary mentions, “Earth’s 2016 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)… The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere” (NOAA article). This is direct data depicting the warming on the earth’s surface. A change that rapid is almost, completely caused by human- made emissions. Knowing the facts behind climate change will help persuade people to pay more to their participation in global warming. 

However, people changing their habits will also help slow the warming. 

Chad Meyers, a CNN meteorologist, originally was not one hundred percent positive on the human involvement regarding climate change but as he worked more and more with different scientists, he witnessed how negative the impact from global warming could potentially be. Meyers states, 

“As a student, I learned to never exclude any possibility until ultimately that possibility is proven false. It was called skepticism, not denial, and skepticism is a key foundation of the scientific process. In the '80s and '90s there seemed to be many other potential causes of climate change, not only humans…after looking through all the statistics I was no longer a skeptic. Humans were polluting the atmosphere to a point of no return. I had finally excluded all other possibilities. Had I flip-flopped? Well, that is what it would be called in politics. But in science, it is just an evolution of understanding. I concluded that my original theory of “it could be something else”’(1). 

This quote helps show how new and improved technology helps people change their beliefs. It might be embarrassing to change sides on a topic like this, especially when you’re a scientist; however, if every non-believer sucked up their pride and listened to the data then our world’s future would be in much better shape. An article was later published in January of 2016 talking about a specific instance where global warming was visually noticed. A large iceberg called Larsen C. Ice, is rapidly breaking apart from Antarctica. The rift has increased over the past year so intensely that Antarctica will lose at least ten percent of its entire area once it officially breaks off entirely (Project MIDAS/ Larsen C. Ice). Andrea Thompson wrote an article responding to the breakage of the massive iceberg and writes,

“The stability of ice shelves is important because they help buttress the huge glaciers that feed them. When an iceberg calves off an ice shelf, there is less ice to push back on the glaciers, causing them to speed up. In a stable system, the front of the ice shelf eventually moves forward until the whole system is once again in balance” (1). 

This quote helps illustrate how threatening global warming could be. If people do not start to correct their selfish habits, our entire ocean could potentially be unbalanced for good. If our system continues to be this unstable our ocean will slowly start to shut down, and the other ecosystems will quickly follow. Once our ocean is compromised the atmosphere will begin to deteriorate. The human race’s carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gas emission has made it almost impossible to eliminate climate change entirely for at least eighty years. (Conserve Energy article).

Al Gore once said, “As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions.” Overall climate change is a serious issue our world is now faced with because of its inhabitants. If some of the world’s most influential people do not present climate change as an undeniable threat our grandchildren might not see some of the nature, we have today. If the people of today take it upon themselves to correct the situation, then our world will thank us later for our contribution. In Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary, his final quote puts everything into perspective for most viewers. He states, “You are the last best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it or we, and all living things we cherish, are history.” This quote shows how important it is for everyone to pick up their own slack and not except someone else to do it. If everyone tried to change their environmental impact just a little the improvement would be extensive. 
