A Critical Eye

When reading information regarding almost any topic, one must acquire both sides of the story and weigh these for which is more true. There is much information on the world-wide web about climate change and one must have a critical eye when reading all sides—not simply believing each thing that we read. The Friends of Science non-profit organization clearly does not believe that climate change is a man-made problem. They state “climate always changes without help from man” and that “the sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change”. As they use previous data and research, they create claims to support their argument such as CO2 not causing warming but reverse—warming releases CO2 from the ocean, the earth is cooling and violent weather is not getting worse. They are however concerned about the environment and changing polices on pollution. This organization searches for evidence that support their claim in that humans are not the cause of climate change and excess C02 is not the cause. They do not preset counter information so when one views this, they must realize there is much information that is being withheld from them and in return a balanced argument is not presented. Therefore, when I read the articles on the site I was always being skeptical and would have liked to see more evidence and full discussions of issues.  

The section “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming” by the non-profit organization Grist presents clearly people’s most common questions of why they are skeptical about global warming and scientific answers to them. They have evidence refuting the claim that CO2 only increases with warming and does not contribute to it. This website clearly is in support of human causation of global warming and seeks to educate the public and especially those skeptical of global warming about the true causes and effects of it. With over 50 claims, one may also not read everything and believe all that we see. I feel that it is necessary to do additional research to gain better understandings of the issues.

Each NGO presents their side of the story of causes of global warming, backing it up with scientific evidence. The Grist website is definitely more interesting to read and is more convincing as it has clear answers to the many questions that global warming skeptics have. Their answers are also backed up by much scientific evidence and direct you to other websites to find out more. Overall I believe these websites provide a good starting point for a person who wants to understand about climate change. After reading sections on both websites, I am encouraged to delve further into the issues and do additional research to form my opinions.