Carolina Reader Chapter 7 Question 4

In both Jeffrey Kluger's and Richard Lindzen's essay's is there a discussion on global warming, however they differ in how they go about discussing global warming. They both discuss what global warming is and how it occurs, but after that they talk about opposite points of view.

Jeffrey Kluger's article entitled "Be Worried, Be Very Worried," is first a discussion of what is happening in terms of global warming and how it is being caused by humans. He talks about how scientists predicted that global warming was going to happen and that "even most skeptics have concluded...human activity has been causing it." (270) Kluger believes that our production of CO2 and their emissions have been causing many different natural disasters througout the world. He thinks that too much production "does and awful lot of damage." (271) The results of an increase in carbon dioxide is causing "glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush," and also a rising sea level that could "swallow large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh." (272) He goes on to mention how feedback loops occur and that are causing soil to "warm and decompose, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw." (273) With an increase in CO2 causing permafrost thaw, a loss of thermoregulation would occur, which would mean we would have warmer ocean water and colder continents inside a hotter globe. He also talks about how global warming causes "the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone." (274) This promotes a problem because not only is the snowpack melting but if it is gone then a habitat for both plants and animals is also gone.

Richard Lindzen's article entitled "Climate of Fear: Global-Warming Alarmists Intimidate Dissenting Scientists Into Science," discusses global warming in a somewhat different approach. I felt when reading his article that he was trying to downplay the importance of global warming. He says that "levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% ....and CO2 should contribute to future warming...however, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred." (279) He is saying that claims are made but it is people who become alarmed not the scientists. He talks about the "Iris Effect, wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2," (280) and how his finding were discredited, most likely because it goes against global warming.

Overally, I think that Kluger's article is much more effective than Lindzen's. I think that Kluger provides specific evidence of causes and effects in the world with regard to global warming and the increase in carbon dioxide. His article seems more factual and less biased than Lindzen's. I feel that Lindzen's article is more of a whining rant because conducted a study that was decided to be discredited, and therefore his argument is not as effective.