What is it?
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes "Climate Change 101", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 155) invite us to critically reflect on two of the issues raised.
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The questions
- How compelling do you find the evidence that human activity is the main cause of climate change? Explain your reasoning.
- Is there any point changing our behavior if it will take thousands of years to reverse the damage caused by climate change? Why or why not?
You have 12:00 minutes to plan, write, and edit a response to question 1.
After we have published our responses to question 1, you will have another 12:00 minutes to plan, write, and edit a new comment responding to question 2.
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A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the question at the start of your response to it.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
The evidence for the reality of global warming presented in the article "Climate Change 101" is strong. The 1.1C increase in the surface temperature of the Earth over the past 100 years and more shows that our globe really is getting warmer. That is not enough by itself to attribute the warming to humans; however, when we also consider that it coincides with the Industrial Revolution, when our species began burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, the correlation strongly suggests that humans really are the cause. Some people might argue that since temperature fluctuates naturally, the current warming would have occurred even without human intervention, but when we read that a full quarter (25%) of the warming of the past 7,000 to 18,000 years period has occurred in the last 200 years, as greenhouse gases increased due to the output from the Industrial Revolution, it's hard to reject a causal relationship rather than mere correlation that might have been caused by other factors. Also, if skeptics want to deny that humans are the cause, they need to present a strong case for other causes of the undeniable global warming that has occurred over the past 200 years and that has been accelerating for the last few decades.
ReplyDeleteThe evidence presented seems to me compelling.
I find the evidence from Climate Change 101 convincing that human activity is the main cause of climate change, especially, the evidence from The Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which said that there are a 40% increase in CO2 levels in the 200-year period. The evidence from NASA also said that "since global temperature records began in the late 19th century, the planet's average surface temperature has risen." When I add up all the evidence together, I think they make sense. As human activities that are dangerous to our world such as burning fossil fuels and industrial expansion began about 200 years ago. In my opinion, those activities are the reason behind the increasing levels of CO2 and temperature.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think human activities have play a huge role in climate change. According to many reasonable evidences, CO2 levels have increase significantly since the industrial revolution when humans had begun burning oil and gas around the world in order to satisfy our needs. Moreover, we all know that most greenhouse gases are released from human activities as well such as domestic livestock and landfills all of which release methane. Besides, nitrous oxide which is one of greenhouse gases is also from soil cultivation and it is much clearer when there are many lands used for agriculture.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Climate change 101 have a strongly evident that human activity is the main cause of climate change. As the evident shown that the climate change problem have occurred since we started burn fossil and fuel. Another evident that support this essay is we always face the bad weather and flooding, the temperature is gradually increasing. That why I think this essay given us a strongly evident.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that we cannot reverse the damage, as they said we have to adapt and live with our consequence
In my opinion, I think "Climate change 101" can give us lots of evidence that climate change is the cause from human activity. As they explained in the 4 paragraph, "Is human activity the primary cause?", the increase in greenhouse gases levels went up for last 200 years due to the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation for the use of land such as cultivation and others. I think that the human activities the text gave have relationship with the activities that people always did from the past and still do it today, so the text can persuade me that human activity is the main cause.
ReplyDeleteI think the evidence presented in 'climate change 101' is persuasive as it indicates that human activities have caused climate change. Many new articles reported that same things. For example, cutting down trees in Amazon forest for agriculture has caused fire forest contributing to climate change.
ReplyDeleteThe evidence in the article is very reasonable and convincing. From the article, greenhouse gases have increased due to human activity of burning harmful fuel, deforestation, and agriculture. It also reports that 40% of carbon dioxide increased in the last 200 years due to humans. Increasing greenhouse gases in the last 200 years makes sense because 200 years ago was when the industrial revolution began. Mass production relied on machines and factories which relied on fossil fuel, including coal, and oil, producing huge amounts of greenhouse gas. This eventually became the main cause to climate change, effecting the environment.
ReplyDeleteI think that evidence from Climate change 101 is extremely compelling to make me agree that human activity is the main cause of climate change. First, I can find in the second paragraph that twenty five percentage of the rising temperature in thousands-year period occrued only in the last 200 years. It is the period of industrial revolution so we can infer that our chaing behaviors is the cause. Next, There is an huge increase in CO2 level just in the last 200 years. We can also assume that the most belived cause of climate change has made by our behaviors. Lastly, Other evidence involve the affects to ocean, the polar ice caps and extreme natural phenomenon are all stated to began in the past century. This can make us confirm that the serious effects of climate changes began in at the time we change our behaviors.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the essay, human activities are the significant actions that high up the CO2 levels in the atmosphere for 40% in the 200-year period to 2012. This is compelling evidence that attributable to natural disaster and climate change. Since the evidence is concrete and vividly meet in our environment.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that anyone might think that since the damage we humans have already caused to the environment we must live in cannot be reversed, there is no point in changing our behaviour. At the moment, the consequences of our actions are serious and will become increasingly serious for more humans in the immediate future (the next ten to twenty years), but it could get much worse.
ReplyDeleteIf we do not change our behaviour radically, the problem will not remain serious: it will become catastrophic. A rise of 1.1C is already causing problems. When that goes to 1.5C which is probably now an impossibly optimistic goal, the problems will worsen for millions of humans. If it goes to 1.8C or higher the results will likely be catastrophic for billions of humans. Bangkok, for example, is not well-situated to deal with rising sea levels, and when the temperature is 50C or higher for days on end, that is a serious health risk.
We cannot undo the changes that have already occurred, but we can act to limit how serious the changes become in future, and that seems to me worth doing. But it means we have to change our behaviour, not carry on as we have since the Industrial Revolution made life vastly better for almost everyone. I don't think anyone wants to go back to the global poverty and limited opportunities of 200 years ago, but we can still change our behaviour, perhaps making some sacrifices for our longer term thriving, and that of our children.
In my opinion, I agree with Climate Change 101 that we can not reverse the damage caused by climate change. However, we can't ignore the damage we have today and do nothing at all. The problems and impacts caused by climate change will keep getting bigger and bigger. At some point, it will be worse and there will be nothing human can do.
ReplyDeleteI think that changing our behavior is very important because it will help prevent the consequences of climate from getting worse. The cause of climate change is the rising level of CO2. Then, what causes the CO2 level to increase? I think it's us. We are the reason behind climate change. Some activities in our daily life can worsen the effects of climate change, and we don't even know about it. So I think that we must change our behavior so that the problems of climate change will not be anymore worse that it is now.
I am convinced that at certain points of time many people will realize and change their behavior to mitigate the effects of climate change even if the damage of it is claimed to be unstoppable or need more than human’s lifespan to be reversed. One of the reasons behind this is that they might want to soften the impact of the disaster and it would be unreasonable for them to ignore and continue doing the same life styles which is obviously going to destroy our planet and next generations. For me, I think it is better to do anything than nothing.
ReplyDeleteAs the evident given us in climate change 101, I agree that there is no way we can reverse the damage that we have done for a hundred years. It can recover, but I think it might take time, at least as much time as we spent destroying it. Anyways, I think we should change our behavior because changing behavior should have a positive effect on the earth somehow.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is possible that we can reverse the damage caused by climate change even though it would take us thousands of years to do so. As I believe that human activities is the main cause of climate change, so if we change how we consume the natural recourses, our planet can resume to its balance. For example, recently, we have consume lot of energy by burning coal and fossil fuel for our activities that are not productive such as turning on air conditioners when we do not use it, using cars to travel to a place nearby and so on. These kind of activities waste the natural resources and produce COs and other toxic gas. I think most people do not aware of how much they have wasted it.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that we have to change our behavior in order to reverse the damage caused by climate change. Skillful mentioned that it already been too late for stopping the damage from the CO2 but I think if we change our habit, maybe it might help us mitigate natural disaster that increase in every year nowadays. Another reason is that we should think for the next generation. The problems might come after when our kids grow old and it's all create from us not the kids.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we need to change our habits since it can help prevent further damage towards earth, but I think changing our habits will not mitigate natural disasters. I think it will only prevent them and climate change from becoming worse than it is now. Anyway, I also think that it is important that we change our habits for the next generation and the future.
DeleteAlthough we cannot reverse the damage, we still have to change our behavior to ease the pain for our environment. Without stopping bad habits leads more serious problems and also create more severe natural phenomena in future as a domino. Therefore, changing our behavior is an initial way for saving and protecting the next generations from unprecedented disaster that can cause live extinction. We do this not for our generation, but this is for saving the future.
ReplyDeleteI think there is point to change our behavior towards climate change. Although the article says that even though we stop the emission of carbon dioxide, it will have little to no effect on helping climate change, but I disagree. Our further behaviors could help or worsen climate change. If we continue to produce mass amounts of greenhouse gas would that not make climate change even worse, since it will increase the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and the ocean. I agree with the article that fixing climate change may take thousands of years, but if we continue like this it may take much longer, and the effects of it will be even more disastrous. We might also need to adapt to some changes from climate change, but that would not fix the main problem, maybe even causing climate change to become worse.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it will take thousands of years to reverse the damage caused by climate change, I still believe that changing our behaviors is a must. The content has already show us how hazardous the effects of climate change can be in many aspects. The evidences of any extreme events involved climates changes occur in just few century from the point of major changes in our behaviors. This can make us easily understand that the our behaviors can cause many serious events from climate changes in only a short period of time. If we carry on this bad behavior, our planet may reach the point of extinction in the upcoming century. That is why many influential companies on earth begin to use an eco-friendly policy in this decade.Recently, the COP26 meeting held in Scotland has also shown a good example that every world leading contries agree fixing this issue is a must. Why don’t it is a good idea to stall the damgea provide by ourselves.
ReplyDelete