Environment Debate Research:
Topic: Environmental movements overstate environmental concerns.
Position: Agree; Many independent environmental movements overstate the severity of environmental concerns and inflate the facts in order to gain more support from the public.
Opening Statements:
? Max: It is not to say that climate change does not exist, and it is not to say that the actions of humans are adversely affecting the environment, but the tactics used by some environmental movements to garner support rely on exaggerated and manipulated scare tactics to rally together people.
? Josh: For a topic such as Climate Change, we do not know for sure if the increase in temperature is actually caused by humans, or just part of the cycle of temperatures in Earth's history. Each cycle lasts about 100k to 800k. Just 110k years ago, the world experienced the last major Ice Age when North America and Eurasia were completely covered by huge glaciers. The last little ice age was between 1400 and 1700. Throughout its history, Earth has had cooling and warming periods. What we do not know, is if the continued combustion of fossil fuels and increased atmospheric CO2 concentration will cause "global warming" to continue. There is no scientific proof! And even if we do have policies and make economic sacrifices to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, we do not know if it will even have a beneficial effect
Debate Points/Research (links due Fri. 4/15):
? Timeline of environmental movements
? https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/earthdays/
¦ Environmental Movements date back to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1948
? Environmental movements don't work anyway
? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-montague/green-initiatives_b_1301418.html
¦ No large funders care about the little guys doing the hard work to protect the environment - because of this the money is going to the big guys who don't do much other than lobby, which isn't working anyway.
? Bad research that is spread by movements only further hurts the environment
? https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1117-jim-steele-on-how-bad-global-warming-science-hurts-the-environmental-movement/
¦ Many people jump on a bandwagon without critically thinking about the issue
? Ex.: Things, such as butterflies that were run out of their area by landscape change that was caused by heavy conservation efforts, but was immediately blamed on climate change and CO2.
? When we lose ice on the west of Antarctica, ice builds up on the east, but people only pay attention to the west
? CO2 seems to be blamed for everything
? https://www.corbettreport.com/a-message-to-the-environmental-movement-hd/
¦ Legitimate ideas and concerns have been swept up by big business environmental groups and are being sold back to the public in order to turn an even greater profit.
¦ Many of the people that campaign are not scientist, only people that cite scientists that aren't always correct
? https://dailycaller.com/2012/12/21/new-documentary-aims-to-correct-lies-misinformation-spread-by-anti-fracking-groups/
¦ Many reports over exaggerate what is actually happening.
? The documentary ‘Gaslands' had a scene in which a man lit his tap water on fire and attributed it to gas getting into the water because of fracking when it was common knowledge, to both the homeowner and the director, that the water was bad way before fracking because in areas that have a lot of gas beneath the surface, gas will leak into the water on its own, naturally.
? History of Environmental Movements
? https://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Environmental_Movement.aspx
? https://www.rff.org/blog/2010/environmental-movement-good-cops-and-bad-cops
? Misinformation and Climate Change
? https://oilprice.com/The-Environment/Global-Warming/The-Danger-of-Misinformation-about-Climate-Change.html
¦ Movements toss around numbers without knowing what the money is actually going towards
? The $775 billion dollars in subsidies were actually going to keeping gas prices low throughout the world so more people can afford gasoline
? They're misrepresenting facts in order to gain more support for their cause and gain more money for their organizations.
¦ The misinformation causes people to spend their money and time in the wrong places instead of focusing on what really matters.
? Facts about Climate Change
? https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/basics/facts.html
? Untrue Asthma Facts
? https://content.sierraclub.org/coal/about-the-campaign
¦ In the video the Sierra Club states that smog can cause asthma attacks, which is true, and that asthma attacks are the one of the top reasons children miss school, however, there is no scientific connection between asthma and polluted air. There are also many things that can cause an asthma attack, as asthma is believed to be genetic
? This is an example of how organizations use facts that have a slight connection to the problem and use it to gain much more widespread support. They use the fact that bad air can cause asthma attacks to overagerate an idea and get parents to support.