Essay:
Create a 5 Pages on Climate Change Denier analysis for below essay.
"I love the poorly educated" was a staunchly populist remark made by Donald Trump during his presidential campaign. President Trump has had a history with education or rather lack of; his fraudulent school, Trump University attests to his attitudes of profit first and education second (or last). As such, in an era where the threat of global warming is reaching its peak, Trump has instead put business first. Consequently, he denies any existence of global warming despite a striking 97% consensus among the scientific community that it does exist. While Trump's policies have greatly affected the political arena, his management of the government has had a trickling-down effect shaping the perception of global warming in the daily lives of all Americans. Today, the prevalence of misinformation has disrupted the validity of all truths and has ultimately curtailed the urgency of the climate issue in educational institutions. Additionally, President Trump's position on global warming has reinforced climate denial in regions where science, religion and tradition have had a poor history of dialectics. Furthermore, class consciousness has been aggravated with the onset of new rightist- capitalist policies perpetuating the conditions for wealth inequality and ultimately detracting from the issue of climate change by varying degrees in the hierarchy of class stratification. Thus, to truly combat global warming we cannot begin to hope to start from or rely on those at the top. We must start from the bottom- to understand the factors that fuel denial in the everyday American, and bring about change from the people, not its leaders.
The term climate denier colloquially refers to a person that does not believe in global warming. However, this overlooks the specificity over what climate deniers actually deny. There are a variety of perspectives on climate denial. Common reasons why climate deniers do not believe in global warming are: there is no evidence, there is not enough evidence, the existing evidence is not completely reliable, the existing evidence is still debated by scientists, the existing evidence is false, and we do not have the means to produce reliable evidence. Summarily, there are typically two types of climate deniers. The first type is an individual that does not believe in global warming at all. The second type is an individual that does not believe humans are responsible for global warming (natural causes or other factors for global warming are often the main reason cited for this type). For the purpose of our essay we will operate as if the claim that global warming exists and is caused by human activity as an absolute certainty, despite the overwhelming but not unanimous 97% consensus of the scientific community. Therefore, climate denier will refer to individuals that disagree with the claim that global warming is caused by human activity. Additionally, climate bystanders will refer to individuals that agree that global warming is caused by human activity, but do not believe it is priority that needs to be addressed or do not believe it is priority can be addressed by human efforts.
Make no mistake that our focus will not be on policies and bureaucratic systems. However, analysis of policies and institutions will be incorporated as they relate to their influence on the perception of global warming. We will focus on a bottom-up perspective to identify climate deniers and to attempt to isolate factors: immediate geographic habitation, socioeconomic status, education, and cultural-religious ideologies to determine if there is a causal relationship. We will attempt to determine the influence of geographic location on the perception of global warming. Additionally, we will attempt to determine the influence of socio-economic status as it pertains to geographic location, specifically counties, districts, and immediate communities, on the perception of climate change. Additionally, we will attempt to determine the influence of different levels of wealth disparity as it pertains to socioeconomic status on the perception of climate change. We will attempt to determine the influence of K-12 education and post-secondary education in both public and private realms on the perception of global warming.We will attempt to determine the influence of personal and cultural biases on the perception of global warming. We will attempt to determine the influence of dominant Western religions, their religious authority, and historical significances on the perception of global warming. Lastly we will attempt to interpret our findings through Max Weber's concepts of legitimacy, authority, and tradition.
Theory Section:
Our research will be approaching the subject of climate change denial with the goal of determining the roles of wealth, education, and cultural values to the widespread rejection of the scientific realities of climate change. Based on the ongoing research and conversation regarding climate change denial in the United States, we have determined that these three broad categories each contain two specific factors, which we believe to be the leading cause of climate change denial across the United States. A common perspective within the discourse of our subject is that corporations, lobbyists, and politicians are the leading causes of climate change denial in the United States, however; we are conceptually going to be focused on the average denier as an individual, and the effects of their surroundings.
After gaining a better understanding for the background of climate change denial in the United States, we have developed a deep concern with the overwhelming trend that points to the lack of quality education on the subject, as well as contradicting belief systems within American communities, particularly in low-income areas. Despite climate change being introduced to public education curriculums in 2013, in 40 of 50 states, the guidelines for the policy were broad and ineffective in creating quality instruction to the scientific realities of climate change (Goldenberg, 2013). While the quality of climate change education has remained generally ineffective in public schools across America, we also determined that many private schools, often with religious emphasis or funding, do not provide any better quality than required through policy. We hypothesize that depending on income of geographic area, the local industries, and major religious affiliations of communities, the quality of education on climate change varies significantly.
We are also particularly concerned with the role of tradition of communities on the personal beliefs of individuals, and their unwillingness to accept scientific information about climate change. We will be analyzing cultural beliefs and the impact of community traditions on climate change denial, which we believe exists most often in the form of religious and industrial ties of a community. We have begun to hypothesize that despite great quality of education in wealthy areas, religious and personal ties to climate change denial may be the most significant cause to create a climate change denier. Our theoretical framework is based on the roles of wealth, education, and personal beliefs as the driving forces of climate change denial. We believe the most important questions we are looking to answer are how and why forms of authority, legitimacy, and tradition within our communities have influenced individuals to reject the realities of modern climate change science in the United States. By attempting to determine the social power from each of these categories, and all six of our factors, we believe we will be able to answer this question, and potentially determine solutions to this problem.
Outline:
Intro:
· An overview of what the paper will be about. Will include :
o Analysis of the policies and institutions and their influence on the perception of climate change.
o Trump's views/denial of climate change
Business and profit before education
o Misinformation about climate change
o What makes a climate change denier
Does not believe in global warming at all
Does not believe in human responsibility in contribution to global warming
Background Section:
Give basic information on the history and/or scope of climate change denial
Look at previous statistic on the issue (including case studies, events, articles)
Theory: (See Draft)
· Approaching the issue/subject theoretically
· Give perspective on what's going on
· Choose key factors that will frame the analysis of the paper
o Roles of wealth, education, and cultural values
Methods:
Discuss the types of data gathered
Using surveys and interviews
6 factors - 10-12 questions
Using survey monkey
Getting broad and widespread sample group
Using Isla Vista, UCSB, and Facebook friends as main targeted audience
Recognized bias, but focussing specifically on deniers.
Analysis:
Report the findings
Discuss clearly what the main points that identifies any contradiction in the data
Use Boolean analysis to further analyze the data
Conclusion:
Tie all the information presented together and answer hypotheses
Summarize the findings
Reflect on perspectives
Close the paper in an engaging way.