Climate Change and the Politics
Khalid Rehman Hakeem*
Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
Submission: November 8, 2017; Published: November 20, 2017
*Corresponding author: Khalid Rehman Hakeem, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Email: kur.hakeem@gmail.com
How to cite this article: Khalid R H. Climate Change and the Politics. Int J Environ Sci Nat Res. 2017; 6(4): 555695.DOI:10.19080/IJESNR.2017.06.555695
Mini Review
Climate change is surely considered as one of the debatable topics that has attracted the world attention. The climate changing data that the experts have found are clear as glass, however, with the present of the politics, everything could change not only the climate. The world of politics is extremely complicated. Interests may play a critical role in climate change dilemma. In this report, the conflict of interests will be discussed with a try to discover what the politicians’ perspective is, and in what facts or evidences they based their view on. Additionally, there will be a moment to think about what the denial of climate change can bring to the world of politics, what are the advantages that allow the politicians to spread their influence on the world in many aspects such as economics, politics and environment. Initially, we believe that history is important to fully understand the agendas of climate change movements since the date of birth of this crucial movement. The United States of America (USA) is leading the world, and the administration of USA in the current time and the previous governments have a huge impact on the issues of climate change. The impact of USA could be very positive, as the role that had played in the 1990’s by the environmental community [1].
During the 90’s movement the work of environmental community had been succeed to show the world the next problem that acts as a threat to not only to the American people, but also to the entire humanity. The environmental movement fought and has been fighting with the anti-environmental conservatives, which is a drive that also had their own people (some scientists, as well) to defend their points and claims. In 90’s, the Democrat administration had taken the climate change issue to a new level. A huge leap that took place in regards of climate change movement, but when the Republican revolution arrived to the congress, they acted as a challenge to the climate change movement, with the media power, the climate change movement had been affected, which leaded to an obvious reduction [1]. Climate change had become a biased issue, particularly since 2000 election in USA. In fact, polls have shown that in the years around the election, the percent of Republican survey respondents who believed the media were overplaying the seriousness of the issue increased. At the beginning, Barack Obama administration offered the primary practical chance to pass significant enactment tending to environmental change. In any case, the political climate encompassing his decision, with developing polarization and the ascension of the Tea Party had changed the state of mind. Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, and the EPA is reportedly gearing up to hold an on-air event pitting mainstream climate scientists against climate change doubters. The beginning of the Barack Obama presidency offered the first realistic opportunity to pass meaningful legislation addressing climate change. However, the political atmosphere surrounding his election, with growing polarization and the rise of the Tea Party had changed the mood. Donald Trump had previously expressed support for addressing climate change, but during his campaign, he railed against regulations he said hurt American businesses. In addition, upon taking office, he began a vast effort to undo them. However, nonetheless, climate change remains deeply troublesome. Donald Trump announced that he will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, and the EPA is reportedly gearing up to hold an on-air event pitting mainstream climate scientists against climate change doubters.
The conservatives used to deny and underestimate the threat of Climate Change, but the public needs scientific facts to believe them. Making jokes and hurling statements against the environmental scientists, who support climate change, is not enough. The actual question is in what scientific facts the conservatives based their claims upon. There should be evidences to make their aggressive act against climate change reasonable and understandable, while we understand the benefits they gained on such denial earlier in that report. The real conflict between the believers and non-believers is whether the climate change is happening due to influence of human activates or it is a natural phenomenon.
The group of people against the climate change moment believed that CO2 is not really increasing at all. In addition, they claimed that if the CO2 is increasing, there is no relationship that indicates that this increase in CO2 has an impact on global warming. Additionally, they list other claims such as in case of existence of warming that is a natural incidence with no human impact. They believe that the human impact is very small and the emission of greenhouse gases is not a major emission that can lead to a big change. They also claimed that the climate change in future would be a good for humanity unlike what the scientist's claim; especially with the human ability to adapt to any changes as evident in the process of evolution. In fact, they are trying to spread a depressed idea by saying it is too late to do anything to fix that issue. The people who deny also had some scientific claims in the 1990's that the satellite images did not show any warming, which eventually acknowledged that it was an error [2]. Clearly, the movement against the environmental movements takes us directly to the battle between the tobacco companies and scientists and their evidences that relating smoking to cancer. It is almost the same manner, same strategies, and same factors. The climate change denialists used that technique as well, starting by denying any scientists' claims, then took a fight against them by making doubts about their findings ending up with saying that there is a relation but it is not serious. The countermovement said that if the climate change is really happening, it is not a serious issue [3,4]. In conclusion, the battle between the believers and the nonbelievers is still on, there are multiple occasions that gave us an indication about what the leaders want and gave us positivity. On the other hand, other occasions have taken us back away from the goal of any environmental movements. In USA, there are difficulties as well. Recently, the USA demands upon climate change are foggy. The world needs their ideas and demands to be clearer and clearer. The conflict of interests should not be paid by the next generations. Thus, the house of Senate, the House of Representatives, and the oval office should lead the world toward better environment and better life. Manipulating people by the media to spread the idea of denying climate change, is not what our next generations need.
References
- McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2011) The politicization of climate change and polarization in the american public's views of global warming 2001-2010.
- Michael E Mann (2013) The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. Columbia University Press. p. 1-23.
- Jacques, Dunlap, Freeman (2008) “While these CTTs sometimes joined corporate America in directly lobbying against environmental policies, their primary tactic in combating environmentalism has been to challenge the need for protective environmental policy by questioning the seriousness of environmental problems and the validity of environmental science.” pp. 1- 352.
- Robert Brulle (2012) Inside the Climate Change "Countermovement"