Laypeople’s View on Climate Change

While global warming alarmists intensify claims on climate change, lay people’s understanding of the same has increasingly become diversified. Most lay people do not believe that the period over which the relation between the cloud’s positive feedback and climate change has been studied is not substantial to guarantee the validity of the findings (Hulme & Lorenzoni 2009, p. 283).

At least most of those who believe in climate change hold the view that their actions such as the reduction of the use of automobiles contributes insignificantly to the mitigation of climate change given the scope of process (Lasse et al.

2009, p. 24). Lay people believe that those scientists that are either in support or against climate change are just but self selecting groups who although may be real scientists are not true believers as espoused in the case Gore’s movie (Brooks 1955, p.205).

From a layman’s perspective, the damage is already done and there is little that can be done and thus focus should be directed towards adaption.

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Lay people arguing against this science especially citing Richard Lindzen who presents a detailed review of methodologies and data used in climate change fabrication by scientists hold the perspective that although it may true, it is not really a world threat as are other publicized issues (Peter 2000, p. 273).

Lay people believe that the weather is driven by climate which is dependent on things such as the oceans and the sun (Lorenzoni & Nick 2005, p. 7). In this regard, most consider that the climate-related changes indicated in most literature such as that of Pacific Northwest do not necessarily indicate anything but the unpredictability of climate change.

Lay people believe that climate change has been happening for as long as 4. 5 billion years and hence there is no correlation between the sun’s and oceanic changes blamed by the climate change proponents (Norton & Leaman 2004, p.79).

Lay people are more concerned with the trend that climate change issues have been following: initially it was about global warming and now this focus has been labeled as climate change following lack of massive responses (Ray et al, p. 17). These people perceive that climate change is just but a progressivists’ ploy to scare people since they liken these trends to the climate forecasts broadcast on the media and which are usually presented as chance and not as fact (John 1999, p. 137).

Following the recent evidence concerning email and data manipulation regarding climate change, people have increasingly developed he view that what they already have heard or believed is not really certain especially given the massive global political consensus reading the issue. Believe in the existence of such ploys have made lay people to regard climate change as a fabrication to attract funding or impose controls on some nations (Sutcliffe 1963, p. 279). Most lay people argue discredit the relation of carbon dioxide (CO2to climate change as they refer to the fact that CO2 constitutes only about 0.03% of the atmosphere hence even if it doubled, 99. 94 of the atmosphere is still free of CO2 (Richard 1997, p. 1041).

The use climate models have not yet convinced most lay people who believe in what they see. This is because most lay people do not see the sense behind increases in temperature when they are especially they experience winter storm. Others believe that natural systems will resolve this imbalance although hey have no idea of the time scale that this might take (Richard 1998, p. 82). Others hold the idea that natural systems ought to adapt.

Following findings that other planets within the solar system such as Pluto and Mars are heating up as well, most lay have come to believe that their contribution is insignificant as compared to the solar activity (Ransom 2010, p. 1721). Others believe that CO2 is indeed helpful as it supports plant growth which could significantly fix the imbalance. Bibliography Brooks, C. E. P. (1955) Present Position of Theories of Climatic Change. Meteorological Magazine, June, pp. 204-206. Hulme, M. & Lorenzoni, I. (2009)

Believing is seeing: laypeople's views of future socio-economic and climate change in England and Italy. Public Understanding of Science, 18 (383-400), p. 283 John, I. (1999) Waiting for a Signal: Public Attitudes toward Global Warming, the Environment and Geophysical Research. New York: Public Agenda Lasse, W. , Visschers, V. ; Siegrist, M. (2009) Experts' and laypeople's perception of carbon capture and storage in Switzerland. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 6, p. 23-24 Lorenzoni, T. , I. ; Nick, P. (2005) A strategic assessment of scientific and behavioural perspectives on ‘dangerous’ climate change.

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Technical Report 28, pp. 6-9 Norton, A. ; Leaman, J. (2004) The day after tomorrow: public opinion on climate change. MORI Social Research Institute, London Peter, W. (2000) Risks of Communication: Discourses on Climate Change in Science, Politics, and the Mass Media. Public Understanding of Science, 9l, 261-83. Ransom, B. (2010) Climate change in the 21st century. Choice, 47 (9), p. 1721 Ray, G. , Wong-Parodi, J. B. , Peterson, T. R. , Wade, S. ; Feldpausch, A. Community perceptions of carbon capture and sequestration in the US: A multiregional perspective.

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 6 (17), pp. 13-17 Richard, A. K. (1997) Greenhouse Forecasting Still Cloudy. Science, 276, 1040-42. Richard, J. B. (1998) Public Perceptions of Global Warming: United States and International Perspectives. Climate Research, 11, 75-84. Sutcliffe, R. C. (1963) Theories of Recent Changes of Climate. In: Changes of Climate. Proceedings of the Rome Symposium Organized by UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization, 1961 (UNESCO Arid Zone Research Series, 20). Paris: UNESCO. pp. 277-280