Essay on Climate Change

This essay discusses the difference between skeptical and cynical perspectives towards climate change and global warming. It explains how skeptical people reject the idea of climate change and global warming, while cynical people doubt the claim of human activity causing climate change. The essay also highlights the importance of scientific explanation in skeptical purview.

Running head: ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Offering a skeptical perspective is not cynical; in fact quite the opposite is true. Cynics doubt
and mistrust not on the weight of evidence or lack thereof but on suspicions of underlying
motivation. Cynicism can lead to the rejection of a claim but not to new discoveries, unlike
skepticism which can lead to both.
Provisional disbelief is often mistaken as cynicism; the two are not equivalent. It is perfectly
reasonable to start out unconvinced that humans are causing our climate to change. But that
shifts to cynicism and faith-based opposition with the inability to modify that position in the
presence of overwhelming evidence. What matters, independent of one’s starting hypothesis,
is the willingness to draw conclusions when a claim is confirmed “to such an extent that it
would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement.”
Skepticism is fully embedded in the scientific method: the application of systematic
observation, reproducible measurements, and experimentation in order to gain new
knowledge about and a deeper understanding of our physical and biological world. The
entire reason for applying systematic observation is that we are open to but remain skeptical
of any claim’s validity until observation, reproducible measurements and experimental
confirm or reject the claim (Schweltzer, 2016).
The above mentioned passage reflects how skeptical perspective can be differentiated
from that of cynical view. It shows that skeptical viewpoint hinders in accepting both the new
finding and the claim of the existence of the new experience while cynicism is not on the side
of doubting the new detection rather it doubts the very claim and the experiment going on to
make the discovery look truthful and believable. Both these perspectives are discussed in the
above mentioned passage in a very generalized way so that this can be used in any topic to
show how skeptical understanding rejects the whole idea while cynical idea still supports the
honesty of the discovery. The second highlighted theme is that provisional disbelief cannot be

2
ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
confused with cynicism because the former makes an audience apparently believe something
that looks incredible at first sight however cynicism is nothing like that because it refuses to
accept the claim some change is occurring. It happens in real life everyday. There are people
in number who cannot believe things that are taking place in life can be true. The last theme
is quite relevant and explaining about skeptical purview because it claims skeptical point of
view to be depended on scientific reliance because the passage claims to show that skeptical
people remain so until and unless they are provided with scientific resources to support the
claim. The entire idea of accepting the claim and embracing the new discovery is finished
when there is a scientific explanation behind it proving the claim to be right. Therefore it can
be said that skeptical purview is completely scientific.
Now, it must be taken into consideration that how the topic of climate change is
getting affected by these two above mentioned purviews. When the people out there are not
ready to accept the fact that global warming is a rising issue that needs immediate attention
and has to be carefully dealt with, it is not skeptical view of looking at the raised topic rather
it is cynical perception towards climate change and global warming. On contrary when the
people are not in a state to understand and evaluate the fact the there are certain things going
on inside the earth either caused by human world or by nature that is causing the change in
natural temperature of the earth and also do not believe that there are changes in the prevalent
climate of the entire world are people with skeptical mindsets. Climate change is taking place
but the people who are not willing to accept the truth and the claims behind it are certainly
skeptical.
It should also be understood how the entire idea of provisional disbelief is insistence
with the idea that climate change might have been caused by human behavior while the
cynical representation deals with something else focusing on rejecting the entire claim that
there are possibilities that can make humans so powerful that it can contribute to add or

3
ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
subtract something to or from the climate. It is true for both the skeptical and cynical people
that human beings cannot grow so overpowering that it can cause climate change because it
has to be done in a complete natural way. Therefore it is not possible for any human activity
to grow so powerful that it can not only bring change to the natural climate of earth but also
bring a new phenomenon on earth called, global warming. Cynical people do not entertain the
claim that there are possible changes in climate caused by human while the skeptical people
rejects both the claim that human activity is causing climate change and also the discovery of
global warming that is affecting the earth (Fernández-Reyes, Piñuel Raigada, & Águila
Coghlan, 2017).
The last theme that is highly associated with the idea of skeptical notion and climate
change is very necessary because it concentrates on how a skeptical person will not believe in
things that have no scientific background. Therefore it can be said that skeptical ideas revolve
around scientific explanation because a fact is said to be so when it is explained with science
and logical experimentations. It is in fact a good technique to involve more number of people
in detecting new things because that would be easier for the experiments to be conducted and
reach the conclusion faster where the experiments can prove whether the claim is true or not
(Okocha, & Issa, 2016). Similarly the people who reject the idea that climate change is taking
place can be shown with different scientific explanations that human beings are causing
climate change and affecting the earth in various possible ways.

4
ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
References
Fernández-Reyes, R., Piñuel Raigada, J. L., & Águila Coghlan, J. C. (2017). Contrast of the
journalistic coverage of climate change and global warming in Spain and in the
international sphere: IV-V IPCC Reports and Bali-Copenhage-Paris. RLCS, Revista
Latina de Comunicación Social, 72, 1165-1185.
Okocha, B. F., & Issa, T. E. (2016). Corporate culture and employees’ commitment of
selected supermarkets in port harcourt. International Journal of Advanced Academic
Research/Social & Management Sciences, 2(11).
Schweltzer, J. (2016). Skeptical About Climate Deniers [Ebook].