Critical Reading Assignment: Analyzing Climate Change Perspectives

This essay presents a critical reading analysis of two articles concerning climate change. The first article, from Rolling Stone, critiques Fox News for allegedly denying climate science, promoting environmental ethics, and implicating political motivations. The second article, from Climate Depot, defends Marc Morano's stance on CO2, promoting anthropocentrism. The analysis includes examination of the articles' origins, implications (social, economic, political, and environmental), promoted beliefs and values, potential interpretations by different audiences, and the groups influencing public opinion. The essay also reflects on the challenges of critical reading, the importance of identifying hidden biases, and the influence of political stances on climate change discourse. The student highlights the importance of understanding diverse perspectives and the role of media in shaping public understanding of complex issues like climate change, with references to the articles and related sources.

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Critical Reading
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Introduction
Critical reading as opposed to simple text reading is the more active form of reading that goes
beyond understanding of the text contents. Reading a text critically means trying to know the text
inside out and attempt to extract the hidden objectives behind the text. A text is always not a
simple text written for the purpose of reading and understanding at its face value; more often a
text is written for a purpose by a group to influence its targeted reader and achieve an untold
hidden objective for the benefit of some group of people. Thus, Critical reading is reading of a
text from all these perspectives and answering all the questions that arise out of the text.
1. Article title: - Fox News Is Desperately Trying to Convince Us Climate Science Isn’t Real
URL: - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-climate-science-isnt-real-
832294/
Where is the article coming from?
The article is written by Ryan Bort, an editor of Rolling Stone which is a popular US magazine
that publishes mostly entertainment and political contents. The article is a reaction to Fox News’
‘Special Report with Bret Baier’ involving UN Scientific panel chairman Robert Watson and
Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.org. Morano is a known critic of Climate Change theory.
According to him, carbon dioxide is not responsible for Climate change. The article derides Fox
News agency for hosting Marc Morano with Robert Watson (Bort, 2019).
What are the implications of the article? Social, economic political and environmental
implications whichever applicable
The article suggests that Fox News is denying the existence of climate change issue and is a
party to Trump’s climate change policy which vehemently denies the existence of Climate

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change issue and labels the issue of Climate change as nonexistent. The article also implicates
that Fox News Talk show is aimed at disregarding the UN Climate report which explicitly states
that one million of plants and animal species are in danger of extinction.
What beliefs and values does the article promote?
The article promotes the value of environmental ethics that propagates right to live for every
organism besides human beings i.e. the article promotes biocentrism view. The article’s content
shows its deep concern for the environment after UN report findings revealed that more than one
million species of plants and animals are in danger of becoming extinct (Palmer, 2016).
How different people may interpret the content of the article?
The article is open to different interpretations from different sections of people. The article may
evoke strong emotional reactions from apolitical people who care about the climate change issue
and they might interpret the content of the article as noteworthy. People who take interest in
politics would interpret the article as promoting Democratic Party’s stand on climate change
issue. Scholars, academicians and scientists can interpret the article in different way based on
their knowledge and stand on the issue; some may push for verifications of the content while
some may not.
Which group of people are promoting this article and trying to influence people’s thinking
on the matter?
There might be two different groups of people promoting this article, people who head
Democratic Party’s media campaign and people who are environmental activists who rally
against the rapid industrialization. The article comes from a magazine which supported Hillary
Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The article explicitly condemns Morano who is supporting

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Trump’s view on climate change issue which seems to be politically motivated and directed at
promoting Democrat’s agenda (Wenner, 2016).
Summary
The article is written and promoted by a media group that supports Democratic Party’s view on
Climate Change in response to Fox News’ special report with Bret Baier. The special report
allegedly downplays UN concerns about possible extinction of 1 million plants and animals
species. People who care about the cause of climate may react emotionally and turn Morano’s
basher on social media. The article promotes bio-centrism view of environmental ethics and
Obama’s climate change policy.
2. Article Title: Newsweek slams ‘smiley Morano’ on Fox and Friends for accurately
declaring Co2 is not ‘pollution’- Morano responds
URL: - https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/04/30/newsweek-denounces-smiley-morano-on-
fox-friends-for-accurately-declaring-co2-is-not-pollution-morano-responds/
Where is the article coming from?
The article is written by Marc Morano of Climate.Depot.org, who denies the existence of
Climate Change theory. According to him, global warming is not caused by the green house
emissions and that Co2 is not harmful as known. The article is a response to News Week’s
criticism of Marc Morano for his Co2 comment in Rolling Stone article. Morano put up defense
of his Co2 comment in this article and provides justification as to why he thinks so (Morano,
2019).
What are the implications of the article? Social, economic political and environmental
implications whichever applicable

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The article implicates that Morano’s claim about Co2 as not harmful for the environment has
scientific backing of many scientists. The article goes further to suggest that rapid
industrialization and green house emissions by companies are not creating global warming and
that the earth can take up much more Co2 than it is taking up now. Morano quoted MIT scientist
to claim that level of Co2 till 5000 ppm can be absorbed safely by the earth’s atmosphere and
that the current level with all we are using is only 400 ppm. Hence, Morano suggests that
Indutrialization should speed up further for economic growth and prosperity.
What beliefs and values does the article promote?
The article promotes anthropocentrism as a way of environmental philosophy which implies that
every environmental policy should be looked from the view point of human beings; what benefit
human beings can have out of this environmental policy. According to anthropocentrism, human
being is above all other entities in this universe and a policy is beneficial if it is benefitting
human beings (Pojman, 2015).
How different people may interpret the content of the article?
The people who are open to both sides of the information will consider the points that have been
raised in the article and may verify those points. Some people may judge Morano’s article
through the prism of his political affiliation and fully disregard the importance of content.
Scientific communities might find Morano’s idea as ridiculous. There is a general consensus
among scientists that Co2 is harmful and responsible for global temperature rise.
Which group of people are promoting this article and trying to influence people’s thinking
on the matter?
This article promotes Trump’s policy on Climate change. People at the helm of Republican Party
might be promoting this article for political cause. News agencies aligned to Republicans also

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might be promoting the article to persuade people of Trump’s Climate change policy and to
produce counter arguments to those media outlets which ridicule President Trump for his policy.
Summary
The article is written in response to media outlets that ridicules Morano for saying that Co2 is not
a harmful gas. Scientific communities may ridicule Morano for the article while some people
might consider the points that have been raised in the article. The article promotes anthropogenic
view and is promoted by Republican parties.
Reflection
The first challenge was to find an article with differing opinions on the issue of Climate change.
Once, that was done, the next challenging task was to frame questions that critically analyses
both the articles. My set of questions answers the parts that are regarded as most important to
critical reading. Critical reading is about answering perspectives that impersonates as the content
and look otherwise free of any bias. My set of questions unveil every piece of mask one by one
asking questions about historical structure of the articles, implications or indirect suggestions
that the articles attempt to push, values they promote, differing interpretations, and hidden source
of the article i.e. who is promoting the articles. All these questions unmask all the hidden facts
behind the articles in a fascinating manner (Andreotti 2007).
The assignment helped to understand the importance of critical reading in understanding
perspectives related to any topic. Earlier, I would not know that an article may have so much of
facts hidden beneath the content. Now I come to know how an article originates with a purpose
that remains hidden and how an article can be different for different people. About climate
change, I came to know of many things that I didn’t know earlier. I didn’t know that Climate
change is so much influenced by American polity.

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References
Bort, R. (2019, 05 07). Rolling Stone. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-climate-science-isnt-real-832294/
Morano, M. (2019, 04 30). Climate Depot. Retrieved from https://www.climatedepot.com:
https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/04/30/newsweek-denounces-smiley-morano-on-fox-friends-
for-accurately-declaring-co2-is-not-pollution-morano-responds/
Palmer, C. (2016). Living individuals: Biocentrism in environmental ethics. Oxford: Oxford
handbooks.
Pojman, L. P. (2015). Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application. Nelson
Education.
Wenner, J. S. (2016, 03 23). Rolling Stone. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics-news/hillary-clinton-for-president-118261/
Andreotti, Vanessa. [Vandreotti]. (2007, Jun 29). OSDE: Critical Literacy [Video file].
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRDp6FNynm0