Global Warming and the Public Sphere

Global climate change and/or global warming is a problem. Svante Arrhenius along with a few other scientists discovered the “greenhouse effect.” This concept of earth’s self warming is important to understand. Because of an increase in CO2 and other gases, more outgoing infrared rays(warming radiation) are blocked thus leading to more infrared radiation being sent back down to earth’s surface. However, this concept becomes complicated because there are so many other factors that could be leading to climate change such as sun spots or orbital patterns. The good thing is that as time as passed this concept has become more socially accepted as a problem. The media has helped spread information about what it is and why it is happening. Communication is important to risk perception. There is a large number of people who are still are unsure about global climate change due to conflicting information. An agreement needs to be made explaining that a large causation factor is due to anthropocentric activities such as CO2 emissions. The public realm needs to clearly understand the problem before there will be efforts made to do something about it.

-Danica