In a letter published on Florida Today’s online edition, author Jeff Toney argues that global warming is a hoax. Toney calls global warming as the greatest hoax in the human history, a fraud scheme intended by scientists to secure government grants and politicians like Al Gore to benefit from it. Toney asks if global warming is caused by humans then how did the earth warm up to end the last ice age. Toney says we don’t have enough information to declare that global warming is truly real. Toney argues the earth may be heating up due to sun or maybe it is a natural warming cycle. Toney also calls it a conspiracy by politicians, with help from Hollywood, to control our lives by giving birth to a non-existent problem (Toney, 2014).
Jeff Toney doesn’t only make inaccurate statements but also engage in logical fallacies. One tactic Toney employs is emotional appeal in which he relies on the unpopularity as well as public distrust of the politicians to gather support for his position. The author also engages in logical fallacy of ‘oversimplying’ by claiming that maybe the sun is causing it or it is another natural warming cycle. The author is also guilty of cherry picking by referring to Time Magazine’s 1974 claim that we may be headed for an ice age yet ignoring the fact that publications like Time Magazine cannot print enough articles in support of global warming.
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It is very possible to reject the claim by the author that it may be sun or simply another cycle when in fact CO2 levels are now 40 percent more than the highest natural levels in the last 800,000 years (Environmental Defense Fund). If it were not due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels, we would not expect such high levels of CO2.
The author is also wrong that there is not enough support or data to convincingly settle the debate. If the debate regarding global warming had not been convincingly settled, we would not expect eleven major national science academies such as those from the U.S, U.K, China, India, Japan, and France etc. to urge G-8 leaders in to urgently respond to threat of global warming (Lever-Tracy, November 2007). If the debate had not already been convincingly settled, we would not expect representatives from 160 countries to gather in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 to sign the treaty called Kyoto Protocol and agree to reduce emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluourocarbons below 1990 levels by 2012 (Dupler, November 2007).
Toney also asserts that global warming hoax is a scheme by scientists to get rich quick and politicians to control our lives. If scientists really aimed to get rick through global warming hoax, there are many other careers where they would have made more money than being scientists. If global warming is really a scheme by politicians to control our lives, then politicians of 160 countries must be up to something when they signed the Kyoto Protocol. Toney’s distrust of politicians may be justified but that doesn’t mean everything they do is some sort of conspiracy theory because global warming issue was identified and raised by the scientists. This is such a major crisis that Al Gore was even given a Nobel Prize for raising awareness of the crisis.
Time is running out and an urgent response is needed. We have a duty towards future generations to leave a better world for them and if we fail to address global warming crisis, future generations will never forgive us.
