Confusing Positions

After looking at the websites for Friends of Science and How to talk to a Climate Change Skeptic, I can understand why people are either confused or convinced that the opposite side of the climate change debate is lying. Both of these websites address different sides of the same issue with equally overwhelming statements and less than satisfying references to strong academic resources.

First, I went to the Friends of Science Website and was more than a little appalled. After reading the assigned section of Friedman's book this week, it was really unsettling to see this website make unsubstantiated claims that "Hot, Flat and Crowded," intelligently shows are false. I was really frustrated that the website said that there is no evidence to show that global warming is man made when there obviously is a piling amount of proof. I went to the website's source page and saw something interesting: there is not a single source that they cited that was published later than 2007 and most of the sources came from before 2004. Even though people have been looking at climate change for a while, the newest developments in research seem to be the ones that are clearing up the questions and doubts that previously existed. Even if I was an unbiased viewer of this website, the lack of more recent evidence to support its claims would cause me to question the validity of this information.

I went to the second website hoping to see a well documented, organized account of global warming and the studies which prove that it is man made. I was pretty disappointed. I was overwhelmed by the number of links in front of me and had no idea even where to get a start. One part of this website's home page had a list of statements that a climate change skeptic might make - statements that were exactly like those that I had seen on the Friends of Science page. The problem was that when I clicked on the links, the "refutes" to skeptical claims were presented in the same way that the statements on the first website were listed. There were charts, graphs and links, but they were all vaguely cited and a person who was more inclined to believe the first webpage could easily assume that this second one was lying or exaggerating facts.

In the end, even though my prior reading has convinced me that global warming is very real, very serious and very man made, I did not find either website terribly convincing. In the end, if their purposes are to persuade opposing groups to change their minds about their position on climate change, they did not succeed. Mostly, the websites cater to people who already agree with them and serve to inflame the rhetoric between the two groups.