Climate change

Climate change

Climate change means the difference in the Earth’s global climate or in regional climates over time. Climate change is currently a major concern especially in colder countries. Climate change can be warmer or colder. This can include global warming and global cooling.

It describes changes in the state of this atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to scores of years. These changes may be brought on by processes within the Earth, forces from outside (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human activities. Ice ages are prominent examples.

Climate change is any significant long-term change in the current weather of a spot (or perhaps the whole Earth) over a substantial time frame. Climate change is about abnormal variations to the climate, in addition to aftereffects of these variations on the rest of this Earth. For example the melting of ice caps in the South Pole and North Pole. These changes may take tens, hundreds or simply scores of years.

In recent use, especially in environmental policy, climate change usually refers to changes in modern climate (see global warming).

Some individuals have suggested wanting to keep Earth’s temperature increase below 2 °C (36 °F). On February 7, 2018, The Washington Post reported on a research by scientists in Germany. The analysis said that if the whole world built all of the coal plants that have been currently planned, carbon dioxide levels would rise so much that the world would not be able to keep the temperature increase below this limit[1].

Overall Sample Response and Between-Group Differences

The outcome of non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis tests indicate there are significant between-group differences for both dependent measures: valence (p = .001)and the composite sentence-specific score (p < .0001). For the overall sample, the Wilcoxon signed rank tests indicated a confident response on the sentence-specific composite score (p < .001) but not on the valence score (p = .12). The average valence scores – on a scale of 1 to -1 – spanned from .55 (Alarmed) to -.7 (Dismissive) (see Figure 2). The common sentence-specific composite scores – on a scale of 18 to -18 – ranged from 9.27 (Alarmed) to -4.64 (Dismissive) (see Figure 3).

Hypothesis Test

The Wilcoxon signed rank tests indicated only partial support for our hypothesis. Using valence due to the fact dependent measure, the null hypothesis may be rejected just for the Alarmed (p = .04) and Concerned (p = .02) segments, but not for the Cautious (p = .50), Disengaged (p = .36) or Doubtful segments (p = .50). Utilising the composite sentence-specific score as the dependent measure, the null hypothesis may be rejected for the Alarmed (p = .001), Concerned (p < .01) and Cautious (p = .01) segments, and marginally rejected for the Disengaged segment (p = .06), but not for the Doubtful segment (p = .61) segment.

In sum, there was clear evidence that the Alarmed and Concerned segments responded positively to the public health essay, and mixed evidence that the Cautious and Disengaged responded ina positive manner There was no evidence that the Doubtful responded positively. It is worthy of note, however, that every six segments agreed aided by the essay’s opening frame device (O1) that “good health is a great blessing,” suggesting that human overall health is a widely shared value.

Table 3 summarizes the thematic content of this statements created by respondents if they were asked to talk about their general reactions to the public health essay. Across segments, and in addition, a substantial proportion of comments dedicated to the presentation of evidence or perhaps the stylistic tone of this essay. For the Alarmed and Concerned segments, roughly a third of their statements reflected personal agreement with the essay. In comparison, among the Dismissive, roughly a third of their statements characterized the essay as biased or alarmist. Relative to other possible reactions, substantial proportions of this statements created by the Concerned (18%), Cautious (19%), Disengaged (13%); and Doubtful (16%) indicated that the essay was informative and/or thought provoking.

Table 3 Distribution of Themes Expressed in response to the Public Health Essay.
Full size table

Benefit versus Threat Statements

The Wilcoxon signed rank tests used to compare segments on the perceived clarity and helpfulness of this threat statements in the first part of the essay contrary to the healthy benefits of mitigation-related policy actions in the second part of the essay showed a substantial main effect (p ≤ .05) for several segments except the Alarmed (p = .17). The Dismissive segment showed the largest difference between the chapters of the essay (6.10), followed closely by the Doubtful (3.69), the Cautious (3.57), the Concerned (3.13), while the Disengaged (2.12). Using a weighted t-test, the estimated gain from the Threat to Benefits sections across all segments was 3.17 (p < .0001), with a 95% confidence interval of 1.85 to 4.49. Simply speaking, the healthy benefits connected with mitigation-related policy actions were regarded as clearer and more useful than the preceding threat statements in the essay.

Also worthy of note, as Figures 4 and 5 indicate, is that all six segments reacted positively to the following statements centering on specific mitigation-related policy actions that lead to human healthy benefits:

“Taking actions to limit global warming – by making our energy sources cleaner and our cars and appliances more cost-effective, by making our cities and towns friendlier to trains, buses, and bikers and walkers, and by improving the quality and safety of our food – will increase the health of virtually every American.”

“Cleaner energy sources and more efficient usage of energy will lead to healthier air for kids and adults to breathe.”

“Improving the style of our cities and towns in ways which make it better to get around on foot, by bike and on mass transit wil dramatically reduce the number of cars and help people be a little more physically active, slim down.”

Conversely, respondents in every segments responded less positively to the statement:

“Increasing our usage of vegetables and fruits, and reducing our intake of meat – especially beef – may help people maintain a healthier weight, may help prevent heart disease and cancer, and certainly will play an important role in limiting global warming.”

Opening versus Concluding Framing Statements

The Wilcoxon signed rank test used to compare segments to their reactions to the opening versus concluding framing statements for every single segment showed a substantial or marginally significant main effect in the Alarmed (p = .07), Concerned (p < .01), Cautious (p = .05), Disengaged (p = .03) and Dismissive (p < .01) segments; the trend was not significant in the Doubtful (p = .14) segment. The greatest differences were seen in the Concerned segment (4.31), followed closely by the Dismissive (4.09), Disengaged (3.8), Cautious (2.54) in addition to Alarmed segment (2.45). Again using a weighted t-test, the estimated increase from the Opening to Concluding sections across all segments was 3.30 (p < .0001), with a 95% confidence interval of 2.14 to 4.47.

Discussion

Regarding the whole, people who read our public health-framed essay about climate change reacted positively to the information. People in the Alarmed together with Concerned segments demonstrated consistent positive a reaction to the info, while people in the Cautious, Disengaged, and Doubtful segments were less consistent. Although we would not approach it as a dependent measure per se, many of the respondents in every five segments made open-ended comments in regards to the essay that demonstrated a confident engagement aided by the material. As an example, nearly half (44%) of this comments created by the Disengaged segment indicated that the essay reflected their personal point of view, was informative or thought-provoking, or offered valuable prescriptive home elevators how to take action relative to the climate problem. Similarly, 39% of this comments created by respondents in the Doubtful segment reflected one of these brilliant three themes. Moreover, the ascending sentence-specific evaluations between the opening and concluding chapters of the essay, for the sample overall as well as all of the segments (excluding the Dismissive), declare that the worth of this public health frame may not be immediate, but rather may manifest more fully after people have had time and energy to look at the evidence, specially when this evidence is presented with specific mitigation-related policy actions which can be more likely to have human health benefits.

One of the more intriguing findings in the study – albeit not definitive due to the order effectation of the info in the essay – could be the robustness of this response across all six segments to information about the healthy benefits of taking action to handle global warming.

Overall, we interpret these collective findings as providing partial support for our hypothesis that information about climate change framed in ways that encourage people to consider its human health context provides many Americans with a helpful and engaging new frame of reference and that this new interpretation may broaden the non-public significance and relevance of this issue. Our methods were exploratory, however, and additional research on this question is needed. To that end, our company is further analyzing the info already collected to ascertain more systematically which specific ideas are most and also least resonant with members of each segment. Our company is also planning an https://123helpme.me/climate-change-essay-example/ experimental test of climate education material framed in several ways, including a public health frame. Additional research is needed to determine if these findings generalize across nations and other populations.

In the U.S., these findings are especially relevant given the “issue fatigue” that appears to be developing with regard to climate change among at the very least certain segments of this American public [26]. Recent public opinion polls in the U.S. have shown a marked decline in the proportion of adults who will be focused on global warming, and https://shmoop.pro also relative to the proportion who will be convinced that global warming is happening [27–29]. The public health voice may offer an essential hedge against such issue fatigue.

Suggesting a novel frame for climate change – i.e., a frame that folks had not previously considered – is potentially useful when it can help people understand the issue more clearly by providing additional personal and societal relevance [30, 31]. Re-defining climate change in public health terms should help people make connections to already familiar problems such as asthma, allergies, and infectious diseases experienced within their communities, while shifting the visualization of this issue away from remote Arctic regions, and distant peoples and animals. In the act, giving climate change a public health focus implies that there is a need to both mitigate (for example. reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and conform to the problem (i.e. protect communities and folks from current and future health related impacts). The frame also presents the opportunity to involve additional trusted communication partners on the matter, notably public health experts and local community leaders [13].

Conclusions

In conclusion, we genuinely believe that the public health community has an essential perspective to share with you about climate change, a perspective that potentially offers the public an even more salient way to grasp a concern that features proven deeply difficult for many individuals to totally comprehend. Moreover, the public health perspective offers a vision of an improved, healthier future – not merely a vision of environmental disaster averted, and it also focuses on a selection of possible policy actions that offer local in addition to global benefits. Many leading experts in climate change communication, like the present authors, have suggested that a positive vision for the future and a localization of this issue is exactly what has been missing from the public dialogue on climate change to date [13, 22, 32].

Not totally all aspects of the public health implications, however, may be engaging. Certain key recommendations, such as eating less meat, tended to elicit counter-arguments among people in many of this segments inside our research. Our research provides clues about specific public health messages that might not be helpful, and suggests the necessity in future research to check carefully for examples or associations that trigger counter-arguments and negative reactions.

There is an urgent dependence on the public health community to successfully educate the public and policy makers in regards to the serious human health implications of climate change, also to engage those publics in appropriate preventive and adaptive responses. As a spot of strategy, however, our findings may declare that continuing to communicate in regards to the dilemma of climate change is certainly not more likely to generate wider public engagement. Instead public health voices may be smart to focus their communication on the solutions in addition to many co-benefits that matter most to people.

Appendix 1

Global Warming is a Threat to Peoples’ Health & Wellbeing

A lot of people concur with the sentiment that “good health is a great blessing.” But not yet well regarded, global warming poses an extremely real threat to the overall health of Americans as well as other people all over the world. Experts in the World Health Organization say that global warming is already ultimately causing an increase in the rate of some diseases and is causing many deaths. If our government as well as other governments all over the world try not to soon make a plan to limit global warming, progressively more people in the United States will likely be harmed and killed. Conversely, if our government does make a plan to limit global warming, our health and wellness and wellbeing will likely improve in a number of important ways.

Our health and wellness will suffer when we don’t take action

Global warming can harm people both directly and indirectly. Directly, global warming causes more extreme weather patterns including more frequent heat waves, more violent storms, and rising sea-levels – all of which can lead to people being harmed or killed. Indirectly, global warming harms the quality of our water, air and food, and our ecosystems, all of which can lead to increasing rates of disease and death. When we try not to act now to limit global warming, experts in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that global warming will harm people atlanta divorce attorneys region of this United States. As a result of the poor air quality brought on by global warming, children can be prone to develop asthma, while the asthma they suffer with may well be more severe; adults who possess heart and lung diseases can be prone to be hospitalized or die from their illness. An increasing number of extreme heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts brought on by the changes in our climate will lead to more individuals being injured or killed. New infectious diseases (such as for example West Nile Virus) and old infectious diseases that individuals had previously eradicated from the United States (such as for example malaria and Dengue Fever) are likely to become an increasing problem for people as our climate warms.

Our health and wellness will benefit when we do take action

According to a recent study published in the medical journal Lancet, taking actions to limit global warming – by making our energy sources cleaner and our cars and appliances more cost-effective, by making our cities and towns friendlier to trains, buses, and bikers and walkers, and by improving the quality and safety of our food – will increase the health of almost every American. Cleaner energy sources and more efficient usage of energy will lead to healthier air for kids and adults to breathe. Improving the design of our cities and towns in ways which make it easier and safer to have around on foot, by bike and on mass transit wil dramatically reduce the number of cars on our roads and certainly will help people be a little more physically active and slim down. Increasing our usage of vegetables and fruits, and reducing our intake of meat – especially beef – may help people maintain a healthier weight, may help prevent heart disease and cancer, and certainly will play an important role in limiting global warming.

Conclusion

Peoples’ health is dependent on the health of this environment for which we live. Global warming offers America a way to make choices which can be healthier for people, as well as our climate.

Leave a comment