Luntz Reading

After watching the video in class and reading the piece on the environment by Luntz, I was a bit disappointed. I am an Environmental student, so this topic sort of hit home to me. I noticed first of all that the author seems to be republican, and, therefore obviously I thought the story he told was a bit biased. How can we be expected to believe a republican arguing against democrats, or even vise versa.

There was a lot in the paper I disagreed on. In all my classes thought my four years at KU, and especially last year in Environmental Science Senior Seminar, we touched base with a lot of the issues discussed in this article. I want to first clear up the misconception that Luntz and people everywhere make about global warming. The "warming" part of "Global Warming" is true, yet also a misnomer. We are taught in environmental Biology that global warming doesn't necessarily mean that the earth is just warming. It means that winters are colder, summers are hotter, storms are more violent and more frequent, etc. It means the earth's climate as a whole is changing. Lisa Newton and Catherine Dillingham wrote in their book Watersheds 3 that "predicted warming by 2100 will be 3 to 10 degrees F." They also state that 25% of the world lives less than 1.1 meters above sea level. To me, this is disturbing.

This brings me back to politics, and how they try to persuade people of what the people want to hear. The whole paper by Luntz is directed at giving the people the words they want to hear. Well, I want to see what I want to see. I don't believe people anymore when they say they will do something: I want to see it. I do like his idea of involving scientist's and researchers in a campaign, because the public will believe them much sooner than the politicians.