Monday, October 31, 2016

Context sections outline

Outline (historical movement)
·      Climate change is due to human activities
o   Last March, after examining
9,200 peer-reviewed studies, WG I reported: “Warming of the climate
system is unequivocal…. [C]oncentrations of greenhouse gases are
increasing…will continue under all…scenarios until 2100…and will
require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions
[because] global sea level will continue to rise through the 21st
century” (IPCC, 2013, pp. 4, 19, 25). It went on to assert with a high
level of confidence that human activities are the main culprits, directly
or indirectly, through their use of fossil fuel and changing land uses.
While the language of the report is far more scientifi c than this
summary, it is clear from this work that collectively we are at fault, and that remedying the situation will take herculean global efforts.(Birch) 
o   "Beginning in 1938 and continuing throughout his life, British engineer and scientist Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964) identified important links be­tween the burning of fossil fuels and global warming." (Flemming 581)
o    Callendar’s landmark studies revived the anthropogenic carbon dioxide theory of climate change. He identified links between fuel combustion, ris­ing carbon dioxide levels, increased sky radiation and the observed rise in world temperatures in the early twentieth century. Today, the theory that global climate change can be attributed to an enhanced greenhouse effect due to el­evated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, is called the ‘Callendar Effect ‘  (Flemming 581)
o  " Today, every unusual weather event is inevitably linked to global carbon emis­sions and energy policy and is seen as a portent of a pending dystopian future that can only be avoided if humanity collectively, immediately and dramati­cally changes its ways". (584)
o   The dominant rhetoric of the climate change conversation has emerged out of the modern environmental movement, which has been growing and reinventing itself since the early 1960s…the conversation at the core of the environmental movement largely…has become focused on the damaging effect of human activity (Burch 5)
o   Climate models that include only natural variability – for example, changes in solar radiation and the discharges from volcanoes – cannot produce the observed temperature increase of the past century (13)

·      Initiatives to reduce climate change:
o   Negotiation of they Kyoto Protocol – the first major international agreement aimed at managing greenhouse gas emissions and responding to climate change (16) Ultimate goal was to stabilize greenhouse emissions at a level that would prevent dangerous levels of climate change (17)
o   In 1992, at the (Earth Summit) Conference on Environment and Development…UN members produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which forms the backbone of global climate change policy….manage emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting climate change …help hold periodic meetings…called Conferences of the Parties …every twelve months (17)
o   The intergovernmental Panel on climate Change was “created in 1989 by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization” it “gathers the world’s leading climate scientists to produce reports based on the latest scientific research…reviews progress on climate change …and synthesizes matieral for use during policy negotiations (19)…feeds findings to UNFCCC (20)
o   Political leader :
§  Ban Ki-Moon’s actions
·      “The Climate Summit that I am convening one week from today has two goals: to mobilize political will for a universal and meaningful climate agreement next year in Paris; and second to generate ambitious steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen resilience” ("Press Conference by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at United Nations Headquarters."). 

·      How the protest movement developed as a result of ineffective policies 
o   Margaret Thatcher addressed the Royal Society of the “growing evidence of the rise in greenhouse gases ‘creating a global heat trap which would lead to climatic instability”; this speech “set a precedent for [the] issue” since it was the first public remark on the issue of climate change  by a major world leader (Nulman 9)
o   Environmentalists and activists that form the climate change movement di not initially focus on national mitigation polices. Their efforts arose from a context of international negotiations that developed as scientific data on the subject increased. The climate change movement worked to influence these international negotiations, but they failed to have a significant impact as key developed countries’ national interests did not align with a strong climate treaty (9)
o   the scientific community has brought the issue to the attention of the policymakers who had explored the issure years before movemnts were concerned with climate change (13); international dialogue = environmentalist mobilization
·    How People’s Climate March is part of Rhetorical Crisis
o   Giacomini and Turner page 27 for reference



Outline : Rhetorical context
·      How climate policies are made
o   how the question of economic stability became an increasingly influential factor of climate policy
§  Natural progression of the cost-benefit analysis from a descriptive role into a prescriptive role
·      the “cost benefit analysis” 
o   global health example
o   “decisions about which scientific research projects deserve funding are often shaped…by political context. Some governments funnel spectacular quantities of cash into the development of clean energy technologies or infrastructure design projects, while perceiving little use for studies of behavioral change, politics, and policy design” (Burch 9)
§  the goals/direction of international policies
·      How city and regional planning is “strong force for mitigation and adaptation” (Birch); which was unrecognized by the previous reports of IPCC’s annual assessment reports
·      Explain the two major conflicting divisions of how to solve climate change
o   Ecofeminism/ solar commoners
o   Green capitalists
·      Explain how identity (global citizenship) transcends two conflicting perspectives

o   Define global citizenship and how it relates to People’s Climate March

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