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
