Global Warming 'Confirmed' by Independent Study : Response by Katie Marino

The article that I have chosen to analyze is entitled, “Global Warming ‘Confirmed’ by Independent Study”. It was written by Richard Black, the Environmental correspondent for BBC News and published on October 20, 2011. In the article, the issue of global warming and the validity of claims that climate scientists have made were raised. When the original research to support the theory of global warming was conducted, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit all drew similar conclusions, namely that global warming exists and is affecting the earth. Unfortunately, groups of skeptics widely criticized the accuracy of their claims and worked hard to degrade the research of “the world’s most important and established groups” (Black 2). In a fruitful attempt to restore the legitimacy of these groups and provide the world with another concrete analysis of global warming, the Berkeley Group conducted the Berkeley Earth Project to challenge the “Climategate” campaign that asserted that global warming had been exaggerated.

Founder of the group, Richard Muller Berkeley, gathered a team of 10 scientists including the year’s Nobel Physics Prize winner, Saul Perlmutter. Together, the group was able to prove that the existing data was accurate and show that their “record of global land temperature mirrors existing ones closely” (Black 3). As this was a huge triumph for the scientific community, the real issue at stake here is the idea that no matter how credible a source is, people will still try to challenge difficult results. The study concluded that the “average temperature over land has increased by 1C” since the 1950’s (Black 3). This is a stunning result that many Americans have trouble coming to terms with. What is unfortunate is that their solution is not to work to reduce the human contribution to global warming but instead, to criticize and discredit accomplished and hardworking scientists. Now that this independent study has yet again confirmed the theory of global warming I hope that former skeptics apologize for their previous allegations and care enough about the issue to ask, now what? Now that global warming is a generally accepted truth of our world, what are scientists going to do to combat this issue and what should we, as citizens of the world, do to reduce our involvement in global warming?

Before reading this article, I was unaware of the fact that the notion of global warming had been so widely challenged. I understand that there are always proponents and opponents to grand claims, but I was surprised to learn that people found ground to criticize groups like the NOAA and NASA. I support the idea of independent study and not taking things for face value, but I do believe that in some cases, when considering the source, and their intentions, claims against them are most likely unreasonable. In summation, I was pleased to learn that the reputations of the discredited scientists were restored by the work of the Berkeley Group. Unfortunately however, that means that global warming is indeed a fact of today’s society. My hope for the future is that scientists can spend less time trying to validate previous conclusions and more time combating the negative effects of global warming.