Respone # 6

After reading the IPCC report and watching Everything's Cool I have become aware of how simple words can affect the overall tone and message of a document. I was completely shocked to see that someone in politics was adding and changing words to make climate change seem like more of a debate. Even if the document is stating serious concerns the use of the word "maybe" would obviously leave the reader confused and questioning the legitimacy of climate change. On the other hand, the IPCC report used words that suggested the probability of an issue and addressed serious concern when needed. It was very evident what was important and what was not. Although, I was surprised to see all of the data presented in italicized words. I have read many different scientific reports and I have never seen word usage like that. Generally that kind of data is expressed in a very quantitative way, which I find to be more accurate and informative. I am sure that this was avoided because the IPCC report is not intended for only scientists, but as a science student I felt like that was missing.

Despite the qualitative presentation of data I thought that the IPCC was a necessary and enlightening report. I especially liked all of the graphs. The most interesting graph to me was SPM.5. This graph projected global surface warming depending on a variety of projected GHG emissions over the next 100 years. I found the projections that had a slight increase in the next 50 years and than a gradual decrease to be the most intimidating and powerful. I feel this way because I am very doubtful that the change needed to decrease GHG emissions will occur any faster than this. In this situation there will be an almost 2 degree increase in temperature causing major changes to occur. At that point it will have been too late to fix all that has gone wrong and life has we know it will be extremely different. Despite this negativity, there is hope. I think that climate change needs to be brought to the people in a more appealing way that will cause the majority of Americans to believe climate change is important and fixable. In order to do this we need to better understand the general public and what they understand about climate change. Furthermore, I think that often times the issue is overwhelming which causes people to avoid it, but if people were educated on the issue and understood how small changes can go a long way I do think change would begin to happen. If the general public were to not only agree on the issue but also feel passionate about change the government would have no choice but to change.

Ultimately, the government would fear the people instead of the people fearing the government.