Develop your critical thinking: analysis of CNN global warming article
Is global warming an hoax?
Of course it's not.
Global warming is true.
But global warming, per se, means nothing.
Because the temperature has always been changing.
The real question would be: IF it matters to us, WHY it matters to us.
And WHAT we can do to change it.
But most articles and news don't focus on those key questions.
They waste readers' time and promote useless fear-mongering.
This thread is a quick analysis to help you develop critical thinking.
Ideally, you want to quickly skim through information and discard everything that adds no value.
So you don't waste your time and focus on more worthwhile pursuits.
First the title, which says nothing:
Then the title inside the article:
Finally, we get some real numbers, albeit we're still dealing with raw numbers that the journalist makes no effort to put in perspective for us:
But it doesn't last long and we go back to relative percentages of change.
Relative percentages of change mean nothing (also read "How to Lie With Statistics").
The moment that the journalist mentions that there is enough ice to increase the sea levels by 23 feet is also the moment I think there might be a global warming agenda.
It would have been much more credible if she had mentioned that number and then added something like "but so far no there is no indication that we are going to reach that level any time soon".
Or, even better, if she had told us what temperature is required to reach that level and how far we are. But of course, that would have meant a real, meaningful analysis, and this is not the case.
And finally, we get to the real reason why this article is meaningless.
And it's because it doesn't even get close to answering the real questions that matter:
Take these articles as "shooting the breeze" types of articles.
Or "a bunch of random scientific data thrown together so you have something to talk to your dumb coworkers about it".
But since you probably shouldn't be wasting your time reading "shooting the breeze" types of article and since you shouldn't be wasting your time with dumb coworkers, you can safely skip all these meaningless articles on global warming (or on any other subject).