The articles that I decided to compare were The Blaze’s, “Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down” and The New York Times article, “Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question.” Both articles discuss the possibility that Irma was a result of climate change. The article in the Blaze discusses how Bill Nye claims that the strength of the hurricane was due to climate change and dismisses this idea by introducing the tweets of another scientist, Ryan Maue. The author uses the subheading, “Everything is climate change.” He ignores the possibility of the issue by asserting that Bill Nye considers everything to be a result of climate change. The author openly states that Bill Nye is “plain wrong,” a “crusader,” and rejects “anything other than his own version of science.” In the article’s title, the author even dismisses Bill Nye as a scientist by stating that his ideas were rejected by a “real scientist.”
On the other hand, the article presented in the NYT analyzes Scott Pruitt’s comment stating that talking about climate change is insensitive during such a horrible storm. The authors take it as a given that climate change is not a hoax and instead pokes at how people in Washington seem to believe that the issue is political. They also make it a point to introduce the Republican mayor of Miami, who was directly affected by the storm, stating that this is the time to talk about it. They use terms like important and obligated when describing the discussion of climate change. Instead of using negative words like wrong and personally attacking Pruitt, they introduce evidence as to why they believe he is incorrect or why others disagree with him. Additionally, they use words like “pretending,” and “risks” which to me indicates that they assume that individuals who speak out against climate change don’t truly believe that it is a hoax. It is clear that both of these articles are biased on completely different sides of the spectrum based on the content and language that the authors chose to use.
Enloe , C. (2017, September 10). Bill Nye blames powerful hurricanes on climate change — then a real scientist shuts him down. The Blaze. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/09/10/bill-nye-blames-powerful-hurricanes-on-climate-change-then-a-real-scientist-shuts-him-down/
Friedman, L. (2017, September 11). Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question. The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/climate/hurricane-irma-climate-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate
