The Effects of Climate Change from Past to Present

Bryant Povea Perez

University of California: Santa Barbara

WRIT 2 – Academic Writing

Valentina Fahler

September 14, 2020

 While humanity has reaped the benefits of rapid industrialization over a relatively short

period, our planet has been made to bear the worst of consequences, with mass extinctions,

melting ice shelves, and severely reduced habits. The best method of affecting change at this

pace is through policy, which is brought about by those demanding change to a policy. However,

to bring about change a populous must be informed which is where the disconnect begins

between the information available and the general populous. The way this information is

communicated and written in usually takes the form of conventions and language unique to a

community of individuals who focus on discussing a certain topic aptly named a discourse

community. While a community may focus on one specific topic it is not limited by how the

topic is discussed and what methods of communication are utilized to facilitate this discussion.

Those outside a discourse community may find it difficult to understand the ideas communicated

without prior exposure to the conventions and style utilized by the community. To demonstrate

this relationship, I chose to analyze the articles “The Effect of Industrialization on Climate

Change” by Chigbo A. Mgbemene and “Climate-Related Local Extinctions Are Already

Widespread among Plant and Animal Species”  by John J. Weins. These articles are based in two

different disciplines with Mgembe, writing in the sociological discipline and, Weins writing in

the biological discipline. However, they both communicate the same urgency to create climate

action the Climate Change discourse community dedicates itself too. By breaking down these

articles and analyzing how these authors utilize the conventions and linguistics of both their

discipline and discourse community a reader can better understand the argument and overall goal

that an author has for their specific text. 

           The first article by Chigbo A. Mgbemene is rooted in the sociological discipline in that it

analyses the attitudes and reasons towards industrialization that contributed to the disregard for

the planet, with the main argument being the changes in culture and societal structure brought on

by rapid industrialization undergone by those Western nations have in turn negatively affected

our relationship with our environment and our perception as to the current state of the

biodiversity of our environment. Even those underdeveloped countries not particularly urbanized

such as those in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, have attempted to implement policies

to match the industrialization capacity of Western Countries with mixed results. This in turn

leads to populations littered with poverty and little knowledge or infrastructure available to

address the pollution caused by hasty attempts to industrialize. While the earth does manage

some degree of pollution without the activities of man, it is managed by a balance of the natural

waste management processes of the earth and its biological inhabitants. However, this natural

balance has been upset by the industrial evolution of mankind. This academic article is the easier

of the two I analyzed and I would largely attribute this to lexis or language utilized. The author

employs terminology that is relatively understood by the average high school or first-year

college student as doing so allows anyone to become a member of the discourse community and

add to the discussion. “In most discourse communities, new members can also expand the

knowledge and genres of the community.” (Melzer , 2020) This terminology also refrains itself

from requiring additional knowledge or information to understand the term itself. Compare a

term like "population" to “Niche Habitat” a term frequently used in the other article by Weins

analyzed here. Aiding in this language is the way communication is facilitated, largely here

through graphs and charts. Graphs and charts are utilized to compare the changes in

concentrations of greenhouse gasses from as far back as 40,000 years ago, they all show a similar
trend upwards in the rate of climate change and greenhouse gas emission around the time the

industrial revolution begins. These graphs and charts are relatively simple and allow the author

to re-contextualize both his findings and those of researchers in the community. By doing this the

author summarizes his data in a form that allows for numerical analysis of the trends observed

even if his audience has no prior experience with such techniques, giving both his argument and

conclusion more credibility. (Stedman, 2011) The author concludes his article by giving a real-

world connection that can be understood by any reader, the current rate of climate change is

unsustainable as species and ecosystems will not have enough time to adapt, it is of the utmost

importance that industrialized nations take charge and reduce their emissions and look to greener

fuel sources.

           The second article by John J. Weinstein is the more difficult of these pieces to understand

due mainly to the lexis used which is more geared towards an audience that is well versed in the

biology discipline. “Some academic writing is clearly aimed at specialists in a field who are

familiar with both the subject and the terminology that surrounds it. As a result, the researchers

make few concessions to general readers unlikely to encounter or appreciate their work.”

(Lunsford, 2017) However, the author summarizes and presents data conducted by hundreds of

other researchers that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. By doing this the author

recontextualizes the information of this research in a more accessible and efficient manner.

(Barton, Hamilton, 2000) The main argument of the article is that species extinctions are already

widespread and even though at that time climate change levels were modest the rate of extinction

is expected to increase two or ten-fold in the next few decades. The author first began his data

collection by scouring The Web of Science database from 2014 to 2016 using keywords relating

to climate change of hundreds of papers that were narrowed down to 27. The only concern the
author had regarding the validity of the data was whether it was thorough enough since it was a

large selection of articles to sift through but he then states that, any additional studies will not

overturn the conclusion of the data. The data found that roughly half of the 976 species surveyed

showed some degree of local extinctions and these results were strikingly similar across regions,

habitats, and taxonomy. Weins, final piece to his argument states that species will not be able to

adapt to these climatic changes. notes that species will not be able to undergo niche shifts due to

the waning resources of the species habitats and even if they were able to adapt to the

environment they would not have enough time to adapt quickly enough at the current rate of

climate change. So, species will be dependent on migrating to regions most close to their original

habitat, but even this migration will be impeded by the species already in a given habitat. The

structure of this article is mainly rooted in the findings of researchers within his discourse

community as a large part of the author's methods involved the analyzing previous scientific

studies done and used statistical models such as General Linear Models to prove his theory that

species extinction is widespread. The structure and tone follow general scientific methods of

writing in which evidence is presented, explained, and elaborated on or countered. “People

appropriate texts for their own ends. Just as a text does not have autonomous meanings which are

independent of its social context of us, a text does not have a set of functions independent of the

social meanings with which is imbued” (Barton, Hamilton, 2000) , here the text has taken its

form as evidence and but displayed in a manner catering to experts and novices., usage of

language such as taxonomy, fauna, species, terrestrial, temperate all phrases which take some

root from biology and possibly further research to understand within the author's context. The

discussion section of this article is where the author's intentions and argument are most clear,

refraining from using science-heavy terminology unknown to those outside the scientific
discourse community. So, while the rest of the article may be difficult to understand for some,

the discussion uses terms and conventions more readily understood by those without prior

exposure to the climate change discourse community. While this article may have been intended

for members within Wein’s discourse community due to the level of data analysis and

terminology utilized throughout, sections of the article contain summaries that utilize less taxing

terminology and concepts such as the conclusion and abstract. Both articles may be notably

different in their level of comprehension and terminology, but both accomplish their goal of

raising awareness as to the current rate of Global Climate Change. An unnoticed characteristic

both shared is their ability to connect to the real world largely due to the subject matter. 

           These authors greatly succeeded in utilizing the characteristics that define their disciplines

to examine an issue that is already creating lasting effects in our environment. Urgency is felt

when reading through the data and analysis and it is only amplified when paired with real-world

trends. The information regarding Climate Change must remain available and comprehensible to

not just experts but everyday people who might not think twice about their role in the process of

Climate Change. Disciplines open new avenues to which different groups of people may

interpret the information available on climate change and as such make changes to benefit their

lifestyle and environment. The discourse communities in which these ideas are facilitated also by

creating a space in which these ideas can develop and be further communicated. With time aging

both of these articles, the claims made in both have now found credibility not just in the analysis

that both authors provided but in the real-life consequences we are seeing as a result of our

neglect of the environment. It is of the utmost importance that we take action now as opposed to

later should we wish to continue sustaining ourselves on this planet. 

 Bibliography

Barton, D., Hamilton, M., & Ivanič, R. (2000). Literacy Practices. In Situated literacies

(pp. 6-15). London: Routledge.

Lunsford, A. A., Brody, M., Ede, L. S., Moss, B. J., Papper, C. C., & Walters, K. (2017).

Academic Arguments. In Everyone's an author with readings (pp. 379-411). New York: W.W.

Norton & Company.

Melzer, D. (2020). Understanding Discourse Communities. In WRITING SPACES:

Readings on writing volume 3 (pp. 100-112). Place of publication not identified: PARLOR Press.

Mgbeme, C. A. (2015). The Effects Of Industrialization On Climate Change. Retrieved

August 16, 2020, from

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chigbo_Mgbemene/publication/318888520_THE_EFFECT

S_OF_INDUSTRIALIZATION_ON_CLIMATE_CHANGE/links/5983a456458515b420c9665c

/THE-EFFECTS-OF-INDUSTRIALIZATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.pdf 

Stedman, K. D. (2011). Annoying Ways People Use Sources C. Lowe P. Zemliansky

(Authors), Writing Spaces 2: Readings on Writing, Volume 2 (pp. 242-254). Parlor Press.

Wiens, J. (2016). Climate-Related Local Extinctions Are Already Widespread among

Plant and Animal Species. Retrieved August 12, 2020, from

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.2001104