In an opinion article in The Washington Times written in January, 2019, called The
Overblown and Misleading Issue of Global Warming the author Anastasios Tsonis talks about the
discussion and debate surrounding the controversy of global warming response. Anastasios
Tsonis is a professor of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at The University of Milwaukee
in Wisconsin. He is also an expert in the field of global warming and climate change He has over
130 peer reviewed papers and nine books on the subject of studying global warming and climate
change . He has been a professor since 1995 at UWM. He has also published papers on
randomicity or the randomness of the universe.
The title of the article implies that there is a central issue surrounding the scale of the
understanding of the topic of global warming. It seems that for Tsonis the disconnect in the
discourse of the debate stems from people “believing” one way or another about the topic. He
states that science isn’t about beliefs but rather it’s achieving for proof or disproof. He says this
way of approaching the topic of global warming and climate change has resulted in two extreme
camps of thought: the first being “alarmists” or those people that believe that the state of the
world is at state due to anthropogenic effects, while the second are called “deniers” who deny the
claims of the first and deny any form of climate change at all. Tsonis opts for a third, or rather,
viewpoint that is backed up by science. He simply refers to it as skepticism. He believes that the
effects and changes in the climate and environments in general shouldn’t be dismissed while at
the same time understanding that climate change isn’t a serious threat to the world.
When Tsonis talks about the issue of climate change and global warming he stays away
from listing specific scientific references and instead appeals more to his expertise. Basically his
way of backing up what he is saying is akin to, “I’ve done the research, just trust me.” A quick
internet search does yield the data that he has done so it would seem that the lack of specific
sources and points of data is negligible to someone with a skeptical reading of the article. He also
mentions that his research is ongoing and that there are factors outside of the anthropogenic, or
human, factors that contribute to climate change. He also includes the oceans and cosmic
variables.
The main strategy Tsonis employs to communicate to the reader is largely centered on
logos first then pathos at the end. He communicates primarily from a place of authority on the
subject matter to gain trust with the reader that the person giving the opinion knows what they
are talking about and that even that nothing in the scientific community is settled in the matter of
climate change. At the end of the article Tsonis implores the mainstream community and the
world as a whole should focus their attention on more pressing needs that also impose a danger
to humanity and can be addressed in a more immediate way than climate change. The appeal is
more centered around logic and reasoning instead of an appeal directly to emotion.
The article is mainly an opinion piece and therefore Tsonis was more carefree in tackling
the subject matter. This article’s main thesis is a valid one however the place of publication and
manner of presentation would probably do little to convert or dissuade someone from an extreme
position, usually in the case of “alarmists” primarily. People that are unsure if they should appeal
more to either side though may feel encouraged that they don’t have to adopt an extreme view on
a controversial and complex topic of climate change and climate science