Speech on Owen Marshall and David Bellamy

Hi all,
For English I have to write a speech on Global Warming which shows why man-made global warming is not true. In this speech I talk about David Bellamy who was ostracised because of his views on global warming. I have to link this to Owen Marshall's short stories as his stories are about how society can ostracise individuals.

This is what I have done so far and I am stuck. The speech needs to be at least 6 mins which is about 1500 words. At the moment it is only 950 words.

If you were to ask “What is global warming and is it really a problem?”, the answer would depend on who you asked. If you asked David Bellamy, a BBC TV presenter, he might reply “Global warming is poppycock, and it is a problem.” However, the only problem David Bellamy sees with global warming is that it has become “a political football that has lost its foundations in real science.” Bellamy’s views on global warming are what you might call non-conformist views. He is rubbishing this whole idea of global warming and the claim that humans are causing it through increased carbon levels. David was ostracised as a result of his views on global warming. He says the BBC stopped giving him work and his career dried up as a result. This is a perfect illustration of the social ostracism shown in Owen Marshall’s writings.

Owen Marshall is a renowned New Zealand short story writer. The common theme across his writings is society’s ability to alienate individuals. In his story ‘Mr Van Gogh’, Marshall writes about the life of an old man who was alienated and ostracised because of his beliefs and interests, much like David Bellamy who was ostracised because of his beliefs about global warming. Mr Van Gogh was into his art, and this was why he was alienated and ostracised. He was described as “Barmy” and “Another mad artist”. It is also said in ‘Mr Van Gogh’ that he “would have been all right if his obsession had been with politics or horse-racing.” This shows how society ostracises those whose beliefs or interests are different or non-mainstream. Mr Van Gogh was interested in something which everyone else couldn't u nder stand, so society rejected him. David Bellamy has non-mainstream views on global warming and was

I personally agree with David’s views on global warming, and I also find it quite funny that some ‘scientists’ are claiming that us humans are causing the earth’s temperature to rise. So let’s take a look at some of the facts linking global warming to carbon dioxide concentration. The main idea behind carbon driven global warming is how carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas. It absorbs certain frequencies of light from the sun reflecting off the earth. Then the carbon dioxide releases this light, but some of it goes back to earth, causing the earth's atmosphere to warm slightly. (Show diagram here)Without CO2, all of the light would bounce off the earth and travel into outer space. The CO2 prevents all of it from going into outer space. This is correct. Now I will explain where the scientists are wrong. They are trying to say that we should limit our carbon dioxide emissions, such as the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels in our cars. However, even if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it would have very little impact on temperature. This is due to the fact that CO2 only absorbs certain frequencies of light. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere at the moment is absorbing most of this frequency of light. Doubling the amount of CO2 will not double the amount of light being absorbed, because the existing CO2 is already doing most of this. This is like having a factory with 10 machines and 10 workers to operate the machines. Introducing more workers will not increase the output of the factory because each machine only needs 1 person to operate it. The extra workers will be doing nothing. The only way an increase in CO2 levels could cause a proportionate increase in temperature is if the sun produced more light in response to the increase in CO2, which it does not.

Another fact which contradicts the global warming theory is the temperature record of the earth. If scientists were correct, and CO2 did have a significant effect on the earth's climate, we would expect the earth’s temperature to rise following an increase in carbon dioxide levels. What actually happened is that the earth’s temperature rose before the carbon dioxide levels rose. On average, 800 years before. This may mean that the link between CO2 and temperature is the opposite of what scientists are claiming - warming causes CO2 levels to increase. This could well be the case as the ocean, which is a much larger source of CO2 than humans, produces more CO2at higher temperatures. How can these scientists then say that carbon dioxide is significantly contributing to global warming?

Weighing up the evidence, we can see that humans have never, are not, and never will cause significant global warming through CO2 emissions.

In addition to these facts, there is yet another problem with the whole global warming situation. If the theory is correct, the people behind the theory should be able to counteract the arguments of sceptics with well researched facts and data. However, people who argue against the theory are frowned upon and ostracised. As discussed earlier, David Bellamy was one such person. He was originally a believer in global warming, but completely changed his views. He wrote an article in which he described the theory of man-made global warming as 'poppycock'. This resulted in Bellamy being ostracised and the BBC froze him out because he didn't believe in global warming. People even spat at him in the street! He was also dropped from The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, of which he was president. He had worked with them for 52 years, and when they dropped him, they didn't even tell him! We can see that Bellamy was totally shunned and rejected as a result of his views on global warming.

I haven't done a conclusion yet. I need to know how to link global warming and David Bellamy to Owen Marshall...