I decided to call my dad to talk about his thoughts on the issue of Climate Change. I started out with a simple question, I asked him, “What is Climate Change?”

His answer : when you have things happening that don’t make sense. He talked about the ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland melting. The winters in America have been scary, with the severity of the cold and the snow. My dad lives in Orlando, Florida and when I asked him about what this past winter was like he said: It was 29 degrees one day, it’s not supposed to be that cold in Orlando. he thought something was wrong, It’s normal for it to be 29 in Buffalo, it’s normal for it to be 29 in Pittsburgh, however it’s NOT normal for it to be 29 in Orlando.

I have 11 year old twin brothers and they also live in Orlando with my dad. When I asked my dad if they knew about climate change and global warming he said well… they’re 11. As if they’re too young to know and understand what exactly is happening. You wouldn’t expect an 11 year old to know much about global warming but maybe thats something that needs to change. He said they vaguely knew about what it was, and have inquired about it as kids do, (we all know kids love asking questions) but he said that they learn about it at school.

Because of climate change, they went from a Jeep Commander (a gas guzzler if I’ve ever seen one) to a Kia optima, less gas and more efficient. America is all about the bigger the better. You could go into any parking lot and  you’d mostly see SUVs, trucks and minivans. But we are entering a time now that you see more and more cars like the prius and other smaller cars around. America’s car crazy culture coincide with the rest of the world, Europe has been making smaller cars for a long time. America’s mantra is “the bigger the better” our cars were bigger, our houses were bigger, our desire to be the “best” has maybe been one of our gravest mistakes seeing as now we are the leading country in greenhouse gas emission.

I asked him what he thought the world might look like 50 years from now.  He thinks that if the world is still in the throws of denying climate change then the world is going to be a mess. He believes it is our duty to change the world for a better future for our kids and their kids and so on and so forth. You don’t want to put the world in a state that you wouldn’t be okay with your most loved ones living in.

When I asked what he thought he could do to make a difference, his answer entailed many of the things that we have talked about and already know to do to make a change: smaller cars and being more conscientious of conserving energy where we can.

When coming across a person who denies that climate change is real, what would you say to them to convince them otherwise?

He said to take a look at our seasons. The seasons aren’t what they used to be, the droughts, the blizzards, polar vortex (cold air coming down from canada) and various natural disasters are things we’re slowly becoming desensitized to because of how frequently we here about them on the news.

It’s hard to believe that people don’t believe the scientists that dedicate their lives studying and proving that this issue exists. He thinks, that the evidence proving global warming to be real, greatly outweighs any evidence to the contrary.

So I called my mom today to have a discussion on climate change and to listen to her thoughts and feelings on the issue. It feels like both my parents have been aware of the major changes in the climate over the years and have always encouraged me and my brothers to be mindful of our waste and always do our best to reduce our carbon footprint. So I called her and asked her simply, “What do you think about climate change?” She responded in a very lengthy explanation that she believed that not enough people realized the issue and found it ironic that such a major dilemma is ignored by people. She also commented on the materialism aspect in our society today and how this definitely affected people’s capacity to accept change as well as change their lifestyle to prevent the damaging effects. There was especially one quote that stuck in my mind, “People always believe that the earth is ours for the taking, to supply us, bend to our will, but in reality it’s the opposite way around, in a manner of speaking.” After our discussion, she told me that she had to go because her and my dad, as well as their friends, were going skiing in the Swiss Alps in a few minutes.

We said our goodbyes, and for a while I sat there thinking how odd it was that we had just had this serious discussion on melting ice and materialism, and here were my parents going skiing in a country notoriously known for it’s beautiful winter sport weather. In a way, it’s almost like they’re enjoying the snow while they can. It suddenly dawned on me that usually when most people thinking about climate change and melting ice the location is almost always Antartica or areas mostly made up of glaciers and ice. While this is still true, I had the impulse to look up climate change in the Swiss Alps. What I found was a very interesting article on how the changing climates in the Alps weren’t just going to affect the great skiing, but possibly destroying the towns that rest directly below it. In 2006 there was a massive collapse of ice off a glacier known as Grindelwald Glacier. The town known as Grindelwald, has been experiencing rising temperatures as early as the 1980’s and has experienced serious flooding and damages as a result. The article goes into good depth on how they manage with the melting glaciers and even use the side effects to show tourists the seriousness of the rising temperatures.

As naive as this sounds, this article really made me realize how climate change is truly affecting the entire world, not just areas more vulnerable to it rising temperatures. It gave me really good insight into how climate change is global and made me question how many glaciers will need to melt before people actually start to notice?

Link to the article: “As Glaciers Melt, Alpine Mountains Lose Their Glue, Threatening Swiss Village” -New York Times

A few days ago, I tried to talk to my roommates about climate change. They know I’m in this class and I talk about it all the time because I’ve learned so much, but they just don’t see things the same way. They laugh, saying “Oh yeah, of course it’s climate change” in a sarcastic tone, then change the subject. But this past weekend, we went to a movie and one of the previews was for a special screening of a documentary about climate change. Oddly enough, they seemed incredibly interested in the preview.

The documentary was called “Chasing Ice”. The basic information we got about it from the preview is that it was an idea started by a National Geographic photographer who noticed Icelandic icebergs melting and wanted to prove to other people that this is a cause of a warming planet. This turned into a project, with cameras across icy locations in the world, taking one picture every day lit hour, for three years and then creating a time-lapse of the results. During the preview, we got a glimpse of the time-lapse, and there’s no denying the ice melted. Sometimes it only melted a bit, but other times, it disappeared all together. I turned to look at the reactions of my friends, and they were shocked. “Yeah, do you believe in it now?” I asked.

Contine reading →

I have to admit that if I weren’t getting extra credit for going to see Amy Goodman speak, I wouldn’t have gone. And when I realized that she wasn’t even attending the event herself, her speech was pre-recorded from New York, I felt like this was a huge waste of my time. Why should I be here if the keynote speaker isn’t even here, herself?

Well, my frustration was quickly shot down and I felt guilty about those thoughts real quickly. Amy said that, first of all, she was busy being a successful climate change activist (understandable), and secondly, she didn’t use any fossil fuel to get here. She touched on how amazing it is that she can connect so personally with the people in this small town of Eugene from New York City, almost 3,000 miles away.

Anyway, she began to speak about the extreme weather conditions in the North East and how much media coverage it’s receiving. Which is great for promoting climate change, except for the fact that no one is mentioning climate change. The mass amounts of snow in New York, Massachusetts, etc. is the topic of countless conversations around the nation, and even the globe, but they aren’t leading to any solutions or call for reform. All it takes is for someone in the media to show the science of how humans are affecting these weather conditions and it will facilitate numerous necessary climate change conversations. Contine reading →

One great thing about college, the main reason why we’re all here is to learn new things. Something I learned this term is the literary genre known as “cli-fi”. The thing that I learned about cli-fi stories is this: they are depressing and do NOT excite me about the future at all.

Pretty much every story we’ve read in class has been set in the very near future and seem as though they are in a post-apocalyptic society where the feel is that they’ll get attacked by a zombie at any point or die due to something completely random.

There was only one story this term we have read for this term even had somewhat of a happy ending (happy being used very loosely). The graphic novel was the only story that had the happier ending. The ending being more optimistic with no one dying… at the end of the story. The very end. Contine reading →

I attended the event called PIELC Changing Current on Thursday evening and a lot of people all over came to the conference. PIELC stands for public interest environmental law conference and was the 33rd annual meeting. Amy Goodman and Kathleen Dean Moore spoke at the ceremony. Amy Goodman gave a video message and talked about the extreme weathers. Changing currents is the title of the conference and wants to enforce a message about climate changes and how it plays a role. There are always weather reports that display extreme weathers and they should be linked with the word climate change. She talked about how people need to know that climate change plays a role in weather and how different places experience such highs and low temperature. I agree with her on the statement that people are in denial and don’t want to face that fact that global warming is happening.

Goodman wants the media to tell the truth about everything that is going on whether it is oil, war, or weather. She is a very passionate speaker about climate change and wants to make people aware of the issue and spread the word. Also, she talked about places all around the world that are trying to bring climate change to justice. She made me think about how much power the media has because the media can brainwash people on climate change. Fossil fuel industries have a lot of power but people have a chance to make a change and help with global warming. She explained how serious this issue is and how thankful she is that people have gathered together and are taking a stand. I would say it wasn’t a positive speech but it definitely was an informing message she had to share with everyone about climate change. Her last part of her message was “we shall not be silent” and that was a very powerful statement.

The next speaker, Kathleen Moore, was another inspirational speaker about climate change. Contine reading →

I’ve been doing the PR for a project called Booklandia, and would love the help from some of you, my classmates.

A group of students from the SOJC have spent the term producing short interviews of people of all ages talking about books. One of my personal favorite videos is an elderly woman in her 80s who has a list of almost every single book that she’s ever read. She spoke about these books with such passion; it was extremely inspiring to see the impact of literature on someone – and for such a long period of time in their life.

We’re looking for a group of people to discuss the same book for a segment called “Book Club,” and the video producers were so excited to hear about what we’ve been doing in ENG 104. If anyone is interested in being interviewed for this project, please, please let me know! The interview shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes, and you would be on camera with 3-4 others.

The launch date for Booklandia is April 6, 2015, but in the meantime, you can check out the trailer and a behind the scenes video here.

Thank you all!

I stumbled upon an article from vice.com about the effects of climate change and the drought that has killed 200,000 Syrians. An interesting read:

https://news.vice.com/article/climate-change-is-likely-a-cause-of-the-civil-war-in-syria-researchers-say

Since I’ve been in this class, I’ve undoubtedly become more aware of the weather around me and climate change as a whole. So when I continued to notice the abnormally warm weather we’ve been experiencing in Eugene this winter, I decided to look into it in hopes of finding some answers. Upon my research, I initially came across some interesting statistics pertaining to the lack of snowfall and overall dryness the city of Eugene has been experiencing, but I didn’t seem to find any explanations.

It was after a little bit more research that I came across a wonderful article that seemed to be almost exactly what I was looking for. The article was from a website called livescience.com, and was titled Unusually Warm Winter, But Is It Climate Change? The article talks about how even though scientists cannot pin one single event on climate change, the reoccurring weather patterns can aid them in figuring out just how big of a role climate change is playing.

The article also proposes numerous possible explanations for the earth’s overall increasing warmth, such as global warming and changes in the polar jet stream. After finishing this article I realize that the information presented is on a much greater scale than I had anticipated, but I know this information can still be related to the weather changes that are happening here specifically in Eugene.

I still have many more questions about climate change and this sudden increase in warm weather, but these articles have definitely given me some answers and have been helpful in my understanding of why these changes are happening.

http://www.livescience.com/18868-mild-winter-climate-change.html

Now I know that we have already read the book and that we aren’t really going to be talking about the “Odds Against Tomorrow” novel but I just have a question that was never answered, nor brought up within the novel, and it’s the title of this blog post: What happened to Seattle after the earthquake?

We know with big cities such as New York and Los Angeles, that if they get hit with a major natural disaster then the downtown areas will get fixed and cleaned almost immediately. Since those cities make a lot of money. New York City and LA are both top television markets and for the entertainment industry, they need those cities to be okay because the most money is to be made there.

But what about the case of Seattle? I mean Seattle is still a very big city, population and land mass, so how would the rebuilding project go if Seattle were hit but some sort of natural disaster (for the sake of consistency, let’s just say an earthquake)? How quickly would the government respond to help Seattle? Seattle is one of the biggest cities on the west coast and definitely the biggest north of California. I only ask this question because the book mentions how badly Seattle was hit from the earthquake, even having the ones who watched the disaster strike naming them “Generation Seattle” but they never once mention how Seattle was at the time of the story was taken place.

This also makes me wonder about the city of Portland and if they were hit by some sort of disaster, the what would happen to that city? I know in terms of population, Portland is probably the smallest of the big west coast cities, but has one of the highest population growths among those cities. I read this article over the summer saying that Portland has a ridiculously high growing number of college graduates in the city and Portland is starting to become, somewhat of a destination spot for college grads because it has sort of the same feel as San Francisco and/or Seattle without the cost of living.

So, if Portland got hit with an earthquake, how many people outside of the Pacific Northwest would truly care? Assuming that more people outside of LA and/or NYC would care if those cities got hit with a natural disaster. Because it seemed like no one really cared to help Seattle rebuild after their earthquake because the novel never mentions a rebuild.

I also wonder why the author chose Seattle. Out of all the cities to be affected by an earthquake, he chose Seattle. In the near future, if a city were to be affected by an earthquake or a tsunami or whatever the case may be, does the government just say “oh well” even if close to half-a-million Americans call that city home? The story just made me wonder that point that no one seemed to mention.

I am admittedly worried about this final project. Though it is reassuring that we will not be graded on the quality of our creative work, I am still daunted by the fact that I have never tried to write or produce writing in this capacity. I have a somewhat irrational fear of writer’s block, which could arguably be considered a block in itself. I worry about embarking on a project or assignment and coming to a standstill, forcing me to abandon my previous work and scramble to find a new lens through which to view the assignment. I find myself thinking about an assignment until I can envision the idea fully fleshed out to avoid this problematic fear. This is limiting though, because my brainstorming is often cut short as I fail to allow myself to work through an idea until it is no longer half-baked. In light of these somewhat irrational fears, I have finally settled on an idea that I think I will be able to communicate effectively for the final project.

Contine reading →

For the majority of this course, I have only thought about climate change through the eyes of the short stories, graphic novels, and eventual novel that we read. More recently, I have started to discover some of the other mediums that “illuminate” the problem of climate change which don’t have to do with books or short stories. I have begun watching documentaries and short videos about climate change and the dramatic effects that it has had on the world already. One of my favorites is a short video narrated by Morgan Freeman. Contine reading →

This past weekend I went to the movies with my aunt, uncle, and two younger cousins. We usually get together once a month to catch up and see how everything has been going. They asked me the general questions about how everything was going, how school was, and if anything interesting had taken place and while we are walking into the movies we all notice how sunny it is. My uncle proceeds to say, “Wow, the weather is really nice today and has been really nice all week. Hopefully it stays this way for a while.” We all agree with him, but then suddenly, I remember WHY the weather is so nice right now. WHY the sun could possibly be out at the end of February (which in previous years has not been so “nice”).

The answer, of course, is climate change. I, then decided to share what I have learned from class and their reactions were not very surprising. None of them had heard of climate change prior to my little spiel. I elaborated and told them that climate change is taking place at a more rapid rate due to emissions of greenhouse gases which essentially are produced from burning fossil fuels and all of this is mainly a result of humans and how we overuse and abuse our current resources. I further explained that there are other factors that add to the overall issue of climate change. While I was speaking, I could tell from their wandering eyes, and drifting off to another planet look that I still had not made an impact on them and that they did not take what I was saying seriously so I proceeded to discuss some of the repercussions.

As I said the words “major hurricanes”, “frequent droughts”, “earthquakes”, and “unpredictable weather patterns”, I could tell that I finally sparked a few nerves of interest. I added to this by telling them that these natural disasters may not seem like a big deal right now, but they in fact, can and most likely will turn out to be a very serious issue due to their unpredictability and severity as time goes on. My aunt and uncle were very impressed with what I conveyed to them and went on to say that they could tell I felt very strongly about this issue. I went on to share some of the course readings we did during the duration of the term such as, I’m With The Bears, Odds Against Tomorrow, IDP, and a few other short stories that I thought they might want to check out. By the end of my mini lecture on climate change, not only was my family aware of this issue, but my aunt was even willing to volunteer to help make a change. I added that doing small things like: recycling, conserving energy by unplugging idle power cords, riding a bike or walking instead of driving, can make a big difference. Contine reading →

Throughout this term we have read many short stories and talked about how over time our world is going to run out of resources to support everyone. That there will be changes needed to be made whether that is changing our main source of energy from oil to water or other alternatives. What really has been sticking out to me is the idea of how regulations could potentially become tighter when it comes to how many children a women can have. Child regulation is already put into place in areas around the world that is condensed and over crowding, but is it necessarily a morally correct restriction? In “The Siphoners”, we see the elderly group being affected and targeted so that there are less people to have to support. It is clearly wrong to kill another human being based on how old they are, so is it okay to limit a woman from having a family because as a world we have encouraged global warming?

Now there are many perspectives to this that could be argued and I think the idea of having restrictions does help in efforts to save resources, but in my opinion, shouldn’t we be doing our best right now to change our ways so that we do not have to resort to restricting individuals rights?  Contine reading →

In the first take home quiz the first question asked “what do you think is an important or interesting feature to narrative discourse” this allowed me to think about the figurative language. Figurative language was defined in class as language used in an unusual way; usually when language goes beyond the literal meaning or departs from the usual order of words. In the novel Odds Against Tomorrow the author Nathaniel Rich uses an excessive amount of imagery to describe how different tragedies will strike the world. For instance, when Mitchell is talking about the possible situations his audience is often scared by the amount of imagery and detail. Mitchell says,

“Chinese sleeper agents are activated in every major U.S. city. Cyberattacks strain the electrical grid, checkeboarding it. Kidnappings, corruption, political murders begin to occur. Slowly at first, then more frequently. Why? No one knows. Policemen are assassinated by the dozen. Prominent journalists begin to vanish. The managing partner for your firm is going out for his early morning swim at his home on Long Island when a band of Chinese agents stun him with a taser and throw him into the back of an armored truck. Your managing partner wakes up in a dungeon, four levels below Canal Street, his wrists cinched to his ankles, and an apple in his mouth” (Rich 59-60).

Contine reading →

It is likely that everyone has heard of the flight or fight mechanism, but is the same knowledge known about the incredulity response? What many claim to be the opposite of the fight or flight mechanism, the incredulity response was something that was brought to my attention in the reading. While floating through Grand Central Station, Mitchell encounters one of the most horrific sights in the novel. “The tunnel between the twin marble staircase was like a large greedy mouth drinking the water. But clogging that mouth and against the bottom of the stairs were bodies.” (173). Nathaniel Rich presents a very gruesome image that allows one to easily imagine and put to scale the amount of destruction that took place due to Hurricane Tammy. What really struck me about this passage wasn’t this image however, it is what Mitchell thinks to himself about the groups of people caught up in this catastrophe.

Contine reading →

This month, it’s not unusual to wakeup to sunshine creeping through your blinds in Eugene, OR. We have lucked out and had little to no rain (except for today), compared to our usual rainy winters. Therefore, it’s hard for us to remember that just last year, Eugene was covered in snow for a solid week in February. Snow rarely falls in Eugene, so lots of people enjoyed the surprise until the rain came and froze the streets. The Polar Vortex, that Eugene and many other cities were caught in, caused this crazy weather pattern. If you’re pondering whether this is a side affect of global warming, you are correct.

You might be wondering what the Polar Vortex even is, so here is some general information. According to the blog post, What Is This “Polar Vortex” That Is Freezing the U.S.?, the Polar Vortex is “a prevailing wind pattern that circles the Arctic, flowing from west to east all the way around the Earth.” It captures and holds extremely cold air above the North Pole; however, the vortex occasionally weakens, causing this cold air to flood Canada, the U.S., and sometimes Eastern Europe. The blog also states, “In addition to bringing cold, the air mass can push the jet stream—the band of wind that typically flows from the Pacific Ocean across the U.S.—much further south as well.” This moisture from the jet stream can cause heavy snowstorms such as “snowmageddon” that took place in Washington, D.C., February 2010.

This is a picture taken by John Harrison/Cater News of the Polar Vortex clouds hovering Chicago.

Contine reading →

For my final project I decided to make a children’s book for kindergarteners, first, and second graders. I decided to make a book about polar bears because I feel like all kids love polar bears and who doesn’t love polar bears? The book is going to be about how climate change is affecting the polar bears in the Artic. I thought I would use my blog post to do my research and enlighten everyone on how climate change is affecting the polar bears.

As we all know the polar bears live in the polar ice caps and the ice caps are currently melting because of climate change. The ice caps are melting because the greenhouse gases are acting like a blanket over our earth which is currently warming our environment. This is causing the polar ice caps to melt which is affecting the polar bears in a plethora of ways. It is affecting their access to food, body condition, lowering their cub survival rates, increase in drowning, and most importantly the decline of their population.

I want this book to not only teach kids about climate change but to teach them what they can do to help our environment and help the polar bears. The kids can tell their parents to switch their light bulbs to LED light bulbs and if they do that every light bulb you change can save enough light to light two million homes in one year. Another thing they can do is to make to sure to unplug something if they are not using it because we are wasting phantom power which is equal to the output from 18 power plant stations. The last thing these kids can do is use public transportation, ride their bike, or tell their parents to carpool because transportation produces 30% of all US global warming emissions. I think it is important for children to know about climate change in a simplistic way. I think it is important for them to know because they are the future and if they learn about it when they are little they are going to grow up doing all the things to save our environment and teach people about it.

This is the link I used to find my information http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/our-work/international-polar-bear-day

Throughout our discussions in class this term we have talked a lot about how many people are aware of climate change and yet they “don’t care” or “don’t do anything about it.”  There are many explanations for this problem, some of which I am guilty of as well, that do not simply mean that a person does not care: not having the time, not having the resources, not knowing where to get involved, convenience.  For example, though I am aware of the benefits of solar panels, I do not have the resources or ability to incorporate them into my life because I live in an apartment and I am a full-time student with a limited income.  There are also the problems of people thinking that individual efforts mean nothing in the scheme of the world as a whole, or that people do not want to inconvenience themselves by make changes to their daily lives even if it would mean a better future: for example, buying a plastic bottle of water because your reusable one is in the dishwasher; instead of washing it, you choose convenience.  In doing this, we are also supporting the companies that produce this bottle of water.

Contine reading →

I recently watched the Oscar-winning film The Imitation Game and found myself comparing it to Odds Against Tomorrow, particularly the two main characters, Mitchell Zukor and Alan Turing.

For those of you not familiar with the movie, it depicts the story of Alan Turing’s time working for the British government during WWII. He was an amazing mathematician and was given the task to break “Enigma,” the German translator that accounted for all the communication on that side of the war zone. Alan’s intelligence comes with common characteristics of not completely understanding social skills, living in one’s own world, etc. While watching the film, I felt like I was seeing Mitchell Zukor on the screen.

The two characters are both obsessed with problems; they both live for finding and fantasizing about all sorts of problems and isolate themselves from others because of this character trait. The correlation between their intelligence and social skills is interesting to think about. What does an IQ number really tell about a person? Can one be either smart or social, not both? What effect does this obsession with problems and disaster have on a person’s social skills?

I think that both stories addresses the last question with the development of the main characters. Mitchell has this obsession with disaster including the odds that an event will occur, the impact of the event, etc. Alan is obsessed with problems – almost any type. His Commander mentions the Enigma and that it “isn’t difficult, it’s impossible.” Alan responds with, “Good. Let me try and we’ll know for sure, won’t we?” Alan eventually does solve the Enigma.

Both the characters seem to be hiding something behind their odd obsessions. In Mitchell’s case, he has an underlying fear of death, which really leads to a fear of living. An example of this is his first apartment. His parents were the driving force in his search for a new apartment, which lets the readers believe that he wouldn’t have moved without that push. Another example, which shows his unwillingness to experience new things, is the Korean food phase. While it is impulsive and unlike him to try a new food, he only ever tries that new food for weeks. He switches restaurants, but still eats the same exact dish, prepared the same exact way. This very specific routine shows that he is scared of change.

In Alan’s case, he uses problems to avoid dealing with his internal issues and he uses his intelligence as an excuse to be rude and arrogant to people. Also, once he solves the problem that he’s working on, he searches for or creates a new one. For example, when he and his team decoded the Enigma, he couldn’t celebrate because he seemed to find something missing from the equation. He came to the conclusion that the Germans would know that the Enigma is solved and that Alan’s hard work would have gone to waste, so he wouldn’t allow his team to tell anyone where the next attacks would be, despite one of his teammates having a family member on the ship that the Germans were planning to attack. It seems as though Alan uses problems to avoid living, just like Mitchell does.

I was able to make new observations about both characters because of my reading and watching the stories at the same time. The correlations between the characters despite the major differences between both plots – the fact that one is set in the future, one is set in the past – shows that this type of character can exist in any environment.

There are different types of pollution like, water, air and light. They all contribute to the overall global warming that is affecting the Earth. Pollution damages the environment, making water undrinkable, air unbreathable and damaging the structure and reproduction cycle of plants around us. However, people don’t really focus on how the bright city lights and lights that illuminate our towns affect both the environment and wildlife around us.

Light pollution has taken a great toll on the wildlife and just making a small switch could save so much. The luminous glow given off by cities and suburbs negatively affects the biological rhythms and interferes with the behavior of nocturnal animals. Artificial light has taken the greatest toll on nocturnal birds who use the moon and stars for navigation during migrations. These birds become so disoriented that they sometimes fly in the opposite direction towards bright cities in the distant. Birds such as the Cerulean warbler and Henslow’s sparrow have become endangered because they are at a high risk of colliding with night towers during their migrations. This also affect marine birds as well. Marine birds, like the Tiny Leach’s Storm Petrel, are particularly drawn to light so it becomes very dangerous when bright light houses and fishermen boat lights shine so bright. These birds then travel great distances to get to light that they end up dying from exhaustion. Contine reading →

For our final project I have teamed up with two other girls in our class to develop a short story using a different approach the authors we have read haven’t used. Our idea is to create a short story using the snowball effect. First, I will write two paragraphs starting off our short story of cli-fi. Next I will send those two paragraphs to the next girl and she will continue to write off of what I have started to plot out. We will continue this snowball affect in hopes of creating a strong cli-fi short story that has many different elements to it. The strong characteristic we have on our side is the element of surprise. It’s challenging enough writing a story, but to write one based off of someone’s previous plot is more challenging. The reason I want to blog about this is because I’m too excited to not share this idea with other people. It’s important that I can get feedback on my idea but also share it to excite others on how creative you can be with this opportunity Stephen has given us for our final project.

When crafting my first part of the short story I have been plotting out my characters and whom I want to introduce given the first opportunity to develop the main character. My idea was to start off with an accident, which leads to a young girl ending up in a coma. Then after 10 years of being in a coma her once present now past has changed and she wakes up in a new world. One where climate change has changed people and the gap between rich and poor has been opened wide. My thought process through this opening idea was for you as a reader to be able to experience alongside the main character what this new world looks like. So yourself and the main character are learning and understanding for the first time what this new world has become.

The best part about being able to write the opening paragraphs is that I get to set the mood, pick which tone I want the story to be written in, and decide what kind of main character I want to have. The problems with writing the first paragraph is also doing all those things because what I think might be a strong idea could be the next person brain fart on what to write next. I want to leave things open ended so my fellow partners have a lot of room to create and be creative themselves.

I believe this story will end up becoming a great success for our class to enjoy and read. It’s empowering being able to create your own story but even more empowering when you are letting other people create it alongside you.

Over the weekend my dad and I did a mini road trip to Florence, Oregon. On the way there we saw a lot of trees that were being cut down. There were many trees in one area and then a gap of no trees. It made me sad because I saw right in front of my eyes our planet getting destroyed. When I went to the beach, I thought about if a flood happened and all the places that would be destroyed. This class really makes you think more about climate change. Especially, the weather in Eugene has been so nice and it is not like last year. Last year during this month we got snow and that was really cool to experience.

The book we have been reading in class Odds Against Tomorrow has made an impact on me. You hear about Seattle getting destroyed and I think about if that was my hometown. That’s were I grew up and I can’t even imagine it gone. This book talks about how the corporation called Future World is preparing for disasters. This book also talks about situations that could happen such as poverty and dead bodies. I can just picture the people in the novel terrified and desperate. The books cover can say a lot because you can tell its New York. The city looks like it is flooded and just does not look in order.

In this article it talks about New York and climate change and I thought it related a lot to our book. Contine reading →

For this blog post I decided to write and reflect about what I have learned throughout the term. When I initially signed up for this class, I figured it was just going to be another ordinary boring English class. Mr. Siperstein really opened my eyes to how English can be not only interesting, but can also inform you about something that is not just English. I have learned so much more about climate change within the past 8 weeks than I think I have learned throughout my whole life.

Climate change is something that I never thought was a huge deal until this class. Throughout the readings I have learned about climate change in a fictional way, which I never thought about. These readings include, “Diary of an Interesting year”, “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet” and many more. These two stories impacted me by the style that they were written. The “Diary of an Interesting Year” was written, obviously like a diary which showed me the emotion that the protagonist was feeling and helped me see what it could be like if the climate were to change the way that it did in that story. Also, in the story “Time Capsule Found on Dead Planet” had an interesting style in the way it was written by having different ages in each paragraph. For example the first age was about Gods, the second was about money, etc. This lead into how our world once was and how our deserts are created to show that all deserts are in different forms now. These two stories were the opening stories to the class and I already learned so much about how everyone needs to start being aware about climate change because these twostories are both taken place in the futures are what could possibly happen to humans during climate change.

Contine reading →

I am so glad that we had the discussion in class yesterday about weather and climate. I have seen lots of articles, including on this site, about strange and random weather occurrences going on all the time, and how they were all linked to the changing climate. That’s the thing, though; weather is random. Weather fluctuates often due to multiple factors, and events change all the time. Climate, however, is a constant trend of weather events that gives detailed explanations of what happens in different regions. this is what should be taken into account when talking about climate change.

I hear about freak weather occurring often around where I live. Last winter, Eugene got minus-zero temperatures and inches of snow. Everyone freaked out about climate change. A balmy 50 degrees in February? Climate change. Tulips sprouting up earlier than they’re supposed to? Climate change. It gets kind of annoying after a while. These, however, are just random events.

Climate is different. Climate is the pattern of prevailing conditions in an area over a long period of time. Eugene usually gets more rainfall per year than Bend, Oregon. That is climate. The beaches of Newport tend to be colder year-round  than the ones in Southern California. That is climate.

I am aware of the changing climate, though. The rise in the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The increasing temperatures in our oceans. I’m not trying to deny the existence of climate change. I’m just saying that people shouldn’t be fussing about it when just one big storm hits one of our cities.

Professor Siperstein said we could write about our idea for the Final Project and ask for feedback from you guys. It took me a while to figure out what aspects of climate change I wanted to tackle, but over the course of the last few days, I kept coming back to the question: Why does no one seem to care about climate change?

Over the course of the term, I’ve noticed that the biggest reason for “not caring” is linked to the fact that people do not understand how climate change will affect their lives–even though climate change has already started to. The Global Weirding website definitely struck a chord with me because it transformed the information in the IPCC Climate Report into something tangible and easy to understand. So my question is: What is the most effective way to get people to start caring about climate change? Should we play on people’s fears like Mitchell does? Or is it better to just stick to the facts and let people interpret them for themselves?

I pose those questions because I want to create a video that helps educate people on climate change and ultimately acts as a call-to-action for people to write their congressman about increasing federal funding towards climate change solution research. The video will be a catalyst for a larger climate change public service announcement-esque campaign. I want to touch on the information within IPCC Report, but frame it in a way that resonates with every day people. People need to understand that impacts that our generation will have on future generations. And with that understanding and awareness in mind, I truly believe people will start to act.

That being said, I haven’t figured out the fictional narrative element of the project. I could somehow incorporate a fictional family or person who is living in a “climate changed” world. It would help build empathy for the cause because people will see themselves as that fictional character or family.

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on which approach would work best with getting people to care about climate change. Is it simply that they do not understand the facts and how the effects will change their lives? Or is there something else I’m missing that is more important?

Thanks!

When reading the article So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre?, I admired Nathaniel Rich’s emphasis of the role of a novelist. Unlike a scientist’s point of view of climate change, the novelist doesn’t obtain the responsibility to just write about climate change to get people’s attention. However they have the creative advantage to see what climate change/ global warming do to people in the modern world; what they do to the human heart. He also mentions to read the entire book of Odds Against Tomorrow, and you will not find one climate change phrase. “Climate change as a phrase, is cliché. Global warming is a cliché”(Rich). Contine reading →

There’s no chance people can’t attribute at least a tiny percent of the weather this past winter to climate change. It’s a very unusual winter across the country and it has been slowly building over the years as we continue to increase the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. New England’s massive snowstorm, Oregon’s unusually dry and sunny months. Climate change has to be some sort of answer somewhere along the line.

When the groundhog sees his shadow, it’s six more weeks of winter. New England is going on it’s fifth straight week of snow and rain storms. Yes, they are calming down, but the snow is still pilled up, accumulating an astonishing 60.7 inches over the five weeks in Boston, Massachusetts. Snowstorms Juno and Marcus rank 6 and 7 respectively in Boston’s top 10 snowstorms of all-time. And it is still going. Contine reading →

In class this week we have been reading the novel “Odds Against Tomorrow” by Nathaniel Rich which has brought to my mind what would happen if different areas were to flood. In the novel a class three hurricane hits New York City, and then the two main characters wonder around the city in a canoe viewing different parts of the city and the devastation that the storm has brought. We see that the subway system is completely submerged, many buildings destroyed, and much of life has been destroyed, including that of people.

I grew up on a small town that was built originally next to a lake, which has been since drained and turned into farm land. Mitchell, the main character in this novel discussed how New York City was built on top of what used to be many water ways, which is what made me think of my home town. Every winter what used to be the lake bottom floods again, and in its way also floods some homes. This happens just about every year, and so the people in the area are prepared for when the rains come, and nature reclaims its land. However cities such as New York City that was also build on water ways does not expect this water to come and devastate all that exists. This brings to mind, how do other areas react to flooding and if they are prepared for the floods or not.

When looking at large storms a real storm that took place that many of us are familiar with is that of Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Katrina there was large areas of New Orleans that was flooded, and knowing that this area—being near the Gulf Coast is a possible area for large storms or hurricanes one would thing that they would have a plan against flooding, and after viewing what occurred it is hard to think that there was a plan in place. Experts say though that “The flood protection system in New Orleans was flawed from the start because the model storm it was designed to stop was simplistic, and led to an inadequate network of levees, flood walls, storm gates and pumps”₁. Here we see that the city did have a plan in place but that it was flawed. The system if not having been flawed may have helped after the hurricane to decrease the damage done, but this does show that other cities are thinking of what might occur and are preparing for flooding.

Flooding is a topic often brought up when discussing climate change which is why it is important for at least coastal cities to have a plan in place for flooding. Flooding is brought up with climate change because of the discussion of the ice caps melting causing the ocean levels to raise, causing flooding. Although we cannot predict what will cause the next flood in the world, flooding will occur again and again and so cities need to have a plan in place. Do many in the class live in coastal cities and know what their plan is for flooding or if they have a plan?

1. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricane_katrina/index.html