When I first signed up for Mr. Siperstein’s English 104 class, I went in on the first day thinking it would be like any other class I’ve taken here at the UO. Much to my surprise however, I was soon proven wrong when I discovered that we would be focusing on the issue of climate change. My first thoughts? “I’m screwed. I know absolutely nothing about climate change.”

As I look back now at my panicking self, I realize that many other students probably had reactions similar to mine. That’s when it hit me. The problem is exactly that! You see, it isn’t that people don’t care about climate change, but rather they just haven’t been properly informed about the issue. I recently came across a study done by Yale on Climate Change Communication, and discovered that only 1 in 10 Americans say they are “very well informed” about the issue of climate change. Kind of a crazy thought, right? How are we supposed to help the future of our environment and make a positive change if roughly only 10 percent of Americans even know what’s actually going on? Exactly, we can’t. The good news is, there’s something we can do about it. The Yale study also reported that 75 percent of Americans said that they would like to know more about the issue, which means that people are interested in learning more. So, where can we begin? While the task of informing an entire nation about the issue of climate change can seem quite daunting, I think that creating more classes like the one Mr. Siperstein is teaching would be the perfect place to start.

Contine reading →

Check out this cli-fi course blog at Temple University.  They are reading a much different set of texts than we are (just goes to show how capacious this new literary genre has become), but I’m sure they are interested in many of the same questions about literature, climate change, ethics, etc.  If you have a few minutes, I’d recommend taking a look.

“Which is worse: if we all die, or if only some of us die?” – Kish

Many of the stories we have read over the past couple weeks have dealt with humanity living in a post-climate change world and depict how that world changes them. One of the most compelling aspects of these stories is how the characters deal with ethics and morals. I think The Weatherman by Holly Howitt is a perfect depiction of how humanity will be forced to make very tough and seemingly unethical decisions in order to keep the population alive. One of my favorite quotes that deals with this dilemma is said by Kish, the narrator’s boss, when he explains, “You know that we control the weather here because if we didn’t, we would starve…we control the weather because we have to, else we’d have no food, no chance of survival…Which is worse: if we all die, or if only some of us die?

Contine reading →

After reading Holly Hewitt’s short story The Weatherman, I began thinking more and more about how climate change on Earth will affect third world countries. Living in North America, it is quite obvious that we are responsible for a fair portion of the global warming that our world is experiencing. That being said, I would also argue that a fair number of American’s don’t know the full effects that global warming can have, and therefore aren’t planning on changing their lifestyles anytime soon. Consequently, climate change will get worse, and it will have an immediate effect on third world countries. Contine reading →

As climate change persists, and we begin to understand more about the adaptation plans that have been developed we can see how individuals react to these plans and implement them into their daily routine. Yet there are so many questions still left unanswered, and so many minor holes in the details of these developed plans. Kathleen Dean Moore shines light to some of these questions that should concern us all. She firstly asks us what the Earth is asking of us, and although these adaptation plans seem to be directed solely to the well being of our planet earth and the bettering of it, there is still questioning left to be done.

The ethical questions she proses particularly interested me because it makes me think about the effects of climate change on not just myself but on the people that don’t have a say and aren’t able to speak for themselves. We are essentially making these elaborate and extremely costly plans that will further help us live in denial and alter the course climate change already has in store for us. But in doing so, we are turning a blind eye to the people in countries that have already been heavily affected by climate change but don’t have the resources and funds to slow down the course. We are making these plans because we see the damage our toll is taking on other countries, and we do not want such occurrences to happen to us. Therefore we are implementing million dollar plans, to further benefit ourselves but leave the unable to fend for themselves.

This problematic theme of natural selection is apparent in many of the readings we have also discussed. Although the readings are based in the future and have the setting of a world that has been drastically affected by climate change, it still is an overwhelming problem. For example, in The Weatherman the main character struggles with a dilemma of whether or not he should control the weather. In doing so he can help himself and his family or help the sandtowners who have no say in the weather and furthermore are helpless to their own fate. This brings along the moral question of: Is my life more valuable than someone else’s?

Although we have grown up in a world where we are taught to protect ourselves and our own, when does enough become enough? These stories are futuristic and one could argue that they are a stretch of the reality we could face, although this is true, it still shares a common theme that Moore questions. In order to help ourselves against preventing climate change, we are only thinking of ourselves. Yet I think we should make a plan that is effective for all, one that takes into consideration people who may not have many assets but those who have the willingness to make a change in a small way. In doing so all of these small efforts, could turn into a large-scale change in our universe.

Spending a great deal on morality and ethics in class discussions recently, I wanted to look at the challenges we face with being green. Holly Howitt’s story The Weatherman, showed drastic measures of being green people. Within the story there was a strict class system along with strict orders for the green people to maintain perfection within the world (after previous generations ruined the climate.) The weather station was built to control everything from sunshine to rain by the press of a button. Even though this was beneficial to the greens, it was not to others. In the end the main character sacrifices himself to destroy the weather station and give everyone an equal chance. Was that really the moral thing to do? Was his decision going to help his family? Would it even help the world? Some of these questions got me to think deeply into ethics and morality within today’s climate change. Contine reading →

During this week in class we looked at the Alberta tar sands. As it is obvious that the chemicals that are being taken out of this area is dangerous to the environment, there are other effects on the environment that these tar sands have that I would like to discuss. The first thing done to the land in this area is that it is cleared of vegetation and swamps so that the soil can be reached. This is a form of deforestation, which is devastating to the environment. Deforestation’s effect on the land as stated in the book, “Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction” by Mark Maslin is that, “Deforestation and over working of the soils had started to reduce fertility, so farmers were cutting down more trees to open up more land to produce enough food to survive” (158). The soil in the area where deforestation takes place because useless especially when the land is being used for tar sands, then those in the area that are wishing to farm have to move elsewhere and clear land to find an area to grow crops. With the tar sands, the soil is what the people are after, and so lack in fertility of the soil is not as much of a worry.  Then comes into play the other effects of deforestation. Deforestation takes away the plants that are pulling carbon out of the atmosphere, and in this case the land is being used to get a fossil fuel that is going to add large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. The tar sands are a ‘double whammy’ when it comes to the amounts of carbon in the atmosphere.

In the article “New Map Shows Dramatic Time Lapse of Tar Sands Deforestation” by Kevin Grandia, we can see just how vast the deforestation of the tar sands areas are. Contine reading →

Here are some of the links about the Keystone XL pipeline that I showed in class today:

http://350.org/campaigns/stop-keystone-xl/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ulbWCwnoQ

Also, here’s a NYTimes website feature that provides the most recent updates on the U.S. legislative battles over the Keystone XL pipeline: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/k/keystone_pipeline/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier   

Check out this article on climate change and literature  that recently appeared in The Australian, a major online and print news outlet.  The writer addresses some of the questions that we have been discussing together so far this term and writing about on this blog, including whether “cli-fi” is its own genre, whether literary fiction can change minds and affect people’s choices, whether literature can help us “repossess” and think through the future.  This passage from the article stood out to me as particularly powerful:

“Genuine imaginative engagement with the meaning and effects of climate change demands writers do more than imagine devastated worlds and drowned cities. We need to find ways of representing not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday, to find ways of expressing the way climate affects not just the natural world but our own worlds, our own imaginations.”

Do you think any of the stories we have read so far have done a good job representing “not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday”?

David Mitchell’s story “The Siphoners” is probably the one story that I could not truly picture as the future. Contine reading →

Living on the Coast, my community tends to be affected by the ocean and the animals living in it. When I was younger, a trip to the beach meant I could walk on a near clean beach, spot marine birds, and the local sea lions. However, due to rising climate temperature and the effects that global warming has on the environment, the Coastal zones are changing.

Most of the Coast and Marine waters have been polluted by the expanding urbanization around us. This causes many beaches and waters to be filled with trash, toxic materials and unwelcome bacteria. These foreign objects polluting the waters have negatively affected the marine wildlife living in Coastal environments. Sea level temperatures rising can affect where species live and affect their lifestyle. It could even endanger species, forcing some into extinction. Rising temperatures directly affect a marine animal’s metabolism, life cycle and behavior. The increase of temperature can result in some marine animals engaging in reproduction and mating earlier than usual, risking the survival rate of the offspring. If offspring don’t survive, this can risk the population numbers, sending species near extinction.

Over 200,000 different species live in our oceans, all depending on different ocean environments to survive. The rising of temperature affects some species that require cold water to survive, this forces fish and other species to migrate North to colder waters. It has also affected the Caribbean and warmer waters because the water is too warm, causing coral to die. The lack of coral in a habitat will force fish move because they rely on coral and the bacteria around it to survive. In dense coral habitat, over 70% have been bleached by the warm waters. Some species are even losing their homes, like the penguins and polar bears. The melting of ice on each pole has driven both the penguins from the South and polar bears from the North, to migrate inland because the ice near the coast is continuing to melt.

Contine reading →

When the issue of climate change comes up, many people are quick to dismiss it.  It’s similar to how when we are young we can find ourselves feeling invincible.  “That may be dangerous/bad/scary but it will never happen to me.  It will never affect my life.”  While we have learned by this age that we are not immortal, there are still many people who do not think that climate change will directly affect them, and some people that do not believe in climate change at all.

I used to think about climate change as a thing of the future.  I knew that the environment was in trouble and about the green movement, but I still had a hard time understanding that the damaging effects of climate change were approaching rapidly.  Being from Berkeley, California I have been reusing, recycling, composting and conserving my whole life, but I was still under the impression that climate change was not going to create any serious problems until after I was long gone.  Contine reading →

There were three different ways climate changed was presented to us last week in class. One is the Global Weirding website that shows us how the earth will change throughout the years. The Global Weriding website has a timeline that takes you through the future years and how the earth is going to be permanently affected. The second is the scientific book, “Climate Change” by Mark Maslin which talks about the evidence of climate change, the impacts, the politics, and much more. It tells the reader about the facts surrounding climate change and what is the cause. The third way climate change is brought up is through a fictional story. One fictional story we read was “Diary of an Interesting Year” by Helen Simpson, that described how terrible global warming had become and how it has affected her family. Out of all three forms of information about climate change the story, “The Diary of an Interesting Year,” had the biggest affect on me.

The short story written by Helen Simpson was most impactful because of the obstacles the main character had to face due to global warming. She went through horrible conditions like no sewage system, no food, no heat and much more. People in this futuristic world had to fight over something as simple as a can of sardines. The bugs, due to the lack of sanitation left people with bites and sores. But, the biggest difficulty the main character had to battle with was the violence. In a society where order has been lost violence breaks out because people will do whatever it takes to survive. She had to fend for herself and in some situations she was unable to protect herself. The lack of structure allowed for peoples survivor instincts to take over, and this means doing anything and everything they can to stay alive. Doing anything and everything includes having to make one of the biggest sacrifices as a woman, and that is giving up her child. The main character writes, “I’ve wrapped your remains in my good blue shirt; sorry I couldn’t let you stay on board, but there’s no future now for any baby above ground” (114). The main character had to sacrifice her child because she thought the conditions were too horrific. To me, that’s when you know climate change has taken over. When people no longer want to reproduce and bring a beautiful baby into the world.

Even though this is a fictional story, it could one day become reality. The story is based in 2040, which means I would be 46 years old and that’s a frightening thought. I would still be young and wanting to enjoy life, but global warming could get in the way of that. People can read facts and scientific information about climate change, but I feel the real way for people to realize what is happening is through stories. People don’t understand the significance of what is happening around them, and once they read a disturbing story like the “Diary of an Interesting Year,” they start to grasp the impact of climate change. For some people facts and predictions open their eyes to the reality they can someday face, but for me reading a fictional story opens my eyes.

Cite:

Simpson, Helen. “Diary of an Interesting Year.” I’m with the Bears. N.p.: Verson, n.d. 101-15. Print.

Global warming is a word that is thrown around is today’s language. A few weeks ago, I thought it was self-explanatory; it has warming in the name. It’s a very ignorant answer but I’m probably not the only one who thought this. It brought to my attention that why I am not concerned with global warming and why haven’t I been informed?

Most of the population is probably not well informed on the topic of global warming. They are most likely just as oblivious to the significance it has to the Earth and the population as I was. For example, I have seen the Hollywood movies based on the near destruction of the world. World War Z, 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow have the underlying message that “the world is coming to an end” but used that thought and made it into entertainment. They fanaticize it, focusing on one character and then, like most movies today, someone comes in and, literally, saves the world. Global warming is usually not the main headline on social media and gets swept under the rug; people are uneducated and blinded to the distresses it has already caused. The “information” people are getting about global warming from these movies may make an unconscious impact in the back of their mind. In most stories, there is shown to be this continuous pattern that everything in the end will be fine and that someone will always be there to save the day. Is that why people aren’t doing anything? That sounds almost absurd but for me, almost every movie, TV show or book I have read or seen ends on good terms. We expect things to go right; we expect things to go our way. If things don’t go our way, is it really true? If we look at the world today and see all our great innovations and history we have created over the past few decades, it’s extraordinary and shows tremendous progress. When we hear the talks on devastation and are told that it is happening but all we see is progress, then is it really happening?

Almost all of the stories we have read in class have used scare tactics to try and persuade readers to change. After retaining this information, the reader is informed on what the impacts look like but not told how to help. After the recent “Climate Change” reading, I now know ways that I can save energy. The thought I have in my head, which I’m sure most people do too, is that I am only one person, how much can I do? Social media and social networking have an enormous impact on almost everything. I feel that that may be the biggest factor that could help or hurt us. People  glorify celebrities so if more celebrities start posting about using solar panels, electric cars and  wind mills, would that encourage more people to do it? Would making movies with realistic possibilities of the future have an impact? What would happen if we as students branched out to people now that we are more educated and have found ways to help? Even though I didn’t elaborate much on all of the readings we have done, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the massive impact that social media has and could do.

Throughout this course we have been reading short fiction stories about how global warming and climate change can/has impacted, in many negative ways, the world we live in. These stories have created a picture in all our minds, or at least in mine, of what our society could turn into with how global warming can affect the way we live day by day. Not only has it created an image in mind, but also, has influenced questions like how would our world react to such change? How would we sustain life? How would people treat eachother in such a world of panic and fear?

In the short story, “Diary of an Interesting Year” by Helen Simpson, we got the chance to experience what it could be like in a women’s position through world apocalyptic type situations.  “If we run out of beans I think he might kill me for food,” the main character states(112). In the story people were being abused, fighting or bartering over little amounts of food, and worrying if their children were going to be in safe hands if something were to happened. Scientists and researches have already made the analysis that over time our worlds water supply, food supply, electrical systems, and so on, will be affected meaning our civilization will have to be able to adapt or start preventing. As we all have seen in movies where the world is coming to an end and people are setting stores on fire and rioting like all sense of humanity is all of a sudden gone, makes me wonder if this will actually be a reality. When people are afraid and feel the need to protect themselves and the ones they care about it is natural to worry about yourself before anyone else. Which is a scary thought because if global warming and climate change does impact us in ways that creates starvation, homelessness, sickness, and so on, do you think morals and values will still be amicable to our society?  Contine reading →

Last term, I was fortunate enough to take an environmental science class. Although the class was a part of the FIG I was in and had no interest in majoring in the field, the class provided a much needed dose of reality for me. While I was aware of most of the global crises occurring in our world today, the class covered almost every problem in just a few weeks. As you can imagine it was very overwhelming and for the first time I realized the serious danger humans were putting themselves in. Especially with global warming, people are very blind to what they don’t want to hear, but the facts are real and global warming doesn’t seem to be a concern to anyone.

I relate the class very much to the story “Diary of An Interesting Year”, by Helen Simpson. For most of the class, we focused a lot on only the facts of what was happening and did very little on thinking of possible solutions. The students even addressed this issue to the teacher because it was depressing everyone. My teacher responded with saying that yes we were focusing on only the problem, but felt that focusing more on the problem would give us a greater insight into the significance of finding the solutions later. Much like in the “Diary of an Interesting Year” the whole story is mostly pessimistic. There are unhygienic conditions, society has pretty much collapsed, and many people die in the story. However, in the end the narrator does eventually escape her boyfriend’s murderer and becomes free.

She also wraps her journal in six plastic bags even though she doesn’t think anyone will ever read it. I believe that that ending contained a glimmer of hope in it, not just from the narrator but for the readers as well. The narrator takes extra care into Contine reading →

This past week, we were assigned to read “The Siphoners” by David Mitchell, a short story found in the compilation “I’m With The Bears”. In this short story, which is set in the near future, the governments essentially runs out of resources with which to support the massive population of the planet. Mitchell depicts a vaguely anarchist society where the lack of personal comforts leads the way for people to forget their general manners, laws of possession, and respect for each other in favor of their newly activated survival instincts.

Contine reading →

Being a Biochemistry major and having an immense interest in the sciences, I have approached the issue of climate change and global warming from an objective point of view, seeing both sides of the matter. While some of the issues may seem clear cut, there are a variety of issues that are not black and white. An example of one of these issues is presented in “The Siphoners” by David Mitchell, with the idea of a potential threat of overpopulation in the future.

In many of my Biology classes, especially those pertaining to evolution, the term carrying capacity has been used consistently. The Third Edition of Biological Science by Scott Freeman, the textbook used in my latest evolution based Biology class, discusses carrying capacity at length. This textbook defines carrying capacity as “the maximum population size of a certain species that a given habitat can support”. Below is an example of a carrying capacity graph taken from pixshark.com. The population of rabbits, which is the species used in this example, exponentially increases to a point. When the population hits the max that it can achieve with the given resources in their habitat, the population levels off and stays at a constant rate that the habitat can support. The idea of a carrying capacity is that every species has a population limit that a habitat can sustain, even humans.

With the population of the world already over 7 billion and with no signs of slowing down, the fear of overpopulation is an issue that is on the minds of many and should be addressed. Below is a graph from the United Nations website from 2010 which indicates that the population could more than double in the next 100 years. While the threat of overpopulation does not seem to be directly related to climate change, it is still impactful as it takes a toll on the environment and more people will undoubtedly contribute to the problem. Contine reading →

Most people in Palos Verdes, California, my hometown located in Southern California, do not believe in using the term global warming, instead they call it “climate change”. In their minds, changes on earth were brought about by an increase in temperature; however, they never really cared about learning more about the effects of “climate change”. So you can say that I grew up in an area that is not very environmentally friendly.

Luckily I have my dad who is extremely interested in global warming and wanting to save our earth. He made me watch the Al Gore movie, The Inconvenient Truth and explained to me what global warming is but at that age I still did not really understand it. After a couple years my dad went out and bought a Nissan Leaf which I was not too happy about. I thought it was the most unattractive car on the market and did not want to be seen it. To me it looked like a space ship and looked like it was from the future. My dad had to explain to me how this car is going to help our earth and to see pass the unattractiveness. After I started understanding global warming, I started seeing more electric cars everywhere.

I think many people do not buy electric cars because of the way they look which is true but they need to see the pros about the car. Some things you may not know about the leaf is it is 100% all electric, it provides an 84 miles of driving range on a single charge of its 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack, and you can lease it for $200 which is cheaper than putting gas in the car for the month. If the homeowner has solar panels installed in their home than charging the car is totally emission free. It also provides you with an on-the-go charger in case you run out of miles, you can plug it in anywhere. But charging stations are becoming more common in places like malls, grocery stores, drug stores, and even have front row parking. There is also an app where you can see on the go how much charge you have instead of going in your car to look. Other then the fact that the car looks like a space ship, the inside has a button that you move around to put the car in drive, reverse, and neutral.

Getting a Nissan Leaf will save the 100,000 ppm of carbon monoxide from driving a car for a minute. An article I read about electric cars says, “drivers should feel confident that owning an electric vehicle is a good choice for reducing global warming, pollution, cutting fuel costs, and slashing oil consumption”. Buying a Nissan Leaf is one big change to our earth and I read that Nissan Leaf outsold every other electric car manufacturer. In 2011 almost more than 40,000 Americans own a Nissan Leaf and 92,000 globally. Could you imagine what it would do to our environment if 50% of our population owned a Nissan Leaf or an electric car? It is not only saving you money on gas but it is also helping the environment. In conclusion, after owning a Nissan Leaf for three years we put $60,000 miles on the car and it still charged up to 70%.

While searching the internet to learn more about the Nissan Leaf, I came across a blog from a guy about his life owning a Nissan Leaf. I attached the link so you can all read about it

By definition global warming is the gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. What does all of that mean?  Those that are unaware of global warming and the fact that it is a real thing, and it’s happening to the very planet that we all live on need to know that it’s important we start to pay attention. Because it is due to our lack of attention that this is happening in the first place. I think that the lack of knowledge and publicity about global warming can be attributed to a lack of understanding. So, to put it in simpler terms, air pollution is collecting in the earth’s atmosphere and thus trapping in the suns heat causing the entire planet to gradually warm up. How is it affecting us? This is a question that is difficult to answer and is a reason why there are so many people that don’t believe that global warming is real. Because there is no direct effect on our daily lives, apparently that constitutes non-belief, which in turn results in lack of action to work toward any kind of resolution. Because the effects of global warming are hard to predict, I feel as though that is all the more reason to care. As humans, we possess this fear of the unknown. We fear our futures because none of us know what it entails. But in most cases that is in reference to things like careers, relationships, and our individual person in general. But not knowing anything about global warming isn’t cause for concern? Apparently the fact that the world is essentially dying doesn’t strike as much fear in people as potentially having to work at McDonalds for the rest of their lives, or potentially ending up alone. Some very real and recent effects of global warming to name a few, are various droughts, wildfires, rising sea levels, animal extinction and in some cases human death due to heat stroke. What can we do to be proactive about global warming and what preventative steps can we take in our daily lives now before global warming actually affects us on a day-to-day basis? It’s simple! Conserve energy. Use florescent light bulbs, be conscious of how much water you’re using, walk more drive less, or, bike more drive less. If walking or biking isn’t a suitable option for you then look into hybrid vehicles and just smaller vehicles in general. Another great way to help is just to talk about global warming, raise awareness and create a sense of urgency, I can understand that we don’t want people in constant panic mode because that would result in chaos but it is something that we should be scared of and that warrants a fire to be lit under all of our feet because not enough people are doing anything about it when everybody should be.

Before taking this class I had very minimal knowledge and awareness on the subject of climate change/global warming. After doing a couple of the assigned readings and hearing discussions in class I have come to the realization, like many of my other classmates, that climate change is real, it’s happening now as I sit and write this post, and it’s effects are tragic resulting in immeasurable calamities. Water and food shortages, lack of social services, diseases, floods, and droughts are just a few calamities that come to mind. Before, when I would hear or read discourse on global warming and climate change I would blow it off my shoulder, thinking that other people in higher positions of power have it under control.

After reading more extensively and learning about the topic during the past couple of weeks, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I have gained a newfound passion towards preventing climate change and it’s extremely harmful and life threatening effects. In the short story Diary of an Interesting Year, the author Helen Simpson writes a fictional narrative that illustrates the destruction of planet Earth due to climate change.

The narrator conveys her story in first person using the format of a diary. Using a diary to share her story and phrasing her thoughts in sentences that are considered normal dialogue makes it more of a personal and intimate experience with the audience which I personally find to be more interesting as a reader. I find this style of writing to be relatable and helpful in trying to bring your perspectives and points to light. I also believe that conveying a story in this particular format is informative, especially a story with such a serious issue as its main backdrop. Throughout the story there are many parts which describe the drastic effects of climate change on human life such as; untreatable diseases due to lack of social services (102), unhealthy and polluted air (102), rationing food as a result of a permanent shortage (103), lack of water (103), and deaths (107). Contine reading →

After reading stories that summarize our future as humans living on Earth in years such as 2040, I tried imagining where I would be in the situation of climate change and its destruction. I will be 45 years of age, hopefully with a loving husband and kids. Then it hit me, my kids would be living a life not even close to a life I had lived. They’ll grow up in poverty and hunger. Where the idea of “wrong” seems to be the only choice to live by. They’ll grow up without knowing the excitement of reality TV shows or vacations to tropical places. Lavishes will turn extinct and happiness will come from having food on the table that night.

The short story “Diary of an Interesting Year” by Helen Simpson is what makes me contemplate this future. Poverty is the only way of life in this story and even though it isn’t a true story, it has truth within it. If we don’t start changing habits or helping our Earth preserve itself our kids could face a world that’s been destroyed by it’s humans. Even worse, a world myself and all the other people who didn’t do anything to help destroyed. Contine reading →

I personally have never thought about the damages climate change could have until this class. This class talks about what the future holds for us here on earth. We have done some readings about how people are handing climate change. In a story called, The Weatherman by Holly Howitt, talks about a man who gets a job for the weather and gets to control the weather. He gets to make it rain, snow, and make storms. He and his wife Marly are a part of the green people society. That means they are not in harm of damages from climate change. Since the husband works for the weather their family is not in harm. Marly does not think that his job is fair because there are people suffering because of climate change. Marly said, They were filthy starving. Half dead. And here we are, us fat green people, getting everything we want and destroying everyone else”(Howitt, 136). This is a strong message because it shows what the other side is going through. If I was a news reporter and knew what was going on with other people I would try my best to help out in any way I could. It shows that food and water are scare during this period. The wife makes a point to be realistic and think about other people instead of just them.

I picked this picture from a website called, Global Warming: Causes and Consequences because it has as strong meaning it shows the two different sides. One side illustrates a pretty sky and the city is in good condition. The other side is showing what global warming is doing to our planet. It proves a message that one day our planet is going to look like this. The skies will not be blue anymore but instead coved with dust and smoke. This picture makes me worry because when this starts to happen I will be alive during it.

In another story we read in class called, The Siphoners by David Mitchell was a story about how when people turn sixty you have to take a sleeping potion. The sleeping potion kills you because the younger generation needs the food. A man named Hija does not let his grandma take the potion because he wants her to live. I do not think the age sixty is fair because that is still a young age. When Hija was talking to the emperor he said, “your majesty”. The emperor wondered who taught him that and he told him it was his grandmother. Then Haji explained that his grandmother lived past her sixtieth birthday. The emperor got very upset and the Haji said, “ I am afraid, but fear or no fear, how could I alter one world” (Mitchell, 140). This shows that even if Hija does have fear he still wants to change the world. The world is in danger but he still has hope about making a difference. Overall, global warming is a problem that we all need to be thinking about because it can affect all of us in some way.  Contine reading →

It’s safe to say that we all have heard about Global Warming in some shape or form. Most commonly, we have heard of the escalating temperatures it has caused; however, there are many more side affects, such as rising food prices, sea levels, and species extinction. Global Warming has already affected our communities and will continue do so. At this point, we can only slow this problem that we created, so why not adjust according? It’s time for us to adapt to our new conditions by preserving the natural resources we have left, and making the transition to green communities/lifestyles.

We should start with addressing our personal lives. It can be as simple as limiting ourselves to ten minute showers, only doing large laundry loads, unplugging our electronics when we aren’t using them, or just turning our sink faucet on and off when washing dishes and brushing our teeth. We don’t need to cut ourselves off, but just learn to be aware of the amount of resources we are using and noticing when we are being wasteful.

I know it’s hard to believe that one person can make a global difference, but if 300 million people alter their lifestyles too, we will conserve a vast amount of natural resources! But, in order to tackle the health of our atmosphere, we must reduce the amount of toxic emissions that are released from our corporations and vehicles and transition to more energy efficient and environmental friendly techniques. Contine reading →

When I think about global warming, I relive the memories when I witnessed melting glaciers and rising water levels flooding villages; however, most people in America haven’t been able to see these effects first hand. Consequently, creating action to inhibit emissions and start helping the environment is hard because most people can’t connect the news headlines to personal experiences. This is where writers and short stories come into play. In the introduction to the collection of short stories titled I’m With The Bears, Bill Mckibben writes, “Of course, in the end, the job of writers is not to push us in some particular direction; it’s to illuminate. To bear witness” (4). By using the word “illuminate” Mckibben almost personifies the word into meaning that it gives life to a cause; that these writers are able to grab the soul of their audience and make them passionate about global warming simply based on fiction. This powerful writing is strewn throughout the book, but the story which burns brightest to me is Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet by Margaret Atwood.

This short story by Margaret Atwood should be a required story for everyone in America to read and here’s why. I believe that this story puts mankind and humanity, as we know it today, in the perspective of an outsider. Also, it allows the reader to relate to the people in the story, allowing the reader to create emotion. First off, when describing the first age, Atwood describes our creation of Gods by saying, “We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from shining metals and painted them on temple walls” (191). By opening up the story and using words like “wood”, “shining metals”, and “temple walls” it immediately makes us think of ourselves. Not only is this an accurate account of what humans used to do, but it makes the reader feel as if they are looking in the mirror. This is essential in creating a personal experience because without this mirror-like effect, it is impossible to make the reader feel emotion if they can’t see themselves in the world described in the story.

During the second and third age, Atwood sets up modern society and humanity. In the second age, Atwood describes how money is created and, even though it is still very mysterious, it is thought to have had special powers. Then, in the third age, Atwood goes on to describe how, “It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk…It created greed and hunger…towers of glass rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again” (192). By describing money as “all-powerful”, being able to “talk”, and how it created “greed and hunger”, Atwood alludes to money as a God. This allusion is essential to the “illumination” that writers are trying to accomplish. By making money appear as a God, it helps the reader reflect on society and its issues. In day-to-day life, most people think of money as a necessary component, not an issue, but when we are able to remove ourselves and look down upon society through this story, we can observe all its issues through a clear lens.  Contine reading →

I have been in this class about climate change for about two weeks now. I have read multiple stories about climate change and what the future may hold for the human race. Most of them are bleak, miserable futures, with environments deteriorating in barren wastelands, and society along with it. I quote an example from the short story “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet”:

“In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.”

This describes a possible future where the land becomes bone-dry deserts, and the seas becoming poisoned and rotten. And yet, despite all these morbid stories, I don’t feel afraid about the future. The human race is a resilient and adaptable species, and will more than likely live on after the worst of the “global wierding.”

Sure, if the ice caps are lost, then sea levels will rise. Coastal cities will be flooded. Florida will be a thing of the past. Temperatures will swing from sweltering hot summers to freezing winters. Some places of the world will become more productive for plant life, while others will become less productive. Some animal species will become extinct. Others will thrive in new environments.

We can work with all of this.  Contine reading →

I’ve been following climate change and its effects for years now through various news publications and documentaries. It seems that every year, scientists from around the world, release more and more evidence supporting the fact that ‘global weirding’ will not only happen, but is happening as we speak. After these reports trickle out, get passed around the Internet bloggersphere, and garner a few precious minutes on various network news segments, I watch eagerly in anticipation of some sort of social uprising or massive political and economic shift towards saving the planet. Yet, year after year, society sees the evidence, panics for a second, and then moves on as if forgetting about the research will somehow make it untrue. I always ask myself “Why does no one seem to care? This is THE most important issue in the entire world. If we don’t address it, there won’t even BE a world.”

I’ve asked a few of my close friends about this and I mostly get the same answer: “Dude, there’s nothing I (as in individuals) can do to really change things. It’s a lost cause.” That passive type of thinking is not only a massive cop-out, but also the reason why no one tries to change anything. If everyone thinks they won’t have an effect, then no one will actually try to change the way things are.

Contine reading →

Global Warming is something we are all familiar with, whether that be we understand that it is happening, we heard about it in science class, family parties or so on, we all have a level of familiarity with the idea of global warming. Yet, we as a society are all blissfully ignorant about what is actually happening to our world. We turn our backs to the mere fact that our world temperature is literally rising, as we know it. Little did we know, that we are not only heating up, but there are endless reactions that will occur if we don’t step in and make a change. We turn our backs because we excuse ourselves from the problem, by simply believing that there is no way we can change Earths course, yet there is.

In order to truly assess and hopefully tackle a problem such as global warming we have to first understand what we can do to change it or in this case slow it down. In Margaret Atwood’s text, Time capsule found on the dead planet she describes our world in ages, beginning with the creation of gods progressing to the creation of money, and ending with deserts. In my opinion she shows this progression, to appeal to our emotional side. Personally, it scared me because as we discussed in class, we are somewhere lost in the middle of the third age. It is especially relevant because Money rules our world, and I think she intends to make a correlation between how we first idolized gods, and migrated to idolizing money. Unfortunately that is the world we live in, in a world where our motives are fully powered by the idolization, and chase of money. This is just one of the many distractions that keep us enthralled and ignorant to global warming.

Yet I firmly believe that if everyone took a second out of their day to visit the Global Weirding website it would change 99% of peoples perspective and willingness to make a change for the benefit of our universe. Contine reading →