Day: January 29, 2015

Tar Sands and Deforestation

kgr 2 Comments

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 →

Effects of Narrative Discourse

abbyk 2 Comments

I find narrative discourse to be very interesting and very important to any story told. While it may seem like it does not have that much effect on the story I think it has more impact than anybody realizes. As we discussed in class, narrative discourse is the manner in which a story is told. This can include style, diction, syntax and vocabulary. Although sometimes we do not realize it as we are reading stories, the narrative discourse of the story completely changes the effect it has on the reader. The stories we have read thus far are a great example of this.

The one that stuck out to me the most as having a unique narrative discourse was the Diary of an Interesting Year. This story was told in a very casual, personal way. Writing the story as a diary made it a lot easier for the audience to connect with the author and the story they were telling. If this story had not been told in the first person or had not been written in short, choppy sentences, it would have seemed a lot less realistic and would not have gotten the point across in the same way. While the actual events in the story have a huge emotional impact on the reader, the manner in which it is told also makes a huge contribution to the story. I know a lot of the kids in our class really connected with this story and it really helped all of us understand the personal effects climate change could have on all of us. The storyline itself cannot get all the credit for this; the narrative discourse combined with the story helped to get the point of the story across.   Contine reading →

Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest

ajohnso7 4 Comments

It seems lately that a lot of focus on Climate Change right now is adaptation instead of mitigation. I think this because people don’t fully realize the effects Climate Change might have on their respective environments, so they assume that even if there is a change in the weather in their area, it won’t cause anything too drastic. This prompted me to see how Climate Change would effect the region we currently reside in right now, the Pacific Northwest. I grew up in a town about an hour south of here, and I had noticed some strange weather patterns over the last few years. It turns out, Climate Change is going to affect the region significantly within the next few decades. During the last century, the temperature here rose by nearly 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit on average, and in some places rose nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit. This really surprised me, as I never really heard about it on the news, or from anyone else really, as it seems like this would be a big deal.

From my own observation, it seems that summers around here to have lasted longer and warmer with every passing year, and that the weather in the winter is more unpredictable and doesn’t last quite as long. I also read that climate change is significantly affecting snowpacks, as well as the flow of streams and forest top covers in our area. The average annual temperature in our region is expected to increase by 3-10 degrees Fahrenheit within the next 100 years, which is truly frightening, as this would be a very changed climate from the one I grew up in. The amount of winter precipitation is expected to increase, which seemed odd to me, as I thought the climate would become more arid with increase heat, but then I read that the summer precipitation is expected to decrease by a large amount, which sort of fits in with the trend I’ve been noticing the last few summers.  Contine reading →

Will Technology Take Over Our Weather?

Jenna Foley 2 Comments

Learning about the Canadian oil sands really opened my eyes. It showed me how people are the reason for this climate change that is happening to our planet. I thought it was interesting how in the photo essay the photographer got to capture every moment and makes the reader feel like they are there in the airplane with the photographer. One picture that really grabbed my attention was the picture with the caption, “The ponds are vast and some look more like lakes” [(Johnson) I tried to insert the photo from the blog onto this post, but it was not working]. This was an unbelievable picture to me because I cannot believe that those ponds are oil, sand and water mixtures. This makes me question why people on our planet are doing this? I understand that we need oil in our lives to be functioning humans, but why do we have to take up this much territory? Why can’t we just keep it more contained in a smaller area? I also thought the photo of the memorial of the family that passed away was extremely sad. I notice how dangerous this type of oil mining factory is. I believe that if it is as harmful where there is a death something needs to be changed, but I feel like nothing is going to be changed.

Contine reading →