After reading Kathleen Moore’s article on “The Ethics of Adaption to Global Warming” she proposed a question, which asked, “Does the adaptation effort privilege the wealthy and powerful, at unjustified cost to the poor and dispossessed?” This question immediately reminded me of the short story “The Weatherman”. Characters in this story are faced with life changing decisions that are the exact answer to Moore’s question. Most stories we are reading in our English 104 class have to do with the powerful controlling the future while the poor are left to starve and die. It’s easy to imagine ourselves as one of the rich in a case like this but what if we are the poor? And are left to starve. It’s a harder image to grasp when faced with a question like that. You have to decide now what side you are going to be on. Either we can start to do something now to help face and protect the Earth from climate change, which ultimately will protect us, or adapt to it and become the rich, greedy, and self-preserving.
“The Weatherman” models sacrifice and heroism in order to save many lives, lives worth saving because no man should be able to decide the outcome of someone else’s life. Equality is something that drives me to be better at turning all the lights off before I go to bed, or turning the water off when brushing my teethe, or even throwing cardboards into the recycle rather the trash. The simplest of acts can make the biggest difference; it’s just a little extra effort that will be worth it when done.
Oregon is facing change in climate and it’s affecting how people live. This article explains the lack of snow our mountains have been receiving these past years. It’s at an all time low and starting to beat records. “Last year we had a bad fire season, and that is in part due to the lack of snow,” (Dello). It’s not just affecting people but nature. The rise in temperatures is causing fires in places that should be covered in a foot of snow. Their even preparing for a drought in Oregon, although seeming unrealistic, it’s something being prepared for by our state.
Climate change isn’t something we are just reading about in our books or writing about in our journals. It’s a realistic tragedy many others and us are facing, as our Earth grows older. It’s our fault it is happening so it is our job to help prolong the activity and preserve what we can while we can.
I thought your concluding remarks were interesting, especially after our discussion in class today. You said that, “Climate change isn’t something we are just reading about in our books or writing about in our journals. It’s a realistic tragedy”. Even though the stories we are reading are fiction, more specifically climate-fiction, the issues they deal with are very real and more immediate than we would like to admit.
I think your first paragraph is very important and realistic. Like you said when it comes to reading “The Weatherman” or even “IDP:2043, A Graphic Novel,” “It’s easy to imagine ourselves as one of the rich,” rather than imagine that we could end up being in the less fortunate class, the poor. People need to realize that cli-fi books are here to give us a peak at the future that’s very possible within our reach.
The article we read in class did make a lot of points how the rich is going to dominate. I am nervous to see where my family would end up because you never know. Its crazy to think Oregon is already being affected because we have had less rainfall and no snow this year. I agree that in class the stories we read are about people having power in the future. It is our fault and I think instead of pretending like it is not happening we should create better solutions. I want my kids to grow up in a generation like mine and not in a dangerous place and that’s where our planet is going.
I strongly agree with your comment about how this is our fault that it is happening, therefore it is our job to try to fix it in any way that we can. I don’t think many people realize this or they just don’t care, which is sad. We contribute to climate change everyday and some people don’t realize that. Not only is this affecting ourselves and our planet right now, but it’s going to continue to affect our planet and the many future generations to come. Quite frankly, it isn’t fair for future generations to have to deal with a problem that they had no part in contributing to.