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.

“Diary of an Interesting Year” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/21/diary-of-an-interesting-year

“Time Capsule Found on Dead Planet” http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/26/margaret-atwood-mini-science-fiction

I really did enjoy these two stories but the novel that we are reading right now is by Nathaniel Rich called Odds Against Tomorrow. This novel is about a man named Mitchell who works for this company called Furture World that gives other companies insurance in case a natural disaster hits, and they can also predict disasters. Although we still have not finished the novel, what we have read so far has seemed so realistic that certain disasters can happen.

One minor part that we talked about in class was Superstorm Sandy. When we read these two articles about Sandy I was in shock because in one of the article it states that “what climate scientists know today, with a high degree of certainty, is that all extreme weather events are now occurring in a world where the oceans are warmer, sea levels are higher and temperatures are rising. So the odds of more intense, devastating storms like Haiyan and Sandy are increasing every year”(Jeff Nesbit). This really shocked me that humans helped the cause of Superstorm Sandy because that is one of the biggest storms that has happened in New York/New Jersey.

Haiyan, Sandy and Climate Change: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2013/11/18/haiyan-sandy-and-climate-change

One thing that I have really taken into account about climate change in this class is that more people need to be aware about what is going on. Climate change is a big issue happening all across the globe. A great amount of people are not being affected by climate change right now where there lives are in danger, but it is happening every day. It is happening in everyone’s lives. People need to be more aware, and everyone who can needs to start telling more people on how climate change is happening right now.