Part 1: Summary
In this book, Kolbert travels to many places to find out what is happening with global warming. Quite often she ran into the same fear at the places she went, the fear for loss before the next generation. When she went to Alaska, many people were fleeing from their homes because the sea ice surrounding them, creating a buffer zone for storms, was melting and that was causing houses to just be swept away.
A man in Iceland who has monitored glaciers predicted that by the end of the century, Iceland will be ice free. Not something you would expect from a land that has had glaciers for over two million years. On the tips of glacier in Greenland, researchers found water in places there had not been water in maybe thousands of years.
When she went to the Netherlands, she found that the rising sea level was expected to take up a large portion of the country. However, in areas where there is already periodic flood, they have already started construction on amphibious home and buoyant roads.
Other then the trips to these places she also gathers up data on the situation of global warming. The United States is the single largest country to put carbon in our atmosphere. We alone account for one quarter of the world's total. An average of 12,000 pounds of carbon is released by each American. However, the Chinese are expected to pass us up within a short period if they do not build new plants with low-emission technology. Mr. Hoffert, who is a professor in physics, believes we can overcome this global warming situation. He has many ideas to avoid carbon sources of energy; Satellites with photovoltaic arrays, solar collectors on the moon, and turbines suspended in the jet stream.
Part 2: Chapter 5
Claims
I think the most obvious factual claim would be global warming. The whole time she is looking for evidence and proof of the global warming. She talked to a man named Hansen, who "Decided that a planet whose atmosphere could change in the course of a human lifetime was more interesting then one that was going to continue, for all intents and purposes, to broil away forever."(pg 98) He was comparing Earth to Venus whose surface temperature was 876 degrees. It was believed that the temperature was so high due to a smoggy haze, but soon after that it was found out that the atmosphere was 96% carbon-dioxide.
... what happened in the novel. Also, the results of the rise in heat and global warming were accurate, including rising sea levels and a permanently warmer climate. In the novel, it is said that the rising sea levels and temperatures forced any survivors to move up into the slightly cooler mountainous areas, such as the Appalachians. There was also the accurate scientific fact, found on page 89, that a virus is more effective if it kills less quickly, due to having more time to replicate. It is because of these accurate facts that the author's science fiction writing was believable.
A similar message that appears in his book that appeared in the aforementioned speech was the impact of the media speculation. The book addresses this in two examples. One was presented with the news of a lawsuit that an island called Vantu would file against the EPA; yet the lawsuit would never move forward due to it only serving a purpose to launder money and raise awareness to global warming that was never proven to affect the island. The other was shown to be environmental scientist who received their funding from environmental organizations, such as NERF in the book. These scientists would often have to go against their findings and report what the organizations wanted them to, or possibly lose their funding. Additionally, the book profoundly took opposition to the claim of global warming. This is presented in the form of the main character, Peter Evans, who has been manipulated into believing everything that the media has told him about global warming. It isn’t until John Kenner is introduced, that Peter begins got learn the truth about global warming. The author uses specific evidence to back his claims, specifically he uses a wide array of resources to verify his claim that Antarctica is not in fact melting, but getting colder and thickening. Furthermore, another essential concept that that book introduces is environmental extremists, or bioterrorism. These characters in the book would stop at nothing to make sure that everyone believed in global warming, and tried to destroy parts of the world to succeed in their mission. Bioterrorists are best represented as a warning of what could happen if people continue to buy into the media’s lies without having conclusive evidence to back up their
Lindzen begins his piece by asserting that there isn't, and never will be, static, unchanging climates on planets with fluid envelopes. Throughout this article, he ponders why there has been an increase in alarm over climate change in the past few years. At the beginning of the article, he states that the increase in alarm is because the public has become scientifically illiterate, which, in turn, makes them more susceptible to being taken advantage of by people of higher status. He continues on by saying that the panic over climate change is falsely placed and that the climate is and has constantly been changing over time. He gives supportive examples of this through climate changing events that have occurred throughout the centuries. Also, according to Lindzen, findings on climate change are problematic because they are based on computer models. He claims that the data conflicts with the models, and that scientists “correct” the data to agree with the models, which points to some level of corruption in climate science. Although Lindzen does give reasons that he believes climate change may be over exaggerated, he keeps going back to another reason. Throughout the article, he ind...
The environment has become a popular topic this year due to our on-going drought. It has always been a serious issue; something Saukko informs us in her sarcastic essay “How to Poison the Earth”. She uses sarcasm and irony in her essay hoping her readers will do the complete opposite of what she is saying because of the stress she puts on the harming chemicals we use every day. We do not appreciate our environment and take it for granted. This ideal is what Ehrlich's essay “Chronicles of Ice” focuses on by using analogies and scientific definitions to describe aspects of glaciers. The melting of the glaciers introduces us to the topic of global warming and how our society is doing nothing to stop it from getting worse. Gawande’s “The Cancer-Cluster
According to the World Bank’s report, climatologists predict greenhouse gases will cause temperatures to rise 7.2 degrees before the next century (par. 8). While the rise in temperature might seem trivial, Scranton elaborates on the detrimental effects this change would cause by quoting James Clapper. Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, argues that extreme weather disasters will “increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism” (par. 7). Dr. Scranton mentions these sources in order to convince the audience that an increase of only a few degrees can have a devastating impact that will inevitably leave the planet radically different during this epoch; the current epoch we live in, named the Anthropocene, is a term invented by geologist and scientists for the epoch that is “characterized by the arrival of the human species as a geological force” (par. 10). The name of the epoch inspired Scranton to title the article “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene” since it reaffirms his claim that we must accept that the future will not be the same as the present. Furthermore, Scranton includes a book in his article written by geophysicist David Archer incase readers remain skeptical of the scientific evidence with
Instilling this new way of energy usage into off-grid communities will inevitably increase the state of living for those in cities and other well-populated areas. The change to renewable energy sources could drastically lower the pollutants currently being dispersed into the atmosphere by coal mines and other harmful power options, increasing the supply of renewable energy would allow us to replace carbon-intensive energy sources and significantly reduce U.S. global warming emissions. a 25 percent by 2025 national renewable electricity standard would lower power plant CO2 emissions 277 million metric tons annually by 2025—the equivalent of the annual output from 70 typical (600 MW) new coal plants (“Benefits of Renewable Energy Use”). Electricity production accounts for more than one-third of U.S. global warming emissions, with the majority generated by coal-fired power plants.
Scranton believes that human beings are killing present life by ignoring the effects of global warming on the world. He continues to warn the reader that change is coming regardless of what people do now and that they human race must prepare for what is inevitably coming, as it will be the collapse of global civilization as it is known. Scranton states that this time we are living in, the anthropocene, presents humans with multiple challenges but mostly, “what it means to be human” (page 234). How to control the inevitable
The steps explained by Krakauer can be described not only as reckless but as arrogant and insensitive to those that live in Alaska. The messages sent to Krakauer by the people of Alaska show more examples of people who were anything but inspired by Chris McCandless. The Alaskan’s went as far as to say, “The only difference is that McCandless ended up dead, with the story on his dumbassedness splashed across the media” (Krakauer, 71). That same Alaskan continued, “Such willful ignorance… amounts to disrespect for the land, and paradoxically demonstrates the same sort of arrogance that resulted in the Exxon Valdez spill--” (Krakauer, 72). People all over have read Krakauer’s book and vouch for the inspirational tale it tells, because of the controversy this Chris McCandless’s story still brings today, it is obvious that there are people out there inspired by his story and journey. Many have even followed his lead by pulling what is sometimes referred to as “a McCandless”
How would you like to live in a home that is beginning to fall apart, but only to go on about your day and continue to neglect it until it all comes crashing down? Humans and animals share this beautiful planet that we call home. But this beautiful home of ours is being regularly and increasingly torn apart by our own ignorant actions. These actions of ours have begun to unravel the very world in which we live, causing a self-inflicted crisis known as Global Climate Change. Global Climate Change is a severe dilemma, and it is continuously becoming more evident to the world’s population that climate change is being caused by changes in the reflectivity of earth’s atmosphere and surface, the ever changing variations of energy from the sun reaching the earth, and the daunting increase in greenhouse gasses.
“Those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm's outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even—or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest—like
His argument bashes scientists who he believes had an environmental and political agenda beginning in the late 1990’s to “discover” global warming and make it a great crisis. According to Coleman, it is his belief that scientists and universities working to prove global warming exists manipulated
When Klein came to terms with the catastrophe of climate change, she feared for the safety of people all over the world and decided
include the earth warming 2 to 3 degrees in the next century, arctic ice disappearing
These are conflict, poverty, instability, migration, unrest, collapse, capacity, and dependency. This film serves as a wakeup call to the audience because climate change is a very critical problem that people should address as soon as possible. It also explicitly shows that climate change is in fact in our midst and is not just a myth or a theory as some would say.
Glaciers have disappeared due to increasing in global temperatures because of which the water level had drastically increased and its causing flood all over the world