Diary Of An Interesting Year By Heidi Cullen Summary

For most people, climate change is just a myth or something they believe will not happen in their lifetime. News programs and informative television shows tend to stay away from this topic because to them it is not important. When it is discussed people are presented with a lot of facts, but are not shown the effects from it that affect their everyday life. In the article “Personal Stories About Global Warming Changes Minds,” the author Heidi Cullen argues that to engage and teach people about climate change one must give the readers/viewers personal stories that they can connect with emotionally. The short story “Diary of an Interesting Year” by Helen Simpson, applies similar thoughts that Cullen had when writing her story. Simpson writes

““Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “The Jungle” moved people to demand action because of their unique ability to weave together the emotional, rational and moral threads around fraught topics like slavery, poverty and dangerous working conditions,” claimed Cullen. These stories show the readers the atrocities occurring in a way they could sympathize with. The main characters in “Diary of an Interesting Year” struggle to live in this new poverty stricken world. They receive rationings from the soldiers running the camp where their home resides and must barter to obtain what items they need. The soldiers also bring in people from other places and move them into the homes at the camp. “We’ve got a Spanish group of eight…A bit much since we only have two bedrooms,” (Simpson 106). No one has say in where they live, nor who gets to live with them. This is similar to events that occurred in history, such as during the Holocaust when the people of Jewish faith were forced out of their own homes and put into other people’s homes that were too small to fit such a large number of people. The correlation between the government forcing people into the homes of others and the similar actions during the holocaust were made on purpose to help readers understand that this event, though fictional in the story, happened in real-life and can happen

“Climate change and its associated effects — rising seas, acidifying oceans, species extinction and increasingly extreme weather — can evoke strong feelings including anxiety, fear, denial and even despair,” stated Cullen. It can easily be observed in current events that an abhorrent amount of our own population, and even our leaders, are still in denial about climate change and the effects of their actions on the environment. Humans harm the planet with toxic emissions from cars and the burning of fossil fuels, and they cut down forests which in turn destroys habitats for animals causing them to become extinct. When reading “Diary of an Interesting Year” the young couple experience the consequences of these actions hands on. They must deal with “air like filthy soup, plus [they are] supposed to wear [their] face masks in bed too,” (Simpson 102). The air quality has become so poor that they need to wear face masks to filter out the filthy air and the diseases that are floating around. Another issue the couple face is the lack of animals to scavenge and eat. “No creatures left except squirrels, rats and pigeons, unless you count the insects,” (Simpson 109). Humans have completely wiped out most of the animals in the area. The creatures were either killed for food or died from the diseases that are spreading rapidly in the air and water. The rivers and