Run, don't walk (or take public transportation), and see the film "An Inconvenient Truth"...rent it, borrow it, download it, I don't care how...
Start there. I will debate it 'til hell freezes over (which may be soon if we lose Greenland) right here on this very site. See the film! Do it!
Go to Earthfiles.com for some up-to-date environmental news by an award winning reporter & investigator, who reports daily on happenings to our planet. She just did a big report on a huge sheet of ice falling off from the Arctic ice shelf...a GIGANTIC piece that should have produced a giant tsunamie somewhere. The polar bears are dying out because of no ice to wait for seals on, and are about to be put on the endangered species list. We just got 3 FEET of snow in Kansas, for crying out loud! Denver and the interstate highways had to shut down for 2 days! We are heating up and cooling down at the same time. WIERD AND SCARY! We will try to buy the video on Amazon.com or find it to rent. Everyone who sees it tells us the same thing....GO SEE IT NOW! OKAY...we will.
ReplyDeleteNever thought I'd be proud of Al Gore, go figure. Haven't seen the entire movie yet, but I've seen so many clips and interviews, it feels like I have.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be watching it soon.
Yep...the film even has a pout inducing graphic of a polar bear, swimming and swimming and swimming and swimming searching for an ice chunk to rest on...they have found polar bears drowned as of late. The film also covers (with HORRIFYING proof) the Antarctic and Arctic ice melt situation.
ReplyDeleteIrreversible within about 10 years, leading to world famine and the displacement of MILLIONS of people as the sea level rises 20 feet worldwide. Sea life will (and already is )die-with the exception of jellyfish. A stall in the circulatory engine in the sea WILL bring an ice-age immediately. NOT speculation-no environmental scientist alive disputes this. The good news is, it can be addressed NOW...everything technologically is already in place to do it. Cities and states are acting even before our own DUMB ASS Government-and even if ONLY the U.S. were to do this (which many other nations are WAY ahead of us) it would be enough to stop this. Our environmental offenses are that bad.
Our NEXT election in THIS country may very well determine the future of this entire planet and all of the people on it. The IMMEDIATE future, as this process is self-accelerating with the melting of the polar ice-the film explains why. By the time it is undeniable (it already is scientifically) and no longer something that can be spun at all, it WILL be too late.
The History Channel also just had a "Last Days" special, talking about all of the things that could end human life on earth. From Nuclear War, biological agents (artifically and naturally occurring) to giant asteroids. Know what was number ONE?
Global warming. Surprise.
So (excuse the language) FUCK debating illegal immigration or who should live in Palestine. NONE of that matters in scale, and can be dealt with when our environmental planetary future is secure. It is a matter of triage.
AMEN, Awomen, Halleluyerrrrrrr!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteOn a far smaller scale: when the Prov hospital was built in the 1960s, they "knew" that our highest high temperatures would be in the 70s. Now, they've had to prioritize which departments to retrofit with air conditioning as summer temperatures in Anchorage push into the 90s (wisely, maternity is one of the departments they prioritized ~ those women are going through enough!). And growers up here are planning for the future as global warming pushes the temperate zone for wheat-growing north into this area ~ when it used to be the purview of the midwest ~ as soon as 2050. Around this time, many varieties of wheat will become ungrowable in the lower 48.
ReplyDeleteI guess we'll save you guys some room up here... Or do you think America is finally ready to STOP "staying the course?"
Now now, we can't just blame the government. We need to take matters into our own hands as well. Recycle. Choose not to buy products with so much consumer packaging. Turn the water off when you brush your teeth. If it's yellow let it mellow. Ride your bike. Buy organic foods... ect. ect. ect. One vote can make all the difference in an election... but one less of whatever we use and throw away everyday can make a difference too.
ReplyDeleteRight on TB! I agree with you. Consumers speak with their buying choices, and as individuals making choices, there is a cumulative impact by making decisions that are conscious of our personal environmental footprints.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I stress election issues is that the macro scale must be addressed so quickly...and at the level of industry (the ones who MAKE the things with the packaging, or efficiency ratings on appliances and vehicles, etc.) the trickle down effect is imperative. I WANT the choice of purchasing an electric car, or converting to ethanol. Municipalities need to promote (or require) recycling...in addition to the micro level of personal responsibility.
Wheat in Alaska? No. It's just all wrong. I am wondering about the predictions related to the onset of an ice-age when the ocean currents are altered...Providence Hospital might rethink the whole air conditioning thing...
I am suddenly wishing I had focused on environmental sociology. One of my colleagues at WSU had her classes save their garbage (minus the bio-hazard stuff) for ONE WHOLE WEEK and then bring it to class. 65 students with Hefty bags running around campus. They examined the garbage in class to consider consumer habits, packaging issues, etc. Dr. Shelf-did you have any teaching tricks when addressing environmental stuff? I did the redistrubution of Hershey's kisses for SES issues?
SO MUCH IS JUST HABIT THAT WE LEARN AS CHILDREN, LIKE, FOR INSTANCE, LETTING OUR TAP WATER JUST RUN FULL BLAST WHILE WE WASH OUR HANDS OR BRUSH OUR TEETH. WHEN WE WERE IN GERMANY IN THE LATE 60'S, OUR LITTLE APARTMENT HAD A WATER HEATER IN THE HALLWAY, IN FULL VIEW, AND YOU HAD TO PHYSICALLY TURN IT ON TO HEAT UP A TANK OF WATER, AND THEN DO ALL THINGS NEEDING HOT WATER AT ONE TIME. AFTER THE INITIAL TROUBLES AND CUSSING AND GRUMBLING, WE GOT USE TO IT, AND ONLY HEATED UP ONE TANK FULL OF WATER PER DAY. SO MUCH OF IT IS JUST MAKING PEOPLE AWARE ...TO THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS WE DO SO MINDLESSLY MOST OF THE TIME.
ReplyDeleteWE HAD A TRASH COMPACTOR IN ONE HOUSE WE RENTED, AND IT WAS A MARVELOUS HELP IN GETTING OUR TRASH DOWN TO A SMALL AMOUNT. NOT EXACTLY WHAT YOU HAVE IN MIND, BUT IT DID ACT TO MAKE US MORE AWARE OF PACKAGING AND WHAT WE WERE USING.
I THINK PART OF THE BIG PROBLEM IS JUST GETTING PEOPLE TO CARE...TO TAKE THE TIME TO EVEN LISTEN TO THIS...SO MANY ARE ON THE EDGE OF STRESS ALL THE TIME, AND JUST DON'T HAVE ROOM FOR MORE COMPLICATED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO LIVE DAY TO DAY. WASHING OUT BOTTLES AND SOAKING CANS TO REMOVE THE LABELS AND SEPERATING GLASS AND PLASTIC....AND ON AND ON. IT'S JUST TOO MUCH FOR MOST TO EVEN HAVE TIME FOR IN THEIR RUSHED LIVES. THAT IS, WITHOUT THEM THINKING THAT THEIR VERY LIVES ARE AT STAKE. AND MOST JUST DON'T THINK THAT IS TRUE....THEY AREN'T AWARE OF THE BIG PICTURE. SO HOW DO WE REALLY GET THE WORD OUT?...i THINK BY VOTING INTO OFFICE THE PEOPLE WHO CAN REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND INFLUENCE MILLIONS. CERTAINLY, IT DOES ULTIMATELY BOIL DOWN TO THE INDIVIDUAL, BUT EACH OF US CAN ONLY DO LITTLE CHANGES THAT HARDLY SEEM TO MATTER IN THE BIG PICTURE, AT THIS POINT. WE EACH SHOULD TRY, OF COURSE, BUT I THINK WE MAY BE REACHING A POINT OF NO RETURN.
Joanna Joanna Danna,
ReplyDeleteThe Garbology assignment is brilliant! I never had anything so wonderful. The first text I used that dealt with environmental issues had a backwards presentation on how environmental racism was a myth (?!), so we ended up talking about that for the bulk of our class time when I was locked in to that text. We talked about the ethics of population control policies (with groups targeting what they'd like to see happening ideally and how to achieve it, then presenting to a critical audience of their peers) ~ related but not dead-on, for the one text I used in later years.
But, like you, I didn't take or teach much in the way of Environmental Soc. I'm more of a deck-chair rearranger, myself.
And I have to agree with your JoJoBeany and your Momgator's framing of the individual solutions Tonya rightly identifies. Each of us who already feel the weight of the problem need to do the things Tonya notes. But there are changes further up the food chain that change the nature of the choices presented to those who don't already think this way. My dad, die-hard republican, is *not* interested in being labeled an environmentalist. But he is interested in saving a buck. So he participates in his city's recycling program and only washes dishes or clothes during non-peak hours, reducing the load on energy production in the city and benefiting the environment. If his city didn't structure those choices to save him money, he wouldn't bother. My powers of persuasion fail me there where money talks.
I think it is amazing (almost even more so than the science of global warming) that YOU are related (and done sprunged from) a Republican.
ReplyDeleteYou Dr. Shelf.
Family reunions must be a laugh riot!
Mom? Did your caps key get stuck? Just wondering, cause I read your post like you were yelling. Stop yelling at me! :)
Thanks everyone for posting! Be sure to see that film if you haven't...
I used caps because I couldn't figure out how to make my type bold when entereing on the blog site, and the type is so pale that my blind old' eyes couldn't see it very well. How do you make the type bold when you post on here???? And can the font size be increased for us typing a post???
ReplyDeleteAwww...I think you use the html tags listed above the post box. I will ask Wile E Coyole...super genius...
ReplyDelete