Red…ehhh

I don’t really know what to say about this book.  It touched on most of the same issues that Desert Solitaire delved into, but with a very feminine approach.  Williams is definately a strange character, but in a much different manner than Abbey was.  Abbey was raw and in your face about his passions and beliefs, but Williams tries to be more polite at times and tells wierd stories to make her point.  I definately did not like this book as well as I liked Abbey’s telling of the wilderness in the Southwest.  Perhaps it would have been nice to read this book before Desert Solitaire because, in my opinion, the books have the same issues, but Abbey tells a much more interesting story.

The feminine undertones in Red are very obvious, and maybe I am just being difficult, but I didn’t really appreciate the femininism.  One chapter (Water or something like that) was devoted to Williams love-making experience with nature and, to me, it was just unusual.  Everyone has their “thing” and everyone has a different type of storytelling that they appreciate, but this chapter especially was just odd and I could never imagine myself doing the things that Williams did.

And that brings me to one more issue.  I am not fully convinced that Williams did all the things that she wrote about.  Maybe she did, but I continually found myself asking, “No!  She didn’t really do that, did she?”  For some reason I am just very skeptical of this book.  Every person has a different type of reading they enjoy and perhaps I have not given Red enough credit, but it was really just not my cup of tea.

-Dezaray

Man vs. Mud Volcano

This was the actual title of this news story, so I thought it really fit-in with our class discussions.  This article is no less than hilarious.  A drilling company pierces the Earth’s crust causing hot mud to start spilling-out, but now it is the Earth’s fault that people have been displaced by this “disaster.”  So engineers are going to try to reduce the mud flow with concrete balls chain-linked together!  I have never heard of such a thing, but I am curious to see if it will work.

 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070226/sc_afp/indonesiaenvironmentmud_070226113926

-Dezaray

collapsed ice shelf reveals possible new species

Scientists exploring a region of ocean around Antarctica formerly covered by ice shelves found a lot of cool organisms, including some that might be entirely new species.  These ice shelves collapsed over the last dozen years, presumably (at least in part) because of global warming.  Now that we’ve found these animals, who knows how long they’ll last with their habitats warming up fast.

In related news, go Inconvenient Truth for winning two Oscars (best documentary feature and best original song)!  That was fun.

~Rebecca

Corporatized educators…. awesome

This link is actually to an editorial piece on Truthout.org, but it links back to other articles and a piece from the Washington Post. It pertains to recent blogs on global climate change, denial, and something that has been concerning me lately– scientific and educational integrity.  The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) is the world’s largest organization of science educators, and has repeatedly bent to the pressures and moneys from big corporations.  The information being presented to our kids is at times a direct reflection of what brainwashing Big Money wants them hearing.  It’s a messy issue, as many schools rely on corporate funding just to run, but is it worth it if we’re indoctrinating kids in favor of coal, against global warming, etc.? The direct impetus for this piece is the NSTA refusal of free copies of An Inconvenient Truth for showing at schools.  They do, however, accept other literature and media… Writes the author:

” I am an environmental science teacher of 26 years and I have a steamer trunk of materials from NSTA’s past conferences:

Project Learning Tree’s Energy module, supported by API’s Red Cavaney who wants ANWR opened, opposes the Kyoto Treaty, and wants more public land opened to energy exploration. Lesson plans, coloring books, free coal samples from the American Coal Foundation – minus any substantive discussion, let alone mention of climate change.

Lessons and videos from a group that was called the “Greening Earth Society,” funded by the Western Fuels Association. The message of the film was firm and academically clear: There is no human-induced climate change.

    Our youngest teachers need help to plan and write lesson plans, to engage students in critical, scientific scenarios like climate change and to help those students face those challenges with facts in hand. The NSTA is the logical leader on this front with its prestige and deep pockets. Will the NSTA tacitly sit back and even conspire with the likes of ExxonMobil to fill this void? ExxonMobil and Monsanto and the American Petroleum Institute have little interest in providing science data: instead, they see flooding our schools with their “dubious science” as the last component of a major PR effort to continue profits and damn the consequences.”

Among other things, here is an opportunity that we might take, as students of science and concerned world citizens–write to the association to tell them what our values and priorities are!  Shame them and inspire them to provide accurate, fair, and essential information to kids… They ought to listen if enough attention is given, since we are the people most affected.  Read the articles.  Infuriating and arousing.

Amanda

Fur coats

A couple of weeks ago, I went home to Dayton to visit my momsies and my dadsies…and it was at about that time that the weather got reaaaaaal cold.  So I said to my momsies, “Mother, I need a winter jacket because it is frightfully cold outside.”  She zipped upstairs and came back down with a large, brown fur coat…so I wore it, and it was warm, REAL warm.  And I was okay with wearing it, because I didn’t kill any animals and the coat is sooooo old, I wasn’t even alive when it was made…and it kept me warm, which is what I was most concerned about.  The only doubtful thought I had about the coat was “Oh dear, what are my peers in Environmental Geography going to think of this?”  I thought a few of you might be a little bit offended by my fur coat.  So that leads me to my current event/interesting bit of information. 

This website claims that fur is one of the world’s most environmentally sensitive choices for clothing.  I haven’t fully explored the entire site, but I’ve read a couple of the articles.  I’m not really all that into fur coats, but I’m not kidding, the classes reaction to my fur coat has been on my mind a lot lately.  So I urge you to respond/comment!!!!

http://www.furcommission.com/environ/

 -Andra

RED reaction

Red was a very different style than the last books that we have read. It was more of a literary piece that wasn’t based on personal experience of being out in “nature.” The chapters that Williams writes in the book are a collection of stories, poems or short accounts that she gathered from other people. I found it very hard to get into the reading like I was able to with the previous two books. The book was written to give many different perspectives and views of nature where the other books were accounts of someone’s adventure. Even though the book was hard to follow at times it gave you a good background on wilderness and it strengthens the definition that I had of it wilderness, along with the other books. Williams did a good job connecting what some people feel or believe and portraying that in nature, and how we have to preserve what we do have left before it is all gone. This book presents problems that we have in society so people can get a feeling of urgency to change our actions. In the end this book started out as a difficult read but there were some good points that can be taken from it. It brings forth the need to preserve our lands.

 

~Jeff

Reactions to Red

I enjoyed the book, but it has been my least favorite out of the three we have read thus far, but it was still an enjoyable book.  The story of the book was very choppy and hard to follow but at the same time it allowed the writer to make many interesting points throughout the book.  One of the main reasons I enjoyed reading this book was because it had the same setting as Desert Solitaire but had almost the complete opposite view.  This book brought a feminine view on nature and wilderness.  With the feminine view the author also brought a very artistic view on the wilderness, focusing on the color, red.  I was nice to see an artistic view, but I would much rather prefer to read about more adventures in the wilderness.         

~Mike

An Army of Al

Our worst fears have come true, Al Gore creating an army. But it’s a different kind of army. Al Gore does not think that enough people understand the message he was trying to get across in his movie, An Incontinent Truth, especially in the Midwest. So what is Al to do, he is training people, so far near one thousand, to give presentations about global warming to groups all over the country. Watching a live presentation has many advantages over watching a movie, the main one being that you can ask questions to the presenter. Right now Al Gore is doing everything that he can to get his message heard and most importantly understood. Maybe we could get one of Al’s presenters to come to our school. I know there are still people on our campus that do not believe in global warming yet.

~Mike

Source

Top Companies to resolve Global Warming

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/20/global.warming.pact.reut/index.html

Urgent action is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. On Tuesday, 100 corporate heads, international organizations and experts set out a plan and agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Global Roundtable on Climate Change made the statement that “Failing to act now would lead to far higher economic and environmental costs and greater risk of irreversible impacts.” This group states that governments must set targets for greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and made an agreement urging the government to place a price on the carbon emissions released by power plants and other industries.

This group involves big names like GE, Ford,
Toyota, Goldman Sachs, Alcoa, and Wal-Mart just to name a few. Currently the Bush administration has rejected this issue and fails to implement mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide have increased rapidly over the years and will continue to rise with more developing nations. The group estimates that technology to head off mounting carbon dioxide concentrations would cost about 1 percent of global gross domestic product, and that technology prices will decrease as they become more established. Alain Belda, chairman and CEO of the world’s top aluminum producer Alcoa, made the statement “Of course, addressing climate change involves risks and costs. But much greater is the risk of failing to act.” Global warming and our gas emission problems need to be a top priority before it gets too late. Action must be taken and the government needs to set stricter regulations that limits emissions

~Jeff

NASA mission to understand the Northern and Southern Lights

When I saw this I thought of Amanda and her project about your project the dark skies. Over the weekend NASA launched a Delta II booster that is carrying five probes to study auroral substorms and magnetic energy that causes the formation of northern and southern lights.   Leslie