Six Degrees - Four Degrees of Warming

In this chapter of Six Degrees, Lynas focuses on the affects of a global temperature rise of four degrees Celsius. These include sea level rise due to melting ice sheets and the substantial flooding the displaced peoples this would cause, loss of crop production due to warmer temperatures and the foods shortages related to this, increased drought and heatwaves, the destruction of soil due to desertification and increased precipitation as rainfall rather than snowfall due to higher temperatures, and carbon released into the atmosphere through the melting of permafrost, causing a positive feedback loop contributing further to climate change.

The five main points of this chapter are as follows.

Flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

1. The Antarctic Ice Sheets are vulnerable to collapse which would cause a dramatic rise in sea level. The West Ice Sheet is anchored below sea level, and warming could cause total collapse of this ice sheet, which would quickly overwhelm the world's coastlines. The East Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 50 meters (approximately 165 feet), making the coastlines unrecognizable. Sea levels are predicted to rise at least half a meter (or one and a half feet) through four degrees of warming. Lynas uses the coastal city of Alexandria as a jumping off point, describing that 1.5 million people would be displaced and $35 billion would have to be spent on repairs to just this one city. Places like Bangladesh, Boston, New Jersey, and Shanghai would all be at risk for major flooding and displaced peoples. New York, London, Venice, and other large cities would have to build fortification against flooding, but as we've seen from New Orleans, these do not always work and require huge amounts of money.

2. Agricultural breadbaskets all over the world will be unable to produce a sufficient amount of food. Lynas points to China to illustrate this, projecting that staple crops like rice and corn will drop in production by 40% due to a decrease in river water and an increase in desertification. Western North America, southern Africa, and western South America will face similar problems under a four degree warming. Increased rainfall in the winters will lead to destruction of top soil, which will compound this issue even further.

3. Heatwaves will increase, leading to human casualty and a drastic change in many ecosystems. Large parts of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey will experience an increase in dangerously hot days, similar to the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more 70,000 people. Additionally, Switzerland will have an increase in wildfires and droughts.

4. Weather will change all over the world. The Alps will experience a climate similar to North Africa, with less snowfall and increased glacial melt, causing drought. Snowfall will decrease all over Russia, and as precipitation will come in the form of rain, this will cause major flooding all over the country. Super storms will increase in places like Scotland and Germany, causing damage costs and forcing relocation for millions of people.

5. Melting permafrost and ice will increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. As ice melts in the Arctic, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, it not only causes the destruction of infrastructure and the population decrease of animals, but also releases the approximately 500 billion tons of carbon that is currently permanently frozen underneath. This creates a positive feedback loop, as the increase in greenhouse gases from this melting will only increase the rate of melting and release more greenhouse gases.

Lynas proposes that the changes brought about by four degree warming will likely inevitably lead to five degree warming, which in turn may lead to six degrees all by itself.

That's all for now.

Write to you later.

Danielle K.

Hot, Sour and Breathless: Ocean Under Stress

As part of our project, Joe and I are focusing on the human impact on the planet's oceans. To this end, I found this pdf document through the organization Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification (BIOACID), sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It describes the three major anthropogenic stressors the oceans face, which I thought would be right on track with the topic of our project. The document itself is a six page brochure outlining these stressors, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation, and the combined effects of these.

A graphic showing the change in sea temperature
from 1901 to 2014.

Beginning with ocean warming, the document ties this to the increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere caused by human activities. The increased temperature of the oceans causes less mixing of nutrient rich and nutrient poor water in the warmer ocean, putting the ecosystems there at risk of starvation. Ocean warming also has an effect on the geographic placement of species, forcing cold water fish near to the point of extinction with enough warming, and putting warm water fish where they've never been before, causing an incredible amount of stress for these fish. Warming also harms calcium based organisms, specifically coral, by stressing them to the point of bleaching, which we've spoken about earlier.

Moving to with ocean acidification. The document explains that this is directly caused by increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. When carbon dioxide is absorbed into the ocean, it goes through a series of chemical reactions (which I won't explain here because I don't think I could do the science justice) that increase the acidity of the surface seawater. This will cause problems not only for sea creatures and plants, but for humans as well. Decreased pH in the oceans can harm shellfish, like oysters and mussels, by interfering with their young's ability to develop shells, and even dissolve the shells of adult shellfish. This is bad news for the oceans, as it decreases biodiversity, making it even harder for ecosystems to bounce back from disasters. This also directly affects the approximately 3 billion people worldwide who rely on seafood as their primary source of protein, putting their way of life in jeopardy.

Moving on now to ocean deoxygenation. This area is the least studied of the three, being a relatively new discovery on the part of scientists. Deoxygenation is essentially a reduction in the levels of dissolved oxygen in seawater. This is caused by a few things, but it is mainly related to ocean warming, which decreases the ability of the oceans to absorb oxygen and decreases ocean mixing, which limits oxygen to the deep ocean. Deoxygenation can also be caused by nutrient run-off from fertilizers and pesticides. These products contain chemicals that increase the production of algae beyond the point that a body of water can handle. The algae float on top of the water and absorb any oxygen they can in order to survive, essentially suffocating the life below. Many ocean species are very specialized in terms of the oxygen levels they can tolerate, and a drop in oxygen levels can lead to the decrease or even extinction of many ocean dwelling organisms.  

All three of these effects have yet to be truly studied in tandem, but suffice to say that the combination of these would be, and is now, disastrous to the oceans.

That's all for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Gasland

This weekend I watched a documentary by the name of Gasland. It follows one man, Josh Fox, who lives in Pennsylvania, after he is contacted by a natural gas company to lease his land for drilling and fracking. He knows very little about what he would be getting into, and decides to do some research. He drives cross-country, from his small town in Pennsylvania to Colorado and even Louisiana, and shares the stories of individuals and families affected by fracking.

A visualization of fracking

For those of you that don't know, fracking is the process of injecting fluid deep into the ground (typically around 8,000 feet down) in order to create fissures to release natural gas. One of the problems this creates is that these gas wells often leak into a nearby aquifer or water table, contaminating the local water with natural gas as well as with the chemicals used in fracking fluid. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens, and many of the others have never been disclosed due to laws that protect a fracking company's proprietary material, which, in this case, includes the mixture of chemicals used in fracking. These chemicals can cause health problems for the residents. Fox also interviewed many residents of towns near fracking sites whose water was so contaminated with gas, they could light it on fire. Not only this, but the natural gas, mainly methane, is incredibly prone to explode via a spark from a well pump, or really any spark.

Proponents of fracking say that using gas is better, environmentally, than using coal or other fossil fuels, but this simply is not true. In addition to leaking methane into the water table, fracking can also leak methane into the air, contributing to the greenhouse effect and completely outweighing any benefit fracking may have for the environment. Additionally, the fracking process in highly dependent on water. Each time a well is fracked, it can use up eight million gallons of water, sometimes more. This water has to be transported in tanker trucks, increasing the carbon footprint of this process even more. The water that is not used up in the fracking process comes back up through the well as what is called "produced water", which is contaminated with chemicals and natural gas. This produced water is temporarily kept in large pits, where it is either allowed to evaporate back into the air (chemicals and all), transported to a treatment plant, or injected back into the ground. All of these options have tremendous environmental impact.

I learned all of this from Gasland, and I highly recommend watching it. I will say Fox's voice is a little monotone at times, but the interviews he has are highly informative and really interesting. If you want to learn more, Fox has set up a website for his film, which has in incredible amount of information on fracking.

Thats's all for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Cigarette Butts: Tiny Trash that Piles Up

Joe and I have decided to do our project on littering and pollution and its affect on our environment, especially the oceans. Regarding this, I've found this awesome article from the New York Times that really illustrates the severity of this issue by focusing on one of the main culprits of individual pollution: cigar, cigarettes, and cigarette butts.

The problem begins psychologically. For some reason cigarette butts, unlike other forms of litter,  are different in a smoker's mind. Throwing a cigarette to the ground and crushing it under your heel seems to make more sense in the moment and be more permissible than throwing a plastic bag or a candy wrapper on the ground. The article outlines that this could be remedied if more receptacles for cigarettes were created or if littering laws were better enforced.

Wildlife often ingest discarded cigarette butts,
causing illness and sometimes death.

Besides being a huge eyesore and adding the city maintenance costs, cigarette butt littering is a massive environmental problem. According to the article, cigarette butts make up 28% of all litter that washes up on beaches worldwide. That's huge. Cigarettes contain many chemicals, including nicotine, that are extremely harmful to wildlife. A standard test of a substances' toxicity is to measure how many fish the substance kills within a liter of water. The article cites a study that found one cigarette butt had enough toxins to kill half the minnows in a litter of water in only 96 hours. That's only one cigarette butt. Imagine what the consequences are for the actual amount of cigarette litter that pollute the oceans.

There are some companies trying to combat this, by creating biodegradable cigarette filters. So far, these are not widely distributed if they're even available at all. Stricter laws are being put in place to ban cigarette smoking on beaches and near water, which is a good sign.

Hopefully we'll be able to find some more research on prevenative measures, but that's all for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Ishmael - The End

Final post about Ishmael folks! It is a bittersweet ending for me. On the one hand, I'm sad to be ending this book that we've spent so long on. On the other hand, I'm glad to be moving onto new material. I honestly don't think that I could get through this class if then entire semester was spent on Ishmael.

Anyways, this book begins its ending chapters by interrupting its normal pace of Ishmael talking at the narrator to bring us some plot. Ishmael has vanished and the narrator spends the better part of a chapter hunting him down, finally finding him at a circus. And then, strangely enough, the pair just continue their lessons as usual. Personally, I feel that, as we reach the end of this book, a change is pace was bound to happen. I think it was Quinn's way of making sure we were still paying attention.

Don't be this guy.

Ishmael continues with his lesson, further emphasizing the differences between the Leavers and the Takers.  Quinn writes that "the Takers accumulate knowledge about what works well for things. The Leavers accumulate knowledge about what work well for people." Regarding this, Leavers, Ishmael argues, value the past and evolve from it, figuring out what works well for their people, taking into account where they live and their outlook on the world. Takers, on the other hand, arbitrarily decide what works well for them without a basis in the past, and think this applies to how everyone ought to live. There is no right way to live, as Quinn very clearly illustrates. But, he also argues that living as we do now, putting ourselves above the laws of nature, treating other animals as if they're below us for simply not being human, destroying the Earth through our behaviors and doing little to nothing to fix it is not the right way to go about things. (Side note, if you're interested in the ways we treat animals, check out the documentary Earthlings. It's a bit graphic at times, but I think really worth the watch. Watch the whole thing on YouTube here.)

So, what do we take away from the journey of mind and spirit? Ultimately, I believe we are left with the same fate of the narrator. We have been tasked to teach others what we have learned, just as the narrator has been. And, by time of Ishmael's death, I think the narrator is almost forced to continue teaching, as it is what Ishmael would have wanted. Perhaps this is a bit too optimistic for the overall tone of this book, but I'd like to think that, in the world of this novel, the narrator continues Ishmael's legacy and tells his story.

That's all for now.

Danielle K.

Ishmael - Chapter 9

This is a chapter that revolves heavily around mythology. Ishmael begins the chapter by creating a timeline for the Leavers and then modifying it to fit the Takers. He explains that the agricultural revolution, while it does have a clear beginning, doesn't have an ending point. In fact, it's still going. It's now called the second green revolution. Read more about how that and rice production in Asia here.

The Fall of Man depicted by Jan Brueghel the Elder and
Peter Paul Rubens

Anyways, Ishmael begins to connect the biblical ideas of the origin of man with our mythological ideas. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Ishmael argues, was forbidden from Adam because they feared he would consume the world thinking it was in his rights to do so. Herein lies one of the major problems in our culture. We assume what we're doing is the right things to do. We are deluded, and we think that agriculture and what's come of it is the only correct way to do things, and that this is the only way anyone should do things. With the Takers, there is no preference on how to live; there is one way and that is our way.

Following the Fall of Man, Ishmael states that those who were people representing Abel (the Semites) saw the people representing Cain taking over the land. This became the story of brother killing brother, told now by Takers to Takers, while it was originally told by Leavers for Leavers. We even take dominion over stories, that's how egocentric the Taker culture is. (Side note, I find it really interesting the Quinn chose Ishmael to be the name of his teacher, considering Ishmael was Abraham's first son in the bible who was banished along with his mother. Makes you think about the connections there. Ishmael is still part of Taker culture, he was raised by them, but he is inherently apart from that culture, understanding more of the Leavers.)

Write to you soon.

Danielle K. 

Ishmael - Chapters 5 - 8

Shakespeare is especially fond of fatal flaws. Next time you enjoy
a Shakespearean tragedy, try playing this game of bingo.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming with Ishmael. These few chapters expand on the mythology of "how things came to be this way". Ishmael speaks to the narrator about the idea that humans are fundamentally flawed and therefore incapable of living in harmony with the world. This idea is all over the place, fatal flaws are a key point in most tragedies of antiquity, as well as a lot of modern media. Oedipus is too headstrong and doesn't know when to stop, Macbeth is blinded by his lust for power, Anakin Skywalker is too arrogant an unable to let go of things he cares about, Voldemort is too prideful, incapable of love, and terrified of death, even Elsa from Frozen is frightened of her own powers and therefore herself.

But, as Ishmael argues, there is, in fact, nothing inherently wrong with people. The problem lies in the story we've chosen to enact. It's put us in conflict with the world, made the world our enemy, and now we're heralding victory over the enemy while the world dies in front of us. Speaking of enemies, this is a very human way of looking at things. We are not at war with the planet, we are not embroiled in a feud with the planet, there are no Montagues and Capulets in this story. 

Come on folks, take responsibility.

We live on this planet, just like everything else here. We don't exist above other species, nor do other species exist above one another. For some reason we project the human characteristics of violence onto other animals, calling the owl and the snake enemies when they're just living as they're meant to. For humans, anything that isn't useful to us is completely useless. If we can't eat it, or if it doesn't feed what we eat, we get rid of it. How can we be so presumptuous to define what things on Earth matter and which don't? How completely awful of us. We've made this mess, we need to fix it.

On the bright side, Ishmael is pointing to some solutions. Limiting population growth by evenly distributing resources for example. We produce way more food than we need, but people still go hungry. Read more about that here. 

That's all for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K. 

Walden - Part Two

Back again with Thoreau's Walden.

Here's me (in the middle) under a waterfall in
the Ein Gedi Oasis in Israel.

With this bit of Walden, I have to be honest and say that The Pond in Winter was a bit of a boring affair. Most of it is just Thoreau speaking about measuring the pond and the qualities of ice, which I personally do not find very engaging. However, I think one of my favorite things about this group of readings has to be that they all revolve around water. I, for one, really love water. I've always been a water person. When I was a kid I'd stay in the pool until my lips turned blue. When it rains I still splash in puddles. Rivers and lakes fascinate me. On every trip I've ever been on, there's a picture of me in water.

I think this is why I enjoyed The Ponds. Thoreau goes on for a bit about the color of the water in Walden Pond; it's blue, it's green, black, yellow, "as colorless as an equal quantity of air". I really love how in depth he gets with his description here. I mean, how often in your life do you stop and think about the color of the water? It's fantastic, isn't it?

Anyway, moving onto Spring. I find this section overall to be just wonderful, not only in the diction and description, but also in the ultimate message I think Thoreau's trying to send. He takes great pains in using analogies to describe the coming of Spring, saying that it is "like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age." Thoreau here is alluding to the ancient Greek idea that the gods created order from chaos, much like the creation of Paradise during biblical times, or the Golden Age. He implies, by later quoting Ovid's Metamorphoses, that each person, during their stay in Paradise (the season of Spring) has in them the potential to start anew, to be reborn free of sin. Spring to Thoreau is more than a change in weather, it is a change in life, a renewal.

Also look at this scenery from Metamorphoses. So pretty.

(Sidebar, I am a huge Roman mythology buff. If you haven't read Ovid's Metamorphoses, I'd say you should read it, but really don't. It's actually quite a long read, and a bit dry if I'm honest. Instead, read Mary Zimmerman's play adaptation of the same name. Quite a lot shorter and way more enjoyable in my opinion. Okay, back to Walden.)

It is interesting to note that Thoreau, perhaps counterintuitively, ends his account of Walden in Spring, he doesn't start it there. The rebirth he is describing, instead of pointing to new life, points to a changed one. He brings us, as readers, with him on his journey and then heralds us towards the future of our own lives, and the potential we have to live not only closer to nature, but closer to ourselves.

As Thoreau himself writes, "we can never have enough nature." And I have to say, I agree wholeheartedly.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Walden - Part One

We've already briefly touched on Thoreau earlier this year, but he's always a welcome visitor in my neck of the woods.

It's everyone's favorite
weird-facial-hair-having
philosopher!

We begin our journey to Walden with Where I Lived and What I Lived For, most of which tackles the very mundane matter of Thoreau's attempt to buy a farm or plot of land to live on during his Walden project. Once he does so, he begins to wax philosophical (as is like Thoreau) and he writes perhaps one of my favorite lines in all of Walden.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Here Thoreau answers the "what I lived for" section of the piece. We already know where he lives, this is a very simply and concrete thing; "I live outside of town," or "I live very far from a post office," or "I live near a pond." Answering "what I lived for" comes down to the dissection of this text. 

Thoreau mentions "living deliberately", which can be taken a few ways. First, Thoreau wishes to live independently, away from the prying eyes of society and according to his own decisions. Now, this is not to say that he acts as a misanthrope in his adventures. As we see in The Village, Thoreau often makes trips to the nearby town of Concord and socializes with the townsfolk. In fact, he leaves his possessions unlocked and welcomes all sorts of visitors, only having a volume of Homer stolen from him. He says that theft only exists where "some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough." I mean, this guy gets arrested for not paying taxes and doesn't seem all that upset about it. So clearly Thoreau doesn't harbor a huge amount of ill will towards his fellow man and is not "living deliberately" in an attempt to slight society as a whole. 

Now we need to look deeper into "living deliberately." Because do any of us really do that? Do any of us chose to be brought to life? Do we seek to be brought into existence before we exist? Is that even possible? In that case, why do people say they wish they'd never been born? In Sounds, Thoreau interprets the hooting of an owl as "Oh-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n," and remarks that the owl is vocalizing what humans chose not to. Interesting debate there. (For a more humorous outlook on this question, see this tweet.) It's amazing to me that Thoreau can conjure these existential questions just by recounting his time in the woods. Really makes you wonder about the power of nature, doesn't it?

He does this again with the phrase "the essential facts of life." This could be referencing essential things like eating, which he speaks about in The Bean-Field, but it could also be talking about the purpose of human existence, about the core of the human soul. 

I definitely didn't mean to write about this one sentence for so long, but I just love it so much! 

Write to you soon.

Danielle K. 

Ishmael - Chapter 3 and 4

I've read more of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael this evening and have stumbled onto some very interesting things regarding linguistics I'd like to write about.

How linguists break down our speech

If you don't already know, I'm extremely interested in linguistics and
how they shape the way we think and how they affect our lives. For example, as an English speaker, I physically reference past events and future event differently than a Hebrew speaker, like my aunt who lives in Israel. English is written right to left, creating an association with English speakers to time. Time progresses left to right for an English speakers, left is past and right is present. Look an at English speaker next time you're having a conversation about the past and the future. Notice how they will almost always use their left hand, or gesture to their left to signal past tense and their right hand for future events. A Hebrew speakers does the exact opposite, as Hebrew is written right to left. If my aunt talks about what she had for dinner last night, she'll use her right hand to imply the past. Cool, isn't it? Read more about how linguistics effect how we perceive the world here.

Moving onto Ishmael. In these chapters, Ishmael continues his teachings of our society's creation myth to our narrator. He explains that our creation myth, at this moment in the novel, goes something like this; the world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it. The narrator makes two large epiphanies during this process, both of which involve linguistics. 

He first is taught about how it is part of our creation myth to accept that the world was made for man. He points out that, linguistically, this is ingrained into how we speak. We talk about "our" Earth, "our" environment, "our" forests. Who says it's ours? Don't other animals live there too? Who are we to take it from them? Indeed, who are we to take it from them when most of us don't even live anywhere near a forest?

The second realization comes after Ishmael teaches that man was made to conquer the Earth. The narrator at first don't want to accept this, but then sees that this, too, is integrated into our language. We "conquer" space, we "conquer" the oceans. As if these places need conquering, as if it's our divine right to be in these spaces and to take them over.

Who says any of this is for us?

That's all I've got to say for now.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Eaarth - Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully

McKibben closes out his book Eaarth focusing on three major areas; agriculture, fossil fuels, and the internet.

In this post, I'd like to do a close reading of a paragraph regarding the agriculture side of things. With all the reliance we have on industrialized agriculture, it's no wonder we have a problem (read more about that and monoculture in farming here). This specific paragraph concerns the mentalities associated with large scale agriculture. It reads:

"It's hard not to think we all made a mistake. Because yields were rising, we never took seriously all the warnings. In much the same way that rising house prices lured people into ever deeper debt, the Green Revolution lured us into a kind of ecological debt we're only starting to comprehend."

This image is super cheesy, but I kind of love it.

Something I really enjoyed about this book was McKibben's reliance on the word "we" and "us". Throughout Eaarth, he constantly is addressing the audience collectively. He's creating that very sense of community and connectedness that he speaks about towards the end of this chapter by just choosing to use the word "we". Not "I", not "you", "we". As in together. As in all of us, every single one of us. Because the issues addressed here do effect everyone on the planet. We all live here. 

And not only is he addressing everyone, but he includes himself with the word "we". He's not precluding himself as an all-knowing environmentalist, incapable of harming the Earth. McKibben, by purposely involving himself in this narrative, takes partial responsibility for this new Eaarth. As all of us should. We all live in a society that is dependent on an unsustainable system, and in some way, we all contribute to it. Even if you are an environmental scholar who lives in Vermont. 

Moving onto the rest of this excerpt. McKibben here makes a comparison between monetary debt in association with the housing market and ecological debt in association with global climate change. By making this connection, he offers us a very concrete insight into a sometimes abstract idea. Climate change and the issues associated with it seem invisible until you start to put the pieces together. Likewise, the housing crisis seemed impossible until it happened. McKibben makes it incredibly easy to understand the situation we've gotten ourselves into by using a similar situation for reference.

Finally, the last words of this excerpt "... we're only starting to comprehend." The word choice of comprehend here not only directly imply understanding, but the word comprehend had a hand in the word comprehensive, meaning all encompassing. Not only do the implications of our "ecological debt" exist on a difficult to understand plane, they also exist on a large and literally worldwide plane. They exist for everyone everywhere.

Overally, I really enjoyed this book. I think McKibben does an excellent job laying out the facts in a way that is not overly intellectual, but still gets the severity of the problem across. I like the humor he incorporates throughout, as well as the personal anecdotes, which I think only improve on a really excellent author's voice. I will absolutely recommend this book to everyone I know, because I think everyone should read about extremely important issue. 

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Ishmael - Chapter 1 and 2

Okay, let's get this out of the way. Firstly, I have already read this book in high school. I didn't like it. That being said, I'm hoping this time around that I will have a better opinion of it.

One of the things I recall not liking about this book is the writing style. And unfortunately, this remains true. Quinn has a very pedantic style, quite on purpose I believe. He's clearly teaching us a lesson through the narrator. I mean, the narrator doesn't even have a name, they're meant to stand in for us. And at this point, I don't even like the narrator. They come across as very jaded about something and very selfish as well. Perhaps this is on purpose, but whenever I read the narrator's thoughts or actions, I can't help but think of that guy who sits on the bus next to you having a loud phone conversation and obnoxiously eating potato chips with his mouth open; rude and entitled.

I cannot believe this, but someone made t-shirts. 

I think the thing that really irks me about the style is the characters don't differ in voice. Ishmael and the narrator speak in the same overly-intellectual, superfluous way that is completely unlike how anyone speaks in real life. I'm not demanding completely realistic conversations, but if you're going to format your lesson-for-the-world as a novel, write it like a novel.

Speaking of that, this book is less of a novel and more of a fable at the present moment. We're just meant to accept the fact that the narrator can telepathically communicate with a gorilla. I mean, seriously? Again, I get where he's coming from, but it just rubs me the wrong way.

Also all this talk of Nazi Germany is weirding me out. And yes, I understand that Nazism is something almost everyone is familiar with, and can be an interesting study into the psychology of people (read more about that here) and all that. But, I find the example overused and franklu the way Ishmael almost justifies Hitler's regime unnerves me quite a lot.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not too keen on this book quite yet.

Write to you later.

Danielle K.

Eaarth - Backing Off

I really don't think there's a better title for this chapter than "Backing Off". It just exemplifies exactly what McKibben is talking about, scaling back on our demands, our lifestyles, and taking inventory on what you actually need and where that comes from.

Channel of distribution for your food

I think my favorite part in the chapter, (other than the revolutionary war history lesson, I love that stuff), was the bit about farmer's markets. (Learn more about our local farmer's market here by the way, they open back up in early May.) I love farmer's markets. I mean, fresh food, nice people, usually good weather, what else could you want? McKibben talks about these sort of community building events as essential to changing our mentality about our planet. Fostering relationships within communities not only improves the happiness of those communities, it also allows them to collectively make change for the better. Having a large chain of supply increases the chance for failure, and the size of the chain makes it more likely that the failure will have profound effects. If you buy your strawberries from Russia, or South Korea, or Italy, those strawberries have to be grown, packaged, shipped, and transported to your grocery store from across the ocean. Not only does the increase the energy needed to produce those strawberries, it also allows more things to go wrong in the process. Buying local not only gives your money to local businesses, it also shortens the supply chain. Not to mention that buying locally grown food is a great and healthy way to reduce your carbon footprint. Read more about the benefits of local food here.

I really agree with McKibben, that we need to get away from our "growth is good" and "this is the way we've always done it" mentalities and move to thinking about sustainably living on the planet we've created for ourselves, about maintaining and reducing what we have, and about changing the scale of our relationships.

So go say hi to your neighbor.

Write to you soon.

Danielle K.

Eaarth - High Tide

Well, the topic for today is the second chapter of Bill McKibben's Eaarth, and what issues that were raised concern us. Am I allowed to answer all of them? Seriously, what doesn't McKibben touch on here? Economic instability, major flooding leading to displaced peoples, increased spread of disease, resource wars, crumbling infrastructure, it all concerns me.

I think what I'd like to write about today is epidemiology, or the study of disease, its spread, and also its control. As McKibben mentioned, there's a stark contrast between disease in the global North and disease in the global South. Lower-income countries typically have more deaths in children, as well as more deaths from infectious disease, like malaria or dengue fever, rather than chronic disease, like heart disease. Read more about the differences here. Additionally, the amount of people who die of respiratory infections is significantly higher in low-income countries than in higher-income countries, which can be directly connected to the issue of proper heating and cooling, made even worse by the extreme fluctuations in temperature caused by global climate change.

It's things like this that really make you take a step back and think about how things got this way. In terms of the environment, the more sea levels rise and the more frequent flash floods and other disasters become, the more difficult it is for already poor countries to recover from these issues. This means these countries have less money and resources to spend on healthcare, and access to clean water, both of which affect the spread of disease significantly. Add to this the increase in vector animals like mosquitos because of rising global temperatures, and you've got yourself a perfect storm of crap.

Simply put, I'm concerned, as McKibben is, that these issues will just continue to pile on top of one another until we collapse under the pressure. It's a bleak picture, but one I think we all need to realize and accept if anything's ever going to get better.

Well that was depressing. Here's hoping a more positive chapter is on the way.

Write to you soon!

Danielle K.

Eaarth - A New World

I'm not usually the type of person to be very interested in statistics, but the startling statistics in Bill McKibben's book Eaarth really make me sit up and take notice. He presents the blunt truth that humanity has drastically altered our world. The Earth that used to exist before us is gone. We can never get it back.

The arctic ice melting over time

Just speaking about the carbon levels in the air, the ideal amount that McKibben puts forth is 350 parts per million. But as of 2007, we've past that point by about 40 ppm. Read more about that at 350.org. These carbon levels are wreaking havoc worldwide. Global temperatures are rising, causing ice melt in the poles, raising sea levels, creating droughts and food shortages, acidifying our oceans, and killing animals, just to name a few effects. People in every walk of life are effected, from farmers to businessmen.

Frankly, this is terrifying. McKibben points out that only a few years ago, this issue was primarily spoken about in the future tense, employing rhetoric about future generations and grandchildren to get people to take action. Unfortunately, we've come to realize that this is a problem for now, and it's only going to get worse if we don't do anything.

Our annual average carbon ppm as of 2013.

I'll be the first to say that McKibben's rhetoric is very effective, but as of yet, very few references to solutions have been brought forward. Given I've only read the first chapter of the book, this is to be expected. But a call to action without any steps to take is kind of like leaving water to boil without the intention of making
tea; pretty pointless.

I'm open to continuing this book, (I mean, I kind of have to for this class, but that's beside the point), but right now, all I'm getting out of it is a case of melancholy.

That's all for now, write to you soon!

Danielle K

Thoreau's Walking

Ah, Thoreau. What I can say about Thoreau that hasn't already been said?  Not much, but I'm certainly going to try.

Thoreau in 1854

In the mid-1800s, noted essayist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote a lecture entitled Walking, (which can be found here), which he later delivered ten times. I think I shall begin here, with the nature of the piece. 

When I began reading Walking, I found the tone to be very didactic, almost patronizing at points. I later realized this piece sounded didactic because it is. It's a lecture, intended to be heard, not read. Which is why, I think, the personal anecdotes in this piece are more effective if read though the lens of a lecture. 

One of these personal examples that I particularly connect to is when Thoreau writes about is the idea of one's brain and one's body belonging in different places in nature. Of this, Thoreau says, 

"Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit... The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" 

This is what I wish to write about today. Like Thoreau, I often see people attempting to artificially connect with nature; going out into their yards and breathing the air because they saw it on some early morning talk show. I'm not denying that the benefits of spending time outdoors are huge. In fact, see this article by Michael Hyatt for more on the effect of nature on your health, among other things. I will admit it is admirable that people are even trying to connect more with the outdoors, achieving a true connection with nature is difficult. I agree with Thoreau, in that I do not fully understand the purpose of actively being with nature if people aren't going to appreciate it. 

I think the thing that really gets me going here is that, typically, the people who watches these talk shows and take their advice, are also the people who drive gas-guzzling cars, leave the lights on and the faucets running, and don't bother to recycle. If they truly wanted to connect with nature, they would realize that their actions directly affect what is around them. We are all part of nature, as it is part of us. Don't take things for granted. 

Go out and take a walk.

Danielle K.

The Audit

This evening I read The Audit, a short story by Rachel May, who is a Coordinator of Sustainability Education at Syracuse University. Read more about her here. This story was originally published in an anthology called Winds of Change: Short Stories about Our Climate. You can find the full text of the story here.

A visual representation of environmental footprint by country.

Anyway, moving onto my thoughts. First, let me say that I find this sort of story very interesting, because it seems quite plausible in the near future. There are already many places people can calculate their carbon footprint, or the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds produced by an entity, such as individual person, a group of people, or a company. One of these is through the EPA, and can be found here. Personally, I think it would be a great idea to force people to consume less. An unfortunate truth of our society is that often the only way to make people do things is to use money as an incentive. 

Speaking about the story from an English perspective, it is clear that Bill, the protagonist, is a stand in for us, the audience. At one point, the whole idea of a Global Climate Audit is literally explained for him, and thus for us. I usually don't mind this in fiction, but for some reason it really bothered me here, as if the audience knows nothing about the outdoors. Maybe I just feel this way because we are all environmentally conscious, (why else would we be taking this class?), and I felt it unnecessary to hit me over the head with the beauty of nature.

The one thing this story brought up that I feel I need to speak about is lawns. It opens on our main character mowing his lawn for god's sake. I really don't like lawns as a concept. They're a waste of water and resources, as well as space that could be used for useful things, such as gardening. There is a strange stigma about using your front yard for anything that isn't a lawn for some reason. As Bill says, "These are the suburbs. Everyone's lawn has to look exactly the same." To which his son replies exactly what I was thinking, "That's weird."

A drought resistant lawn in California.

There is a lovely article from the New York Times written in 2013 about some Southwestern cities who pay their citizen's to rip out their wasteful lawns and replace them with plants that require less resources, especially water. If you're interested, you can read it here. 

Anyway, that's it for now. Write to you later!

Danielle K. 

Introduction

Hi there folks! Danielle K here.

Just thought I'd create a small introduction to myself as well as this blog. I'm Danielle, a sophomore at Western Michigan University. I'm studying technical theatre, emphasizing scenic design and technical direction. Basically, I design and build sets for theatre. I'm interested in environmental justice, and am a member of the Chicago Environmental Justice Network.

Here, I'll be posting my thoughts and feelings related to the book Eaarth, by Bill McKibben, as well as the novel Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, and any other things I feel like posting here. I'm excited to share my thoughts with everyone

That's all for now, and write to you soon!

Danielle K