Changing Our Thoughts on Climate Change

By Anthony D'Angelo III

Climate change has been the main theme of the first few weeks of our class. We have watched two films and read an assortment of writings about this topic, and each of the works has its own unique way of trying to convey a message while at the same time, tell a story.

Our introduction to this course began with chapter 1 and 2 in Communicating Nature. This text’s style reminds me of any traditional informative writing. The ideas aren’t really written with artistic flow or literary aesthetics, rather they have a sense of order and an almost teaching like approach. The author doesn’t persuade or imply how the reader should interpret. Instead, the information is presented and we the reader are left with the choice of how to receive it. Towards the end of the introduction, the author delivers a wonderful quote that I believe not only sums up the writing style of the book, but many aspects of our class. She writes “These are the on-the-ground conditions.   But what we do with this information and how we communicate about it is another matter. What indeed matters is how we individually and collectively translate what this means, determine the implication for daily life, and agree whether it is acceptable or not. The power and persuasiveness of human communication will then be thoroughly tested."

  

The content of the first few chapters of Communicating Nature is introductory. The Author is clearly introducing the audience to her book and some of the central themes. I thought it very clever of her to include two quotes, one after the other, but undoubtedly placed together for a reason, before the start of chapter 1.

The first quote from President Ronald Reagan states, “If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all."

The second from Wallace Stegner reads “something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed…we need wilderness preserved…the reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it."

I believe these quotes are very symbolic not only in relation to the themes of the following two chapters, but to the discussion of the environment in general.  The quotes relate to chapter one by highlighting the theme of ideology formation, and how different people come to form different ideologies, and relates to chapter two by showing clear examples of these differing environmental beliefs. But in a bigger picture, this idea of bringing different perspectives to a neutral setting and discussing them in hopes of reaching common ground is central to any progressive actions we as a society, and we as a class, will make in bettering our understanding of how to co-exist with the rest of the natural world.

After getting our feet wet with the informative text book readings, we changed gears and watched a well made movie called Earth 2100. I myself had watched the T.V. airings of the story/documentary/ science-fiction production, and found it very interesting and frankly concerning. I thought the style of the movie was very creative. The combination of scientific and scholarly commentary with the graphic novel illustrations was very appealing in my opinion.  In a way, the varying styles of the film helped deliver an important message in a creative, original way. The narrator tells the story, the illustrations give you a foundation of how to imagine the scenarios, and the scientist make it all feel creditable. The science-fiction scenarios make the film interesting, and the scientific factual information drives home the shock value illustrated by the events in the story.  Overall, I thought the movie was fun, informative and fit perfectly in with our discussions.

We watched another movie on our own called Everything’s Cool.  The feeling with this film was drastically different from Earth 2100, but was still interesting and informative in its own way. I couldn’t help but get a sense of sarcasm and frustration in the way the commentary was assembled and produced. Which is fitting, because one of the central themes of the movie was the frustration of some of the very important government officials who were essentially censored from acknowledging the facts associated with global climate change. I like that the movie was partially interviews and partially political commentary about global climate change. However the biggest lesson I took from the film was that it’s not always what is being argued, it’s the very fact that argument in itself serves a purpose. In this case, as long as big oil companies and their fellow government officials on the payroll claim to have an argument, they can stifle the rate at which the real truth can be derived, even if 90% percent or more of scientist believe that global climate change is real and caused by humans. However, it’s that same relentless argument and commentary about climate change that eventually began to sway people towards realizing the truth: climate change is real, and we need to deal with it now.

The theme of scientific truth continued with our assignments past the movies and into a series of articles we read. I thought the article “Global Warming’s Terrible New Math” used two similar tools to the film Earth 2100; shock value and scientific fact.  The use of the polarizing numbers to drive home the realities of the math and science behind climate change is strong. The idea of climate change is large and ambiguous, the idea of the world agreeing to attempt to limit global warming to only 2 degrees C is concrete. We can brainstorm on ideas and theories about climate change and global warming, but this article puts a numerical value to it, and certain people like myself can appreciate that.  The other two numbers, 565 gigatons and 2,795 gigatons, cleverly tie in the impact of failing to maintain the first number (2C) into this eye opening projection. 565 gigatons more carbon released into the environment will cause climate changes beyond the “acceptable” 2 degrees C, and 2,795 is what we already plan on burning. Those numbers are mind boggling and concerning. Poetry and literature can serve one purpose when trying to enlighten people about the environment. I find that these scary numbers are very effective at providing a sense of urgency to the issue at hand.

When looking at the assignments for these first two weeks, it’s clear that we as a class will utilize different literary works to assess ideas and create thought forums for discussion. And I think this is great, because sometimes just a reading or just a movie or just an article isn’t enough to tell the entire story. When we diversify our learning experiences, it helps us realize things we couldn’t see before. So far, we’ve learned what environmental ideology is, what the different types are, and how people’s differing beliefs can lead to different perspectives on important issues, such as climate change.  We’ve seen how different tools and approaches can lead to different results. I look forward to seeing what the next week of class brings.

The article I decided to contribute to our blog (  http://www.livescience.com/11334-top-10-emerging-environmental-technologies.html  ) deals with some of the issues and themes that were evaluated by the movies and articles that discuss climate change and alternative energy solutions. This article highlights ten new emerging technologies or ideologies that will help deal with some of the issues we discussed, such as alternative energy, breaking dependence from fossil fuels, utilizing the ocean and geothermal technology, and so on.  To discuss these issues is one thing, but without having a plan or a solution, what can we really accomplish? We need to both understand the problem and the solution in order to really make a difference.