Climate Change, An American Zeitgeist
In prior years of writing research projects, I was never fully giving the ability to choose my topic of choice. It was generally an assigned topic or a choice from a list. So if something didn't fully interest me, then it was half-assed or I just didn't do it at all. This time around, I actually had difficulty choosing what topic I wanted to research. In my blog assignment #10, I originally chose to write about why Americans are obsessed with nostalgia and whether it was linked to our country's decline of mental health. Then after a few days I decided to change my topic to another that I was debating to research or not, which you can see in my blog post #11. I ultimately decided to write about climate change being an American zeitgeist because it is something that I am a lot more passionate about and I also thing is it something that isn't talked about enough on a daily basis.
"There's one issue that will define the contours of this country more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate." -Barack Obama.
For more than three decades, our country's climate (along with the rest of the world's) has been changing in a negative way. Winters are slowly disappearing, summer temperatures are, what was once considered a heatwave, the norm. Massive wildfires are engulfing western states, endangered animal list is growing, air and water quality has gone to shit, and sea levels are raising every year due to the melting of the polar ice caps. There is a blatant disregard, even denial, that climate change exists and we're headed towards a dark future if people don't start acting now. People need to start becoming aware that their "small impact" with everyday habits, accumulates into massive influences to the environment. Americans need to start acknowledging these detrimental practices of carelessness and begin changing everyday practices and by creating legislation to start protecting our country, planet, and future. In this multimedia research project, I have gathered and created various speeches, videos, exerts, and other media to give an idea of how important we, as Americans, need to start creating a better planet for ourselves and following generations, otherwise the planet might stop us from having any future.
For more than three decades, our country's climate (along with the rest of the world's) has been changing in a negative way. Winters are slowly disappearing, summer temperatures are, what was once considered a heatwave, the norm. Massive wildfires are engulfing western states, endangered animal list is growing, air and water quality has gone to shit, and sea levels are raising every year due to the melting of the polar ice caps. There is a blatant disregard, even denial, that climate change exists and we're headed towards a dark future if people don't start acting now. People need to start becoming aware that their "small impact" with everyday habits, accumulates into massive influences to the environment. Americans need to start acknowledging these detrimental practices of carelessness and begin changing everyday practices and by creating legislation to start protecting our country, planet, and future. In this multimedia research project, I have gathered and created various speeches, videos, exerts, and other media to give an idea of how important we, as Americans, need to start creating a better planet for ourselves and following generations, otherwise the planet might stop us from having any future.
Eulogy for Mother Earth
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She was gloriously beautiful, yet devastatingly cruel. She conceived life, as well as, death. Her magnitude and power were unmatched by all that surrounded her. She was rare and extraordinary, compared to others like her. She was elegant and natural but was ultimately transformed to be inorganic and lifeless. She was our home. Where an abundance of different organisms thrived, learned, played, and battled. Creating equality for all with strength; we evolved together in her beauty. Over time, we helped shape her, for better or for worse. Carving out her body, we removed roots of her children with our big machinery and replaced them with large factories. Robbing her bloodstream, we emptied her oceans and rivers through our pollution and over-consumption. Slaughtering her children, we butchered our fellow animals all for our own personal profit. Clogging her lungs, we turned the air to a monstrous cloud of chemicals. While we may not be the cause of her demise, we definitely had an impact. We were her children, these places were our homes, and we let her die. As her children, we should have fertilized her gifts so that they could prosper. Yet, we claimed what she gave us for profit. She was a good mother, she gave us everything we needed. But, we were unruly and disobedient children. We took her, and all that she gave us, for granted and now she is gone. Thank you, Earth, for the captivating beauty that you showed us. For the home that you provided us, bountiful in all wonderous aspects. You taught us lessons of gracious kindness and lessons of strong resilience. I will never forget her. YOU must never forget her. So, we say farewell Earth, we miss you dearly. Sincerely, Humankind |
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Here is an exert from WMMR’s Preston & Steve Show, while interviewing Dan Aykroyd on Nov. 13, 2019. He felt the need that he, as a person with influence over others, needed to say something about climate change before his interview concluded on the show.
"Song for a Dying Planet"
by Joe Walsh
Is anyone out there? Does anybody listen or care anymore? We are living on a dying planet, We're killing everything that's alive, And anyone who tries to deny it Wears a tie And gets paid to lie So I wrote these songs for a dying planet, I'm sorry but I'm telling the truth, And for everybody trying to save it These songs are for you, too. Is anyone out there? |
Click to set custom HTML
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Earth's Vital Signs |
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Found Poem
Travel Brochure:
Here is a travel brochure for America in the year 2055 if Americans don’t start changing their personal habits and creating legislation to further protect our world.
Greta Thundberg
This is a transcript for the video above of Greta Thundberg's speech that she gave when she addresses the U.N.'s climate change action summit in New York on September 21, 2009.
"My message is that we'll be watching you.
"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!
"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
"For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
"The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.
"Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.
"So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.
"To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.
"How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.
"There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.
"You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.
"We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.
"Thank you."
"This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!
"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
"For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
"You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.
"The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.
"Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.
"So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.
"To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.
"How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years.
"There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.
"You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.
"We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.
"Thank you."
Here are the crossword answers.
What Can You Do About Climate Change?
As told by Forbes
“1. Become a vegetarian, or better yet a vegan. The share of greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture is usually pegged at 14.5 percent to 18 percent...
2. Eat organic when you can...
3. Buy local when you can. I’m not talking about patronizing mom and pop stores, although that may have its own merit; I’m talking about buying locally-manufactured products made with locally-sourced materials...
4. Live in the climate. The biggest residential demand on our dirty energy system is climate control—home heating and cooling. We travel from our air conditioned homes to our air conditioned workplaces in air conditioned cars...
5. Line dry your clothes...
6. Vote with your feet. Every time you drive a car, you vote for the car. Every time you ride a bike, you vote for the bike...
7. If you have children, don’t use them as an excuse to wage war on their environment. “I have children, therefore I must buy meat,” goes the thinking. “I have children, therefore I must drive a car.”...
8. Reduce and reuse before recycle...
9. Offset your carbon emissions. After we’ve done everything above, we’ll still be responsible for some unavoidable emissions until our society cleans up its act...”
2. Eat organic when you can...
3. Buy local when you can. I’m not talking about patronizing mom and pop stores, although that may have its own merit; I’m talking about buying locally-manufactured products made with locally-sourced materials...
4. Live in the climate. The biggest residential demand on our dirty energy system is climate control—home heating and cooling. We travel from our air conditioned homes to our air conditioned workplaces in air conditioned cars...
5. Line dry your clothes...
6. Vote with your feet. Every time you drive a car, you vote for the car. Every time you ride a bike, you vote for the bike...
7. If you have children, don’t use them as an excuse to wage war on their environment. “I have children, therefore I must buy meat,” goes the thinking. “I have children, therefore I must drive a car.”...
8. Reduce and reuse before recycle...
9. Offset your carbon emissions. After we’ve done everything above, we’ll still be responsible for some unavoidable emissions until our society cleans up its act...”
Websites for more information about climate change and our it effects all of us.
Click here if you want to learn what you can do to help prevent further climate change.
Drafts
Here I will post drafts of my research project.
Here I will post drafts of my research project.
- Title, Draft #1
- Title, Draft #2