Climate Change Readings
In the book by Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, she talks about global warming. In the preface of her book she said one think that struck a cord in me. She said that she wants everyone to read the book, “Not only those who follow the latest news about the climate but also those who prefer to skip over it.” It struck a cord in me because I never realize that there are probably a lot of people who believe that if they ignore what it is going on it will go away. I mean global warming signs are everywhere, just read all the examples given in her book, and yet people are still ignoring them. One of the most powerful people in the world ignored them, the President of the United States. When President Bush was elected, I did not really care all that much. I didn’t follow the news about him, what his policies were, or even what he was doing in office. It was because I was young and I couldn’t go anything about it. Now looking back, I wish that I had because I was shocked, when reading the chapters, at what he did in office that dealt with global warming. The main thing that bugged me the most was the fact that the US emits 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases and yet we were doing nothing to stop it or reduce the amount of emissions being released. The rest of the world is trying to help, but the US refuses, according to Chapter 8. I mean even the Soviet Bloc decreased there emission levels after the 1992 Earth Summit, the US did not.
Another thing that surprised me was how long global warming has been studied. From Chapter 2, Kolbert states that has been studied since 1859, by John Tyndall. I happen to like his comparison between a dam and the Earth’s Atmosphere. It was a new way to look at what is usually compared to a greenhouse. I think that both of them work quite well at describing what is going on. Another person that was mentioned was Svante Arrhenius. The think that seemed odd was his quote, “live under a warmer sky.” By the sounds of it, it was if he was happy. Warm refers to nice weather, like a positive. However, the globe warming us is not something that is positive. Konrad Steffen, a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado and director of Swiss Camp, was someone she interviewed about global warming. The stories that Kolbert told about her time there we very vivid and informative. I found that the notation of seeing history in an ice core was strange and interesting as well.
In the other article that we read, Robert Henson’s The Rough Guide to Climate Change, he talks about countries and global warming and how people interact between the two. In the beginning I enjoyed how he talked about how the issue of global warming started to become important during the 1950’s and that it lost its hold until the 1990’s because we had bigger fish to fry during that time. I kind of though that it was only an issue in the 90’s because it started popping up everywhere by that time, not that it was just put on the back-burner. When he brought up how the skeptics and industry fight back, I thought that the quote by William Gray, Colorado State University, was interesting. I remember how the hype was about the Millennium and I am a little upset that he thought that it would be a similar thing. The Millennium was just a rollover of the date, global warming is bigger because it affects everyone and it has a more lasting effect and it will still be an issue 15-20 years done the road. When Henson said, “the alarm bells couldn’t go on ringing forever,” it was a new issue that was brought to my attention. Ever since the start of the 2000’s I feel like global warming or saving the environment has always been somewhere on the news. It seems like now the bells are ringing forever because everyone wants to go green. Just watch the commercials out there now; almost every big name product is going green to save the planet.
Questions:
1. Back when global warming was first being investigated no one really cared, however now everyone does. When did our feelings change about caring?
2. With the glaciers melting/disappearing, are more people traveling to go see the remaining ones?
3. Will people start to lose interest in going green because the bells have been ringing for so long?