Any guesses about what the question might be?

Click on the link below if you’re interested in finding out what the hell I’m talking about. And happy Friday either way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/us/13flood.html?th&emc=th

A couple of friends of mine made this comedy sketch a year ago. It’s a funny satire on how riduculous the media can be sometimes when dealing with global warming.

Enjoy!

Jamie

In one of my classes today, a student told about a recent student-teaching experience she had, with a girl in her second grade class.  The girl told her that we don’t have to worry about global warming because God wiped out almost everyone once before–the flood that only those on Noah’s ark survived–and then promised he wouldn’t do it again.  I don’t even know if that “promise” is biblically accurate, but she learned it somewhere. . . .Double Ach!  (There’s a old song, I think it’s a “Negro Spiritual,” with a powerful lyric: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time.”  [James Baldwin has a book called The Fire Next Time]).

Yeah, if Monday is good, we could get an earlyish start and be out by 10–Mirsa’s place sounds awfully tempting. . .

LZ

And, I don’t know.  Kids have mixed responses to the issue.  Some of them are like, really?  How can we NOT be influencing the changes in our climate?  Which is good.

But many of them take their science teachers’ word for it….they cling to that.  These teenagers are psyched to hear that their science teachers think it’s a farce because it means they don’t have to change anything about the way they live now, or the way they will have to live in the future….no worries….

At my high school, the global warming crisis has been presented much like it’s been presented at Hofstra, too….like it’s a debate, with two sides.  It’s just messed up because most of our science dept. is telling the kids it’s a lie…while I doubt that most of the science dept is doing that at Hofstra…but…you never know…

It’s disheartening for sure…my students know how I feel about it.  I’m done with political niceties…this is not a debatable topic as far as I’m concerned.  I try to provide as much literature as I can…articles, information, etc.  But it’s really up to them.

And it seems that people’s capacity to deny is that strong.  Because when you go from 70 – 100 degrees in a day…your body reacts, you know?  It’s something felt.  And your body says, wait a minute, something isn’t right about this…I think people that want to pretend that this isn’t happening like to think that these heat waves are just coincidence…denial is that powerful of a thing…

Ok.  I’ve gone on for far too long.  Let’s talk soon, shall we?

Helen

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=288bab84-7076-4b37-8db8-f1ac1e856788
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19759729&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=74969&rfi=6
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/feature?section=weather&id=5777739
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25068375/

These are just a few of the articles (you don’t have to read them) about school closings because of the heat. I simply googled “school closing” and that’s what I found right off the search.

It got me wondering what the teachers say about this. Or the principals. Helen, this one is for you. I already emailed my friend in Jerz who teaches 9th grade social studies. I want to know if the teachers explain that the weather is abnormal and what is happening. I’m just curious and I don’t know the answers.

On my way out to work this morning, my neighbor who has a young daughter said that she offered her daughters preschool an air conditioner. She said that her teachers explain to her that global warming has affected the weather greatly. Her daughter also gets mad when “mommy doesn’t put the plastic in the plastic bin.” This is a good sign that the teachers are explaining this to the young children. I’m wondering about the high schools.

By the way.. the preschool is air conditioned because when they rebuilt in 2001 thought ahead to potential hotter days.

-Jamie

Mirsa, your reading of how the phrase “Third World” places it “far away” is really insightful–I’d never thought of that before. (And it makes we think: “3rd” from what perspective–probably those is this number 3 world experience themselves as “first”. . .)

You’all may have heard that a Climate Change bill was defeated in the Senate yesterday. Not that this was the reason, I think, but there were some environmental groups that opposed the bill, on the grounds that its target greenhouse gas reduction was simply inadequate. This is something to really watch for: it’s pretty clear now that, with either new administration, “something” will be done about global warming–but the real question is whether it will be a Big Enough thing, whether it responds to the actually urgency of the danger or, instead, settles for some “compromise.” (McCain’s proposed goals are just too low; Obama’s seem ok).

I’m pasting in below part of an email I got from a group called “1sky” which details some of this, and has news of a new, more adequate bill being introduced. . .

LZ

Dear LZ,

By now you may have heard that the long-awaited Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act went down in defeat this morning in the U.S. Senate. 1Sky did not support the bill because it would not have met the minimum scientific standards to combat global warming.

Now for some good news: A new bill introduced on Wednesday by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) looks like a more promising alternative. Rep. Markey’s Investing in Climate Action Policy Act, a.k.a. the iCAP bill, is a welcome improvement over Lieberman-Warner. The bill would cut carbon emissions 85% below 1990 levels by 2050, auction 100% of pollution permits by 2020, and invest in green workforce training, among other things.

But as we just witnessed, no bill will have a chance of becoming law unless we continue to demand bold action from our leaders in Washington, D.C.

The image of the people inside the buildings taking pictures of the climbers
really struck me. They are enclosed safely inside the building,(Like Mucho
in the radio station dr. Z). They are separated from the real, the climbers
however are very aware of the “real” and thus following their inner real,
yet what happens to them. Society tries to make them deny their inner real
and “the real”, they are arrested for endangering others and breaking the
laws, graffiti for example! And this is of course what we see on the news,
no scientific facts or evidence to support the climbers or even just
acknowledgment of the fact of their statements. It’s so sad.

Mirsa

I just saw this news report on channel 4 news. It absolutely amazed me. The NBC people were doing their report at the new New York Times building, the one that’s built “green” and happens to be built like an easy to climb lattice. Well, the NBC folk were doing two, count em: two, simultaneous reports from two, count em again: two, sides of the building where TWO (once again) people climbed the building today.

The first: Alain Roberts, aka, the French Spiderman (cuz he’s a really really good climber)(and happens to wear a spiderman costume when he climbs). He made his way up the building at 1140a this morning and hung a banner that said: “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”

Hours later, another man (less talented) climbed the other side of the building in protest of the ignorance of Malaria and the effect on children.

Both got me thinking. The report mentioned NOTHING of global warming or malaria after the facts were presented. They article and the video news report offered only commentary on the climbers and the fact they were arrested and that they commit crimes and how “hard” and “fatiguing” it was to climb this buiding. Both were arrested, Roberts his probably 45th time.

But his statement… The news media are in such a terrible denial the didn’t even report on what he was reporting (ON THE NYTIMES BUILDING)(!). When you think about his statement, you have to think about what he is saying. He is taking into account all the lives lost weekly due to global warming related causes. That means every single week, 3000+ people die from some cause that would not have happened if the earth were not overheating. I’m sure this includes famine, drought, floods, storms, heat, cold, etc…

Because there is no 40 story monster, a la “cloverfield,” called Global Warming, this crisis is NOT scary to the public. Its side effects kill, not the actual name. But in a morbid comparison: AIDs doesn’t kill, the side effects kill: colds, pneumonia, bacterial infections, etc.. because of a decreased immune system. When will the media get it??

Global warming is scary. I don’t care what Zee Mosher, the Buckminster Fuller inked man says (“He’s endangering his own life and the lives of other people.”); We are ALL endangering the lives of other people until we stop global warming.

I just guess NBC and the Times think the climbers themselves are a bigger story.

Sorry for the length, but it struck a cord.

Jamie

This idea is also called “carbon sequestration” (as in a jury. . .).

One has to be careful, of course, about articles in the Times.  This article presents as a given that, since (it assumes) we won’t cut back on burning coal, carbon sequestration is going to have to play an important part of any solution to our emergency. I’ve read a bit about this, and there’s a school of thought that says we shouldn’t be wasting valuable time and resources of this technnology–that the problems it presents in comparison with the possible good it provides doesn’t justify it.  This significant school of thought is excluded by the article.

(One of the problems with sequestration: the “storage” capacity will have to involve a vast system of pipelines, to move the captured carbon to places where the geology will allow “safe” storage–and that the building of this huge infrastructure will require awful lot of energy, which will be supplied by. . . .what?  coal?  As with biofuel, one has to look at the carbon fingerprint not just of the consuming of the fuel (or of the “clean” technology) but also of its production–a sort of cost-benefit view. . .)

That school of thought would say we might be better advised to concentrate on developing ways of generating energy that don’t involve burning fossil fuel, and, of course, on figuring out ways of using/needed less energy to begin with. . .

whee!

LZ

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/business/30coal.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1212148861-3lqilIwMxlwWMY9i6rNlcw

H