Trio: Paper 1

Hello World

I have always prided myself on my opposition of modern communication trends. I had a phone with buttons until last year. What I mean is that I have never cared much for texting, blogging, or social networking. In my opinion, it is 10x more efficient to pick up a phone and ask someone what they are doing rather than typing out individual sentences.


I believe that our generation, who has grown up with all of these new technologies, is more isolated than ever. We have lost touch with reality. We can’t unplug we are addicted to technology and even though communication is easier than ever, we have never been farther apart. 

This is even more apparent in the youth that has been born in the last 10 yrs. Kids in middle school with iPhones and facebook profiles are losing touch with what it means to be a kid and have face-to-face interaction. My little sister who is in high-school, had to delete her facebook because it was putting too much social pressure on her. When did kids become adults at such a young age. When I was growing up I didn’t get a cell phone until high school, and granted facebook wasn’t around yet but I didn’t have one until I was a senior.


Unfortunately I to have fallen prey to changing times, and have embraced many of these new communication channels, but without the zealotry of the majority of my generation. A Reuters study estimates that 1/3 of US teenagers with mobile phones will send over 100 texts a day, making it the most popular form of communication. What has happened? 

A defining feature of being human is the ability to communicate. It all started hundreds of thousands of years ago when the first homo sapiens realized that putting 5 different pitched grunts in a row allowed them to collectively share emotions, strategies, and thoughts. This is huge. It’s one aspect that separates us from animals. Fast-forward 200,000 years to 2010, the magnificence of human speech has been reduced to a few sentences sent at a time. You think early man could take down a mammoth if they only communicated using short written sentences, I don’t think so.


Venting aside, there is a tremendous benefit to the evolution of communication technology, especially the Internet. It has allowed us to collectively share feelings, thoughts, and ideas on an unprecedented scale regardless of language, creed, or color. This has led us into a truly futuristic age. We can now with a touch of a button learn about Buddhism from a monk in the Himalayas and a second later listen to a speech about chaos theory from a leading mathematician at Cal Tech. Truly amazing.

We have ushered in a time of literally limitless possibilities for self-education, which brings me to my blog.


I love most of the Internet. It has allowed my procrastination to reach new heights. Stumble-upon and Wikipedia time wasting, have emerged as passions of mine. Now instead of only focusing on my major, Environmental Studies, I can spend time learning about neuroscience, psychiatry, music, art the list goes on. It has allowed me to become a well-rounded human being, and I want to share some of what I have found with the rest of the world. Clearly, I have to tighten my focus. Otherwise there will be little to no continuity. 

So, I propose a blog focused primarily on the emergence of new technologies and sciences that will directly benefit future generations by protecting our environment i.e. Alternative energy, biotech, aquaculture etc. Our environment is so unbelievably important to the survival of the human race, not to mention magnificent to behold. It is imperative that we do everything we can to protect and restore it. I hope to show the progress we have made in the last few years and hopefully help to demonstrate that our future is not as bleak as the media often makes it out to be.


Each year I am lucky enough to go fly-fishing on the McCloud River way up in Northern California by Shasta Lake. There is no cell service, no computers, and pristine air. It is just man versus nature. It is the place where I feel the happiest and the least stressed, and can only be described by the word Bliss. 

So, if you have not unplugged in a while, I highly recommend going somewhere wild, it does wonders for the soul. So here we go….


Sincerely,

That Guy

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Profile: A Fellow Greenie

Was it hot today or what? I mean, living in LA is like living in a frying pan, you walk 10 feet out of your house and you are already drenched in sweat. You sit in class and your afraid to take your backpack off because the pretty girl always sits behind you. Which is problematic, due to the large sweat stain that has formed on your back. Then as you descend deeper in your chair, to hide the shame, you think... I need to buy a bike to avoid this humiliation in the future.

What does this have to do with anything? 
Well the US has had one of the hottest summers on record; some might say it’s due to global warming. I personally don’t believe that climate change is the cause but hey I’m no climate scientist. But for the sake of this blog post, lets just say climate change is to blame for the back sweat. So if climate change is the culprit than clearly high levels of green house gas emissions are the means used to inflict such humiliation. Then as you sit in class listening to your professor ramble on about Jane Goodall and her chimps, you open up your computer and start learning about this newfound foe, climate change.

That’s when after hundreds of searches you stumble onto  Bravenewclimate. A blog by Professor Barry Brook the Director of Climate Science at The Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide. You do some quick research, to make sure he is credible and find out that his climate blog ranks 22nd on the list of green blogs on Technorati and has an authority level of 533. Satisfied with your findings, you read on and are pleased to realize that he makes a new post about three times a week and generally has on average about 50 comments after one of his posts. The posts are very descriptive although they definitely are geared towards a more academic audience. As an environmental major, I’m glad that you also stumbled onto this blog, in much the same way as I did.

Bravenewclimate is a blog that  focuses on the fields of alternative energy and climate change. Although this is a purely academic blog, he does a great job making posts that are sometimes science heavy but mostly pretty layman friendly. He succeeds at spelling out the issues we face when dealing with climate change. He offers many case studies on possible solutions to this growing problem. In this post, he does a great job describing the causes and consequences of climate change in a way that is really easy to understand.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/18/ccbasics1/ 

“Just one species – humans – are now the agent of global change. As we develop our modern economies and settlements at a frantic rate, we have caused deforestation and fragmentation of natural habitats, over-hunting of wild species we use for food, chemical pollution of waterways and massive draw-downs of rivers, lakes and groundwater.”

As you can see he really embodies all the causes of climate change in a very straightforward paragraph.

One thing I really enjoyed about his blog, was his passion for nuclear energy as one of the best short-term solutions to climate change. Like him, I think that nuclear energy offers the best solution to climate change in the future due to a. The vastness of our uranium and plutonium resources and b. The efficiency of fission reactions to generate a large amount of energy. However, the media as well as world governments are often intimidated by the use of nuclear energy because of its potential risks i.e. nuclear weapons, meltdowns, and radioactive waste. I will quickly interject, advancements, in safety for nuclear power plants has made them almost foolproof. Here is a great post on nuclear energy.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/25/pb-ahtr/

In this post, he describes the benefits of a new type of reactor, Pebble Reactor, which could potentially give us very low cost nuclear energy.

Mr. Brook's blog is very focused on alternative energy and climate change. I think this will help me in future blog posts, because I will definitely devote a few posts to this subject. However, the purpose of my blog is to not only focus on climate change, but to focus on a whole range of environmental problems from our depleted oceans to deforestation. I hope to share a broader view of the problems facing humans in the future. 


Sincerely,
          
 That Guy

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Voice Post: Skeptics, Alarmists, and Scientists OH MY!

“Should we spend a trillion dollars on space lasers in case of an alien invasion of Earth? Why not, its a hell of a gamble to our children’s future.”

This bold statement was taken from Climate Skeptic. The blog name says it all. This is an environmental blog from the vantage point of a man on the fringe, a climate change skeptic. Climate Skeptic is written by Warren Meyer, who, in his ‘about’ section describes himself in the third person, as if he was not writing the ‘about’ section pertaining to himself. Right off the bat, his voice comes through. He lays out all of his credentials in a simple listed paragraph. He uses his own achievements as a jump off point for his perceived authority on the subject. This gives him an air of arrogance and self-righteousness; however, these characteristics are somewhat subdued in his blog posts, by his use of strong evidence to support his thoughts. . Even just reading a few posts made me reconsider my stance on climate change

The first post I decided to comment on was: Just When I Thought I Had Seen the Worst Possible Peer-Reviewed Climate Work… The title itself is a statement of his voice. This title shows a small part of his voice as a blogger. The use of both irony and sarcasm in the title when referring to his peers, illustrates his perceived separation. He views himself as an objective outsider who is the only one in command of the truth. What I want to call attention to is his use of the ellipse at the end. It really gives a sense that he is sighing, fed up with reviewing poor science. Which leads me to believe that he sees himself as a true scientist, one of the last who follow the governance of the scientific method, the only infallible system to confirm empirical observations.

His discontented view of science is evident in his first sentence where he writes, “Somecrazy-bad science” He is referring to the peer-reviewed article from the title. Using such an informal statement, for such an academic, seems almost out of place. His use of the same part of speech separated by a hyphen is a common theme throughout this post. He goes onto to write, “one’s suspicion-meter is certainly triggered…” The use of this device works to compound the words giving them a more poignant disposition, making them much more descriptive than they would have been standing alone. His departure from formal proper English, I believe, shows his true feelings about bad science. He is sodisheartened by the accuracy of this study that he feels that the best way to exemplify his feelings is by combining words that make up different thoughts and emotions.

Two of the most common literary devices he uses throughout all of his posts are sarcasm and irony. He uses it as a way to separate himself from the rest of the academic community whom he has lost faith in. It also demonstrates his feeling of isolation within this community. He writes phrases like, “flying in the face of broader yield data … found thisamazing approach … how asymmetrical peer review is in climate.” All of these phrases are referring to shortcomings of the peer-reviewed study. They all show his blatant disregard for climate alarmist science. Using the sarcastic metaphor “flying in the face” he conjures an image of something that could have been clearly avoided. “Amazing approach” is a purely sarcastic statement that ridicules the author of the study, by giving sarcastic praise. His use of the word “asymmetrical” when referring to his peers is a play on words. It’s scientific meaning, lopsided or irregular, is used to refer to the views of his peers. Generally his voice is one of a cynic. He uses language to satirize both the views his peers and the science they practice.

The second post I reviewed was entitled Great Academics Go Along With The Pack.

Again, he uses a strong title to project his feelings of isolation from “The Pack.” Using the pack as a metaphor for the science community, in a way, shows a longing to return but not at the price of giving up his ideals. This article discusses the difficulties facing an academic that is not a member of a pack. Generally he focuses on the funding aspect of skeptics vs. alarmists. He uses words like “vilifying skeptics” to make skeptics out to be the victim of this system. The current system in his opinion, rewards those who follow the money. He always uses the word “alarmist” to describe climate change scientists. Giving them a more antagonistic personality, somewhat like the boy who cried wolf.

In probably his strongest statement he writes, “If I really had to discuss incentives, I would argue that prestige and wanting to belong are actually stronger motivations for alarmist scientists, as preaching doom seems to lead to fame while being a skeptic seems to lead to academic shunning.” I believe that this one sentence truly embodies all of his thoughts, fears, and feelings regarding the science community. By using “preaching doom” he uses religious imagery to paint the pack as a fundamentalist religious group. Much the same way, he believes, scientists view skeptics. He feels betrayed, because the alarmists have been lured away from truth by money and a sense of belonging. While he is left to be shunned, alone, just because he stuck to his guns.  

Sincerely,


That Guy