Thursday, August 6, 2009

Waste of A Dream

The thought of being vanished due to global warming is a huge fear that came in to my mind. Society knows that we are destroying the Earth with all of the carbon dioxide emissions we are releasing. A couple of years from now, this will matter tremendously, because the world will collapse due to humans actions. “Peak Oil Survival” talks about the destruction of global warming instead of the past. The discussion I am going to talk about is what’s going to happen when global warming finally goes to its final stage.
In the article “Peak Oil Survival” by Aric Mcbay, Mcbay explains how there is no stoppage of global warming. No matter what kind of technology is being invented, global warming will still occur, and it might even get worse. Acctioring to Aric Mcbay, “Because hybrid or battery-powered cars are more complex to build, use energy-intensive high-tech and lightweight materials, and require more maintenance, they require more energy to build than gas-powered vehicles” (McBay, xii). Since gas powered vehicles are a huge cause of carbon dioxide rising to the atmosphere, hybrid cars are no different harming global warming.
What I thought about the most is my future being crushed down. All my life, I was destined to be a mechanical engineering, but with global warming, there will be future. I can’t even come up with a new invention for vehicles, because no matter what, we still will be under water. In my eyes, I think I will just wait what Mother Nature will have in stored for me, because I am ready to run for my life when global warming goes to its final stage.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Humans Are the Cause of Everything

Among global warming, society does not see how our actions is the answer as to why the world is being destroyed. The article “The Deconstruction of Whiteness” by Carl Anthony demonstrates how white people were taking black people from their homes, and making them work on plantations in the United States of America. What this basically means is that African Americans became slaves, and was owned by white settlers. This led to the African Americans to grow crops, and as a result of that, tobacco became another element that cause global warming. In other words, slavery is the destruction of Earth. Similar to an excerpt from a book called The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, Weisman explains how the world will collapse due to the way society treats the world. Destructive weapons is an example how it affects the global warming, because all of the chemicals that the weapons have such as carbon dioxide is rising to the atmosphere, which is harming earth.
In the article “The Deconstruction of Whiteness”, Carl Anthony shows how what white settlers have done to African Americans. When white settlers took black people from their homes, and made them to do their work such like grow crops, this led to making African Americans into slaves. According to Anthony, “At the point they realized that this one crop was a source of great potential wealth, they looked around for a labor force to cultivate the land.” (Anthony 268). With slavery growing tobacco, this made a huge impact to the world, because millions and millions of people are now addicted to this so called tobacco that slaves grew. With all of the toxic chemicals that tobacco has, this is harming the world, because with tons of people using tobacco, all of the chemicals like ammonia, carbon monoxide, and methane are being raised to the atmosphere. As a result, slavery is a cause of global warming.
In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman illustrates on how the world will start to crash, because of the way that humans are treating the world. One example that shows how society doesn’t care about this world is how people are using these destructive weapons for war. Bombs result in death, sickness, and losses of nature. Society does not see how this is impacting the world, because they are just thinking about winning the war, or taking over a territory.
Throughout the explanations between Carl Anthony, and Alan Weisman, one can see how society does not think about the consequences, yet they see the positive outcomes. In “The Deconstruction of Whiteness”, the white settlers wanted their slaves to keep on growing that single crop, which was tobacco, because the profit of it was increasing yearly. Instead of seeing what these chemicals can do to the world, they just thought about what they are getting out of tobacco. Related to The World Without Us, society isn’t thinking about what war can do to nature. What they see is bombing the enemy, but because of this, all of those bombing are destroying the world in a way that places are being collapsed. It is amazing to me that the world is not going to end in ages, but it will be end by the hands of society.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

You Have No Say

There will be no stop in technology being updated every year. No matter what is the invention, people will want the more updated version than using the older version. Society may buy these technology, but at the end of the day, they don’t even need that technology in there daily lives. I believe the reason why people buy certain things is because they see these commercials, or ads, and that motivates them to buy those certain things. According to a short video called “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard, Annie Leonard explains how “lack of love” is the reason why people buy tons of things that they do not need. This also shows a consumption pattern in society, because if a group has a certain technology, and one person doesn’t have it, that person would feel awkward of not having it, and that will make the person get it. Seeing how “lack of love” is a result of buying tons of things, “The All-Consuming Self” by Allen D. Kanner, Kanner demonstrates advertising is the answer to why people buys updated technology each year. Due to “The Story of Stuff” and “The All-Consuming Self”, society can finally understand why there’s a nonstop of buying certain things that are useless.

In “The Story of Stuff”, Leonard talks about how people can be pressured to buy certain things. In other words, people will have a different vibe on someone if they do not have a specific technology that their friends don’t have. For example, if all of my friends have the new iphone 3G, and I just have the old version of the iphone, my friends will not act the same towards me. This shows lack of love, because since I don’t have the new iphone, my friends aren’t showing me the same love they have for me as a friend. Since I know that they are acting different, this is tempting me to buy the new iphone than staying with the one that I have. As a result, showing less love to someone will make that person think twice on buying something.

In “The All-Consuming Self”, Allen D. Kanner shows how advertising and commercials is the answer to why people keeps on buying technology. According to Christopher Lasch, “…convincing people to buy goods for which they are unaware of any need until the need is forcibly brought to their attention by the mass media.” (Kanner 81) This illustrates that society is brainwashed by the media, and they buy things that they do not use, but because of the media, they believe that they need it. This also motivates society to buy it, because the commercial shows hype to what is being advertised. Among both the article, and the short video, one can see how someone is desired to buy someone, because of the commercials, or the way ones peers are treating them. In my point of view, I believe that there will be no stop to buy certain things that there is no need in an everyday life. People will keep on buying junk, because the media, and people around will convince anyone why you need these things, when u really don’t.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Will Cars be Under Water?

Cruising on the highway with a metallic red Dodge Charger would be the perfect gift for me. I would be pressing the gas that I would wake everyone up in the Bronx with my booming engine. Viewing a close-up of the front bumper of a Charger that Ryan Southen took in the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, I thought about creating my own car once I become an automotive engineer. This photo is interesting to me in the way that cars in general will be forgotten, because of climate change. Not only will the world itself be destroyed, but my future of becoming the best automotive engineer will displaced by climate change. This means that I will no longer wake up early in the morning to the acceleration of Chargers anymore, because it will be under water. This actually fears me because I will no longer drive a GTR Nissan Skyline if climate change still continues in the future. In a way, vehicles are a major key reason as to why there is global warming. With all the carbon dioxide that cars are polluting in the Earth, I see as cars being the bad guys harming earth. To fix this issue, cars should be driven by hybrid engines. This will have a huge decrease of gas being polluted in the atmosphere by cars. If this happens, then there will be a possibility that the Charger in the photo will be not be under water, yet it will still wake me up everyday.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/southen/2412877039/

In Class Blog

The increase of population in the United States has led to a big growth of the usage of technology. Leon Kolankiewicz is a wildlife biologist, and environmental planner who explains the population growth of immigrants in a film clip called “The Impact of Immigration Policy on the Environment”. Kolankiewicz discusses how the increase of immigrants coming to the United States leads an increase of technology being used that has an effect on global warming. I believe that Leon Kolankiewicz belief of global warming connects to Al Gores moral issues in the documentary film called “An Inconvenient Truth”. According to Al Gore, humans are the cause to the effects of greenhouse gases. Leon Kolankiewicz states that it is the population growth that drives the increase in our greenhouse gas emission, which is similar to Mark Maslin belief. With such increase in carbon dioxide, Mark Maslin explains how greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of us humans, and how it is our issues that have caused global warming. I believe in Leon Kolankiewicz case, because immigration has increased tremendously each year in the United States. Two and a half million of immigrants comes to the U.S each year, which shows how the more people is in the United States, the more technology is used. As a result, I believe that the United States should have a law that does not allow anymore immigrants to enter the U.S, due to the increase of carbon dioxide being used by the amount of people in the U.S.

Viewer: "Sprawl City"(http://www.sprawlcity.org/)

Monday, July 20, 2009

Whats really going on in suburbia areas

Throughout the increase of population in the world, it leads to more technology being invented, which results in global warming. Viewing “Sprawl City”, “Radiant City: Suburban Landscape”, and “End of Suburbia: Trailer”, it explains how the amount of people is the answer to global warming. People that lives in places such as the suburbs uses tons of technology, which shows how the factories that are being use affects the world.
From the clip of “Sprawl City”, Leon Kolankiewicz discusses how the increase of immigration affects the environment. Having immigrants coming to the United States of America will impact the U.S by creating more technology. According to Leon Kolankiewicz “population, affluence, and technology equals impact.” This exemplifies how the more people that are being entered in the United States, more technology needs to be invented. Leon Kolankiewicz stated that through the 1960’s through the 1970’s, the populations of the United States have been increasing quickly approximately two and a half million of people go the US each year. I believe that with a large amount of population that have jobs that deals with carbon dioxide affects the world extremely.
Suburban areas also play apart as in why the technologies that are being use effects the world. Andres Duany explains the way that people go to their destination, which is using vehicles. Suburbia area disaggregates places that demands people to use cars to go place to place. In other words, there will be an area that you will only see homes, and other areas that only have jobs, and another area that is only to shop. This disaggregates the elements of daily life, which makes people drive to one place to another. According to Andres Duany video clip Radiant City - "Suburban Landscape", “Traffic injuries and deaths are three times more common in the suburbs than in the inner cities”. With a lot of people living in the suburbs, this connects to how a lot of cars are being in use, which affects global warming.
Gas, oil, and carbon dioxide are examples that are harming the world. Since there is a large amount of people living in the suburbs that use cars to go from place to place, the pollution of gas that is used is harming the world. If there was a decrease of people in the suburbs, or a decrease in areas to go to, suburban areas would not be a place where a lot of situations happen. The result of a lot of people that have cars to go to their destination shows how there is a nonstop increase of air pollution. According to a YouTube mini clip “Radiant City – Commute”, “every year, the average North American driver spends fifty eight hour workdays driving.” What this means is that gas is being released, which causes an accumulation of global warming.

Viewing: “Sprawl City”http://www.sprawlcity.org/

You Tube:“Radiant City: Commuting”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXNb1uifds&feature=channel

YouTube: "Radiant City: Suburban Landscape"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeWCVWZbdo&feature=fvw

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Real Facts

Dear Person,
It is interesting that you believe that humans have nothing to do with the affects of global warming. Knowing the fact that your parent is a CEO for major oil and gas company, it’s humorous that you got brainwashed with such false information. Your mother may have told you that global warming is the natural climate cycle, but according to my facts, you are wrong and I am right. The purpose of this letter is for you to know that global warming is cause by the actions of humans. The reason why human’s action is the cause of global warming is because of the use of carbon dioxide, which is harming the Earth. Carbon dioxide blocks the infrared radiation, which makes the Earth warmer.
According to Mark Maslin in “A Very Short Introductions (Very Short Introductions)”, Maslin shows how the use of carbon dioxide affects the Earth, and how the temperature increases because of it. When gas is polluted due to cars and factories, it is emerges to the atmosphere, which then makes the Earth warm. In graph A based on the ice core data on page 61 on “What do the skeptics say?” by Mark Maslin, carbon dioxide affects the increase of temperature. In other words, when carbon dioxide increases, temperature will also increase. This explains when carbon dioxide is in use; it affects the temperature, which causes climate change.
There are many technologies that people use that result in polluted air, such as gas factories, cars, and oil companies. According to the film “The Climate Change Denial Industry”, Chris Gailus states, “seven hundred million metric tons of total greenhouse gas pumped in to the atmosphere every year.” If this keeps up, Earth will run into many natural disasters. When people use gas, it goes to the atmosphere, which forces the heat to increase. Warmer temperatures will increase the possibilities of future natural disasters.
Natural climate cycle is not the reason why global warming is in effect. If humans did not have anything to do with global warming, then why is there climate change? Humans are the main reason why Mother Nature continues to show anger towards mankind.

Think critically about this issue before choosing sides. I hope you gain knowledge from this letter, because what your mother was telling you before was wrong.

Sincerely
Victor Felipe

Maslin, Mark. Global warming: A Very Short Introductions (Very Short Introductions). New York University Press, USA, 2008
The Climate Change Denial Industry. Dir. k21dsemog. Perf. Chris Gailus, James Hogan, Tim Ball. 2006

Monday, July 13, 2009

My Point Of View Of Nature

Recently, I wasn’t really interested about global warming and what would happen to the world. I didn’t even know much about what was going on with the world till today. After learning how the climate is changing due to the society’s actions, I now think that global warming is a huge issue that the world should worry about. With new technology being invented that deals with gas or factories, global warming frightens me in a way that there is no way to stop climate change from happening. Instead, everyone will now panic in the last minute then they should have thought of thinking about climate change since 1990.
According to Mark Maslin’s book “Your Viewpoint Determines the Future”, before caring about global warming, one of the categories that I best fit in was “Fatalists”. Mark Maslin stated “They are resigned to their fate and everyone else’s, and see no point in trying to change it.” (Maslin 40) The reason why I relate myself to Fatalists ephemeral is because I did not care about the world itself. In other words, I wasn’t interested in what the world would lead to due to the Earth getting warmer yearly. I only cared about my actions, but at the same time, I didn’t care what actions I made that affect the world. I believe that there are others that also don’t care about their actions that affect the world because if they did, there wouldn’t be no climate change happening. As a whole, the world fits in “Nature ephemeral”, which is “fragile, precarious, and unforgiving.” (Maslin 37) With the Earth being torn down yearly by society’s actions, humans believe that their actions are not relating to global warming.
Having changing up my mind about climate change, I now change my thoughts of climate change and fit in the category “Individualists”. Mark Maslin stated that Individualists is “self-made people relatively free from control by others.” I believe that I will now think more on what is going on in the world. Meaning if the world gets affected even more, I see try to avoid those type of actions that affects the world.

Websites

What Manhattan might look like if sea levels continue to rise?
When I saw the image of Manhattan surrounded by water, the first thing that came in to my mind was to have a boat ready when this happens. Although, if Manhattan was really under water, it would be like the image is. Instead, it will be more horrified by having buildings collapsing. Due to people action in society, this image has a high probability of happening because of the use of carbon dioxide going to the atmosphere. Everyone is ignoring the warning of global warming, but when society starts to see the affects of climate change, and try to change their actions, it will be to late, and this image will start to occurred.

Northeast climate impacts
According to the webpage “Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment”, it explains the impacts of climate change in the Northeast. Although NECIA is trying to find answers, they believe that there will still be problems that will happen in the future. This can also be great for research because someone can help or maybe find a way to help by choosing an issue other than the entire problem of climate change.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Affects Of The Atmosphere

Climate change is shifting the world tremendously. When people speak about global warming, there intentions are to speak about gas pollution and carbon dioxide; the cause of global warming. Because of greenhouse gases, climate change, and human activities, the Earth continues to become warmer. According to a documentary film by Davis Guggenheim “The Inconvenient Truth”, starring as Al Gore, Al Gore touches on how climate is changing because of the atmosphere layer being infected. When the suns energy hits the Earth, it warms the Earth for a certain amount of time, but with gas pollution and carbon dioxide in the air, it thickens the layer of the atmosphere. This it traps the heat radiation, causing the heat to go nowhere. Similar to Mark Maslin, Maslin stated that “the greenhouse gases trap and re-emit some of this long-wave radiation, and warm the atmosphere” (Maslin 4). This shows how the greenhouse gases play a role in making the Earth warmer because it is not releasing the atmosphere layer.
Due to the heat being trapped in the atmosphere, the Earth is being affected. With the increase in heat, this causes forest fires to occur. Al Gore stated “2005 was the hottest year.” This exemplifies how the Earths temperature is high, and that many places are being affected by it. Since the Earth is getting warmer, the heat is also melting the glaciers in the oceans. Once the glaciers are completely melted, the sun still hits the water making the water warm, and making it rise. Other than this being a problem to humans, this affects animals. This mainly affects to animals like polar bears because it will be more difficult for them to find a home with all the ice fully gone. This also creates floods and hurricane that can be a problem to places near the ocean. Floods were a result of hurricane occurrences, and an example that happened was Hurricane Katrina. It was such a disaster that it globally made the world aware of the issue at hand and made them advocate for a solution.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Ice Caps Global Warming

Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist for “The New Yorker” has concluded that due to global warming, frozen ices are being melted. One place that Elizabeth Kolbert has visited is the Shishmaref village. People that live in Shishmaref hunted animals with snowmobiles without a problem. Due to the ice being melted, Shishmaref got into some problems which some turned out to a disaster for them.
Elizabeth Kolbert also saw how the climate was changeable every year since 1990. The affect of the weather changing every year is that each year, it seem the hottest year in Shishmaref. Because of carbon dioxide being increased, this had an increase to seven billion metric tons which increased the temperature instead a decrease. As a result of carbon dioxide, between the years of 1990 and 2004, the temperature has been increasing to be the hottest year.
In Shishmaref, there are people that live there to hunt animals such as seals, moose, rabbit, walrus, and birds. The way that they do there hunting is by driving a snowmobile to capture the animals. Later between the fall and spring, the ice of the village started to break up which became a disaster. Because of the ices being broken apart, the hunters are now using their boats to hunt because it was too much of a risk to use their snowmobiles to hunt. There were also houses that were built and what kept them up was the permafrost. This led the houses to sink because since the permafrost was now just water, there was nothing holding the houses up. There was an island called Sarichef which ice was surrounding it. The ice was protecting the village from tornados and waves from the ocean. With it being lowered and broken down, in October 1997, it was attacked by a tornado that destroyed many houses. Later, in October 2001, the village was again destroyed by waves that were about 12 waves. This shows how global warming is affecting cold places. Because of ice being melted, not only it relates to the place, it also relates to the people that live there. As far from the ices being broken down to ice, Elizabeth Kolbert states that in the summer time, the temperature of increasing yearly due to carbon dioxide. In 1990, the temperature reaches to a limit which was called the hottest temperature ever. Now every year was seen as the hottest temperature to be reached in the summer. 1998 was the exact year that the hottest temperature was in. This shows how after 1990, the metric tons has been increasing and that is mainly a result of the temperature being high.
From this, the only way that people will focus on global warming so much is when they first see the affects of it than being warned.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. "The Climate of Man- I." The New Yorker. Copyright 2005, The New Yorker.

Global Warming

Due to the highest level of Carbon dioxide used in the last million years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the sea level will increase around the range of 20cm to 88cm in the year 2100. Because of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide, this is causing the Earth to be warmer than what it should suppose to be. By the year of 2025, five billion people will be contacted with a water stress that puts Earth into a position that the people should be more aware of their actions to the world.