Evaluating Popular vs. Scholarly Presentations of Global Climate Change Essay Example for Free

Evaluating Popular vs. Scholarly Presentations of Global Climate Change Essay There is a very clear distinction in the presentation of material on climate change between the popular and scholarly sources. The popular source tends to present a more emotion-driven content that primarily appeals to a politically motivated side of the issue. For example, the emphasis of the article in the L.A. times emphasize â€Å"an iceless Arctic summer† and â€Å"suffering Polar bears† which gives the impression that climate change is something extremely detrimental. The popular media podcast takes this political route to a higher level, by directly linking these dangers to administrative policies done by government. What is clear about the popular article is that climate change is a very bad thing, what is clear in the subsequent podcast is that there are people responsible for it. What is not so clear though is how apparent the evidences are to these supposed grave detriments. The article attempted to substantiate this initially by citing that half of their models says so without really explaining why half of 15 models saying so is good enough. They even used this opinion from one person saying that You have to fly a lot longer to get to the ice edge than you used to, which is fairly unscientific and not reliable at all. The scholarly article and its subsequent podcast both present hard facts regarding climate change and its possible effects. There is a uniform level of clarity regarding the subtopics that they present backed up by objective data such as charts on carbon emissions vis-à  -vis global warming stats following the same time-span. This presents a clear view of the extent of damage caused by carbon emissions. What is a bit lacking is content on the social relevance of the objective findings, which I don’t think I can expect from the material in the first place since delving into such contexts would already have a subjective inkling. I think the writers/directors of the popular sources aim to make readers sympathetic to their cause and consequently, to their political agenda. On the other hand, the authors/directors of the scholarly journal and podcast aim to present unbiased information which might hopefully spur other researchers into action towards verification or further development of their current work. I think the way global climate change is presented in the popular sources makes us more afraid of the event. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since even the scholarly sources point out that there are significant possible detriments, but being overly afraid because of sensationalized news might not evoke the best thought-of response from the reader/listener. On the other hand, the scholarly sources are not very exciting to read or listen to, which may be a barrier if you’re not really into all the science stuff but you want to learn more about helping the environment. What’s good about popular sources is that they know what people like and how people like to hear news. They can get readers and listeners to be more interested in topics. Scholarly sources although bland in style present the actual facts and objective data that people who might have been social awoken by popular sources might want to look into. In this way, I can see a synergistic aspect between the two models. One danger is causing unnecessary panic, or making people unjustifiably angry against certain entities like the government instead of realizing the problem and working on it. I think directors have to maintain a certain decency of not going overboard with the sensationalism and being as objective as they can be. Perhaps all the scientific journals need is just a bit more style in the presentation, a more layman way of talking about all the scientific details. Also, better visual representation by the use of computer animation may make objective studies a lot easier to sit through and understand. Sources: Zarembo, A. (2007).  Forecast: an iceless Arctic summer. Los Angeles Times.   Mar 16, 2007.  pg.  A.32 Phoenix, G. Lee, J. (2004) Predicting impacts of Arctic climate change: Past lessons and future challenges. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK Scientific podcast. Retrieved April 28, 2007 from: http://www.exploratorium.edu/poles/climate.php Popular media podcast. Retrieved April 28, 2007 from: http://a.abcnews.com/podcast/050726blakemore3.mp3

Edith Wharton Essay -- Literature

Edith Wharton once wrote, â€Å"Life is the saddest thing next to death (Johnson and Zimmerman).† She is also said to have been â€Å"among the first American writers to gain a sense of the world as an evil place (Johnson and Zimmerman).† Edith Newbold Jones was considered to be a â€Å"product of New York City† (Johnson and Zimmerman) and was born on January 24, 1862 (a day she tried to keep secret (â€Å"Edith Wharton Biography† bookrags.com)) in the wealthier side of New York City. It is said that â€Å"her privileged lifestyle lead to many of her finest works (â€Å"Edith Wharton†).† However, even though her last name was Jones, there was a slight suspicion that her tutor growing up was her real father, and Edith believed this (â€Å"Edith Wharton Biography† bookrags.com). The ever-popular term â€Å"Keeping up with the Joneses† is also â€Å"a phrase coined about Edith Wharton’s family (â€Å"Edith Wharton†).† Edith Wharton was born just a few years before the end of the Civil War. When it ended in 1865, many things began to change for everyone, and that was one thing that Wharton’s family strongly disliked—changes (Johnson and Zimmerman). Therefore, in 1866, her family traveled to Europe and visited Italy, Germany, France, and Spain (Johnson and Zimmerman), and this was where â€Å"she spent much of her childhood (Johnson and Zimmerman).† In fact they stayed there for about six years after the war (â€Å"Edith Wharton Biography† Bio.) In 1872, she and her family came back to New York, but they spend their summers away from the city in Newport, Rhode Island. Then in 1873, Walter Pater publishes his â€Å"Studies in the History of the Renaissance (Davis â€Å"Timeline†).† This is an important fact because in her novel The Age of Innocence she writes, â€Å"Newland Archer prided himse... ...053&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w>. Johnson, Doug, and Phoebe Zimmermann. "Edith Wharton, 1862-1937: Wrote Novels of the Young and Innocent in a Dishonest World." voanews.com. Voice of America, 2007. 15 Feb 2012. . Lewis, R.W.B. â€Å"A Writer of Short Stories.† Edith Wharton. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Naipaul, V. S. "A review of 'Of Age and Innocence'." New Statesman 56.1447 (6 Dec. 1958): 827. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 66. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. 27 Feb. 2012. . Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: The Modern Library, 1948, â€Å"A Note on the Author of The Age of Innocence†- 68.

Grizzly Man Essay

Grizzly Man In Grizzly Manï ¼Å'among the controversy stirred by the behavior of Treadwell, the central idea expressed in the film is that the nature is indeed indifferent and man should not cross the borderline between man and nature. Wild animals are not friends of human. Treadwell put all his heart to the cause of protecting the bears. He repeated in his films for many times that he loved them and he was willing to die for them. He tended to anthropomorphize them like many people do to the dogs and cats, but he forgot they were not those tame pets. He touched bears in a way that seemed to irritate them. He maybe had a belief and confidence that the bears also saw him as their friend and treated him differently. But in fact they didn’t. In the narrator’s opinion, â€Å"the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, hostility and murder.† Treadwell spent 13 years with the bears and he thought it was a wonderful and simpler world, he even wanted to become a bear, but in reality it is a hash world. In those big and ferocious bears’ eyes, they see only food and they never regard him as a friend. The narrator tells this observation at the end:†from all the faces, all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discovered no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.† There is an ultimate invisible line between bear and human. The line has been respected by native people and the majority of the public. They know it is a very different world from the one where human lives. â€Å"when you cross the line, you pay the price.† the curator of the Kodiaks Alutiiq Museum mentioned this principle that has been strictly observed for 7000 years. He doesn’t agree with Treadwell’s behavior of staying too intimately with bears. He believes that â€Å"he has crossed the invisible boundary†, that is, the line which has been mentioned above. So even if Treadwell was repeatedly declaring that his main purpose was to protect bears from poachers, he didn’t realize that his behavior was another kind of invasion of their habitat and he was doing a lot of damage to them. He got close to those bears crazily and in un undue way. He violated the reasonable rule of the park that one should maintain at least 100 yards of distance from the bears. He lived with them and tried to make the bears get used to the existence of human, which was very dangerous for bears, and so on. As the narrator says in the movie, the best protection for the animals is that of their habitat. Any action of protecting animals by invading their habitat is not persuasive and of course can’t do any good to them. Like Treadwell, during his 13 years, he didn’t give bears any practical protection except serving them a delicious dinner with his and his girlfriend’s bodies. Life of Pi The view presented in this movie is that human and ferocious animals can co-exist peacefully if human can meet the survival needs of the animals and nature can give human hope and direction to survive. Darwin’s theory—the survival of the fittest, emphasizes the fierce and somewhat ruthless struggle of survival among the species and the individuals. It is indeed true in most cases. But in Life of Pi, it describes a picture of human and animal’s co-existence in a more harmonious way and proves that their struggle and contradiction are not so irreconcilable. In this movie, Pi was taught at his childhood by his father, that the animals, esp, the tiger, etc are not his friends. So at the first of the drift, Pi didn’t intend to co-exist with the tiger. He had had the chance to kill it. But his virtuous nature didn’t allow himself to do so. So he made the final decision to co-exist with this ferocious animal. He supplied the tiger with food and fresh water to survive so that he himself would not become the dinner of it. The threat to each other and the certain kind of peaceful co-existence helped them persevere to be saved at last. Even Pi himself admitt ed that â€Å"the fear of Richard Parker kept me alert. I wouldn’t survive without Richard Parker.† Human actually should be grateful to nature. Nature provides them with the animals living in it and therefore sustains human’s life. In the movie, nature is indifferent by the storm which caused the disaster of the ship’s sink and took away so many people’s lives. But on the other side, during the hopeless drift on the sea, nature also gave them food in the sea. It led him to the island when Pi had already lost his hope for survival, which made him regain the hope for life. Nature gave these seemingly coincidences to make for Pi’s survival from this disaster. Which kind of view do you agree with? Comparing two different views presented in these two movies, the former is more persuasive and reasonable. Handling the relations between human and nature, people should always remember that nature is indeed indifferent and keep a proper distance away from nature, especially the animals. Any human action which interferes with their natural life in an undue way will surely provoke the revenge of nature and pay a price for what they do. Guess of teacher’s view Teacher may agree that nature is indifferent but to some extent human and can get along well with each other unless both of them don’t cross the borderline and do harm to the other. Because America is a country which pays much attention to environment protection. They don’t encourage too much intimacy with nature for they know the ruthless and indifferent nature, so they do a good job in establishing the wildlife reserves. But on the other hand, they love to be close to nature.

Arctic Oil Drilling - 1508 Words

Gas prices are increasing roughly every month or so as a result of the scarcity of oil. Some people just shrug the price increase off and cope with it, but the economic effect is far greater than it first appears. As the price of oil increases, so does the price of all other products that are transported. There is, however, an opportunity for the United States to increase the supply of available crude oil by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The idea of drilling in the Arctic has been controversial and to the present day is still being debated. The United States’ need to determine whether drilling in the Arctic will be a worthwhile consideration, or if there are not sufficient benefits to counteract the harmful†¦show more content†¦(Dickinson) Even with advanced technology at our fingertips, there is the potential for errors which could lead to oil spills. If a spill occurred in this region, the effects could be detrimental to the ocean. Oil and gas industries have plenty of experience and history of preventing oil spills, but they have â€Å"little experience in containing and cleaning up oil spills† (â€Å"Oil†). With the possibility of polluting the water, the plan for Arctic drilling loses the votes of all environmentalists, a group that is not to be trifled with. If authorization to drill in this region relied upon the approval of the environmentalists, it could be nearly impossible because of their strong lobbying power. The drilling is also viewed as a diversion to the country’s real dilemma, which is its disproportionately high rate of oil use. Americans guzzle up over twenty-five percent of the world’s total oil consumption. The United States should be working on making vehicles more fuel efficient so that a gallon of oil goes a long way rather than sucking the earth dry of all its oil. This fact, by itself, is seen as a more pertinent problem on which the country should focus instead of increasing available production. Another reason against the drilling in the Arctic region is that, even if the drilling is approved, there may not be as large yield as expected. All the statistics about how muchShow MoreRelatedThe Arctic Oil Drilling Industry2148 Words   |  9 PagesAbstract The Arctic oil drilling industry can be seen as one of the most driven economic gains and a step ahead for the country to become energy independence. Nonetheless, the price that comes with this gold liquor has shifted the country’s mission to harvest and provide a clean, eco-friendly energy. The continuous drilling processes come with negative impacts towards the areas involved: in this case, The Chukchi Sea, The Beaufort Sea and The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In order to sustainRead MoreArctic National Wildlife Refuge : Drilling For Oil Essay1639 Words   |  7 PagesArctic National Wildlife Refuge Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, commonly referred to as ANWR has been the source of media and political controversy for the last twenty years and has only increased in recent years. President Eisenhower reserved this land in 1960 to preserve and protect the native and diverse plants and wildlife. When oil was discovered in the Prudhoe Bay a determined group consisting of large oil corporations, politicians and locals insisted that explorationRead More Should the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened to Oil Drilling?1544 Words   |  7 PagesDrilling oil in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a serious issue for environmentalists and for the future of the United States. Should the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened to oil drilling? 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