Climate Change Organization: Ceres

The climate change organization that I decided to research is Ceres, which is a non-profit organization focusing on sustainability and leadership. Ceres was founded 25 years ago by a small group of investors in response to the horrible Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in 1989. Their main goal was to have environmentalists and capitalists come together to form sustainable businesses and ideas that would be long-term and benefit our planet overall. Since the birth of this organization, they have accomplished a great deal when it comes to the business world and sustainability.

Many people know that one of the largest reasons environmentalists are unable to make large moves against the advancement of climate change are big businesses. Many times people focus on the here and now, or the cost of items and how the economy is doing, rather than changing our current set-up to help the planet be a bit better off. Ceres is one of the only organizations that is working towards a strong economy, that is environmentally safe and sustainable. Due to the fact this this organization is only 25 years old, there is great hope that they continue to expand and change our economy to be a green one. 

Contacting this organization is very simple, as a link to their website is provided above. They also supply ways that you as an individual, or a student can support their cause. Any student or school could participate in joining Ceres 1000, which is a group that donates 1,000 dollars a year to this organization. Students could hold environmental fundraisers that both bring in money for this important company, but also help spread knowledge and education through their school and city. Also, Ceres holds events that are targeted towards students, more information about this can be found on this website as well http://sustainability.ceres.org.au/program/student/. 

Overall, this organization is constantly working to help better our environment, and they are more than willing to work with students, schools, small businesses and any other group that would like to help them on this journey. Once again, contacting the company is quite easy and is the best way to receive information about what activities are going on that support Ceres, and that anyone can get involved in. Hopefully this information about this organization will be helpful in figuring out ways to become more involved in this very long process of saving our planet. 

My Future Career and Climate Change

         Currently I plan on continuing down a path to become a Speech Pathologist, or a person who works with and treats patients who have speech and language disorders. My days will be filled with analyzing different types of speech disorders, creating therapy plans to help improve patients speech, and keeping track of old patients and their continuing progress. Unfortunately, this field of study is not directly connected to climate change in any way, shape, or form. Due to the fact that I will be working with a patient on bettering their own personal speech problems, it makes no sense at all to involve climate change. However, thanks to this class, the issue of climate change has become a huge concern of mine and I would like to be able to spread information about it to everyone I meet.So I've come up with some small ways that I will be able to continue to become an advocate for climate change in my professional life as a speech pathologist.

        First off, I can use words related to climate change in the therapy process that my patients will go through. A huge aspect of speech pathology is pronouncing words correctly, and instead of using words like "cupcake" or "chew" (among a ridiculously long list of other words), I can use words like "carbon emissions" and "methane." Yes this concept does seem kind of silly, but it is one of the only ways that I can actually involve climate change awareness into my professions. 

        Another way that i can help submerge my clients into climate change is to have posters and pamphlets around the office that are available to the patients (and their parents if the patient is a child). This allows for a very easy source of information about climate change that are right at these people's hands. Many times patients have to come in once or more a week, for a long period of time to receive proper treatment from a speech pathologist, so it will be very easy to constantly reinforce the importance of climate change. 

     Overall, it is going to be very difficult to continue to discuss and support the issue of climate change when it comes to my career. This however, does NOT mean that I am unable to continue fighting for our planet and being an activist against climate change. This class has properly prepared me with extensive information about the subject, that I can inform others of or alter my own life-style to benefit our Earth as a whole. I plan on participating in community activities and joining organizations that acknowledge climate change and the emergency our population has on its hands.   

Climate Change Game

For this post I would like to discuss my personal experience with online climate change games. To begin, I had absolutely no idea there were so many climate change role play/games available online. The number of games related to the subject of climate change is quite impressive. Also most of these games are free, easy to access and understandable to most people (including children). The game that I took responsibility for was titled the BBC Climate Challenge and was entirely online, and could be played in short time segments.

The basis of this game starts with the player assuming the role of the President of the European Nations, and the task at hand is to stop climate change by the year 2100. The game is set up sort of like an online card game where there are multiple options of what policies to inforce. The cards have rankings based on the supplies they use, the popularity the public has towards them, and the CO2 emissions they release. The game is played in segments of ten years per turn, and five cards (or five policies) can be picked to enforce every turn. The results of each turn are explained in a newspaper like form which are quite fun to read and are very pleasant to look at. The game was set up in a very interactive form, allowing for the player to click on objects to take them to different zones or subjects.

Sadly, I was unable to win or beat the game, due to the fact that I am clearly a terrible leader when it comes to politics. I was constantly voted out of office, due to the fact that I would tend to lean towards the climate change side of things, which most people were not very happy with. Trying to find a balance between what the people want and what the Earth needs was so difficult that I would only make it past a few turns. This game shows the reality of climate change and how politics and the majority of our population affect it greatly. I would for sure recommend this game to anyone who thinks climate change is an easy fix, or anyone who does not fully understand how our actions are increasing climate change and damaging out Earth.   

Dark Life: Young Adult Novel

I chose to read the young adult novel Dark Life by Kat Falls. The story is set in a dystopian society, where people have been forced to live underwater due to extreme climate change. The novel was surprisingly very captivating for me, even though it was originally written for middle school and lower level high school students. Like many young adult novels there is lots of adventure, romance, and social unrest or conflict. I was able to make many connections to novels like the Hunger Games or Divergent, which all take place in the future. However, Dark Life focuses mostly on how climate change can affect the human race, and forever change the way we live.

The story line revolves around a young teen named Ty, who was one the first children to be born underwater, meaning he has never seen land. Ty meets a girl named Gemma who is from the land above, and is on a quest to find her lost brother. This was slightly confusing, because initially I thought all of the land was underwater due to the sea levels rising, which is being caused by global warming. However, it turns out that only most of the land was engulfed by the sea levels, and that there were in fact many humans who still lived “normally” (well to a certain degree. Most of the novel does not focus on the real climate change problem, but the whole reason for there to be these two different societies is from the results of climate change.

          Overall, I found the novel to be very enjoyable and I think it is a great way to keep sliding in climate change issues into children’s reading. The action scenes are described perfectly and allow for a child’s imagination to run wild. Also, when a young teen is reading this, they may realize that the sea levels really are rising, and being forced to live underwater isn’t exactly plausible. There is an element of fantasy and magic in the novel that eliminate the reality of it, however it is still a great way to get children thinking about their own future. The more people we can educate about this major issue the better off our current and future society will be.  

A Friend of the Earth: Post #2

So the last post about the novel A Friend of the Earth did not have lots of details due to the fact that the novel did not arrive on time, resulting in me being unable to read much of it. However, I have now been able to finish the novel and would love to share more information and my opinions about it. My initial post discussed how excited I was for the rest of the novel since the beginning had been so interesting and really grabbed my attention. Well the entire novel held that feeling of excitement and interest while also pulling at my emotional heartstrings a bit.

Lots of the novel focused on climate change and the extremes some people go to for the environment and future of this planet. The main character puts him, people he loves, and strangers in great danger for multiple causes all relating to climate change. Also, the description of the nature in the future compared to the nature in the flashback components of the novel have great contrast that leave a pretty major impact on the reader. While this central theme of the effects humans have had on the climate and the results created from it there is another major theme that runs throughout the novel.

The other theme that is quite prevalent is human connections and personal values. The main character has different relationships with many people, especially a deep connection to his daughter that has some rough turns due to his work as a climate change activist. Also, he has some romantic connections to other women throughout the novel that add a level of adult material, making this book unsuitable to children. Finally, the main character goes through many phases that lead him to have a better understanding of himself as well as other human beings.

Both themes fit together very nicely allowing for a well-written and impactful novel to be created. T.C. Boyle does a wonderful job of describing different settings in different eras, as well as giving the readers an interesting tale of a possible future. I would for sure recommend this novel to any adult, purely for the storyline however, the environmental aspect adds a whole other level. The book does have adult topics and other aspects that are not suitable for a younger audience, however college level and above would benefit greatly by reading it. Anyways, absolutely loved the entire novel, I am greatly interested in reading other novel that T.C. Boyle has written. 

A Friend of the Earth

The Cli-Fi novel I have been reading is A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle. Unfortunately, this novel did not arrive in the timely fashion that I thought it would so I have not had the opportunity to read as much of it as I would like. However, what I have read has been extremely interesting, yet also confusing. From what I have read, it appears that the novel takes place in the future, where the effects of climate change have dramatically hurt the Earth, and also the human race. The number of animals that currently live on Earth have decreased significantly due to the extreme weather patterns created by climate change. This all seems to make a decent amount of sense, but there is a twist.

          Things start to get confusing when a man who works as a caretaker to animals that are still alive on Earth (In protected places, sort of like a mini zoo) has flashbacks to a time when climate change could have been solved. It is revealed that he was once a radical activist about climate change who participated in violent and dramatic crimes to raise awareness of the damages being done to the planet. My mind immediately jumped to the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which a fellow student read earlier in the semester. The violent crimes committed in both novels are shocking to most readers and could result in the death or serious injury of other people.

          So far the book has been very exciting and a great read! I cannot wait to see what else happens throughout this novel. Again, the only really difficult concept to grasp is that the main character has flashbacks and it is not always very clear when those take place. The pace of the novel is decently fast, and can keep any reader interested. Also, the syntax of the novel is easy to understand (minus the flashback parts) and provides the right amount of details. Anyways, I am very excited to read more, and I truly have enjoyed the novel up to this point. 

Solar Storms by Linda Hogan

For my first piece of classic climate change literature I chose to read the novel Solar Storms by Linda Hogan. This novel was published in 1997 and has been a very interesting read so far. The most stand-out aspect of this novel for me was Hogan’s writing style and approach to the subject. She uses great description words to really paint a clear picture of the scene, which is great for keeping a reader like me excited about what will happen next. Also, this book seems to draw some parallels between climate change and humans overall which is quite interesting.

            As I am reading further and further along in this novel it seems that the way the nature is responding to events is similar to that of one of the main characters. Personally, I think this is a great way to help the reader understand more about climate change because it gives a new look on the subject. As awesome as this novel is in many aspects, there are certain parts that were not the most appealing or exciting.

 

            My main disappointment in this novel is that it can be very slow at times. Yes, the language being used and the sentence structure are quite advanced and beautiful, but that does not get points across quickly. I am the kind of person who likes to get the facts and understand everything in as little time as possible. I still greatly admire the writing of Hogan, just wish that in certain areas the novel could pick up a bit and move onto the next component.

Anyway, overall this is a great novel however the target age range is probably a bit higher than that of a high school student. If someone really enjoys deep, descriptive novels, then this one is perfect, especially if you are interested in climate change and looking at different aspects of our climate. So if you are in fact interested in this novel, you can purchase it on Amazon at this link! Also, she has written another novel called Mean Spirit, which I plan on reading in the future! 

Drop in the Ocean Documentary

The documentary “Drop in the Ocean?” (Click on the link to watch the full documentary) was very informational and focused mostly on the effects of climate change on Ireland. I thought this was quite an interesting location to focus on, because it usually is not discussed. Even though most of the video is centered around Ireland there are other topics discussed. For instance, people in politics discussing climate change, people in Africa speaking out about how visible climate change is in their area, and the rising sea levels are also subjects touched upon in this documentary. However, for me, the most interesting aspect of this film is the reactions from the local people of Ireland that they interview to see what people really know about climate change.

            First off, the initial responses from people who live in Ireland are that they always associate climate change with people suffering in Africa and never pay too much attention to it. They honestly feel that they have more important things to focus on in their daily lives because climate change has not directly hurt them. This is the number one issue the globe is facing when it comes to this increasing problem of climate change: people not being well-informed or as concerned as they should be. As the video continues they also interview people living in Africa who are witnessing and feeling the damages climate change is leaving on the planet.

            The people in Africa are finally speaking out about how outraged they are that the actions of the rich countries are harming the land of the poor, and that not much is being done to stop such activities. Many people in Africa finally understand that the droughts they are currently experiencing are being caused by the CO2emissions from motor vehicles and large factories in the United States and other major countries. They are asking, almost begging that people find green forms of energy to use that will not only benefit the people of Africa, but benefit the entire globe.

            Finally, people in Ireland point out the fact that obtaining or using green energy is not done as easily as it is talked about. The cost is so great that many of the locals have no way of changing the form of energy that they currently use. If solar power and wind power were as cheap as other forms of energy it would obviously be used as much as possible. Also, many people are against wind energy because they are uneducated about the actual effects the wind-turbines leave. Ireland is no-where near as large as the United States, yet their emissions are insane and quite damaging. This documentary was very eye-opening and really helped put the damage that we do to the Earth into perspective.  

Comfortably Unaware: What We Choose To Eat Is Killing Us

Comfortably Unaware by Richard Oppenlander was a very eye-opening read for me. The main concept behind this novel is that the foods making up our diets are actually harmful to the environment. Personally, I thought this was a very interesting take on the subject of diets due to the fact that it is not about the health of the person but the health of the environment. When people buy food they usually are not thinking about how it affects the environment. No one realizes the true cost of the items they buy, most specifically food.

The points made by Oppenlander were a bit surprising because it really is a subject that is not usually discussed or thought about regularly. What I found most interesting about this novel was that Oppenlander did more than just state the issue. He went into great detail explaining the problem and a possible solution. Also, he did not just focus on the doom and gloom of the situation, unlike the novel Eaarth.

The most shocking aspect of this novel is how many different things are affected by which foods we chose to purchase and eat. Oppenlander discussed many issues that branched off of global warming and climate change. I was quite surprised to read that the air we breathe (along with a multitude of other things) are greatly affected by the foods we ingest. Once again, a very informational and interesting read that has expanded my current knowledge of climate change. I would deeply recommend this novel to anyone and everyone, so they can be well-informed on this subject.  

For more information about this book and the subjects it discusses, please go watch this short video! http://freefromharm.org/videos/educational-inspiring-talks/video-dr-richard-oppenlander-and-comfortable-unaware/