Winter Temps

This is the map I was talking about in class. I think that this map is a perfect representation of how climate change is affecting our day-to-day lives. While reading for my Environmental Policy & Politics class, I recently discovered that many people don't believe that climate change has already begun and I feel like this map right here helps to prove it. Yes this winter might be part of a natural weather cycle - but compared against previous years we can use this to determine how our climate is going to change in the next decade or so. I put the link of the website where the map is from below. Let me know what you guys think about this!


http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/03/where-would-winter-temperatures-place-your-city-in-the-us/

An Inconvenient Truth

I am so glad that we watched An Inconvenient Truth. In today's society Global Warming or Global Climate Change or Global Climate Disruption is a highly prevalent issue that was human induced. The majority of citizens in our country are contributors to this global altering problem, yet they don't understand the ramifications of their actions. Global climate disruption as seen through our reading and through the movie is supported by all but a few scientist, yet I don't think that the common man knows all the results of this. Today there is a huge greenwashing campaign, and like we have discussed in class, its the popular choice to be green, but do people really understand what it means to be green and what might happen if we don't change our ways? Look at situations like Hurricane Sandy or the droughts that are plaguing the West. I think everyone needs to know the inconvenient truth that we caused these events and more like it are coming. Everyone needs to understand the ramifications of our actions. I am a huge supporter of public education of this this issue that rapidly changes with new data. Even the data in the movie was inconsistent with today's data and I believe all citizens need to be educated on this issue - and so does our President. He recently released a rollout plan for a new government website that is aimed at presenting climate change data in a visually appealing manner. I highly suggest you read the article from the New York Times that describes the site in detail that I've posted below, as well as the site itself which is also posted.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/us/politics/white-house-to-introduce-climate-data-website.html
climate.data.gov

Responsibility

Class this week got me to really think about responsibility and how it relates to care taking. If stewardship isn't the right word for our relationship with the Earth - I think we need another one. Because of our cognitive ability, we became the care takers of the planet, but I think that that needs to be defined and analyzed. If we look back to the bible the earth was given to Adam and Eve to take care of - is that the same responsibility we have with the Earth today? Or did the responsibility stem from the fact that we use the planet for our own benefit, thus we have to take care of it? Or is it solely because of our cognitive ability? If we need to have a relationship with the planet that is beyond it stemming from humans benefiting from the resources it posses, then I think that we need to define that relationship and give it a label/term. I feel like if stewardship doesn't have all the right connotations, we need to find another word that does. Words are really powerful and perhaps if we could label our relationship, people might have a better chance of understanding why they should care for the planet.