Book Review

"We Are The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery, is a book that explains how the weather in the world works, what global warming is, and what it does to the people and the atmosphere. This book makes the reader understand why global warming is bad, and what will happen to the planet if we don't do anything about it. Flannery gives scientific examples to ensure the reader that global warming is real. The book start off by telling the reader about the worlds atmosphere, and how the earth controls it. From that, he begins to inform the reader about how the atmosphere 's temperature has been changing throughout the life of the earth. I found it to be very interesting that Flannery gives you the information like that. Knowing how the earths atmosphere works, then reading about global warming makes learning about the affects of global warming on the world.  

Tim Flannery was born in Australia, and is a avid environmentalist and global warming activist. He has written many books on global warming and other environmental books. Flannery studied environmental issues, and paleontology. “We Are The Weather Makers” has gotten many high acclaims such as at this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Tim's book on climate change won the top prize claiming book of the year. Critics for the book have been very positive due to this book showing importance and how that if people around the world don't stop then the issues seen now in the world will become greater and major  issues will be caused.

Throughout this book it can not seem to press the issue hard enough about the negative the impacts of global warming are on this world. The other impacts in this book that raise eyebrows are the temperatures of the earth. There are more people on this planet then there were a thousand years ago. The more people that occupy the earth, the bigger the changes in the atmosphere. Global warming is the cause of all the people, the trash that accumulates and the greenhouse gases produced by the population of the world. 

The author of this book goes through each chapter explaining to the reader what happens when something is not done to change the effects on global warming. “ One of the fascinating aspects of oceans and their role as a carbon sink is that they vary in their ability to absorb carbon. The North Atlantic alone-a mere 15 percent of the ocean surface-contains almost a quarter of all the carbon emitted by humans since 1800.” (Flannery 25) Many people don't know that the ocean is such a big place for carbon to be stored. While Flannery describes and proclaims to the reader about the issues with global warming and other environmental issues, he gives ways to lower your carbon footprint on the world. All through the book Flannery, tries to show that global warming can be reversed. The power to make the change is within our current generation. 

Flannery choose to be very persuasive in his writing being pro-environmental along with an activist for global warming. This book is written in third person and is only explaining fact to help persuade the world to strive for change. The author shows the research that he has done in many quotes and has also gotten many of his ideas through the help of research being done today.

Personally, this book helped confirm many of the other assumptions that I have had in my own mind along with backing up some of the other research that I have done throughout the blog. If somebody were to be interested about the environmental topic then this would be a book I would recommend to them. Its full of great facts that not many people would have even thought of without this book. I enjoyed to read that there is still some hope or the world and maybe the world won’t just end in 2012 due to some of he irresponsible people in the world today.



Flannery, Tim F., and Sally M. Walker. We Are the Weather Makers: the History of Climate Change. Somerville, MA: Candlewick, 2009. Print.

"Beyond Global Warming"

Imagine yourself sitting in a inuit village, with your home around you being destroyed. The movie, "Beyond Global Warming" gave a different scientist’s perspective about global warming. People around the world don’t  understand that global warming is changing the planets natural cycles. For instance, the polar ice caps are one of the most affected regions, which is shown in this movie. Scientists go out to the Arctic and complete many tests to show the difference over the years from global warming. Some of the captions of the ships found that the ice over 20 years ago has thinned and become very weak an easy to break when traveling through the ice caps. In Canada, small villages along the coast have been affective. Their fishing habits have been drastically changed because of the temperature changes have been taking affect on the fish because the fishes food has been compromised. The villagers hunting season is now cut in half by global warming. When watching this movie, I expected it to be about the true hard facts of global warming and not the discovery from scientists. When a films name is about a topic that film should keep true and not sway back and forth. The film did not suffice a fair amount of facts. The film focused more on scientists journeys around the ice caps and what they thought about global warming and how to inform the public that the worlds temperature is changing drastically and people all over need to change the way they live to help the world. None of the information was arbitrary which kept this film very factual. 

Global Warming. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. <http://www.careglobalwarming.com/>.

Graph

From the chart that I have found which clearly indicates the earth climate temperature over the past 20,000 years shows that global warming is truly having an effect. Many people have speculations on if the earths temperature is rising, one look at this chart will prove them wrong. In the beginning of time, the world did not have humans living on the land. It had animals, but it didn't cause pollution or the over- production of plastic which causes harsh chemical gases in the air. With all the people on the world, it is hard for the earth to heal itself. The world needs the people who populate it to help fix the issues that are going on all over the world. Ride a bike, reduce, reuse, recycle often ride the bus, this will help fix our earths problems. Curtail your carbon emissions to terminate as much of our carbon footprint.



"Graphs Diagrams of Global Warming and Climate." Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/graphs-diagrams-of-global-warming-and-climate.html>.

Reflection

Thus far its been high flying with lots of strong information mixed with many opinions which I was expecting. This huge topic has been very interesting and I have been able to learn a lot that I didn't know before the class has started researching. After the last couple months,  I figured that I would know all there is about global warming, but I sure have proved myself wrong. There is so much to know about global warming. The issues that have arisen over the years has been devastating. The world population can fix some of what has already been done, but many people don't exactly know what is really going on. Most people base their decisions on global warming by listening to politicians and the news thats causing malign. The process has been going smooth. The blog topics have been very helpful in building up the information so that its easier to understand the massive amounts of information. Overall, learning and reading about global warming has made me want to help the world out by doing everything I can to educate people about it and try to erase some of your carbon footprint. I keep trying not to squander when writing my blogs. Im excited to see what my knowledge grows to by the end of the year.

Controversy on Global Warming

As in all topics and issues around the world there will always be people who have different opinions about certain topics. Global warming is no exception to this. Although the scientific facts are there, some people still believe that this has happened before and that history is repeating again. " Temperatures have been dropping in a wholly unpredicted way over the past year. Last winter, the northern hemisphere saw its greatest snow cover since 1966, which in the northern US states and Canada was dubbed the "winter from hell". This winter looks set to be even worse." said Christopher Booker in 2008. Its facts such as his that make some people think that global warming isn't happening, I know its often hard to know which scientist to trust. There are really only two views that somebody can take in this, either a yes or a no. Scientists in the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) report that over the past 50 years more than 13 000 sq km of sea ice in the Antarctic Peninsula has been lost which indicate the effects are in action. "Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss." says National Geographic scientists who are very acclaimed and also have many other strong reasons to support the problem. These debates will always persuade people in thinking different things. Keeping an open mind and looking at the strong facts will show you the truth. After reading the articles and learning the different sides, the people that don't think its a problem should explain their reasonings to all the animals that have gone extinct from global warming. The animals are becoming extinct due to the loss in habitat from the changing temperatures being found around the world. Many people are arbitrary and need to remember the facts.

 "Global Warming Fast Facts." Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines | National Geographic News. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html>.

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 "Global Warming: Reasons Why It Might Not Actually Exist - Telegraph." Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph Online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph - Telegraph. Web. 07 Nov. 2010. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4029837/Global-warming-Reasons-why-it-might-not-actually-exist.html>.

Survey Reflection

I have had this question in my head for so much time and this seemed like the perfect chance to see if other people around me thought that global warming was truly affecting the world around me. This problem is escalating at a very fast rate. I was expecting the people in our valley to understand that it is a problem and that it is going to affect the way that everything works around the world. When seeing the final numbers, they were a little low but none the less the percent was where it needed to be showing that people understand global warming is affecting our planet. 3-3 voted that they knew global warming is a problem affecting the world today. I think that these numbers are due to the fair amount of news and the attention that scientists are bringing to the table. This will help the cause in trying to reduce our carbon footprint if people understand what they are doing and what is going on. The results were not a surprise for me because I had predicted this from the start and it is a wonderful thing that people are aware of the arising problems that the globe is facing today. If people were not to be so adamant about using cars then something could maybe be done The next steps that I can take is try and inform people about the most major problems that are being created from global warming. Animals and the polar ice caps are just the start of the list and it goes. Maybe if people knew what a large portion of the ecosystem etc. is being destroyed then just then might they try and reduce the amount of emissions they let out into our beautiful blue earth.

National Geographic Article

Full of great acclaim around the world, "I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes." Erma Bombeck. An important factor to find good reliable information in a website about global warming requires a faithful source that can be trusted when researching information. National Geographic is a world renown information source that delivers the public with fascinating facts.  When you scroll through this source you will discover what an amazing amount of information it has to offer. When having to research for global warming, National Geographic will be a place where up to date information can be offered, which can be very useful if your topic is ever-changing with news and opinions. National  Geographic isn't just based on global warming but based on most of the ongoing geographic issues and facts that go on throughout the world. The wide base of information makes this one of the largest sources of information which many people use everyday to find many facts and large amounts of information. I know that when looking for information this will always be around the bend. Make sure to remember National Geographic is very adamant and will never stop telling the truth no matter how unpopular to the public.





 "Global Warming -- National Geographic." Environment Facts, Environment Science, Global Warming, Natural Disasters, Ecosystems, Green Living - National Geographic. Web. 22 Oct. 2010. <http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/?source=NavEnvGlobal>.