Blog Post #9 (Due Sunday 02 May 11:59 PM): '2 X 2' responses to the Poster Projects

Let's look back at the Poster Presentations, link a couple together in some interesting ways and use some of the terms / concepts from our work to do it. We're calling this a '2 X 2' project: TWO posters, TWO concepts or terms, and as interestingly dense a linking as you can get.

I'm currently focused on the spatially-opposed 'Addictions' and 'Prisons' projects from Thursday--really intimately related in being so filled with ideology that the science is totally eclipsed and colonized. I heard Puritanism / esceticism everywhere—as we reject, fear and punish our pleasure-seeking bodies. Saw bunches of 'black boxes' sealed up because we really seem to want to impose ideology regardless of the facts. 'Crime is genetic. 'Crime is immoral and willful.' 'Crime is sinful.' 'Drunks are selfish.' 'Addicts are sick.' Yikes!, there's a field day here—theory and material.

Go for it. Make sure that we all find ourselves clearer on our common topics and ideas, and seeing things in the Poster Projects that we may have missed after we read your posts.

stationary helicopters!

BREAKING NEWS: a helicopter floats by moving only its rear propeller! miraculous video!

Private Practice

A great example of the designer babies debate being played out in pop culture is on the ABC prime time show Private Practice. One of the most controversial episodes is when one of the Doctors is asked to design a midget baby for a couple. I highly recommend watching it if you have the time:

Go to www.ch131.com

under "TV Shows" select "Private Practice"

The show is in Season 3 and it is titled "Slip Slidin' Away"

amazing statistics, both in content and presentation

This guy knows how to sell an apathetic audience some truly spectacular-looking statistics. Official description: "You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world." The way Hans Rosling visualizes his data overwhelmingly succeeds in getting the public caring about and interested in science. It's deeply engaging, and honestly pretty trippy.

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen

CSCL 3331 in 15 minutes

Michael Specter

The Swindle

The Great Global Warming Swindle

So, I used to be one of those people who worked for the Sierra Club, going door to door asking for donations to help curb global warming. My father and I were both intensely reading An Inconvenient Truth when it first came out. I was very adamant about recycling, energy conservation and "going green."

Now, there's nothing wrong with all of this. Nothing at all. It's good to be a conscientious citizen, I think, even if your good intentions are misguided.

I don't know if I made it apparent or not in my presentation of scare tactics that I'm quite skeptical of the whole man-made global warming idea. That's not to say that I don't think that the globe is warming--because it is, we've seen this happening in the past--but I also believe that it is cooling. I mean, if we look back to the 1970's, global cooling was the "threat". The world is its own monster, and there are things far greater than us causing what we see as a "catastrophic" global climate change.

The piece of science that I wish I could have shown to the class is a British documentary that is pretty controversial because it totally debunks the whole notion of a man-made catastrophe, and it has scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who are skeptical of the whole idea, even scientists who are a part of the IPCC (intergovernmental panel of climate change), a group that "assesses the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change." Now, I'm definitely not a scientist. Definitely not. Im just trying to find my place in all of this, and perhaps I'm the one being misguided by anti-human induced global warming, but this stuff just looks too convincing for me to look it over.

A couple of things I found really shocking, but quite revealing, were things like sunspots controlling climate change, volcanoes, the oceans and animals producing more CO2 than humans, and the fact that, through historic data that these scientists have been able to reconstruct using ice samples, over the life of the planet, temperatures have risen BEFORE CO2 levels rose. BEFORE, not after, like everyone is trying to say. The most interesting thing I found was that sunspots and global temperatures have an extremely intimate correlation; historically, as the number of sunspots rose, temperatures on earth rose. Duhh, people. Let's think about this. Solar activity causing changes on earth? Of course! Sunspots and solar flares and magnetic fields, in my mind, would have a FAR greater effect on our Earth than some plastic bags or taking a trip down south in your Bentley Arnage.

Yet another thing about the sun: you know how in the summer, it's usually a lot hotter if there aren't any clouds, right? Of course, there's no protection from the sun at that point. As sun flares and magnetic fields rage, solar winds push all the particles that would usually be entering our earth out of the way, like a great wind in the fall where leaves are being tossed and turned all around. These particles are the ones which would help to form clouds in our atmosphere. Without them, less clouds, more heat.

I've had a lot of problems with the media and their ways of scaring, manipulating and influencing our ideas about the way that things really are. So, forgive me if I'm railing too hard against the global warming activists. I just don't think we have as much to worry about at we believe we do.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647#

and a few other things just for laughs; i mentioned these in class, but just in case anyone forgot...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arbpu1xKAow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DX3lZ8peBU

What does Osama think?

So i just read the worst thing I've ever seen on the internet. The sight is called globalwarminghoax.com I guess i thought it was too good to pass up. Here's the article:

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/comment.php?comment.news.131

It's supposed to be this interview with Osama Bin Laden regarding global warming. The writer almost had me going for a while (seriously) but then it got pretty ridiculous. Anyways, the bit had hardly any science in it at all, but I found it extremely interesting how the writer took everything he disagreed with and made it come out of Bin Laden's mouth. He made the man that all of America recognizes as irrationally evil and made him claim that Global Warming is true and it's the U.S.'s fault.

I find it incredibly interesting that in the middle of this Global Warming War we loose any dignity or science at all and turn it into something this absurd. The article is obviously a joke, but the strategy used is very real. If Bin Laden believes it of course I'm gonna disagree, and he's blaming America on top of it?! Well, clearly he's wrong. Global Warming can't be real. Crichton does the same in his book. He makes these huge evil corporations be the advocators of Global Warming.

When raw science (or even made up science) has become boring and no one really cares about it (or believes it) we take a new approach. I guess people are just cool with believing these crazy stories now. These authors are just manipulating audiences and changing their perspectives. There is a truth there somewhere, we are just showing it through a different, and maybe distorted, view. It's like when you have completely different seeing devices saying different things for the same experiment.

Honestly though, everyone's doing it. Yeah maybe this dude online thought it was a funny article but really...audience perspective? Crichton did it, Al Gore did it, Copenhagen did it, Congress is doing it, and we do it when we put up a post. Why wouldn't we? Who would want to diminish their argument with a perspective that is fully un-biased?

crichton's internet reading material

Alex Jones is someone I'd refer to as a radical character, in that his fervor against the state is either honestly passionate, or a really good act. He and his peeps at InfoWars have railed against the theory of climate change for god knows how long. He claims instead as does Crichton that what the government is doing is fanning "public hysteria over climate change" so that the world at large will accepting more control over their lives. On his website is a review by PJ Watson of some guy Daniel Taylor and his "excellent article" entitled "Global warming hysteria serves as excuse for world government" -- this was an important article to analyze as this is exactly what I feel Dr Crichton, Esq. believes about climate change.

Watson writes that the then-future-PM of the UK Gordon Brown had been on record as admitting there would be no way to stop such a thing as Global Warming save for creating a New World Order. The fear of a foreign threat is indeed an effective way to get people to sacrifice bits and pieces of their freedom, and who has the authority to say who/what an entire nation should be afraid of -- and the ability to make propaganda about it -- other than the state?

I start out wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I got curious (could Brown really have said NWO...?) I followed that link back to its source, Taylor's article, on PrisonPlanet (another Alex Jones website). No direct quote; just "Brown said recently that a 'NWO' ..." Since I can't find it anywhere on Google either, and I'm sure many readers don't take the time to check their favorite site's sources this half-truth is probably good enough as truth for most people, and will be enough to convince and to frighten.

Second-to-last paragraph starts insulting those deluded "elitists" who buy into the scam that is global warming, and gladly "cough up more tax money". Mr Watson is hoping you're with him by this point (which you probably are if you've made it to the bottom) and after all the supposed "facts" that you've been presented with thus far have whipped you into a furied frenzy, these fightin' words give you a vision of an enemy to be pissed off at and annoyed by -- basically here is the object for your own mild Two Minutes Hate.

Ends with: "This is a fraud conceived, nurtured and promulgated by elite, and to castigate individuals for merely questioning the motives behind climate change fearmongering by accusing them of being mouthpieces for the establishment is a complete reversal of the truth." Quite the amount of words. While he's right, you can't debunk the claim that global warming is bunk by making ad hominem attacks, I don't know that he needs to play the victim card so strongly. A paragraph earlier he links the public perception of global warming deniers with that of Holocaust deniers.

Each "source" link I clicked on got worse and worse. At one point I was reading about Dr Doom who speaks eyes shining about the future, where only ten percent of humanity will remain standing after the ebola virus is unleashed upon the planet or something. So this side is just as bad in terms of propaganda as are the "elite" supposedly in charge of trying to take over the planet. I think eventually you just have to stop and decide to believe someone, lest you begin to feel like you're in a political game of ping pong. The "global warming deniers" are just hoping to convince you that their side (pro-freedom, pro-propaganda, pro-questionable sourcing) is the one who's got your best interests at heart.

"Please Help the World"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzSuP_TMFtk

Organizations and people for global warming tend to play into people's fears and emotions to try and convince them that global warming is real. I thought that this video, shown at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December, was a great example of how fear and emotion is very much tied into global warming. The use of a child as the center of this video is a wonderful way to key into the fear and get people to do something about this crisis, because who wouldn't be affected by little children telling you to save the world (especially at the end of the video with all the children from various countries telling the audience in sad, yet hopeful, voices to "Please help save the world")? At the beginning of the video, the little girl is watching all the disasters that are overtaking the TV, showing what global warming is doing to the world and that it is our fault (it also says that few do not believe that humans are causing global warming-- so why wouldn't people believe in it if everyone else does?) The video is scary and disturbing which makes people want to stand up and do something to save the world. The little girl losing her cute little polar bear stuffed animal to the deteriorating earth as a dark ominous cloud is cast upon her, the powerful music playing in the background, the world falling apart and being eaten up by storms all help to make a powerful impact on the audience. The video ends on a strong note with various people from different countries talking about what global warming is doing and how the world will be affected if we do not act now and help to stop global warming. Propaganda is a strong way to get a point across and what better way than tracing it with fear and emotional content?

Nowhere, Alaska

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/business/energy-environment/27lawsuits.html

I chose an article from the Science section of the New York Times website, written by one John Schwartz. It is about an island village in Alaska that is trying to sue some two dozen fuel and utility companies into paying the village's expenses of moving to the mainland. These companies are big producers of heat-trapping gases, and as a result of having them on the island, the sea ice is no longer building up to "protect the town's fragile coast." What it is really about though, is how people are tired of the inaction of legislative bodies when it comes to climate issues, and so are seeking the court room as a battle ground.

The article goes on, many times comparing the Kivalina (the village) lawsuit to the early stages of tobacco industry regulation. Apparently the same thing happened:

Michael B. Gerrard, a professor at Columbia University law school and director of its Center for Climate Change Law, said the first efforts to sue tobacco companies had appeared to be weak as well.

“They lost the first cases; they kept on trying new theories,” Mr. Gerrard said, “and eventually won big.”

This is an interesting parallel Schwartz is drawing here. Obviously we all now know that tobacco is generally bad, it causes cancer, inhibits fetal development, kids should definitely not do it, and so on. This was not common sense until the mid-1990's, when several states sued the tobacco industry, and through litigation, memos were discovered proving that the industry had in fact known about things like the addictive quality of nicotine, and of the cancer-causing effects of the carcinogens in their product. Though not even most of the cases against the tobacco companies were successful, they definitely raised awareness and caused some stricter legislation to be passed that governs tobacco use.

The article states that if the climate change lawsuits "even get to the discovery stage," this could mean potentially exposing these fuel and utility companies, just like those lawsuits against the tobacco industry exposed internal memos belying their full knowledge of what was going on.

What this article suggests is that the industries have something to hide. It is clearly demonizing the fuel and utility companies, comparing them to a well-established demon in our society, Big Tobacco. My first response when reading this article is to think: "What if they do have something to hide?"

The American Justice Partnership, a business-oriented group that is critical of the plaintiffs’ bar, argued in a 2008 report that the conspiracy accusations made the Kivalina case “the most dangerous litigation in America.”

The case could stifle debate over climate-change issues, the report stated, and increase “the threat of being named as a defendant or co-conspirator subject to invasive and costly inquiry.”

What are they so worried about? So some 400-person village in Bum-F-Nowhere, Alaska, is trying to sue some companies who are probably destroying their island, and this group is worried about the multi-million (multi-billion?) dollar companies who might have to give them a part of the truth as a concession? "Most dangerous litigation in America"? Holy crap. This sounds like the businessmen are afraid of the villagepeople carrying pitchforks and torches. To me this quote makes it sounds like Industry knows what's goin' on, and the commonfolk should just mind their own and leave it to the big kids.

I'm sure, though, that things dealing with laws and court rulings are way too complicated to sum up as I just did. I don't even know what I mean to say about that junk. What is obvious to me, after going through this article, is that the NYTimes, at least in this particular instance, is not objectively reporting. Though throughout there are comments and quotes from both sides, the recurring theme is the comparison with tobacco companies. Calling upon history like that, especially such an intense history as that of Big Tobacco, stirs some feelings in a reader. And who knows if that's how these climate change cases are even going to turn out? The writer of the article doesn't reference any scientific research regarding the issue, which may shed light on (or as we have discovered, confuse...) what the real discussions in the court are going to be like, and also on whether or not these suits are even a real "problem"; instead he uses quotes from people (cherry-picked?), and the ominous comparison of the fuel and utility industries to the tobacco industry.

Skeptics of Skeptics

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

The above site is one that was posted on Moodle called Skeptical Science. On that linked page, 105 popular arguments are laid out and then refuted by science, graphs, and cited papers. Some of the arguments I recognized as ones in Crichton's book, like increasing Antarctic ice, decreasing sea-levels, and cooling temperatures. Some I've heard in real life, like "Its freaking cold!", which argues that record lows and snowfall in current times are a clear indicator that global warming can't be happening. What makes this page of arguments against arguments tick is that it painstakingly covers the three biggest claims against global warming: 1, its not happening; 2, its not us; and 3, its not bad.

The most interesting argument, to me, was that Antarctic ice is increasing. While this is true, the site argues, its important to realize the difference between the decreasing land ice and increasing sea ice. Other arguments on the site were also based on differences like these that non-scientists or researchers wouldn't realize. Instead, people latch on to facts that are out of context in order to defend/destroy an argument. Thus, a person's knowledge has become a collections of buzzwords and statements. The Skeptical Science page did a good job recognizing those buzzwords and their compilation attacks from that angle.

Personal or Apolitical?

When I read the article on the website regarding answers to key questions raised by Crichton, I was indifferent. It's stated that his views go on to warn about the danger of politicizing science, arguing (citing Eugenics as a case in point) that the insertion of subjective values into science corrupts the scientific process leading to bad policy decisons. Instead, all values should be eliminated from scientific endeavors, scientists should be dispassionate, objective analysts and suppress the temptation to use science to advocate for or against certain policies or actions. I believe that there is some truth to his opinion. Everyone, scientist or not, possesses their own values and passions, whether it be from nature or nurture. These values are always going to permeate through when one is stating their oppinion or devloping a policy. It's part of who you are, it's your identity. In order for science to be "true" science, it seems as though they would have to literally find an individual from another planet, who hasn't been subjected to our cultural myths and specifications.

As far as activists with ulterior motives, I don't necessarily believe that money is their main or only interest. I feel as though they have been subjected and kind of jumped on the wagon because it seems like the "right" or noble things to do. But just like the "black boxes," do they really know about global warming and how it's affecting our environment? Do they really do EVERYTHING greener? I think that they may have good intentions, but the purpose gets lost in the glitz and propaganda. They hear so much about global warming, and immediately side against it, without really knowing the true causation or if we can even solve the problem through behavior modification. I'm sure there are preventative steps that can be taken, but is it enough to really make a difference or is it inevitable?

Global Warming is Ruining Science... At Least for Me

Before this class, I never really looked into the controversy of global warming. I thought that it was occurring and scientists were trying to come up with ideas, and methods to fix it. However, I did not realize how much politics plays a role in the controversy. In this article a New York Times reporter, Andrew Revkin, who was steadfast in his belief that global warming was in fact occuring, was threatened with a big "cutoff" when he added a joke about the Copenhagen Climate Summit in his article. Revkin recieved harsh criticisms because of this joke, but what really sparked this threaten of a "cutoff" was when Revkin relayed the words of others that criticize the close relationships between climate scientists and liberal advocacy groups. In response, Michael Schlesinger sent an email to Revkin saying, "I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included."
Revkin linked a blog post by Roger Pielke Jr who questions the legitimacy of scientists work with the Center for American Progress, which is a far-left political group pushing climate policy.

The story later goes on to say that "In the global warming debate, dissent can mean ostracism. When skeptical scientists insisted on publishing studies questioning the supposed "consensus" on global warming, the now-infamous staff at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, which is where the hacking of emails of climate research and researches occurred, conspired to boycott publications if they did not expunge their pages of such blasphemy."

Even if this is not the whole story about what exactly goes down when new discoveries are made, it makes me wonder whether it really is all a hoax. If politics plays such a role, then it seems to me its not about whether or not we, the people inhabiting this great and still mysterious planet, should be changing to either save the planet or become more sustainable life forms, but who gets the bigger paycheck, who can stay in office the longest, and who can put the most fear into the general public. I feel like more and more people nowadays question the legitimacy of science because of the politics behind it. In my mind, science was the purest truth in the world, but after doing research and listening to those around me, I'm not sure what to believe anymore.

As anyone can see, no matter their political background/opinion it seems that scientists and research about global warming is far from reliable. If we cannot even trust the experts to relay the correct information to the pulbic who are we supposed to trust? However, i would rather not be that cynical in thinking that no sicentist or study about climate research is wrong, but you definitely have to take it with a grain of salt.

This article shows how politics and science intermingle to form world views. It has certainly tainted my view of science, and changing my world view on climate change.

http://newsbusters.org/?q=blogs/lachlan-markay/2009/12/07/climate-alarmist-threatens-nyt-reporter-big-cutoff

100 Places to Remember Before they Disappear...

When I opened my browser a few minutes ago, the headline at msnbc.com is "100 places to remember before they disappear." After following the link, I discovered that this is actually a published book. The following link is the website about the 100 Places book and their project to raise global awareness.

http://www.100places.com/en/

If you click on "The 100 Places" on the navigation bar, it's interesting to watch the locations pop up all over the globe.

I enjoyed the irony of this article as I spent last night reading several articles so I thought I'd share!

Michael Crichton - Aliens Cause Global Warming

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech- .html

This article is posted in the speeches section of Michael Crichton's official web page. (It is long but worth reading.) This article starts by pointing out that flawed science with enough believers can show "scientific findings" his examples are SETI and the Nuclear Winter theories. Both of these theories were given legitimacy because they had a formula for calculation. The problem was that none of the inputs to the calculation could in fact be calculated, only estimated; with no evidence. His next example is that the EPA said that second hand smoke kills 3,000 non-smoking Americans a year. This information was from 11 of its own research groups who assigned it a risk factor below half of what the EPA is even supposed to acknowledge as harmful, but with a change of its regulations, this new "fact" was created. But these statistics were enough to make policy changes and have this skewed statistic become common knowledge. Five years later the American Cancer Society was claiming that 53,000 people a year died from second hand smoke, with no evidence to back it. But who wants to defend second hand smoke?

Finally Crichton gets to the topic of global warming. He first recognizes that almost all data on global warming is generated by computer models. He then points out that there is no way that we can judge what the world will be like in 100 years, because we don't have the tools, concepts, or lifestyles that they will have. his example is that people in 1900 worried about all the horse pollution in New York City. This is obviously not a problem in the 2000's even with a much larger population. After pointing out that there is no way we can predict what the world will be like in 100 years when global warming would be a bigger issue, he notices that policy now has its dirty hands in the mix. now that everyone knows about global warming it exists, even though it may not be a fact.

His conclusion is that in order to have science purified, there needs to be an independent science research facility that is funded by a pool of government, business, and philanthropy. The research would also be separated at every step so no one could sway the data too much. Only when no one's opinion or money gets factored in is science pure.

The things in this article that I thought were not stated by interesting were that he never mentioned any of his credentials of speaking on behalf of the illegitimacy of science. He also didn't mix in any ideas from his book into this speech except for funding has a big impact on science and that we know nothing about global warming but yet we are forming policy around what we speculate. This is a convincing argument if the main idea is to acknowledge that we know very little.

"Global Warming Heats Up"

In the New York Times article published in March of 2006, Kluger restates global warming as “a living thing fighting a fever.” Instead of an outright statement depicting what global warming is, Kluger describes global warming by measuring the toll it has taken on our Earth. The article begins by showing (literally) the retreat of the Upsala glacier in Argentina from 1928 to 2004, and throughout the article, outlines the natural disasters that are a result of global warming. He is not questioning the existence of global warming but rather proving it. He even states that the skeptics have confirmed that global warming is the “real deal” and we are the cause of it.
The majority of the article illustrates different events that have occurred as a result of global warming but there is an underlying issue that Kluger is hinting at. Yes, we are causing global warming and, yes, Kruger says that MAYBE we can begin to reverse the changes with a multigenerational commitment of reduced output per year but what Kluger would really like to see is a change in politics. He says that it takes public stirrings in order to draw their attention. Kluger’s real solution to global warming is to “wait out this administration and hope for something better in 2009.”

Glenn Beck and Climategate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbxYVa2VjA

In this video Glenn Beck argues against global warming. Glenn uses his opening monologue to his show to create an argument. His argument is political and he is trying to convince his viewers that the Climategate e-mails disprove global warming and show that scientists are not to be trusted.

Biased Science?

In this web page, a middle school aged student took on the idea of how easily we are influenced by “science”, especially in the context of human effects on the environment. I believe this experiment was done in order to show that we need to be careful with how quickly we jump to conclusions when given a piece of “science”.

In the study, the people were not able to gather their own information about “dihydrogen monoxide”. I believe that is one of the biggest steps, we as citizens of planet Earth, can do in order do to get a sense of what is fact, fiction, skewed, personal opinion, taken out of context, etc. In order to make better decisions on what is true science, one needs to get background knowledge on the topic and try their best to look at the issue from all sides. I think many of us get caught up in a cause and only see one side of the issue. This makes for a very biased and uneducated opinion.

When researching one should ask what is the source of the data/evidence? Who funded the research? Sometimes there will be specific research done to pursue and certain agenda of a particular company/organization. Knowing who is funding the project can give some insight into possible bias in the conclusions of the study. Is there peer review? Peer review is an attempt to give as straightforward science as possible. Although peer review does not make a piece of science 100% true, it does help grasp the subject from many sides.

Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah, two is twice as nice as one...

Let's face it: many of us have, at some point, thought of an idea with which we thought we could "save the world"...and then had reality set in shortly afterward. We can't "save the world" all by ourselves--it's a classic 'but I'm just one person...what can I do?' issue. We need an army to mobilize, a vast number of humans that think much like us that we can unite under the banner of the greater good.

Let's assume that our world-saving idea is a sound one. (It must be. We came up with it!) What legitimizes me? Who or what deems me fit to be a world saving leader? Certainly not experience, because I've never saved the world before. And attracting a vast army of people to lend strength to my argument can rarely be served by charisma alone; people come in all shapes, sizes and mindsets. What one usually must do, then, is water down one’s resolution to attract a broader swath of people to the cause, a cause that most people can get behind, forcing the dissenters to agree to it by majority rule. Behold: the dumbing-down effect. Michael Crichton had a gift for dumbing down the nitty gritty details on complicated subjects like climate control, DNA experimentation, time travel, etc. etc. that allowed him to present scientific data in a palatable form for a public that may not have otherwise given a damn about any of these scientific subjects. The followers to our cause legitimize us. They bestow us with the authority over them until such a time as they think we are no longer worthy. And people are hard, hard, HARD to unite behind a common cause unless one is considered a legitimate leader.

One of the reasons many of us come to college in the first place is for a diploma. A piece of paper that deems us fit to serve in a certain capacity without the requisite experience that would normally precede it--even if the job we desire uses none of the lessons we remember from our classes. Consider it instant legitimacy. When one is given the title 'scientist', one is granted authority over many scientific subjects by the public at large without them having to meet the person and decide for themselves whether or not to believe them. It is no surprise, then, that the public entrusts 'scientists' to fix the issue of global warming (and to convince us that global warming is occurring in the first place!) With this in mind, I'd like to contribute the following link:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/big_picture_solutions/the-copenhagen-accord.html

In it, you can observe the persuasive arguments of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a coalition of scientists who are attempting to save the world through the ever-popular subject of climate control. In it, they present facts that support the notion that the globe is warming overall, and that we may be able to do something about it, provided we make a worldwide effort now. The problem is, worldwide efforts are hampered because the world is made up of nations that each have their own power structure. Even a body like the UN does not rule all these nations!

Though UCSUSA has many different portions of their website, I chose the section that discusses the Copenhagen Accord because it shows just how difficult it is to get nations to agree to substantial reductions in emissions outputs (much like the Kyoto Protocol). Like the Kyoto Protocol before it, though, the thing lacks teeth--it isn't enforceable, because there is no legitimate world leader that all nations bestow with the authority to enforce and regulate this Accord. Like the many emissions-capping efforts before it, it will likely fall by the wayside for this same reason.

What is global warming

Article/Argument

Secondly, through the copious use of station weather data, a number of single station records with long term cooling trends are shown. In particular, the characters visit Punta Arenas (at the tip of South America), where (very pleasingly to my host institution) they have the GISTEMP station record posted on the wall which shows a long-term cooling trend (although slight warming since the 1970’s). “There’s your global warming” one of the good guys declares. I have to disagree. Global warming is defined by the global mean surface temperature. It does not imply that the whole globe is warming uniformly (which of course it isn’t). (But that doesn’t stop one character later on (p381) declaring that “..it’s effect is presumably the same everywhere in the world. That’s why it’s called global warming”). Had the characters visited the nearby station of Santa Barbara Cruz Aeropuerto, the poster on the wall would have shown a positive trend. Would that have been proof of global warming? No. Only by amalgamating all of the records we have (after correcting for known problems, such as discussed below) can we have an idea what the regional, hemispheric or global means are doing. That is what is meant by global warming.

To argue either side of global warming i think it is a good idea to decide what global warming is. If it is only happening in some spots around the globe is it still considered global warning? Or does it have to be uniform around basically the entire world. If you choose to argue one way vs the other your facts and arguments are going to be totally different. There even seems to be a little bit of confusion to this in State Of Fear. I feel that no matter what the argument is people are going to look at it different ways and its going to be interpreted much different. Thats pretty much why this issue hasn't been solved. One scientist will look at data and interpret it one way, another will take the same data and interpret it opposite. Crichton does a good job of this. He takes data that has been used to prove global warming and he uses it to disprove global warming.

polar bear

he loves swimming.

Blog Posting #8 (Due Sunday 4/11, 11:59 P.M.): Michael Crichton ('global warming') on the Web--the public rhetoric and 'semantic contagion' of science

On the table in this part of our work is how 'minds' get formed and changed. How ideas get legs. How beliefs can go viral. How common sense becomes so common. Robin will argue ('Beyond...reason') that it's seldom a matter of facts alone.

In a sense, State of Fear is a massive 'intervention'--one that made Dr. Crichton a good deal of money, but more importantly: got him invited to the White House and to testify to Congress, and which probably changed more minds than any more familiarly scientific discovery could. Bruno Latour details how much work Pasteur had to go through to get us to 'believe in germs (ferments).' South Park has made us all knowing cynics.

Visit one of the global-warming websites we posted (or another you found, if you wish). Find a complex rich 'argument' about global warming--for, against, whatever. Show us how it works to construct a view of science, atmospheric science, authority, scientists, politicians, the world, the polis, industry, progress, fear, human agency--whatever. You pick the site, the argument (remember that arguments are typically more than words; when the idea comes out of Cartman's mouth, it's a different argument from if it came from Al Gore), the issue. Work it for us. Show us how the world of ideas gets formed.

Mister Orwell

"Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss." This is an Orwell quote found at the beginning of Crichton's book.
I like this one much more, it seems to fit better: "Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Found at the beginning of the video regarding the Wikileaks scandal -- the Wikileaks organization is trying to reverse the widely accepted belief that if you attain just enough power, you can turn any fiction into a fact, no matter how many people secretly know you're wrong.

I was pretty interested when I purchased this novel from the bookstore. The whole artistry of the cover and the reviews caught my attention. One of the most intriguing reviews that I observed on the back of the book was "In Paris, a young physicist performs an oceangraphic experiment--then dies mysteriously after a ronatic tryst with a beautiful stranger." I thought this was mysteriously intriguing because it seemingly related death and beauty, which both are notably important within our culture. I also thought it was interesting Crichton proceeded to incorporate graphs on pg 107 within the book for us visual learners. It added a little more credibility, I think.

On page 106: "It's taken from the NASA--Goddard data set by the UN and other organizations. Do you consider the UN a trustworthy source?"

"Yes."

"So we can regard this graph as accurate. Unbiased? No monkey business?"

"Yes."

Here, it seems that Evan is just accepting this graph due to discourse. NASA is held in high esteem and people seem to accept everything as fact. We don't have to question their findings beyond a reasonable doubt because NASA is all-knowing. Nobody can argue with statistics. I think Crichton is attempting to make this point during this conversation. We accept science as fact which in turn affects our societal expectations and perceptions. I think that a lot of these paradigms permeate the surface of each page of text.

The tone of the novel seems desperate, as though we must make a change. He is attempting to instill fear as a method of progression. It seems that it would take a huge catastrophe or at least a serious threat in order for society to make a progressive change. We carelessly carry out everyday tasks according to status quo or social class. We strive to reach superiority at any cost without acknowledging the consequences that may follow. Maybe he's attempting a discrete intervention, attempting to reach people and inspire change.

The Propaganda of Fear

It takes an impending catastrophe, so the idea goes, to inspire a change in the status quo. Though we have collectively discussed things such as alternative fuels, reduction of consumption, even drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness Reserve to harvest our own oil, we never really took such ideas seriously until our prices of gasoline skyrocketed past $3.00-$4.00 per gallon. Some of these ideas showed promise: GM began working on the VOLT concept, a commuter-friendly electric car...people gave up driving their massive Hummers...carpools became much more prevalent. Ever since the prices became more affordable, though, it seems we are back to resting on our laurels. Hummers are back on the road with a vengeance. The VOLT has been delayed. Carpooling rarely happens any more, and again it rarely occurs to us to seriously think about re-adopting our conservation mindset.

George Morton, during his drunken speech on pages 128-129, outlines the massive achievements by the environmental movement over the previous few decades: "We have witnessed the creation of the EPA. We have seen the air and water made cleaner, sewage treatment improved, toxic dumps cleaned up, and we have regulated common poisons like lead for the safety of all. These are real victories my friends. We take justifiable pride in them. And we know more needs to be done" In nearly every one of these cases he stated, it was because of a disaster or series of newsworthy events presenting the matter in a catastrophic light that these things were changed. Without bestowing the subjects with a sense of urgency, it is unlikely such changes would ever have come about.

Ironically enough, Mr. Morton also succinctly presented a quote from Michel de Montaigne, who was thought to be highly influential on thinkers such as Descartes: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known". To control the knowledge of the truth through manipulation of facts and the use of propaganda is to wield true power to change the world.

It is easy for me to understand, then, and even be a little empathetic, with the drastic measures taken (both in real life and in the book) to make the picture on climate change as bleak as possible. Sure, it's manipulative. It may not be entirely candid about all the facts, but the facts chosen to be presented are not patently false, either. The thing is, the world may not be coming to an end; as Mr. Crichton shows, the world is an endlessly complex interplay of a vast number of factors that don't all come together in support of global warming. Page 95 sums this complexity up nicely--we can't simply measure sea levels with a stick and a marker. What about the geoid? "Glacio-hydro-isostatic modeling? Eustatic and tectonic effects on shoreline dynamics? Holocene sedimentary sequences? Intertidal foraminifera distributions?..." etc. etc. ad nauseum. (I don't think half these terms really apply for climate change measurements, but we'll indulge him.)

Truth be told, I want people to think we are on the brink. It creates a mindset that we have to change right now. Yes, many are simply on the 'Green' bandwagon nowadays because it has become fashionable, not out of a noble sense of conservation. I'm okay with that, however, because a selfless motivation is not necessary be a part of the revolution. If we can bring conservation into vogue, and people simply follow the example for personal prestige, so much the better for those of us who truly believe in taking care of our finite resources.

The Crichton Code.

The first thing I read when I started this novel was the disclaimer:

“This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions, and the organizations in this novel are the product of the author’s imagination, or if real, are used fictionally without any intent to describe their actual conduct.”

I was excited to read farther because one of my favorite guilty pleasures is to read my extensive collection of novels by another controversial author, Dan Brown. His books contain a similar warning. After digging into the plot of “State of Fear” I saw many similarities in the writing styles of Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. Both authors create an unlikely protagonist; in Crichton’s case a junior associate at a law firm named Evans. This main character is relatable to the reader because like the reader he is surprised at what he learns from the NERF and the ELF about global warming and eco-terrorists. Evans may accept new ideas and concepts, but like the reader sometimes questions the validity of what he is learning. A simple example of this is a conversation Evans has with Jennifer over lunch early on in the book (p.123). Evans expresses to Jennifer that he agrees with Balder that the sea-level data will be key in the lawsuit. She disagrees,

“Nobody’s seen all the data. But even if it’s high quality, it needs to show a substantial sea-level rise to impress a jury. It may not.” [Jennifer]

“How could it not?” Evans said. “With glaciers melting, and breaking off Antarctica-“

Evan’s knowledge of melting glaciers in Antarctica is part of the discourse of global warming. It is likely that the reader would have said the same thing in response to Jennifer.

“Even so, it may not,” she said. “You know that Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean? They were concerned about flooding…the scientists found no rise in several centuries-and a fall in the last twenty years.” [Jennifer]

“A fall? Was that published?” [Evans]

Although Jennifer offers a convincing explanation Evans still questions her facts. However, the conversation ends and Evans accepts her explanation when she simply confirms that is was published last year. In this example we see a way in which Crichton is able to contradict common knowledge about global warming by presenting facts and by choosing to have the main character not question the facts too far.

Agreeing with many of the other posts, Michael Crichton has quite the enticing language ethics when sharing with readers his story, perhaps in his words, "theory" of global warming. Putting many twists and turns in a long the way. Another interesting tactic he brings into his book is the conniving relationship between scientists and other business personel such as lawyers. I believe his main purpose is to make us realize the importance of questioning, the known from the unknown, or possibly the side that can out buy the weaker, less side; though at times in a rather far fetched manner.

A selection from the book that points this out is on page 102 when Evans and Balder are in a meeting where Balder is questioning Evans on his knowledge of global warming. "No, it is a theory" Balder said. Crichton is opening the idea that we should be questioning everything, trying to make the reader feel uneasy about the facts we know, and what could be missleading about them. Knowledge is ever changing, growing and developing; how can we be for certain with these new ideas that fact is not theory, or vice versa, theory is fact?

With all of the questioning Crichton has me thinking about, along with the characters, will bring for an interesting end to the book. Where will his winding road of questioning science in society take us?

this book makes me a sad panda.

I'm not gonna lie: this book makes me really mad, and I'm upset that so many deniers of global warming probably got started by reading this bestseller. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I knew the graphs starting on p. 107 were coming the moment I learned what this book was about. "There must have been another factor." -- uh, has Crichton never heard of aerosols? Or is he just hoping his audience is too young or too old to remember that whole debacle?

The tone of this book as a dramatic page-thriller starts on page 5. I'm not kidding: who's going to put down a book after they learn on the FIRST PAGE about some sexy half-Vietnamese model that is definitely going to be getting it on with the introductory character? The book BEGINS as a romance novel! I rolled my eyes when I realized what Crichton was doing, but... sex sells, and it's a very effective hook into a book that claims to be sort of about global warming. Sex? Danger? Global catastrophe? Science sure is interesting to the layman all of a sudden!

In response to Alex's post: I'm not jealous of Crichton's gift of prose, I'm pissed at him because he's using it to convince the public that global warming is a sham! In his message on p. 715 he starts out innocently enough with "Atmospheric CO2 is increasing, and human activity is the probable cause" but quickly discredits all burgeoning science everywhere with the bombshell "An informed guess is just a guess." This is tantamount to claiming the theory of evolution is just a theory and nothing more. It's a stupid thing to say, no matter how you feel about science (whether its effects are good, bad, or both) -- both because whoever says it broadcasts their confusion of the terms "random guess" and "hypothesis," and because nothing anyone does is completely insulated from the rest of the world unless you live in a cave deep underground.

He could just be trying to make a quick buck by writing a book about a controversial topic and expecting (correctly) that the controversy over the book itself will ensure massive sales... but his motive has to be more sinister than pure greed. "Everybody has an agenda. Except me." Bullshit! Actually I think he describes his work rather eloquently himself: "There is no difference in outcomes between greed and incompetence." Not that he's an incompetent writer, but he's no analyst of the merit of science -- as we've learned so far in class, no science is completely free of bias, but Crichton's oozes out from between his carefully chosen passages.

On P. 535 Crichton makes a telling comparison between opposing the death penalty, and opposing global warming as a threat. We're supposed to think at this point that it is equally right and noble to oppose both of these odious things, but I don't think this really works out the way he meant it to. He equates criminals against other humans, to criminals against the environment, which works; but then he equates opposing the death penalty (a human sentencing of a criminal against humanity) to opposing the threat of global warming (presumably the planet's response to human climate interference). We can stop directly someone who's trying to impose the death penalty; we can't stop directly the fear of impending planet-wide repercussions that are resultant of human activity. Humans enjoy freaking out, especially if what they perceive as impending doom has no ready-made band-aid solution prepared for liberal application. It's only indirectly through acting in some way to stop what we perceive as impending doom that a vague threat can be really opposed.

This is what the whole "go green" movement seems to be about -- making people feel less agitated about their consumerism destroying the world, by pretending their action has some meaningful impact. You can now buy cheap recycled plastic sacks at the grocer's for a couple bucks that you can reuse in lieu of having the bagboy pack your groceries in paper or plastic. Seems like a sensible plan, but most people'll probably use it once, bring home, and promptly forget about it until the next time they are in the checkout line... at which time they'll feel uncomfortable about their waste and buy another sack! Genius.

Crichton comes at us again with his claim that climate science is just one big black-box on p. 236 when Kenner says "... if you don't understand something, you can't approximate it. You're really just guessing." The question input to the left of the box is "What is the climate going to be like tomorrow?" The question goes through the box full of wind patterns, warming and cooling air, fluid dynamics (none of which anyone apparently knows anything about) ... and to the right of the blackbox is output a model of climate. Yes, if you have no understanding whatsoever of a phenomenon, you can't do any better than making a guess about it -- but if you know ANYthing about it greater than nothing, your hypothesis is by definition more informed than a blind guess.

The first point made in the authors note is that "we know astonishingly little about every aspect of the environment, from its past history, to its present state, to how to conserve and protect. In every debate, all sides over-state the extent of existing knowledge and its degree of certainty," p715. This point seemed to carry over in much of the other points made, or that the things we do know may not support the conclusions we are drawing about our environment. As I read this novel, I can't help but feel an undertone that we can't really solve this problem.

As I was reading through some of the previous postings, I read several from my working group and I have to jump on to what they are saying. The green revolution is advertising all of these things that we can do to save the environment but what will they really do? Can we reverse the damage done or slow it by simply using reusable bags? Or eating organically? What we know is the damage we've done, what we don't know is how to fix that. I feel like the environmentalists are trying to come up with answers based on their "over-statement of existing knowledge" in order to make US feel better.

I have done extensive research on the green revolution for our background report and I found a lot of information that states the most rewarding benefit of jumping on the "going green" bandwagon is it will make you feel good and I really think that's all there is to it. We feel good because we think we are doing good.

The Socratic Method

Aside from the prose, I liked this book. Michael Crichton was a scientist writing a novel, a situation that could go well or not so well. I think it worked in this book because it causes a big reaction from readers (including me). This book pretty much contradicts most of the things that are common views held about global warming
One of the features of State of Fear that stood out to me was his extensive (almost relentless) use of the Socratic Method. He had a lot of technical information that he really needed to get through to his audience, so he brought in a Socrates - or, as we know him, Kenner. Kenner coolly argues with those supporting the idea of global warming, asking them guided questions and making them contradict themselves. In the process he gets to tell them what the actual facts are, a reality he cites with endless sources (which Crichton himself does often.) Crichton also uses the monologue as a way to present his information, practiced by an emotional character or by Professor Norman Hoffman.
On page 501, in such a monologue, Hoffman introduces the concrete idea behind "state of fear". He says,

"But the military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population - under the guise of promoting safety."

And, in his Author's note on page 627, he reflects the same concept:

"The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism. Public education is desperately needed."

He is addressing a hybrid problem whose generator is a hybrid complex. Now I don't know to what extent Michael Crichton believed the details of all the conspiracies in this book, but it is obvious that there is an underlying theme: disinformation. This passage, combined with many, many others throughout the book, shows us not to trust just anything we hear. Always ask the speaker to site their sources. Even then, check the credentials of the source; if they're a researcher, check the sources of their funding. Obviously not everyone has time (or a burning desire) to do these things. We hear, read, and see so much information every day that most of us really don't do much second-glancing.

This, though, is Crichton's point. He is aware of the "information era" and addresses it and its problems in many ways. Most obviously, he speaks through his characters. Using a novel to embody his opinion has the advantage of characters (vs a science journal article). Not only does he put the information out there, but uses characters to control how we relate to that information. At first it is Evans, who we've already established a relationship with. We like him, and he also happens to ultimately accept the data Kenner presents to him. Later on, it is Ann Garner and Ted Bradley who Kenner rips apart. But they don't/won't accept his basic points. We also happen to not like Anna and Ted very much.

Another thing he does is use footnotes to reference scholarly articles - in a novel! This makes sense, though. He is emphasizing his point about information and disinformation and how much of that there is in the world. He is encouraging us to check credentials. He is also trying to validate his argument, which has some ideas which are radically different from those of the common concerned citizen.

No student fees Protest

Hey Ben Fink. Saw you at the Protest on Wednesday.

....pretty bad ass.

Agenda?

The last bullet point in the author's message is this : "Everyone has an agenda. Except me." I read only the author's message before I began State of Fear, and even 200 pages into the book, I can't get it out of my head. I frankly don't know what Crichton means by that, and it may be irrelevant to the book as a whole, but it has made me focus on the subject of manipulation - by the characters to each other, to scientific data, and by Crichton.

Although the actual writing of the book is rather painful (and admittedly fun to laugh at), its simplicity serves a very direct purpose. By using such formulaic and clicheed writing, Crichton is allowing the focus to be the scientific data. I myself and am confused at this point about what to believe. This book has made me really question my own knowledge about global warming, and how much of it is repeated notions and vague ideas, or actual fact. The scene with Evans getting interviewed by the Vantu team made me incredibly uncomfortable; although I do believe in global warming, and can see Crichton's purpose with this scene, I still began to doubt all the global warming information I'd heard.

But the characters who are fighting to spread (seemingly false) information about global warming are also manipulated to make readers think about data sources. Crichton reverses a kind of paradigm by characterizing the environmentalists with glamour. Instead of hippies and peace loving people, they are sexy, corporate, and armed with advanced tech savvy. The extreme focus on sex (like describing Marisa wearing a "tight skirt and spike heels" and Sarah Jones' long legs and blond hair) and questionable business ethics (Nick Drake [who could not be more wrongly named!]) employs a tactic of making the enemies this book as unlikeable because they are enviable and mean. Crichton creates characters who are hybrids of cultural and scientific 'wrongs', and least according to him.

I'm interested to see how this book will unravel. At my current point I can see the complexity of the book and the interpretation of the scientific data. But so far, it is clear to me that there is an agenda in this book on the behalf of the author, which is carefully crafted to create confusion. With so much manipulation on all parts, the issue of global warming becomes a question of reliable data and how culture proliferates its acceptance.

Michael Crichton is the man--this got nominated for the Pulitzer, right?

Wow Micheal Crichton. Wow. Eco-terrorists? Really? This guy wins my heart every time because he can take any typical science topic and, without any hesitation whatsoever, turn it into the most apocalyptic thriller yet. He doesn’t care, he’ll do whatever it takes. Not interesting enough? Throw in a made up island. Not suspenseful enough? Add some cannibal tribes to the made up island. Need a sweet death? Octopus Venom. Oh wait, this is about global warming—that’s okay, keep the octopus, it’s cool.

The reason why Mr. Crichton can do whatever he wants is completely justified: in the back of the book he says that we can’t predict the future and even trying to is euphemistic. A guess is a guess. Therefore whenever we’re predicting the future, according to Crichton, the world may just end ripped up under lighting storms and tornados, crawling with dinosaurs, or taken over by cowboy-themed amusement park robots. It’s all fair game according to Crichton. People can hate him all they want but really, I think everyone’s just a wee bit jealous of Michael’s mediocre success as a cheese-tastic best-selling author. Sorry guys!

There’s an interesting exchange between Balder and Evans where each try and legitimize global warming. At one point Balder says, “When you have a strongly held belief, don’t you think it’s important to express that belief accurately?” pg. 89. Evans says not really because when it comes to global warming everyone knows what you’re talking about. It’s like when someone is stuck in a paradigm and they can’t see another view—Balder is trying to get Evans to accurately express why his belief in global warming is accurate/true (maybe trying to get Evans to break out of his paradigm), but Evans is perfectly content living in this world of “I don’t have to, people know what I mean.” I definitely felt that whole goldfish in a bowl feeling.

This maybe a little more depth than Michael was going for but it’s pretty accurate. I mean, we’ve all fallen in those traps. I forget what’s real science and what’s the accepted belief. If you’ve ever watched a Michael Moore movie and believed every word only to later realize that it’s Michael Moore, then you know what I’m talking about. So far, I feel like the Evans character is definitely a representation of the common somewhat-informed person (the reader) that believes nearly everything they hear on global warming with little or no evidence. When you think about it, that’s really who Crichton is writing to. Not to scientists, or politicians, or environmentalists. He’s writing to the people who don’t know anything about real science but love sci-fi. He knows his audience. This man is great. And that’s why the Pulitzer Prize should go out to Michael Crichton: for distorting years of research, ignoring some facts and still getting nearly all of America to not only become skeptical towards global warming (to a level of suspicious conspiracy!), but to also fall in love with him. What a guy.

Scare Tactics

I come to this book--and my own background report--with my own perspectives and opinions on global warming and the tactics used by the mainstream media to encourage (or force?) the green revolution and a fear of global warming, but I come also with an open mind. I used to be right on back of the green revolution bandwagon when concerns first started to get really amped up, however my own extensive watch on the media and its manipulative ways has brought me to a more indifferent stance on whether global warming is truly a cause for concern. It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations, where our beliefs and ideas are strung literally on a line of uncertainties. The fact is, is that nobody can honestly claim that it is a bona fide fact that the climate will catastrophically change, nor can anyone deny that environmental changes have occurred, and that we've seen some particularly strange events as far as weather goes in the past decade. This leaves me, and surely a lot of the people in this class (and outside of this class), dangling between the two extremes. Do we do something, or do we not?

For the basis of this post, I appreciate Crichton's staunch opinions about the environmentalists who use fear in order to promote their own agendas. It reminds me a lot of other organizations, such as PETA, which I won't get into right here and now, but it is sufficed to say that there are some extremists in this group who use similarly terroristic threats upon those who don't necessarily agree with their ideas, specifically the Animal Liberation Front, who seem to care more about chickens than the people whose lives they're hurting in the process of chicken liberation.

That said, I feel like I would like to counterbalance the blatant anti-extremist environmentalist attitude in this book with something else, like Al Gore's lovely little number, An Inconvenient Truth. I feel like it's always important to keep a wide open mind when reading books like this, especially when they have the advantage of using a story rather than just facts to propagate an idea of belief.

Now, one thing that caught my eye, which I wrote down but forgot to grab the page number to, was this quote, where Dr. Kenner says, "If anything, global warming theory predicts less extreme weather." It might seem silly to gripe about this one little thing, butwhat Kenner says is not necessarily true. As I discussed with my group, and as I heard on NPR, global warming causes (obviously) warmer weather, leading to higher evaporation rates from bodies of water, causing more moisture in the atmosphere to create precipitation, probably a lot more precipitation than what we've seen. I'm no scientist, but the thing is, is that you have to get the facts straight. That's why I still only see this as a story with some scientific backing, rather than full scientific support. Crichton wishes to rally against the extremist point of view by using similarly false ideas, which to me is similar to what the extremists are doing, only on a less destructive level.

Global Warming in the American Pop Culture

I find it interesting to look at how much global warming has been incorporated into pop culture. The whole “green revolution” is really taking off. If you think about it, most of the “green” products are not any different than our everyday “non green” products. The “green” vintage t-shirts at Target are not any different than any of the other t-shirts made for Target. I also saw water being sold at Caribou Coffee that was advertising that is was environmentally friendly but it is just like another plastic water bottle that is going to end up in the land fill after the water has been drank.

I started reading the main text of the novel before reading these quotes at the beginning of the book and I thought that this book resembled the Da Vinci code a lot. They take very popular topics and real facts and turn them into a thrilling novel. It is hard to tell what true and what is fiction. The Wall Street Journal writes “The Da Vinci Code with real facts, violent storms, and a different kind of faith altogether…Every bit as informative as it is entertaining. And it is very entertaining.”

On page 114 of State of Fear, Jennifer Haynes from the Vanutu Team states that “Newspapers and television are susceptible to carefully orchestrated media campaigns. Law-suits are not” when talking about getting reliable information. It is so true. Because the global warming campaign has been so embedded in our popular culture, it is hard to know what to believe. Even when it comes to interpreting statistics and graphs, it is hard to know what to believe. Any statistic can be twisted to fit just about any stance.

There is very much a hybrid of information here with the global warming campaign. Two of the main categories of global warming, to me, are the scientific aspect and the popular culture aspect. Scientists need the mainstream media in order to get their research out to the general, unscientific public. In order to do this, much of their research is presented in general terms in a “lets fight back” tone. The “dumbed-down” media is trying to gain support which results in more research funding. It is a circle of events. Research is done, “green” campaigns emerge, support is gained, gifts are made, and more research is done… one big cycle of scientific research and popular culture intertwined.

Statistic un-nalysis

My favorite part of this book that I have read thus far has been the author's message on page 625. throughout the part that I have read, there is a very bleak picture of the environment's future that is decided with profit motives hands on the wheel. The author's message made him far less "Chicken Little-esque". He said that he has been vigorously learning about the scientific reaserch and studies of all different aspects of the environment for the last three years, and that he suspects "the people of 2100 to be much richer than we are, consume more energy, have a smaller global population, and enjoy more wilderness than we have today. I don't think that we have to worry about them." I consider myself well informed, but to be utterly confused by all the different aspects of global warming. This book has shown me how much business there is behind science.

Another side of this book that I have really liked is the power of "right", being used by the environmentalists. On page 54 Drake says "Scientists can't adopt that lofty attitude anymore. They can't say, 'I do the research, and I don't care how it is used.' That's out of date. It is irresponsible... Because, like it or not, we're in the middle of a war- a global war of information versus disinformation." This shows that there is disinformation coming from both sides to get people to adopt their view. And misinforming the public for their own good is a very steward like behavior, that can be rationalized by the calvary of righteousness. Their quest to make the world a better place with the suggestions hap hazard facts and figures off of a limited data set does not allow scientists, in the book or the real world, to accurate judge global warming or even take it beyond the title of a theory. That makes me wonder how you can fight a problem that even scientists (I understand that it is the dominant idea and I believe in it also) fiercely debate the existence of. So is it a black box, because we see changes in the environment, but we debate even the existence of the "box" from which they come.

As for the book as a piece of writing, I like it. I prefer learning when it comes in story form so this works out great for me. I think that it is very easy to see where things are going when they are supposed to be mysterious, and he uses really obvious metaphors, but it is fun to read.

Blog posting #7 (due Sunday 4/4, 11:59 P.M.): Who's afraid of STATE OF FEAR?

Michael Crichton's State of Fear is, in my opinion, the hardest book we're reading in this class. Nevermind that it's written at about a fourth-grade reading level and the plot and characters are cliché as hell. Crichton has produced an extremely tight, often inscrutably knotted hybrid of research, rhetoric, ideology, history, publics, blackboxes, seeing devices...and a whole lot more. Our task, over the next three weeks, is to untangle it and figure out how it works. Here, we make the first step.

Your assignment: react to the book -- or what you've read of it thus far.

(Try to get about 300-400 pages into it before responding, to get a decent grasp of the whole. It shouldn't take too long.)

Your reaction may take many forms, and go in many different directions, but it should include each of the following:

-- at least one passage from the front or back matter,
-- at least one passage from the text of the novel itself (see the work schedule for the passages we found most noteworthy),
-- at least one term/concept from science studies (hybrids, paradigms, seeing devices, issue selection, circulating reference, black boxes, etc.), and
-- at least one term/concept from literary studies (like, high school stuff: characters, tone, narrative/narrator, language, etc.).

Don't-bore-your-friends (or your instructors) directive: when you post, do look at what's been posted already and try to add to the discussion, bringing in new passages and concepts and ideas, rather than rehashing points that've already been made. There's no shortage of material here -- be bold!