"The 11th Hour"

The 11th Hour directed by Leila Conners and Nadia Conners depicts the damage Americans have created because of their excessive consumption. "We have hit our tipping point." The tipping point is when people loose control of the environment. High corporations and people who have an obsession with control, in trying to defeat science and history, have caused major natural disasters. This was influenced by the need to consume and the need to take advantage of what the world has to offer. The movie discusses how everything from oceans to forests, which help the earth maintain stability, have been destroyed to build the products that bring the comfort to Americans.The damage that is being created by exposure to harmful chemicals and fossil fuel pollution is destroying about 90% of the worlds inhabitants. This includes: people, animals, marine life,etc.The movie also states that if companies that create the items that bring people comfort were to do the work the ecosystem has done , they will pay at least 35 Trillion dollars.People have reinvented comfort into a addiction for capital, luxury, and pleasure. Once the oil that produces the America's comfort depletes drastically or runs out,the people will be left with themselves and the world. The problem with that is that all the pollution and damage the corporations have spewed out to world is making it deteriorate. The ecosystem is unstable and it will not be able to sustain the people that live in it. The natural cycle has been demolished and this will bring great disadvantage for inhabitants now and in the future.

The Revenge of Gaia

The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock brings awareness to the affect people have caused to the world and how,the world is reacting back.In a sense there is a bit of karma that has been placed upon the excessive consumers. Karma is when a person receives good or bad actions after they have caused either good or bad intentions. This karma is based on the worlds reaction to the Americans mistreatment and abuse of the world's resources. One idea that struck out to me was "sustainable development". According to the article, sustainable development represents the continuous effort to balance and integrate the three pillars of social well-being,economic prosperity and environmental protection for the benefit of present and future generations. This idea does not apply to the Americans because they do not take into consideration their surroundings, instead they focus on their own pleasures, luxuries, and comfort. These massive consumers are ignorant. They have become addicted to a source that affects the world drastically, yet they have no care on the negative outcomes the world faces. This text views the world as an organism. The earth grows,ages, and consumes.Americans continue exposing the earth to carbon dioxide from the burnt fossil fuels and the earth takes it in. This according to the text, is heating up the earth and leading it towards a "hot state." These burnt fossil fuels surrounding our environment are making dramatic climate changes. It is becoming the cause of hurricanes and other natural disasters. What American consumers still don't understand is that the damage we have done, and continue to do is making a long lasting affect on the earth. Lovelock states that "it would take earth more than a thousand years to recover." Even if the oil addicted consumers change their way of life to fit ,reasonably, everyone and everything there will be little or no positive affect on the earth. The obsessive consumptions has led to disastrous and irreversible consequences on both earth and the people and animals that inhabit it.

What we Know About Climate Change

What we Know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel breaks down the complexity of what climate is and how it affects the environment. The book builds to a topic that should frighten many people. The world's climate goes through a consistent pattern. This pattern moves up and down. The high points are heat waves and the low points a cold waves. On page 45, the book shows a graph that shows that the pattern has been broken. The graph predicts two possible outcomes. The graph can continue on a steep upward line, that indicates the highest and hottest temperature the world has ever hit. The graph can also continue on a steep downward line which indicates the lowest and coldest temperature the world has hit. This can also signal a possible ice age. On page 31 Emanuel states, "The climate system, at least on short time scales, is chaotic." The word chaotic emphasize the extent to which the world's climate has been affected. It can be argued that the reason is because the world's population, consumption, and oil pollution has increased drastically in this decade. This word also shuns light at the fact that professional scientists and climate researches do not have a name or an explanation for the extreme outcomes that are being shown by graphs. The graphs also show instability of the environment's climate. This implies that there will be unpredictable out comes. If an intelligent mind, that of a scientist, can't wrap its mind around what the situation at hands is bringing, then the world's inhabitants will confront a problem. This problem is not being able to prevent whatever "chaotic" event that is coming our way. Reality bites back and if this climate change is caused by the excessive use of oil, than the same humans that consume it are the ones who have created this unpredictable, unstable, and out of the ordinary problem.

"A Hole in the World" summery

"A Hole in the World" by Naomi Klein, addresses and depicts the ignorance the American oil companies have toward Deep Water Horizon. Deep Water Horizon was an oil explosion on an oil drill at the Gulf of Mexico. Klein introduces the "promises" BP and president Obama have made to the people living through a dying ecosystem. Bp and Obama defend themselves by stating how "things will be better", and how they would "make it right." The people of the Gulf are tired of hearing this bull. They have simply "lost trust" in the corrupted administrations. Klein also discusses the extent of ignorance the oil companies had and still have toward the dangerous under-water oil drilling. When asked why these companies didn't think about how there could have been a possible crash in their drill, they responded with subconscious selfishness. They state that"[no one could have for-seen ] the circumstances that we are faced with now." This "un-for-seen" nonsense that the corporation and companies keep using can be seen clearly as a pattern, or in other words, lame excuse.It can be argued that the oil companies were only focused on getting oil. This led into the dismissal of possible consequences. Now, the Gulf is facing drastically harmful and possibly permanent or long lasting affects. The oil spill is not only affecting the animal life that surrounds the body of water, but it is also affecting "the land, the people,and the roots of that society." It can be concluded that BP, Obama, and other oil companies are simply shrugging their shoulders and thinking to themselves, we are killing of an ecosystem, a biodiversity, a natural home, but its alright just as long as we get our oil.

The Party's over

In the Text, The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg, he talks about how Human Beings are Omnivores. An omnivore is a "consumer of both Plants and animals" (Heingberg 14). This basically implies that we get a lot from our surroundings. Recently, one major resource that has made our consumption of plants and animals easier is oil. The machines that help us capture, feed, and kill the animals we like to eat are composed of oil. Our consumption depends on oil. Oil is finite, and it has decreased. What this means is that not only is our nation limited on oil, it is also limited on food production. This will affect the "comfortable life" humans have adapted to. This comfortable life is made up of excessive amounts and use of a resource. The less oil there is, the fewer tractors and other forms of farming technology will become available. Food production will decrease, and the nation will face panic. This leads us to two conclusions manual labor or unproductiveness from people. Americans do not understand that oil is decreasing in amount, and no longer will be able to provide the comfortable life style that many demand.

Collapse and The Long Emergency

The texts, The Long Emergency by James H. Kunstler and Collapse by Jared Diamond, both share the similar topic of social, economical, and political collapse within a society. Collapse is the process of Diamond speaks about how Columbus tried to convert Mayans into Christianity. This destroyed their social life because they were being forced into a religion, rather than being given a choice. Like-wise the Americans were also finding difficulty in there social standards because their need for oil led to many wars. This paved the line that divided the nations at war from being friends. This also led to Americas selfishness. Kunstler described how ,economically, oil played a major part with making money. Once the dependency on oil reached extreme measures and oil began to decrease in amount, the economy worsened. The Mayans also had a resource in which they depended upon. This was crops. Unfortunately, a drought hit and destroyed the ability to grow the same amount of crops that were produced before. Crops supported the Mayan nation economically. Once this drought hit, the economy decreased as well. Politically The Mayans had conflict between the royal families. This is similar to the disagreements the American government has with other nations. Both society's governments argue about power. The sense of parallelism between these two nations that is depicted seems to implement that a nation that goes through collapse follows a series of stages. This in turn shows the similarities and differences between two different nations that undergo the same catastrophic procedure.

The crisis of profligacy

The book The Limits of Power by Andrew J. Bacevich discusses the extent to where the American government has become confined to power. Profligacy is defined as a reckless extravagance. What is being pointed out in the article is that the government has become overly dependent on power. Bacevich states, “Over the past six decades, efforts to satisfy spiraling consumer demand have given birth to a condition of profound dependency.”(Bacevich 16) The dependency of the power comes from the need that one gets when they believe power is the key to success, or in other words “freedom.” The United States has been born into a nation where freedom is essential. This freedom not only led them into higher rank, but it leads them into a crisis. This crisis in the text is described as the believe that one proves there ranking, “not with what they do, but with what they own.” (Bacevich 33) This depicts the dependence that the government has on money. Money brings power. Power is something that many want ,but can’t have. Therefore, the addiction leading to the gain of this power leads to the failure of a nation. No one thinks logically anymore instead they think with the conscious of what they want. This exploits the crisis of a government that is crashing; along side with the selfishness, excessive consumption, inflation and decline of nations world wide. What the government and Americans want is “global leadership” (Bacevich 26) This is the cause of a possible global collapse; yet, no one seems to notice the importance of this down-heading situation. The article informs how the state of mind that people are holding is fueling the catastrophe that’s already headed our way. It brings awareness to change that should take place in order to avoid further global damage.

"Collapse" summery

The movie “Collapse” sparks a lot of interest in the social, political, and economic standards of the world. His main focus is collapse. Collapse is the process toward change of a way of life because of world wide nation's dependency on a finite resource.The main issue he focuses on is “Peak Oil.” This as he defined is " an extreme amount of intake and dependence on a non-infinite resource. ” The resource in this case is oil. Everything that has become a necessity to people was made by oil. We have drilled into land, water, anywhere that oil is available, and have created a world where the human race no longer interacts with its environment. It is now focused on materialistic pleasure, comfort of living and power. What is not becoming apparent to the human mind is that all of those things are going to come to an end supply. This desire is dependent on oil but the fact of the matter is that once that oil is gone, nothing can replace it. Ruppert stated in the movie that “there are only two possible alternatives that can be a benefit to the world at its peak oil point.” These are “solar and wind energy” ,but he later on states that even that wont help the crises that is heading our way because the transfer of that energy is very difficult. The dependency Americans have on the depleting resource is making them ignorant to what the desire of a perfect society is vs what reality is.

hw1

Jazmin Abreu
Writing Seminar 1
Blog
7/5/10

The human race has become addicted to giving into their desire. This weakness basically suggests that human nature seems to be impossible for a person who with holds the bad habit but it does not mean that it is no obtainable. People have become so accustomed to and comfortable with their wants that they are forgetting the consequences that come behind it. Unfortunately, this has led not only to the destruction of the world’s economic, social, and political structure, but it has also become the destruction for life itself.
The “American dream” is all about reaching mobility. The means to prove yourself to everyone around you is determined by how much you own, therefore, the more you have the more your mobility is depicted. This builds confidence which leads me to think that if the U.S. or any other nation who seeks to withhold power, is gaining it with the use of resources. The charts in pages six-seven prove that the human race does things for personal benefit. What is becoming apparent is that growth, generally, is considered good, but in this case it is building up to its falling peek. This growth comes from materialistic needs. The earth is not an endless supply for these needs, yet people use is as though it is. This is where the problem begins.
The fact that people are basically making a surplus of what the earth can give, leads to a point where everything will end. What makes the problem more complicated is that fact that people can’t recognize the affect it is having on everything that makes up or living environment. People are running on the “crave” of the thing they want. The things they want are a necessity. When this necessity runs out, what more is there to then find a way to replace it? The problem with that is that there might be a way to replace it, but regardless, the people will not be satisfied with the change, because that’s not what they are accustomed to. The comfort and dependence that one has adapted to makes change or replacement impossible.
This overshoot can be prevented but it’s up to the people to step up to the challenge. No one is doing anything. Why? Because no one is being forced to do anything. This is where “free will” becomes an excuse to not step out the comfort and fight of the bad habit. Technology is always reaching new heights. On page eleven, it is stated that there is a program designed to predict what will happen in certain circumstances. Even when people are faced with awareness it is flowing through the passage way of both ears. Overshoot needs to be controlled now before it, like the peoples obsession to desire, becomes out of our reach to control.
The paper states that “Humanity confronts many issues and that it is more influenced by the lack of perspective, cultural norms, habits, and the institutions required to cope.” This to me is true because, it can be argued, that people are not on a right state of mind and can not control humanity but this is just a challenge. An overshoot can lead to two different things, a crash or a deliberate turnaround. What people have failed to do is take that challenge head on and instead of sticking to the non-confident, low self-esteemed and unmotivated person, they can become an initiator to spark the change. If this happens then it will fight overshoot just enough to make its path face toward the turnaround. People are lacking the wisdom of reality. They are living off of comfort and luxury, without remembering how stuff comes from scratch. They let themselves be defeated by their crave for desire. What I believe is that the longer we leave this crisis to increases the more it will affect our surroundings negatively. Desire is acting as a distraction for logical thinking, and this is leading for peoples thinking to become narrower. Instead of focusing on everything around them, they only focus on themselves and what they want and/or need. This selfishness and blindness is become a severe condition, to the people, their life, and their world.