As the World Collapses

As the World Collapses

• Approach towards the subject of Global Warming
  • Future approach (CWC)
    • Genre- historical fiction- unorthodox method of a history text from the future
    • Talking about how Global warming had already led to the end of the civilization
    • It could not be stopped due to the ignorance and lack of action by the people
• Present approach (ATWB)
  • Genre- graphic novel set in current day
  • Global warming approached as if it could be stopped
  • Approached as if the characters would not be directly affected by it
    • Not seen by humans as a threat to their survival
  • Seems like there is a possibility of stopping it as long as humans embrace nature and try to fight against the corporate government
  • Parallels between CWC and ATWB
    • Bananabelle and Kranti are Type II errors
      • “Type II error the conceptual mistake of rejecting as false something that is true. In the twentieth century it was believed that a type I error was worse than a  type II error. The rejection of climate change proved the fallacy of the belief” (Oreskes and Conway  62)
      • Bananabelle and Kranti are human girls with two very different beliefs that reflect Type II errors
        • Bananabelle- rejects the idea that one cannot help stop climate change through individual actions
          • She believes that through a list (most likely provided by the government) of things that she as an individual does can help stop climate change (Jensen and McMillian 5)
      • Kranti- rejects the idea that doing small things on an individual level can help stop global warming in any sense
        • She believe that doing individual things to help reduce human’s environmental impact will not help stop/ reduce climate change at all (Jensen and McMillian 16)
        • The answer is in a balance of both of these girls’ views, but not in either one alone
• Bunnista/nature and the President/corporations are Type I errors
  • “Type I error The conceptual mistake of accepting a truth as something that is false. Both type I and type II errors are wrong, but in the twentieth century it was believed that a type I error was worth than a type II error” (Oreskes and Conway  62)
  • Bunnista/nature and the President/corporations are characters represented with very extremist views which resemble type I errors
    • Bunnista/nature- believes the ‘truth’ that humanity can keep their advancements and still reduce climate change as false
      • Bunnista/nature believe that the only way in which the humans can reduce climate change is to destroy all of their advancements (Jensen and McMillian 151)
        • Ecoterrorism with Bunnista (Jensen and McMillian 125)
          • Destroying a research lab that could have had been making very important scientist discoveries (Jensen and McMillian 128)
      • President/corporations – believes that global warming isn’t real/ isn’t an issue that should be worried about
        • President/corporations believe in making money for themselves. They do not believe in the importance of global warming, especially since it would effect their profits.
          • Taking bribes of gold (Jensen and McMillian 45&163&172
• In both the twentieth century and the setting of ATWB, type I errors were more dangerous than type II errors, but in both CWC and ATWB the dangerousness of each type of error is evident
• What is very interesting is what happens when certain character/errors interact in the book
  • Fox and the hippie
    • The hippie is a type II error – he believe that just by mediating and praying (no violence or action) that he can stop all the ‘bad’ aspects of life  (Jensen and McMillian 32)
      • Individual changes
      • Tells fox to stop eating the mice because he’s tearing apart families
      • Human superiority/ greed/ unwillingness to change
      • Similar to Bananabelle
      • The fox is a type I error- he believes that only through extreme measures can the bad things in nature be stopped (Jensen and McMillian 34)
        • Larger acts of destruction
        • Tells hippie that he should burn down all vivisection labs and save the mice
        • Nature is nature and human’s intervention is unnatural and the cause for all pain and suffering
        • Similar to nature/ Bunnista
  • The boy and the crow
    • Boy is a type I error who believes anything (even if its false) that the crow and nature tells him
    • The crow is a type I error who believes in extreme- humanity/ government is the source of all error
    • Interactions between the two propagate both ideas into something extreme (Jensen and McMillian 20 & 66)
  • Bananabella and Kranti and nature
    • type II errors and type I error
    • Interactions between the two type II errors cancel each other out (Jensen and McMillian 144)
    • Interactions between type II and type I cause an extreme reaction
      • Taking on the opinion that fighting is the best option (Jensen and McMillian 151-155)
• Symbolism
  • Robots are symbols of global warming & human’s treatment of it
    • Robots are destroying the earth (Jensen and McMillian 172)
    • Government is gaining money from it so turn a blind eye to the destruction it is causing (Jensen and McMillian 45)
    • Those who want to fight global warming go to literal war with it (Jensen and McMillian 205)
    • Plants and animals are killed during the fight against global warming (Jensen and McMillian 192-193)
  • Gold- how money is literally a social construct in outside of society their worth is equivalent to waste (Jensen and McMillian 18)
• Mental disorders
  • alcoholism (Jensen and McMillian 105)
  • drugs use (Jensen and McMillian 95)
  • Depression (Jensen and McMillian 67)
  • hallucination (Jensen and McMillian 20)
  • diagnosis of “totally fucked up” (Jensen and McMillian 48)