Sasha Moiseyev-Foster

Professor J. Cohen

Changing Our Stories

20 November 2015

We Still Have Time: Hope in “The Collapse of Western Civilization

Jones and Freire: (Eco)semiotics in Social Structures

Elena Luedy

Professor Cohen

E-Sem

11/13/15

The ideas of environment in Oreskes & Conway’s book The Collapse of Western Civilization are very different than those of Kolbert’s book, The Sixth Extinction. These both are again different from Kolbert’s interview with Van Jones. The messages are different, yet the moral is the same. This begs the question, how would the four authors interact with each other?

An initial comparison of “The Collapse of Civilization” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway and “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert lead to the suggestion that the two represented opposing approaches to the examination of a burgeoning global climate disaster. However, a close read of Kolbert’s article “Greening the Ghetto” warranted a reevaluation and eventual rejection of this binary. 

Take It Real

             For the past few weeks, Facebook newsfeed could never have been flowed more with political and social issues, mostly about campus racial incidents around the country and ISIS terror attacks in Paris and Beirut. Through Facebook ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons, the world shared their fear, anger, grief on internet, and tried to send their consolation to the bereaved through prayers and words. Living in a very complex world, where human rights can easily be infringed by those who hold power, mere words would not help alleviate such complexities.

Small Humans in a Big World

Last week, I contrasted the the many references of living organisms in Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction to the lack of any individual characters in Oreskes and Conway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization. This week, I will again focus on the lack of individualism in Collapse, specifically the generalization of humans into the vague label of “western” and everyone else. In addition, I will apply Vásquez’s ideas of Latino representation in environmental studies to further analyze the effects of generalizing individual humans on environmental thought and action.

Just like other organisms on the planet, we as humans are primarily concerned with our own survival. However, unlike other species, we are also very much concerned with our own advancement. Arguably, the most significant factor in whether or not we care about something is how much it actually affects us. With all the issues that take place in our world today it is difficult to follow every problem, much less actively involve ourselves in the issue. This is especially true when it comes to environment becuase many environmental problems are not immediately clear, and do not directly impact us as much as other worldly situations do.

“Knowledge is power” is a phrase often emblazoned on classroom posters, embedded into motivational journals, and largely unchallenged as true. Knowledge is power, but it simultaneously isn’t. This paradox is explored in both Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and Naomi Oreskes’ and Erik M.

            Argument VS Action

Global Warming and Climate change are often thought of as being synonyms. In actual reality, global warming is the cause of climate change. Humans cause greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming, and global warming is the cause of droughts, tornadoes, and other extreme weather. Despite this hard science, there is controversy attached to global warming and climate change. The only proof anyone needs to prove that climate change is happening is opening their eyes and looking outside. Global warming and climate change are controversial, indeed, but where the controversy starts is whether or not humans started it. Where the controversy should end is in resolving the issue.

In last week's draft I wrote a comparison list between Kolbert and Oreskes and Conway in terms of their writing styles and impact: /oneworld/changing-our-story-2015/kolbert-versus-oreskesconway-style-and-impact. This week, I took Anne's question of "are you interested in kolbert's 'up close and personal' approach, vs. what you call oreskes/conway's 'more distant' one? where might that distinction take you...?' and commented on the vocabulary and pronouns that the authors use to address their topics and their audience/humans. We had also talked about language in class when we discussed the "lexicon of archaic terms".