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            With the effects of climate change becoming more and more pronounced over the past decade, many authors have taken to writing about issues that deal with the environment in intersectional ways. Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, along with Naomi Oreskes and Erik Konway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization, are two such texts that approach the environment using different methods. Kolbert brings up multiple arguments in a factual and observational fashion; Oreskes and Konway present a heavily biased, one-sided argument that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Kolbert also focuses viewing the environmental problems through the perspective of environmentalists and scientists, while Oreskes and Konway view it from the eyes of corporations.

Both Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert and The Collapse of Civilization: A View from the Future by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conwayare both environmental texts about the impact of human life on the environment.

Elena Luedy

Professor Cohen

E-Sem

11/13/15

Scare or Comfort?

            Both The Collapse of Western Civilization and The Sixth Extinction warn their readers of what is to come if humans continue to taint the Earth as we have in the recent past and continue to today. Both authors mention past errors, however The Collapse of Western Civilization goes on to predict the future as a disaster, The Sixth Extinction offers a more hopeful outlook. Both books approach the readers with the hope that they will change their actions to reduce the ecological footprint they leave, however they do so in very different ways

November 13^th, 2015

People, including me, kill mosquitos because they are annoying. People, including me, have dogs because they are cute. Why is it the problem that some species become extinct? What is the real meaning of “the problem of sharing our earth with other creatures,”? (Kolbert, p.261)

I felt something odd while reading both “The Sixth Extinction” and “The Collapse of Western Civilization” and the following discussion in the class. I had no idea what to write in the essay because I haven’t realized the cause of the discomfort. Now, I would like to think about two points of view comparing the two books.

As I read “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert and “The Collapse of Civilization” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, I noticed that “The Sixth Extinction” had a more hopeful, optimistic tone than “The Collapse of Civilization” and furthermore, that the format contributed to the overall character of each book. Oreskes and Conway present a vision of Earth in regression, after it has suffered a host of injuries and crises. The depiction does not have the same sentimentality as Kolbert’s does, and because of this, “Collapse” has a more jarring and antiseptic sensibility to it.

Storytelling: What Constitutes a Character?

Both “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert and “The Collapse of Western Civilization” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway are texts about the destructive human impact on the environment (which humans are a part of, and although “environment” is deemed an archaic term by Oreskes and Conway, it is too difficult at this point to not separate “humans” and “environment”?). In this rough draft I will look at how the concept of “characters” in a novel apply to both of these texts.

Sasha Moiseyev-Foster

Professor J. Cohen

Changing Our Stories

13 November 2015

Extinction: Kolbert vs. Oreskes and Conway on Climate Change—Draft

For some reason climate change is an ongoing argument in the scientific community. Some people say that it isn’t occurring, the icecaps aren’t melting, and there most certainly isn’t a problem with an increased number of natural disasters. What are you talking about, Global warming what’s that? The only proof anyone else needs to prove that climate change is happening is opening their eyes and looking outside. Global warming is controversial, indeed, but where the controversy starts is whether or not humans started it and where it should end is resolving the issue.

The Symptoms of Transition

The problem at hand is rooted in the way of seeing.

 Climate change, peak energy, food insecurity, and economic crisis—for the most part, these dilemmas are seen and studied in singularity. The true crisis is invisible when narrowing into a single one of these categories. It is of utmost importance that we understand our crises in their combined impact; it is when we see our crises holistically that sense emerges.