Class blog for sharing and commenting on current events in biology.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change


Lea Tanenbaum                                                                                                         10/14/12
Biology                                                                                                              C Block Odd
Barringer, Felicity. “A Grand Expedition  to Rein In Climate Change.” The New York Times, published October 13, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/science/earth/in-california-a-grand-experiment-to-rein-in-climate-change.html?ref=science                       
            Global warming is a serious problem which is affecting the world we live in, and although we are trying to help in ways such as, recycling and the conservation of water and energy, there’s always more to do.  … California embarks on its grand experiment in reining in climate change. On Jan. 1, it will become the first state in the nation to charge industries across the economy for the greenhouse gases they emit. Under the system, known as “cap and trade,” the state will set an overall ceiling on those emissions and assign allowable emission amounts for individual polluters…” In addition to putting a maximum on the amount of allowable emissions, “Over time, the number of allowances issued by the state will be reduced, which should force a reduction in emissions… The outsize goals of California’s new law… are to lower California’s emissions to what they were in 1990 by 2020 — a reduction of roughly 30 percent — and, more broadly, to show that the system works and can be replicated…” At first, timber management, the destruction of coolant gases, cuts in the methane emissions from livestock waste and tree planting projects in urban areas, will be the only four means of approved carbon reduction. Considering that we produce many cows for dairy and meat purposes and they emit gases, such as methane, which has been polluting our air, certain states like Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, will capture methane from livestock waste.
            Hopefully the outcome of this will not only have a positive affect on our environment, but it will “show that the system works and can be replicated.” If this were to work we would be considerably helping our environment. Who’s to say if we could “fix” it or not, but this would definitely be a step in the right direction. If we could get our emissions to what they were in the 90s in about 8 years, who’s to say what we could accomplish in 20 years? This could also be a gateway to new resources. Maybe scientists will find a way to use livestock waste as a type of energy.
            Although I found this article extremely interesting and revolutionary, I thought the author could have done a better job explaining certain things. For example, how are they planning to capture the methane waste from the livestock and further more what are they planning to do with it? In addition, instead of the destruction of coolant gases, could they be put to better use? I would have just appreciated simpler and more detailed explanations in order to further my understanding on the topic and the problems at hand.

7 comments:

  1. Lea Tanenbaum’s report on the article “A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change” is short and sweet. I like how she kept the point’s she wanted to get across very clear and did not add anything confusing. Lea also did a great job incorporating a lot of quotes from the article making the report very connected to the article, helping bring out the main points. She decided what she wanted to emphasize on and based her whole report on it. Another aspect of the review I thought was really well presented was the possible improvements the author could have made. Lea mentioned something that a lot of articles do wrong and emphasized it. I though it was great that she stated some of the questions that she had when reading the article that the author could have answered. Overall I think she did a good job. From reading this review and the article I learned about this new law. I was surprised that it was actually being passed. I don’t really think about the greenhouse gasses on a daily basis and found it interesting to learn about how extreme people are going to protect the environment. I was impressed that this law could be passed especially with the current economy and the need for jobs around America. I am interested in helping the environment and think it great people are going to all these troubles to try and help. Although this was a good report there are some things I would improve on. I think that this report could have been better with more in the summary and talking about the worry of losing jobs as it says in the article. I feel like that is a really important part of this article that wasn’t mentioned and should definitely have been emphasized on in the review. The effects that this law would have on society do relate a lot to job loss, I feel that Lea should have talked about this and her opinion on it. Overall it was a good review that had some really good points.

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  2. I think that Lea’s report on the article “A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change” is great. It summarizes the article in a concise, straightforward way. It is not wordy and is a smooth read which really allows the reader to stay focused and interested throughout the whole review. I like how Lea backed up her points with quotes, as this further proves her ideas. Another aspect of Lea’s review that I think is well done is how she chose the most important facts from the article and summarized them, instead of just throwing together every idea suggested in the article. I also liked Lea’s opinions and ideas of the article. She included questions about what accomplishments might be made in the future if the outcome of capturing methane from livestock waste will “show that the system works and can be replicated.” A final aspect I liked about Lea’s review was her thoughts of what the author could have done a better job of explaining. She brought up a good point to wonder how they are going to capture the methane waste from the livestock and what they are going to do with it once they capture it. Lea’s chosen article was very fascinating to me, as I learned many new things from reading it. For instance, I learned that the risks for California are huge, as the program could damage the state’s fragile economy by driving out refineries, cement makers, glass factories, and other businesses. Furthermore, I learned that the state could fall short of its emission reduction targets, as companies could find a way to outmaneuver the system. I think that protecting the environment is something that many people neglect and forget about in their daily day-to-day lives, however, from reading this article, I was impressed that there are people who are working hard and devoting their time and ideas to keeping our environment safe. Lea did an excellent job on her review, however, there are just a few things that I think she could add and change in order to further improve her review. One thing I feel that Lea should have added is more about why she chose this article and what information stood out to her. I also feel that she should have included more information about the risks for California in her summary, as they are emphasized in the article. A final thing I think could make this review even better would be removing one of the quotes, as I feel that having more than one quote takes away from her summary and makes it harder to read, especially since the quotes were long and not clearly backed up. In addition, she could add more information to her summary that focuses on the points brought up. Overall, Lea did an outstanding job on her review and I was thoroughly impressed.

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  3. I thought that Lea’s review about “A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change” was very engaging and it made me want to read the article. There were many things that I liked about this review. One of the main things that I like about her review was that she incorporated quotes from the article. This connection with the article gave me an idea of what her article was like and helped give a great amount of information. Another thing that I like about this article was the questions that she put in her last paragraph. Instead of putting what she thought the author could have done to make the article better, she put her own questions that she would have liked to have answered while she was reading. This showed me that she had really read the article and had questions that she would have like the author to answer. From reading this article I found out about the new law that the government in California is trying. I was very surprised about this, I didn’t think that many people care so much about global warming that they would actually make a law about it. I was also very surprised about how extreme people are going to protect the environment. I’m not sure why, but it’s just something that I don’t think about very often, so for me to hear that a law about global warming is being passed is very surprising and a little bit shocking. While this report was well done and very engaging, there were some things that I felt that Lea could have elaborated more on. For example, the summary I found was a bit confusing. While I thought it was great with the quotes, I feel that she should have added more information about the article itself and give some more background about it just to make things a bit clearer. Another thing about the summary is that I feel that she didn’t elaborate about the quotes at all, she just put them there. I think that next time she should elaborate more on the quotes because at times they could be very confusing. Other than the summary, I feel that her response to the article was very well done and she incorporated lots of detail, which makes her review very interesting to read. I think that she mentioned some really good points and did very well on explaining them.

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  4. I thought that the way Lea started off her analysis on the article "A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change" was very nice, and it got me hooked to her piece of writing right away. One thing that I liked about her article was that she brought up dates that gave the reader a clear perspective of when things were taking place. Another thing I enjoyed about Lea's article was that she put things in the right perspective. She said that the things that are be done could help the climate, but nothing is for sure. Finally I liked the way that Lea described the way the author could have made this article better. She used specific examples to support what she thought about the article. First of all, I had no idea that California was doing this, so that is definitely one thing that is new to me. Another thing I found interesting reading about was the timber management, the destruction of coolant gases, and how this will affect the amount of methane and gases that pollute the air. I think one way that Lea could have improved her current events report would be by giving a little bit more on how it directly affects her own life and why. Overall, I think Lea did a really good job on explaining what was going on in this article.

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  5. Jack Boyd

    C-Even

    November 14, 2012

    This piece on California's new legislation was well written and I give kudos to Lea. I was impressed by her broad use of vocabulary to get her point across. She gives a good analysis as well as an educated summary. It was well developed and well written for sure. I also liked how clear and concise you were about how this could positively affect California, that was very interesting. I liked the explanation of the legislation as well, its always taxing deciphering the newspaper’s scientific explanations of objects of interest in the scientific field and I felt you in particular did a very good job at picking out and condensing the important facts on the subject.
    I found this analysis to be rich in knowledge of the subject which is certainly a complex subject because global warming is a relatively new idea that only appeared in the last 2 decades or so. I was very interested in California's initiative to build a cleaner state with cleaner air for its citizens. I was unaware of their efforts to reform their industrial waste output.
    This was a very well written analysis I only have two suggestions. Perhaps you should've gone into more detail over the positive health effects it would have on the citizens of California to give us a broader reasoning behind this. Second, I suggest next time that you should dig deeper into the future of potential legislation on industrial emissions in the United States. Nevertheless, it's a fine paper, good work Lea.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jack Boyd

    C-Even

    November 14, 2012

    This piece on California's new legislation was well written and I give kudos to Lea. I was impressed by her broad use of vocabulary to get her point across. She gives a good analysis as well as an educated summary. It was well developed and well written for sure. I also liked how clear and concise you were about how this could positively affect California, that was very interesting. I liked the explanation of the legislation as well, its always taxing deciphering the newspaper’s scientific explanations of objects of interest in the scientific field and I felt you in particular did a very good job at picking out and condensing the important facts on the subject.
    I found this analysis to be rich in knowledge of the subject which is certainly a complex subject because global warming is a relatively new idea that only appeared in the last 2 decades or so. I was very interested in California's initiative to build a cleaner state with cleaner air for its citizens. I was unaware of their efforts to reform their industrial waste output.
    This was a very well written analysis I only have two suggestions. Perhaps you should've gone into more detail over the positive health effects it would have on the citizens of California to give us a broader reasoning behind this. Second, I suggest next time that you should dig deeper into the future of potential legislation on industrial emissions in the United States. Nevertheless, it's a fine paper, good work Lea.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lea Tanenbaum’s report on the article “A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change” was very precise and to the point. I liked that she didn’t add in a lot of insignificant information and kept the main idea of the article clear and defined. Also, the topic she chose is something important that no one really talks about even though, I believe, it should be discussed about more and taken into consideration. Many people believe that Global Warming is either going to be the end of our world or not even part of existence, however like Lea states in her review I think it should be dealt with gradually. We already do minor things to prevent the consequences of Global Warming, like preserving water and saving electricity whenever we can however I also believe there is still something more to contribute. Like Lea suggested, timber management, the destruction of coolant gases, cuts in the methane emissions from livestock waste and tree planting projects in urban areas, will be the only four means of approved carbon reduction. Considering that we produce many cows for dairy and meat purposes and they emit gases, such as methane, which has been polluting our air, certain states like Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, will capture methane from livestock waste. We want to have a positive effect on the environment and ensure that Global Warming can be stopped. I think Lea did a very good job of clearly explaining how she believes would be best to resolve some of these issues and discussing exactly how to resolve them. I wouldn’t change much about her review; maybe just add a little more detail on the topic. However, overall I think Lea’s report on “A Grand Expedition to Rein in Climate Change,” was successful.

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