NYT Quote Sandwich

          New York is not ready for climate change,one particular reason is that we are a coastal city and any rises in sea levels can harm us exponentially.  I read in a New York Times article that NYC is above sea level but we still have a lot of people living less than 4 feet above sea level at high tide, the article states " nearly 200,000 New Yorkers, according to the research group Climate Central" (Navarro). With only 200,000 people living less than 4 feet above sea levels at high tide, this is a major concern.  Since sea levels have been increasing year by year it's only a mater of time before these people are living in a lake or have to move because they can't live there anymore.  Even though the city is taking certain steps such as adding rock barriers, laying down salt resistant grass, and sidewalk bioswales in order to soak up the water a storm may bring.  This still doesn't help us stop rising sea levels which will make common storms have the damaging impact of rare big storms.

Peer Review Feedback

Today in class I had my peer review for my first essay assignment.  I feel really good going in to this assignment after the feedback I received from Carmen and Wanda.  They really liked what I had to say about the topic and how my letter was coming along.  The one thing they said I need to work on is maybe sound a little more like myself when explaining certain things in the opening of my paper.  Later in the paper when I start critical thinking that's when I do sound like myself.  I will however try to tweak the paper a bit and make it sound more human without compromising credibility.

Interesting Graph

Hey there,

        My name is Jeremy, and I found something very interesting as I was reading and a book for my ENG 101 class called "The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World." by William Nordhaus.  On P.46 of this book there is a graph showing the global temperature trends since 1850-2012 calculated by 3 different research groups.  The results for each of their findings were recorded all on the same graph using different lines to indicate the data and whom it belonged to.  The interesting part about this graph is that they all recorded different exact numbers, but their numbers were so close to each other that it was almost identical.  Secondly all of their findings showed the same resulting trend.  That trend is that since 1850 til now global temperatures have been rising.  To see 3 different groups come up with the same conclusion is pretty compelling to say the least.  It also tells us that the issue of climate change and global warming isn't just a fad or something that we should brush off since we are experiencing abnormal weather occurring throughout the world.  As a fellow Lagcc student I would recommend that you take a look and see for yourself if you get the chance.  This is an issue that affects us, and not only us in this generation but the next one that we pass the torch to.  To make this world a better place we need to look at information like this and see how we can do our part to help.  I do understand how someone can be skeptical about something like this especially since the data is not exact for all 3 groups.  However it is a pretty solid source considering that all 3 groups research resulted in the same outcome, which was global temperatures are increasing.  I just saw this information and wanted to share it with a fellow classmate.  I hope this information find you well.

Response to a passage in "Climate Casino"

                   I'll be talking about a certain passage I read from the book "The Climate Casino: Risks, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World" by William Nordhaus, that I found interesting.  In that particular passage he talk about externalities and how it works.  He uses an example of lettuce and the cost of lettuce is determined by the cost of it's production.  For anyone that isn't familiar with externality, it simply means that the by product of an activity that we partake in has its affects on those who did not.  He brought the example of lettuce production back up explaining that in that price of lettuce they are not factoring in the emissions that came from the machine that had to irrigate the lettuce, or the truck that had to transport the lettuce to be sold.  These situations would be considered externalities.  I found this particularly interesting because a lot of the time as humans there are many activities that we participate in without thinking of the externalities it may have.  It can range from anything as simple as going to school and the gas we may have used to get there, or ironically something as complex as building a piece of medical equipment in order to save lives, where its by product will ultimately just shorten all of ours.  It was just something I found to be quite interesting and made me a little more aware of what I do in my life.  Hope you found it just as interesting!

Response to NYT article "New York Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn"

Hello, my name is Jeremy and in this blog I will be summarizing some points of a New York Times article called “New York Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn”, because I feel the more aware we are about potential risks and dangers, the better suited we are to eliminate or correct them.  In this article it discusses many risks and dangers New York faces due to climate change and how it’s affecting rising sea levels and just how unprepared we are to face them.  The first glimpse of how unprepared we were in 2011 when Hurricane Irene was suppose to make landfall in New York.  The city ordered evacuation of about 370,000 residents to safe zones and shut down all public transportation virtually paralyzing the city. A lot of talk since then has been floating around in terms of how do we stop this from becoming worst in the future.  Already New York has taken some steps in mitigating the damage that potential storms pose in the future such as; expanding wetlands, installing green roofs that can absorb water, and planting tree pits that can absorb a lot of water.  Many say this is not enough and that we need to invest in things like sea gates in order to prevent flooding in certain areas, while others argue establishing those sea gates will interrupt the natural ecosystem that we have and it would cost nearly $10 billion to build.

However, the only issue at hand isn’t just the budget.  As I was reading the article one of the Reader Picks comments was from Jim Gordon from Boston, MA.  In his comment he stated that not only should we invest in preventative measures to avoid and prepare for these monster storms, but also just as importantly we should be investing to find other sources of energy instead of the carbon based ones that we already use that put us in this position to begin with.  Honestly I couldn’t agree more with him.  In order to reverse the damage we already caused we need to eliminate any further damage to the earth and it’s climate by being more aware of how we produce products and just in general the consequences of our daily activities that may have an unfortunate effect on us in the future.  We also need to find new ways to prepare for the worst as a city.  Even though we lucked out with Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy showed us just how unprepared we are for things to come.  Hopefully we will be able to both prepare better for future storms that we may face and also take steps in the right direction to fix the damage we’ve caused to the environment thus far.