"The Power Is Yours!" (Assignment)

Since childhood, I've dedicated a considerable amount of my time and energy towards environmental protection. The kids of my generation grew up watching Captain Planet, so the virtues of ecologically safe practices were ingrained in our minds at an early age.

I've been very fortunate to live in a community where the benefits of recycling have always been stressed; so much so that, as long as I can remember, we've always had bins for recyclable waste available to us long before it became mandatory in New York City.

For a brief interval, my friends in the neighborhood and I organized a community-action group for kids. We called it the YES Club (Young Environmental Savers). Unfortunately, our activism extended no further than some personal manifestos about the need to protect the environment, as the greatest threat to our existence was posed, not by global warming, but by the continual disintegration of Earth's Ozone layer; not as many people knew about global warming, then.

More to follow...

Into the Lions' Den (Assignment)

More than two weeks ago, my (Composition I) classmates and I went on our second field-trip of this semester. That Wednesday morning we toured two facilities, the Mid-Manhattan Library and The New York Public Library. Our professor, Dr. Smith, instructed us to break up into groups for an hour long exploration of Mid-Manhattan, before returning to our rendezvous point on the steps of NYPL. Same as during our first field-trip to AMNH, I partnered with my good colleagues Zina and Ana, but that morning we welcomed a new member to our ragtag outfit, Sandy.

Of the five different floors within Mid-Manhattan, our group began browsing (as per Dr. Smith's instructions) the selections on the 1st floor. Among the sections we visited was 'non-fiction'. The 'non-fiction' section had a number of specially designated shelves. The 'New York Times Bestsellers List' shelf contained a number of popular titles like Barack Obama's, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and Hillary Clinton's, Living History. They had a shelf for 'Oprah's Book Club'; no James Frey, regretfully. We also saw a section for film and TV titles on VHS and DVD; among them, one of my childhood favorites, Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

The 2nd floor of Mid-Manhattan contained book titles with subjects pertaining to employment, education, and health, to name a few. Most of the subject-material on that floor was of little interest to our group. However, I took notice of one particular work, Carter G. Woodson's, The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Much to our dismay, our tour of Mid-Manhattan came to a close on its 3rd floor, but not before I spotted a book about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in the art-collection wing of the library.

We crossed back over 5th Ave. to rejoin our classmates, who were gathered on the front steps of NYPL, first, for a brief photo in front of one of the library's two marble lion statues (named, Fortitude); second, to embark on our guided tour of the library, itself.

We filed into the building, and waited for our tour guide to meet us. While waiting, we surveyed the area in which we stood, and took stock of its sheer beauty. The lobby of NYPL is named Astor Hall, in tribute to tycoon, philanthropist, and NYPL co-founder, John Jacob Astor. With magnificent archways, Astor Hall has the names of other Gilded Age philanthropists (i.e. Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) embossed in gold on the surface of its white marble walls.

A few minutes later, our guide turned up. He introduced himself to us as Phil, and he was accompanied by his colleague, Naomi.

From there, we proceeded into a room (whose name I can't remember) that provided us with a glimpse of the library's closed shelves, or stacks, which contain somewhere between two to four million selections of books. The construct of the shelves is especially unique, as each of its levels are buttressed by their metal (titanium, if I'm not mistaken) framework; some of which extend below Bryant Park. Most of NYPL's "collections" are housed in these shelves, and the requests for those books are delivered through a series of pneumatic tubes (like in New Jack City), which are received by the library's Pages, who then retrieve the requested materials.

In addition to learning about the intricate details of its delivery system, a number of historical facts and figures about NYPL were shared with us: its Beaux-Arts architectural design, its Billings (as opposed to Dewey) classification system, named after the library's first director, Dr. John Shaw Billings.

More to follow...I swear

How Green "Is" My Valley? (Assignment)

Now, before I share the details of my fact-finding mission on practical ways my family and I can "go green", understand that I am firm in my resolve to not overuse any phrases or terms that include the words go, going, or green.

While I am an ardent supporter of environmentally safe practices, this latest cliche of "going green" is, quite frankly, making me green...from nausea.

Tell me, since when did a color that is commonly associated with sickness, bacteria, and spoiled foods become so trendy?


My, newly fostered, Eco-friendly initiative began, via the Council on the Environment of New York City, with the assistance of the city's, NYCWasteLe$$ website.

Almost immediately, I learned a unique method for reducing paper waste in the home, and better still, the form of waste I helped to curb is of the unwanted kind, junk-mail.

Apparently, by dialing toll-free number, 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688), you can request to have your name removed from (or placed back on) the mailing lists of the country's three major consumer credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, Equifax.

This measure will enable you to cut down on some of the credit card offers you receive in the mail, but not all.

You should bear in mind that any junk-mail you receive can be disposed of, along with additional types of paper refuse, by placing it into either a bin marked with a green recycling decal, or a white (paper recycling) dumpster.

It's, also, worth noting that one of the easiest ways to reduce paper waste is to reuse old items, like books, by donating them to local charities.


The practice of donating goods for reuse isn't limited, simply, to books.

Organizations like CollectiveGood provide a service that allows people to donate their used cell phones, pagers, and PDAs for both reuse and recycling; the proceeds from which go towards a select number of charitable organizations, that the donor may choose from.


Ensuring the safe removal of, certain, old home appliances is another sound method for preserving the integrity of Earth's atmosphere.

For example...the next time I discard an air conditioner, or any other appliance (i.e. refrigerator, water cooler, dehumidifier, etc.) containing Chlorofluorocarbon gas, a.k.a. Freon, I'll be sure to call 311 to schedule a CFC recovery appointment, first!

Oops!

I can, however, take comfort in knowing that I can make up for that little transgression, by making certain that the filter for my new AC unit is cleaned, regularly, during the summer.

According to StopGlobalWarming, keeping the filter free of dirt will help to save 350 lbs. of carbon-dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, and $150.00, annually, on my family's electric bill.

The Moral Imperative (Assignment)

We are in a state of emergency.

For, far, too long, the human race has been neglectful in its responsibility to preserve Earth's natural resources, to protect its only environment.

Only now has the full extent of the damage to this planet, our greed has caused, come into wider recognition.

Since 1850, during the post-Industrial Revolutionary period, man's usage of energy has grown exponentially, and thus so has the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas).

For over a century, this trend of mass consumption has continued, unabated.

As a result, the composition of Earth's atmosphere has become drastically altered, and the respective climates and geological features of many regions have undergone, alarming, transformations.

How has this happened?

The scientific phenomenon known as global warming has radically increased the average temperature of our planet's air and oceans.

This is due to an imbalance in the process that we've come to know as the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is a phrase used to describe the process by which heat, generated from the infrared rays of the Sun, is stored within the Earth's atmosphere by greenhouse gases.

There are several greenhouse gases: water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

These gases are essential, as they serve to regulate the Earth's temperature, and without them our planet would become frozen, and thus uninhabitable.

Unfortunately, due to the effects of global warming, the equilibrium of this process has been disrupted.

Instead of trapping the required amount of heat necessary to provide us with the warmth we need to survive, increased levels of greenhouse gases have enabled an excessive spike to this planet's temperature; one that has resulted in the rapid worsening of geological conditions, worldwide.

How do we know this?

For, approximately, the last fifty years, scientists have studied how the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere correlate with the rise of its average temperature. Their findings, which have been well documented, are beyond compelling.

Through a number of methods (i.e. experimentation, observation, etc.), scientists have determined that these changes have had a profound, and terribly dangerous, ecological impact on our environment, and its natural processes.

These discoveries have been made available to the public in a number of ways; not the least of which has been through the release of former U.S. Vice-President, Al Gore's, critically-acclaimed documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth

My Composition I class and I screened the film a couple of weeks ago, and as a follow-up to that viewing, we went on a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History, to tour the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth.

There, we examined recorded evidence of global warming in the forms of an ice core sample, tree rings, ocean sediments, and wind deposits. All of those exhibits served to add even further credibility to the argument that global warming is, indeed, factual; heightening our need to make, equally, radical changes to the ways and means by which we live, before we doom ourselves to extinction.

Ice core samples are obtained through the use of high-powered drills, which burrow (or, core) deep below the icy surfaces of Earth's most frigid regions. These samples are then extracted and stored safely for preservation, so that they can be, later, examined.

Through careful observation, they reveal tiny particles of dust that were contained inside of air bubbles that became trapped by snowfall during a particular year.

The two different layers, dark and light, of the dust particles within a sample, reflect certain seasonal variations in the Earth's atmosphere: changes in humidity, temperature, atmospheric circulation, volcanic activity, extent of sea-ice, and levels of pollution.

Tree rings are obtained by cutting horizontal cross sections of a tree's trunk. By examining the levels of thickness in a single trunk's rings, we can determine (once again) the seasonal variations of the Earth's climate.

The thicker the bands of a tree's trunk, then the warmer and wetter the climate was, in the region the sample was obtained, during that year.

The thinner the bands, then the cooler and drier the climate was, in the region the sample was obtained, during that year.

The greater the diversity of the samples are, then the greater the approximation of a region's climate.

Ocean sediments, which include the shells of dead marine organisms, contain certain chemicals which aid in the determination of the water's composition and temperature. Such findings are accentuated by the chemical makeup (also known as, bleaching) of coral skeletons that lie beneath the surface.

There are other examples of global warming's impact on the Earth's geological features; such as, wind deposits (loess) from 23,000 years ago that were swept across the globe by the Earth's natural winds, and the striations of rocks (gneiss) caused by small pebbles and other coarse particles that scratch the surface of glaciers.

While at the Planet Earth exhibit, my group and I conducted an experiment, using an interactive computer device, on the effects caused by the extensive burning of fossil fuels.

We discovered that with the rapid rise in population the consumption of non-renewable energy resources maximizes, and subsequently so does the level of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, making the planet less and less habitable.

The dangers we face, as a people, if we do not put an end to the use of fossil fuels are grave.

Already, we have suffered from some of the hottest, and most deadly, temperatures on record across the globe, within the last fourteen years.

Infectious diseases spread by living organisms, once controlled by geographic climates, have now spread to areas where such conditions had never existed, previously.

Hurricanes and typhoons, created by specific atmospheric and water conditions, have grown in both strength and number, causing unspeakable levels of death and destruction in cities around the world.

Perhaps, the greatest danger of all is the rapid melting of Earth's glacial land masses. If they continue to dissipate at their current rate, the levels of our oceans will rise, and floods of epic proportions will ensue.

We must work diligently to put an end to this, ongoing, crisis. The U.S. government must work in concert with the other government's of the world that have, already, pledged to take decisive action to stem this impending calamity. Only through the use of renewable resources of energy (i.e. solar, wind, water, etc.), and the reduced usage of fossil fuels, can we hope to reverse this menacing trend which threatens to destroy all that we cherish.

If we fail to heed the call to end global warming, then we will have only ourselves to blame for our planet's destruction, and there will be no return.

I leave you with another quote I noticed hanging from the walls of the American Museum of Natural History's, Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda.

"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value."