Response to Butterfly Lessons

One claim that Elizabeth Kolber makes in Butterfly Lessons is that because of all the pollution playing into global warming, it is uncertain how this will affect the species of the world and we cannot know what the consequences will be. In the article, Kolber quotes Chris Thomas for the University of York, "If we are in the situation where a quarter of the terrestrial species might be at risk of extinction from climate change-people often use the phrase of being like canaries-if we've changed our biological system to such an extent, then we do have to get worried about whether the services that are provided by natural ecosystems are going to continue."
Butterfly Lessons is directly related to my project on Germany's power supply because they are trying to scale down the carbon dioxide emissions so we can know more certainly the fate of our fellow species on Earth. This reversal of energy sources can save many of the species on our planet from extinction.
 

Solar Power: We Should Not Embrace It

        For thousands of years, people have been using the sun as a source of energy. Even today, the scientific community has come up with new and interesting ways to utilize this energy source. However, is the sun really the best, most powerful energy source out there? Even though it is one method to get around using the old energy sources, like coal or gas, it is not necessarily the best or easiest to use. Instead of embracing solar power, we should focus on using nuclear energy because it is much more powerful and not nearly as expensive to harness as the sun's power. 

Charles C. Mann's "1491"

            In the article “1491”, Charles C. Mann’s central premise is that Native American’s way of life was very useful, resourceful, and beneficial to their people, whereas the Europeans were very detrimental to the Indians, destroying their people through disease and their land through building their settlements and introducing new plant and animal life to the Americas. As Hudson, as described by Mann, says in this article, “ ‘the window opened and slammed shut. When the French came in and the record opened up again, it was a transformed reality. A civilization crumbled. The question is, how did this happen?’” The European exploration of North America was a bad idea because these Indian tribes were doing well enough on their own; they had plenty of land and natural resources, so they didn’t need any intrusion by the Europeans. This article also suggests that the state of historically considered Western knowledge is fake. Mann describes on multiple occasions that Europeans exploring North America thought that they were correct in their dealings with the Indians, or correct about food sources or shelter in the New World, but history always shows how the Native Americans always had the better way of life. The relationship between scientific revolution and re-evalutation of Western knowledge and “development” is that science shows that the Indians did have a better quality of life, from having very few diseases to have an abundance of good food to having decent shelters.

What Does It Mean To Be in Denial?

I think that being in denial means not taking responsibility for your own actions. For instance, one of my closest friend blames everyone else for his own problems. He blames his mother for not signing him up for driver's education classes on time when he should have taken responsibility and done it himself. He harbors  so much bitterness toward his mom because he has to wait until he is a freshman in college before he can get his driver's license, but he really should have taken the initiative to sign up for driver's education himself.

It really irritates me when people put themselves into situations like this and then start to blame other people for their problems. If you always go around blaming people when things go wrong, you will never learn how to solve your own problems and you will always have to rely on other people. When my friend starts to blame other people, I always ask him, "why is it the other person's fault? Couldn't you have done anything about it?" Hopefully, when I ask him these questions, he will change his thinking and start to realize that he is, in fact, in charge of his own life. Whenever I see people in denial, I always hope that they have a close friend that will set them straight too.