Free Materials

An Exercise for Essay Writing

Book Share Possibilities

Ladies and Gentleman (a poem)


An Exercise for Essay Writing

While on a trip to Scotland in the fall of 2006, I met Martin Sichel. He was in the process of writing a book about climate change. It occurred to me that students might find it interesting to pretend to have done what I did; I interviewed him. What follows are the answers to the questions I asked him, written in an essay format, transcribed from a tape recorder.

As a teacher, you might ask students to use a highlighter to note main ideas, or supporting ideas, or examples or . . . As our new goal statement at my middle school states, “Whatever it takes.” Use the information in whatever way suits you the best.


ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE by Martin Sichel

I would like to talk to you about Abrupt Climate Change and what it means for our survival in the 21st century. Many of you may be aware that climate change is a big topic today. In fact, Al Gore recently published a book called “An Inconvenient Truth” regarding climate change. For the purposes of this discussion I have broken this up into three parts. The first part is “Global Warming and the Implications for Life” which reviews the theories and principles surrounding Abrupt Climate Change. The second part is “Global Solutions to Warming” which looks at successful technologies around the world that have now been lined up to help us, to resolve the issues surrounding climate change. The third part is “How to Survive Abrupt Climate Change.” If all else fails, what are we going to do?
Part I Global Warming and the Implications for Life
First of all, I would like to look at the earth as a system, a biosphere that is known as “Gaia.” Gaia is a term that was coined many years ago by an atmospheric scientist named James Lovelock. Gaia is the Greek name for the Earth Goddess. She also represents the living biosphere that surrounds the planet – that’s the forests and living landscape as well as the oceans and atmosphere – that together create a symbiotic relationship for life to flourish. Within that system there are natural climatic cycles. There are ice ages and warm periods too. However, those natural climatic cycles are being disturbed since the Industrial Revolution began in the 1850’s when fossils fuels where first used to provide heat, transport and products. Natural climatic cycles include solar cycles with sunspots that go in eleven and two hundred year cycles, through to volcanic explosions such as the Tambora Volcano in 1816 that gave rise to a mini Ice Age. There are also ocean currents, global winds and tropical storms that are all part of the natural climatic cycle. However, the weather patterns that we are seeing today have been altered due to man-made emissions produced from burning fossil fuel. We produce more than 27 billion tons of extra carbon every year from heating our homes, driving our cars, bringing food to our homes and modern day living. There are other green house gases such as nitrogen and methane that are invisible to the naked eye and yet represent poisons for life on earth due to the heating effect that they bring when released into the atmosphere in large quantities. So far we have only experienced a 0.6 degree Centigrade rise in temperature. However, in the near future, and possibly within this century, we may experience a rise of around 5 degrees. A shift of this magnitude would be catastrophic for life on earth and make it difficult for us to survive in latitudes below London and Paris. The last time the earth was this warm, with a 5-degree rise from today’s temperatures, was around 55 million years ago in the Eocene Period. During that epoch it was simply too hot for life and the Earth was transformed to a desert with the exception of the Arctic regions where life continued. If we are unable to find a solution this century to the extra warming then it will become a very difficult and challenging time. If we were able to freeze carbon dioxide down to -80 degrees so that it became a solid, it would form a mountain one mile high and 12 miles in circumference. That would represent all the extra carbon we produce in a single year – or 27 billion tons.
Part II Global Solutions to Warming
The question is what can we do to remove that extra carbon from the atmosphere to make the planet a safe place to live. There have been a number of suggestions put forward. One of those is to plant trees. Trees use carbon dioxide and water to produce energy using sunlight; this process is called photosynthesis. The carbon is then converted into plant matter and stored. However we would need a very large area of forest to offset that amount of carbon. Forests themselves require fertilizer, phosphates and nitrates that require fossil fuel and a plentiful supply of water. Huge areas of land the size of Texas would have to be designated every year for tree planting to offset all our carbon emissions. Perhaps a better way to do this would be to grow algae, but algae, as you know, grows along the coasts where there are nutrients and sunlight. However, it doesn’t grow further out to sea because there is a lack of nutrients and if it gets above 12 degrees Centigrade then the algae dies. However if we were able to grow algae in tanks in controlled conditions, in deserts, in semi-arid areas, then algae may be the best bet that we have for offsetting carbon emissions. Algae, in fact, is the oldest and fastest growing plant on the planet and it’s very adequately suited for the job. Another possibility is to use renewable technology. Examples of renewable technologies include solar power, wind power, tidal power, geothermal power, and others. If we can derive part of our energy from natural and renewable resources then it means we do not have to rely on coal, gas and oil that produce carbon emissions.

It is very important that we learn to work together to find solutions and implement those solutions within the next 10 to 20 years. We should be encouraging our parents to conserve energy, to plant trees, to support renewable energy, and also consider nuclear power which has the potential to deliver more energy per pound than any other energy source that we have. This will at least buy us some time whilst exploring other alternatives to alleviate the problem of global heating. By consuming less we also produce less carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. By conserving our forests we’re also conserving one of the earth’s natural carbon sinks. Our first aim is for each of us to achieve zero emissions; that’s to say that we produce no carbon or that all of the carbon is taken up through tree planting or algae or other means over one year. Our second objective is the wholesale removal of extra carbon that we have in the atmosphere which probably represents 50 mountains a mile high and 12 miles in circumference. By supporting algal technology, it may be possible in the future to offset all of our emissions and put the process back in reverse.

In addition to global heating, we may also experience global flooding. During the last Ice Age, the sea level was in fact 120 meters lower than it is today. An area about the size of Africa in land was made available off shores lines today and perhaps several civilisations flourished on those ancient shorelines before disappearing under the waves. However, with global warming, what we are experiencing is the en masse melting of ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic and Greenland and other glaciated areas. Since most cities are located at sea level, only a small sea level rise of say three to five meters would be very serious. It has been calculated a five-meter sea level rise would cause the displacement of 400 million people currently living in coastal areas.

Part III How to Survive Abrupt Climate Change.
Part II provided some solutions to global heating which in turn may lead to global flooding. However if we are unable to prevent either of these from happening we may be forced to undergo a sustained retreat to those areas in the Arctic region that will still be cool enough for life. There are 6.5 billion people currently on the planet and most of them live at latitudes that will experience drought and fires followed by famine as wars rage for control of water and other resources. This is an inevitable consequence for not acting soon enough but we still have a few years to put things right. Our governments should be thinking of creating seed banks of all edible and medicinal plants, staple crops and herbs from around the world. Dozens of these seed banks can store the germplasm needed to start recolonising life on the margins once global heating is underway. A knowledge of horticulture, mixed farming, market gardening, survival skills and bush craft would prove useful in such a world as society reverts to medieval assemblages. These newly formed communities will need to be self-sustaining for food, fuel and shelter and organised to protect themselves from nomadic groups flooding in from the 'hot lands'. In fact a community should contain a mix of skilled individuals including teachers, doctors, builders, farmers, etc. Planning ahead and preparing for retreat maybe the last resort but it is better to do it now than wait until it is too late.

We have to learn to respect nature and to understand that Gaia is far bigger and stronger than we are.

Book Share Possibilities

Oral Presentation
Make a Game
Create a Slide Show
Create a Power Point Presentation
Write and present a skit – scene with main character
Write a book review for the Toronto Globe and Mail
Poster
Compile a newspaper that chronicles the time frame of the book
Compile a portfolio of sketches
Illustrate the story
Write a news report about an event in the book
Write a letter to the editor about a situation in the book
Design a new book cover
Write a poem
Complete a Computer Book Review
Your choice (check with teacher)

Chose one of the above methods to present your book share. You can only use a method once. In other words, once you have used one of the possibilities you cannot use it again. Each book share must contain the following: title, author, setting, story information, display of originality and creativity, appear neat in presentation, information will be organized, appropriate graphics if at all possible.

REMEMBER: The object of doing a book share is to convince your audience to read the book!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

Ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitoes and bowlegged ants,
I come before you to stand behind you
To tell you a story I know nothing about.

Early one morning in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other

A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to kill the two dead boys.
Now if you don't believe my fable
I'll tell you another called the four corners on a round table.


Your name _______________________

Listener #1 _______________________

Listener #2 _______________________

Listener #3 _______________________