Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Time Is Now
Steven Kirby
Samantha Mudd
English 151
11 November 2010
The Time Is Now
According to a study done by The Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, The United States on average emitted more than 140 terra grams of carbon per month in 2008 (Gregg). For those of us who aren’t familiar with terra grams, that means that each month our country is releasing over 140 trillion grams of carbon. To make matters worse that number is rising by around 16.8 terra grams a year (Gregg). There are many reasons for these numbers being so high, but some are much more damaging than others. When you look at the research behind climate change you will always notice that coal and natural gas are two of the biggest contributors to the problem. In fact, these two greenhouse gasses account for almost 70% of the 140 terra grams of carbon emitted monthly in this country alone. This is obviously a huge problem, and in order to save our planet from the effects of global warming we need to give it our immediate and undivided attention. Over the past couple of years, many alternative energy sources have been developed in an effort to cut these greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear energy has been developed into a safe and efficient alternative to harmful fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Once nuclear energy has been established in a particular country it becomes an economy stimulating juggernaut with the ability to combat climate change on a massive level.
There are many misconceptions when it comes to nuclear energy. Of these the most prominent is the idea that it cannot be controlled. The leaks and mistakes made in the past with relation to nuclear energy have made many hesitant to trust it so readily. What most people do not know is that many technological advancements have been made in recent years in an attempt to ensure proper containment of the harmful reactants involved in creating and storing nuclear energy. Matthew L. Wald, author of “What Now For Nuclear Waste”, has brought to light one such advancement. According to Wald, scientists have found and mined Permian age Rock Salt in the Chihuanhuan desert just outside Carlsbad, New Mexico. They have discovered that when water moves through these crystals it becomes trapped inside by the salt. Similarly, in an even bigger discovery, scientists found that nuclear waste can actually be stored inside these crystals much in the same way that the water gets trapped inside them. In 1989, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain was proposed as the original storage site for the United States’ nuclear waste, but almost exactly 20 years later President Barrack Obama apparently saw something he didn’t like in Yucca Mountain because he passed a law shutting down all operations on the site. More than $9 billion invested in the program were wasted. Seeing as finding a way to store nuclear waste safely has proven to be a near impossible task, this new finding could potentially jumpstart the nuclear industry. Given the proper funding and government approval, nuclear energy could finally be ready for its comeback, and incidentally it could also be the solution to our economy’s comeback.
In order to make nuclear energy become a main source of our energy, it is going to take the unified efforts of the majority of our population to make this dream a reality. Plants need to be built, maintained, and constantly checked for safety regulations. All of these things require labor, and seeing as the United States currently has an unemployment rate at of 9.6% (Bureau Labor Statistics) an increased investment in nuclear energy would translate into an economy stimulating boom. One nuclear plant can provide up to 500 well-paying jobs for the next half century (Christian). The construction of new plants could potentially cause the unemployment rate to sink below 6.2% where it was before numbers started to skyrocket in 2008. Nuclear energy’s ability to produce positive after effects is enormous. For anyone to ignore them any longer would be ignorant.
Critics of nuclear energy have pointed to its expensive costs as a reason for delaying initial investment in reactors. There is no denying that the reactors and new technology are extremely pricey. As of now, the cost is estimated to be above $8 billion per reactor (USA Today). While this steep initial price has made many hesitant to invest in a technology that’s future is unknown, nuclear energy’s popularity among most investors has continued to rise. Investors have trusted the new industry enough to make the construction of eight new plants possible (Davidson). These plants can be ready as soon as 2020, and the amount of energy generated per plant on average is enough to power 893,000 homes. To put that into perspective, the state of Rhode Island only has a little more than 452,000 homes. These numbers leave little doubt on the subject of nuclear energy’s effectiveness. As of 2008, there were 104 operating nuclear reactors in the United States, and on average those reactors generated 12.4 billion kilo watt hours of energy. If we as a country are able to add 20 – 30 more reactors by the year 2050, nuclear energy will be powering more than 40% of the country (U.S. Energy Information Administration). There would be large decreases in carbon dioxide emissions, and we would be making significant progress in the worldwide struggle with climate change.
You can compare the initial high costs of alternative energies to buying a hybrid car. While buying a hybrid may mean that you pay more up front than you would for a typical car, the amount of money you save getting 40+ mpg of gas instead of 25 mpg adds up quickly, to the point where the person who buys the hybrid made the much better economic decision than the person who buys the cheaper model. The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a cheap alternative to fossil fuels. So, when you talk about any of the major proposed alternatives (Nuclear, Hydrogen, Geothermal, etc.) there is no way around the price factor, and no revolutionary cheap source is coming in the near future. The opposition to alternatives is very near-sighted when it comes to these things; if you look at the data behind these technologies you will see that long term the money saved by investing in these new technologies far outweighs the initial price. Just as the hybrid ended up being the better choice to the cheaper model, nuclear energy becomes the best choice when compared to the cheaper coal and gas models.
Before anyone is going to trust nuclear energy, its advocates are going to need to be able to show that the safety of everything and everyone involved is not going to be a problem. “The Directive Establishing a Community Framework for Nuclear Safety on Nuclear Installations: the EU Approach to Nuclear Safety” is a journal published by the Nuclear Law Bulletin with the intent of answering the questions surrounding the safety of nuclear energy. The European Union is the main supporter and user of nuclear energy and in 2009 legislation was passed to ensure that all the proper precautions were being taken to prevent reactor leaks, manufacturing mistakes, and other general containment procedures. This new legislation is aimed to prevent the most common problems that arise with the production of nuclear energy. The first task that needs to be constantly supervised is radiation protection, or protecting workers and the facilities from radiation exposure and the effects of radiation. The second is maintaining control over the reactor at all times. Both of these tasks seem pretty obvious and were no doubt already being monitored, but now that there are laws to make sure that these precautions are taken into account the manner in which they are supervised will become considerably more stringent and the consequences for not following these new rules will be very unpleasant. Being able to regulate the operating of these facilities is paramount to ensuring the safety of nuclear energy, and this new legislation has paved the way for more safety regulations to come.
Technology has made many things possible that weren’t possible in the past with Nuclear energy. For instance a process has been developed to recycle the waste created in manufacturing nuclear energy. The process France uses in recycling waste is clearly shown in “Nuclear Energy: Promise or Peril?”. What France does is ship their waste to a reprocessing plant in Russia where the harmful Plutonium byproduct is removed from the Uranium. The Uranium is then sent back to France where it can be reused in the manufacturing process. Since France is considered by most to be the leader of this new nuclear age, it would seem that following their example would be the best option for any country trying to get serious about nuclear energy. Again the problem of price arises when recycling Uranium is talked about. Once again, though there are more long term benefits from using the more expensive process, a country choosing not to recycle their Uranium will just skip right to the process of storing the waste. This is where the non-recycling country will run into problems. As I previously stated, it has taken more than two decades for our government to decide not to use the Yucca Mountain for waste storage. When you skip the recycling process you send more waste to the repository, and the faster that repository will fill up. When you take into account the fact that it takes close to 80 years for the produced waste to lose its radioactivity, you will quickly realize that you need to use the repository space you have as conservatively as possible. Because the costs of finding, preparing, and using new repositories are all extremely high, money would again be saved in the long term to make up for the cost of recycling.
The safety of our planet’s great ecosystem is currently in jeopardy. As the United States we are constantly being looked to as the role model of the world. We have discovered the technology, and more importantly, we have been given the opportunity to save what we have left of our home here on Earth. Nuclear energy is here and ready to be used as a weapon in our struggle with Global Warming. If we as a society wait much longer to take action against this common world enemy, what kind of message are we sending to all the people trying to follow our example? Right now it is our responsibility to take action, and if we sit by and watch while God’s green Earth continues to be destroyed we will have failed. Not only will we have failed ourselves, but the rest of the world as well. Armed with all the necessary tools to correct the same crisis we created, there are no more excuses. Coal and Natural Gas emissions are decimating the environment with little to no resistance. Who are we to deny our children the opportunity to grow up in a world as beautiful as ours? Who are we to take the freedom away from them to decide for themselves how best to treat this planet? I am not saying that nuclear energy is going to make everything better because it is not. What I am saying is that it will be a huge step in the right direction. Every journey begins with a step. We are just lucky to have the opportunity to start this journey off in a dead sprint. A solution to this problem has been offered to us, so let’s take action before it is too late.
Works Cited (in MLA)
Christian, David A. "A Forward Looking Company." Nuclear Plant Journal 22.3 (2004). Web. 5
Nov. 2010.
Davidson, Paul. “Nuclear Inches back into the Energy Spotlight” USA Today (30 March 2009):
(section: money, pg 01) Print
Gregg, S. J., L. M. Losey, R. J. Andres, T. J. Blasing, and G. Marland. "The Temporal and Spatial
Distribution of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Use in North America." Journal
of Applied Meteorology & Climatology 48.12 (2009). Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
Garriba, Massimo, Chirts, Amelia, Nauduzaite, Monika. “The Directive Establishing a
Community Framework for Nuclear Safety on Nuclear Installations: the EU Approach to
Nuclear Safety” Nuclear Law Bulletin (01 December 2009)
Mccombie, Charles. “Evaluating the solutions to the nuclear waste problem” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists (November 2009): Vol. 65 issue 6 (pg 42 – 48) Print
Wald, L. Matthew. “What Now For Nuclear Waste?” Scientific American (August 2009): (pg 46
53) Print
Hill, Mechelynck, Ripka, Zwaan. “Nuclear Energy: Promise or Peril?” Singapore 1999. World
Scientific publishing company
U.S. Census Bureau. "Rhode Island QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." State and County
QuickFacts. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
An Inconvenient Truth
Steven Kirby
Sam Mudd
English 151
19 October 2010
You Can’t Argue with Facts
“An Inconvenient Truth” is Al Gore’s attempt to describe the world’s current environmental state to anyone willing to listen. After watching the documentary I was left with feelings of intrigue, astonishment, and most of all confusion. The statistics and the eye opening graphs Gore shows throughout the presentation were all very alarming, and it was because of this I kept asking myself the question: “Are we as humans really this destructive?” I have done extensive research on the climate change predicament, and I believe that my knowledge on the subject will ultimately prove that we as humans are the main cause of the climate crisis we are currently undergoing.
My research showed that Gore’s information matches the data of most scientists and climatologists that have done work in the field. In 2001, a group called the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a scientific assessment for climate change that gave strong evidence toward the fact that humans are causing climate change. According to the report, there is more than a ninety percent chance humans are the cause (Bailey). It would be foolish for anyone to believe that humans aren’t doing anything harmful to our planet on a regular basis. Everyone is guilty of this. Gore himself used twenty times more energy than the average American household (Easterbrook). While he does donate ridiculous amounts of money to “green” organizations, he can’t hope to achieve his goals by continuing to be so wasteful in his energy usage. This definitely didn’t help Gore gain any support in his fight against harmful fossil fuels. Even though this information didn’t come out until a year after the release of his movie, it still deeply hurts his ethos.
During the movie, Gore did a spectacular job naming off facts and using prestigious organization names to boost his credibility. He brought up the extreme weather patterns we have been experiencing more frequently. How the hurricanes and droughts that keep popping up around the globe should be flashing red lights to everyone because climate change isn’t coming, it is already here. The flashy graphs were another great tool he used to broadcast his message. Rises in carbon dioxide emissions rises almost perfectly in line with the increase in global temperature, and by showing this in the form of a line graph Gore was able to make the correlation between the two without a doubt. The combination of these two things gave Al Gore’s presentation maybe too much credibility if that’s possible. As I watched the movie I was completely blown away by most of the statistics he used to the point where it was almost unbelievable. It is a lot like when one of your good friends tells you a story, and you know they have embellished parts of the story to get a bigger reaction out of you. With that said, I still haven’t found anything in my research that differentiates from the material he used in the movie. From that standpoint, it is relatively safe to conclude that ethos is very apparent in the film.
I also thought Gore did a good job incorporating pathos into his work. He used a lot of slow music and close ups on his aloof facial expressions that create the serious, depressive mood he wanted. Often, he would begin talking about how afraid he was of Global Warming’s numerous threats, and the camera would cut from the presentation to the very distant minded Al Gore, hard at work on his presentation. Gore was also able to better control emotion through his stories; the first one about his son getting hit by a car, and the second about his sister dying from cancer. The second story in particular was effective for the overall message of the film. Not only did it create the depressing mood he wanted, but it also showed that he has experienced something similar in makeup to the global warming problem. He was trying to say that even though his family was well aware of the health problems associated with tobacco, it took the death of his sister, by lung cancer, for them to shut down the family farm. Much in the same way, people seem to be aware of what climate change is and will do to our planet, but they are in a state of denial when it comes to taking action. The conclusion I drew from this was that one of Al Gore’s goals of the presentation was to not make the same mistake twice. I think this is important because Gore brings up a valid point, and more importantly he opens up to his audience and gains trust through his past experiences.
I found some of the Anti-Gore articles posted in response to the movie, and the majority of them were very ineffective pieces of rhetoric. They rely heavily on generalities and names rather than facts. The best argument I found was from an article entitled “Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe” by Tom Harris. Harris had numerous professors and doctors backing his view up, but he didn’t actually give any statistics anywhere in the article that went against Gore’s information. At one point, Harris points to the opinion of Dr. Dick Morgan, a former advisor for the World Meteorological Organization. Morgan at one point said that “There has been some decrease in the Canadian arctic over the last thirty years, but no melt down” (Harris). These experts have said things that bash Gore’s message, but there has been no hard evidence to back them up. They could have given the statements years ago for all I know. Maybe they have been paid to say the given quotes, or maybe this is there actual viewpoint. I obviously can’t be sure, but what I do know is that Gore’s facts check out and I was skeptical of the names used in this article.
It turns out Tom Harris was the executive director of an NPO called Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NSRP). The article in question was written in March of 2006, and as of 2008 the organization website was taken down. The NSRP was actually being controlled by energy lobbyists (sourcewatch.org). Once this information was disclosed to the public the organization lost all its credibility, and was forced to basically shut down. These politically backed organizations are very good at creating doubt in the public, and because of this Gore’s main message continues to be refuted.
If we as humans are going to reverse Climate Change, we are going to need a unified public effort globally to cut our carbon emissions and get our planet back to a reasonable state. That is the message Gore has projected to us through, “An Inconvenient Truth”. The scientists back him up, the facts back him up, and I agree with him now. Humans are the main cause of Global Warming. Some of us are more responsible than others, but Gore does a good job of not pointing fingers. He focuses more on inspiring viewers to take action because he knows that is the best way to win this fight. He held the interest of his viewers, and like the puppeteer controls the puppet, Gore controlled the emotions of his audience. All in all, this film was a great piece of rhetoric.
Bibliography
Bailey, Ronald. "Global Warming — Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough." Reason Magazine. (2 Feb. 2007) (http://reason.com)
Easterbrook, Gregg. "Al Gore's Outsourcing Solution." The New York Times - Breaking News,
World News & Multimedia (9 Mar. 2007) (http://www.nytimes.com)
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: the Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do
about It. New York: Rodale, 2006. Print.
Harris, Tom. “Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe.” Natural Resources
Stewardship Project (12 June 2006) (http://www.Canadafreepress.com)
Various authors. "Natural Resources Stewardship Project." SourceWatch. 26 Dec. 2009.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Steven Kirby
Sam Mudd
English 151
14 October 2010
Formal response to “An Inconvenient Truth”
For the past few years we have been repeatedly reminded of a problem known as Global Warming. Al Gore’s documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth” is an attempt to inform his audience of the present and future effects that Global Warming causes, and persuade this audience to take some sort of action toward rectifying this problem. Throughout the video he touches on most every single argument the opposition has put forth with the hope that this strategy will prove to everyone once and for all Global Warming is much more than just a theory, and we as humans cannot sit back and let it destroy us. Using pathos, and a massive arsenal of astounding statistics he makes it very hard to disagree with his wisdom on this particular subject.
This documentary was very effective rhetoric. One of the ways that helped it to be so effective was its use of pathos. This was possible because of the use of slow emotional instrumentals, and a few sad stories pertaining to Al Gore’s personal life. In class we discussed his story about his sister and the tobacco farm the Gore’s owned. A couple of my classmates were confused by the relevance of this story, and how it affected pathos. I have come to the conclusion that it was a message. More specifically, I think that he’s saying that people had no idea that they were harming themselves and others from using and producing tobacco. But once research came out proving that Tobacco was extremely harmful people like the Gore’s were in a state of denial because it was an inconvenient truth. It took the death of his sister for the family to have reality finally set in. Much in the same way the Global Warming Theory has received an incredible amount of research to back it up, but the reality still of how serious this problem has become isn’t setting in to millions of people who should be worried about its consequences.
Al Gore had a seemingly endless amount of high tech bar graphs and statistics that he used to really drive his message home to the audience. His evidence dated as much as thirty years into the past, and it made the opposition to his argument look feeble. He also did a great job of delivering these statistics. You could tell that he slowed his talking speed down considerably when he delivered statistics to the audience because he was trying to really let the information sink into each individual.
One thing I would like to see from Gore in the future would be a debate. He was so confident in his argument and as a result very convincing, but the opposition had no chance to defend themselves. Personally, I am of the opinion that if this massive debate could prove once and for all whether or not humans are the cause of Global Warming. Gore’s stats are very convincing, but shouldn’t the leaders of this opposition to Global Warming be able to challenge his argument? We’re not experts on climate change or even close, so I think it would be foolish to make a decision on this subject without hearing both sides.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Rhetorical Defense
Steven Kirby
Writing and Rhetoric
9/30/10
Rhetorical Defense (Ping Center)
“The Ping Center is one of the largest recreational facilities in the country. Covering 168,000 square feet on three floors, Ping houses a 36 foot tall double sided climbing wall…” These were the first words on the Charles J. Ping Center’s informational webpage located within the schools website (www.ohio.edu/recreation/ping). That was all it took for me to decide that the Ping Center was going to be a great spot to choose for my campus history project. With all the amazing features of Ping combining with my brochure and common interest in athletics I was able to easily connect with my audience.
When I chose The Ping Center, I was trying to reach an audience much like myself. I was looking for people who enjoy exercise and live active lifestyles. At the same time I was also trying to appeal to those students who don’t enjoy exercising, but are more aware or interested in the bigger events unfolding around the world(I.E; The Gulf Spill, Afghanistan, Global Warming, etc.) And That’s why I devoted a large portion of my information to Ping’s energy saving elliptical machines. I figured that if students heard this they would be considerably more likely to check out Ping because let’s face it, the idea of giving back while improving your own wellbeing at the same time is pretty attractive not just to Ohio University students but to just about everybody.
The whole idea behind the brochure was to inform my fellow students about the Ping center and to show them that Ping has something for everybody. For me at least, the brochure really stuck out as a great way to do this. My first choice was to make a video, but I wasn’t too familiar with my laptop’s video making programs. So I considered that to be too big of a risk to pursue. As it turned out, the brochure got my point across, and met my general needs for what I wanted to display to the readers while keeping them interested. So, the end result was definitely one I am satisfied with.
There was just so much information on the Ping Center that fitting all of it into my brochure was out of the question. So, I had to make some adjustments, and figure out which pieces of information needed to be in the promotional assignment, which pieces I wanted to be in, and which pieces could be left out without question. When deciding what information I was going to end up using there were a few different procedures I followed to narrow my information pool down. The most obvious way I did this was by setting aside the more important “needs” of my paper and implicating them first. Like the rock wall, and the already mentioned elliptical machines. After those bits of information were dealt with I was able to move on to what I “wanted” in the paper. Some of these included the brief bio on Charles J. Ping and the popularity/ease of use Ping offers. Naturally, I couldn’t use all of my gathered info. So there were some pieces of information that had to be left out even if they were important to the Ping Center. For example, I wanted to talk about how Ping is a huge student employer, and helps put many students into leadership positions that help them after college in the job market. The director, Hafedh Benhadj, is another example. I wanted to go more in depth on his contributions to the center, but I was only able to brush on him in the finished copy.
The bridge between my audience and I was a major concern of mine. Although, once I decided to do this assignment on the Ping Center I found that I could easily connect with my audience, I could do this through the brochure, and my own interest in the numerous activities at Ping. This only made the process of informing my classmates go that much smoother and ultimately more effective.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Introducing a Place
Steven Kirby
(9/13/10)
Mudd Eng 151
Describe a Place
When I asked Kelsey Williams about her home town she seemed apathetic about the topic and borderline bitter. Full of chain restaurants and car dealerships it would seem that Sylvania, Ohio was nothing but an uneventful town of middle class Ohioans located just outside Toledo. But as my interview with Kelsey progressed so did my mental image of the place, and what I found was that this town full of great wildlife, great people, and just a great overall location.
Sylvania is much like a grilled cheese sandwich. You start out by taking a bite out of the crust, and you decide that it tastes pretty good (fast food). But once you get more towards the middle of the sandwich you realize that it’s even better than the outside and even though it’s nothing but butter (Bambi) and cheese (schools) combined with toasted bread (location) this simple work of art is a truly delicious meal. So once you get past the McDonalds drive thrus and the Volvo dealerships you see the beautiful deer and cotton tail rabbits that run freely through this paradise in disguise. Just like a scene from Walt Disney’s “Bambi” they playfully roam this town, but with the modern threat of road kill lurking around the corner. In fact Kelsey is what you might call an “animal hero”. She recently saved a family of rabbits from their almost certain end. As exciting as the wildlife seems, nothing tops the thrills that will be waiting for you just minutes away from Sylvania.
Besides being a few minutes away from Michigan and the Great lakes, Sylvania is a manageable hour and a half away from exciting Cedar Point. At this distance you can always get your adrenaline fix and ride some of the biggest monster coasters on this side of the world. But if your “too good” for that and need a little extra to get you through the day there are a few fine drug dealers spread out across the area that I’m sure would be more than happy to help you out… for a slight fee of course. Kelsey has assured me that she doesn’t know any of them so you’re on your own there, and I would advise the readers to follow Kelsey’s example anyways on the subject. Also if you are planning on visiting this area sometime soon bring a little extra cash along for gas because there is no source of public transportation in the area.
In addition to this Sylvania is also home to two public school systems and many more catholic schools. I am told they are both relatively big and graduate between 300 and 400 students every year. In fact the school that Kelsey attended called Sylvania Southview High School won the state championship in football just two years ago and the schools were all recently renovated. Just icing on the cake I guess, but even with all of the amazing attributes this town possesses Kelsey Williams will not be returning after college. When asked about this decision she said “no comment.” This was a very bold move by the Ohio University freshman. Only time will tell if this was a good decision, but sometimes going with your gut is the best option and I am of the opinion that this was just one of those times.
In short Sylvania is a melting pot of fun just waiting to overflow, and anyone looking for a good time should seriously consider visiting here in the near future. With the great school systems, wild life, and awesome nearby attractions who knows you might even want to settle down.
