Diesel is Global Warming Ready - Are You?

Diesel Brand's latest ad campaign focuses on global warming - declaring their clothes "global warming ready" in the corner of each dramatic ad.

The first ad I saw in Elle magazine features a man and woman lounging on the top of a New York City skyscraper. They are surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean that has inundated the city and covered all but the tops of tall buildings. The couple, however, does not seem concerned - afterall they are scantily clad in 2007 haute couture - why worry!?

These ads annoy me. After looking into it a bit further, it seems that some/many people are under the impression that Diesel is making global warming "cool" and giving it a lot of press. They feature lifestyle activism tips on their website and promote www.stopglobalwarming.org. I still feel that these ads communicate to most that they should, rather than worry about weather changes we are experiencing, dress for the weather - which lately has been far warmer than usual here in the northeast. The ads reinforce our short term economic thinking, conspicuous consumption - and ethnocentric lifestyle. Why worry about global warming, after all - if the ocean gets warm enough and rises enough - you can go to the beach right there in the big apple!

What do you think?

Wakeup, America! Extreme Weather and Global Warming

Over the past few months, we have seen some dramatic weather around the world. 70 degree days in the Northeast, birds ceasing their annual migrations, 90 mph winds in London. The list goes on. This weather has certainly been "disturbing" and "strange," as reported on popular media outlets, but for those adjectives to constitute the total analysis of the situation is incorrect. The mass media's coverage of our weather falls short of a complete denial that climate change is upon us. Rather than supporting the facade that climate change is a marginal theory, the mass media ought to seize these events as important opportunities to wakeup the American people and bring about a call to action.

Global warming is a complex, heavy, somewhat intangible, international issue - and it is often easier to just go about normal routines. "Add in a war-obsessed president and the media-drumbeat of Exxon-funded global warming deniers, and no wonder so many of us wait and do nothing." (see article below)

However, individual action to curb greenhouse gases can have a profound effect, and it will if the 85% of Americans who believe that global warming is a huge and urgent problem feel compelled to take action against it. 355 American cities have already signed onto the Kyoto protocol, lets hope the next American administration will take ownership of this urgent problem that we have greatly exacerbated.

I strongly recommend the following article for MORE!

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/46801/

The Climate Code

The Weather Channel (TWC) has created a website devoted to accurate science news and presentation of the facts surrounding global climate change, and the expected rise in extreme weather. The website is: One Degree - Climate Change.

An exerpt from the mission of One Degree: "The site's name, One Degree, is a reference to the one degree Fahrenheit of warming the earth has experienced in the past century and how something so seemingly small as a single degree can change the world."

Dr. Heidi Cullen, Climate Expert and blogger with TWC, wrote a gripping blog about global climate change and the media's responsibility to provide information to the American people. Find it here: http://climate.weather.com/blog/9_11592.html. She "...is a scientist, and a skeptic." A skeptic who admits that there is adequpate knowledge that climate change is happening, and that with this knowledge comes the responsibility to share it with others. At least one media outlet is devoted to providing complete information to the American people. To be clear, TWC is not taking a political position with regard to this issue, it is simply stating that global warming is happening and that we must address it in politics - as it is an issue that is not going away.

The website: http://climate.weather.com/?cm_ven=one_deg_home&cm_ite=one_deg_header&from=one_deg_header

Move to Mars?

When discussing space exploration with a group of second-graders in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, my mother was explaining how scientists were very excited to gather evidence that pointed to the possibility of life on Mars.

During the discussion, a seven year old student raised her hand.

"Mrs. Fowler - does this mean we can move to Mars when we use up the Earth?"

It is deeply troubling that future generations view the planet as an exhaustable resource, one that may very well be exhausted in their lifetime. If this little girl's innocent question is representative of the population at large, we are truly in need of a revolution in thought. Rather than accept our current patterns of conspicuous consumption and look for a new planet to exploit, we need to protect the one we find ourselves on at the moment.

For the time being, however, I suppose it is a good thing we're continuing to explore life on Mars.