In Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert, Kolbert discusses and investigates the impact that the rise of carbon dioxide (CO₂) has on the ocean. Much of the emission of carbon dioxide, which Kolbert emphasizes, started from the early nineteenth century during the mainstream of industrialization and burning of fossil fuels. Because of our continuation and reliance on this, “nearly half of all the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted since the start of the nineteenth century has been absorbed by the sea.” In the poster above, burning of fossil fuels is heavily emphasized as a dramatic drawback to the ocean and the organisms that inhabit it. While the darkness and the shadowiness represent the fish’s terrible well-being, it is because they are clung to these businesses/industries, the poster demonstrates the correlation of burning of fossil fuels has on the negative impact on the ocean wildlife (which in this case could be death).

Due to the effects of ocean acidification and temperature increases, this has affected many organisms that live in oceans. One organism that Kolbert investigates deep into is coral reefs. Coral reefs are important because they have many functions like providing food and shelter to other organisms. Due to environmental stress from ocean acidification or “When water temperature rises too high, corals expel the algae that nourish them.” Without the zooxanthellae, bleaching (corals turn white) occurs and start to die. This in effects hurts other organisms who rely on coral reefs for survivability. I chose this image because it represents well the contrast between healthy coral and bleached coral. As one can see, in an environment with healthy coral, it is overall more lively which is represented by the present and vibrant colors. However, this is contrasted with the side that is in black and white, symbolizing the emptiness and void of life that persists. This is even further portrayed by the fish in the center whose body is present on both sides. Its lower body has flesh whereas his “head” is mere bones/skeleton, thus exhibiting both characteristics of life and death, portraying similarly to their corresponding sides. Thus, this demonstrates the transition if coral reefs were to bleach, then their surroundings will also transition to die off as well.

Towards the end, while humans have caused indirect damage to oceans by to having emitted a lot of CO₂, Kolbert essentially appraises and thanks the seas and oceans for absorbing the CO₂ as it has minimized atmospheric concentrations “nearing 500 parts per million” and preventing/reducing certain disasters. She also makes a good point about how ocean acidification has brought to our attention how life on land and life on sea are connected in “unexpected ways”. She points out, “Actions that might appear utterly unrelated – say, driving a car down the New Jersey Turnpike and secreting a shell in the South Pacific – turn out to be connected. To alter the chemistry of the seas is to take a very large risk, and not just with the oceans.” While both from her example don’t seem to be connected, they truly are, as we learned, our actions like simply driving a car indirectly affects oceans and its living organisms. Thus, Kolbert wants us to address these indirect actions. The posters above portray this connection that Kolbert explains. The first poster illustrates the NYC skyline and marine life being emitted by the industrial factories, demonstrating how both of these are shaped by the behavior of these businesses. In the second image, both life on land and life in sea are connected by the ocean like a complete circle. These connections and associations emphasize oceans as necessary for being a part of our daily lives.

“If you wait until you can see the impact, it is too late to stop it.” -Beth Gardiner  

Just like the Coronavirus if we wait too long to act and fight against climate change it will be too late. Our planet needs our help now otherwise if we do not act on this matter we will be left with an infected planet where we can’t survive. We need to be proactive and not so reactive.

“Changes are likely to be temporary, with emissions from driving, for example, expected to bounce back as soon as people return to workplaces. If many grow fearful of public transportation, commuting’s carbon footprint might even rise further, experts say” – Beth Gardiner 

  This quote shows how we do still have the chance to change our planet and help it heal. During this season we see how people staying home and not polluting the air has actually positively impacted our communities all around the world. We see how air quality has improved and can keep on improving if we try to take care of our planet. 

 “And as with the corona virus, said Wagner, climate policies must push everyone to take heed of the cost their actions-whether disease exposure or carbon emissions-impose on others. ‘It’s all about somebody else stepping in and internalize the externality…’”  -Beth Gardiner 

We need the help of the government in order to make a change. People listen to voices with power and will more likely follow directions if the government enforces them and demonstrate how important it is to take care of our planet.

Take This Seriously

Inspired by the Article: Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change by Beth Gardiner

The coronavirus and global warming threats are quite similar. “While the disease is playing out more quickly than the effects of global warming, the principle is the same… if you wait until you can see the impact, it is too late to stop it” (Gardiner). These situations both require our attention and are impacting us negatively even though one’s effects are more prominent compared to the other for the time being. By no means it is to say that global warming is less threatening, so proper and serious action should also be taken towards it. It’s better to start taking precautions and making improvements towards this threat right now before we reach the point where no matter what we do there’s no turning back.

The pictures here depict: NYC undergoing flooding which is a severe effect from global warming & Coronavirus causing vast casualties. This emphasizes how these threats could seriously affect us if we don’t take action and that one is not necessarily more severe than the other.  

There has been a gradual realization on how society’s perspective should’ve actually been. Certain situations require you to “have to act in a way that looks disproportionate to what the current reality is, because you have to react to where that exponential growth will take you” (Gardiner). In other words, we should all acquire the ability to think ahead of time in order to act appropriately and avoid serious consequences. For instance, people should have already been thinking ahead on how coronavirus would negatively impact us; in this way we could’ve started preventative measures to combat it earlier. Now this lesson can be applied when it comes to dealing with global warming, since we have seen the negative effects for not taking coronavirus seriously from the start. We wouldn’t want to end up in the same place when it comes to serious global warming effects.

The pictures here depict: The preventative measures that we could have been implementing from the first stages of coronavirus & the preventative measures we should continue to take to slow down the process of global warming.

“Scientists long warned this might happen, but political leaders mostly ignored them, so now must scramble to respond to a crisis they could have prevented, or at least eased, had they acted sooner” (Gardiner). Here political leaders are being called out for being negligent towards taking serious action regarding threats. For instance, if these political leaders would’ve taken into account how dangerous coronavirus can be and truly prioritize the wellbeing of our society then our situation would’ve likely not have gotten this bad. They decided to do nothing in the beginning and instead focus on anything that can most likely be profitable. This heavily connects back to global warming because political leaders literally have put this threat on the backburner due to them lacking the ability to see how harmful this threat actually is. It is affecting our environment gradually for sure but sooner or later we will be heavily feeling the effects too and at that point action by our political leaders will barely make a difference. 

The pictures here depict: People deciding to ignore/neglect important circumstances at hand & how late our political figure decided to take action against coronavirus hence in the cartoon the tests are being delivered at such a slow pace thus allowing the virus to spread even more. One can assume at this point in time that most likely our political figure would be late to take action towards global warming based on how this incident was handled which isn’t good at all.

It is pretty obvious that 2020 is not our year, with the pandemic our country is facing, it seems our prioritizes have been scattered. However, it is still important to recognize the issue of climate change, and the repercussions it presents if not handled properly. People must realize that this issue does not only affect our generation, climate change will be a utmost problem for future generations to come. Not only having the potential to devastate the economy, but also our culture and our society as a whole.

Naomi Klein captures the problem of climate change exceptionally well, in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, more specifically the irony that surrounds the issue. Klein makes several points throughout her book trying to emphasize that some problems that big businesses encountered are indirectly self inflicted, due to their actions leading to CO2 emissions. For instance, the introductory airplane incident, where a plane had sunk into the pavement due to “the profligate burning of fossil fuels, the very thing that US Airways was bound and determined to do despite the inconvenience presented by a melting tarmac.”.

Klein does not only find faults within big businesses, she also want the reader to understand the evidence suggesting that politics can also be a source of blame for climate change. As stated by Klein ” No matter how many times we have been disappointed by the failings of our politicians, this realization still comes as a blow.”, Klein argues that politicians have continuously neglected the matter, and only those who recognize the negligence are annoyed, when it should be the whole nation.  Klein later claims “we need not be spectators in all this: politicians aren’t the only ones with the power to declare a crisis. Mass movements of regular people can declare one too.”, in an effort to push for initiative. We shouldn’t have to wait until climate change is knocking on our front doorstep, rather the general public should address the issue to a government too scared to confront it.

This is my drawing for how I viewed the article, “This Changes Everything” by Naomi Klein. One of the quotes that inspired this drawing is in her introduction, “Most projections of climate change presume that future changes – greenhouse emissions, temperature increases and effects such as sea level rise – will happen incrementally. A given amount of emission will lead to a given amount of temperature increase that will lead to a given amount of smooth incremental sea level rise.” The flooding and the gas-filled sky is the main point of my drawing, because this is how I imagine the world would be like in the future if humans ignore climate change and the scientific facts in this article that explain this all would happen if there is no change. Many people choose to deny or joke about climate change, so it will be very hard to prevent this crisis that will come sooner than most people think. Furthermore, the article states that not only will the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere and sea-levels rise, there would be also a loss of biodiversity, hence the trees in my drawing that have no leaves or any life in them. Overall, the absence of colors in my drawing can result in greater feelings of bleakness and melancholy, which can have more of an impact to an audience rather then using bright and colorful colors.

As an extra, I also wanted to include this image that I found which points out one other point that I didn’t include in my drawing. A quote that this image reminded me of is stated by Klein when she talks about climate change as a battle between capitalism and the plant. She says that capitalism, “wins every time we accept that we have only bad choices available to us: austerity or extraction, poisoning or poverty.” Klein points out that capitalism wins every single time and that countries and governments should stop thinking about changing polices or money and strive to think differently to have a chance at defeating climate change. Therefore, this picture shows how earth is melting due to the increasing temperatures, and then gets turned into money. This picture portrays how governments think as of right now, because the government likes to think that helping the planet through economic means will be effective.

I based my drawing around the quote “if you wait until you can see the impact, it is too late to stop it” from Beth Gardiner’s article Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change, and more generally about the sense of urgency established by the article. In my drawing, an iceberg is melting in the top chamber of an hourglass, as the lower chamber containing Earth slowly floods. Although Earth is not submerged yet, it faces little drops of water that represent the currently visible and seemingly minor impacts of global warming. Eventually, these drops will gather until Earth is submerged, at which point it will be too late to save. Although we can not entirely fix the damage we have already caused, we can slow or stop the problem from progressing into a catastrophe.
One of the biggest problems we face against climate change is the lack of sufficient action to prevent it. Because its effects are not yet immediately apparent, our country has not done much in response. In the article, Michelle Wucker says that climate change is like a gray rhino, “the 2-ton thing that’s coming at you, and most of the time we downplay it or neglect it. We kind of miss the obvious.” Although we have a lot of evidence that climate change is real, we act as if it isn’t. Our administration has even “rolled back measures meant to reduce carbon emissions.” We must take more proactive measures for the future, even if that means making small sacrifices in the present.

In “Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change”, Gardiner talks about the similarities between the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, and how they are both problems that grow exponentially. Gardiner claims that “The coronavirus pandemic and the slower-moving dangers of climate change parallel one another in important ways, and experts say the aggressive, if belated, response to the outbreak could hold lessons for those urging climate action.” Simply put, by they time we see the impact of these issues, it’s already too late for preventative measures, and we’ve already seen the effects of climate change in the record floods and droughts and other extreme weather conditions happening around the world.
We’ve watched politicians learn from the effects of compounding growth as the pandemic played out over a matter of weeks, but climate change takes centuries. It doesn’t help that fighting the fossil fuel industry, both a major cause of CO2 emissions and where many of our politicians’ loyalties (and funding) lie, is a decades-long struggle against large businesses trying to protect their profits.

In “This “Changes Everything”, Klein expresses similar sentiments about the willingness of politicians to fund the economy, but not to fund measures with the potential to lives on a greater scale than the collapse of banks. Klein highlights how businesses, and the politicians they fund, are able to exploit the “opportunities” created by droughts and floods, and profit from issues dramatically impacting those entrenched in poverty.
Klein says “We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe— and would benefit the vast majority—are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.” The elite minority choose not to take action for the benefit of the majority because they do not profit from that action, and instead lose money in trying to fix climate change. 

A quote in Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything: Capitalsm vs. The Climate” really brought attention to just how serious people’s disregard has gone when their money is involved. She talks about the natural disasters and the unusual temperatures and its meaning, saying,  “It is a civilizational wake-up call. A powerful message—spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts, and extinctions—telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet.” My illustration shows “mother nature” retaliating on the Earth because of human kind’s mistreatment of its land, because they give profit, money, and generally the economy more importance than the place they call home, which is an absurd concept on its own.