I’m still sort of getting myself together here in Ontario - soooo the quality of the posts aren’t going to be that good. I just wanted to draw some attention to a couple of stories from Grist today and yesterday:

Canada’s Conservative government, known for consistently pooh-poohing the Kyoto Protocol, planned to unveil emissions-reduction targets today and urge participation in carbon markets, a la Kyoto. But the news got out early when a draft of the speech was accidentally faxed to the Liberal Party on Tuesday. So what’s in store? Well, the country aims to cut emissions 20 percent from current levels by 2020, but that will still leave it 11 percent shy of its Kyoto obligations. Sigh. Other plans include a ban on sales of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 and an aim to halve air pollution by 2015. “We find ourselves today with one of the worst environmental records among industrialized countries. Now we need to turn things around,” says Environment Minister John Baird. Said a Baird spokesperson of the fax fiasco, “I’m sure the Liberals got all excited when they read it, because they would have loved to have once written a speech this strong.” Just put your regulations where your mouth is, dude.

and…. 

Used to be, the U.S. couldn’t do anything about climate change because climate change wasn’t real. Now the U.S. can’t do anything about climate change because … China’s not doing anything about climate change. But surprise! Turns out China, despite being the huge energy-sucker that slipped through the Kyoto Protocol’s developing-country loophole, is working on emissions cuts of its own that could equal or outpace those in the U.S. and Europe. A program to cut energy use at factories, for instance, could cut 168 million tons of greenhouse gases by 2010 — nearly as much as the voluntary U.S. goal of 183 million tons per year by then — and a plan to increase energy efficiency 20 percent by 2010 could, even if only halfway met, lead to bigger cuts in emissions growth than Europe agreed to under Kyoto. Says Mark Levine of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: “We in the U.S. would be better off to deal with the reality of what China is doing rather than the perception of where China stands.”

Sources:

Globe and Mail
The Star
MSNBC
Christian Science Monitor

There are a million other things I’d like to blog about right now… The continued Mooney/Nisbet debate, the intolerable actions that are coming out of that debate, that we’re entering into Hurrican season!, more on weather in general, I have a couple prehisotric posts written up, but they’re on my computer which isn’t set up yet annnd yes, lots of things. Soon. My mom’s computer and work area isn’t really inclusive to blogging. (Her computer likes to freeze a lot…)

I had actually pre-ordered Jessica’s book so that I could be quick to read it and get a review up - but living in Canada the shipping is taking 2 weeks, and I already moved away from the house that it is going to be arriving to. So knowing that I wouldn’t actually get the book for like a month I went to a friend and read it. My thoughts about it are pretty much summarized here at Feminist Reviews.

 Having read Valenti’s writing on the blog – which tends to be oversimplified and, quite frankly, bratty – I was hoping her analysis in book form would show at least a tad more depth. Unfortunately for Valenti, there’s a downside to fame; it opens you up for public criticism.

If Full Frontal Feminism is supposed to be the spark that ignites young women to identify as feminists and hop on the movement train, then women are in deep trouble. Valenti writes like a feminist version of Ann Coulter, and let’s face it, Ann Coulter is hardly known for her intelligence. Flamboyant and egotistical, much of Valenti’s commentary is trite, at best.

I couldn’t agree more. What bothers me almost more than her inability to back up assertions with citations is that she just dumbs everything down and tries to play the “cool” card so that all the 13 year old girls reading it will start to admire her and become a feminist. Sadly - their new idol isn’t exactly what feminism should be about.

Jessica is reasserting the scary screaming feminist symbol that a lot of women try to get rid of. The type of argument she uses, and her language sets course for a completely non-academic paper that wouldn’t help anyone in an actual debate. Instead it is flamatory and like a shitty blog post, at best. It’s sad that she uses the opportunity to go straight for the throats of people she’s had petty online disputes with instead of creating a book that had the potential to be a really great resource for young women who wanted to become intelligently informed about feminism.  

My actual comment there was:

Love this review. …I ordered the book, but haven’t actually got it yet - So I went to the book store, had a sit down with a coffee and read it there.

I couldn’t agree more with what you’re saying. THere is definitely an over tone of “Fuck you, I don’t need to back myself up because you’re all just idiots” which will never help anyone win any sort of real debate.

I had the same feelings as when I read Dr.Phil’s son’s book - he just tried so hard to “reach” a younger audience … so he ended up using profanity and more or less - dumbing it down. Just as Jessica has done.

Her lack of real arguments is what really bothers me the most. After reading her book, and then Chris Mooney’s book on the rights war on science you can see a huge intelligence and talent difference - They’re about the same age, but Mooney’s book has pages upon pages of citations and sources for people to look further. He backs himself up with proofs and out smarts the other side instead of attempting to out cool them.

Honestly now, Mooney successfully wrote a book that was intelligent, passionate and spoke to a younger (and older) crowd. This type of writing with pages upon pages of references and interviews and proof are what make an effective book. Jessica wrote pages of opinion that are just as relevant and well thought out and produced as Ann Coulter arguments. (I’m stealing Feminist Reviews’ comparison with that, because it just fits so well.)

This book is yet another thing that I can add to my list of “why feminism is failing”. Instead of using her power over so many young women with feminism in their viens and creating campaigns that could make a difference, Jessica has spent her time writing a book that will be good for nothing on the fore front of feminist debates.

Perhaps Valenti believes that young women won’t be moved unless they’re completely scared to death. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it belittles the audience in the process.

I’m not sure this is the case. I’m pretty sure it’s an attempt to reach out to young women - not by scaring them - but by talking to them on a “hip” and “cool” level. Personally, it didn’t work out too well for me. I’d rather read some respectable arguements with more than one page on year long debates opposed to page upon page of slanderous, pointless and “trying to be cool” material. 

A point my mom just brought up - if it was made to sell fast, then sure, she wrote a good book. It’ll sell fast… to people who initially want to read it, and women who think they’re going to get a good read out of it - and then it will never sell again.

It is in no way, shape, or form… a book that anyone should mock or look to when attempting to get an intelligent, politically correct or stable argument or open minded view toward feminism. I doubt it will be overly appealing to anyone who doesn’t comment on feministing every day already. I wouldn’t tell my best friend’s kid sister to read it - I’d direct her to more intelligent sources so that she would end up with real arguments and sources rather than an irrational outlook on how we should handle the feminist movement and debates.

(cross posted at appletree)

I’m in the air all day today! Going back to Toronto… I will update/blog when I get there. I will be bringing the lappy onto the plane - so I plan on clicking out a few rants and posts or two.

I don’t want to become a completely depressing blog…

A new lost world has been found by archaeologists. The community from over 8000 years ago now lies below the North Sea stretching from Britian up to the Shetland Islands over to Scandinavia, it was lost to rising waters during the last ice age.

Technology that would usually be used for oil exploration are being used to map and look at the underwater city.

“It’s like finding another country,” says Professor Vince Gaffney, chair in Landscape Archaeology and Geomatics.

It also serves as a warning for the scale of impact that climate change can cause, he says.

Human communities would have lost their homelands as the rising water began to encroach upon the wide, low-lying plains.

“At times this change would have been insidious and slow - but at times, it could have been terrifyingly fast. It would have been very traumatic for these people,” he says.

“It would be a mistake to think that these people were unsophisticated or without culture… they would have had names for the rivers and hills and spiritual associations - it would have been a catastrophic loss,” says Professor Gaffney.

Hopefully they can keep pipelines and other such destruction out of the way from continued exploration on the lifestyles, cultural and other such things of the new city.

In a similar story, global warming has this time made an island off the coast of Greenland.

The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn. A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland’s enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming.

Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up Greenland’s remote east coast but a glacier joining it to the mainland has melted away completely, leaving it surrounded by sea.

Shaped like a three-fingered hand some 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it has been discovered by a veteran American explorer and Greenland expert, Dennis Schmitt, who has named it Warming Island (Or Uunartoq Qeqertoq in Inuit, the Eskimo language, that he speaks fluently).

Le Sigh.  I can hear it now. “You silly doom and gloomers - global warming isn’t displacing coastal settlements! It’s creating new land!”

Maybe I should just stop reading the news.

A Mogadishu hospital was caught in the war between the pro-government ethiopians and insurgents.

Relatives and medical staff ran from the SOS hospital after at least four missiles hit. Casualties are unclear.

This is one of many hospitals that have been bombed in the 8 day clash going on between the interim government, resurgents and Hawiye Clan. Attempts at humanitarian air are being blocked… People are without food and shelter. Ethiopian troops “say” they’re beginning to pull out..

“The efforts of international agencies to come to the aid of these stricken people are being thwarted on the one hand by militia looting relief supplies, demanding ‘taxes’ and violently threatening aid workers, and on the other by administrative obstacles imposed by the transitional federal government,” AP news agency quotes a letter written last week by the German ambassador to Kenya.

In other Africa news - De Beers is moving in for more diamond mining.

The diamond mining ship, named Peace in Africa, was inaugurated in both Western and African traditions in Cape Town before the R1 billion ($142 million) vessel of 176 metres long and 28m wide sails off next week to produce an estimated 240,000 carats annually off the Namaqualand coast on South Africa’s Atlantic coast.  The vessel is equipped with a large undersea tracked mining tool (crawler) and has a specialised diamond recovery treatment plant, manufactured by specialist Bateman Engineering, on board.

The company is quoted as being “excited” to employ new workers……….. I’ll resist the sarcastic and cynical commentary today. Except… GAH. Priorities. (I’m not criticizing Gordo here - he’s just relaying what the rest of America was interested in while other people are getting gunned down.)