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By Katie Kish, January 20, 2011 9:28 pm

I ordered 4 books from Chapters at the very beginning of the month. I got three of the books (My Stroke of Insight, When a Billion Chinese Jump and Wild Swans) almost immediately but only got Zapatistas by Alex Khasnabish today. I’ve never been so excited to read a book… I read just one chapter of it for my aboriginals class last semester and was totally amazed. The beautiful rhetoric and revolutionary jargon that Marcos and the EZLN is totally captivating and *almost* makes me want to become some sort of rebel standing up for something I believe in.

Unfortunately I ordered all these books at a time when I thought I’d only be taking 1 class and would thus have ample amount of time to sit around and read. Instead I’m taking 3 courses (one that has a strangely heavy reading load…) and have been hit with really bad headaches. I’m used to have headaches a couple times a week, but now it’s every single day. My doctor prescribed for me to go see a RMT…which is fine by me…but has made John continuously point out the fact that I’m too stressed out and high-strung.

My classes are: Environmental Law (oddly – not the one with a huge course load), Chinese-American Diasporic Literature (where my lectures are in Mandarin – which is fine because the slides are in English, but most of the people during discussion speak Mandarin too quickly for John to translate…so I miss most of that) and China: Path to Democracy and Modernization (the one with the extremely heavy reading load).

I already regret not leaving for Korea in a few weeks and doing classes instead… but decided that I will definitely go after grad school. DEFINITELY. As I told John: I don’t care if North Korea invades and takes South Korea over – I’m going to go and teach freaking English. I really just want to go and live in another country for a year. So maybe after grad school I’ll have enough Mandarin to go and live in China for a year doing something in line with my research … we’ll see.

Anyway – when I get around to the book I’ll post about how amazing it is.

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By Katie Kish, February 25, 2010 4:28 pm

I meant to write this post a loooong time ago, but I never got around to it. Emily wrote an opinion about global warming that I totally disagree with and is clearly just from lack of research on the topic. Actually, when I first read it …it was like I was reading a slightly edited version of one of the many kinds of creationists arguing against evolution. Luckily, in the mean time Ian Bushfield responded to it for me.

I am by no means a stereotypical environmentalist who knows global warming is a *serious* problem just because I want to get environmentalism into policy… But I’ve read a lot about global warming, listened to debates and done a lot of schooling around the topic … and it happens to be one of the very few areas of stereotypical environmentalism that I agree with. Here is Ian’s reply which was short, sweet and to the point.

Everything you say has been thoroughly debunked repeatedly before.

There IS a consensus among real climate scientists (notice how, like in the evolution/creation debate, engineers are the major opposition “scientists” to the established facts).

The 1970s global cooling myth is a result of a Newsweek article not a scientific journal or consensus among scientists. In fact, articles being published were 44-7 in favour of warming over cooling hypotheses.

Also, if you were concerned about the CRU hacked data, analysis of the emails results in no real “gotcha” moments, and does nothing to discredit the mountains of evidence that exist. At most the emails demonstrate that scientists remain human with all the associated flaws (jealousy, anger, frustration, etc.) that result from continued attack by self-proclaimed sceptics.

Finally, most of the “scepticism” movement is heavily funded by the oil industry similar to how the tobacco industry funded PR against the notion of cigarettes causing cancer or how evangelical religions fund PR against evolution.

2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record and despite what high school chemistry teachers believe (similar to under-trained biology teachers) we are very likely to have caused it. The greenhouse effect is real (or else the planet would be 30 C colder than it is), and putting more carbon into the atmosphere that is normally buried under ground is bound to have an effect.

Scientists do share some of the blame for bad PR and not communicating their findings properly, but nevertheless, the data is in, and it’s time for action. I really did like Jon’s piece at the National Post about why he thinks people are keen to be doubters of the science on this piece, give it a read if you haven’t yet.

There is a lot of really good and easy to understand literature out there about global warming and “Limits to Growth”… It makes economic, mathematical and logical sense that something like global warming is happening and that we need to respond to it so we can be more readily prepared for the future.

Claiming that the science is too hard to understand and therefore it is best to just be agnostic is intellectually lazy. Scientists have devoted their lives to this topic, and have come to the same consensus – global warming is happening. The scientists have done the science for you AND done a good job of framing it for people who aren’t scientists for those willing to put the effort into learning about it.

I understand that some people want to go against the grain and be a skeptic about stuff… but being a skeptic about global warming at this point…is like being a skeptic of evolution. Only skeptics of global warming are VERY dangerous and will result in a lot of possible death and suffering in the potentially near future.

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By Katie Kish, January 28, 2010 10:51 am

Yesterday for one of my classes we read a paper (Lawn, P. 2001. “Scale, prices, and biophysical assessments” Ecological Economics 38, 369–382) that said you can have sustainable development (whatever that means, now) while maintaining the same level of happiness in the current society. It makes me wonder if people would be happier if they had to start giving things up. …I got thinking about when I heard about the Ipad (which I just learned about yesterday from my mom…) and how it is essentially just… a really big Iphone. But everyone is going to want it. Would people be willing to not get an Ipad? Or the next Iplack? or Ibod? Im not sure that people are willing to start giving up what they have for a sustainable and less excessive future.

Then I came across this grist article that talks about a family who is giving up what they have to better the world. It’s a really wonderful thing and I hope that more people can start to live like this.

It makes me reflect on what I do… Yesterday I ordered a new MP3 player (not even an Ipod…a zone? zune?…i dont know) because my Ipod just flat out stopped working. But I’m not like that with everything. Phones, for example – I buy new phones all the time just because I like new gadgets. Laptops… I buy new laptops and mini laptops because it’s fun to have new things. Clothes… I am really horrible for buying clothes and never wearing them. Jewelry, shoes, stuff… and I’m someone who knows and cares about the earth and other people.

So, what am I going to do about it…? (this sucks…) I’m going to stop accumulating things. No more makeup from Sephora, clothes from H&M, jewelry from Forever 21… etc.etc.etc. I will challenge myself with this for a year and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll save a bunch of money! That would be cool, too. I’ll (try) to keep track of what I don’t spend and will donate the full amount at the end of the year. I’ll keep you updated on it…

(What a year! dieting, not spending money, working my ass off at school… sounds fun =0.0=)

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By Katie Kish, January 28, 2010 10:34 am

Tom Philpott tells us why we need to see Fantastic Mr. Fox

And why do I give a damn—and insist that you do, too? First of all, Fox is a beautiful piece of visual storytelling, based on a book by the peerless children’s author Roald Dahl. Its lead roles are voiced by two of Hollywood’s very few genuine stars at the height of their powers—George Clooney and Meryl Streep. The stop-action animation is downright artisanal. We need good popular filmmaking in this country; otherwise, it’s all dumb-guy fart comedies and brainless action sequels. Well, here it is. Support it.

I saw it, and I absolutely loved it. At first, I didn’t. Because I love Wes Anderson… and this movie didn’t seem like his other ones and I really missed the cool real-life colors etc. But after further consideration and reading other people’s reviews… I’ve changed my mind. I still love Wes, and I think this movie is great.

The rebellious little fox was a character to love and the weird animation was never boring.

Go see it, so Wes Anderson knows how incredibly wonderful his films are. I wish we lived in a world where people loved Wes Anderson more than James Cameron.

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By Katie Kish, September 22, 2009 8:44 am

Via my new fav blog.