Interesting Facts About Invertebrates

The Color Legacy in Major Leage Baseball - 1125 Words

Before 1947, Major League Baseball had never had a black player, although there were Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson broke that. It takes courage and dedication to chase after something you love. Jackie had that for the game of baseball. The Civil Rights Movement was occurring during the time Jackie enter the Major Leagues, so the times were tough for him. Jackie did more than just play baseball; he introduced a whole new way to play the game, with blacks and whites. He did this by breaking the color barrier and introducing blacks into the Major Leagues, facing discrimination and showing his true passion for the game, and showing that he was looking to help all African-Americans in the civil rights movement. Breaking the color barrier†¦show more content†¦He liked Robinson’s family life off the field and how he dealt with adversity. Rickey’s main fear was the harsh discrimination Jackie would get, so Branch held a historic meeting with Jackie, and said the harsh est things to him to see if Jackie could withstand it, and on October 23, 1945, Robinson signed his first contract. Rickey thought Jackie would be more comfortable playing in Canada for the Dodgers minor league team, the Montreal Royals. Turns out, Rickey was right. Jackie gained tons of fans in Canada, and at the end of the season, Jackie led the minor leagues in batting and runs scored. The Royals also won the minor league pennant that year. In 1947, Jackie Robinson was a Major League Baseball player. The Dodgers had called him up on assignment and Jackie immediately started working. In spring training of his first season, his Brooklyn teammates made a petition to prevent him from playing, but the manager of the team, Leo Durocher, put an end to the petition. On the field, Robinson was an outstanding player. In his first year, he was named the league’s most outstanding rookie. He led the national league in steals with 29. At the end of the season, America made him the secon d most popular celebrity in the nation. Robinson was named the National league Rookie of the Year, and was honored with a â€Å"Jackie Robinson Day† (York). Jackie returned to Georgia in 1949 to play a three game series against the Atlanta Crackers. Many KKK groups

Essay Conflicts on a Thing of Beauty and Sorry Wrong Number free essay sample

Which one has a greater impact on and why? In Sorry, Wrong Number and A Thing of Beauty, there are four conflicts that can be seen, internal, how a character struggles with himself or herself, relational, between two peoples, societal, between a character and a group and situational, conflict with a certain situation. Internal conflict is portrayed when the character, Mrs. Stevenson, is struggling with herself. When Mrs. Stevenson heard the sound of the phone receiver being lifted on the same extension line as her,  Ã¢â‚¬Å"(Click of receiver being put down on Mrs. Stevenson’s line)† She was attempting to get help from the Operator yet the Operator was not bothering about her at all. She is scared, thinking that if she does not pick it up, if she does not let them hear her and she is quiet, they would not realize that she is there and eventually they’ll leave her house. However, she is in a dilemma  when she realised that if she does not call for help, there would be no time for anyone to save her. I won’t pick it up; I won’t let them hear me. I’ll be quiet and they’ll think But if I don’t call someone now while they’re still down there there’ll be no time † This shows that she is caught in a tight spot trying to decide the best and safest solution to save herself. In A Thing of Beauty, internal conflict is when the Prioress is being made by the Colonel to choose between nineteen nuns or Edith Stein. She is in a predicament as to whether to save nineteen nuns’ lives by giving up Edith Stein or saving Edith Stein by sacrificing nineteen nuns’ lives. Either way, the Prioress is forced to â€Å"wield the power of life and death over† them and is going against her believes in her religion. Therefore, the Prioress is sandwiched between two tough and equally wrong options. It is also seen towards the end of the play. After the Prioress’ outburst of confession, that â€Å"Sister Benedicta and Edith Stein are the same person†, the Colonel is troubled over whether to follow his head, send Edith Stein to the concentration camp and complete what he came here to do, or to follow his heart, and let the Jew, Edith Stein, go as he has grown a respect for her hrough their mental battle of intelligence. He said, â€Å"A thing of goodness  and beauty must be destroyed. It reflects and in its reflection, ugliness and brutality become uglier and more brutal and they must destroy it. It cannot survive. † He said this to convince himself, his heart, that sending Edith Stein to the concentration camp and remaining faithf ul to his â€Å"religion†, Nazism. This suggests that he is troubled upon whether to follow his rational head or his immature heart. The internal conflict that had more impact on me was A Thing of Beauty as it had made me think about which would have been a better choice, to save the nineteen nuns or Edith Stein for the Prioress or to listen to his head or his heart for the Colonel. Relational conflict is portrayed when Mrs. Stevenson is to convince Sergeant Duffy that there was a â€Å"murder going to happen to a poor woman who lived in a house by a bridge at eleven-fifteen† that night. Mrs. Stevenson wanted Sergeant Duffy to be able to do something for the poor woman, which she did not know was indeed her, yet he seemed to her strangely calm and does not seem to take any care into trying to prevent the murderer. â€Å"A lot of murders are committed in this city every day ma’am. If we could do something to stop ‘em, we would. But a clue of this kind that’s so vague isn’t much more use to us than no clue at all. † Through this, it is clear that Sergeant Duffy is not planning to investigate further before the murder actually happens. Thus, we can tell that they are arguing about how to help the victim of the murder. In A Thing of Beauty, relational conflict is portrayed when the Colonel is asking Sister Benedicta questions, to â€Å"get the clearest answers from strange questions†. The Colonel is trying to see if Sister Benedicta is Edith Stein through his questions, but Sister Benedicta swiftly evades most of the questions and often, the conversations are lead to nowhere, often a mental battle between the two stubborn characters. When the Colonel said, â€Å"You’ve won the point, but I’ve won my bet†, Sister Benedicta’s reply, â€Å"Bet, Colonel? † suggests that she is evading the Colonel’s questions cunningly. The relational conflict that had more impact on me was Sorry Wrong Number. It shows that deep down, way deep down, maybe humans may not be such terrible beings. We maybe misguided, or blinded by our greed in this case but we still have this tiny speck of kindness in us. Societal conflict is portrayed when Mrs. Stevenson is struggling with a group of people. Mrs. Stevenson is seen getting frustrated and irritated when she is talking to the Operators and Chief Operator. It is clear that she is trying her best to keep herself calm, and is trying to reason it out with them. As she talks to the different Operators, a common trait is found, she is trying very hard to get her pleas through them. The more she talks to the Operators and Chief Operator, the angrier, frustrated and annoyed she got by the fact that they could not do a simple thing like tracing a call. Mrs. Stevenson is said â€Å"(Sarcastically) Thank you† to the first Operator, is â€Å"(angrily)† talking to the Operator and after the Operator is not able to get to the two murderers. Thus, we can see that they are having troubles in communications and understanding. In A Thing of Beauty, societal conflict can be seen when Edith Stein, who is a Jew, is struggling against the society back then during the Second World War. Edith Stein is wanted by the German Nazis, which has been capturing, killing and holding Jews in concentration camps. As Edith Stein, who was also Sister Benedicta, was a Jew, as a result of the Nazis coming after her, she hid and converted from the Jewish religion to the Catholic religion by becoming a Carmelite nun. However, this has made â€Å"the whole countryside aghast at the preposterous rumor†, saying that Edith Stein is in a Carmelite convent. At the end of the play, Edith Stein was still â€Å"sent to the concentration in Auschwitz† because the Prioress had felt that saving her nineteen nuns was a wiser choice than believing in the equality that humans even if they are from different races or religions. Thus this suggests that Edith Stein, a Jew, had faced with mistreatment and even abuse. The societal conflict that had the greatest impact on me was A Thing of Beauty as I am a more realistic kind of person so it has a stronger impact on me as it is a issue that is real. It relates to racism and how the society is to people of different races. For example, aboriginals face racism even as they walk on the street. Situational conflict is when Mrs. Stevenson attempts to get help from people but due to the situation she is in, is not able to. When Mrs. Stevenson heard the two murderers’ conversation, she attempts to get help from the Operators, Chief Operator and Sergeant Duffy, due to the era that the play is set in, the situation backfires as they are not able to do anything to help prevent the murder as the Operators cannot trace the call as it â€Å"depends on whether the call is still going on† and â€Å"if the parties have stopped talking to each other† they cannot trace the call. Sergeant Duffy retorted to Mrs. Stevenson’s ranting with â€Å"Lady, I said we’d take care of it. (Glances at pie) Just now I’ve got a couple of other matters here on my desk that require his immediate† attention, therefore suggesting that he would be enjoying his pie instead of trying to prevent the murder as at this era, technology is not that advance so they cannot do much about the situation, thus the situational conflict. In A Thing of Beauty, situational conflict occurred when Edith Stein is struggling with the situation, the Second World War, the Holocaust. The Nazis had captured nineteen nuns and threaten to execute â€Å"one every hour on the hour until the Stein woman is found†. This shows that due to the Nazis, innocent people could be put on the line in order to get what they want, in this case, Edith Stein. It also shows how cruel they could be to obtain their goals. Thus this shows how the situation had backfired on Edith Stein as she was captured because she was a Jew. The greater impact on me was A Thing of Beauty as it shows the monstrous side of humans, as they were convinced by Adolf Hitler and massacred the Jews. It makes me feel that as a person, I should strive harder to be more accepting of other people. The drama which has the most impact on me is A Thing of Beauty. As it is has already happened, it has a realistic side to the plot of the play. It makes me think deeper and feel beyond, like why was Edith Stein targeted, what had caused this to happen, why did the writer of the play decided to write this play? It tugs at my heartstrings at how cruel and cold-blooded humans can be. It makes us, as the next generation; reflect on the past’s mistakes. Unlike Sorry, Wrong Number, A Thing of Beauty, has made me realise that racial and religious harmony are important, especially for a multiracial country like Singapore. Should Singapore have a repeated history of the racial riots, many people would suffer for it. And lastly, unlike Sorry Wrong Number the internal conflict and external conflict could be seen clearly. I could easily tell that the Colonel was in a dilemma as he caught between his feelings and his believes.

The Lottery revision Essays (2064 words) - Fiction, Literature

Michelle Glaser Dr. Sewell English Composition II 10 July 2018 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson In this story, we see a circular structure where the readers of the story are not prepared to receive the horrors present in the story. The story begins quietly thus limiting the reader to think only on goods things that will happen during the story. The setting of this story is straightforward as it is seen to be set up in a rural village in a morning with a lot of sun lights. The characters in the story tend to be stereotypical in nature. The story is said to have an ordinary beginning where Jackson is seen to create a structure which is the key to the understanding of the story. The plot of the story is quite simple in a dece ptive manner. The story had disturbing visual images and information which have less sense until the final sentences of the story. The story leaves the readers at th e point of suspense where they a re willing to read up to the end of the story. In equal measures, the user c an set up the imagery presence from the beginning of the story where the villagers had first gathered for the lottery. The circular story structure is a form of modern fiction where the audience must have set up the author's language, literal devices and eventually the author details. "The lottery" is not a free-flowing narrative when compared with works of other modernists authors such as Virginia Woolf. The story demands the audience or the equivalent readers of the story to find with the va rious meaning of the phrases used in the story. Jackson employs various literary devices in the story. These devices include the symbolisms, repetitions, foreshadowing, and back shadowing. These literary methods encourage the reader to take a second reading of the story. End of the story presents the importance of the literary devices, and they enable the reader to understand the evil and violence presented in the story. These devices allow the audience to find and expound the dilemma they experience in real life. Primarily, we recognize the situational irony at the beginning of the story where we are informed that the day is sunny and it with a fresh warmth like the one for a summer. In fa ct, we can view that the resident s of the village are experiencing the darkest of their day. Verbal irony is also portrayed in the story where we see the conductor of the lottery being referred to as Mr. Summers. He is presented as a person who does civic activities like the square dances which should be entertaining while the lottery is horrific. A dramatic irony is also present in the story. This is clear in the Tessie's words to Mr. Summer. When Tessie begins to feel something is not right in the drawing for "The Lottery". "Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. You did not give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair". The reader knows something that this character does not know. The lottery seems unfair to Tessie when she becomes a victim , but not when she is getting advantages from the owners. The author of the story likes to include symbols in her narrative. The names used in the story show the insularity of the vi llage where the lottery was taking place . Adam is said to be the first on the list that was prepared for the lottery. These names tend to evoke the Adam of the Bible. Another symbolism is when Mr. Graves gives a three-legged stool to aid the support of the box. He intends to invoke the holy bible holy trinity which includes the son, the Holy Spirit, and the father. This introduces racism in the story. We see that Mr. Summer appears to be a person who is ready to offer help for good and sad things. The author also clearly describes the characters in a way to make you feel as though you are in some way connected to them. The way Jackson describes the characters names and evens tells you

6 Reasons to Seek a Job in Health Care

6 Reasons to Seek a Job in Health Care The health care field has always been a solid  place to seek employment, and moving forward, the field is expected to add five million jobs by 2022- one-third of the total number of all jobs added by that time!  This increase of jobs in health care is largely the result of an aging population and changes to the health insurance system.  In 2014, health care jobs grew over 50 percent more than the previous year, according to Forbes. In addition to job security, a career in health care also comes with bonuses you won’t find in most other professions.Employee SatisfactionOne of the reasons the health care field is a good place to work is because of the fulfillment  employees find in  their jobs. Employers in the health care field seem to go that extra mile to ensure that employees are content and feel welcomed and comfortable on the job. One new study by Great Place to Work ® gives interesting insight into what makes an employee happy and inspires loyalty to a health care company.Health Care Companies Show AppreciationOne of the major reasons health care employees state they are happy with their jobs are constant tokens of appreciation from their employers. Some health care providers hold town hall meetings to hear what employees have to say. Others host a monthly breakfasts for groups of  employees. Others offer free meals at lunchtime or cater meals and hold birthday parties for all employees.Job PerksPerks are an important reason why health care jobs are popular. Health care workers work long hours and are on their feet for extended periods of time. Fitness classes, gym memberships, and free or subsidized health care are common, along with more unusual perks such as ping pong and arcade games on-site! One health care provider even supplies a concierge service to run errands for employees. A North Carolina health care company has vegetable gardens that are maintained by employees and a walking trail for fresh air and exercise.A Family-Friend ly Work AtmosphereOne feature these winning health care facilities have in common is that the people who run them go out of their way to make the employees feel like family. Employees who feel a personal connection work harder and go out of their way to help others. An Ohio facility holds events like Easter egg hunts for children and pet picture contests to encourage a sense of togetherness and camaraderie. A California company is both family and pet friendly, with the view that work and life demands require balance.Education Is EncouragedSeveral facilities in Missouri and Texas encourage employees to continue with their education, while one Texas health care facility even  offers courses that employees may take for career advancement. A Tennessee facility offers tuition reimbursement as incentive for employees to further their  education.Bonuses  to Augment PayMost employees of these health care facilities agree that they receive adequate pay; however, additional perks are ad ded to the pay structure in some cases. One Florida facility offers its employees no-interest loans and an Ohio company hands out frequent bonuses in appreciation. A New Jersey company offers a four-week vacation period for employees who work full-time and has childcare facilities on the site. It also allots one day’s pay for the employee to do volunteer work and donates the money raised to charity on an annual basis.

Nellie Bly - Investigative Journalist

Nellie Bly - Investigative Journalist The reporter known as Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Cochrans Mills, Pennsylvania, where her father was a mill owner and county judge. Her mother was from a wealthy Pittsburgh family. Pink, as she was known in childhood, was the youngest of 13 (or 15, according to other sources) of her fathers children from both of his marriages; Pink competed to keep up with her five older brothers. Her father died when she was only six. Her fathers money was divided among the children, leaving little for Nellie Bly and her mother to live on. Her mother remarried, but her new husband, John Jackson Ford, was violent and abusive, and in 1878 she filed for divorce. The divorce was final in June of 1879. Nellie Bly briefly attended college at Indiana State Normal School, intending to prepare to be a teacher, but funds ran out in the middle of her first semester there, and she left. She had discovered both a talent and interest in writing and talked her mother into moving to Pittsburgh to look for work in that field. But she did not find anything, and the family was forced to live in slum conditions. Finding Her First Reporting Job With her already-clear experience with the necessity of a woman working and the difficulty of finding work, she read an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch called What Girls Are Good For, which dismissed the qualifications of women workers. She wrote an angry letter to the editor as a response, signing it Lonely Orphan Girl- and the editor thought enough of her writing to offer her an opportunity to write for the paper. She wrote her first piece for the newspaper, on the status of working women in Pittsburgh, under the name Lonely Orphan Girl. When she was writing her second piece, on divorce, either she or her editor (the stories told differ) decided she needed a more appropriate pseudonym, and Nellie Bly became her nom de plume. The name was taken from the then-popular Stephen Foster tune, Nelly Bly. When Nellie Bly wrote human interest pieces exposing the conditions of poverty and discrimination in Pittsburgh, local leaders pressured her editor, George Madden, and he reassigned her to cover fashion and society- more typical womens interest articles. But those didnt hold Nellie Blys interest. Mexico Nellie Bly arranged to travel to Mexico as a reporter. She took her mother along as a chaperone, but her mother soon returned, leaving her daughter to travel unchaperoned, unusual for that time, and somewhat scandalous. Nellie Bly wrote about Mexican life, including its food and culture- but also about its poverty and the corruption of its officials. She was expelled from the country and returned to Pittsburgh, where she began reporting for the Dispatch again. She published her Mexican writings as a book, Six Months in Mexico, in 1888. But she was soon bored with that work, and quit, leaving a note for her editor, Im off for New York. Look out for me. Bly. Off for New York In New York, Nellie Bly found it difficult to find work as a newspaper reporter because she was a woman. She did some freelance writing for the Pittsburgh paper, including an article about her difficulty in finding work as a reporter. In 1887, Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World hired her, seeing her as fitting into his campaign to expose all fraud and sham, fight all public evil and abuses- part of the reformist trend in newspapers of that time. Ten Days in a Mad House For her first story, Nellie Bly had herself committed as insane. Using the name Nellie Brown, and pretending to be Spanish-speaking, she was first sent to Bellevue and then, on September 25, 1887, admitted to Blackwells Island Madhouse. After ten days, lawyers from the newspaper were able to get her released as planned. She wrote of her own experience where doctors, with little evidence, pronounced her insane and of other women who were probably just as sane as she was, but who didnt speak good English or were thought to be unfaithful. She wrote of the horrible food and living conditions, and the generally poor care. The articles were published in October 1887 and were widely reprinted across the country, making her famous. Her writings on her asylum experience were published in 1887 as Ten Days in a Mad House. She proposed a number of reforms- and, after a grand jury investigation, many of those reforms were adopted. More Investigative Reporting This was followed with investigations and exposà ©s on sweatshops, baby-buying, jails, and corruption in the legislature. She interviewed Belva Lockwood, the Woman Suffrage Party presidential candidate, and Buffalo Bill, as well as the wives of three presidents (Grant, Garfield, and Polk). She wrote about the Oneida Community, an account republished in book form. Around the World Her most famous stunt, though, was her competition with the fictional Around the World in 80 Days trip of Jules Vernes character, Phileas Fogg, an idea proposed by G. W. Turner. She left from New York to sail to Europe on November 14, 1889, taking only two dresses and one bag. Traveling by many means including boat, train, horse, and rickshaw, she made it back in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds. The last leg of the trip, from San Francisco to New York, was via a special train provided by the newspaper. The World published daily reports of her progress and held a contest to guess her return time, with over a million entries. In 1890, she published about her adventure in Nellie Blys Book: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days. She went on a lecture tour, including a trip to Amiens, France, where she interviewed Jules Verne. The Famous Female Reporter She was, now, the most famous female reporter of her time. She quit her job, writing serial fiction for three years for another New York publication- fiction that is far from memorable. In 1893 she returned to the World. She covered the Pullman strike, with her coverage having the unusual distinction of paying attention to the conditions of the strikers lives. She interviewed Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman. Chicago, Marriage In 1895, she left New York for a job in Chicago with the Times-Herald. She only worked there for six weeks. She met Brooklyn millionaire and industrialist Robert Seaman, who was 70 to her 31 (she claimed she was 28). In just two weeks, married him. The marriage had a rocky start. His heirs- and a previous common-law wife or mistress- were opposed to the match. She went off to cover a womens suffrage convention and interview Susan B. Anthony; Seaman had her followed, but she had the man he hired arrested and then published an article about being a good husband. She wrote an article in 1896 on why women should fight in the Spanish American War- and that was the last article she wrote until 1912. Nellie Bly, Businesswoman Nellie Bly- now Elizabeth Seaman- and her husband settled down, and she took an interest in his business. He died in 1904, and she took over the Ironclad Manufacturing Co. which made enameled ironware. She expanded the American Steel Barrel Co. with a barrel that she claimed to have invented, promoting it to increase the success appreciably of her late husbands business interests. She changed the method of payment of workers from piecework to a salary and even provided recreation centers for them. Unfortunately, a few of the long term employees were caught cheating the company, and a long legal battle ensued, ending in bankruptcy, and employees sued her. Impoverished, she began writing for the New York Evening Journal. In 1914, to avoid a warrant for obstructing justice, she fled to Vienna, Austria- just as World War I was breaking out. Vienna In Vienna, Nellie Bly was able to watch World War I unfolding. She sent a few articles to the Evening Journal. She visited the battlefields, even trying out the trenches, and promoted U.S. aid and involvement to save Austria from Bolsheviks. Back to New York In 1919, she returned to New York, where she successfully sued her mother and brother for the return of her house and what remained of the business she had inherited from her husband. She returned to the New York Evening Journal, this time writing an advice column. She also worked to help place orphans into adoptive homes and adopted a child herself at age 57. Nellie Bly was still writing for the Journal when she died of heart disease and pneumonia in 1922. In a column published the day after she died, famous reporter Arthur Brisbane called her the best reporter in America. Key Facts Family: Mother: Mary Jane Kennedy Cummings (her second marriage, the first was childless)Father: Michael Cochran (mill owner and county judge; had 10 [or 12?] children from a first marriage)Siblings: two full siblings, and 10 (or 12?) half-siblings from her fathers first marriageHusband: Robert Livingston Seaman (married April 5, 1895, when he was 70; millionaire industrialist)Children: none from her marriage, but adopted a child when she was 57 Education: early education at homeIndiana State Normal School, Indiana, Pennsylvania Known for: investigative reporting and sensationalist journalism, especially her commitment to an insane asylum and her around-the-world stunt Occupation: journalist, writer, reporter Dates: May 5, 1864-January 27, 1922; she claimed 1865 or 1867 as her birth year) Other Names: Elizabeth Jane Cochran (birth name), Elizabeth Cochrane (a spelling she adopted), Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (married name), Elizabeth Seaman, Nelly Bly, Pink Cochran (childhood nickname) Books by Nellie Bly Ten Days in a Mad-House; or Nellie Blys Experience on Blackwells Island. Feigning Insanity in order to Reveal Asylum Horrors.... 1887.Six Months in Mexico. 1888.The Mystery in Central Park. 1889.Outline of Bible Theology! Exacted from a Letter by a Lady to the New York World of 2nd June, 1889. 1889.Nellie Blys Book: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days. 1890. Books About Nellie Bly: Jason Marks. The Story of Nellie Bly. 1951.Nina Brown Baker. Nellie Bly. 1956.Iris Noble. Nellie Bly: First Woman Reporter. 1956.Mignon Rittenhouse. The Amazing Nellie Bly. 1956.Emily Hahn. Around the World with Nellie Bly. 1959.Terry Dunnahoo. Nellie Bly: A Portrait. 1970.Charles Parlin Graves. Nellie Bly, Reporter for the World. 1971.Ann Donegan Johnson. The Value of Fairness: The Story of Nellie Bly. 1977.Tom Lisker. Nellie Bly: First Woman of the News. 1978.Kathy Lynn Emerson. Making Headlines: A Biography of Nellie Bly. 1981.Judy Carlson. Nothing Is Impossible, Said Nellie Bly. 1989.Elizabeth Ehrlich. Nellie Bly. 1989.Martha E. Kendall. Nellie Bly: Reporter for the World. 1992.Marcia Schneider. First Woman of the News. 1993.Brooke Kroeger. Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. 1994.

Television Interview with Bill Mckibben Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Television Interview with Bill Mckibben - Essay Example Human being shave not left the earth alone. They are carrying out activities that may significantly change not only the earth but also its climate. In this regard, carbon dioxide has been recognized as the main culprit. In fact, the single activity that would be most likely to have a significant impact on climatic conditions is burning of gas, oil, coal and other fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are made up of carbon and therefore burning them would produce carbon dioxide. Since the early 19th century, when the burning of fossil fuels in large quantities began, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased by more than thirty percent. This has led to an increase in global temperatures from 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit. While this may appear to be a minor and even inconsequential increase in temperatures, it has had devastating effects. Numerous books, journals, essays and magazines have been written to this effect and an equally large number of propositions made on how to salv age the situations to save planet earth or even mitigate the effects. No other book captures more graphically the grim picture pertaining to climate change as Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben. The following is an excerpt of a television interview in which Bill McKibben talks about the book in particular and climate change in general. With him is a panel of media pundits (Stanley who is hosting the show, Joyce and Craig) and Richard (from Africa), all bound to express their views on the issue as well. Stanley: Bill, thank you for honoring our invitation and welcome to this show. Quite a lot has been said about climate change and your book has extensively touched on the issue. Please enlighten us on the views expressed in the book. Bill: Thank you Stanley. As you have said, climatic changes have been a major concern more so in the recent times. While most of our governments are flirting with the issue, it is important to acknowledge that the implications o f climate change and global warming are quite severe. Look at the changes that have been experienced in many parts of the world. The environmental news has actually deteriorated. Have we not seen ice caps vanishing, oceans acidifying and crops failing more than we have ever seen in the past? Can our forefathers recognize this earth if they were to rise from their graves? I doubt that. We are no longer living in planet earth as they knew it but rather Eaarth. Unfortunately all this has been caused by insensitive human activity. Craig: With all due respect Bill, don’t you think we are overlooking quite a number of things in this respect. I definitely agree that there has been a significant rise in the temperatures as to cause all those things that you have talked of. However, it is important to acknowledge that we know very little about the environment, pertaining to its history, its current state or even how we can protect and conserve it. The debate that we hold actually over states the level of existing knowledge as well as its certainty. Of course I agree that carbon dioxide levels are increasing in the atmosphere and human activity is actually the main culprit. However, how can you be sure that this is the cause of increase in temperature and the consequent changes while we are in the middle of a natural trend of global warming that kicked of around mid 19th century just when we were emerging from the â€Å"Little Ice Age†