A Duel Between Two Non-Experts

Okay, in my earlier post The Great Climate Debate and Other Stuff, you might recall that I said I'd include the more-or-less-civil discussion that went back and forth between me and a hubpages author in response to an article he wrote. First I'll include his article which is almost enough in itself to get your hair on end but keep reading! It gets even jucier as you dive into the comments section where everyone is wholeheartedly (and spine chillingly) agreeing with his words and adding some of their own. I will save my own comments that I'm inclined to write right now since I wrote more than enough, as you'll see, in reference to his article and the commenters' responses in, you guessed it! the comments section.

Enjoy!


Climate Data Compromised: Ya' Reckon?
If It Weren’t Serious It Would Be Comical
Written By R.Talloni, Found Posted in HubPages.com


The news is too good...I can’t help myself. The green theme is honestly not my favorite topic. However, when the news media puts it out there, what can a person do? They invite this on themselves, can we ignore the invitation?



Yesterday, I saw a news flash about how this January was the hottest January on record. One just sits there wondering about a lot of things while looking at the letters that form such articles. My first question was whether the listed author would use their real name or if they chickened out. I can say with all truthfulness that if I had to keep my job by writing such an article, I would use a pseudonym.



My next thought pertained to writing a hub on the ludicrousness of that news flash, what with the same news organization displaying flaming “East Coast Slammed With Snow Again” type articles on the same day. I mean, even if January was the hottest January in all history, how does it matter since this February has brought us such a volume of winter weather that the melting snow is going saturate the ground with freezing water for some time to come? Not very scientific, I know, but absurdity breeds ridiculousness.



Anyway, today I am compelled to write a green theme hub in spite of wanting to finish a book review. A man with a plan, Anthony Watts, has apparently been working with a group to find out how the scientific data for global warming records is being gathered. Compiling their own data, this group now has facts in the form of evaluations with photos and they have reported the results of their surveys.



This article reveals that out of the 1,062 weather stations they have investigated over the last 3 years “90 percent of them don't meet [the government's] old, simple rule called the '100-foot rule' for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we've got documentation.” To read that some of the weather stations are lighted with bulbs that could raise the temperatures that they report was eye-opening.



The article gives some interesting details on the proof of failed adherence to the guidelines, as well as a defense by researchers responsible for not following the governmental guidelines on how to do their global warming studies. Since they are set to soon publish a report on their findings in the Journal of Geophysics Research--Atmospheres their defense is not surprising.



I’m going to keep this short for a couple of reasons. First, you need to read up on this and get busy sharing the report. Second, I want to reread certain sections of my book so I can finish my review and figure out if I want to do several book review hubs. Third, I need to use my new energy efficient washing machine which I have yet to write a hub about.



In spite of the fact that Anthony Watts’ name could make one wonder if there is a conspiracy afoot, we have to admit that, pun intended, the wattage against so-called scientific data on global warming is being ramped up by people who are fed up. So here you have it, go now, do your part, spread the news.



__________


RTalloni 12 months ago



Will try to add links to the article as they come up.





Pamela99 12 months ago



Why aren't I surprised? The scientist that have disagreed about global warming were silenced all along and now we are finding out from the emails that people have definitely been dishonest. I think they should focus on clean water and not spend money wastefully until they have more evidence. I just got an energy efficient washer and dryer too. Oh well, I really do like them. Good hub





RTalloni 12 months ago



Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I'll look for your hub on your washer and dryer!





mynameisnotpaul 12 months ago



I am scratching my head as well over people who think our winters are getting less and less cold. Honestly, I live in Kentucky, and we were AMBUSHED with snow (which is definitely not normal), so I get the feeling that something is definitely not adding up.



Great hub, I'm glad somebody wrote about this! :)





RTalloni 12 months ago



So much in the news re this issue would truly be funny if it weren't such a sad reflection of the insanity that thinking we know more than our Creator has brought this world to!



We need to look past headlines then listen and read the news with an ear for keywords, phrases, and sentences that tell the truth about "the news" so we can help others learn to think about what they read and hear rather than swallow it hook, line, and sinker.



Out of curiosity I've been perusing global climate system articles. Take this one, for instance:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8538060.



"As if" questions came to mind:



As if animals have not always adapted to changes in nature and found food other places.



As if natural geographic changes have not always created changes for marine life.



As if the new iceberg is going to be there permanently rather than slowly melt away just like others do.



After an alarming title and paragraphs of supposition the article ends a little more honestly:



However, the researchers say the changes to the region triggered by the formation of the new iceberg will not shut down the circulation system or affect the world's climate.



"Large icebergs always attract a lot of attention due to their scale," observed Dr Michael Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey, who was not involved in the research.



"Bottom water is indeed an important part of the global ocean overturning circulation and hence climate," he told BBC News.



"There are also a number of other locations of bottom water formation, however. So, it's unlikely that a large-scale sustained change of the order of magnitude required for a global climate impact will happen from this one event.



"The more important thing, I think, is that this event has been closely and carefully monitored by scientists, who will now look at the processes whereby such calvings can impact on the ocean and the ecosystem - and studying this natural laboratory will add to our knowledge of how the Antarctic system works."



Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment to help keep the dialogue open mynameisnotpaul. Always good to cross paths with you!





Petra Vlah 12 months ago



It is funny (or not so funny) that most experts could not predict accurately tomorrow's weather, but they speculate about 40-50-60 years from now.



That gives me just as much confidence in their "expertise" as the 2012 apocalyptical theory about the end of the planet.



Even if it is true (which I doubt), can we do anything about it? It seems that X or Y always give as one more thing to worry about so we can't think or do what is really important and it is in our power to change





RTalloni 12 months ago



Experts can be very funny. So much of what we are witnesses to in this day and time is designed to take our minds off of what is really important. Thanks much for stopping in and leaving your comment.





RTalloni 11 months ago



Knowing what kinds of changes are being planned by those who are putting global warming at the top of their agenda is important. Check out:



http://www.snohomishcountybusinessjournal.com/arti





RTalloni 11 months ago



New article to check out:



http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/01/al-gore-





RTalloni 11 months ago



One of the comments under this article had a novel idea that we should agree on--governments should be held responsible for creating a climate of fear:



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-





gracenotes 11 months ago



You did a great job with this article. All of the global warming hype just makes me think of "ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Thanks for writing this.





RTalloni 11 months ago



How apropos! Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment, with a perfect quote no less! :)





RTalloni 11 months ago



Food for thought:



http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/02/als-late





Petra Vlah 11 months ago



Hello again RT,



Creating a climate of fear is what governments do best. Very interesting articles you found and post, thank you for the links





RTalloni 11 months ago



Thanks for the input, Petra, because it is invaluable coming from one with your experiences. Thanks for leaving a comment, too, for that helps keep the news articles highlighted and the dialogue open.





C Osborn 11 months ago



Two Thumbs Up......Glad to see not everybody is falling for the fear and hype.





RTalloni 11 months ago



Many thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment to help keep the dialogue high-lighted.





C Osborn 11 months ago



Al Gore has been unusually quiet. He must be off hunting for "Man Bear Pig" :)





RTalloni 11 months ago



:) Thanks for stopping by again and helping to keep the dialogue open.



From what I'm reading he's preparing a come back. "Their" latest excuses re the current winter's freezing temperatures proving global warming are an example of how science is ignored in order to try to make a point. The earth recycles the same amount of water through evaporation and precipitation. More water is not created by gasses of any kind. The earth's closed water recycling system makes for interesting conversation in the face "their" claims and excuses. Everyone agrees that it is wise to take care of the earth, our water, etc. but not everyone agrees that science should be based on facts!



One of my favorite quotes: Truth invites scrutiny; error demands tolerance.





stacebird 4 days ago



You are all doing exactly what RTalloni said that we Believers in Climate Change are doing, swallowing the news that leans toward your 'preferred' reality "hook, line and sinker".



Also, where Petra mentions how "experts can't predict accurately tomorrow's weather, but they speculate about 40-50-60 years from now"..well there is a different between global temperature *trends* tracked (over long periods of time) to build a more reliable data base for comparison and means for prediction while the daily differences in the weather are so short term that there is, as of yet, no way to be completely sure from one day to another. Climate and weather are very different things.



And, the government isn't the one responsible for creating that "climate of fear" she speaks of, in fact they are only just recently (finally!) accepting the fact of climate change. Rather, the government has been very busy funding certain agencies and paying underpaid scientists the big bucks to deliver (manipulate?) the data that your side of the fence is so desperate to cling on to.



With global warming, the key is to not focus on what the media is spouting. No matter which way it may be skewed, what is being said it is not necessarily all truth. Both sides (mine and yours) have made some pretty misleading allegations. What is problematic is that the media is causing us to focus on the more recent changes in weather from year to year, much too short term. And I've often heard people (some from this very comment section included!) claiming that a huge snow discounts or record hot days in February supports this idea of climate change.



Instead of obsessing over the month to month or year to year changes in the weather, what everyone needs to focus on is the fact that we are pouring carbon dioxide into our atmosphere at a rates that far surpass anything that has ever been seen. This is the reason we are certain that global warming is real, CO2 directly increases atmospheric temperatures. CO2 is what is going to get us in trouble and we're increasing its load in the atmosphere daily at disgusting rates.



The idea of climate change is something the world has endured and survived for its entire existence. The clincher is that we are changing the climate at a rate that is 100,000 times faster than past fluctuations have ever done. So now how are we, much less the natural environment that relies on evolving over thousands and thousands of generations, expected to keep up?



I appreciate the opportunity to comment, particularly to be the first commenter on the opposite side of a very one-sided discussion. Please visit my hubpage as I intend to address this issue for the wider public in the near future.





RTalloni 4 days ago



First, thanks for stopping by and commenting. I try to always appreciate open discussions.



What you have to say is interesting for a lot of reasons. You might like to do some research on the truth about how carbon dioxide has been poured into "our" atmosphere via "natural" causes at incalculable rates for centuries, yet the earth was designed to clean itself up. (Case in point, the most recent gulf oil spill, where the efforts of man cannot take credit for the fact that the waters have recovered so quickly so well, against all cries that the end of the gulf coast was at hand.) That is not to say that earth was designed to replenish itself interminably, but that point is another issue entirely and it involves the truth about how the earth is not ours, but we are stewards--a very big responsibility that requires attention to the concerns you raise in your comments.



It is a good thing for us to stop and think about the big picture, as you point out is our need. If one is to believe that our natural environment relies on an ability to evolve over generations ad nauseam then reality insists that we admit that it is impossible to know what is purported as fact re the so- called stats from eons ago.



The words evolve and adapt have come to be and are now far too often used interchangeably, and that's not a wise. Doing so has helped people swallow a lie hook, line, and sinker. I'm a big advocate of examining true definitions and how people misuse words to promote agendas. One of my favorite quotes is, "Truth invites scrutiny, error demands tolerance." Defining scrutiny is the key to getting to the truth of a matter and that's basically what this hub was about.



One reason I write about this type of topic is to exercise how to put thinking skills into writing, another is to help others exercise their thinking skills. So much opportunity for problem solving is lost when we lose common-sense thinking. Practically thinking through what the concerns really are includes setting aside emotion where rhetoric is concerned, examining every facet of the related problems (not just those that fit an agenda we may have adopted), concentrating on how to solve the difficulties from a perspective of leadership on the matter (which includes being responsible enough to be honest and check and double-check "facts").



On the issue of climate change we have some excellent data that is being ignored in the debate. However, my perspective is that common-sensical, practical thinking could spare many of us much distress.





stacebird 25 hours ago



Oh it’s my pleasure to engage in this discussion, interplay like this is what keeps the world turning!



I appreciate the advice, but I am content with my research done on carbon dioxide that is (and has been) emitted into the atmosphere. I know very well that gases given off by various natural causes are the main source of the gas levels in the atmosphere and I also am very well aware that they are “checked and balanced” by natural absorption. As you say, the earth is “designed to clean itself up” but, unfortunately, not to the exceedingly fast rate (by earth’s standards) as we humans are soiling it as referred to with the statistics in my previous comment. Our emissions contribution may not be a huge proportion to that which the earth naturally emits, but that is not the focus. It’s that we are increasing the amount to a point “over the limit” that the earth cannot support. We have thrown the earth out of its balance.



You mention the oil spill as your case in point, but I see no evidence in the fact that while the ecosystem might naturally recover faster than we expected it to, to suggest that the earth as a whole is capable of keeping up and nullifying the overall human pollution contribution. Not to mention the fact that the ecosystem hit by the oil spill isn’t back in tip-top shape quiet yet. Furthermore, what we humans are doing to try and clean up the spill are hurting the ecosystem more than helping it, which is exactly our problem here on earth..we don’t consider (or even have the knowledge of) the consequences that our actions could have on the environment. And because of that the earth is changing.



I don’t see what the gulf spill has to do with the issue we are discussing but I feel the need for people to know that it was a bad thing and still is a bad thing. You can’t just introduce harmful chemicals and expect the earth to happily go about its own business. Sure, bacteria may be able to naturally bioremediate the damage, but (bigger picture once again) the bacteria wouldn’t have been there in such force if it weren’t for the unnatural introduction of the oil. The suddenly-high abundance of bacteria is therefore triggered unnaturally and is sure to have an impact. You can’t tug one part of the ecosystem and expect it not to reverberate.



Everything is connected and there will be responses that mere humans have no way of predicting that could end up hurting not only the earth but us as well.



On to the next point…so, this loaded sentence of yours gave me pause: “If one is to believe that our natural environment relies on an ability to evolve over generations ad nauseam then reality insists that we admit that it is impossible to know what is purported as fact re the so- called stats from eons ago.”



I believe that the environment doesn’t rely on the ability, but rather it is nature’s innate ability to evolve. The cause of evolution is how species with ‘chance’ genetic differences either are better adapted to their environment or not. Those not will die off and the better adapted will survive and procreate, creating progeny with that advantageous variation that is genetically passing through generations. “Ad nauseam” is simply an overstatement. I don’t know about you, but I happen to, along with countless others, have a lot of respect for scientists and what they “purport as fact” about eons ago. Why don’t you?



Furthermore, I am curious..did your loaded sentence mean that you disagree with my statement “..we are changing the climate at a rate that is 100,000 times faster than past fluctuations have ever done. So now how are we, much less the natural environment that relies on evolving over thousands and thousands of generations, expected to keep up?”? Because, if so, I also would like to know: why? Why don’t you think that we can use the information that scientists come up with (the credible ones, at least) as fact? Do you just not believe in evolution?



I liked your quote you stuck in after mentioning the misuse of evolve and adapt but I feel you strayed from your point there. I was hoping you would expand on that thought and tell what it is that you think is so unwise and what lie we are swallowing. Who is promoting what agenda here by confusing the terms so that we the public take it as face value? What are these “lies” doing and what do they have to do with global warming?



I love that you wrote this hub, it definitely is putting my thinking skills to use and, as I delve more deeply into the topic I am able to share my thoughts with someone who has very different thoughts and see where you are coming from. What I’m afraid of is that you take a lot of your own information at face value..like the parents who killed themselves and their children for fear of global warming. Do you really believe that the government is scaring us to that point? How many cases have you found like this? Obviously this is a very outlying case that really contributes nothing to your argument. In fact these people, who I’m sure were not hanging on every word the government said about global warming (the few words the gov’t even were saying!), doubtless they were looking into global warming on their own accord, reading the very sad facts that have been stated for years now (and neglected to be addressed by the government) and their mental state, which already was obviously precarious, was pushed over the edge.



I just ask you to not get hung up on whatever error Al Gore may have made. He is not a scientist. He could very well have an agenda and maybe that is what is steering him in the wrong direction. Politicians are renowned for adapting information to their advantage. You keep referring to basically a lack of common sense thinking. Well, I have seen an abundance of it.



“So much opportunity for problem solving is lost when we lose common-sense thinking.” I am in complete agreement. Unfortunately, no matter which “side” people are on, mistakes are going to be made and common sense will fall by the wayside. Nonetheless, I think we should put a lot of confidence in science. A scientific approach is the most common-sense thinking of all.





RTalloni 3 hours ago



Thanks for coming by again. I’m always glad to see comments and to have the chance to interact with other hubbers.



I appreciate your concerns about “over the limit” emissions, even though your comment that you are content with your research gives me pause for thought. It brought to mind what 1950s scientists said about antibiotics. For all the lives that antibiotics have saved, how wrong could they have been to assure the world that their research proved that antibiotics would eradicate disease?



The gulf has and continues to recover faster than anyone expected. Common sense does suggest that this fact could mean that the earth’s other systems should respond in a similar manner when necessary. Yet, there is no doubt that we have a responsibility to be wise in addressing problems that develop for we have been given stewardship of the earth.



You make a good point in writing that what is done to solve problems is sometimes more harmful than helpful. We need common sense thinking on every level--scientifically, politically, and among “just us.” For instance, couldn’t it be likely that the gulf was designed to produce extra bacteria as needed and that the extra dies off when it is no longer needed, similar to how our bodies were designed to work at solving certain problems? All that is not to say, however, that it’s okay to tug one part of the ecosystem unnaturally and then not do what can be done to help set things right.



Common sense, balanced, practical thinking that is devoid of manipulation, hype, and fabrication is what I’m promoting. The earth was not designed by humans and we do not understand all of its interconnections, therefore, it does not make sense to dismiss what is known about the earth as we explore concerns and possible solutions. Straightforwardly, I do not believe in evolutionary theories. “Ad nauseam” is not an understatement in the face of the facts that a) what is known about the earth is so often ignored, and b) what is presented as fact when it should be presented as theory continues to be publicized.



It makes sense to believe a written record of historical events that have stood the test of time by way of corroborated research to confirm or invalidate older writings throughout history rather than to believe in testing practices that have not only been called into question by modern scholars but which nature itself has refuted. My goal for touching on this is to answer your question about whether I believe in evolution and to encourage anyone reading this to stop and think about the rational of the two positions as they consider what I write.



I am not an evolutionist. I believe that God created all things just as He states in His Word. Beyond that, experience with trusting Him according to His Word has convinced me that He is bigger than anything we can imagine--completely omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and that no matter what problems any part of His creation may ever face He infinitely rules and overrules. He has proven the counsel of His Word to me many times over thereby increasing my confidence in what He has revealed to us in creation and in His Word. At this point I refer readers to my other hubs for the time being, and I am going back to the main focus of this hub.



The issues related to this hub’s mention of supposed data that proved to be grossly flawed could tentacle out for miles in every direction. What I know about the parents who murdered their children and themselves is that their motives and consequent actions were wrong. Whether the government or scientists or the media have any responsibility for those deaths is something we should give a good amount of consideration to for the information those people were operating from had a source. The question of whether they were researching “facts” is underlined and highlighted by reports of dishonesty among scientists, as well as politicians and the media.



Al Gore certainly is not a scientist and it’s a pitiful thing to watch him pretend to be one. It’s even sadder to see how he uses his money and influence as a climate activist as he promotes himself as an expert. From what I can tell, his words and actions point to a picture of someone who lacks common sense but is being used by others who are shrewd business people. He does nothing to create an atmosphere of confidence and trust in either the persons working to address valid concerns or their efforts.



I think I understand what you mean if you are speaking of a “true” scientific approach, but what is called science does not always constitute common sense. We have too many examples that give us good reason to stop and think. Look at the supposed proofs of evolution that were debunked by the examples that the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The effects of its explosion as well as the remarkable recoveries of the areas it affected are just one example of truth being ignored by evolutionists. Every branch of science needs what common sense thinking we mere humans can bring to it, but the scale of dismissiveness toward facts and some outright deceptions, possibly in the name of research but at times for self-advancement, have been nothing short of a colossal betrayal to the very word “science.”



Please understand that I’ve moved along here with no expectation of thoroughly covering any of these issues, just making a diligent effort to focus on our need to exercise common sense. Besides mentioning that I try to display an attitude of being careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and, therefore, I do not dismiss the importance of science, I want to wind this up by pointing out that from the title of this short hub through to the last paragraph I wrote with a tongue-in-cheek spirit. Seriously, though, I understand that you are very concerned and I do not believe that there is anything comical about the responsibility of our stewardship of the earth.



You’ve given me some food for thought and in the future when I consider a lack of common sense, a lack of character, and a lack of willingness to pursue truth regarding any issue, scientific or otherwise, I believe your words to the effect of “what is done to try to solve problems can cause more harm than good” will ring in my mind.


Okay it's me, Stacey again!
So basically I decided I should just let it rest there. I must say though, I sure enjoyed myself here. It was a good learning experience and, while I'm no expert, I felt that I could at least speak up to some degree so that these people weren't all just happily nodding in somewhat ignorant agreement.

I'd love to hear your all's (yay grammar!) opinions, so leave a comment, start another discussion even!

Thoughts After Zumba

So we have finally found ourselves in the month of March. It's about time! This is the month that I find out if any of the schools I've applied to think I'm graduate student material. I am bouncing off the walls inside my head, there is literally a tiny me in there pinging from one side to the other going crazy waiting to hear if she's been accepted. Will life lead me to Oregon? To Colorado? As long as one of them decides to throw me a bone, I'm set. If they both do (this is the cocky side of me talking here, better to ignore that one) then I'm screwed because I have no idea how to choose between the two. I talked to a professor at Eugene who got me all jazzed to go there and I have a phone appointment I set up with a prof in Boulder on Monday and, unless he's a jerk or he thinks I'm a tool, then I potentially will be even less capable of making a decision.

Journalism. That's what I might be neck deep in (as if I've not already thrown myself gleefully into it already...http://hubpages.com/profile/stacebird) for the next two years and, if things go in any way at all in the general direction I keep daydreaming about, I'll be in it for the long run! Yipes! It's so exciting and yet it's something so different and twisty turny and crazy insano!

Look at her, scribbling away notes as Jane Goodall lectures..like a real journalist! 2003.

I just got out of zumba earlier (pretending like I know even remotely what I'm doing in a room full of gyrating hips..) I got to talking to this lady who teaches spanish and when I told her my "life direction" her response was "ohh, that's a hard field"..yea, not the first time I've heard that. Buuuut that's the thing, yea things are changing and print media is a shrinking industry but that's why it's the newbies like us who have a knack for the internet (haha, knack..me?!?) are coming into the field at a "very exciting" time. I'm sad and totally understand how the print journalists scorn the media move to the internet but it's obviously a tsunami that cannot be stopped. It is taking over and if you don't change where you are, you're liable to get swept away.

Nonetheless, I'm nervous!! Yea, going for the grad degree will be a leg up, I just hope that I can maybe get some experience in a structured environment (maybe a magazine that does both online and print..?) for a few years and then go solo, freelance style. If I can support myself as a successful freelancer, I think that might be pretty darn great. Not easy, but great.

...gurgle

The Great Climate Debate and other stuff.

Ooooookay. So I think I jinxed my stinkbug winter companion. The next morning after writing my last post I found him kind of sprawled out on the carpet right in front of my mirror-- stone dead.

I decided not to take a picture.

He's still there, though, if you want to come by and pay your respects.

In other news, I have been busy with the classes I'm auditing. Spanish is rolling right along. Globalization Issues is a new perspective for me. I haven't taken many classes like this before, studying humanity rather than nature! But I find it fascinating and enlightening..as well as depressing. The general theme is: the big fat politicians of the good ol' US of A tricked almost the entire rest of the world (focusing, of course, on the 3rd world countries) to do our bidding under the guise of "progression and development" and we get all the riches, the power, the natural resources. Journalism is great, it's getting me thinking about all the nitty gritty of the legal aspects, ethics and how journalism is developing in these craaazy times! Finally, Swimming. It rocks. I really enjoy it and it's good to give my crackling knees a break. I officially can swim 3/4ths of a mile with hardly any breaks to catch my breath! I feel good about that :)

Oh, so here's something really fun and interesting I've been doing this week. I found an article through my hubpages site about how Al Gore messed up and said something about global warming that the opponents found to be untrue, so of course they are taking that to the bank and saying that global warming isn't real, it's all a joke. Well the frustrating thing was that the author and all of the people who commented on his article were all opposing global warming based on unjust things: not just what Gore said (who, last time I checked, wasn't a scientist) but also how the warmest January in record is reported in the same paper that displays articles screaming about another snowstorm slamming the eastern US...this is a perfect example of confusing climate data with weather reports. The author points to a couple that committed suicide and blamed it on global warming and he blames it on the government putting fear in our hearts...well, I read through his article and all of the comments made by people putting him up on a pedestal with his good information and points, and I felt crazy frustrated. I had to write a comment. A comment-turned essay. I will subject you to that now, mwahaha...

stacebird 3 days ago

You are all doing exactly what RTalloni said that we Believers in Climate Change are doing, swallowing the news that leans toward your 'preferred' reality "hook, line and sinker".

Also, where Petra mentions how "experts can't predict accurately tomorrow's weather, but they speculate about 40-50-60 years from now"..well there is a different between global temperature *trends* tracked (over long periods of time) to build a more reliable data base for comparison and means for prediction while the daily differences in the weather are so short term that there is, as of yet, no way to be completely sure from one day to another. Climate and weather are very different things.

And, the government isn't the one responsible for creating that "climate of fear" she speaks of, in fact they are only just recently (finally!) accepting the fact of climate change. Rather, the government has been very busy funding certain agencies and paying underpaid scientists the big bucks to deliver (manipulate?) the data that your side of the fence is so desperate to cling on to.

With global warming, the key is to not focus on what the media is spouting. No matter which way it may be skewed, what is being said it is not necessarily all truth. Both sides (mine and yours) have made some pretty misleading allegations. What is problematic is that the media is causing us to focus on the more recent changes in weather from year to year, much too short term. And I've often heard people (some from this very comment section included!) claiming that a huge snow discounts or record hot days in February supports this idea of climate change.

Instead of obsessing over the month to month or year to year changes in the weather, what everyone needs to focus on is the fact that we are pouring carbon dioxide into our atmosphere at a rates that far surpass anything that has ever been seen. This is the reason we are certain that global warming is real, CO2 directly increases atmospheric temperatures. CO2 is what is going to get us in trouble and we're increasing its load in the atmosphere daily at disgusting rates.

The idea of climate change is something the world has endured and survived for its entire existence. The clincher is that we are changing the climate at a rate that is 100,000 times faster than past fluctuations have ever done. So now how are we, much less the natural environment that relies on evolving over thousands and thousands of generations, expected to keep up?

I appreciate the opportunity to comment, particularly to be the first commenter on the opposite side of a very one-sided discussion. Please visit my hubpage as I intend to address this issue for the wider public in the near future.

So there you go...it's a little bit harsh at points, perhaps, but I was just really fired up. He wrote me back a doosie which I just finished the reply for tonight (yea, 2 pages long in Word). I'm going to wait to see where that one takes us in this debate, but I'll give you guys a more in-depth view once I let it brew for awhile and maybe produce some really interesting outcomes. It's all in good fun, he seems glad of the fact that I am joining in on the discussion, so, I'm gonna keep it up til I feel like I've well represented my view!

So there you go!

Writing Fool

So here's what I've been up to lately..my main objective, of course, is to write as much as possible but also get my name out there and get people reading my writing. I've been scouring the internet and have found two good sites where I've been able to contribute articles. The sites are completely made up of articles written by citizen journalists so I feel like I'm in league with everyone else. You can write about any topic you want and so I've had a good opportunity to just kind of play around. Here are the two stories I wrote on my hubpages site:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Stop-Dont-Follow-That-Recipe

http://hubpages.com/hub/proudintrovert

I was super excited to discover that other "hubbers" had commented on my writing not even an hour after I'd posted! It seems like this will be a great site to get to know freelance writers (some of the people who contribute are really quite accomplished!) and find out how they make their living solely on writing. Already I've had a couple offer some really great advice, not to mention the value of reading some of their articles on becoming a writer.

I also joined Suite101 which is similar but not as user friendly or aesthetically pleasing as HubPages. I did publish a story there too, though.

http://www.suite101.com/content/learn-spanish-and-get-a-taste-of-nicaraguan-living-a346986

It's been fun just typing away, and checking out some really great resources as I go. In fact, I've been totally obsessing over it all, writing til 4:30 in the morning, spending hours and hours in starbucks on my computer, reading writer's digest on my free time between classes. Yea, I'm excited!

Now it's a matter of getting traffic to my stories, get people reading them, the more that read them, the higher the "score" or ranking so that your article has more chance of being seen if someone searches one of your keywords. For now, I'll keep everyone up to date via my own connections and see where this goes.

On another note, remember how bad the stinkbugs were last summer? I have one that has made my room his winter getaway. I don't have any idea what he must be eating, but he's been living here for months! The funny thing is, I think he's in love with me..no matter where he is in my room, he always is slowly making his way toward me, be he on the ceiling, in the closet, on my lampshade. He slowly walks toward me and I'm sitting there writing or reading in my bed when suddenly I feel him crawl onto my shoulder or he comes striding over the top of my knee. Right now he is crawling up the side of my computer screen...I seriously flicked him away three times in a row until finally I gave in. Well now he's off on some other adventure. I should probably go too. Until next time!

Belated

Hullo again. Okay so I haven't been as great at keeping up with this blog like I wanted to but I blame it on the fact that my classes really started kicking into gear, workwise, after posting the first one of this "series".

BUT I haven't not been writing. I'm actually pretty pleased because one of my classes is Intro to Journalism. My teacher advised anyone who wanted to be a journalist to start getting things published, ASAP, because that is what truly will make you look good to future employers: a portfolio. So, I joined the college newspaper...officially! I filled out the online application, sent it in, was "accepted" and attended my first official newspaper staff meeting, a-hohoho! Well, ignore that last little bit of bragging in the form of stupid obnoxious laughter because here's what my application looked like in the "prior experience" section..

1. High school newspaper-NONE
2. High school yearbook-NONE
3. High school news Website-NONE
4. High school broadcasting-NONE
5. College newspaper-Yours! Last month you published my review of a little park where you can walk around the pretty lake and see nature!! (..is there pity in your eyes?)
6. College yearbook-NONE
7. College news Website-NONE
8. College broadcasting-NONE

...they must've been pretty desperate...

Well, nonetheless, I'm on the paper! What's more, I get to use my own idea for my next article! I'm going to write about my travels to the spanish school in a small town in Nicaragua where I got a lesson in history that painted my entire view of that community. I was really taken aback by what I learned about this strong, beautiful, dedicated group of people. What did I learn? Well you're going to just have to wait til it's published!

So I'm starting to think that my adult life (assuming I ever become an adult..) as a writer (assuming I ever become a writer...) will consist of many hours in front of the computer (obviously), resulting in a frightening sight. See, when I look at a computer screen for more than an hour or so, my eyes become a disturbing shade of red. These shots of blood running across the whites of my eyes are there, not just for a couple hours but rather for a good 12 HOURS. I guess I just don't blink when I'm staring at the screen. So picture me in the future, working away in my dark, damp cave with eyes gleaming of blood. You might offer eye drops if you're brave enough to come close, or suggest a good night's rest, but these do nothing to combat the intrusion of bulging, bursting veins. Well, another reason to embrace my introvertedness!

Where the heck to begin.

So this is the jump off point of my writing career. A career that is in the vague and distant future at the moment. Nonetheless, everything I've read about becoming a writer screams "practice constantly!", "write something every day!". Basically, hock one onto your computer screen and hope it's legible. So that's what I'm doing now, winding up for the pitch...

Here is what I like to draw in when I think of that vague and distant future: I'm a freelance writer, I've published enough "quality" work that I can work remotely and contribute to a variety of interesting (to me) magazines, websites, magazine-websites...yes. So there I am, tapping away for a period of time each day while occasionally stopping to look out my huge window at a beautiful, mountainous view, framed by trees that make up the forest in which my rustic little home is nestled..

Now, how hard does it really have to be so hard to reach that point? I want to revel in the introverted character that is me and live a lifestyle appropriate to it. I still plan to be within biking distance to various indulgences-some sort of local cafe with an abundance of rich desserts and good coffee, a natural food store, a gym (to follow the desserts with). I just don't want to always have to be somewhere, to have a dress code, to compete to be the best..whatever.

In this vision of my future that I'm making here, I don't plan on spending money on anything that is unnecessary (except for the indulgences..). I am not a materialistic person by any means-a year after buying my first car, and brand new at that, I gave it to my brother. My lifestyle should be fairly simple, not too expensive. But does that mean I'd be able to support it, with the wages of a freelance writer?

Well for now, I'm pointing myself toward graduate school. I have it in my mind that if I'm able to say "I have a graduate degree in Journalism" that it will mean the powers that be (or, that is, the editors..) will desire whatever it is that I have to contribute and will pay me with gusto. That's how it works, right?

In the journalism books and online articles I've been pouring over lately, I've gotten the inkling that freelance writing is kind of the starting point for those who are building up their portfolio so that they can become editors. I don't want to claw my way up that high. I'm content to stay around the bottom, if I can. Not that freelancing is really the bottom, but rather, if one wants to make a stable income, they need to either become best pals with some great magazines to have a guaranteed in as a contributing writer or they integrate some other income sources into their career, like (gag) teaching or consulting.

I think there is hope, though! See, I'm writing, this is me right now working to better my future, each word.... ..every...single......l..e..t..t..e..r.....I'm practicing!! So you practice too, if you're on this track as well and together we will make ourselves better and better, one day after another.

Connecting the Dots

Hello again my dear reader buds! Sorry for the long absence, it's been a bumpy but overall great road! I have been feeling sad for leaving this blog dormant but I will tell you why I did it.

I was not particularly comfortable seeing the posts I'd filled it with on my Peace Corps adventures in Guatemala. This is due to the fact that I ended my time in Peace Corps after about four and a half months down there.

I don't for a second regret the experiences I was so fortunate to be a part of. I also don't regret leaving.

After three months of cultural, language, and job training, I was placed in the site where I was to spend the next two years. Nothing about the amount of time I'd be away from states or the fact that I had to live a lifestyle very different from that in the US had anything to do with my leaving. I relished the opportunity to live abroad, take bucket baths, kill a chicken for dinner, and sleep with all manner of insect and who knows what else crawling around my room. In these aspects, I make the perfect candidate to gleefully lead the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer. What I hadn't anticipated was that which went on inside my head. Feelings of inadequacy, not smart enough, strong enough, outgoing enough, innovative enough, just plain old not good enough. These are feelings that I've battled for many years now. Feelings that bring me down to depths that I can't see a way out of.

Depression is a well known disease in my family. Many of us have been and are struggling with it. No matter where I go, I can't seem to escape it. I couldn't escape it, not even in another country. So there I sat, disbelief filling my entire being as I hung up the phone after having talked to the Peace Corps nurse about how horrible I was feeling. Such an awful, familiar feeling.

From there I left my site to take the long bus ride to Antigua where I met with the therapist at the Peace Corps office. After telling her about the past and current me, together we decided that going back to the states was the best option. There I would have easy access to all that I would need to help get me out of that hole.

So suddenly Guatemala faded off behind me and I'd returned to the states.

Connecting the dots between that point and this one now, I would say that there was a good deal of therapy involved, in both person and pill form. I've been living with my parents (ahh, just another fun and humiliating thing to share with all the world, all you readers!) and have been auditing classes as my local community college. Between classes and unemployed loser-dom, I've managed to make a few side excursions. North Carolina, New York, Nicaragua, Florida..you get one guess on which was my favorite!

So life is plugging along and now I'm taking a new route. Zig-zagging through life is nothing new, but it is certainly something I have really enjoyed. And continue to. Not knowing where I'll be a year from now..hell, six months from now!

Um, the dots are getting closer, right? Well I'm in classes until May and by the end of March I hope to know which (if any) grad school wants to take me as an aspiring writer/journalist. So there, dots connected. Now I just have to fatten up the line between them in posts to come...

Thanks for listening..er, reading.

La Importancia de los Viajes del Campo en Aprendizaje

Muchos estudiantes les gustan los viajes del campo como una día libre de escuela. Los viajes son algo differente en que pueden escapar los escritorios y vean algo diferente. Sin embargo, estos "vacaciones" son relacionado a sus estudios y ofrecen una opurtunidad para ver algo real, en lugar de una foto en sus libros. De hecho, los viajes del campo resultan en una experiencia mas llena de aprendizaje y producen estudiantes mas lista para la vida actual.

A la ventaja de los estudiantes, los viajes del campo les llegan a lugares relacionado a las temas en sus estudios universidades. Un ejemplo es visitar una parque nacional con una clase de biología para ver los bosques y los relaciones entre la vida silvestre y los plantas y arboles. Para ver en realidad los cosas de que hablaron en clase, pueden entender mejor con estos ejemplos actuales y recordar mejor con sus memorias.

Otros ventajas incluyen oportunidades que los estudiantes nunca han tenido. Muchas jovenes de la ciudades nunca han visto los bosques alredador sus hogares. Es una probabilidad que el viaje a qualquier lugar es el primero vez por muchos de los estudiantes. Estos oportunidades dan una vista mas grande por los estudiantes de la vida que van a entrar.

Muchas veces, las lecturas en las clases causan los alumnos perdir interés, no importa la tema. Si la misma tema es estudiado por un viaje del campo, es probable que los estudiantes van a tener mas interes y, tal ves, encontrar mucho fascinación en esta tema. Si los estudiantes vean los arboles que están muriendo por la pollución y insectos exóticos en vida actual, tal vez, van a recordar esta viaje cuando estan en carreras en que tienen abilidades influyentes para afectar legislación. ¿Quien sabe?

Sin embargo, los viajes del campo tienen muchos aspectos beneficiales para mejorar la experiencia universidad. Esto es algo que cada universidad debe tener en cada facultad. La futura depende en los jovenes y cada experiencia va a anadir a su vista de la vida. Es importante que las maestros tomar la oportunidad para dar una vista mas llena para la futura de todos.

Porch of an Old Farmhouse

The creak of the porch swing caused the girl to look up from where she sat in the adjacent field. She'd been picking soybeans for the afternoon after showing up at the front step of that porch earlier that morning. The woman who'd answered had dust in her hair and sadness in her eyes. Lana was just glad she didn't ask any questions. The woman retreated back into the depths of the house after agreeing to pay the girl in meals for some work. She didn't need the help, the field was obviously left abandoned, but Lana didn't feel the need to ask questions either. The peeling white paint of the swing fluttered to the ground as the wind gently rocked it. The familiar creaking of the old chain brought the woman to the window and Lana saw her peer down toward the porch from above. The woman brushed at her cheek and turned back to face the cluttered room, filled with wooden toys and half filled boxes, all covered in a film of dust.

The soybeans were cooked with dinner that evening and girl and woman sat at the large table in silence. The girl slowly ate, her only belongings in a small bag on the floor beside her chair. It was quiet in the house and the girl stole glances at the shadows which were all that were left of a happier, bustling life. The woman appeared to live alone, although there was evidence otherwise. A large canvas jacket still hung from the hook by the back screen door and she noticed picture of a man at work out in the cow pasture down the east slope from the house. He sat on a tractor and held a young boy in his lap who's head barely showed above the wheel. The story told itself most devastatingly so, through the pain in the gray eyes of the woman left behind.

When the woman got up from the table, Lana thought about the pain she'd felt in her life and felt quietly connected to this woman with the dust still in her hair and a defeated gaze. Setting a full glass of milk next to Lana's plate, the woman's foot grazed the bag on the floor, tipping it. On to the linoleum rolled a faded wooden red truck that matched the set in the room upstairs, now packed away in cardboard. The woman sucked in her breath and held it, aghast at what she saw.

"That's my son's. What are you doing with his toy in your belongings?" her voice was cold.

The girl sat frozen, cringing, "No I wasn't going to take it, ma'am. Please. I found it out in the field."

The woman looked like she could hit Lana. The girl didn't know how to explain. She'd wanted to keep it. She had been fighting with herself all afternoon about what she was going to do with the faded thing that had caused her heart to stop when she saw it.

"I'm sorry, I only wanted to hold it for awhile."

"What did you think you were going to do with it!? It's mine, it obviously belongs in this house, it belongs..in my arms..he belongs in my arms" her voice cracked and she simply fell apart, staggering back to her side of the table and slumping into her seat, tears falling.
Lana picked up the truck, staring at it before tearing her eyes away to look at the woman with the grey eyes.

"My father built one for my brother," she whispered, "It just looked so much like this one, laying there in the dirt. I knew that you needed it because it was his, but I almost was able to believe that it belonged to another young boy and that I'd be able to once again hold him in my arms."

Later, after the sun had fallen below the green hills, Lana came out of the guest room for a glass of water. She heard the creaking again and followed the sound out onto the porch. The fading light only just illuminated the woman where she sat. She held a large cardboard box in her lap, it's flaps open revealing trucks and cars and carved wooden animals. Her grey eyes met Lana's.

"You can keep it"

THE END

This was just a little exercise, I found a site that helped you create a setting for a creative writing piece. You choose numbers and each number gives you one of the options for a.Character, b.Setting, c.Time, d.Challenge/Situation. So with my random choice of four numbers I came out with:
character: homeless child
setting: porch of an old farmhouse
time: after a fight
challenge: someone accused another of something wrong

I used a bit of artistic license, because I didn't follow exactly my topics but they at least got me rolling on an idea and I had a good time with it! Hope you enjoyed it.

Peace

Her pace quickened as she moved down the grassy slope. Three ducks flew low over the water, their wings beat fast to hold their weighty bodies aloft. Her eyes flicked, taking in the scene with only a quick glance. She went back to watching her feet as they padded down the hill, toward the water. Who was she to think that she could keep up with this world? The fast pace of it all, the bustle of the busy sidewalks swarming with people dressed in crisp suits and hair all done up. Is this life? To make money and wear it around town and out to clubs? How could you spend days, weeks, months, without touching your soles to earth? How can people live like that? For her, peace was in the woods when she wandered alone. Where do you find peace in a city that buzzes night and day? She approached the lapping shallows and dropped her clothes where the grass ended. Sliding into the water, she escaped the world, escaped norms and expectations. She welcomed the release and closed her eyes, sinking. A kingfisher rattled a long cry, dropping off his branch to fly across the wide river.

Bring on the Laughing Gas

This morning I was getting ready to drive myself to my dentist appointment when I started sensing that old familiar feeling bubbling up in my brain!

I was looking in the mirror when I started to noticed the sparkly scribbles obscuring part of my peripheral vision. This folks, is my classic warning to get ready for some nasueating, skull-boring pain starting out piercing and ending blinding! I've had enough migraines in the past to yield full recognition and immediate action with now only a defeated sigh or a muttered explicative. The first time it happened, however, warranted a trip to the emergency room back when I was in middle school. My mom thought it was a stroke when her daughter started slurring her words and couldn't coherently read the newspaper comics out loud. Today though I calmly rifled through through the clutter of my room seeking out the migraine pill stash that I prayed hadn't been a figment of my imagination. I found them and popped two amphetamine-jacked green and white gel tabs and amused myself for a moment as I tried to catch my eye up with the spot of shimmering nothing-ness that jumped around my field of view, always just out of reach. The pain hadn't hit yet but my digestive tract was beginning to regret my morning yogurt and granola. I calculated the amount of time I had until I needed to drive my mom's stick shift to my appointment and decided that the blindness should be ending within the next twenty minutes and the onslaught of pain should be dampered, though slightly, enough to allow me to drive with my faculties more or less functioning. I made it without a hitch but was soon cursing myself as I laid in the dentist chair listening to, for a good ten minutes of blinding migraine agony, what a bad decision it is to not following a regular flossing regime. Lady, I could not giving a damn about what I might be allowing to proliferate in the dark crevices between my teeth and the shame of it all, now either hit me over the head unconscious with that blaring light you have penetrating my brain and igniting the depths of this excruciating pain rising up within me or bring on the laughing gas, stat.

Graffiti on Trees

If I follow my mind's path, it will take me into oblivion. I'm following it now because I can't sleep. Writing shall be my outlet. When you're walking through the forest, passing birch trees with their smooth trunks marred by engraved initials encircled by hearts, what can you do but wonder? When you lay down to sleep and can't stop the endless whir of thoughts passing across your consciousness, what can you do but get up, run downstairs, grab your computer, grab some pretzels and start loudly crunching while tapping away? I can already feel my eyes drying out, the dull ache through my temples from staring at the screen. Where will writing get me? Who knows but I really just spent the past half hour trying to draw a beech tree trunk. I didn't even get to the graffiti yet and I'm already disgusted with it. Okay, well another hour and a half later and I sorta got what I was going for. So here it is...




I think I'll be able to sleep now...

Maestra Estacey

2.5.10

So I had my first day of teaching English! It was quite an experience..my primero vez teaching in a classroom and I was lucky to have a partner in crime. Cristobal de Carolina de Nor arrived on Monday, a volunteer from the States who heard about Loma Linda and came to lend a hand for a week. And just in time! My first class was with a room FULL of ninos, probably about 40 kids between the ages 4-8 and I had them for two hours of “How-are-you?” “I-am-good” “Good-morning” “Welcome” again and again and again. Just a handful of sentences repeated and repeated, taking turns between me and them or one side of the class to another, pointing at each other on the “YOU” and at themselves for the “I”. Two hours of this. Two hours. If I didn’t have Chris there to help keep everybody in line (he took the title of Crowd Control), I think I might have just run screaming for the hills. Aside from the fact that their yelling in unison sometimes melded together into “How are GOOD!” and “I am YOU!”, I know they left having learned at least something because the next day I had many “Buenas dias, Stacey!”s. So what did we learned? Two hours is way too long for a room full 45 very small children and the differences between the ages is vast enough that a lot of the youngsters got lost in the bustle. Our solution: Break the class up into two one-hour classes, the younger youngsters first and the olders second. When we finished, we both completely collapsed. Pascual and Rosa were there too and now and then Pascual lent a hand in wrangling back their attention as well. Never would I have been able to do that alone..maybe in the future but not the first time having ever done something like this every before in my life! Whew! I was kind of nervous for the afternoon class with the adults and older students but man, those two hours went so smooth and it was a fantastic group! Several members of ASODILL, Pascual and two of his daughters, a handful of teachers and a good group of teenagers who already had a good base knowledge. We spent some time on greetings and, while it felt patronizing to have them repeat and repeat and repeat,but they were wonderful and we joked and laughed and it was so laid back and we aNUNciated (wowweeerrrr) and I made all kinds of silly faces in the process repeating the sounds of the letters..R and T being some of the more difficult for them..and I found I really used my whole body in the process, to emphasize with hands waving and bouncing my knees on each syllable. It was great! We did the whole alphabet together, one letter at a time and it really was fun! I’d say the letter and they’d repeat it back, we’d do that 4 or five times and for the harder letters I walked to each desk and had every student repeat it back to me. I have no idea where all the energy came from because I did NOT sleep the night before (anxious girl not able to turn her brain off, nervous for her first day of being a teacher..) but man, I felt exuberant at the end of it, absolutely ecstatic! And I pretty much did it all by myself! I really felt proud of myself as we walked back up the street under a light drizzle and we just had to stop and gaze at the mountains, draped in clouds. It was a perfect vista to end a grand adventure of a day. Oh, I almost forgot! Rosa made us a celebratory “congrats on your first day of teaching” banana bread cake for dessert and yes, it was heaven on earth.
Sunday: Today I took Cristobal up to the wall waterfall and it has really amped up since last week with all the rain we’ve had! The walk to it is so lush and gorgeous, Chris is as in love with this place as I am and as all the other volunteers are who have had the luck of finding this beautiful haven tucked away up in the mountains. Sundays are my days off and oh what a day! Fruit filled: papaya for breakfast, bought some mangos to die for from the tienda up the street that we snacked on at the waterfall, that afternoon were each gifted a bolsa-full of bananas that afternoon courtesy of Conrado. I went for my first jog (Oh, so long awaited. I love my exercise and have so far not been brave enough to set out, as jogging isn’t a common thing, but as I’m getting to know the community, I figure they already think I’m strange enough so so what if this ups the anty?). I trekked up the steep hill and was managed to keep a steady pace despite the rough incline. I got up to the cancha de futbol (soccer field) and made 10 turns around the field to the giggles and banter of some local teenage boys goofing off around the far goal. As I finished up, some girls were arriving to play futbol and I asked if I could join. They were really nice and a couple were my English class students who chose me to play on their team (aw!) though I told them they actually really didn’t want me on their team. But I held my own, my offense is a disaster (I have no idea how to dribble) but I run fast and am aggressive enough that I was able to snag the ball a couple of times on defense and I even made a goal! Sure, I also fell flat on my side and got a punt right between the eyes (third golpe in four months on these glasses and they’re still in one piece!) but it was a blast! I skipped down the trail in wonderful spirits and joined Chris who was sitting on the steps of the deck of the albergue (volunteer hotel). We talked for about five minutes before a group of little boys came up and we kidded around with them a bit (they’re rascals, totally whisper and giggle and when you ask their name they’ll say some word or another, trying to keep a straight face and you know they’re trying to get you to say something you might rather not if you even knew what it meant!). A teenage girl walked up to us with two bags full of something and said her uncle Conrado sent her to deliver us bananas(!!!). This was a dream come true and so well timed as just that morning we were discussing our desire for bananas. Pascual had tons about a month ago but we finally finished them and his next harvest hasn’t ripened yet. We were beside ourselves and trying to express our gratitude when she added further to this to ask if we wanted to come up to the house to try “morados”, or purple bananas. So we went up to the house and found Conrado (on of my favorite ASODILL members, he’s younger and just the most smiling, genuine, thoughtful, intelligent guy that it’s just an absolute pleasure to be friends with, I’m being gushy but he’s just so freaking nice!). He introduced us around his house and we sat and talked with his abuelos for awhile and then he offered to take us to meet the rest of his family who all live in a line of houses up on the ridge. They were all great and we sat and talked with everyone, one house after another, explaining why we were here and raving about Loma Linda and its inhabitants. This was great for me, to get meeting more of the community and they were all so genuinely thankful for our presence, for our desire to be there to help. Each house welcomed us in and we talked the afternoon away, overlooking the beautiful vista, drinking café con leche and getting to know better this beautiful community. What could be better?

3.5.10
Whew! So I’m halfway through my first day teaching Environmental Education. I did two one-hour long classes this morning with segundo y tercero basico (between 5 and 7 years-ish) and I literally winged it since I didn’t really have any good lesson plans to work off of and since it is the first day I really just wanted to get an idea of what the kids already know. Well, I first went into describing what the terms nature and environment meant and then I described the difference between domestic and wild animals. I had them give me examples of each and tell me what kinds of animals they’ve seen out in the hills surrounding community. They were all very gung ho to pipe up whatever animal came to mind and I felt secure knowing I once again had my crowd control Cristobal there for back-up but, luckily, since it was an actual school day the level of chaos was minimal in comparison to the weekend English lesson. So anyways, I had imagined that this discussion/lesson plan I’d created was going to take a lot longer than it actually did (in contrast with the English classes where you can repeat the same thing back and forth for what seems like ever!) so I suddenly found I had to improvise on what to finish out the second half of the class with. I decided to dive into the food web. This was fun because I had them call out ideas and I’d draw the different groups up on the board, which they got a kick out of: first with plants/fruit/flowers/trees/leaves; then various critters that feed on the flora; followed by birds and mammals that eat the insects and critters; and finally the carnivores that eat the birds and smaller animals…and then I turned it into a web, pointing out that birds and mammals also eat the fruits and plants, etc. and then I asked them if they could think of one animal that is found in just about all corners of the world and that feeds upon all of the various groups in the web..a kind of animal that live in cities, wears clothes…a few more hints and then there was a lightbulb-Humans! So I drew us in and had arrows going to all the appropriate spots, always asking the kids if they remembered what the arrows between the groups symbolized. The kids really got into it and I felt like I left them with a better idea of how we are all connected and that all parts of nature depend on each other..if you cut down all the forests you cut out a part of the web and those that depend on the lost part will die and this is why we have to share the environment, we can’t just use it all up ourselves and why it is important to set aside protected areas for wildlife to live. The second class went even better than the first and I finished my second hour with great feelings of success all around! It was fun, I actually might even kind of sort of like this new “profession” I’ve stumbled into. It also gives me a whole new respect for the actual professionals who do this every day, all day. Kudos, kudos, kudos. Two hours in a row is just about all I think I can handle, thank you very very much! Luckily I have from 10am til 4pm to recoup before I have to step into the secondary school and teach a class of thirteen/fourteen year olds. I’m quite a bit more nervous since this is getting into more of a difficult age where you can’t charm them with cute drawings on the board. We’ll just have to see how it goes, stay tuned!

It wasn’t so bad! In fact, it was really pretty great. I went more in depth on the theme of medio ambiente and all that it consists of-both living and non-living elements. The kids were taking notes and some of them were really on the ball, answering my questions and really thinking about the answers. I decided to keep the drawings and the kids really enjoyed them, it was a hit! I felt a lot more comfortable, on par with the age group (between 13 and 16) and they were totally patient and helpful with my Spanish although I actually felt pretty fluid throughout the entire class and to have the teacher to pitch in with some key words (“red trofico”-trophic web, or food web). Oh and to top it off, despite the teacher, I ran totally solo! Chris decided he didn’t really need to be there since even with the a.m. classes he didn’t really have to help much at all and, though I so appreciated his help, I felt great that I could walk in there and run a truly one-girl-show! I had a lot more notes prepared to make sure that I had enough to keep rolling along through the whole hour and it ended up I had more than enough and suddenly the hour was over and I still had more to say! Nonetheless, I was able to cut it short with style and the round of applause brought it to a close. Walking up the street with the onset of a cloud shrouded evening among a crowd of kids in their crisp uniforms and bantering back and forth phrases in English, I was happy to have made it through the day having completed another experience along this winding road that has so many surprises around every bend.

Cool Things

27.4.10
So I have reached my Happy One Month Anniversary of Peace Corps Volunteerdom! The saying is that the days go by slow and the weeks fly, and I have to say, I am totally de acuerdo. Sometimes I’m thinking, how in the heck is it still buenas dias and not buenas tardes?! And next thing I know, another week has flown by. Well, since I last wrote, I managed to survive a lovely case of Giardia..couldn’t go the hour on the camioneta into town to get my medicine. I suffered an additional day’s (suffering) wait after a failed attempt to get one of the ayudantes (the wingman that helps the bus drivers) to pick up my meds from the farmacia (I didn’t give him enough money, it was more expensive than we’d thought). Finally we sent Claudio, my counterpart to get it and it was worth paying extra to support his lost day of work because I felt like crapola and was ready to be better. So that over with, I am not into my first week of scheduled work..and it’s keeping me busy indeed. Unfortunately, there are always deviations to the best laid plan…Mondays are suppose to be my aviturismo days where I’ll take the guides out, one or a few at a time, and we go birdwatching! Basically I’ll teaching them to spot and identify birds, learn the names in English and how to find them in the bird books, etc. So anyways, this Monday, I’d intended to start by taking out Pascual but instead I learned that there was a package arrived for me and I had to go to El Palmar to pick it up. Can’t say I was too disappointed though, knowing I had goodies waiting for me, sent by a certain loving maternal relation. So early that morning I hopped onto the camioneta and rode the hour down to Cuatro Caminos where I switched buses to bring me to the entrance to El Palmar (some 25min) where I hailed a microbus to bring me 10min into the small town. I get off at the post office and find that I have to wait an hour because it was way too early for it to even think of being open and I hadn’t even considered the possibility til I walked up to the dark building. So I sat and read in the park (Mansfield Park, this being the book I was reading, not the park I was sitting in…Jane Austen) til 8:30 and still the place showed no signs of life. I asked some ladies sitting in the park and they told me it wouldn’t be opened til 9am. Sigh. So I walked around town and found a tienda where I bought some cookies and placticar-ed (chatted) with the man behind the counter, Gregorio, who told me about his time living in the states before he got deported. He showed me some really cute white kittens for sale in a wooden crate. I went back to see if the PO was open and still no. The women told me it’d be better if I just went to Dona Mirian’s house, the postmaster. So following their directions, I found myself back at the store and got additional directions from Gregorio and found I’d gone too far when I asked some other ladies, one of which was so kind as to walk me to the street I’d missed. I knocked on the door and her husband answered and informed me Mirian goes into Xela every Monday. But I was in luck because for some reason my package was there in the house! He knew who I was and what I was there for pretty much right off the bat. I wondered why my package was there instead of the post office..I felt better thinking special extra secure treatment for the blundering gringa. Without asking questions, I signed a form, showed my Peace Corps ID and got my chocolate.
Today, Tuesday is scheduled to be my day in the escuela teaching Environmental Education to the students. I’ll teach in the mornings in the Escuela Primario and in the afternoons to students in Secondario. Each week I’ll teach different grades for a cycle that repeats every three weeks. I’m in charge of the content of the course and I’ll adjust the complexity of each week’s theme to cater accordingly to the different age levels. This is kind of a big deal for me..I’m actually pretty nervous. I’m a nature girl, at home in the woods..my work has all been with birds, quietly studying them out in whatever wonderfully remote field location I’ve shipped myself off to. I’ve never been a teacher! So today I went to work out the details with the teachers and I walk into the schoolyard and suddenly I’ve got thirty little bitties surrounding me yelling out their names and asking if I remembered them and asking how to say things in English. I was charmed by the bitties, they are darn cute and I think I can have some good fun teaching them about nature. Nonetheless, I’m still anxious! How to begin (where do you begin?? There is so much information!), how to keep their attention, how to deal with the difficult students, how to decide how in-depth to go, how to get the message across..?!? Not to mention it’s all in Spanish. This is not my first language, people. But this is Peace Corps. You get thrown into something and you do all you can to keep afloat. I love nature. I love birds and I want to share my passion and create awareness, open minds to our surroundings and how we affect them, share how we should treat this mother earth of ours in order to ensure a better future. It’s all just a matter of how eloquently I can get all this across, all with a fair share (this I’m sure) of stumbling along the way.

Cool things-Saw a hummingbird attach himself to a rock wall to bathe in a gentle section of one of our beautiful waterfalls. And common bush tanagers hopping around in some viny growth that clung to the same wall and I watched as they shook and squirmed under the water drops that rained down on them in a natural shower. We had a visit at the house from a Morelet´s Tree Frog that hopped into the pila on a dark, thunderstormy night.

Sorry for the lack of photography. I will make up for it soon!

How Goes April

Week of Sunday 5th of April:
Life has been busy here in my mountain ridge-top community. I’ve gotten to work with Eduardo in the lombricompost operation where I played with worms for half a day. Red coquettes, they’re called and we shoveled the fruit pulp (the discarded skins of the coffee beans from this year’s harvest) to the pileras (big troughs) to mix with the worms, presenting them their feast. After a week, you stir; this is making sure the upper layer is incorporated down below so the worms get at every bit of the fruit waste in order to convert it to pure fertilizer, abono. The worms like to stay below where it is moist and comfy, so this ensures all of the waste gets processed. They eat the pulp and poop out rich, homogenized abono..pure dirt full of nutrients that we then bagged in costales (large nylon bags) that are then sold for 25 or 30 quetzales to the community. The coffee production cooperative is divided into the families that decided to go conventional and those that decided to produce purely organic coffee, using chemicals in neither their fertilizer nor their forms of pest control. The fertilizer they buy is what we are producing here with our worms and their pest control are bottles with one side cut out and, inside, hangs a smaller bottle of aguardiente (alcohol) with a strong sweet smell. The big bottle was painted red and that, along with the sweet odor, attracts the brocas, the coffee pests. They fly into the bottle and when they are inside, looking for the source of the smell, they fall to the bottom where lies a bit of water with soap that they then drown in. Pretty nifty device, and I’m told it traps countless brocas, which burrow into the coffee berries and feast on the granitas, or coffee beans.
Been having various meetings and lots of talk with Rosa, Pascual and the rest of the gang on ideas for what I will be doing to keep busy for the next two years. So far we are boiling up some ideas including that one day a week I’ll go out with a different tour guide and we’ll go birding for the day. The guides, Claudio, Keller, Eduardo, are in the very beginning stages of being capable of hosting bird tours. They know only a handful of the species found here and know them only by their local names. The problem is that all they have are 2 pair of practically useless secondhand binoculars and not a bird guide(or any nature guides, for that matter) to speak of (yes this would be me unabashedly hinting: donations are much appreciated! Or if anyone has any connections or suggestions to a means of obtaining this much-needed equipment..). For now though, my job is to teach them how to find and identify species and how to go about conducting a successful bird tour. Another of my duties will be to work with my counterpart Claudio on constructing interperative materials for the trails, signs that identify the trails and give interesting and useful information as well as informative pamphlets , what species visitors should encounter on their hike. I’m going to be working very in-depth on finding and obtaining grants with Pascual, to which one day each week will be dedicated. We don’t have the best access to internet at the moment, despite the newly raised internet “cafe”..the reception here on our ridge is quite lacking. Sin embargo, we (being the association) are working on installing a different device that has proven to work and we are hoping to be affordable. Vamos a ver. Another duty of mine will be..English classes! Pascual has the idea of me teaching 0-7yr olds (hopefully more on the 7yr side than the 0yr side..!) since that’s when the brain is most accommodating in learning a language, once you reach 7 years, the brain is full, as declared Pascual, after proclaiming himself a psychologist. I am de acuerdo that teaching youngsters yields better result but I think we can be more flexible on the range. So far that’s what we have for filling my weeks, I think another day will be dedicated to working with the tour guide group on projects they’ve devised but that will depend on what time they have since every day working for ASODILL is a day lost of working their parcels which they depend on for income. This is why we are working so hard at this, though, to provide this community with another source of income.
In other news, we’ve had another visitor: Luisa from Canada. She is a slightly older woman full of energy and love for this community. She originally met Pascual and Rosa through her work with EntreMundos, the NGO that promotes community development and human rights. After she left that organization, she lived here for 3 months and contributed a great deal of time and effort in obtaining money through grant applications. They were successful and much of that money went toward building the albergue (4 room hotel with a kitchen up by the church) where visiting volunteers stay. She came back and spent a week with us and we spent several nights going over the funds we still have and how they should be delegated. Additionally, we spent a day hiking up to the community reserve, a 35 hectare parcel of land owned by the community that is solely left for nature. The land is restricted for cultivation and we were interested in visiting it to get an idea of the terrain and see how it differs from the rest of the land which is all plantation. It was about a 3-4hr hike (turned 5hrs for our interest in the birds and plants along the way) to “la cruz” which marks the community limit. Well, I have to say, I was disappointed! As soon as we crossed into the boundry of the reserve, we discovered the entire understory to be packed with some wildly invasive species of bamboo. This was so disheartening because I had imagined primary growth forest and instead was wrestling my way through this monoculture landscape that was only peppered with a handful of larger trees. Now, we didn’t get around to view the entire 35 hectares so I can’t say it all was this way but I had to explain to Rosa and Pascual that night how this was not a natural landscape and that it would be necessary and difficult to remove. I don’t know what species of bamboo this is but I am sure it is an exotic species, not natural to Guatemala. The degree to which it was taking over the understory leaves no room for the native species to grow and create a diverse and natural habitat with a wide variety of sources of food for the birds and animals of the area. I told Rosa that I’d like to go back and explore more. I discussed the possibility of going up and spending a night there so I could explore early the next morning and get an idea of the surrounding birdlife (we arrived too late in the day so it was very quiet). This would also be my change to get an idea of the extent of growth of the bamboo. Oh but I was sad! This is the plot of land they are so proud to be protecting and they are initiating efforts in which to governmentally declare it a Protected Area and they had no idea of the predicament it is in! To their credit, it is a long way away and therefore rarely visited. I am now curious to identify the species of bamboo and get an idea of what kind of situation we are faced with. There are possibilities of using the bamboo, as we already have been offered by FUNDAP, a Guatemalan agency that supports small community in ecotourism development, classes in construction with bamboo. Well we have our ravenously renewable resource right there up on the mountain!
Other fun things I’ve done include an evening hike with Claudio and Luis to a nearby waterfall. This was my first visit to this particular falls and wow, what a treasure! It is basically a large wall of chipped, dark rock and while the falls at the moment are greatly reduced, a month from now that will all change with the beginning of the rainy season. We watched emerald toucanets and chased some frogs. Claudio caught one and I got some pictures. We were trying to find out what was about as Luisa has a great interest in amphibian life. The volcano, while out of site, was sending up cloud castles that were lovely in the evening light.
Another day I worked with Claudio behind the albergue digging out the mud that had compacted up against the back wall after the heavy rains. We dug a trench to direct the water away so as to keep the hotel safe and the kitchen from being inundated (again!). Three hours of lifting a heavy pickaxe to break up the encrusted dirt and I was spent! Had to drag myself home.
Spent an afternoon in a meeting with members of ASODILL to construct an ecotourism diagnostic which evaluates the “what we have and what we lack” in the program. I went through the form provided to me by Peace Corps and the group helped me fill in the blanks. It was a fun and interesting activity and I feel like I’m getting more comfortable with the members as I interact with them.
Week of 11th of April
This week will be forever known as “the constantly sitting in a microbus, never to escape as we travel on every last windy bumpy road of Guatemala to destinations unknown” week. Despite my aching back, it was a very interesting and fun experience and I learned a little more each day about Guatemalans themselves. So here’s how it all began. ASODILL, which is the Asociacion for Sustainable Development here in our little community. Rosa is the president, Pascual the coordinator and the idea is to provide the community with other means of income and employment since the coffee production they rely so heavily on isn’t sufficient nor sustainable. By starting an ecotourism program, they hope to better the economy here in an environmentally friendly way. So here comes FUNDAP, a Guatemalan-run foundation for the development of socio-economic programs, they have a branch that specifically assists communities that want to start ecotourism programs and FUNDAP has been assisting this aldea for the past two years. Their main assistance is to provide trainings and workshops, almost always paid-for. This is fantastic and they’ve already had capacitaciones for the tour guides, as well as provided opportunities for members of ASODILL to go to other communities to learn about lombricompost and organic gardening. They’ve also provided ASODILL with a lawyer at a reduced cost to help them become a legally recognized NGO. Pretty amazing, huh? So here comes little Sally Peace Corps thinking she’s gonna save the world and she finds out it’s already being done! Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed because my job certainly doesn’t suddenly become meaningless. There is still much to be done, much that I can help with with a focus more on the personal things, like what I listed before as my duties: bird guide training, helping with interpretive trail development, English classes..and besides, little Sally can’t save the world all by her lonesome, right? Ademas, I also realized this week that my being here already has helped direct some thoughts in a more reasonable direction, not because I’m Miss. Know-All, but solely because I have a background in biology and just as Rosa always tells me, she doesn’t know anything in this area. But more on that later.
So back to the story of my week: FUNDAP offered an opportunity for Rosa and 2 other members of ASODILL to attend a trip to several ecotourism sites in Alta Vera Paz this past week and I managed to squirm my way into the deal! Some of the other communities that were to attend backed out and so there was space for an extra little gringa! So on Tuesday we hopped onto a camioneta to Xela and FUNDAP headquarters, 3-4hrs away, and spent the night in a hotel to leave at 4:30am the following morning in a FUNDAP microbus with 17 others like us, eager to see a different land and learn some more about ecotourism. Only thing we didn’t know was that the trip was going to take 17 hours! We did stop for meals (which the organization graciously covered for me) but man it was a long, long day. We were on our way to Laguna Lachua (look it up!) and turned out the time it took to get there was much longer than anyone imagined. But let me say, the group in that bus, despite how tired, despite how every time we asked someone on the road how much longer and they said mediahora and it turned into 3, they continued to remain in high spirits, rowdy and laughing, turning a frustrating situation into jokes and good humor. It was pretty darn great. Haha, best part was, we get there at 9:00 in the night and the wildly cheerful tour guide gaily informs us that we have an hour hike in to where the sleeping cabins are! And I was once again heartened to watch this awesome group of folk grab their things and get walking. The guide said the women should have brought boots when she saw them all wearing fancy sandals (which is all I’ve seen any of the women in my community don). What made me doubly heartened and pleased and proud was that when she told the group that the women could stay behind and enjoy a comfortable night here and not wear themselves with the hike, the 5 ladies took to the trail and, in all honesty, with their fancy sandals, ran the men into the ground! Rock on. The hike was great, I was in between people with flashlights and happy to be moving and not sitting (17hrs on my butt in one day is more than sufficient, thanks). Too bad it wasn’t light to enjoy the bosque silvestre but I was able to enjoy the sound of the insects and the feel of the rain on my skin. The lodge was impressive-2 floors, comfortable beds, a dining salon. Despite how tired we were, after downing some ready-made tamales we followed the guide down the trail that opened to a boardwalk that went out onto the edge of the laguna. The night rang with the sound of frog chirrups. We shined our flashlights into the clear waters and saw fish and a teeny tiny crocodile! I didn’t look at the clock as I crawled into my mosquito net-adorned bed.
Next morning I rose with the sun and walked about to take in the birdlife. I was surrounded by my North American family: wood thrushes, catbirds, Baltimore oriole, magnolia warbler, american redstart, spotted sandpipers..they’ll all be gone in a month. I’ll be sending my love with them so when you see one of these buggers come May, listen carefully! We breakfasted on tamales and I almost resisted the temptation to join the ladies for a dip in the laguna after the men had had their loud fun and calander pictures in their bathing suits, posing on the rocks. They all left and we stripped down and hopped in to the warm, clear waters (from what I could understand from the guide, there’s no worry of crocodiles in the daytime, don’t ask me why). It was deeeelightful! We paddled around, climbed onto the rocks and dove in, took pictures, felt clean again after the sweaty day before packed in a microbus. We packed up afterwards and took to a trail that looped back to the visitors center. On our way I wasn’t able to birdwatch since we were behind schedule but we did stop under a tree with two howler monkeys which peered down upon us as we peered up. Big momma and a lil’ baby. Ain’t no monkeys where I live. Sigh. But we have quetzals! Which you need to be up in the mountains for, so ha. We drove around some more to 2 different farms, one that has it’s own lagoons on the property which we hiked to. This area has petroleum underground and luckily this community has their natural areas protected so they don’t drill here as they do in some of the surrounding territories. This farm, Finca Salinas, is where Chad works, my old buddy from San Antonio who is one lucky bugger for getting this as his sight! Unfortunately we didn’t get to reunite since he was otherwise occupied that day but I got to tell him on the phone of my envy! It was interesting, the guides showed us the second lagoon which was, and I cross my heart, pepto bismol pink. And the guides told us that the color changes, one will be pink and then go greenish or normal and another will turn. Chad told me that’s one of the things he wants to figure out right away. Right? We figured it was for the petroleum underground, maybe some kind of chemical effect, but man! Didn’t see any wildlife in the pink one but the other had turtles and waterbirds. Weird, weird, weird. Chad has his own blog, btw, I think you can find it on Peace Corps Journals. And anyone who wants to report back on if this is found in other locales, feel free to comment here because I’ll probably forget when I go into town and get on the net. We also visited a finca where they were in the beekeeping business. This is something that would be cool to start here, something I want to look in to because Rosa is gung ho. We have bees. We have flowers. Honey tastes good. The day was warm and, unfortunately we had to book, once again. Back into the microbus for a 5hr ride back to Coban. It was a shame that we spent more time in the bus than learning and exploring but it was definitely a great time had at the laguna. We reached the city around 9pm after winding curving bumping swerving up and down the dirt roads that seem to go on forever through the hilly country. Rosa and I were suffering, our backs and necks and tailbones not too happy with the condition of the road, not to mention the microbus was a low rider and therefore had it’s share of suffering as well. We slept in Coban and woke up early the next morning to hit the road again (not again!) for the 8hr (I think..maybe 9?) trip (these all seem quite long but it helps that I’m not mentioning that part of the time is spent eating and on pee breaks..) to Xela. We then walked across the city, the ASODILL crew to where we were to meet the son of a neighbor or Rosa’s who drives his microbus to visit his family every Friday at 6pm. So back into another (not so crowded!! though shock absorbers were not included in the construction of this clunker..) microbus. So! 2 ½ hrs later we were Hooooome!! Whuddaweek. One to remember.

Over and out.
PS. Yes, this is turning into my journal. My apologies to those who were bored and if you totally just skimmed the whole thing I sure don’t blame ya.