Tuesday, January 5, 2010

First Wave

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/40789/title/First_wave

Halfway between Hawaii and Fiji lies a little-known nation called Kiribati. In the central Pacific ocean, it may not be a very popular destination for tourists but it has something other tropical islands don’t have; the world’s largest marine preserve harboring one of the last pristine coral reef ecosystems. However, soon these islands that make up the nation may be known for something less desirable than perfect getaways or a coral reef. This nation is among the lowest spots on earth, consequently leading to the first couple islands to vanish due to global warming. James J. McCarthy, the past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Harvard University biological oceanographer, states, “They are like the canary in the coal mine in terms of the dramatic impact of climate change on a whole civilization of people. They didn’t cause the problem, but they will be among the first to feel it.” In island and coastal countries, the impact of global warming may be so drastic that adaptation is not really an option, possibly forcing people out of their homes. Leaders in Kiribati are trying to get international assistance to plan for that worst-case scenario. This would happen due to the rising water level, which is caused when the water expands (thermal expansion) due to human caused climate change, or when the land-based glaciers and ice caps melt. At a meeting in Poland, organizations representing about 40 small islands and the poorest 50 developing countries pushed for industrialized nations to take tougher action against climate change, to prevent evacuation and submerged areas. The fate of these islands rest on the government. If they make touch climate controls to help stabilize the environment, then the islands can be saved. If we continue emitting gases and other harm into the atmosphere, these islands will surely be destroyed.

I thought this article was too long and provided way too much at times. The article continuously went off topic and I had to organize my review for the article to make sense. I didn’t like the way it was planed or the amount of writing in the article. It seemed that it wasn’t thought out enough. I hope that the government will finally take action to stop climate change and to save the many people in danger of being evacuated.

5 comments:

  1. I thought this was a well presented article for several reasons. The first reason is that the review is very well organized and doesn't ramble. Another reason is that the review didn't use words that are hard to understand, avoiding the most confusing words. Finally, this article is about what many people are thinking about right now, climate change. The two ways that this review could have been made better are what the governments of small islands are doing could have been mentioned, and I would like to know what the plans are to do with the people who had lived on submerged islands. I did not know that climate change had this effect on the islands already, and i thought it would start happening later.

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  2. I though that Julia presented her article very well in class. She was easy to hear and she made me interested to know more about her article. In her writing she was very clear in what her article was about as well. I also liked that she wrote her honest opinion on the article.
    In this review there could have been more information about other islands like Kiribati. I think I would have liked to read about more ways which we can prevent these islands from drowning. The reason why I feel this way is because I think that it is important to be educated about what could be happening in our life time.
    From this review I learned how close some islands are to drowning. It is hard for me to imagine that one day these islands could just disappear. After reading this article I am also thinking about how important it is for us to try and stop this from ever happening.

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  3. This was a good presentation of the article for many different reason. One reason was because it was a very easy to read summary and it was easy to know what was the main point in the article. Also the topic choice was really good, this an important issue now a days and everyone is worried about climate change and how it is affecting the world. Also Julia didn't read her review she and also it was easy to hear her. There were a couple of things she could have done better. Like she could have had a little more information and also could have talked a little longer about it during class. I learned that islands are getting close to flooding, I knew in the distant future but I didn't know that they could be this close.

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  4. Allison Cane January 6, 2010
    Chemistry Article review



    Julia’s article First Wave was very interesting. One thing that Julia did well was she gave a detailed description of where the island was. This was good because it help the reader understand where the island is located relevant to the US. Another thing that she did well was that she gave a good amount of detail of the article. If there are too many details it gets confusing and if there were not enough, the article would not be understandable to the reader. One last thing that Julia did well was connecting it to global warming, which is a common topic in today’s world. This gives the reader some interest because it is a relevant topic. One thing that Julia could do to improve her article review is by including things that the government and normal people are doing to help stop global warming. Also she could have included more quotes from the article from scientists to prove that this is a real problem that scientists are looking into. One thing that I learned from this article is that Kiribati has the world’s largest marine preserve harboring one of the last pristine coral reef ecosystems.

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  5. The article Julia presented, "First Wave" was very interesting to read about. I thought the way the article was written was very well, it was organized and easy to understand. Also, it was clear as to what the main point of the article was. Lastly, I thought Julias opinion at the end was different from others, she spoke the honest truth saying that the article was too long and shared too much information. One thing I thought Julia could have done better was talking about it in class. She seemed to quickly explain it not giving me enough information or understanding about the article until I read it now. Also, I thought Julia could have added more detail on the governments of the islands and what they are doing. One thing I would like to know more about is how we can help prevent this.

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