State of Fear - Animoto

green burial

State of Fear Journal #3

State of Fear was written with an extreme left winged approach. The author, Micheal Crighton, used scare tactics to send a message to his readers and the public about global warming. Our world is threatened by many things including war, tyranny and self-destruction. Crighton made sure to eliminate global warming from our list of worries by downplaying the problem and pointing the finger at corrupted leaders and politicians who use global warming as a source of revenue. The main character, Evans, travels the world in attempts to stop the actions of an activist group, ELF, and their ruthless leader, Drake, as they plot "natural" disasters to scare the public. ELF, which I believe represents the leaders of our nation, take generous donations in order to ease an imminent "threat" to mankind without scientific backing. After one of the largest donors, Morton, discovers the corruption of Drake and ELF, he withdraws his donation and asks Evans to prevent the death of thousands by stopping ELF from creating disasters around the world to boost their funding.

State of Fear Journal #2

In order to arouse a "State of Fear" in the public eye, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) attempts to create "natural" disasters during a global climate conference. With the help of Kenner, Sanjong and Sarah, Evan's is able to sabotage these disasters and prevent the death of thousands of people. The biggest of the disasters was going to be a tsunami aimed at the coast of California. Fortunately, this was prevented and a mere five waves, six feet tall, reached the coast line.

State of Fear Journal #!

Question: What characters or devices are used metaphorically in the story?

Many objects throughout the novel are used as metaphors to persuade public opinion and shape the plot. The satirical use of characters caused dispute in public icons such as Al Gore and public offices like the EPA. Evans, the main character of the story, represents the masses of people who take in a magnitude of information on global warming and are indifferent to the cause or solution. Drake, in the eyes of Micheal Crichton, represents political figures such as Al Gore or a stand-in for the environmental movement "professional" activists. The bold use of characters to show Crightons opinion on global warming is one of the main reasons why this book was a top seller and a topic of many discussions.

Green Burial

New York

Bjarne Anderson

After many class discussions and videos based more so upon people's feelings towards global warming, I was intrigued to read an article based purely upon facts in terms of defining global warming and the methods used to measure average global temperature. Though I do firmly believe that issues of this nature require a strong drive to reach feasible solutions and logical beginnings, one cannot base his or her entire argument upon moral convictions and how much you hate Texas summers. Even though the class was presented with graphs and charts to assist in the comprehension of global warming, Professor Anderson opens up an argument explaining that the scientist's means to acquire such information could have been flawed from the beginning. I do not stand solely with one side of this argument because I do not have the mental capasity to choose whether or not global warming is a natural process or man induced. But I can take a firm stand with those who understand the information given to them: whether that be how it was obtained or the validity of such knowledge. I think after our first reading in this class, we should all be more cognoscente of the information fueling our debates. We only know what is "true" because we are told it is true.