October 31

This week I continued talking to the intermediate school about presenting an assembly, and that's going well. Hopefully I will have arranged a date for that within the next few weeks. I've got some really fun ideas for them!

I also finished Eaarth. I really enjoyed it. The end of the book continued to talk about how we have transformed the planet. He suggested quite a few things, and remained quite optimistic, despite how dismal he portrayed the subject. He suggested massive scale alternative energy, but recognized that to make a real difference, it would take years. Developing nations, he said, would have to have energy subsidized by more prominent/developed countries. He also suggested a smaller more diverse agricultural system.

I'm going to start Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution. I've looked through it, and it looks really interesting. It is about how our economy has caused our society to avoid dealing with environmental problems, because it wouldn't be smart economically.

October 24

This week I read some of Eaarth. It was really interesting. It talks about how through our energy practices we have altered the Earth beyond recognition, to the point where it is no longer the planet we have once lived on. It also talked about the original estimates for carbon capacity, which ended up being unreasonably high.  As the World Burns: 50 Ways to Stay in Denial has remained very entertaining and informative as well, although it is a bit negative (but rightfully so). I've really enjoyed reading it. Currently the author is comparing the human race to robots whose only function is to burn carbon, which isn't exactly a happy thought.

I also read a few articles concerning Japan and what they are currently doing in regard to energy. Margaret also gave me an article about how the Japanese are finding potentially dangerous nuclear residue far from Fukushima, and what they are doing to attempt to mitigate that.

October 17 Update

This week I met with Dr. Bozanic to discuss what  I did throughout September. He gave me some suggestions for further reading that look very promising. Although I ordered my new books about a week ago, only one has arrived. Hopefully the rest arrive soon! Due to my lack of new materials, this week I read some of the Japan-related sections of a book I checked out from Addlestone, The Asian Energy Factor. Although most energy related books discuss energy in relation to America or Europe, this one was specifically about Japan, which has been new and informative.
The book that did arrive was As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial. It's an extremely entertaining satirical book about how the human race's obsession with money has taken priority over our planet's welfare. It dispels several misconceptions about energy conservation, which I found very surprising.
I also continued discussing a possible assembly with the Middle and/or Lower school about energy, which seems to be going well. I have some really fun activities planned for them! Hopefully we can arrange a date to meet in the near future!