ENGLISH 23
(A.K.A. CLIMATE CRISIS 101)
Week #1
The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth
Weekly Assignments
Reading
Please read both the landing page of this website, which lays out the course rational and content, as well as the course syllabus in their entirety. Please note that questions on the material from the landing page may appear on the weekly quiz.
Please also read “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells, which is a July 2017 article that appeared in New York Magazine. (If the link does not work, here is an archived copy.) An annotated version, “complete with interviews with scientists and links to further reading,” of this article is available here in case you are interested.
If you would like to read more of what Wallace-Wells has to say on the subject, the book that came out of this article, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (Tim Duggan Books, 2019), is more than a little interesting. If you are not sure if you want to read the entire book, in February of 2019 New York Magazine published another article by Wallace-Wells adapted from the above book entitled “The Cautious Case for Climate Optimism.” In it, explains why he is optimistic about the future – something that he largely failed to do in the original 2017 article.
More recently, Wallace-Wells published a followup article entitled “We’re Getting a Clearer Picture of the Climate Future — and It’s Not as Bad as It Once Looked” in December of 2019, which is also well worth reading. After the book appeared, Wallace-Wells gave a number of interviews in Rolling Stone, Vox, The Atlantic, Vice, and elsewhere.
Films
Please watch either the documentary Before the Flood or An Inconvenient Sequel according to these guidelines:
1) If you have not taken Eng 22 (Intro to L & E) in 2019 or 2020, please watch Before the Flood. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams from Netflix, as well as can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.
2) If you have taken taken Eng 22 in 2019 or 2020, please instead watch An Inconvenient Sequel, also available on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.
3) Since we will be considering each, feel free to watch both videos.
Lecture videos
Please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:
1) “The climate crisis as a generational issue” (Climate and Generation, Intro)
2) “How the climate crisis was brought about in a single lifetime” (Climate and Generation, #1)
Note that you are not required to post comments to these videos, even though there are hundreds of responses to them. These posts are from 2019-20, when responding was a requirement of the course, which it is not in 2020-21.
Weekly Assessments
Please note that assessments need to be completed by 6 AM on Monday, January 11. GauchoSpace will close the lecture quizzes at that time and any film comment made on YouTube past that point will be considered late.
Weekly Quiz
After completing the week’s reading and watching both of the two lecture videos, please go to GauchoSpace and take the short quiz for this week, which is located in the weekly section.
Reading Response
After reading the “The Uninhabitable Earth,” please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:
2) “The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth”
After watching the above lecture snippets, please comment on YouTube on Ken’s video “The uninhabitable (or at least unwelcoming) earth” (this link will open up YouTube in a new tab so that you can comment directly there). Note that, as these videos were posted last year, there are already hundreds of responses to them.
If you cannot view the above two videos on YouTube (for example, if YouTube is blocked in your country):
1) The two lectures have also been uploaded to GauchoSpace (GauchoCast).
2) A forum has been opened under this week on GauchoSpace for you to make your comment there (rather than on YouTube).
Please note that six of your reading responses this term (i.e. 3 of the first 5 and 3 of the second 5) should be made to a comment made by another student in the class, regardless whether you are making your comments on YouTube or GauchoSpace.
Film Response
After watching one of the above films, please watch both of the following lectures by Ken:
1) “Films, Introduction”
2) “Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel”
After watching the above lecture snippets, please comment on YouTube on Ken’s video “Before the Flood and An Inconvenient Sequel” (this link will open up YouTube in a new tab so that you can comment directly there). Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched. However, if you have already watched Before the Flood, please feel free to reference it in your comment on An Inconvenient Sequel. Also note that, as these videos were posted last year, there are already hundreds of responses to them.
If you cannot view the above video on YouTube (for example, if YouTube is blocked in your country):
1) The two lectures have also been uploaded to GauchoSpace (GauchoCast).
2) A forum has been opened under this week on GauchoSpace for you to make your comment there (rather than on YouTube).
Please note that six of your film responses this term (i.e. 3 of the first 5 and 3 of the second 5) should be made to a comment made by another student in the class, regardless whether you are making your comments on YouTube or GauchoSpace.