ENGLISH 23
(A.K.A. CLIMATE CRISIS 101)
Week #6
Drawing down the climate crisis
Weekly Assignments
Reading
This week’s readings are the first 25 approaches from the “Summary of Solutions” from Project Drawdown. After opening this page, click “Scenario #1” until “Reduced Food Waste” is at the top. “Multistrata Agroforestry” will be #25, with “Electric Cars” right above it at #24. Please go to each of the 25 pages and read the summaries (which are just two or three paragraphs each), as well as the “Impact” statements on the sidebar. Note that if you find this material of particular interest, you might enjoy the book that came out of this project: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.
Films
Please watch either the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret or Wasted! The Story of Food Waste! according to these guidelines:
1) If you if you have NOT taken Eng 22 (Intro to L & E) in 2019 or 2020, please watch Cowspiracy. It is available for viewing on GauchoSpace (GauchoCast). If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently streams from Netflix. A DVD can also be purchased from cowspiracy.com.
Trigger warning: Cowspiracy is not, generally speaking, a very graphic film, even though it takes up beef and other meat industries. In fact, other documentaries that deal with the subject (such as the 2011 film Vegucated) actually take viewers inside of slaughterhouses. In this sense, Cowspiracy seems to be attempting something of a genre shift. That said, there is one particularly disturbing scene in the film where a duck is slaughtered by a backyard farmer. It occurs from 1:10:16 – 1:12:23. If you think that you might find this scene unsettling, please scrub past it.
2) If you have taken taken Eng 22 in 2019 or 2020, please instead watch Wasted!. It is up on GauchoCast. If you are not enrolled in the class, it currently can be rented for a relatively modest fee from YouTube, Amazon, Google, etc.
3) Since we will be considering each in class, feel free to watch both videos. They are each interesting, though in different ways.
Lecture videos
There are three required lectures this week:
First, please watch this lecture by Ken, “Do we need a climate vanguard? (Food, today and tomorrow)“
Note that you are not required to post comments to this video, even though there are hundreds of responses to it. These posts are from 2019-20, when responding was a requirement of the course, which it is not in 2020-21.
Second, please watch both of these “Deep Dive” lectures by Ken:
1) “Making waste (of the planet)” (The written comments to which Ken is replying can be found here.)
2) “The True Cost” (The written comments to which Ken is replying can be found here.)
Weekly Assessments
Please note that assessments need to be completed by 6 AM on Monday, February 16 (which is Tuesday, as Monday is Presidents’ Day). 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 all four of the above lecture videos (the two short lectures and the two deep dives), please go to GauchoSpace and take the short quiz for this week, which is located in the weekly section.
Reading Response
After reading the Drawdown material, please watch Ken’s video on YouTube introducing this material and comment on his introduction.
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 Ken’s video on YouTube introducing them and comment on his video. Note that while Ken’s introduction covers both of the above films, you only need to comment on the film that you watched.
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.