D & C Blocks Environmental and Social Sciences - Today we start with Young in 115. I'd like to start today with this question...What Happens to a Town’s Cultural Identity as Its Namesake Glacier Melts? From the Smithsonian article...
Most people in the Comox Valley know the Queneesh narrative, with its curious resonance to the biblical story of Noah. One detail from (Andy) Everson’s telling, however, is often left out: Queneesh didn’t just save the K’ómoks—it anchored them in place. “You almost can consider this an origin story,” Everson says...The critical fact is that glaciers were, and to varying degrees still are, seen in First Nations’ cosmologies as beings, just as Queneesh is in the K’ómoks story.
It’s one thing to read about Greenland in the news, or to lose some lovely part of the local scenery. It’s quite another to lose your spiritual anchor or a lodestone of your identity. “People in the community are wondering what it means if the glacier goes,” Everson says. “If there is no glacier, is it still Queneesh?”So...my question is should we grant nature our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – rights just as human beings have rights? If mountains and glaciers are "beings" then shouldn't they be afforded the same rights as humans? Is Queenesh a being? Can we give Queenesh the same rights we have? Would that help with protecting its right to exist in a changing climate?
We'll use the Whanganui River in New Zealand as an example.
Environmentalism’s Next Frontier: Giving Nature Legal Rights
The Rise of the Rights of Nature
I am the River, and the River is me: Legal personhood and emerging rights of nature
What is Rights of Nature?
With Benton you'll continue to look at mountain ecology...
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| The end of the walled border at Tijuana, Mx. |
- Cultural boundaries follow the distribution of cultural features.
- Geometric boundaries are based on human constructs, such as straight lines.
- Physical boundaries coincide with significant features of the natural landscape.
A Block Physical Geography - Today we'll watch a really good video of the El Reno Oklahoma EF3 Tornado of 2013. Oklahoma typically experiences around 60 tornadoes a year, as it is part of Tornado Alley. Most tornadoes, about 77 percent, don’t cause death or widespread damage however some can spin up to create something spectacularly dangerous. The El Reno tornado, that struck central Oklahoma, measured 4.2 kilometers (2.6 miles) wide at its base and killed 18 people including veteran tornado researchers and storm chasers Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young (National Geographic did an excellent piece on Tim Samaras called "The Last Chase")
A really good article on the El Reno Tornado and the storm chasers around it can be found at Outside magazine online When the Luck Ran Out in El Reno
Don't forget questions:
- Evaluate the pattern of tornado activity in Canada and the United States. Where is Tornado Alley? What generalizations can you make about the distribution and timing of tornadoes? What happened in 2003?
- Describe the formation process of a mesocyclone. How is this development associated with that of a tornado?
NWS Jetstream Tornadoes
Weather underground Supercells
How Mesocyclones Work
Weather Network Tornado Alley
CBC What is Tornado Alley
NOAA Tornado Alley
A really good descriptive video from the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma. It's not gripping but it is detailed in tornado genesis and development
...and because I'm a nerd...do you know that chasers have their own vocab? Check out the article Do you speak storm-chasing? from TED. Or the National Weather Service Weather Glossary for Storm Spotters
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