Effects of Climate Change on Wildlife

            The article “Introduction: Examining the Blog-Media Relationship” by Mark Tremayne briefly discusses the interaction between new, online forms of communication and traditional media outlets.  It begins by telling the story of a sixteen-year-old whose Myspace page entries caught outside attention and ended up being broadcast on national news.  Even though this story is only meant as an example to open an entire book on blogging, it is a good example of how quickly ideas can be spread on the internet.  This accessibility is something that worries me slightly about this blog; it will be necessary to double check the accuracy of anything I post because you never know who will see it.  What may initially seem to be a personal endeavor can very easily be seen by anyone throughout the world.

            The relationship between blogs and traditional media outlets is an ever changing one.  The article discusses examples of how bloggers have had major impacts on news stories from traditional outlets.  One such example was the infamous Dan Rather controversy where he ran a false story regarding the president’s military record.  It really proves the idea of the “wisdom of crowds” in that average people were able to unlock the falsities of the story, a story that was produced by a typically reliable traditional media source.  The article also shows how it is no longer necessary to be in the traditional media in order to have the “authority” to break news stories.  It is very similar situation to this blog since I have no expertise on global warming and wildlife, but the internet allows me to seem as if I do.

            The second article, “Blogging for Better Health: Putting the ‘Public’ Back in Public Health”, uses a sample of 47 mental health related blogs to determine some statistics about blogging.  In this sample, the majority of bloggers were young (percentages went down each decade from 20-30 to 50+) and female.  Most of these bloggers were the “patients”, the people personally afflicted by the health problems, and created their blogs in order to discuss their problems and potentially support others similarly troubled.  The results of this blogging were usually positive, connecting the bloggers with a discourse community through which they were comfortable sharing their stories.  Personally, I am quite fond of public health blogs and forums.  Just this week I have been having an allergic reaction to something, and in just a few minutes of Googling, I was able to discern that my reaction was from a shot I had just gotten at the doctors.  The increased availability of health information has been extremely effective in aiding the general public in diagnosing a multitude of problems.

            Overall, the discussion in this article had to do with personal, narrative-style blog, which is not really the same focus as this blog.  To a certain extent, there will be more personal responses to readings that follow this pattern, but it should be more of a formal setting than these mental-health blogs.  What is similar about the mental health blogs and this blog is the feeling that the blog brings a message that is not typically found in traditional media outlets.  For public health issues, people generally blog because they feel that there is something they can bring to the discourse community that has not been brought by typical means (doctors, experts, traditional media).  Similarly, the purpose of this project in risk communication has to do with presenting a problem in a new light, to a new audience, in a way that is not generally available.  Hopefully this blog will present an outlook on global warming that is different than what is traditionally heard in the media.

Here is a brief outline of the research and sources that I have used so far in developing my project.

I decided to work on the topic about global warming/climate change and its effect on animal habitats.  There is much more research to support this topic than to support my other topic option.  I am still not sure if I want to focus on a specific type of animal or ecosystem; once I get more research done on the topic I will have a better idea on whether or not I can narrow it down further.

So far, I have found a number of books that discuss animals and climate change.  These will be my first set of sources for the project.  Once I go over the material in these books, I am hoping I will have a more specific view of what I should look for in specific journal articles.  These books include:

·         Arris, Lelani, Jim Berner & Carolyn Symon; Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; Cambridge University Press; 2005.

o   This book should have information on the destruction of Arctic regions, which was my initial intent for this project

·         Claussen, Eileen, Vicki Cochran & Dera Davis; Climate Change: Science, Strategies, & Solutions; BRILL; 2001.

o   This book is more of an overview of the entire global warming/climate change problem but also has sections devoted to animal habitats and ecosystems.  I also hope that this source will offer more solutions to help me build my argument.

·         McCarthy, James; Climate Change 2001: Impacts Adaptation, and Vulnerability; Cambridge University Press; 2001.

o   Again, another book focused more on climate change but with a chapter on the effects on animals

In doing just a general search on my topic, I found a number of brief new articles that deal with different issues regarding animals and climate change.  I am not sure how many of these smaller articles I will use as sources, but for now, I will continue to look at articles from these sites for further inspiration:

·         www.livescience.com

·         www.exploratorium.edu

·         www.sciencedaily.com

·         www.nature.com

Other specific resources I intend to use include information from the Environmental Protection Agency, World Wide Fund for Nature, and any other environment or wildlife interest groups that I discover during my research.

Here are KWHL Statements to further develop two of my potential project topics.

 1) Global Warming

K: What do I already know about the topic?

•  Issues: Average temperatures are increasing all over the world; The increase of greenhouse gases and other human-produced factors are contributing to this problem;
• Problem: There is a drastic effect of global warming on the Earth’s Polar Regions; The increased temperatures are causing habitat issues for wildlife, which may die out if climate patterns continue;
• Solutions: Government emission standards; increased governmental focus on how to regulate environmental concerns
• Stakeholders: Specifically dealing with animals, but could be anybody as this is a global issue
• Audience: Anybody? Need to narrow this down
• How do I know this: Mainly from readings from previous classes

W: What do I want to know?

• Need a focus on who my audience will be
• Have decided I want to focus more on the wildlife aspect, so I want to research more on different species/habitats that are being adversely affected by global warming and climate changes
• Other than the vague label of global warming, what specifically is causing harm to these species (i.e. certain chemicals in habitats, rising ocean temperatures)
• I already know that the current political administration is doing little if anything regarding the environment, but it might be interesting to see what current presidential candidates, and other foreign leaders and organizations are doing in their efforts to find a solution. This is especially important since I don’t currently have any specific solutions

H: How will I find this information?

• For more background on global warming, I should first check out information from the EPA and other environmental agencies (and anything I can get from Al Gore)
• If focusing on wildlife, I will want research data from organizations like the World Wildlife Fund

L: What have I learned so far?

• I definitely don’t know as much about this topic as I initially thought I would
• I need to refocus my topic, and will update this when I do more research on wildlife and global warming

2) Media Influence on Adolescents

K: What do I already know about the topic?

• Issues: Due to the surge of mass media in everyday life, today’s adolescents are subject to many more controversial subjects than youth of the past; The lives of Hollywood starlets are closely followed and emulated by young girls as early as kindergarten; In light of some recent Hollywood stories, specifically the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears, when will the nation realize that these 13-going-on-30 year-olds are doing themselves a lifetime of harm by acting like their favorite stars
• Problem: With Hollywood saying it’s okay, I am guessing that more young girls are drinking, doing drugs, having sex, and getting pregnant than in previous times.  Likewise, the Hollywood obsession with being thin is pressuring a generation of young girls to starve themselves and overemphasize the importance of being skinny. As much as I would like to mention all of these topics, I will probably narrow things down, as I know that statistics will not corroborate with all of my claims (for example, I have read that teen pregnancy is on the decline, so I probably will not have enough information to make many claims on that idea)
• Solutions: Less obsession with Hollywood and less TV coverage that may negatively influence adolescents, more parental control, better education on the dangers of any of the aforementioned behaviors
• Stakeholders: Adolescent girls
• Audience: Adolescent girls, their parents
• How do I know this: Currently this is mostly conjecture from having a teenage sister and younger cousins, as well as some knowledge from magazine articles

W: What do I want to know?

• Need to find out if all of the problems I listed have real data and information that can back up the claims I am making
• After doing more research, I may choose to focus on just one or two related topics
• Should know if there are any other specific causes for any of these adolescent patterns (for example, might any sex related issues really be caused by the push for abstinence only education?)

H: How will I find this information?

• Perhaps some census data may be helpful for sheer numbers
• If focusing on sex/pregnancy, Planned Parenthood would be a good source
• If focusing on drugs/alcoholism, organizations such as MADD and SADD will probably lead me to any statistics I may need
• For body image/eating disorders, some references may include the American Psychiatric Association, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Eating Disorder Information Centre

L: What have I learned so far?

Here are three topics I am considering for my risk communication projects for the class:

1) Global Warming: Global warming is obviously a prevalent issue in today’s society and is affecting everyday life for most of the world.  Currently, I think my focus would be mostly on adverse ecological effects in Polar Regions (i.e. polar ice caps melting, habitat loss for polar bears and penguins), and how these incidents will in turn affect the rest of the world.

2) Media Influence on Adolescents: Kids these days seem to grow up much faster than they used to largely because of media influences that make them think they should be acting like pop stars at the age of 6.  The idea would be to discuss risk on today’s youth from media influence such as increased body image issues, alcohol and drug use, teenage pregnancies, etc.

3) Alternative Fuels: With the depletion of fossil fuels world-wide and the increasing price of oil, the need for alternative fuel sources is essential.  Would discuss risks of continuing with oil usage as such and perhaps include some insight on future solutions.