After reading my Freshman Discussion Book ...

... I have to say that I'm in need of some solid research time, and since it is a freshman discussion that I will be taking part in on the first day of college, I will be doing solid research.

The book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, is incredibly well-written by my meager standards. Her diction is great and her placement of quotes and data is so concise and thoughtful that, by page 199, one can hardly believe that their can possibly be any legitimate argument that man-made global warming is a non-factor. But "hardly" is the key italicized word in the previous sentence, and I think that I owe it to myself, to author Elizabeth Kolbert, and to those who believe climate change to be a krock to read at least one book, written just as well, to Kolbert's contrary. Of course, my research definitely will not stop there; my laptop will become invaluable in my search for information and in my formation of my stance.

My stance, as it stands, is that our burning, pumping, and wasting is harming us, in one way or another. I cannot be convinced that shelling out billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and thereby altering our breathing air is not, in some way, hazardous to our health. I also cannot believe that we humans, insatiably destructive creatures, are not seriously pushing our planet to the limit. How can we not be pushing the Earth towards some sort of disaster, if not global warming, at the rate that we're moving at?

I'm not a kool-aid drinker, but I do have common sense.
J. Sutton