:Marty NHS Global Warming Documentary

There were many things I learned from this documentary experience. I learned the different styles of camera angles and interviews. I learned that there’s more to research than just reading an article. You must dig deeper and ask questions. It’s all about investigating and being curious, not just summarizing some article from a site because your teacher told you to. I learned that writing can be done in a cooler form. That form is blogging. But about writing in general, I learned how to build what I want to say in a more logical order. Making the documentary actually helped my writing, believe it or not. And as far as global warming is concerned, I’ve learned a lot more than I thought I could. My first source of learning was blogging about all of the articles I’ve been reading. Then, I got even more knowledge rubbed-off on me from the interview with my group’s expert Mr. Duggan. The main thing I learned was that global warming is very likely human induced, but it’s still possible that we’re just experiencing a rise in temperatures like there has been in the past. This experience has mad me much wiser.

3 Comments

My group still has lots of editing we need to do. We have a lot of good interview footage but we need to cut it down and pull out the information that’s best for our segment. Also, the voiceovers need to be done. That’s definitely one of the most crucial parts of our segment. In order to do these things, I need to meet with my group so we can dominate the rest of the work we have to do. We’re probably going to need the core 3 there– Greg, Kelsey, and myself (no offense to Zack and Brian). We’ve been more involved in the process than Zack and Brian so it’s most important that we’re in attendance and working because we’re the most involved. I think the only equipment we’re going to need is a microphone for recording the voiceovers and a laptop so we can edit and make the final touches. I don’t think we’re going to need too much help. We might be able to finish it on our own, but I’m not sure.

1 Comment

The street interviews went pretty well. My group found two people to interview right off the bat and we got some good footage. I was surprised by how much some of the people had to say. We found one man who claimed he wasn’t very educated on the topic of global warming, but just from talking to him we discovered that he was actually pretty informed on the subject. This man made me curious about whether or not people are more educated on the topic than we think. I was surprised that we were able to interview a total of 4 people. Not bad, huh? Also, I was a little worried about getting the audio because the mic wasn’t working very well in class. I was the sound man so I know firsthand that the sound was crystal clear. If I were to do it again, I would change the location if I could. I think a grocery store would be somewhere we’d get more interviews. Most of the places we were hanging out had people who were in a rush. Grocery stores can be long trips for some people so what’s a couple minutes talking to some friendly high school kids? Today was fun and the weather was good. SOLID!

2 Comments

I think a good title for our documentary would be Global Warming, Take Warning. Yeah, I came up with that all by myself. And as far as the intro goes, I think we should do something similar to something we saw in class. I was very interested when I didn’t know exactly what the documentary was about but I saw and heard clips of street interviews with pedestrians who were extremely passionate about whatever the topic was. If we get some good interviews on the streets with people who have something to say, I think that kind of introduction is where it’s at.

3 Comments

Yesterday was a day of some solid progress on my group’s segment of the documentary. Greg, Kelsey, and I were coming up with ideas like crazy. We were active all class and had no brain farts so I’m feeling pretty confident on the things we’ve come up with so far. We also have some good footage thanks to our hard work. Let’s see… we have video of my car’s exhaust and some other car footage we edited multiple times, but we haven’t recorded some other footage that we think would be totally radical visual metaphors. Also, I worked on creating my storyboard. I did some hardcore thinking about appealing camera angles for different parts of our segment and I came up with excellent ideas. More brainstorming with my crew might make it too good. And finally, our interviews. We haven’t recieved confirmation from any “experts” to come and do an interview which is a bummer, but there are some experts at school we could fall back on if it’s necessary. Street interviews are tomorrow and I think we’re going to kill it. From what I’ve heard from our practice interviews, my group has mad interviewing skills.

2 Comments

Most of China’s energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of all fuels that produces energy. Coal is helping China in its rise to superpower status but it comes with costs to the people and the environment. China is the world’s leading consumer of coal. This massive consumption of coal means huge greenhouse gas emissions. China does need this coal for power plants, though. If China doesn’t take action, its coal consumption will have a huge effect domestically and on the rest of the world.

I find this article interesting because it’s one of the first I’ve read that talk about somewhere other than the United States emitting greenhouse gases. China is a big place so I’m surprised I haven’t already heard anything like this. Unlike some things we do in the U.S. , though, this coal consumption sounds necessary. They use the coal to power places that need electricity. I think we should still stay focused on the problems we have going on at home because we can make HUGE improvements on our excessive emissions.

Click here to view the article

2 Comments

This article talks about how it’s hard to narrow down the biggest producer of emissions. The EPA only takes an inventory on emissions by different industries. The EPA says we make the equivalent of around 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The government doesn’t require facilities to report their emissions so we can’t even figure out who’s doing what. Their is a program called Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases that does allow companies who want to report their emissions to do so. Lawmakers think we should have a mandatory system. Canada already requires its biggest emitters to report and the U.S. has a proposal that might could do the same for us. The EPA says a company that has been at the top of the list for releasing carbon dioxide is the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant near Macon, Georgia.

After reading this article, it shocks me that we haven’t already been tracking emissions. We know what the problem is so let’s take a stab at slowing it down by publicly humiliating companies with statistics on how bad they are. I think that mostly everyone is unaware of what damage they might be causing and if they see what they’re doing they just might make an effort to cut down on their bad habits.

Click here to view the article

2 Comments

These are some of my visual metaphors that could possibly be used for my global warming segement:

1. someone who eats too much candy becomes sick (polluting the environment makes the environment “sick”)
2. eating unheathy foods makes a person sick (similar to #1)
3. asking too much of someone wears them out (we overuse the environment and we’re wearing it out)
4. urinating in the pool (urinating=pollution and pool=Earth. It’s not a visual we can actually show, though)
5. melting cheese (Earth is the cheese and pollution is the heat)

My favorite of these ideas is either #2 or #3 because they’re pretty similar. These are my top choices because it’s easy for us to show and it relates to almost everyone because most people can relate to it from it personally happening to them.

6 Comments

This article talks about how “brown clouds” might be preventing or helping global warming. They could be helping through so called “global dimming”. This global dimming supposedly masks the earth from the heat. However, it is also thought that the soot particles in the brown clouds could somehow be intensifying global warming. Also, studies are being done to see how crops grow in CO2 enriched environments. These studies suggest that crops could be losing some of their nutritional value.

I find it interesting that clouds could really make such a difference in global warming. They’re sort of like sunblock! I wonder if we could generate more clouds somehow… Or, how about we cover the planet in mirrors to reflect the sun’s rays. That’s impossible, but interesting to think about. I’m curious whether or not there have been any studies that track how the amount of clouds in a certain region have had a difference in the climate.

Click here to view the article

2 Comments

Scientists predicted in 2007 that polar bears will vanish from Alaska within 50 years. Also, two-thirds of the whole world’s population of polar bears will have disappeared. Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based organization focused on global warming said, ”Our generation has the ability to write a death sentence for the polar bear, or to take action to assure that the species survives.” Alaska has been considering taking steps to try and slow down the melting of the sea ice because of the belief that as the sea ice goes, the polar bears go with it. Climate models are showing that if the temperature is as warm as 2004-2005, then the polar bear population will heavily decline. However, if the temperature is similar to the 2001-2003 period, then the polar bear population might actually increase.

I think that there should be major efforts to save the polar bears. These sweet, loving animals that appear in the cute Coca-Cola ads every holiday season need to be saved! There have been reports of polar bears drowning and a decrease in the polar bear reproduction rate. It’s one thing to hurt our own people, but polar bears? C’mon, people, we can slow this whole thing down.

Click here to view the article

1 Comment