Should Pietermaritzburg Have A Methane Plant Environmental Sciences Essay Free Essays

string(217) Pietermaritzburg Golf Club New England Road Landfill Site N3 Highway Figure 2: Size and Positioning of the New England Landfill Site Google Maps: New England Rd Pietermaritzburg: hypertext move convention:/maps. The heading and removal of waste has become a logically remarkable activity in Pietermaritzburg throughout the last barely any mature ages. There has been an expansion in the total of waste that is discarded and the course of Pietermaritzburg ‘s New England Road Landfill Site has been a subject of treatment and contention for the neighborhood inhabitants and the individuals who make utilization of the site ‘s establishments. My examination undertaking spins around how and on the off chance that it is conceivable to better this site focusing mostly on the execution of a Methane fills in as this is the accompanying measure that landfill locales around the universe have taken so as to do the landfill increasingly proficient and great. We will compose a custom paper test on Ought to Pietermaritzburg Have A Methane Plant Environmental Sciences Essay or on the other hand any comparable subject just for you Request Now This gas to power program falls under the Clean Development Mechanism ( CDM ) Undertaking. 1. Technique For GAS-TO-ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION Methodology of progress overing gas to power Landfill gas, LFG, ( abiding of 50 % Methane ) is created when the loss in the landfill deteriorates and hinder down under anaerobiotic conditions. The gas is so gathered in subterranean funnels which are incorporated with the landfill as part of the Methane works undertaking The gas is so put away This put away gas is enlightened and used to make power by controlling turbines that turn when as a result of steam, from the H2O warmed by the gas The overabundance and unneeded gas is flared so as to smother it The power can so be sold so as to control private nations, mechanical techniques and even vehicle frameworks Figure 1: Landfill gas to power system. http//www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/landfill/html/ch5.html This improvement of a methane works is bit of the Gas-to-Electricity undertaking that has been started around the universe. It includes catching the LFG ( Landfill Gas ) that is created when the loss in the landfill site breaks down and interferences down. LFG is made out of 50 % Methane which is so separated and utilized as a fuel so as to make power. The additional gas is flared so as to douse it. So as to see the above endeavor, one needs to keep up in head that there are restrictions put upon simply what number of facilities can be made. These restrictions require the landfill to expose to the Torahs and mandates set by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in South Africa. So as to quantify this chance, one needs to analyze the New England Road Landfill Site to the others is South Africa that have effectively actualized this endeavor. The main comparings will take topographic point between the New England Landfill Site and the 3 late actualized Methane workss in Durban, viz. on the Bisasar Road, La Mercy and Mariannhill Sites. 2. LANDFILL CRITERIA All together for an endeavor of this nature to be affirmed, it should be considered by the South African Designated National Authority ( DNA ) blending to ‘Regulations under Section 25 ( 3 ) of the National Environmental Management Act: Constitution of a Designated National Authority for the Clean Development Mechanism ‘ ( GN.R 1478 of 24 December 2004 ) . 2.1 Laws and Regulations A landfill other than needs to run into specific guidelines with the end goal for it to be allowed to run. There are Torahs and mandates set in topographic point which a landfill site must adjust to and have a permit turn excursion this-so as to be permitted to run and are as per the following: A Landfill Site has a limit of under 100A 000 metric tons doesn't require a framework whereby the Landfill gas ( LFG ) is caught and overseen Observing of the convergence of the LFG gas in the soil. It can non rise above 1 % Satisfactory and proficient airing frameworks if the Methane focus surpasses 5 % The wellbeing and strength of universes, workss and vitalize creatures can non be undermined 2.2 Waste Management Second, there are the waste heading norms which manage the reason and motivations behind a landfill: Lessen squander Reuse squander and Reuse squander 2.3 Environmental and Socio-financial Factors Last, there are principles as for the existent building, topographical site and care of the landfill. These are: Natural variables Financial Impacts Financial components Taking a gander at the Environmental, Economic and Socio-financial components, one can judge whether or non the New England Road Landfill site can execute and pull off a methane takes a shot at it ‘s site. 3. Ecological FACTORS 3.1 Size The size of the landfill plays an enormous capacity in the restrictions it puts on the whole of ‘upgrades ‘ that it can suit. The New England Road Landfill Site is little in graduated table when contrasted with landfills, for example, Mariannhill in Durban or Goudkoppies in Johannesburg. New England Road has an utilization of a couple hundred dozenss not exactly the over two recorded destinations, doing it similarly little in size. Not simply does the Landfill need to suit the Methane works itself, however it other than necessities to hold the ability to hold the accompanying introduced on it all together for the activity to run: Extraction Wellss Gas total grapevines Gas extraction works Flare units LFG Generators Power association, transformers and abroad messages 3.2 Situation New England Road Landfill Site is arranged close to the N3 Highway doing it simple open to those going from wherever inside the city. It is moreover, all things considered, in the suburb of Hayfields and is thus in truly close propinquity to a private nation. This restricts the augmentations that can be added to the site as individuals live in that nation and request to thusly, as it is expressed in the Torahs sing landfills, be thought of. At the point when this site is contrasted and that of the Mariannhill site, 20km from the Durban CBD, and the La Mercy site, 35km North of Durban, one can see that they are in nations which are a long way from that of private spots and consequently are non competent to the limitations of the size and health peril as that of New England Road ‘s situation. New England Road Pietermaritzburg Golf Club New England Road Landfill Site N3 Highway Figure 2: Size and Positioning of the New England Landfill Site Google Maps: New England Rd Pietermaritzburg: hypertext move convention:/maps.google.co.za/maps? hl=en A ; tab=wl 3.3 Environmental Impacts on Plant and Animal Life In light of the nation that the New England Site is in, there is non that incredible a hazard to the lives of energize creatures and workss. It is non comparable, in different occurrences, a wood is cleared so as to let for a landfill site to be created. The one threat by the by, is that the landfill site could, on the off chance that it infringes unnecessarily near the private nation, have an effect of the workss kept up by tenants in their nurseries and household quicken creatures. These occupations may begin from hapless air quality, dust and additionally corrosive downpour because of the landfill site being inside the nation. 3.4 Global Warming The acceptance of a Methane works at a landfill site has extraordinary advantages for planetary warming as, by using this as a strategy for bring forthing power, it is viewed as a ‘green ‘ fuel as it is non affecting nature in a negative way. By using a Methane works, one would in reality be benefitting nature as the LFG, if non wiped out, contributes significantly to planetary warming. The Methane is accustomed to deliver power, thus decreasing the interest for tremendous aggregates of petroleum products ( which, when combusted produce spreads that contribute towards planetary warming ) and the unneeded gas is flared to non contrarily sway the earth and climate. The 3 Durban workss totally are leting a decreasing in South Africa ‘s CO2 spreads by 12A 000 metric tons and cut bringing down the whole of coal utilized by 80A 000 metric tons a twelvemonth. 4. Monetary Impact 4.1 Cost of Undertaking There is a significant expense engaged with structure and keeping a Methane works. The Durban Methane undertaking, which included building up these workss at 3 distinctive landfill locales, cost R100 million, which was obtained from various Bankss and supporters. Some portion of this expense is non simply for the Methane works itself, yet the supernumeraries which are required all together for this endeavor to run as recorded under 3.1 Size. This is a major and clasp expending activity. The New England Road Landfill Management have wanted to execute pipes in the site for some mature ages now, yet no activity appears to hold been taken sing this. This is because of the Municipal Finance Management Act rendering the endeavor unviable because of the stamp requests ( Witness Reporter, The Witness Newspaper, Page 11, June 7 2010 ) . 4.2 Net salary The total compensation that would be produced using the execution of this endeavor is enormous. There would be a major total of power created from one landfill site, for representation the three Durban Methane workss produce a joined aggregate of 10A 000 kWs for every twelvemonth. It has been evaluated that this will deliver a pay of R4.5million every month because of the gross incomes of the power and C credits. It is accepted that a portion of the landfills in South Africa have the conceivable to deliver 12 000 megawatts for every twelvemonth, cut bringing down CO2 radiations and helping to better South Africa ‘s place as one of the greatest Carbon dioxide producers known to mankind, in spite of being a third universe state. 5. Financial Factor 5.1 Health Populating in a nation close to a landfill has had impacts, for example, Exhaustion Concerns Tiredness Hypersensitivities such has hayf

Need of Nursing Theories in the Present Scenario Essay

Need of Nursing Theories in the Present Scenario - Essay Example Need of Nursing Theories in the Present Scenario Florence Nightingale, who established the framework of present day nursing, didn't give any hypothesis of nursing in explicit sense. In any case, her commitments in grown-up nursing can at present be fathomed and utilized. As indicated by William K. Cody and Jannet W. Kenney, the way of thinking of hypothetical nursing enormously relies upon proof based practice. Besides, qualities and procedures of individual focused consideration assume a significant job. In the book Philosophical and Theoretical points of view of Advanced Nursing Practice, the essayists the authors have set out that hypothesis, research and practice are completely interrelated in the domain of nursing (Cody and Kenney, 2006). Examining the inquiry being talked about, we need to analyze the patterns of present day nursing in this unique situation. It ought to be inspected that how the general hypothetical methodology can be used in present day times and what is the genuine circumstance in the wellbeing division. A few hypotheses are, obviously, ageless and can be utilized for the marvel of change of present day nursing. Melanie McEwen and Evelyn M. Wills have explained this idea in their book Theoretical Basis for Nursing. The current speculations, most likely, give an essential structure to an advanced nursing approach. A portion of the speculations give important data and guide to the advancement of current nursing. In any case, steady appraisal of the ideas alongside hypothesis advancement and assessment is likewise significant. Melanie McEwen and Evelyn M. Wills have additionally interrelated diverse significant speculations from different teaches in sociologic, conduct, and biomedical sciences.

Is Hannah Horvath a Believable Young Writer

Is Hannah Horvath a Believable Young Writer I know, I know, I know, I KNOW I just WROTE about Girls for Book Riot, like, yesterday (okay, not yesterday-yesterday, but relatively recently). And I really dont want to ape a certain website I know and love to pieces but that nevertheless really needs to quit publishing up to three pieces a day about a show that gets less than a million viewers. But the HBO show, which started out being about the character of Hannah Horvath (played by the shows auteur Lena Dunham) and her relationships with the other three principle girls of the series, has become increasingly about Hannahs burgeoning career as a young Brooklyn writer, a career which I am finding less and less and less plausible. (Spoilers, spoilers, major plot points from first three seasons discussed below, if youre not caught up and dont want to be spoiled, go read something else, there are so many things to read!) I believed Hannahs one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards-not-enough-of-a-literary-career-to-actually-call-it-a-career for the first two seasons. She starts off as a two-years-out-of-college intern for a small literary press who cant parlay her internship into an assistantship. She works shitty jobs all season and at one point attends a reading for a former college frenemy blessed with a big roll-out for her memoir. At said reading, Hannah reconnects with a favorite writing professor who encourages her to come read at a literary salon he runs, and shes going to bring one of her personal essays, but gets cold feet when a mansplaining male friend makes her feel she hasnt chosen an important enough subject to write about, so she brings half-written bullshit she scribbled on the subway and humiliates herself. I believe all this a thousand percent. Season 2 is where the show starts to remove itself from reality. Hannah, whom we know to have no professional writing experience, is paid $200 to write a confessional piece about her first time doing cocaine for Jazzhate, a website that seems to be part-Vice-Magazine, part XOJane. NO ONE gets paid $200 for a five-hundred word internet piece about doing a drug everyone is already very familiar with/probably half-did once in college, thats not a thing that happens. Maybe if youre kind of somebody, MAYBE if youre a former Disney Channel star or a politicians child, but definitely not if youre super-nobody. We hear nothing about Hannahs writing until a few episodes later when she is offered an ebook deal for her essays by an editor who seems much more interested in her lack of shame than her ability to put sentences together. This ones tricky, because on the one hand, I think were missing a WHOLE bunch of steps to get to this place, like Hannah busting her butt to write for a bunch of other websites, networking like a girl possessed, making other author friends, querying a thousand literary agents and being rejected by 999 of them. On the other hand, I liked how this ended up playing out. Hannah is dealing with a bad bout of OCD and procrastinates on her deadline until she has one day before the book is due with only one sentence written. She gets an opportunity, she is in no way capable of delivering on her promise, she ends up completely screwed. This I believe from a girl whose (seemingly) only prior writing experience consists of college classes and the aforementioned piece-about-do ing-drugs-shouldnt-sound-boring-but-nevertheless-I-feel-fatigued-just-thinking-about-having-to-read-about-a-privileged-white-kids-first-time-doing-a-real-drug. Season 3 is where everything just stops being plausible. The ebook is happening, then her editor dies (well, I believe that, people DO die), then at his funeral Hannah finds out that all of his projects are being cancelled (Really? ALL of them? This does not seem like something a house that has put a lot of time and money into books would do), then Hannah gets a referral to another publishing house from her editors widow at the wake (Really? Thats what you do when the grabby nobody asks for a handout on the worst day of your life? You just give it to her?), and that publishing house loves Hannahs essays and wants to publish them as a paper book (Really? She technically still only has the drug essay to her published name), but her contract with the former house stipulates that they own her work for three years whether or not they choose to publish (Really? She didnt read her contract?  Also, shes been through two publishing houses now and she still doesnt have a lit agent?), and then she gets a job doing advertorial work for GQ off of that drug essay (I REALLY want to read this essay, it better be the To Kill a Mockingbird of confessional blog posts) and we know she is good at this job because everyone in the office tells her so but then she realizes shes not going to have that much time to write with her well-paying office job (But she wasnt even writing before when she had her job at the coffee shop! When does this girl write? How did she finish a book? Also, Ive never even seen her READ a book on this show, but the character name drops Michiko Kakutan like its no thing? Im so confused) and so she quits her cush job and then she unquits and I just have to stop synopsizing before my brain explodes. I swear to God, Ive never heard of someone messing everything up on such a regular basis and continuing to receive opportunity after opportunity after opportunity while putting in seemingly little to no effort and being objectively unpleasant throughout the entire process. Well, maybe James Frey, but we all know Frey is just another face of Satan. Writers careers take different paths, some people peak early, others later, there are a host of video game obstacles to jump over and smash through, there are a lot of different ways a career can go. I just dont believe a career goes like this. Dunham is one of the great Cinderella stories of recent entertainment history. Her college and post-college microbudget films led straight to a critical darling television series and a whoa-how-many-zeroes book deal. Of course, Dunham and company have worked their asses off. You have to in order to be able to accomplish that much. It seems, though, that Dunham and her team cant (or dont want to) imagine a world where opportunities dont fall into her alter egos lap, where talent isnt always enough, where hard work (or, in the characters case, more like light to moderate work) isnt always enough, a world where there are hundreds more steps on the staircase and rungs on the ladder, a world outside the wunderkind bubble, a world most people live in. A source that works on the show spoiled the ending of this season for me. In the final episode, Hannah receives YET ANOTHER literary opportunity, a HUGE one, a classic and well-known ambition of the young and the literate. And I believe this turn of events least of all. Its no fun watching a character receive all the opportunities in the world and earn none of them. At least its no fun to watch for me. Anyone else watching the series? How do you feel about the trajectory of Hannahs career? _________________________ Sign up for our newsletter to have the best of Book Riot delivered straight to your inbox every week. No spam. We promise. To keep up with Book Riot on a daily basis, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, , and subscribe to the Book Riot podcast in iTunes or via RSS. So much bookish goodnessall day, every day.

Medical Records Refer To Data And Information That Pertains

Medical records refer to data and information that pertains the medical history of patients. Medical records are an important component of health care as it ensures that monitoring of patient health is made easier. It is important to document medical records to be able to manage health and diagnosis of diseases adequately. According to the Joint Commission, there should be a standard of measure of recording medical records to facilitate easy retrieval by medical assistants. There are several approaches to maintaining medical records in a hospital. The standard methods include paperwork and electronic. All these methods are still usable, but special care should be made when an organization is shifting from paperwork to electronic records.†¦show more content†¦In spite of the fact that these materials may have characterized a legal record in paper terms (e.g., requiring a medicine sheet as opposed to an electronic prescription organization record), their definitions must turn into the reason for the association s legitimate health record definition (Blumenthal Tavenner, 2010). Make a decision on records generated in the course of diagnosis The second step is to decide if the records are made by the supplier or facilities ordinary course of business. Source-framework or unprocessed information are the information from which translations, rundowns, and notes are determined. 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Food And Aesthetics Of Developing A Dish - 1031 Words

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Demographical†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 8 4. Political†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 10 5. Economic†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦13 6. Religious†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.20 7. Linguistic†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦20 8. Educational†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦23 9. Aesthetic†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.24 B. Organizational Culture†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 1. Work Values, Traditions, Norms and Expectations†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦31 2. Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Patterns†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦37 IV.USEFUL INFORMATIONS†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Read MoreAmpalaya Cupcake15271 Words   |  62 Pagesrevolutionary because of the amount of time it saved in the kitchen. The name of the cupcake originated from the two theories: the cakes were originally cooked in cups and the other one the ingredients used to make the cupcakes were measured out by cups (Food Timeline Web). On the early part, cupcakes were called â€Å"number† cakes, for reasons that they were easy to remember by the measurements of ingredients it took to create them but today cupcakes have expanded to a wide variety of ingredients, measurements

Day After Tomorrow Free Essays

FTER Hollywood cinema and climate change: The Day After Tomorrow. Ingram, David. In Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations, Devine, Maureen and Christa Grewe-Volpp (eds. We will write a custom essay sample on Day After Tomorrow or any similar topic only for you Order Now ) (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008). Climate change, like many other environmental problems, is slow to develop, not amenable to simple or fast solutions, and caused by factors that are both invisible and complex (Adam 17). Making a narrative film about climate change therefore does not fit easily into the commercial formulae of mainstream Hollywood, which favour human-interest stories in which individual protagonists undergo a moral transformation before they resolve their problems through heroic action in the final act. Can such classical narratives mediate an issue as complex as climate change without being not only inadequate, but even dangerous, lulling their audience into a false sense of security about our ability to deal with such problems? Ecocritic Richard Kerridge observes that a British journalist responded to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 by framing it within the familiar narrative of the Second World War, with its emphasis on ‘a successful outcome and a narrative closure’. For Kerridge, such narrative strategies may be an overly reassuring way of representing environmental threats, and reveal therefore that the ‘real, material ecological crisis’ is ‘also a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation’ (Kerridge 4). Yet, as Jim Collins argues, ‘mass-mediated cultures’, including those of popular Hollywood cinema, are characterised by ‘semiotic complexities of meaning production’, which leave even popular, generic texts open to multiple interpretations (Collins 17). Film theorist Stephen Prince describes a Hollywood movie as a ‘polysemous, multivalent set of images, characters, and narrative situations’, which therefore constitute what he calls an ‘ideological agglomeration’, rather than a single, coherent ideological position (Prince 40). This polysemy may arise from the Hollywood industry’s commercial intention to maximize profits by appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible by making movies which, ideologically speaking, seek to have it all ways at once. One consequence is that, when we theorize about the effects popular movies may or may not have on public awareness of environmental issues, those effects are more complex, and less deterministic, than is often assumed is some academic film theories. This essay will explore the range of meanings generated by The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which frames the issue of anthropogenic climate change within the familiar genres of the disaster and science fiction movie. Ideological analysis of the film, combined with a study of its audience reception, suggests that even a classical Hollywood narrative can generate a degree of ideological ambiguity which makes it open to various interpretations, both liberal and conservative. The ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow derives in part from the way its narrative mixes the modes of realism, fantasy and melodrama. A realist film will attempt to correspond to what we understand as reality, mainly through the optical realism of its mise-en-scene and the sense of psychological plausibility produced by both its script and the performance of its actors. Melodrama, on the other hand, will simplify character and heighten action and emotion beyond the everyday. Hollywood movies tend to work by moving between these two modes of representation. Some genres, such as science fiction and horror, also move between realism and fantasy, a mode which exceeds realist plausibility by creating a totally fictive and impossible diegetic world. As a science fiction movie, then, The Day After Tomorrow deliberately blurs the distinction between realism and fantasy. The narrative begins from a scientifically plausible premise: the melting of the Artic ice-cap, caused by anthropogenic global warming, cools the North Atlantic Current, colloquially known as the ‘Gulf Stream’, and thereby affects the weather in the Northern hemisphere. The movie then extrapolates from this premise beyond even the worst-case scenarios proposed by climate scientists. The switching off of the thermohaline current generates a global superstorm, as a result of which an ice sheet covers Scotland and a tsunami floods Manhattan. The movie’s literary source, it is worth noting, was The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), by Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, whose television talk show on the paranormal suggests an interest in the ‘parascientific’; that is, in speculation beyond what is provable or falsifiable by scientific method. When interpreted literally, that is, as realism, The Day After Tomorrow clearly violates notions of scientific plausibility. The basic climatology in the movie is inaccurate: hurricanes can only form over large bodies of warm water, not the cold seas found in high latitudes, where polar lows are the main storm systems. The movie also distorts the science of climate change, mainly by accelerating the time frame within which its effects take place, and by making them much worse than predicted. Any slowdown in the thermohaline current would take a period of years, at least, and probably centuries, rather than the days featured in the film. Moreover, even if the North Atlantic Current did switch off, average temperatures would still be likely to rise, rather than fall, because of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere (Henson 112-5). The film’s central narrative, in which government paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) walks in sub-zero temperatures all the way from north of Philadelphia to the New York Public Library, to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall) who is sheltering there, is thus impossible: neither would survive such low temperatures. For helicopters to freeze in mid-air, temperatures would not only be too cold for snow, but also too cold for human survival. Burning books in a library would be insufficient to keep people alive. Such implausibilities are worth pointing out, not because cinema audiences necessarily take what they see as scientific truth, but because science fiction often provides an opportunity to learn some real science. Indeed, as we will see later in this essay, environmental groups used the release of the movie as a ‘teachable moment’ on the science of climate change (Leiserowitz 6). The two-disc DVD edition of the movie includes a documentary on the science of climate change; screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff commented on its release that, although ‘our primary concern’ in making the film ‘was entertainment rather than education. On the DVD, there’s room for both’. Acknowledging that the time frame he created for the movie was accelerated for fictional purposes, and that the ‘superfreeze’ was ‘purely a cinematic device’, he added that ‘the political, agricultural and societal consequences of a sudden change in the ocean currents would still be catastrophic’ (Nachmanoff 1). To dismiss The Day After Tomorrow purely for its scientific inaccuracies, then, clearly misses the point of the movie, which is to use realist elements of climate science as a starting point for melodrama and fantasy, so that it can dwell on the spectacle of extreme weather, appropriate for a blockbuster disaster movie, and also invite the audience’s emotional engagement with the human-interest story that becomes the main focus of narrative. It is to these elements in the film that we will now turn. As a ‘natural disaster’ melodrama, the film works on an opposition between nature and civilization, and invites an ambiguous identification on the part of the viewer: in Hollywood terms, we are invited to ‘root for’ both nature and civilization at various points in the narrative, although the values of civilization eventually become the dominant ones. Before that happens, however, the scenes of extreme weather make the experience of environmental apocalypse strangely attractive. As Maurice Yacowar observes, the natural disaster movie ‘dramatizes people’s helplessness against the forces of nature’ (Yacowar 218). The set pieces of extreme weather in The Day After Tomorrow reveal the sublime power of wild nature: violent, chaotic, powerful beyond human control, and therefore exciting and seductive. Environmentalist Paul Hawken writes that the concept of doomsday ‘has always had a perverse appeal, waking us from our humdrum existence to the allure of a future harrowing drama’ (Hawken 204). As Stephen Keane points out, although disaster movies regularly feature television news reports commenting on the events that are taking place, they do not go on ‘to make the critical point that we are all electronic voyeurs’ (Keane 84). The Day After Tomorrow follows this pattern. The audience’s complicity in seeking cinematic thrills in the scenarios of mass death and destruction caused by the weather is encouraged, rather than questioned, by the movie itself. Indeed, such thrills are the raison d’etre of its genre. Yet the aesthetics of the sublime have always been based on vicariousness; if we take pleasure in the destructive forces of nature, it is from the safe distance of our movie seats, where we are in the position of voyeurs, rather than of victims. This construction of victimhood in the disaster movie depends on narrative alignment: when people die, we do not dwell on them, nor on the bereaved people they leave behind. Typical of the disaster genre, the focus of nature’s destructiveness in The Day After Tomorrow is the city. Hollywood disaster movies, writes Geoff King, share with millennial groups ‘a certain delirious investment in the destruction of the metropolis’ (King 158). When a series of tornadoes attack Los Angeles, the mise-en-scene focuses on familiar landmarks: the Hollywood sign, the Capitol Records building, and a billboard advertising the model Angelyne. Screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff observes on the DVD commentary that preview audiences greeted the moment where the Angelyne sign flattens the television reporter with cheers and applause (Emmerich). The sense of retribution is difficult to avoid: perhaps there is poetic justice in the media figure, parasitical on other people’s suffering, finding his nemesis in Angelyne, the model and aspiring actress who paid to advertise herself on her own billboards, and thus became for some emblematic of the meretricious values of the city. As Mike Davis observes, Los Angeles is often given special treatment in apocalyptic narratives. ‘No other city,’ he writes, ‘seems to excite such dark rapture’. Unlike other cities, the destruction of Los Angeles ‘is often depicted as, or at least secretly experienced as, a victory for civilization’ (Davis 277). Geoff King draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the ‘carnivalesque’ to account for such moments of ‘licensed enjoyment of destruction’, based on an ‘overturning of cultural norms’ (King 162). But the destruction is too cruel, as well as unfocussed and generalised, to be simply an anti-authoritarian gesture. As Susan Sontag noted, science fiction films provide a ‘morally acceptable fantasy where one can give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings’ (Sontag 215). Freud’s notion of the ‘death wish’ thus better captures the dark side of such fantasies. For Freud, such aggressions were natural drives that need to be controlled; art provides catharsis for such anti-social instincts. Patricia Mellencamp draws on Freud to argue that American television is both ‘shock and therapy; it both produces and discharges anxiety’ (Mellencamp 246). The disaster movie works in a similar way, mobilising and exploiting our negative drives and emotions. But are there unconscious meanings specific to the natural disaster movie? One reading of such movies is as ‘revenge of nature’ narratives, which enact a fantasy of nature getting its own back for its mistreatment at the hands of human beings. Psychoanalyst Karl Figlio draws on the theories of Melanie Klein to argue that scientific thinking itself is an act of repressive violence towards Nature. ‘Nature killed,’ he writes, ‘is nature in a vengeful mood, a primitive retaliatory phantasy that fuels apocalyptic forebodings. The more scientific the culture, the more it is at the mercy of irrational fears, and the more it is dependent on scientific protection from them’ (Figlio 72). He cites Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an ‘extreme example of scientific mapping that calls forth revenge from nature’ (75). According to this reading, then, when we watch nature getting its revenge, we as viewers are able to purge our guilt about its degradation. However, as Yacowar notes, the moral attitude of the typical disaster movie is ambiguous. Poetic justice in disaster films,’ he writes, ‘derives from the assumption that there is some relationship between a person’s due and his or her doom’. However, this notion breaks down when the ‘good die with the evil’ (Yacowar 232). The Day After Tomorrow works according to these generic expectations, with Nature at times appearing amoral in its destructiveness, and at other times, a force of moral retribution and punishment. The arrogant businessmen who bribe the bus driver, and the corruptible bus driver himself, get their comeuppance when they drown in the tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan. Jeffrey Nachmanoff reveals in the DVD commentary that, in an early draft of the script, the businessman had been negotiating an insider deal with the Japanese businessman killed by the hailstorm in Tokyo (Emmerich). In the final version, the latter lies to his wife on his cell phone moments before his death. The ethical critique in these scenes fits into the ideological agenda of many disaster films. As King writes, such films ‘include an element of criticism of capitalism, but this is a gesture that for the most part leaves its core values largely intact. A few ‘excesses’ are singled out, such as the greedy cost-cutting that undermines the integrity of the eponymous star of The Towering Inferno, leaving the remainder mostly untouched’ (King 153). In The Day After Tomorrow, then, greedy, self-interested individuals are punished. Yet innocent people also die in the movie, including the climate scientists who freeze to death in Scotland, led by the avuncular Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), and Jack’s friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders), who falls to his death through the roof of a building, after cutting his own rope to prevent his friends from endangering their lives in trying to rescue him. These are figures of heroic sacrifice, also central to the disaster genre, because they bring out the redemptive aspects of the apocalypse. The film does not state clearly where the British royal family stand in this hierarchy of innocence and guilt: what is clear, is that death by climate change is no respecter of class privilege and wealth. The disaster movie, then, is about which values are the key to survival. The rescue of the innocent, French-speaking African family is thus crucial in einforcing the movie’s ethical hierarchy based on racial, national and gender differences: they are saved by the white American woman (Laura), who in turn is saved by the white American male (Sam), thereby enacting in miniature two important themes in the movie. The most important of these is the narrative of male heroism and redemption. Melodrama, writes Linda Williams, is about a ‘retrieval and staging of innocence’ (Williams 7). In this film, the melodramatic plot of father rescuing son makes the moral point that hard-working fathers need to take a more active role in bringing up their sons. The movie implies that, although millions of people may be dead, if one American family can be saved, then at least some good has come out of the eco-apocalypse. This message is more liberal, or at least not as unambiguously patriarchal, as in earlier disaster movies. In keeping with Stephen Prince’s notion of ideological agglomeration, mentioned earlier, although Jack’s wife is a doctor, she ends up playing the role of surrogate mother to a seven-year old boy with cancer, separated from his parents by the storm. The movie can thus be interpreted as either liberal (she is a doctor) or conservative (she is placed in the stereotypical female role of nurturer). The second important theme in the movie is the United States’ self-appointed role as global protector-policeman. The rescue narrative trumpets the frontier values of male physical heroism, strong leadership and individualism, encapsulated by the iconic image of the torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the waves of the tsunami that engulfs Manhattan. However, America’s role in world politics is also questioned by a more liberal discourse in the movie, when American refugees are forced to flee illegally into Mexico, in an ironic reversal of the real politics on the national border. This ironic reversal is itself made ambiguous, though, when later the United States government writes off all Third World debt, but in return, wins the right for its citizens to live as ‘guests’ in those countries. It should be noted that not all Hollywood movies with environmental themes are as individualistic in their proposed solutions as The Day After Tomorrow. Some have endorsed more collective forms of action, even in narratives led by strong individuals: an image of placard-waving protestors recurs in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Fly Away Home (1996) as a sign of collective resistance. Ultimately, The Day After Tomorrow prefers American notions of liberal individualism, which it turns into universal values by identifying them with human civilization as a whole. Indeed, civilization, rather than wild nature, becomes the real object of audience identification by the end. The choice of the New York Public Library as the place of sanctuary and rescue is significant in this respect. One of the survivors makes sure he preserves the Gutenberg Bible from burning, not because he believes in God, he says, but because, as the first book ever printed, it represents ‘the dawn of the age of reason’. ‘If Western civilization is finished’, he adds, ‘I’m going to save at least one little piece of it’. Ultimately, then, the movie celebrates reason and science as the values most central to Western civilization. Unusually for a Hollywood disaster movie, scientists are neither evil nor incompetent. As Yacowar notes, specialists in disaster movies, including scientists, ‘are almost never able to control the forces loose against them’. The genre thus serves ‘the mystery that dwarfs science’ (Yacowar 228). This is also true of The Day After Tomorrow, in that the scientists are unable to contain the devastating effects of climate change once they have begun. ‘Ultimately,’ writes ecocritic Sylvia Mayer, ‘the movie makes the point that the most advanced and dedicated scientific work is still powerless against the forces of nature once they are unleashed’ (Mayer 111). Nevertheless, the scientists are the heroes of the movie. Their advice on the risks of climate change was ignored by the politicians until it was too late. As the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration angrily tells the Vice-President: ‘You didn’t want to heat about the science when it would have made a difference’. The scientists’ computer models prove correct: in the movie, unlike in real life, climate science provides the clear, certain and unambiguous knowledge necessary for survival. Moreover, advanced technology is ultimately a force for good. Jack is able to locate his son in the Public Library under the frozen wastes of Manhattan because of his friend’s portable satellite navigation system (which, of course, would not work in such a massive storm). He is also seen driving a hybrid Toyota Prius earlier in the film. Reason, science and technology thus win the day. However, as Sylvia Mayer also notes, the movie stops short of simplistically advocating a technological fix for environmental problems as complex as climate change (Mayer 117). The values of civilization finally triumph over the destructive forces of wild nature when the pack of wolves, which escaped from Central Park Zoo earlier in the movie, return to attack Sam and his friends when they are searching for medicine and food. That the wolves are computer-generated special effects only adds an extra layer of irony to the triumph of civilization and benign technology in the movie. Indeed, the movie itself can be seen as a paean to the imaginative power of Computer Generated Imaging. In Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt argues that The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2002-3) can be read as a celebration of the computer technologies from which it was made, which are an artisanal mode of production that demonstrates a creative place for technology within ‘green’ thinking. There is an ‘increasing belief’, he suggests, ‘that through the development of highly technologised creative industries, it is possible to devise a mode of economic development that does not compromise the land’ (Cubitt 10). The thematic resolution of The Day After Tomorrow is ambiguous, however. The ending of the movie follows the recurrent pattern of the genre identified by Geoff King, in which ‘the possibility of apocalyptic destruction is confronted and depicted with a potentially horrifying special effects/spectacular ‘reality’, only to be withdrawn or limited in its extent’ (King 145). Typically, then, destruction is extensive, but total apocalypse is prevented at the last moment. The superstorm passes, thereby confirming Jack’s earlier opinion that the storms will last ‘until the imbalance that created them is corrected’ by ‘a global realignment’. Gazing at a beautiful, calm Earth, an astronaut in the International Space Station comments that he has ‘never seen the air so clear’. In Winston Wheeler Dixon’s phrase, this could be the ‘exit point for the viewer’ that disaster movies invariably provide (Dixon 133); the moment where the audience is let off the hook with a simplistic, evasive solution to the seemingly intractable problem explored in the rest of the movie. To return to the question posed at the start of this essay, does such an ending merely encourage evasion, denial and complacency in regard to issues such as anthropogenic climate change? Dixon argues that contemporary American cinema serves those who ‘wish to toy with the themes of destruction’, from movies about atomic apocalypse to those that flirt with Nazism. This cinematic ‘cult of death’, he concludes, is ‘the ultimate recreation’ for an exhausted, media-saturated culture, a cult which ‘remains remote, carefully contained within a box of homicidal and genocidal dreams’ (Dixon 139). But the ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow, as well as its audience reception, suggests that the process of interpretation is more open and varied than this. From an environmentalist perspective, the melodramatic ending of the film is ambiguous. No matter what human beings do, it appears, the Earth will heal itself. According to this reading, the message of the movie is that, because the storm eventually passes, we don’t need to worry. This message resembles the right-wing appropriation of the Gaia hypothesis; that is, the idea, proposed by the British chemist James Lovelock, that the Earth as a whole is a self-regulating system in a natural state of homeostatic balance. In his 1999 book Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, Peter Huber used the concept of Gaia to justify a conservative manifesto that called for the dismantling of existing environmental regulations. The ‘most efficient way to control’ pollutants such as greenhouses gases, he argued, ‘is not to worry about them at all. Let them be. Leave them to Gaia’ (Huber 128). The notion of Gaia, we should note, is not the sole property of New Age environmentalists or deep ecologists. According to this interpretation, the movie appears to endorse the idea that humanity, through a combination of ingenuity, courage and chance, can survive whatever Nature may throw at us, an argument used by conservatives like Huber to justify a non-interventionist approach to environmental issues. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the final moments of a movie, when narrative closure is achieved, dictate its overall meaning. An analogy may be drawn here with the critical analysis of the role of women in film noir. As Janey Place argues of the female characters in films such as Double Indemnity (1946), ‘it is not their inevitable demise we remember but rather their strong, dangerous, and above all, exciting sexuality’ (Place 48). In a similar way, the most memorable images in The Day After Tomorrow are probably the scenes of extreme weather. The main advertising image for the movie showed the shot of the hand of the Statue of Liberty held above the storm surge: an image of survival which at least includes a sense of struggle, rather than the calm, reposeful Earth revealed at the close of the film. Indeed, the above interpretation of the film as conservative is contradicted by its more explicit message, which advocated liberal political reform in the election year of 2004. Early in the film, Vice-President Becker, played by an actor who bears an obvious resemblance to Dick Cheney, refuses to listen to the advice of scientists on global warming, arguing that to take action would harm the American economy. In another reference to George W. Bush’s presidency, we are told that the administration in the movie has also refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. At the end of the movie, Becker, now President, appears on television to apologise to the nation out of a newfound sense of humility: ‘For years we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet’s natural resources without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong’. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole movie, the President’s public apology confirms the words of the African-American homeless man earlier in the film, who refers to people with their ‘cars and their exhausts, and they’re just polluting the atmosphere’. The disaster has been a wake-up call for America, and the new start will allow for the changes in lifestyle necessary for a more sustainable future. The government will also change its attitude to the Third World from one of arrogance to gratitude. In these moments, the movie works as a secular form of jeremiad; ‘secular’ because the environmental catastrophe is not seen as punishment from God, but as human-created. Opie and Elliott argue that both ‘implementational and evocative strategies’ are necessary in successful jeremiads, and cite Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) as a powerful exemplar (Opie and Elliott 35). The Day After Tomorrow also uses both pathos and rational argument to convince its audience of the need to take steps to avoid environmental catastrophe. Critical speculation on the effectiveness or otherwise of making a disaster movie about global warming can draw on the conclusions of an empirical study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research of the reception of the movie in Germany. This found that the movie did not appear to reinforce feelings of fatalism in its audience. Less than 10% of the sample agreed with the statement, ‘There’s nothing we can do anyway’, whereas 82% preferred, ‘We have to stop climate change’. Reusswig). Indeed, the Potsdam study makes hopeful reading for environmentalists. It found that the publicity surrounding the film triggered a new interest in climate change, and raised some issues previously unfamiliar to audiences, such as the role of oceans in global warming. A similar study of reception in the United States concluded that the film ‘led moviegoers to have higher levels of concern and worry about global warming, to estimate various impacts on the United States as more likely, and to shift their conceptual understanding of the climate system toward a threshold model. Further, the movie encouraged watchers to engage in personal, political, and social action to address climate change and to elevate global warming as a national priority’. However, whether such changes constituted merely a ‘momentary blip’ in public perceptions remained to be seen (Leiserowitz 7). These empirical studies are important because they show that audience reception is a more complex and variable process than it is sometimes taken for in film theory. According to some versions of psychoanalytic ‘subject positioning’ theory, Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow tend to render spectators passive. Under the influence of Bertolt Brecht’s theories of narrative, film academics such Colin McCabe and Steven Heath argued that only modernist or avant-garde narrative techniques can produce a more active (even revolutionary) film spectator. As the 1992 textbook New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics puts it, psychoanalytic film theory ‘sees the viewer not as a person, a flesh-and-blood individual, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus’ (Stam 147). In his book The Crisis of Political Modernism (1999), D. N. Rodowick exposes the flaws in such thinking. The politics of political modernism, he writes, assume ‘an intrinsic and intractable relation between texts and their spectators, regardless of the historical or social context of that relation’ (Rodowick 34). But film viewers are flesh-and-blood individuals, and when they are treated as such by film theorists and researchers, the phenomenon of film reception becomes more complex and nuanced, and less deterministic and stereotyped, than that imagined by subject positioning theory. Empirical audience research shows that we do not all watch the same movie in the same way, and that audience responses are complexly determined by a long list of variables, such as nation, region, locality, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and, last but certainly not least, individual temperament. When we look at the public reception of The Day After Tomorrow, then, it is clear that different interest groups appropriated the movie in different ways. Both sides of the public debate about climate change interpreted the movie within a realist framework, either positively or negatively, and produced selective readings in order to further their own agendas. Patrick Michaels, one of the minority of scientists who stills rejects the idea of human-created climate change, pointed out the scientific flaws in the movie, and damned Hollywood for irresponsibly playing into the hands of liberal environmentalists by exaggerating the threat of global warming (Michaels 1). Liberal-left environmental campaigners also understood that the movie’s foundation in science was flawed. However, they found its scientific exaggerations and inaccuracies less important than what they saw as its realistic portrayal of the American government’s denial of the scientific evidence for global warming. As former Vice-President Al Gore put it, ‘there are two sets of fiction to deal with. One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration’s presentation of global warming’ (Mooney 1). Gore joined with the liberal Internet advocacy organization MoveOn. rg, which used the movie’s release as an opportunity to organize a national advocacy campaign on climate change. Senators McCain and Lieberman also used the movie to promote the reintroduction of their Climate Stewardship Act in Congress (Nisbet 1). Greenpeace endorsed the ‘underlying premise’ of the film, that ‘extreme weather events are already on the rise, and g lobal warming can be expected to make them more frequent and more severe’. It summed up its response to the movie with the line: ‘Fear is justified’ (Greenpeace 1-2). The use of this movie to encourage environmental debate suggests that it is perhaps only if Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow are people’s sole, or even main, source of information on the environment that we should worry. As Sylvia Mayer argues, Hollywood environmentalist movies ‘have the potential to contribute to the development of an ‘environmentally informed sense of self’ that is characterised by an awareness of environmental threats, by the wish to gain more effective knowledge about them and by a disposition to participate actively in efforts to remedy the problem’ (Mayer 107). In this respect, a classical, Hollywood-style narrative does not necessarily inculcate or reinforce a feeling a complacency or denial it its audience. In any case, no narrative can be as complex as the reality to which it refers; all art is a process of simplifying, selecting and giving shape to reality. Classical narrative forms and genre movies such as The Day After Tomorrow can focus thought and provide an imaginative and provocative response to environmental crisis. WORKS CITED Adam, Barbara (1998), Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards, Routledge, London and New York. Bell, Art and Streiber, Whitely (1999), The Coming Global Superstorm, Pocket Star Books, New York. Collins, Jim (1989), Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, Routledge, New York and London. Cubitt, Sean (2005), Eco Media, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York. Davis, Mike (1998), Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Henry Holt and Co. , New York. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (2003), Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema, Wallflower Press, London and New York. Emmerich, Roland, director (2004), The Day After Tomorrow, 20th Century Fox, Two-disc DVD. Figlio, Karl (1996). ‘Knowing, loving and hating nature: a psychoanalytic view’ in George Robertson, Melinda Mash, Lisa Tickner, Jon Bird, Barry Curtis and Tim Putnam (eds), FutureNatural: Nature, science, culture, Routledge, London and New York. Greenpeace International (2004). ‘Big screen vs big oil’. http://www. greenpeace. org/international/news/the-day-after-tomorrow, 1-4. Hawken, Paul (1993), The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, HarperCollins, New York. Henson, Robert (2006), The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Rough Guides, London. Huber, Peter (1999), Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists: A Conservative Manifesto, Basic Books, New York. Keane, Stephen (2001), Disaster Movies, Wallflower Press, London. Kerridge, Richard (1998), ‘Introduction’, in Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammels (eds), Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature. Zed Books, London and New York. King, Geoff (2000), Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster, London and New York, I. B. Tauris. Lieserowitz, Anthony A (2004), ‘Before and After The Day After Tomorrow: A U. S. study of climate change risk perception. ‘ Environment. 46 (9), 22-37. www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_9_46/ai_n856541/print, 1-12. Mayer, Sylvia (2006), ‘Teaching Hollywood Environmentalist Movies: The Example of The Day After Tomorrow’, in Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson (eds), Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Trier, WVT. Mellencamp, Patricia (1990), ‘TV Time and Catastrophe, or Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Television’, in Logics of Television, ed. Patricia Mellencamp, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Michaels, Patrick J. (2004), ‘Apocalypse Soon? No, but This Movie (And Democrats) Hope You’ll Think So. ‘ The Washington Post, May 16th 2004, B01. www. washingtonpost. com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28338-2004May14? language=printer Mooney, Chris (2004), ‘Learning From Nonsense? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/doubtandabout/global-warming Nachmanoff, Jeffrey (2004), ‘Jeffrey Nachmanoff on The Day After Tomorrow’. http:// www. amazon. co. uk/gp/feature. html. Nisbet, Matthew (2004), ‘Evaluating the Impact of The Day After Tomorrow: Can a Blockbuster Film Shape the Public’s Understanding of a Science Controversy? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/ Opie, John and Elliott, Norbert (1996), ‘Tracking the Elusive Jeremiad: The Rhetorical Character of American Environmental Discourse’, in James G. Cantrill and Christine L. Oravec (eds), The Symbolic Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Place, Janey (1978), ‘Women in Film Noir’, in E. Ann Kaplan (ed), Women in Film Noir. BFI, London. Prince, Stephen (1992), Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film. Praeger, New York. Reusswig, Fritz, Scwarzkopf, Julia and Pohlenz, Philipp (2004), ‘Double Impact: The Climate Blockbuster ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and its impact on the German Cinema Public. ‘ PIK Report 92, Potsdam, 1-61. http://www. pik-potsdam. de/research/publications/pikereports/summary-report-n-92 Rodowick, D. N. (1999), The Crisis of Political Modernism: Criticism and Ideology in Contemporary Film Theory, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago. Sontag, Susan (2001), Against Interpretation, Vintage, London. Stam, Robert, Burgoyne, Robert and Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy (1992), New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, post-structuralism and beyond, Routledge, London and New York. Williams, Linda (1998), ‘Melodrama Revisited’, in Nick Browne (ed), Refiguring American Film Genres, University of California Press, London. Yacowar, Maurice (1986), ‘The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre’, in Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader, University of Texas Press, Austin. How to cite Day After Tomorrow, Essay examples

Sociology The Comparative Method Sociologists Have Embraced What Is Kn

Sociology The Comparative Method Sociologists have embraced what is known as the comparative method as the most efficient way to expose taken-for-granted 'truths' or laws that people have adopted. But what is this comparative method and how does it work? Are there any advantages/disadvantages to exposing these false 'truths'. What forms or variations of the comparative method exist? In the pages to follow I will attempt to give you some insight and understanding of what the comparative method is, and how it works. The comparative method, simply put, is the process of comparing two things (in our case societies, or the people that make up society) and seeing if the result of the comparison shows a difference between the two. The comparative method attempts to dereify (the process of exposing misinterpreted norms. Norms that society consider natural and inevitable characteristics of human existence) reified (the human created norms or 'truths') beliefs. Obviously there are various way s in which a nomi (a labeled, sometime constructed, norm or truth) can be exposed. Which form of the comparative method should one use however? The answer, whichever one applies to the 'truth' in question. For example, you certainly would not do a cross-gender form of comparison if you wished to expose whether or not homosexuality has always been feared and looked down upon by most people throughout history. No, rather you would perform a historical comparison of two or more different societies to see if these beliefs always existed, or, whether or not this is a newly constructed belief. Let's look at little more closely at the above mentioned historical comparison and see how the comparative method works with a specific example. There is no question that in today's western society there is a lot of fear and trepidation towards people who are labeled 'homosexual'. The question we will attempt to answer however is whether or not it has always been like this and is this a universal t ruth. In ancient Greek societies people had a very different opinion of men that slept with men. For example, it was considered quite an honor for a family with a young boy under the age of 10, to be given the privilege on an older man of high society taking their son into his house. The young boy would go and live with this older man. The older man would have sex with the young boy on a regular basis until the boy developed facial hair. It was not until then that the boy was considered a man. Society thought that an older mans, of great reputation, semen would help the boy develop into a fine young man. Once the boy developed the facial hair, the sex between the two would stop. The older man's job was finished. Obviously this would be considered an atrocious and disgusting act these days. The older man in this case would certainly go to jail for the 'crimes' that he had committed. However, in Ancient Greece this was not only considered perfectly normal, but as I already stated, it was an honor and a gift that not every boy was 'lucky' enough to be given. Therefore, we can conclude from this comparison that homophobia, as we know it, is not a natural truth, nor is it a universal belief. Rather it is a socially constructed belief that many people have taken for granted as an inevitable part of human existence. It is important at this point to clarify something however. It is said that the role of the sociologist is a descriptive one as opposed to a prescriptive one. That is to say that the sociologist should describe the various practices, customs and structures that exist in various societies rather than suggest to people which one is actually the correct belief or the 'real' truth. Cross-gender comparisons is another commonly used comparison used to reveal socially constructed truths. In Carol Gilligan's book 'In a different voice' we find a fine example of a cross-gender comparison. She states that most people believe that the majority of people, both men and women, view morale issues in the same way. However, through empirical data collection, Carol Gilligan concludes that this is not most often