'' > &
Nikki
FOX
Read a book
4C
When it heats up outside, it’s a good time to dig into some literature
FOX is a junior news-edi
torial major & and a Daily
Nebraskan photographer,
As the summer gets hotter and
merciless in its humidity, I have only"
to say congratulations!
Congratulations for those who sur
vive and thrive in this weather, like
myself. I find that while others’ lazi
ness kicks in, I have abundant energy.
It may seem that I am patting myself
on the ol’ back, but I reassure you that
I’m not.
Let me get to the point. In this
“summer madness,” as Shakespeare
would say, there lies a phenomenon.
The phenomenon of being active.
Apologies for the tangent.
Each person has his or her own
interests for passing time.
I have taken up the habit of read
ing this summer.
Imagine this. A middle-aged
woman with deep lines of character
surrounding her eyes, mouth and
brow. The creases are made from dif
ferent aspects of life: the sun, a broad
smile, tears of sorrow, endless
thought and bold speech.
She’s sitting in the park on a
bench or under a tree’s shade. Next to
her is her mug of coffee and a huge
bag stuffed like a pillow. Inside the
tote bag are many books.
This woman is the type of person
who can never finish a book when she
sees another that she must start read
ing at that moment. So she’ll carry
them all around with her just in case
she’s in the mood for a different book.
In her mouth is a generic cigarette
with a inch-long ash dangling from
the end, and it is waiting for the
slightest movement to break free. The
woman seems not to notice since
she’s consumed in her book.
This will be me. Or is me, just
knock off a few years.
Currently I carry five books in
my backpack all the time, besides my
usual class texts. Do you want to hear
what they are? But of course you
would!
First is Black Elk Speaks by John
G. Neihardt. You can find Neihardt, a
native Nebraskan, in the State Capitol
building as a statue.
Black %lk Speaks is a spiritual
book for all the Native American
Indians, but especially the Ogalalla
Sioux. Black Elk, the man inter
viewed for the book in the 30s, was
Crazy Horse’s second cousin.
Black Elk spoke of sacred things
to Neihardt, such as how the pipe was
important in prayer, the history of the
Ogalalla when he was a boy, the
visions he had his entire life, the
importance of Mother Nature and the
ways of the Native American.
This book is meaningful because
it is a part of history sometimes too
easily forgotten. Anyone wishing to
follow other people’s journeys and
learn from them; read this book!
Second is a book of Jim
Morrison’s poetry called Wilderness.
Much of the contents here are
strange. Words that have no similari
ties are bunched together. And you,
the reader, have to figure the meaning
out. But I think that is all part of the
fun involved when tackling a book
like this.
Third is Even Cowgirls Get the
Blues by Tom Robbins. A wonderful
satire of reality, this fast-paced book
makes you hate the time when you
have to shut it.
Sissy Hankshaw is the main char
acter and you follow her around in
her life of hitchhiking adventures.
This book is filled with wit and
laughs, and reminds me that everyone
has a tireless spirit alive within them.
Fourth and fifth are by the same
author, Jack Kerouac, the great man
who helped start the beatnik era in
San Francisco more than 40 years
ago. And it hasn’t died out yet.
A fj-iend turned me on to his poet
ry last year. And I think that his
description of Kerouac’s writing
serves justice. He said that Kerouac
wrote with a stream of conciseness.
So, don’t waste your long, hot
days, sweat out a good book.
Anthony
COLMAN
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People need to do something about global warming before it’s too late
COLMAN is a sophomore general studies
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
I’ve always been a worrier and a pessimist I was a
child of die Reagan era, growing up in constant fear of
thermonuclear Armageddon. So, as a child I gave myself
an ulcer worrying about the seemingly inevitable threat of
a nuclear holocaust, or some similarly dramatic global
disaster. When all the other kids were outplaying, I was
fretting about the end of humanity.
“Hey, Anthony, wanna play kickball?”
“No, thanks. Gotta go hit die Maalox.”
So naturally, while everyone else just passes it off to
El Nino, I’m terrified that die unusual weather we’ve been
having is actually an early sign of catastrophic changes in
global weather patterns.
Forget about El Nino, I’m terrified that we’ve trig
gered a process of global warming that will trigger the
next ice age.
We’ve already done so much damage to the earth’s
atmosphere. For over a century, industrialized nations
have mindlessly pumped extraordinary quantities of heat
absorbing gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and
CFC’s into the earth’s shallow atmosphere. Since the
industrial revolution, Carbon dioxide gases emitted into
the atmosphere have increased by 27 percent. And the
amount of methane has more than doubled.
Global warming isn’t just something that could hap
pen—it’s already happening on a measurable scale.
If we don’t act to reduce our emissions of greenhouse
gases, it’s predicted that global temperature could rise 2 to
6 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. Just a few
degrees difference in die average global temperature can
mean drastic and unpredictable climate changes.
Global wanning isn’t like turning on a heater. We can’t
just turn it off afterwards if the earth warms ud too fast for
comfort Once we emit greenhouse gases into the atmos
phere, most of them remain there for decades, continuing
to trap heat ITwe wait until all foe consequences become
obvious, it could be too late to do much about them.
Our forecasts of the effects of increases of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere focus on global warming and
subsequent melting of the ice caps. However, we ought to
consider that changes in weather patterns could, quite eas
ily and rapidly, flip us back into another ice age.
Ice ages have occurred at widely spaced intervals of
geologic time since the Precambrian period During the
last ice age, commonly referred to as the Pleistocene ice
and interglacial climatic states on a time scale of about 10
to 100 thousand years.
The causes for ice ages and the glacial cycles within
an ice age are most likely the result of a complicated
Comparable degrees of change in the delicate balance
of atmospheric gases such as what we’re witnessing have
triggered the onset and recession of the earth’s ice ages for
more than 2.5 billion years.
The temperature, sea level and carbon dioxide levels
at the onset of die last ice age, 1.5 million years ago, were
similar to what they are today, when abruptly, in a 100
year period, the earthVsea level shot up 20 feet, and then
plummeted down 50 feet in a cataclysm hat would be
unimaginable to humanity today.
Perhaps as recently as a century ago, even a rapid suc
cession of changes so drastic as the onset of a new ice age
would have been merely inconvenient Societies could have
dealt with the changes, and with relatively small losses.
Societies were still largely, if not primarily agrarian. A
much smaller portion of the population lived in and
depended on cities. Societies woe much smaller-scaled,
and people were more independent and generally lived
closer to the earth.
Today however, drastic changes in global conditions
could be catastrophic, most especially in the developed
nations, where only a very small fraction of the popula
tion would be capable of even supporting themselves
without their economic system to rely on.
Perhaps for humankind to suffer such catastrophic
events wouldn’t actually be so bad, though. It seems we
need to slow down a bit; to take a time-out and reevaluate
our ways of doing and living, because those ways are
rapidly destroying Spaceship Earth. Humans could recon
sider the real values and costs of industrialization, materi
alism and unchecked growth. Perhaps people could
reconsider what are the things that hi mums really require
to live rich, fulfilling lives. For humankind to suffer cata
strophic levels of destruction could allow us an opportuni
ty to rebuild societies in a manner that would be more
practical, less wasteful, and more attractive.
i
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LattarPsHcy
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