The Importance of Questioning

Norwegian school in its’ current state offers students education from a broad specter of subjects to choose from. Each subject serves its’ own special competencies; however, they all have something in common. Throughout all school courses, the general objective lies within improving and evolving the students. Every day we should obviously be gaining knowledge of our chosen subjects, but that knowledge alone is not always sufficient.

With the Internet having become a meeting place uniting everyone in the world, it has also become the world’s largest knowledge base.  Growing up in the 21^st century, we have had open access to the sources of the Internet for a long time. Generally, neither posting nor reading is restricted, making some sources reliable, and some not. Therefore, believing everything one finds on the Internet is not proper education. The critical mindset is thus of utmost relevance in the current struggle for knowledge, and it should be prioritized. In addition to securing correct education, this direction of learning requires students to think for themselves, encouraging independence, which is a valued trait.

The digital world is in constant development, and we believe that it has become a suitable place for learning English. Our English class is participating in a project with other English classes across the globe. The project is based upon that all the participating classes are sharing the same learning technique: blogging. Unlike traditional English education, The restrictions on what we can write about are not very strict, opening up for endless potential, and we can learn so much from each other. While we are reading English at all times, we are also reading about other students’ interests. Who knows, maybe what we read will intrigue us enough to take actual enjoyment from our reading?

My In-depth Project

Water: the final Guardian

Water, also known as H₂O, is amazing. Covering 70% of our planet’s surface it is one of the most common substances in the world, but at the same time it can in many ways be considered as our most valuable resource. Its' many unique properties carry limitless potential, allowing the substance to work as a crucial participant in many natural processes. Life as we know it would be unimaginable without it. Nevertheless, many take this resource for granted. They are unaware that their casual actions can have long-term, or even permanent destructive consequences affecting natural processes that keep our planet stable. The problem of redundant consumption is a perfect example. While it is literally frowned upon by many in our society, it is gradually consuming our planet, becoming a greater problem for each day that passes by. I think the lack of attention towards these problems is questionable. I wish to elaborate on some of these problems and their possible outcomes.

With the increasing amounts of pollution, the Earth’s average temperature is rising. This is demolishing several natural processes that are fundamental in supporting the planet’s stability. On each of these fields, water is fighting as our final guardian, the last barrier separating Earth from its demise.

[1]One of these battlefields is located in the tundra of Siberia.  Throughout the ages, thousands of tons of methane have been stored within the permafrost. The methane has been trapped in there due to similar circumstances as oil and other gas instances; the tedious decomposition of organic materials. Storages like these are naturally made in order to get rid of excess materials that do not have a place in our planet’s current state. The methane is not meant to be released, as it was stored to relieve stress from the atmosphere. However, the continuous increase in temperature is threatening the permafrost of the Siberian tundra to melt. [2]Being the most powerful greenhouse gas, the methane release would result in devastating consequences to our atmosphere, and cause a massive snowball effect: from gradually increasing the greenhouse effect with our more “casual” carbon dioxide emissions, we would suddenly have multiplied it several times from the massive methane release. Worst case scenario: the average temperature could raise high enough to make the planet uninhabitable.

[3]The other battlefield is located on our planet’s poles, and it revolves around water melting as well. We are already seeing decreases in the average ice volume in glaciers. This is caused by global warming, which is making the polar climate warmer. Shards of these glaciers, also known as ice bergs, are continuously breaking off, sailing away into the ocean. These ice bergs eventually melt into liquid water, water which does not belong in the ocean. If the glaciers melt completely, which is not unlikely given the mentioned circumstances above, it is estimated that several countries will be flooded as a result of the water level increase. Additionally, the water stored in the glaciers is fresh, and the amount could possibly be enough to disturb the balance of salt and fresh water in the ocean. If the disturbance is strong enough, it might permanently cancel the natural production of several different water currents. The Gulf Stream is especially relevant to us Norwegians, being a source of heat that is vital to maintaining our relatively mild climate, despite us being located in short proximity to the North Pole. Interrupting it is estimated to remove all seasons except winter in Norway and other afflicted countries.

As mentioned, we are constantly contributing to a reduced state of the world through excessive consumption. We are practicing an unsustainable development, placing our current “needs” before the world’s. I believe the problem lies here, in our mentality. Excluding people that are living obliviously to the world’s environmental state, the mentality of always wanting to please our current needs is far too common. This way we are slowly pushing our planet towards desolation. At the same time, this cannot be solved by individuals changing their lifestyle alone. In order to create a noticeable impact, measures on a collective scale are required. This introduces another problem. People are required to reduce the quality of their lifestyles in order to contribute to a change that will only be possible if a huge number of people participate. Logically speaking, a single person’s contribution is therefore very insignificant, making mentalities like “Nobody will notice if I hold on to my redundant consumption” easy to assume. Furthermore, people will think about this and ask themselves why they should reduce their lifestyle when their fellow commoners are not?

As you can see, we are facing problems that have the potential of making devastating changes to the planet. At the same time it seems like we are pretending the problem is not there, or that it will eventually be solved by itself. We are currently in need of a solution, but it is not an easy task to drastically influence the minds of so many people.  Water is our final guardian, fighting valiantly for us to see another day. At the same time, we choose to ignore these problems, and wait obliviously for our demise instead. Our current average consumption is not even close to supporting a sustainable development, and at this rate we might have to face the destructive consequences. This is terrible enough in itself, but even worse is that we, who are causing the world’s destruction, are not even aware of it.

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[1] Arctic Methane Storages

[2] Greenhouse Gasses

[3] Pole Ice Melting

Edward Snowden

In June 2013, Edward Snowden had the entire world gasping in surprise as he leaked highly classified information about the US government during interviews with The Guardian and The Washington Post. Now, as a former NSA contractor, Snowden finds himself in an extremely dangerous position. He has become forced to seek asylum in Russia, and interviews with anonymous officials from the US government have resulted in direct death threats to the so-called traitor. Nevertheless, he says that he has not lost any sleep whatsoever. Snowden is confident in the righteousness of his actions, supporting them with saying that he is serving the people's interest by revealing governmental abuse.

During his interview with the german television channel NDR, Snowden states that national intelligence organizations have come together as one, collecting and trading sensitive information between eachother. This way, the countries involved can work their way around laws, specifically among spying and lobbyism. Furthermore, Snowden mentions that the US government is in possesion of the means needed to collect and preserve any sort of information. In an example, he says that they can record a single person's general behavior and network activity in order to create a so-called "fingerprint". With this fingerprint they can accurately track, locate, and monitor the person on any given location in the world.

The leaks that Snowden has revealed are definately frightening. They let us know that even the US, a presumed role-model for other countries, is involved in illegal activities, and is even lying about them to its' population. Despite his actions, Snowden states that he is not a traitor, as he gave all of his information to the American public. He says that if they see issues in the information given, their enemy is the government, not him. I quote him from this interview where he says: "If I am a traitor, who did I betray?" He considers himself an enemy of the government's abusive actions, and an advocate of the people. He will never rest, nor be safe, until the abusive governmental systems have changed.

Sources:
Interview with Edward Snowden by NDR
Wikipedia Article

My In-depth Project: Intro

Now, we have been assigned to write a detailed article about a topic of our choice. It is called the "In-depth Project" and we will be working on it over the coming weeks. I have chosen to write about water. Water is very important in our world, working as a crucial participant in many natural processes. The properties of water are many, providing limitless potential to the substance. These properties are what makes water amazing, and, interesting. It can in many ways be considered as the source of life on Earth, and it is therefore severely important to us. That is why I have decided to write about water. Hopefully, it will be interesting.

My Reading of The White Tiger

Double Entry Journal

Paragraph 1:

“Go to Old Delhi, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundred of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.”

I picked this paragraph because I believe it briefly presents the message of the book. The people of India are trapped in a state of everlasting poverty, which the author appropriately compares to the situation of the chickens in the markets of Old Delhi.

Paragraph 2:

“These are the three main diseases of this country, sir: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. This last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in ... Would they do it this time? Would they beat the Great Socialist and win the elections? Had they raised enough money of their own, and bribed enough policemen, and bought enough fingerprints of their own, to win? Like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra, the voters discuss the elections in Laxmangarh.”

The reason i chose this paragraph is that it directly pinpoints a severe problem in not only the Indian society, but in most struggling societies in general. This paragraph shows just how easily corruption can lead countries into terrible states of injustice and even autocratic governments.

Varietes in English

The English language is today, and has for a long time been, the most widely spoken language in the world. And it is growing steadily. Trends and graphs from studies show that European countries, especially the smaller nations, are the ones learning English the most efficiently. Meanwhile, power nations like Spain, France and China are either struggling or actually declining in their English development, even though they are investing massive amounts of money in the subject. The causes of these unreasonable results are not always easy to accurately determine. However, there are some suggestive ideas that could potentially at least be contributing to the strangeness.

The first idea is, in my opinion, very logical, and thus the most probable as well. If you directly compare the struggling and the excelling nations by both geometrical size and native spoken language, you'll immediately discover vast differences. People living in small countries, speaking languages spoken uncommonly on a global basis, gain a natural attraction to English because of communicational demands. The large countries with vastly spoken languages follow a similar trend, but in the opposite direction. They do not feel as if they need to learn English. So basically, this idea relies on that the cause is somewhere within the motivation to learn English.

The other idea revolves around the wealth of the nations. It is a fact that wealth is not equally spread across the world. First of all, spending more money on English education usually gives better results. At the same time, globalization is greater in the wealthier countries due to Internet affordability and availability. Notice that China has placed strict limits to Internet accessibility, preventing the population from communicating with other countries. Furthermore, most Internet activities are based on the English language. Put two and two together and you see that Internet makes for globalization and then communcation in English. More communication in English makes for better English speakers, obviously!

I want to end this post by displaying the sources and statistics that i have been referring to:.

Statistics for English Knowledgeability from: http://www.ef.no/__/~/media/efcom/epi/2014/full-reports/ef-epi-2013-report-master-new.pdf

Sources:

Statistics and facts: http://www.ef.no/__/~/media/efcom/epi/2014/full-reports/ef-epi-2013-report-master-new.pdf

More facts: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/english?utm_source=feedburner

Film Review: The Great Debaters

Today's blogpost is about the film "The Great Debaters", which we have watched in class today. The film takes place in the USA around the 1930s, and it revolves around racial segregation and oppression. The main characters of the film are playing reflections of actual persons, so the story is partly true.

During the period of time that the film is displaying, USA is struggling with several problems, among the stock market crash. The film is focused on the current problems with oppression of the black population. In Texas, white farmers are lynching black people, only because they are black. The white are struggling to accept the black as equals. The situation and atmosphere of the movie is very tense, as one runs the risk of being killed for opposing the oppression. Changes are necessary, but it seems impossible to implement them in a peaceful way.

The film shows us how the main characters manage to make a big impact on this war towards equality by joining the local debate team. By winning debates against other school teams they eventually reach the national masters, and they manage to display justice for the black population through national radio.