You Can’t Fight Mother Nature
My media project entitled You Can’t Fight Mother Nature is based on connections I established while reading Michael Specter’s essay entitled Bigfoot and viewing the YouTube video of George Carlin’s stand-up routine entitled “Saving the Planet” as well as watching the Hollywood movie entitled “Just Add Water”. All three works involved the planet, the environment, and its issues regarding climate change and global warming, which I believe for the most part is happening naturally to our planet earth without the intrusion of mankind.
I started my presentation with a photo from the movie 2001 Space Odyssey where an ape is smashing the bones of an animal to signify the beginning of the so-called carbon footprint on our environment. I then included various photos of natural occurrences that have impacted our planet, without any human interaction in order to demonstrate that long before man, the earth was taking care of its self and impacting it’s self and its future. I depicted the Ice age with a photo of the earth incased into an ice cube and then went into a written slide explaining that all the systems on the planet are evolving and changing since as well as competing since its creation. I then inserted a slide of an hourglass with the sand and trees falling out because the glass was broken and included a quote from George Carlin’s stand-up routine where he says “The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worst then us”. (Carlin) Mr. Carlin makes such an amazing point about the mere fact that the planet has been through the ice age and volcanoes, meteors, what harm could the humans possibly create to beat those acts of nature.
My video presentation furthers progresses into a quote from Michael Specter’s essay entitled “Bigfoot” where the author talks about the fact that the energy expelled to make potatoes at home is far more than if you drove your car to McDonald’s and purchased fries. (Specter) I believe most readers would find that not to be true since traveling to McDonalds in a car you would think would create a larger carbon footprint, but in fact does not. I included a slide where I state that all life needs to evolve and become larger in order to live, that is the whole point of life. Immediately following I again use one of Specter’s quotes that pose the question “How do we alter human behavior significantly to limit global warming? (Specter) The question will remain unanswered in this presentation but does make you think, can you get humans to change all that they have become accustomed to for years and years? A black and white photo depicting just a few of life’s tasty beverages interesting enough was just photographed with the humans feet and legs for a very dramatic effect, of what we would have to sacrifice or think about the packaging. The presentation includes other photos depicting our carbon foot printing as well as a slide containing the following quote; “People on the earth cannot exist without using the resources of the earth. When using these resources waste is always produced.” (University of Portsmouth Dept,. of Electronic & Computer Engineeering) We cannot live without producing some sort of waste, even if you just built a campfire you leave behind ashes, which is a carbon footprint. We think of the bigger things but we must also think of the small things as well.
A photo from the movie Just Add Water (Walsh, Middendorf and Hill) is shown and then a cartoon of a dam and it depicts it that it is man’s Global warming problem. Immediately following a cartoon of gentlemen with their heads buried in the sand exemplifies the town of Trona in their water diversion plight. The fact that the corporations created the problem for the town of Trona’s environment, but yet at the end of the movie it works out that nature comes through and it begins to rain once again and all is well. (Walsh, Middendorf and Hill) George Carlin feels that the environmentalists don’t care really care about the environment they just want to look after themselves and their surroundings (Carlin) in a text slide, following by a advertising photo .of a man with a fish head, with the sort of same angle of Carlin’s head the ad tells the reader to Stop Climate change before it changes you.
Various slides continue, including the famous ending photo from Planet of the Apes where the main character realizes that humankind blew themselves up, and the Apes take over the planet a sort of full circle. I added a photo with a goldfish advising us to save the water and a photo of a toilet with a roll of money as the toilet paper, thus leading up to our own greed and culminating with a photo of a “green” bulb signifying our attempt to change our habits however the bulb creates another environmental problem. The bulb is supposed to use less energy, but in fact contain Mercury and must be disposed properly something I find people don’t realize. This will eventually become an environmental nightmare with the mercury leaching into the ground water. Dams were built to help conserve and make energy but in fact create more carbon and Methane, as the algae rots at bottom.
I took a jab at Former Vice President Al Gore and his huge undertaking of the so-called global warming situation as well as some funny photos and their depiction of carbon footprints and environmental impact. I included a text slide, where George Carlin blasts the people who complain and wonder about their property becoming damaged when there are so close to the danger and yet are worried that they are impacting the earth in a harmful way because of a plastic bag. I include some photos supporting my argument that nature itself is at fault for Global warming as well as the humans carbon footprints. Towards the end of my presentation I make points that mankind is not the only one responsible for the changing planet. In the movie Just Add Water, the townspeople of Trona were victims to the corporation’s greed, but yet it is Mother Nature who controls the rain that finally falls and replenishes the lake. Nature takes care of itself.
In conclusion, the movie, essay, and comedy routine all talk about and show how our environment molds humanity and examples of what we should do and not to do to help, as well as what will happen no matter what, with regards to climate change and global warming. Carlin they way I also do and that is that the planet will continue to take care of itself it has been for billions of years. Specter believes we leave behind our carbon footprint, which seriously affects our future, but does it really? Just Add Water depicts what humans can do if they really they are really pushed into corner and how their environment impacted the community. George Carlin’s routine is right on target, and although Specter blames most of the global warming on humanity, it really is just the planet evolving, and changing all according to its own plan and agenda. Yes, we do contribute to the climate change; we should make changes that reduce greenhouse gases, and be environmental friendly, but we shouldn’t feel too bad that we are causing the earth to become sick and the polar bears to lose their icebergs, it would all be happening anyway, it is Mother Nature and all her glory and wonders.
Works Cited
Just Add Water. Dir. Hart Bocher. Perf. Dylan Walsh, et al. 2008.
Saving the Planet. By George Carlin. Perf. George Carlin. Parmount HBO Live. 27 April 1992.
Specter, Michael. "Bigfoot." Colbert, Elizabeth. The Best American Science and Nature Writing. New York,NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2009. 273 - 292.
University of Portsmouth Dept,. of Electronic & Computer Engineeering. http://mosaic.cnfolio.com/B101CourseworkIndex2007. 25 11 2007. 3 May 2010
