The Polar Problem

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If one’s source of environmental news was solely the major news networks, they would know all about the melting of polar sea ice, the plight of the polar bear, and the suffering of the Inuit people. While each of these is a tragic consequence of global warming, the news media is steadfast in keeping the attention away from home. Evidence of global warming, however, can be found globally and the polar bear is definitely not the only animal faced with endangerment and extinction. 

Known insect species number around 900,000. However, it is estimated that roughly 3.4 million species exist. While totally unnoticed by the news media, with the exception of Africanized bees and the problems they cause, “a third of the world’s crop production depends on pollination by wild insects” and the loss these insects would cause “117 billion dollars worth of U.S. crops to fail.” The colony collapse disorder plaguing honey bees  the last few years has been a definite cause for concern, but you wouldn’t know it watching MSNBC. Bees are still portrayed by the media as nuisances and dangers. While MSNBC is focused on the polar regions and the Northwest Passage, where they can stir up a little debate about untapped oil resources, it takes smaller news organizations  and PBS to call attention to a problem literally taking place in our backyard. And even when a cure for CCD may have been found, you’ll never read or hear about it unless you Google it.

But if you want to talk global warming, the Polar bears and sea ice have nothing on the amphibians. Ponds once teeming with frogs are now littered with their corpses. Their permeable skin makes them particularly vulnerable to changes in the climate and the Chytrid fungus. This fungus, some scientists argue, spreads more easily as waters warm up. Amphibians are often likened to the canary in a coal mine. If the canary dies, there’s something wrong. Unfortunately, a third of amphibious species have already been lost. I think we have a problem.

On Saturday, April 18, 2009, a frog made it on to the front page of the Springfield Republican. The story of an accidental breeding which yielded one mature yellow-banded poison dart frog in captivity at the Springfield Science Museum began with an obvious piece of information that is shameful to even call news. “Just touching one may be fatal to a human, but the Springfield Science Museum has evidence that yellow-banded poison dart frogs are anything but dangerous to each other’s touch.” Did we really need to have a tadpole born in captivity to know that? Besides, readers are informed later in the article that poison dart frogs do not create the neurotoxins secreted through their skin in captivity because “they acquire them from their diet in the wild.” Finally, on page A5 in eleventh paragraph of the story, it is noted that many poison dart frogs are endangered, but not the yellow-banded poison dart frog. It is a little bit weird that we are expected to celebrate the birth of a frog in captivity that isn’t even endangered, when amphibians all over the world are croaking (and I don’t mean the sound they make) because of a fungus and our pesticide use. And like the rest of the news media, the writer has to feed our need for sensationalism by telling us of the poison dart frog’s cannibalistic tendencies, just like the polar bears. Well, this may seem unreal to our pampered population, but every other species in the world is struggling for existence, and whether they have to eat thier young to keep from starving or to protect their gene pool, it shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a barbaric activity – especially when, for the most part, it’s caused by us.

So while the reigning news media warn us of polar sea ice melting and cannibalistic polar bears, unable to hunt effectively, it is up to us to realize that the problem is much more vast than just that. The polar regions may act as “an air conditioner” for Earth, but insects, like the honey bee, keep our stomachs full. The demise of amphibians will soon be our own and the insistence of the news media in keeping the focus of global warming on ice is making the problem seem less urgent and further from home than it really is. I’m not saying don’t mourn the polar bear. Just don’t forget about the frog and honey bee.

No Jobs Class of 2009

Is this news to you? It’s not to me. I’ve been looking for jobs, I know there’s not much out there. The last thing I need is Lee Cox telling me, “there’s hope, but at the same time it kinda feels hopeless,” (Man, Lee really gets this deconstruction stuff). If that statement was meant to be useful in whatever way, it wasn’t. In fact, there’s not much usefulness in this report except for the fact that if you start Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on the third time Meredith Vieira blinks, it synchs up perfectly with the video. It looks like Lee Cox is dancing to “Money” (how ironic) and it is particularly striking when “Us and Them” plays during the Meredith Vieira – Christine Bozan interview. But if you have a burned copy of the album, don’t bother. It only works with the vinyl.

“Time” was probably the most depressing song they could have chosen for the piece, although it does perfectly predict where I will be in a few short weeks: “kickin’ around on a piece of ground in my hometown,” while I “fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.” That song used to be great when I was in high school and had time to waste. But NBC had to go and give it a new and terrible meaning. Let’s hope Pink Floyd isn’t too prophetic: “And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” Thanks NBC. 

Did you hear that? I don’t know what else this Eric Sorenson guy is saying, but he just said that the class of 2009 consists of the most talented young people in history. Wow…I’m beaming with pride. With all my talent and the forming of the “perfect storm,” maybe I can just hit those Hollywood hills.

Why is it that every news story on job loss has to have one person who used to help people find jobs now searching for a job of their own? Are we supposed to be surprised? Obviously if there aren’t any jobs to recruit for a recruiter won’t be in business. Are we supposed to marvel at how clever the media are? I guess it’s kind of ironic that Brian Gerard, who spent 20 years finding jobs for recent graduates, is now searching for a job of his own. But it certainly isn’t informative. Why don’t they interview people from businesses in the sectors that are actually hiring so those of us ready to graduate can have a clue of what they’re looking for? Or maybe, the media could show someone who has found a job? In the world according to the major networks, everyone is unemployed and struggling. Without money, according to the media, we are all hopeless wanderers with no direction in our lives. And so what if people have to settle for less pay. God forbid someone has to cut down on their Dunkin’ Donuts consumption, trips to the tanning bed, and acryllic nails.

So this lady at the end is a career coach. She’s giving all this advice about finding a job but everyone knows it’s easier said than done. It’s like a basketball coach telling a bunch of fourth graders tripping over their shoelaces to run a pick and roll. It all works on the playsheet, but it’s a disaster on the court. I can picture her giving some inspirational speech before an interview but then making me run suicides when I blow the opportunity. Or maybe she’s the type that just yells nonsense and blows a whistle in my ear as I Google the ever-specific search term “jobs.” It reminds me of this tennis coach I had that was blind in one eye and grossly out of shape. He tried to teach us how to serve, but he couldn’t do it himself. Consequently, I couldn’t serve well until three years later…hopefully it doesn’t take that long to find a job.

I guess the advice at the end of the piece may have some value, if you make it that far before hiding under your covers and never coming out. Ya, after four years of college and two degrees I can’t wait to work for the sales department for a development company. That’s such good advice that it’s not only not what I went to college for but it’s totally against my ideology. From my point of view, we are far too overdeveloped. As I write this, however, an evil plot is forming in my head: I’ll sabotage some development company by working “for” them. Hahahaha…woe be to the sorry soul who hires me. 

Well, obviously I have no time to continue writing this blog. I have to go look for jobs. Hopefully the development company I’m about to apply to won’t read this. Maybe I’ll get lucky and I’ll get some office job licking envelopes and stapling papers together for the rest of my life. 

“The time is gone, college is over, thought I’d something more to say.”