Sample Short Texts for RWS100
Table of Contents
Bleich, California’s Higher Education Debacle.......................................................................... 2
Rifkin, A Change of Heart About Animals ................................................................................ 4
Kristof, War & Wisdom .............................................................................................................. 6
Parry, The Art of Branding a Condition ..................................................................................... 7
Michael Crichton, Excerpt from Intelligence Squared Debate ................................................. 11
Brian Lehrer, Reply to Crichton (Excerpt from Intelligence Squared Debate) ........................ 15
COLLECTION OF SHORT TEXTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE ............................................ 17
Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” .................................................................. 18
Balko, What you eat is your business ....................................................................................... 23
Engler, “Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations” .................................. 25
Bittman, Junk Food ‘Guidelines’ Won’t Help .......................................................................... 29
Brooks, Poetry for Everyday Life ............................................................................................. 32
1
Bleich, California’s Higher Education Debacle
Jeff Bleich, “California's higher-education debacle.” Los Angeles Times, November 04,
2009. Watching the decline of the California State University system from within its boardroom
mirrors the erosion of the California dream.
[1] For nearly six years, I have served on the Board of Trustees of the California State University system
- the last two as its chairman. This experience has been more than just professional; it has been a deeply
personal one. With my term ending soon, I need to share my concern -- and personal pain -- that
California is on the verge of destroying the very system that once made this state great.
[2] I came to California because of the education system. I grew up in Connecticut and attended college
back East on partial scholarships and financial aid. I also worked part time, but by my first year of grad
school, I'd maxed out my financial aid and was relying on loans that charged 14% interest. Being a
lawyer had been my dream, but my wife and I could not afford for me to go to any law schools back
East.
[3] I applied to UC Berkeley Law School because it was the only top law school in the U.S. that we
could afford. It turned out to be the greatest education I have ever received. And I got it because the
people of California -- its leaders and its taxpayers -- were willing to invest in me.
[4] For the last 20 years, since I graduated, I have felt a duty to pay back the people of this state. When I
had to figure out where to build a practice, buy a home, raise my family and volunteer my time and
energy, I chose California. I joined a small California firm -- Munger, Tolles & Olson -- and eventually
became a partner. This year, American Lawyer magazine named us the No. 1 firm in the nation.
[5] That success is also California's success. It has meant millions of dollars in taxes paid to California,
hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer time donated to California, houses built and investments
made in California, and hundreds of talented people attracted to work in and help California.
[6] My story is not unique. It is the story of California's rise from the 1960s to the 1990s. Millions of
people stayed here and succeeded because of their California education. We benefited from the foresight
of an earlier generation that recognized it had a duty to pay it forward.
[7] That was the bargain California made with us when it established the California Master Plan for
Higher Education in 1960. By making California the state where every qualified and committed person
can receive a low-cost and high-quality education, all of us benefit. Attracting and retaining the leaders
of the future helps the state grow bigger and stronger. Economists found that for every dollar the state
invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return.
[8] So as someone who has lived the California dream, there is nothing more painful to me than to see
this dream dying. It is being starved to death by a public that thinks any government service -- even
public education -- is not worth paying for. And by political leaders who do not lead but instead give in
to our worst, shortsighted instincts.
[9] The ineffective response to the current financial crisis reflects trends that have been hurting
California public education for years. To win votes, political leaders mandated long prison sentences that
forced us to stop building schools and start building prisons. This has made us dumber but no safer.
Leaders pandered by promising tax cuts no matter what and did not worry about how to provide basic
services without that money. Those tax cuts did not make us richer; they've made us poorer. To remain in
office, they carved out legislative districts that ensured we would have few competitive races and leaders
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with no ability or incentive to compromise. Rather than strengthening the parties, it pushed both parties
to the fringes and weakened them.
[10] When the economy was good, our leaders failed to make hard choices and then faced disasters like
the energy crisis. When the economy turned bad, they made no choices until the economy was worse.
[11] In response to failures of leadership, voters came up with one cure after another that was worse than
the disease -- whether it has been over-reliance on initiatives driven by special interests, or term limits
that remove qualified people from office, or any of the other ways we have come up with to avoid
representative democracy.
[12] As a result, for the last two decades we have been starving higher education. California's public
universities and community colleges have half as much to spend today as they did in 1990 in real dollars.
In the 1980s, 17% of the state budget went to higher education and 3% went to prisons. Today, only 9%
goes to universities and 10% goes to prisons.
[13] The promise of low-cost education that brought so many here, and kept so many here, has been
abandoned. Our K-12 system has fallen from the top ranks 30 years ago to 47th in the nation in per-pupil
spending. And higher education is now taking on water.
[14] At every trustees meeting over the last six years, I have seen the signs of decline. I have listened to
the painful stories of faculty who could not afford to raise a family on their salaries; of students who are
on the financial edge because they are working two jobs, taking care of a child and barely making it with
our current tuitions. I have seen the outdated buildings and the many people on our campuses who feel
that they have been forgotten by the public and Sacramento.
[15] What made California great was the belief that we could solve any problem as long as we did two
things: acknowledged the problem and worked together. Today that belief is missing. California has not
acknowledged that it has fundamentally abandoned the promise of the Master Plan for Higher Education.
And Californians have lost the commitment to invest in one another. That is why we have lost our way in
decision after decision.
[16] Today, everyone in our system is making terrible sacrifices. Employee furloughs, student fee
increases and campus-based cuts in service and programs are repulsive to all of us. Most important, it is
unfair. The cost of education should be shared by all of us because the education of our students benefits
every Californian.
[17] We've gone from investing in the future to borrowing from it. Every time programs and services are
cut for short-term gain, it is a long-term loss.
[18] The solution is simple, but hard. It is what I'm doing now. Tell what is happening to every person
who can hear it. Beat this drum until it can't be ignored. Shame your neighbors who think the
government needs to be starved and who are happy to see Sacramento paralyzed. We have to wake up
this state and get it to rediscover its greatness. Because if we don't, we will be the generation that let the
promise for a great California die.
3
Rifkin, A Change of Heart About Animals
They are more like us than we imagined, scientists are finding
Jeremy Rifkin, Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2003. Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech
Century (Tarcher Putnam, 1998), is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in
Washington, D.C.
[1] Though much of big science has centered on breakthroughs in biotechnology, nanotechnology and
more esoteric questions like the age of our universe, a quieter story has been unfolding behind the scenes
in laboratories around the world — one whose effect on human perception and our understanding of life
is likely to be profound.
[2] What these researchers are finding is that many of our fellow creatures are more like us than we had
ever imagined. They feel pain, suffer and experience stress, affection, excitement and even love — and
these findings are changing how we view animals.
[3] Strangely enough, some of the research sponsors are fast food purveyors, such as McDonald's, Burger
King and KFC. Pressured by animal rights activists and by growing public support for the humane
treatment of animals, these companies have financed research into, among other things, the emotional,
mental and behavioral states of our fellow creatures.
[4] Studies on pigs' social behavior funded by McDonald's at Purdue University, for example, have found
that they crave affection and are easily depressed if isolated or denied playtime with each other. The lack
of mental and physical stimuli can result in deterioration of health.
[5] The European Union has taken such studies to heart and outlawed the use of isolating pig stalls by
2012. In Germany, the government is encouraging pig farmers to give each pig 20 seconds of human
contact each day and to provide them with toys to prevent them from fighting.
[6] Other funding sources have fueled the growing field of study into animal emotions and cognitive
abilities.
[7] Researchers were stunned recently by findings (published in the journal Science) on the conceptual
abilities of New Caledonian crows. In controlled experiments, scientists at Oxford University reported
that two birds named Betty and Abel were given a choice between using two tools, one a straight wire, the
other a hooked wire, to snag a piece of meat from inside a tube. Both chose the hooked wire. Abel, the
more dominant male, then stole Betty's hook, leaving her with only a straight wire. Betty then used her
beak to wedge the straight wire in a crack and bent it with her beak to produce a hook. She then snagged
the food from inside the tube. Researchers repeated the experiment and she fashioned a hook out of the
wire nine of out of 10 times.
[8] Equally impressive is Koko, the 300-pound gorilla at the Gorilla Foundation in Northern California,
who was taught sign language and has mastered more than 1,000 signs and understands several thousand
English words. On human IQ tests, she scores between 70 and 95.
[9] Tool-making and the development of sophisticated language skills are just two of the many attributes
we thought were exclusive to our species. Self-awareness is another.
[10] Some philosophers and animal behaviorists have long argued that other animals are not capable of
self-awareness because they lack a sense of individualism. Not so, according to new studies. At the
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Washington National Zoo, orangutans given mirrors explore parts of their bodies they can't otherwise see,
showing a sense of self. An orangutan named Chantek who lives at the Atlanta Zoo used a mirror to
groom his teeth and adjust his sunglasses.
[11] Of course, when it comes to the ultimate test of what distinguishes humans from the other creatures,
scientists have long believed that mourning for the dead represents the real divide. It's commonly believed
that other animals have no sense of their mortality and are unable to comprehend the concept of their own
death. Not necessarily so. Animals, it appears, experience grief. Elephants will often stand next to their
dead kin for days, occasionally touching their bodies with their trunks.
[12] We also know that animals play, especially when young. Recent studies in the brain chemistry of rats
show that when they play, their brains release large amounts of dopamine, a neurochemical associated
with pleasure and excitement in human beings.
[13] Noting the striking similarities in brain anatomy and chemistry of humans and other animals,
Stephen M. Siviy, a behavioral scientist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, asks a question
increasingly on the minds of other researchers. "If you believe in evolution by natural selection, how can
you believe that feelings suddenly appeared, out of the blue, with human beings?"
[14] Until very recently, scientists were still advancing the idea that most creatures behaved by sheer
instinct and that what appeared to be learned behavior was merely genetically wired activity. Now we
know that geese have to teach their goslings their migration routes. In fact, we are finding that learning is
passed on from parent to offspring far more often than not and that most animals engage in all kinds of
learned experience brought on by continued experimentation.
[15] So what does all of this portend for the way we treat our fellow creatures? And for the thousands of
animals subjected each year to painful laboratory experiments? Or the millions of domestic animals raised
under the most inhumane conditions and destined for slaughter and human consumption? Should we
discourage the sale and purchase of fur coats? What about fox hunting in the English countryside, bull
fighting in Spain? Should wild lions be caged in zoos?
[16] Such questions are being raised. Harvard and 25 other U.S. law schools have introduced law courses
on animal rights, and an increasing number of animal rights lawsuits are being filed. Germany recently
became the first nation to guarantee animal rights in its constitution.
[17] The human journey is, at its core, about the extension of empathy to broader and more inclusive domains. At
first, the empathy extended only to kin and tribe. Eventually it was extended to people of like-minded values. In the
19th century, the first animal humane societies were established. The current studies open up a new phase, allowing
us to expand and deepen our empathy to include the broader community of creatures with whom we share the Earth.
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Kristof, War & Wisdom
New York Times Editorial, February 7, 2003. By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
[1] President Bush and Colin Powell have adroitly shown that Iraq is hiding weapons, that Saddam Hussein is a
lying scoundrel and that Iraqi officials should be less chatty on the telephone. But they did not demonstrate that the
solution is to invade Iraq.
[2] If you've seen kids torn apart by machine-gun fire, you know that war should be only a last resort. And we're not there yet. We
still have a better option: containment. That's why in the Pentagon, civilian leaders are gung-ho but many in uniform are leery.
Former generals like Norman Schwarzkopf, Anthony Zinni and Wesley Clark have all expressed concern about the rush to war.
[3] "Candidly, I have gotten somewhat nervous at some of the pronouncements Rumsfeld has made," General Schwarzkopf told
The Washington Post, adding: "I think it is very important for us to wait and see what the inspectors come up with." (The White
House has apparently launched a post-emptive strike on General Schwarzkopf, for he now refuses interviews.)
[4] As for General Zinni, he said of the hawks: "I'm not sure which planet they live on, because it isn't the one that I travel." In an
October speech to the Middle East Institute in Washington, he added: "[If] we intend to solve this through violent action, we're on
the wrong course. First of all, I don't see that that's necessary. Second of all, I think that war and violence are a very last resort."
[5] Hawks often compare Saddam to Hitler, suggesting that if we don't stand up to him today in Baghdad we'll face him tomorrow
in the Mediterranean. The same was said of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom the West saw as the Hitler of the 1950's and
1960's. But as with Nasser the analogy is faulty: Saddam may be as nasty as Hitler, but he is unable to invade his neighbors. His
army has degraded even since the days when Iran fought him to a standstill, and he won't be a threat to us tomorrow; more likely,
he'll be dead.
[6] A better analogy is Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, who used to be denounced as the Hitler of the 1980's. Saddam and Colonel
Qaddafi are little changed since those days, but back then we reviled Mr. Qaddafi — while Don Rumsfeld was charming our man
in Baghdad. In the 1980's Libya was aggressively intervening abroad, trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, losing air
battles with American warplanes and dabbling in terrorism. Its terrorists bombed a Berlin nightclub patronized by American
soldiers and blew up a Pan Am airliner over Scotland. Libya was never a military power on the scale of Iraq but was more
involved in terror; indeed, one could have made as good a case for invading Libya in the 1980's as for invading Iraq today.
[7] But President Ronald Reagan wisely chose to contain Libya, not invade it — and this worked. Does anybody think we would
be better off today if we had invaded Libya and occupied it, spending the last two decades with our troops being shot at by
Bedouins in the desert?
[8] It's true, as President Bush suggested last night, that Saddam is trying to play games with us. But the inspectors proved in the
1990's that they are no dummies; they made headway and destroyed much more weaponry than the U.S. had hit during the gulf
war.
[9] Even if Saddam manages to hide existing weapons from inspectors, he won't be able to refine them. And he won't be able to
develop nuclear weapons.
[10 Nuclear programs are relatively easily detected, partly because they require large plants with vast electrical hookups.
Inspections have real shortcomings, but they can keep Saddam from acquiring nuclear weapons.
[11] Then there's the question of resources. Aside from lives, the war and reconstruction will cost $100 billion to $200 billion.
That bill comes to $750 to $1,500 per American taxpayer, and there are real trade-offs in spending that money.
[12] We could do more for our national security by spending the money on education, or by financing a major campaign to
promote hybrid cars and hydrogen-powered vehicles, and taking other steps toward energy independence.
[13] So while President Bush has eloquently made the case that we are justified in invading Iraq, are we wise to do so? Is this
really the best way to spend thousands of lives and at least $100 billion?
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Parry, The Art of Branding a Condition
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Friedman, “The Power of Green” (Excerpt)
Thomas L. Friedman: “The power of green.” New York Times Magazine, April 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/opinion/15iht-web-0415edgreen-full.5291830.html
[1] One day Iraq, our post-9/11 trauma and the divisiveness of the Bush years will all be behind us — and
America will need, and want, to get its groove back. We will need to find a way to reknit America at
home, reconnect America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global order — as the
beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an idea how. It's called "green."
[2] In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue.
One thing that always struck me about the term "green" was the degree to which, for so many years, it was
defined by its opponents — by the people who wanted to disparage it. And they defined it as "liberal,"
"tree-hugging," "sissy," "girlie-man," "unpatriotic," "vaguely French." Well, I want to rename "green." I
want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think
that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a
new unifying political movement for the 21st century. A redefined, broader and more muscular green
ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge
them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature
and terrorism.
[3] How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they
survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn
of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by
an America with 50 green states — not an America divided between red and blue states.
[4] Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives,
evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us
together and propel us forward. That's why I say: We don't just need the first black president. We need the
first green president. We don't just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental
president. We don't just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a
president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic,
geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real plan to reduce our
dependence on fossil fuels.
[5] After World War II, President Eisenhower responded to the threat of Communism and the "red
menace" with massive spending on an interstate highway system to tie America together, in large part so
that we could better move weapons in the event of a war with the Soviets. That highway system, though,
helped to enshrine America's car culture (atrophying our railroads) and to lock in suburban sprawl and
low-density housing, which all combined to get America addicted to cheap fossil fuels, particularly oil.
Many in the world followed our model.
[6] Today, we are paying the accumulated economic, geopolitical and climate prices for that kind of
America. I am not proposing that we radically alter our lifestyles. We are who we are — including a car
culture. But if we want to continue to be who we are, enjoy the benefits and be able to pass them on to our
children, we do need to fuel our future in a cleaner, greener way. Eisenhower rallied us with the red
menace. The next president will have to rally us with a green patriotism. Hence my motto: "Green is the
new red, white and blue."
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[7] The good news is that after traveling around America this past year, looking at how we use energy and
the emerging alternatives, I can report that green really has gone Main Street — thanks to the perfect storm
created by 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Internet revolution. The first flattened the twin towers, the
second flattened New Orleans and the third flattened the global economic playing field. The convergence
of all three has turned many of our previous assumptions about "green" upside down in a very short period
of time, making it much more compelling to many more Americans.
[8] But here's the bad news: While green has hit Main Street — more Americans than ever now identify
themselves as greens, or what I call "Geo-Greens" to differentiate their more muscular and strategic green
ideology — green has not gone very far down Main Street. It certainly has not gone anywhere near the
distance required to preserve our lifestyle. The dirty little secret is that we're fooling ourselves. We in
America talk like we're already "the greenest generation," as the business writer Dan Pink once called it.
But here's the really inconvenient truth: We have not even begun to be serious about the costs, the effort
and the scale of change that will be required to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely
emissions-free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years.
[9]. A few weeks after American forces invaded Afghanistan, I visited the Pakistani frontier town of
Peshawar, a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. On the way, I stopped at the famous Darul Uloom Haqqania, the
biggest madrasa, or Islamic school, in Pakistan, with 2,800 live-in students. The Taliban leader Mullah
Muhammad Omar attended this madrasa as a younger man. My Pakistani friend and I were allowed to
observe a class of young boys who sat on the floor, practicing their rote learning of the Koran from texts
perched on wooden holders. The air in the Koran class was so thick and stale it felt as if you could have
cut it into blocks. The teacher asked an 8-year-old boy to chant a Koranic verse for us, which he did with
the elegance of an experienced muezzin. I asked another student, an Afghan refugee, Rahim Kunduz, age
12, what his reaction was to the Sept. 11 attacks, and he said: "Most likely the attack came from Americans
inside America. I am pleased that America has had to face pain, because the rest of the world has tasted its
pain." A framed sign on the wall said this room was "A gift of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."
[10] Sometime after 9/11 — an unprovoked mass murder perpetrated by 19 men, 15 of whom were Saudis
— green went geostrategic, as Americans started to realize we were financing both sides in the war on
terrorism. We were financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars; and we were financing a
transformation of Islam, in favor of its most intolerant strand, with our gasoline purchases. How stupid is
that?
[11] Islam has always been practiced in different forms. Some are more embracing of modernity,
reinterpretation of the Koran and tolerance of other faiths, like Sufi Islam or the populist Islam of Egypt,
Ottoman Turkey and Indonesia. Some strands, like Salafi Islam — followed by the Wahhabis of Saudi
Arabia and by Al Qaeda — believe Islam should be returned to an austere form practiced in the time of the
Prophet Muhammad, a form hostile to modernity, science, "infidels" and women's rights. By enriching the
Saudi and Iranian treasuries via our gasoline purchases, we are financing the export of the Saudi
puritanical brand of Sunni Islam and the Iranian fundamentalist brand of Shiite Islam, tilting the Muslim
world in a more intolerant direction. At the Muslim fringe, this creates more recruits for the Taliban, Al
Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Sunni suicide bomb squads of Iraq; at the Muslim center, it creates a
much bigger constituency of people who applaud suicide bombers as martyrs.
[12] The Saudi Islamic export drive first went into high gear after extreme fundamentalists challenged the
Muslim credentials of the Saudi ruling family by taking over the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979 — a
year that coincided with the Iranian revolution and a huge rise in oil prices. The attack on the Grand
Mosque by these Koran-and-rifle-wielding Islamic militants shook the Saudi ruling family to its core. The
al-Sauds responded to this challenge to their religious bona fides by becoming outwardly more religious.
They gave their official Wahhabi religious establishment even more power to impose Islam on public life.
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Awash in cash thanks to the spike in oil prices, the Saudi government and charities also spent hundreds of
millions of dollars endowing mosques, youth clubs and Muslim schools all over the world, ensuring that
Wahhabi imams, teachers and textbooks would preach Saudi-style Islam. Eventually, notes Lawrence
Wright in "The Looming Tower," his history of Al Qaeda, "Saudi Arabia, which constitutes only 1 percent
of the world Muslim population, would support 90 percent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding
other traditions of Islam."
[13] Saudi mosques and wealthy donors have also funneled cash to the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. The
Associated Press reported from Cairo in December: "Several drivers interviewed by the A.P. in Middle
East capitals said Saudis have been using religious events, like the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and a smaller
pilgrimage, as cover for illicit money transfers. Some money, they said, is carried into Iraq on buses with
returning pilgrims. 'They sent boxes full of dollars and asked me to deliver them to certain addresses in
Iraq,' said one driver. ... 'I know it is being sent to the resistance, and if I don't take it with me, they will kill
me.' "
[14] No wonder more Americans have concluded that conserving oil to put less money in the hands of
hostile forces is now a geostrategic imperative. President Bush's refusal to do anything meaningful after
9/11 to reduce our gasoline usage really amounts to a policy of "No Mullah Left Behind." James Woolsey,
the former C.I.A. director, minces no words: "We are funding the rope for the hanging of ourselves."
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Michael Crichton, Excerpt from Intelligence Squared Debate
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/uploads/GlobalWarming-edited-version-031407.pdf
…It is, in fact, perfectly possible for the consensus of scientists to be wrong and it is, in fact,
perfectly possible for small numbers of people to be in opposition and they will be ultimately be
proven true. [APPLAUSE]
I want to address the issue of crisis in a somewhat different way. Does it really matter if we have a
crisis at all? I mean, haven’t we actually raised temperatures so much that we, as stewards of the
planet, have to act? These are the questions that friends of mine ask as they are getting on board
their private jets to fly to their second and third homes.
[LAUGHTER] And I would like, with their permission, to take the question just a little bit more
seriously. I myself, uh, just a few years ago, held the kinds of views that I, uh, expect most of you
in this room hold. That’s to say, I had a very conventional view about the environment. I thought it
was going to hell. I thought human beings were responsible and I thought we had to do
something about it. I hadn’t actually looked at any environmental issues in detail but I have that
general view. … However, because I look for trouble, um, I went at a certain point and started
looking at the temperature records. And I was very surprised at what I foun…The [second] thing I
discovered was that everything is a concern about the future and the future is defined by models.
The models tell us that human beings are the cause of the warming, that human beings, uh,
producing all this CO2, are what’s actually driving the climate warming that we’re seeing now. But I
was interested to see that the models, as far as I could tell, were not really reliable. That is to say,
that past estimates have proven incorrect…
But let me first be clear about exactly what I’m saying. Is the globe warming? Yes. Is the greenhouse
effect real? Yes. Is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, being increased by men? Yes. Would we expect
this warming to have an effect? Yes. Do human beings in general effect the climate? Yes. But none of
that answers the core question of whether or not carbon dioxide is the contemporary driver for the
warming we’re seeing. And as far as I could tell scientists had, had postulated that but they hadn’t
demonstrated it. So I’m kinda stranded here. I’ve got half a degree of warming, models that I don’t
think are reliable. And what, how am I going to think about the future? I reasoned in this way: if
we’re going to have one degree increase, maybe if, if, climate doesn’t change and if, uh, and if there’s
no change in technology – but of course, if you don’t imagine there will be a change in technology in
the next hundred years you’re a very unusual person.
…Decreasing our carbon, increasing our hydrogen makes perfect sense, makes environmental
sense, makes political sense, makes geopolitical sense. And we’ll continue to do it without any
legislation, without any, anything forcing us to do it, as nothing forced us to get off horses. Well, if
this is the situation, I suddenly think about my friends, you know, getting on their private jets. And I
think, well, you know, maybe they have the right idea. Maybe all that we have to do is mouth a few
platitudes, show a good, you know, expression of concern on our faces, buy a Prius, drive it around
for a while and give it to the maid, attend a few fundraisers and you’re done. Because, actually, all
anybody really wants to do is talk about it. They don’t actually do anything. [SOMEONE CHUCKLES
IN BACKGROUND] And the evidence for that is the number of major leaders in climate who clearly
have no intention of changing their lifestyle, reducing their own consumption or getting off private
jets themselves. If they’re not willing to do it why should anybody else? [APPLAUSE] Is talking
enough? I mean, is, is -- the talking cure of the environment, it didn’t work in psychology. It won’t
work in the environment either.
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[LAUGHTER] Is that enough to do? I don’t think so. I think it’s totally inadequate. Everyday 30,000
people on this planet die of the diseases of poverty. There are, a third of the planet doesn’t have
electricity. We have a billion people with no clean water, we have half a billion people going to bed
hungry every night. Do we care about this? It seems that we don’t. It seems that we would rather
look a hundred years into the future than pay attention to what’s going on now. I think that's
unacceptable. I think that’s really a disgrace.
Brian Lehrer, Reply to Crichton (Excerpt from Intelligence Squared
Debate)
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/uploads/GlobalWarming-edited-version-031407.pdf
The issue of global warming and whether it’s a crisis or not, is in fact a scientific decision, it’s a
scientific issue. It’s not a political one. On the other hand, deciding what to do about it is obviously
political. Science can inform those decisions, but it can’t determine what decisions society makes.
But we’re here to debate the existence of the problem and whether it is a crisis. That's something
that the scientists on this side are eminently suited to do. You’ve all seen or heard about the CSI
police drama, where high tech forensic scientists try and work out who done it when they come
across the scene of a crime. Well think of climate scientists as CSI planet Earth, we’re try-, we see a
climate change and we try and work out what’s done it. Just like on CSI we have a range of high tech
instruments to give us clues, satellites, ocean probes, radar, a worldwide network of weather
stations and sophisticated computer programs to help us make sense of it all. The aim is to come to
the most likely explanation of all the facts fully anticipating that in the real world there are always
going to be anomalies, there are always going to be uncertainties. Conclusions will be preliminary
and always open to revision in the light of new evidence. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it’s
exactly the same approach that doctors take when examining a patient. They don’t know everything
about the human body, but they can still make a pretty accurate diagnosis of your illness. We end
up then with a hierarchy of knowledge. Some things that are extremely likely, some things we’re
pretty sure of, and some things that we think might be true, but really could go either way. There
isn’t a division into things that are completely proven and things which are completely unknown.
Instead, you have a sliding scale of increasing confidence. Let me give you a few examples. We’re
highly confident that the sun is gonna rise tomorrow, it might not, it might go nova. But it’s likely
that it will happen. It’s quite likely that you’ll be able to get a cab home from this event, unless it’s
raining of course. [LAUGHTER] But, but those two things have different levels of certainty. You’re
used to the idea that different kinds of knowledge come with different levels of certainty, and that’s
exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about the impacts of climate change.
Going back to being climate detectives, we’re certain that carbon dioxide and methane are
greenhouse gases and they’ve increased because of human activity. We’re very confident that the
planet has been warming up, and we’re pretty sure that the other things that are going on, changes
to the sun, changes to particles in the air, changes to ozone have made some difference but aren’t
dominant. The physics tells us that this is a very consistent picture. Our suspects, the greenhouse
gases, had both the opportunity and the means to cause this climate change and they’re very likely
guilty. And they are increasing faster than ever. Now, the lawyers get involved. Lawyers are paid to
present a certain case regardless of its merits and they do that by challenging everything in the
case, and if one argument doesn’t work, well, they’ll just move on to the next. This procedure works
very well when the proposition being debated is very binary, a yes, no. Is the subspe-, is the suspect
guilty, uh should he go free, should he go to jail? It is designed specifically to prevent significant
15
action in the face of uncertainty. If there is still reasonable doubt, the suspect gets acquitted even if
you still think that they did it. But contrast that with the scientists. They want to know the most
likely explanation. The lawyers, they want to win the case. In their own domains both ways of
finding out things are very useful, it’s only when they come together in situations like this that
things get tricky. Particularly when scientific results are perceived to have economic or moral
implications, it’s common for political debates to get shifted into the scientific arena. It makes the
political argument seem much more scientific and therefore logical. But since the basic
disagreement is still political, this is a disaster for any kind of action. So tonight, you’re not gonna
hear us arguing about obscure details in climate science, if you have any questions, I
have a web site realclimate.org, you can go and check that out and I’ll be happy to answer any
questions you might have. But here we’re gonna talk about the bigger picture. Let me give you a few
examples of how that works. Creationists have argued that the eye is too complex to have evolved.
Not because they care about the evolution of eyes, but because they see the implications of
evolution as somehow damaging to their world view. If you demonstrate the evolution of eyes, their
world view won’t change, they’ll just move onto something else. Another example, when CFCs from
aerosol cans and air conditioners were found to be depleting the ozone layer, the CEO of DuPont,
the main manufacturer argued that because CFCs were heavier than air, they couldn’t possibly get
up to the ozone layer. So there was no need to regulate them, that was pure fantasy, but it sounded
scientific. Again, tobacco companies spent millions trying to show that nicotine delayed the onset of
Alzheimer’s because that was a distraction from the far more solid case that, that linked tobacco to
lung cancer. That was a distraction and a red herring. These arguments are examples of pseudo
debates, scientific sounding points that are designed not to fool the experts, but to sow confusion
and doubt in the minds of the lay public. This is a deliberate strategy and you’re hearing it here
tonight. So during this debate, let’s play a little game. I’ll call it spot the fallacy. Every time that you
hear the other side claim that we are predicting an imminent catastrophe, give yourself one point.
Every time you hear an anecdote used to refute a general trend, that’s cherry picking and we heard
that already, uh give yourself another. And every time you hear there’s a lag between carbon
dioxide and temperature in the ice cores, give yourself two points because that’s a real doosy.
So far this evening we’re running at about two red herrings, two complete errors, three straw men
and one cherry pick. [LAUGHTER] So see how you do and we’ll compare notes at the end. Scientists
have to be professional skeptics, right, they are trained not to take new information at face value,
they have to ask where measurements come from and what they could possibly mean. They have to
be dispassionate about the data, and just see where it leads. Once you start making logically
fallacious arguments in order to support a predetermined position, you are no longer acting as a
scientist, you are acting as a lawyer, however scientific sounding you might seem. Despite that
natural skepticism, the national academies of all eight, G8 countries, all the major scientific
societies, even the White House have agreed with a scientific consensus on this matter, which
pointedly did not happen in the 1970s by the way….
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COLLECTION OF SHORT TEXTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
 “MEDICAL METAPHORS FOR CLIMATE ISSUES: Editorial Essay richard c. J. Somerville,
http://www.richardsomerville.com/pdfs/RichardSomervilleMedicalMetaphors.pdf. Sommerville, a top
climate scientist from Scripps Institute here in San Diego, is one of the leading voices in discussions of
climate change. In this paper he tries to reframe the debate in a way that is more persuasive to the general
public. (Note: he has also published an open letter published in the Nov. 19 issue of the journal Science,
calling for scientists to improve their rhetoric and communicate better with the public. See
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/24549 : "We call for the science community to
develop, implement, and sustain an independent initiative with a singular mandate: to actively and
effectively share information about climate change risks and potential solutions with the public." See also
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/10/richard-somerville-editorial-how-much.html
 Jeff Jacoby, "Where's global warming?" The Boston Globe, March 8, 2009.
 "The Galileo of Global Warming," American Spectator editorial, May 2001. Deeply critical of claims
about global warming, the editorial states, "Overall, the situation is simple. Politicized scientists with
government grants and dubious computer temperature models persuaded the world's politicians to make
pompous fools of themselves in Kyoto. Socialist politicians were happy to join an absurd movement to
impose government regulations over the world energy supply and thus over the world economy. The
scientific claims and computer models have now blown up in their faces. But rather than admit error they
persist in their fear-mongering. When this happened with DDT, hundreds of millions of people died of
malaria. They continue to die. How many people would die as a result of an energy clamp on global
capitalism?"
 GEORGE WILL, "Dark Green Doomsayers" Washington Post, February 15, 2009.Will's op-ed was
highly controversial, caused outrage, and prompted a torrent of criticism against the Washington Post
editors for publishing it. A few responses are below.
 CHRIS MOONEY "Climate Change Myths and Facts" - responds to Will. Washington Post, March 21,
2009.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032002660.html
 Joe Romm,"Is George Will the Most Ignorant National Columnist?" Washington Post, February 15,
2009
 "A Suggested Correction For Will’s ‘Dark Green Doomsayers’ Column", by Think Progress writers.
Feb 22nd, 2009.
 Erich Vieth "George Will’s irresponsible article denying climate change and the Washington Post’s
irresponsible fact-checking." Blog post by on March 04th, 2009.
 Climate, Communication and the ‘Nerd Loop’ By ANDREW C. REVKIN
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/climate-communication-and-the-nerd-loop/ ARGUES
SCIENTISTS HAVE FAILED IN RHETORIC WITH CLIMATE CHANGE.
AND http://thebenshi.com/2011/04/06/124-the-nerd-loop-why-im-losing-interest-in-communicatingclimate-change/
17
Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”
Wall Street journal, JANUARY 8, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook
A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what
these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family,
and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my
daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
Amy Chua with her daughters, Louisa and Sophia, at their home in New Haven, Conn.
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attend a sleepover
have a playdate
be in a school play
complain about not being in a school play
watch TV or play computer games
choose their own extracurricular activities
get any grade less than an A
not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
play any instrument other than the piano or violin
not play the piano or violin.
I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian
parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the
West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents"
loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being
Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children
practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is
the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.
When it comes to parenting, the Chinese seem to produce children who display academic excellence,
musical mastery and professional success - or so the stereotype goes. WSJ's Christina Tsuei speaks to two
moms raised by Chinese immigrants who share what it was like growing up and how they hope to raise
their children.
Despite our squeamishness about cultural stereotypes, there are tons of studies out there showing marked
and quantifiable differences between Chinese and Westerners when it comes to parenting. In one study of
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50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers
said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the
idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the
vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that
"academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then
there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to
Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic
activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you
have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their
preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are
always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the
Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for
excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether
it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds
confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the
child to work even more.
Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can't. Once when I was young—maybe
more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me
"garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I
had done. But it didn't damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he
thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.
Chua family From Ms. Chua's album: 'Mean me with Lulu in hotel room... with score taped to TV!'
As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely
disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately
ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My
friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.
The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—
to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast,
Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning
the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once
heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She
later told me that made her feel like garbage.)
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Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their
best. Chinese parents can say, "You're lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you." By contrast,
Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to
persuade themselves that they're not disappointed about how their kids turned out.
I've thought long and hard about how Chinese parents can get away with what they do. I think there are
three big differences between the Chinese and Western parental mind-sets.
First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They
worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their
children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In
other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They
assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.
For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise
the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with
a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child
down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure,
and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace." Privately, the Western parents may
worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong
with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may
eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or
to call into question the teacher's credentials.
If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing
explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and
work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.
Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child
doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why
the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese
parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And
when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the
home.)
Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear,
but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and
done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long
grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the
understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and
making them proud.
By contrast, I don't think most Westerners have the same view of children being permanently indebted to
their parents. My husband, Jed, actually has the opposite view. "Children don't choose their parents," he
once said to me. "They don't even choose to be born. It's parents who foist life on their kids, so it's the
parents' responsibility to provide for them. Kids don't owe their parents anything. Their duty will be to
their own kids." This strikes me as a terrible deal for the Western parent.
Third, Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of
their children's own desires and preferences. That's why Chinese daughters can't have boyfriends in high
20
school and why Chinese kids can't go to sleepaway camp. It's also why no Chinese kid would ever dare
say to their mother, "I got a part in the school play! I'm Villager Number Six. I'll have to stay after school
for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I'll also need a ride on weekends." God help any Chinese
kid who tried that one.
Don't get me wrong: It's not that Chinese parents don't care about their children. Just the opposite. They
would give up anything for their children. It's just an entirely different parenting model.
Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and
working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The
piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—
but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically
different rhythms.
Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and
over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and
everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was
giving up and stomped off.
"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.
"You can't make me."
"Oh yes, I can."
Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score
and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never
be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation
Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu
said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no
lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When
she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was
secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.
Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating
her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't
do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?
"You just don't believe in her," I accused.
"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."
"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."
"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.
"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked
sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a
21
finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one
they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."
I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked
right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the
bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only
negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.
Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing
their own imperturbable thing—just like that.
Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it
more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.
"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the
piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up.
When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and
said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."
Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But
as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the
flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought
you couldn't.
There are all these new books out there portraying Asian mothers as scheming, callous, overdriven people
indifferent to their kids' true interests. For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more
about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly
content to let their children turn out badly. I think it's a misunderstanding on both sides. All decent
parents want to do what's best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to
do that.
Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true
passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By
contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future,
letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence
that no one can ever take away.
—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How
Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted
from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a
member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.
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Balko, What you eat is your business
Published by the CATO Institute, May 2004, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2663#
This June, Time magazine and ABC News will host a three-day summit on obesity. ABC News
anchor Peter Jennings, who last December anchored the prime time special "How to Get Fat
Without Really Trying," will host. Judging by the scheduled program, the summit promises to be
pep rally for media, nutrition activists, and policy makers -- all agitating for a panoply of
government anti-obesity initiatives, including prohibiting junk food in school vending machines,
federal funding for new bike trails and sidewalks, more demanding labels on foodstuffs,
restrictive food marketing to children, and prodding the food industry into more "responsible"
behavior. In other words, bringing government between you and your waistline.
Politicians have already climbed aboard. President Bush earmarked $200 million in his budget
for anti-obesity measures. State legislatures and school boards across the country have begun
banning snacks and soda from school campuses and vending machines. Sen. Joe Lieberman and
Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, among others, have called for a "fat tax" on high-calorie foods.
Congress is now considering menu-labeling legislation, which would force restaurants to send
every menu item to the laboratory for nutritional testing.
This is the wrong way to fight obesity. Instead of manipulating or intervening in the array of
food options available to American consumers, our government ought to be working to foster a
sense of responsibility in and ownership of our own health and well-being. But we’re doing just
the opposite.
For decades now, America's health care system has been migrating toward socialism. Your wellbeing, shape, and condition have increasingly been deemed matters of "public health," instead of
matters of personal responsibility. Our lawmakers just enacted a huge entitlement that requires
some people to pay for other people's medicine. Sen. Hillary Clinton just penned a lengthy article
in the New York Times Magazine calling for yet more federal control of health care. All of the
Democrat candidates for president boasted plans to push health care further into the public
sector. More and more, states are preventing private health insurers from charging overweight
and obese clients higher premiums, which effectively removes any financial incentive for
maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
We're becoming less responsible for our own health, and more responsible for everyone else's.
Your heart attack drives up the cost of my premiums and office visits. And if the government is
paying for my anti-cholesterol medication, what incentive is there for me to put down the
cheeseburger?
This collective ownership of private health then paves the way for even more federal restrictions
on consumer choice and civil liberties. A society where everyone is responsible for everyone
else's well-being is a society more apt to accept government restrictions, for example -- on what
McDonalds can put on its menu, what Safeway or Kroger can put on grocery shelves, or holding
food companies responsible for the bad habits of unhealthy consumers.
A growing army of nutritionist activists and food industry foes are egging the process on. Margo
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Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has said, "we've got to move beyond
`personal responsibility.'" The largest organization of trial lawyers now encourages its members
to weed jury pools of candidates who show "personal responsibility bias." The title of Jennings
special from last December -- "How to Get Fat Without Really Trying" -- reveals his intent,
which is to relieve viewers of responsibility for their own condition. Indeed, Jennings ended the
program with an impassioned plea for government intervention to fight obesity.
The best way to alleviate the obesity "public health" crisis is to remove obesity from the realm of
public health. It doesn't belong there anyway. It's difficult to think of anything more private and
of less public concern than what we choose to put into our bodies. It only becomes a public
matter when we force the public to pay for the consequences of those choices. If policymakers
want to fight obesity, they'll halt the creeping socialization of medicine, and move to return
individual Americans' ownership of their own health and well-being back to individual
Americans.
That means freeing insurance companies to reward healthy lifestyles, and penalize poor ones. It
means halting plans to further socialize medicine and health care. Congress should also increase
access to medical and health savings accounts, which give consumers the option of rolling
money reserved for health care into a retirement account. These accounts introduce
accountability into the health care system, and encourage caution with one's health care dollar.
When money we spend on health care doesn't belong to our employer or the government, but is
money we could devote to our own retirement, we're less likely to run to the doctor at the first
sign of a cold.
We'll all make better choices about diet, exercise, and personal health when someone else isn't
paying for the consequences of those choices.
ARGUMENT ANALYSIS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What is the main argument in this article?
What are the main claims? (hint: look for problem/solution patterns)
Name 2 types of evidence presented
Is there a rebuttal section – which paragraph does it appear in?
Can you identify any strategies?
How does the author use definition and analogy in this argument?
Can you think of any counterexamples to any of the points made?
Can you find any flaws, weaknesses, or counterarguments (if you agree with the author,
try playing devil’s advocate).
24
Engler, “Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations”
By Yves Engler. Z Magazine December 2003
In early October there was a quirky report about U.S coffin makers increasing the size of their product.
What this reveals is anything but funny. Obesity is one of today’s biggest health crises—1 in 4 of the
world’s 4 billion adults are overweight and 300 million are clinically obese. In the U.S., where the crisis
is most pronounced, nearly a third of the population is obese and two-thirds overweight, with the rates
substantially higher among the poor. Since 1990 the U.S. obesity rate has doubled and approximately 127
million adults are now overweight and 60 million are obese. During the same period the number of
people who are severely obese has nearly quadrupled to nine million. Child obesity is also increasing
rapidly.
Outside the U.S., especially in the more advanced capitalist nations, obesity is also skyrocketing. In
Canada between 1985 and 2001, the prevalence of obesity more than doubled from 7 percent to 14
percent among women and to 16 percent from 6 percent among men. Like the U.S., the rates are
substantially higher among the poor. According to a study published in the August edition of the
International Journal of Obesity, 6.4 percent of children in the wealthiest quarter of the population
compared with 12.8 percent of those in the poorest quarter are obese.
The health effects of the obesity epidemic are immense. Researchers claim there are links between obesity
and more than 30 medical conditions including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancers, and
possibly Alzheimer’s. According to the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, 1 in 3 U.S children—
nearly 50 percent of black and Latino children—born in 2000 will become diabetic unless people start
exercising more and eating less. Some 90,000 U.S. cancer deaths a year are linked to obesity. Worldwide,
diet-related afflictions such as heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes account for almost 60 percent of
deaths annually. Even in crude economic terms obesity is costly. The U.S. National Institute of Health
estimates that the annual costs of treating obesity-related conditions are at least $120 billion.
Invariably though, within a capitalist system some see profit opportunities in the current obesity
epidemic. Companies have long used body image as a mechanism to control women. The diet industry is
the main beneficiary of rising obesity—or as the Economist recently put it, “the business opportunities in
obesity.” In North America the diet market runs at $30 billion a year, which is expected to increase
by nearly 25 percent in the next 3 years to $37 billion in 2006. Some doctors with a stake in the game
push deadly weight-loss drugs such as Ephedra. Those who put their faith in the pharmaceutical industry
expect a miracle weight-loss drug to save them. In the meantime, severely obese people can get gastric
bypass surgery to reduce their stomach size. This $25,000 (up to $100,000 with over-all costs) weightloss procedure is becoming more popular. More than 100,000 U.S. residents will have the surgery this
year, even though 10 to 20 percent of those operated on suffer serious complications, including death. If
this doesn’t work, a medical company has a plan B. If their company- funded studies are to be believed, a
highly successful gastric stimulator has been created that sends the stomach electrical impulses to combat
hunger.
According to a survey by the Calorie Control Council, 48 million—or 25 percent—of the U.S. adult
population are currently on a diet and, if other studies are correct, over 60 percent of U.S. men and 70
percent of women are trying to shed a few extra pounds. A recently published study found that 9 to 14year-olds who diet may actually gain weight in the long run—possibly due to metabolic changes, but
more likely because they resort to binge eating.
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Throughout the advanced capitalist world, and to a lesser extent in the periphery, people’s diets have
changed drastically over the past 30 years. In the U.S., spending on fast food now totals $110 billion
annually, having increased 18-fold since 1970. The number of fast food outlets, often started with
government subsidies, has doubled from 1 per 2,000 residents to 1 in 1,000 since 1980. Poor areas often
have an even higher exposure to fast food restaurants and fewer supermarkets, four times less in black
neighborhoods than white neighborhoods, where healthier products can be found (even though there is
evidence that supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods are more profitable per square foot). Outside the
U.S., fast food restaurants are also rapidly expanding. For instance, in 1995 Dunkin Donuts opened 1,000
international stores, which by 2000 had increased to 5,000.
It’s not only at fast food restaurants where unhealthy products are being consumed in greater quantities.
U.S residents on average consume an astounding 848—2.3 per day—8-ounce servings of soft drinks
annually. In poorer countries people are also increasingly consuming high calorie soda pop instead of
more nutritious drinks. The Mexican soft drink market, 70 percent controlled by Coca- Cola, totals some
633 eight-ounce servings per person annually.
Portion sizes have also expanded. Compared with 20 years ago U.S. hamburger servings have increased
by 112 percent, bagels 195 percent, steaks 224 percent, muffins 333 percent, pasta 480 percent, and
chocolate chip cookies 700 percent. It has been shown that people consume about 30 percent more when
served larger portions. Fast food outlets and the rest of the food industry often promote their products
based on their larger, somehow more empowering, size. As of 1996, a quarter of the $97 billion spent on
fast food came from items promoted on the basis of either extra size or larger portions.
The main reason that people are consuming more, especially unhealthy products, is the food industry’s
relentless advertising, especially to children. U.S. food companies spend more than $30 billion to sell
their products, not counting what they spend lobbying favorable policies and support. In 2001, Coca-Cola
and Pepsi together spent $3 billion in advertising.
When targeting young kids, companies use cartoon characters, toys, and other items that have a powerful
influence over children. In the early 1970s the U.S. food industry fought off regulation of their advertising
practices and instead adopted industry-regulated standards—the Children’s Advertising Review Unit.
Now 40 percent of McDonald’s advertising targets children and, according to a 1998 study, they’ve been
highly successful. Of 10,000 children surveyed, 100 percent of U.S., 98 percent of Japanese, and 93
percent of UK children recognized Ronald McDonald, with many of these kids believing Ronald
McDonald knows what’s best for their health.
The fast food and soft drink companies have also been successful at getting their products into cashstrapped schools. They get ad spots on Channel One, which is shown in classes. In Texas, the food giants
give $54 million a year to schools to sell their wares in vending machines. Maybe the most disturbing
example of school infiltration was in 1998 when Colorado Springs school officials agreed to an exclusive
agreement with Coke, based on a tripling of school soft drink sales. Recently Coca-Cola Enterprises
became an official sponsor of the PTA and John H. Downs Jr., the company’s senior vice president for
public affairs and chief lobbyist, got a seat on the PTA’s board.
The food interests are also hard at work lobbying governments, both behind the scenes and with front
groups such as the Center for Consumer Freedom. Three years ago sugar producers and the soft drink
industry won a big victory in getting the USDA to soften its dietary guidelines on sugar. Likewise, they
convinced a subservient American Dietetic Association to refrain from labeling any foods as unhealthy
since according to them, “all foods can fit into a healthy eating style.”
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Last September, within a week of the European Commission strengthening regulations on companies
promoting the health benefits of foods high in fat and sugars, the Food and Drug Administration
weakened its guidelines to allow food packages to advertise possible benefits before they are fully
approved. Currently, different sectors of the food industry are hard at work shaping changes to the
New Food Pyramid. Internationally a similar process is at work. This past April the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the UN food and agricultural organization backed down (due to pressure from
the sugar industry) on guidelines, stating that people should limit daily consumption of free sugars to a
maximum of 10 percent of energy intakes to avoid chronic diseases. U.S. sugar producers had indicated
that they may lobby the Bush administration and Congress to link U.S funding—about one-fifth of the
WHO budget—to changes in research methods at the UN agency.
The food giants are well represented in other ways. In 1978 Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Kraft, and other food
companies founded the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) to lobby WHO. It won a position as an
NGO “in official relations” with WHO and a specialized consultative status with the Food and
Agricultural Organization in 1991. In 1992 the ILSI congratulated themselves after steering the WHO and
FAO away from any curbs on sugar consumption.
The 10 percent or 200-calorie increase in energy consumption by the average U.S resident over the past
25 years is tied to incessant food advertising, political lobbying, and larger portions. Underlying this rise,
however, is an agricultural sector that has increased output by some 500 calories per person during this
period—after the Nixon administration altered government subsidies effectively increasing farmers
incentives to expand their yields.
Obesity is related to a variety of other social factors some of which have received minimal scrutiny. A yet
to be properly studied link is between obesity and nuclear materials, which emit radioactive iodine, tied to
thyroid damage. Thyroid disorders, recently found to occur twice as often as previously believed, are
linked to weight gain. Another contributing factor is the large numbers of teenagers and children not
involved in physical activity. Cutbacks to physical education budgets have not helped. The often-elitist
nature of school and community sports dissuades many kids from participating. For this reason and others
ranging from prescribed gender roles to society’s indifference to their specific sporting inclinations (such
as skateboarding), many teenagers, especially girls, have negative attitudes towards exercise.
Workplaces and their power struggles also affect obesity. The automation of work reduces the amount of
energy workers expend. In and of itself this needn’t be problematic since automation should also reduce
the number of hours worked and increase time for active leisure; not in the U.S, where people are working
200 hours a year more than they did in the early 1970s.
According to Linda Rosenstock the former Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health, “It turns out that a quarter to a third of workers have high job stress and are drained and used up at
the end of the day.” Thus, many working people have less time to take part in activities. In addition, after
a long days work, people often turn to TV watching, which is inversely linked to time spent exercising.
Busy parents, especially poor working class people, use TV as a babysitter. In this setting children who
are naturally active are hindered from activity.
Often the same automation technology, which is supposed to reduce the workload, results in an increased
workload (stress level) for those who retain their jobs. A growing body of evidence shows that workers
who don’t feel in control of their work environment have higher job stress levels. Scientists believe there
is a link between stress and the impulse to eat. Food with lots of sugar, fat, and calories appear literally to
calm down the body’s response to chronic stress. In addition, research indicates that stress hormones
encourage the formation of fat cells, particularly the kind that are the most dangerous to health.
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Oddly enough a historical determinant in work related stress —repetitive assembly line work —has also
contributed to obesity in another way. Urban planning, which is intimately linked to the expansion of
capital, plays a central role in obesity. How the suburban landscape became the norm is told, in part, by
Colleen Fuller in Caring for Profit. “Beginning in the 1920s, General Motors president Alfred Sloan
and top company executives masterminded a scheme to create a consumer market for automobiles in the
United States. At the time, 9 out of 10 people relied on the trolley networks that crisscrossed cities across
the country. GM first purchased and then dismantled the nation’s trolley companies, ripping up tracks and
setting bonfires composed of railcars. In 30 short years GM succeeded in destroying a mass-transit
infrastructure that would cost many billions of dollars to resurrect—more money than municipal
governments could raise. ”
It’s not just the auto industry (broadly defined) that has reorganized cities in a way that encourages
obesity. Land developers are notorious for buying up cheap agricultural land on the outskirts of cities and
pushing for land rezoning and the extension of public amenities to these plots. There is substantially more
money to be made from selling houses or commercial space than there is in harvesting vegetables.
Similarly, today in many towns Wal-Mart has played no small role in undermining the downtown core,
one of the only places where people regularly walked.
The suburban landscape is almost entirely subservient to the car. Sidewalks are non-existent or
disconnected, crosswalks are absent or poorly marked, and the speed and volume of vehicular traffic is
overwhelming, which makes walking or biking either impractical or dangerous. So people who might
otherwise walk are forced to drive even short distances and kids who could easily walk to school must be
chauffeured.
A study released in September showed that in the 25 most sprawling U.S. counties people were on
average 6 pounds heavier than in the 25 most compact counties. In the past 20 years the number of trips
taken on foot in the U.S. has dropped by 42 percent. Now, fewer than 10 percent of children walk or bike
to school regularly, down from 66 percent 30 years ago.
To combat the obesity epidemic we need tighter limits on fast food marketing. Junk food companies
should be kicked out of schools. Perhaps governments should subsidize fruits and vegetables as well as
other healthy products. Increased funding for physical education classes, park spaces, and children’s
sports would help. Increasing exercise opportunities at work, which a group of large employers,
ironically headed by Ford Motors and Pepsi Co., is already working on, could help. Also there could be
some form of tax break for exercise as is the case in Finland where some 70 percent of the population
exercises for 30 minutes 5 times a week.
Most important we need a movement that effectively challenges the capitalist entities that push their
interests no matter the weight or health effects.
[Yves Engler is a Montreal-based activist current writing a book on student activism.]
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Bittman, Junk Food ‘Guidelines’ Won’t Help
By MARK BITTMAN
Mark Bittman on food and all things related.
[1] Imagine your child’s teacher was distributing twice daily snacks, before and after lunch — maybe
Snickers and PopTarts in the morning, Mountain Dew and fries in the afternoon. Now let’s pretend you
complain to the principal, who tells the teacher, “Could you please stop doing that? You have until … five
years from Tuesday.”
[2] Would you allow that?
[3] Yet that’s pretty much what the Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies did last
week when they announced food marketing guidelines. The agencies would like Big Food to refrain from
marketing to children foods with more than 15 percent saturated fat, 210 milligrams of sodium or 13
grams of added sugar per serving or any trans fat at all.
[4] But instead of announcing, “We have guidelines you must follow, and we’ll give you until January
2012 to comply,” the F.T.C. said, in effect, “We have voluntary guidelines we hope you’ll follow —
they’re voluntary, you understand — and in five years we’d like you to voluntarily comply with these
voluntary guidelines.”
[5] We need legal action, not voluntary guidelines. The federal agencies that are involved with the F.T.C.
in this request for less marketing to children — the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for
Disease Control and the Agriculture Department — deserve credit for acknowledging marketing’s impact.
If their suggested rules were followed, food advertising would be drastically different. “There’d be a large
number of products they’d no longer be advertising,” says Marion Nestle, a New York University
professor of nutrition and public health and the author of the book “What to Eat.”
[6] But five more years, and then it’s voluntary? Five more years of allowing children to think that a diet
of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, PopTarts, Doritos, 7UP and Chicken McNuggets is normal? By then, your
five-year-old is 10; your newborn is five, and his or her eating patterns are set. Five more years — at least
— of America bulking up? Who will pay for all that diabetes?
[7] The F.T.C. is endorsing food that contributes to a healthful diet, but it’s mandating nothing, simply
requesting voluntary compliance from a blame-the-victim industry that pushes ultra-processed,
unhealthful junk. From fast food to cookies, snacks and breakfast cereals (many with the same nutritional
profile as cookies) and worst of all, sugar-sweetened beverages, many of these products have these things
in common: their slim “benefits,” if any, often come from chemically added nutrients, and they contain
multiple forms of sugar, highly refined carbohydrates, chemically extracted fats and mystery ingredients
only a food scientist or profiteer could love.
[8] These concoctions are the poster children for what’s wrong with American food and in turn our diet,
and about Big Food’s marketing strategies and power, which harm our diet, weight, health and budget.
(Nearly every age group weighs at least 10 percent more than they did in the mid-‘60s, and our diabetes
rate increased by 164 percent from 1980 to 2009, according to the CDC. See my blog for more numbers
on this.)
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[9] Food marketing to children needs to be reined in, and it’s impossible for me to believe that Coke is
going to voluntarily refrain from marketing to anyone, let alone the children and adolescents who
comprise the largest segment of its market. One more statistic, then I’ll stop: the average male adolescent
consumes 300 calories of soda a day, about 15 percent of his required calories.
[10] It might help to take a quick look at how quickly and effectively our (often Republican!)
governments acted against cigarette marketing: Five months after the famous 1964 Surgeon General’s
report linking smoking to cancer, the F.T.C. required warning labels on all packaging and advertising. By
1971 President Nixon signed a law banning radio and television ads for cigarettes, a law that took effect
eight months later. When big tobacco focused on children and adolescents (Joe Camel had become more
recognizable than Mickey Mouse), billboard advertising was banned, to be replaced by anti-smoking
messages.
[11] There’s more, and some of it resulted from successful lawsuits, first by individuals and later by
states’ attorneys general. Those same kinds of lawsuits will eventually happen as more and more evidence
shows that junk food kills people. But from the time cigarettes were identified as unhealthy, government
moved to discourage Americans from smoking them, saving tens of millions of lives in the process.
[12] Obesity comes from excess calories and causes diabetes. Excess calories come from junk food. (Few
people get fat eating real food.) And although this may not be quite the smoking gun that links cigarettes
and lung cancer, there isn’t a serious independent dietary researcher or agency in the world who would
claim that the typical American diet isn’t skewing numbers for obesity, diabetes and a slew of other
diseases and needlessly premature death.
[13] In this conversation, I frequently hear, “The difference between tobacco and food is that you need
food to live.” This isn’t food I’m talking about, though, but food-like products. No one needs Pepsi or
Whoppers; we aren’t born craving doughnuts or nachos.
[14] Some industry members acknowledge the problem and claim to be working on it, creating smaller
portion sizes and “healthier” versions of classic junk foods. Others talk about self-responsibility, as if
their own marketing played no role in encouraging people to act in self-destructive ways. But no one in
industry is interested in regulation; we may hear griping about the voluntary guidelines, but there must be
a collective sigh of relief at what appears to be a brokered deal that gives the industry a five-year break-in
period before … before what? Before either something else happens — like an even more businessfriendly government — or the voluntary “regulations” take effect. And nothing happens. In the meantime,
keep feeding the kids those Snickers.
[15] Or maybe it’s time for some of those lawsuits.
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WPA Essay Prompt – apply to Bittman
Craft a coherent essay (i.e., one that is not just a series of paragraph responses to the prompt) in
which you respond (in an appropriate order) to all of the following components.
Identify and provide a brief summary of the author's argument; describe and discuss two
strategies that the author uses to support his or her argument; describe the overall structure of the
reading selection and explain whether it furthers the aims of the author's argument; discuss the
premise(s) and/or assumption(s) on which the argument is based; evaluate the extent to which
you find the argument convincing.
Caution: This essay is not an "agree or disagree" exercise, nor is it intended to generate
extensive summary of the article. Responses that emphasize personal opinion or summary will
not earn a passing score.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gwar/index.html
ARGUMENT ANALYSIS
1. What is the main argument in this article?
2. What are the main claims?
3. Name 2 types of evidence presented
4. Is there a rebuttal section – which paragraph does it appear in?
5. Name 3 strategies
6. How does the author use analogy in this argument?
7. What assumptions can you identify (hint – look at word choice and categories)
8. Can you think of any counterexamples to any of the points made?
9. Can you find any flaws, weaknesses, or counterarguments (if you agree with the author,
try playing devil’s advocate).
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Brooks, Poetry for Everyday Life
David Brooks, New York Times, April 11, 2011
Here’s a clunky but unremarkable sentence that appeared in the British press before the last
national election: “Britain’s recovery from the worst recession in decades is gaining traction, but
confused economic data and the high risk of hung Parliament could yet snuff out its momentum.”
The sentence is only worth quoting because in 28 words it contains four metaphors. Economies
don’t really gain traction, like a tractor. Momentum doesn’t literally get snuffed out, like a
cigarette. We just use those metaphors, without even thinking about it, as a way to capture what
is going on.
In his fine new book, “I Is an Other,” James Geary reports on linguistic research suggesting that
people use a metaphor every 10 to 25 words. Metaphors are not rhetorical frills at the edge of
how we think, Geary writes. They are at the very heart of it.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, two of the leading researchers in this field, have pointed out
that we often use food metaphors to describe the world of ideas. We devour a book, try to digest
raw facts and attempt to regurgitate other people’s ideas, even though they might be half-baked.
When talking about relationships, we often use health metaphors. A friend might be involved in
a sick relationship. Another might have a healthy marriage.
When talking about argument, we use war metaphors. When talking about time, we often use
money metaphors. But when talking about money, we rely on liquid metaphors. We dip into
savings, sponge off friends or skim funds off the top. Even the job title stockbroker derives from
the French word brocheur, the tavern worker who tapped the kegs of beer to get the liquidity
flowing.
The psychologist Michael Morris points out that when the stock market is going up, we tend to
use agent metaphors, implying the market is a living thing with clear intentions. We say the
market climbs or soars or fights its way upward. When the market goes down, on the other hand,
we use object metaphors, implying it is inanimate. The market falls, plummets or slides.
Most of us, when asked to stop and think about it, are by now aware of the pervasiveness of
metaphorical thinking. But in the normal rush of events. we often see straight through metaphors,
unaware of how they refract perceptions. So it’s probably important to pause once a month or so
to pierce the illusion that we see the world directly. It’s good to pause to appreciate how flexible
and tenuous our grip on reality actually is.
Metaphors help compensate for our natural weaknesses. Most of us are not very good at thinking
about abstractions or spiritual states, so we rely on concrete or spatial metaphors to (imperfectly)
do the job. A lifetime is pictured as a journey across a landscape. A person who is sad is down in
the dumps, while a happy fellow is riding high.
Most of us are not good at understanding new things, so we grasp them imperfectly by relating
them metaphorically to things that already exist. That’s a “desktop” on your computer screen.
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Metaphors are things we pass down from generation to generation, which transmit a culture’s
distinct way of seeing and being in the world. In his superb book “Judaism: A Way of Being,”
David Gelernter notes that Jewish thought uses the image of a veil to describe how Jews perceive
God — as a presence to be sensed but not seen, which is intimate and yet apart.
Judaism also emphasizes the metaphor of separateness as a path to sanctification. The Israelites
had to separate themselves from Egypt. The Sabbath is separate from the week. Kosher food is
separate from the nonkosher. The metaphor describes a life in which one moves from nature and
conventional society to the sacred realm.
To be aware of the central role metaphors play is to be aware of how imprecise our most
important thinking is. It’s to be aware of the constant need to question metaphors with data — to
separate the living from the dead ones, and the authentic metaphors that seek to illuminate the
world from the tinny advertising and political metaphors that seek to manipulate it.
Most important, being aware of metaphors reminds you of the central role that poetic skills play
in our thought. If much of our thinking is shaped and driven by metaphor, then the skilled thinker
will be able to recognize patterns, blend patterns, apprehend the relationships and pursue
unexpected likenesses.
Even the hardest of the sciences depend on a foundation of metaphors. To be aware of metaphors
is to be humbled by the complexity of the world, to realize that deep in the undercurrents of
thought there are thousands of lenses popping up between us and the world, and that we’re
surrounded at all times by what Steven Pinker of Harvard once called “pedestrian poetry.”
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