The article that I read is called
“A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply.” It explained how climate change could
destabilize the world’s food system and, in the future, could cause rising
hunger or even mass starvation. The author gave an example of this negative
effect by looking at the effects of the mass heat wave on the corn crop in the
beginning of 2012. The heat caused plants to wither and prices to spike. These
negative impacts are only expected to get worst as time goes on. Scientists
were hoping that an increase in carbon dioxide in the air due to fumes could
offset the heat and water stress since carbon dioxide is a main food supply for
plants. Unfortunately, after doing tests, scientists have concluded that it isn’t
enough to offset the stress of global warming. However, none of these results
are definitive until more research is conducted.
This
article is very important because if a solution is not found to the problem of
the negative effect of global warming on crop yield, than there could be mass
starvation and rising hunger due to limited supplies of food. However,
scientists are confident that they can find a solution because agriculture has
a tremendous capacity to adapt to new conditions, including a warming climate.
For instance, plants could be planted earlier and new varieties that are more
resistant to climate stress can be developed.
I
thought the author did a poor job relaying such important information, to be
honest. The article had many short paragraphs that jumped around and were hard
to follow, in my opinion. However, the author did make good use of past examples
of negative effects of climate change, such as in 2012 with the corn crop.
Also, I liked that the author ended the article with a positive outlook by explaining
that scientists are confident that many solutions can be found for this problem.
Overall, I enjoyed this article for the informative content but not for the
writing skills of the author.
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/science/earth/warning-on-global-food-supply.html?ref=science&_r=0
Lucy did a great job summarizing the article, “A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply,” by Justin Gillis, by stating, “It explained how climate change could destabilize the world’s food system and, in the future, could cause rising hunger or even mass starvation.” In addition, she did a good job critiquing the article by noting negative points as well as positive points. For instance, Lucy writes, “The article had many short paragraphs that jumped around and were hard to follow…the author did make good use of past examples of negative effects of climate change…” Lastly, Lucy recognizes that although scientists have concluded that an increase in carbon dioxide in the air are not enough to offset global warming, none of these results are final until more research is conducted.
ReplyDeleteIn order to improve Lucy’s review, she could have included David Lobell and his work in the scientific community, since, in the New York Times’ article, David Lobell is mentioned, and his name is hyperlinked, so the reader has an opportunity to find out some information about him. Next, Lucy could have stated some ways that she believes can help prevent global warming.
Prior to reading the article and its review, I already knew that global warming is negatively impacting food supply. However, I did learn that the negative impacts of global climate change on agriculture are only expected to get worse.
After reading the review on “A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply,” I feel that I have obtained a full understanding on this informative article. One thing that Lucy presented particularly well was exposing the negative effects that climate change has on our food supply, and then she backed it up with an observation done by scientists. She claimed that climate change could destabilize the world’s food system and could cause rising hunger or even mass starvation. She backed up this statement with an observation that was mentioned in the article that claims that in 2012, the mass heat wave caused plants to wither and the prices began to spike. Next, Lucy does a good job in presenting an interesting hypothesis that was proven to be wrong after experimentation. She claims that scientists believed that an increase in carbon dioxide in the air due to fumes could offset the heat and water stress since carbon dioxide is a main food supply for plants. Lucy then states that this belief was altered when scientists discovered that there isn’t enough carbon dioxide to offset global warming. Lastly, Lucy successfully presents positive information that leaves the reader with a sense of hope. She states that scientists are confident that they can find a solution to this problem because agriculture has a great capacity to adapt to new conditions. Although this review was well written and very informative, I would have liked to learn more about past examples that displayed negative effects of climate change, and I would have liked her to expand more on the positive outlook to this seemingly disastrous issue. One aspect that I was not aware of before reading this article was that scientists have already done tests and noticed that global warming does indeed have an impact on crops, such as the corn.
ReplyDeleteA multitude of problems have been surfacing as global warming continues to worsen, and this article highlights one of these problems. The articles talks about how climate change could “destabilize the world’s food system as to lead to rising hunger or even mass starvation.” In her review of the article, Lucy did several things very well. First, she not only identified the problem presented in the article, but also gave specific examples. She highlighted this negative effect of global warming on agriculture by describing the example of the effects of the mass heat wave on the corn crop in the beginning of 2012. Lucy talked about how the heat caused plants to wither and prices to spike, and how the negative impacts are continuing to get worse. Another thing that Lucy did well was that she gave her honest opinion about the author’s style of writing. I agree with Lucy’s opinion; the author did not do a very good job of giving important information to the reader, and the article was disorganized and hard to follow. Lucy also did a good job of conveying the importance of the issue mentioned in the article. She mentioned that although this problem could lead to starvation, scientists are confident that a solution can be found because the crops will adapt over time.
ReplyDeleteLucy explained the problem well, gave specific examples, and talked about the authors shortcomings. I think her review was very well done. The only suggestion I could give to make the review even better is that she could have elaborated a bit more on how the issue could impact us directly. Otherwise, Lucy did an excellent job.
One interesting fact I learned from reading the article is that the intergovernmental panel had embraced the idea of a global carbon budget, “limiting emissions to no more than a trillion tons of carbon.” Human emissions are now calculated at about 515 billion tons; more than half of the carbon budget has already been exhausted.
I found the article "A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply" by Justin Gillis to be interesting and informative. Lucy did a very good job summarizing and analyzing the article as she enhanced its strengths while still addressing its downfalls. She immediately addresses the article's main assertion by stating that, "climate change could destabilize the world’s food system and, in the future, could cause rising hunger or even mass starvation". She supports her argument with scientific observation from the article. She puts forth all of the scientist solutions for this agricultural dilemma by stating that, " agriculture has a tremendous capacity to adapt to new conditions, including a warming climate. For instance, plants could be planted earlier and new varieties that are more resistant to climate stress can be developed." which gives hope to the reader. lastly, I agree with Lucy when she critiques the article for being hard to follow because I had to read it twice to fully understand what the author was saying.
ReplyDeleteOverall I think Lucy did a very good job summarizing this article. However, I would have like her to expand on the economic effects that would ensue if crop population decreased. Because prices would increase and would lead to economic distress as the food industry is essential to all countries. After reading this article, I can now see how detrimental climate change is as it affects so factors that are essential to human survival.
I read Lucy’s summary of Justin’s Gills, “A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply”. I thought she did a great job presenting the various aspects because I thought they were really confusing in the original article. I like how she started describing how climate change could destabilize the world’s food system and then she restated the example the author used. I thought it gave the summary scientific proof and added a better understanding. In Lucy’s second paragraph I like how she directly came out and said why the article is important. She didn’t leave any questions she simply stated, “if a solution is not found to the problem of the negative effect of global warming on crop yield, than there could be mass starvation and rising hunger...”. That sentence definitely showed me how important this issue is to the world and how something needs to change. Lastly, I thought the whole review was completed because she critiqued the article itself. She didn’t just blindly say the article was good, she critiqued the writing of it, which shows that many different levels were analyzed when she wrote this review.
ReplyDeleteEven though I thought Lucy did a great job I wish she expanded some of her ideas more. Like I said in the first paragraph I liked how she gave a direct example from the text, I just wish she did that in a few more spots, or she could’ve taken quotes from the article and put them into her summary. Also, in her first paragraph I thought the transition between some of the presented ideas were a little choppy and a better flow could’ve made the article perfect.
From reading Lucy’s summary and Justin Gill’s original article I was fascinated at the fact that the change in climate can have such a large effect on rising hunger and starvation. Even though that is a very broad statement when people talk about global warming and all of those issues, I never payed full attention because I’ve heard about it from when I was younger and I never thought much of it. I never realized how much of an affect it has on the near future.
After reading both the article, “A Jolt to Complacency on Food Supply,” and Lucy’s review, I now have a better understanding of the increasing negative effects of global warming. Lucy’s post was clear and concise, and it made the short and choppy article even easier to understand. She highlighted the main idea of the article in the second sentence, which was quite helpful, and it was nice how she gave specific examples from the article to support that claim. Additionally, a third aspect of Lucy’s review that I appreciated was that Lucy’s critique of the article was brutally honest, and I agreed with her opinion. The original article was a bit hard to follow, but her summary made it easier to comprehend the biggest takeaways from the article.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Lucy did a great job and exceptionally completed the task, I do have a couple suggestions. It would have been better if she started her post with a more intriguing topic sentence that pulled the reader in, rather than starting with, “The article that I read is called...,”. The only other suggestion I have would be to use a couple quotes directly from the article that would help to explain a certain section of the article through analysis of the quotation. Besides these two small fixes, I believe Lucy nicely developed a strong idea from the article along with a strong opinion in her post.
Lucy’s blog post and the original article by Justin Gillis emphasized the idea that human-caused climate change could result in mass starvation; essentially we are our own enemy. I didn’t know that global warming had such a negative effect on the world’s food supply, and this article truly brought attention to this major issue.