Check Out This Article

Your next assignment will be to read this article, Big Foot, from the New Yorker several weeks ago. (No, it is not about searching for Sasquatch in the woods. Unfortunately, you have to take a class on Folklore to read about that. Rather, it refers to "Carbon Footprints.") I will give a hand out in class this week as to what you should do after you have read it. Anyway, if you want a jump start, you should just start reading the article now.

UPDATED @ 13:41, March 2, 2008: The assignment is posted to the right if you want to download it and begin straightaway!

This article is timely and just absolutely fascinating. I have been annoying my wife Birgit by talking about it all weekend at home. She can't even pour a glass of orange juice now without me speculating on how much environmental carnage she is inducing... yes, read this and you will surely have ammunition to drive your roommates and friends crazy for years to come! :) If you are from the East Coast and drink Californian wine out there you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself! After all, wine from France is far less destructive on the environment than wine from California if you are living out there. Geography... yes, transportation geography makes a difference! So cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, please listen to the follow up commentary by the author of the article, Michael Specter (New Yorker science writer). An interview/discussion is available in mp3 format so you can listen to it over and over on your iPods or Zen Micros or Zunes or whatever for years to come! Download it or listen to it by clicking on the respective blue, underlined words in this sentence. But you knew that.

I hope you are all having a great weekend! I for one have had too much coffee (from Brazil, because I am down on Sumatra)!!!! Which means I have contributed two tons of carbon to the air... shame on me! But I have an excuse, right? I am a caffeine addict! Of course, perhaps I am an energy addict, in which case nothing is excusable, but we can debate that on Monday (time permitting) and Wednesday.