Wow, I don't think anything has made me question why (at least for the past 6 years) my strongly held belief in climate change, quite like Michael Crichton's State Of Fear. And I have to admit, this scares me.
I am not saying that it has changed my mind at all, but rather that in the past it has seemed almost intuitive to believe it. And now I have to question my self, WHY?
When I was 16 I began attending an arts high school in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Global Warming was a constant topic of discussion within the art student realm. Whether it was in my mass media class, watching Al Gores An Inconvenient Truth in Chemistry, or even for regular heated discussion with other students at lunch (who were completely devoted to making a difference when it came to environmental conservation), I was always thinking and talking about Global Warming and how it would eventually lead our world to it's demise.
On the contrary, I grew up in a politically conservative household. With constant political fighting between my extreme conservative parents and my two intensely vegan/liberal brothers, I heard both sides constantly. My parent's of course took the side that global warming does not and cannot exist. Listening to Tommy Mischke on my way home from school while my mother drove, he would read off record highs and lows in temperature and state after each time something like, "And more evidence that global warming does not exist." This is the type of rhetoric my mother believes and uses in her arguments. Tommy Mischke, was selecting which issue he would focus his argument on, which was based only on temperature. The way he would phrase it completely captivated my mother into believing it, without doing any research of her own. As for my brothers, they had pretty well articulated arguments from articles they would find online and in magazines, etc.
Getting to the text though, what made me ask myself, why I believe that climate change exists, was when Balder states, "When you have a strongly held belief don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?" I agree with him, and I realized that even with my strongly held belief that climate change is real, I don't know how well I can support that belief. I know that I would come up with an answer the same way that Evans does on page 102, and that humans are causing it. Beyond that I am not confident that I would be able to express it accurately.
Then Chrichton answers my question for me when Henley states during his discussion with Nick Drake, "There is no greater proof that all reality is media reality," (p. 393).
This quote answers my question, because if it were not for the high school that I attended, I am uncertain that I would have the beliefs I do today. I do not know that I would be leading the life that I do, as far as biking/bussing for transportation, shopping at co-ops, living in the neighborhood I do, or eating the food I eat. My high school as well as my brother, provided me with the texts/circulating references, that ultimately shaped my views. I'm sure this disheartens my parent's a little bit (even though they have no idea what I learned in that school). But my parents have a similar experience from the other side. They are both avid listeners of conservative talk radio and they hear are views that are constantly against the "left" no matter what issue it is. My mother can only reference sources from her talk radio shows and from no where else. She would never even think of reading an article that may disrupt her political views. She is in a constant state of fear (haha.) that her views will be challenged and that the reality that she lives in will be changed.
As this book disgustingly objectifies women as being nothing more than sexual objects created for men and the fact that Evans will change anything in his schedule for a potential affair, it tended to tick me off. However, I cannot deny how I was able to relate with Evans at some points. As he is continually up against Kenner, it reminded me of my disputes with my parents. As Kenner is an extremist that cannot be argued with, my parents are the same. Evans is always having his views challenged and questioned which can lead a person to doubt oneself. As I am not yet finished with the book, I do look forward to seeing where Evans ends up and what view will finally shape his reality. As for me, my parent's can't change my mind, with mere rhetoric and unrelenting arguments.
I found myself rather entertained reading this, in a good way, 1) because you had the polar opposite views growing up. Whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen, I think it is a good thing for a group of people to be constantly challenging such a new and zealous idea. This idea definitely has the ability to shape our way of life, we have already seen good examples of this in the past ten years. What I am getting at is even it the opposition to global warming is wrong it is good to have them if not only to make the rest of us check our facts.
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