| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 22, 23, 24, Conclusion (pp. 539-658) | Tuesday, Oct. 24 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 19, 20, 21 (pp. 449-538) | Tuesday, Oct. 17 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 16, 17, 18 (pp. 361-448) | Tuesday, Oct. 10 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 13, 14, 15 (pp. 289-360) | Tuesday, Oct. 3 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 10, 11, 12 (pp. 207-288) | Tuesday, Sept. 26 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 7, 8, 9 (pp. 129-206) | Tuesday, Sept. 19 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Chapters 4, 5, 6 (pp. 79-128) | Tuesday, Sept. 12 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
| Chapters | Date & Time | Place – 118 & on zoom upon request: dcli@duq.edu |
| Introduction, chs. 1,2,3 (pp.1-79) | Tuesday, Sept. 5 @ noon | Room 118 (McGinnis) |
Talking Points: The book aims to look at the past and understand our anthropocenic climate impact to see if we can alter it to avoid a perilous future.
Introduction:
p. 1: Do you agree with Voltaire’s assessment that three things excercise a constant influence over the minds of men: climate, government and religion? In that order?
p. 3: Were any of you alive in 1986? That spring the the reactor at Chernobyl exploded. Did you know that the United States Government Accountability Office reported more than 150 incidents from 2001 to 2006 of nuclear plants not performing within acceptable safety guidelines? According to a 2010 survey of energy accidents, there have been at least 56 accidents at nuclear reactors in the United States (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage). The most serious of these was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant has been the source of two of the top five most dangerous nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979.
p. 4: What do you understand by climate disruption?
p. 7: Can you recall some old and new ways of understanding the climate? What about new and exciting “climate archives”?
p. 11: What does ENSO stand for?
p. 13: How do climate and temperature shape biodiversity?
p. 15: What caused the first radical anthropogenic impact on climate?
p. 16: Can you give an example of climate knock-on effects?
p. 17: Why do scientists say that air pollution is lethal? What is the estimate cost of health damages associated with exposure to air pollution (according teh the World Bank p. 18)?
p. 30-34: What do you know about the climate impact of the Chicxulub asteroid strike?
p. 35: What preceded the Zanclean flood?
p. 38: What do you know about the role of fossil fuel and the reshaping of the British Empire?
On the Origins of Our Species
p. 41: About 7 million years ago, the human lineage diverged from that of apes, but the geographical origins of Homo Sapiens remain something of a mystery. Why?
p. 42. How is the evolution of hominins connected to shifting climate patterns?
p.45. What coping mechanisms for extremely challenging climate spells, does the author discuss? What evidence is mentioned behind bodies entering a hypometabolic state, 450,000 years ago in Northern Spain?
p. 50: What contributed to the disapearance of the Neanderthal population in Europe, 40,000 years ago?
p. 53-61: Deglaciation around 19,000 years ago, and the rise in temperatures between 16,000-10,000 years ago, in addition to an abrupt cooling 12,900 years ago continued the list of climate shocks, which became more stable with the onset of the Holocene. How did this climatic changes impact the human history?
Human Interactions with Ecologies
p. 63-71: With the Halocene a long period of stable weather patterns appears which seems to have encouraged human settlements, and with them, sedentrism and the rise in human popuation.
p. 72: Given the stable weather patterns, waves of migration opened. With them the diversification of genetic variants associated with skin color became more evident. Darker skin proveded UV protection in equatorial zones, and thus, the populations settled there will benefit from that protection. Lighter skin maximizes vitamin D production and became associated with populations living in the more mountousous, nordic areas. What gene was particulary common with the wet Eurasian population?
p. 73: What is the Goldilocks abrupt climate change event? What was its impact?
p. 74-78 What do we know about early human adaptation to climate change?
Chapter 20
p. 419-431 -What are the facts, the issues, and the law in State v. Desdunes (1892)?
In State v. Desdunes, the Citizens’ Committee had tested the constitutional validity of the Separate Car Law.
Daniel Desdunes, a young Creole man whose ancestry was one-eighth African and seven-eighths European, was the voluntary protagonist in the first case contrived by the committee. On February 24, 1892, Desdunes boarded a train in New Orleans bound for Mobile, Alabama. He took a seat in the white coach, announced his identity as a colored man, and was arrested for violating the state law. His case was dismissed when the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the Separate Car Law could not constitutionally be enforced against passengers traveling across state boundaries, because only the Congress had power under the Constitution’s commerce power (Article 1, Section 8) to regulate interstate transportation.
p. 431 -441 The issue in Plessy’s case was straightforward, 163 U.S. 537 (1896); Vote: 7–1; Decided: May 18, 1896
Issue: Did the Louisiana Separate Car Law violate the rights guaranteed to Plessy by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments?
Judge John Howard Ferguson presided at the state district court that originally heard Plessy’s case and ruled against him. Plessy appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which ruled that the state government had the power to regulate transportation strictly within the state’s borders and that “separate but equal” accommodations for persons of different races did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted Plessy’s appeal of the state’s decision, and the federal case of Plessy v. Ferguson was decided nearly four years later, because Plessy’s lawyer, Albion Tourgée, acted very slowly to move the case forward.
Chapter 19
p. 397. Martinet’s profession was that of a civil law notary. What did that entail?
p. 398 Bystander’s position about the Separate Car Act was: “the law was a great insult to colored people,” mirroring Martinet’s position. Is that why Martinet suggested Bystander as the lawyer to test its constitutionality in federal courts?
p. 399-400 Why did Emma’s attorney suggested she swallowed hard and did nothing?
p. 401 What did Bystander mean by: “The negro, as a citizen, is a creation of the Republican party?” How do you feel about this assessment today?
p. 402-406 What is your impression about the new Justice Brown? Does it bring to mind and Yale-trained S.Ct. Justices on the the bench today?
p. 406-7 What can you say about the tyranny of separation and Martinet’s work in this area?
p. 408-09. What is your interpretation of the Bystander’s words “it was given freedom it must conquer liberty?” and Luxenberg’s “Silence was the servant of oppression?”
p. 410-12 What did Bystander mean with “rights are enforced and protected by the courts?”
p. 413. Martinet described the Southern whites as full of surprises in terms of inborn, ingrained, hypocrisy and treachery. Could it be that Luxenberg wants to single out one of the main characters of his book with these words?
p. 414-15 How do the Browns and the Tourgees spend the summer of 1891?
p. 416-17 How does Luxenberg explain that Louisville & Nashville “wouldn’t mind seeing separate car laws disappear?”