My school isn’t doing anything for Earth Day, so I’m just going to say an announcement myself in the morning. What’ll they do to me?

Continuing the story of my lackluster high school, I was correct in lasts night’s assumption. Dover had nothing planned for Earth Day. I assume we’re one of the only high schools in the state that didn’t raise any consciousness about this very important topic. Arguably, and in my own personal belief, this is the most important issue my generation faces.

I’m in a position in Dover where I’m able to say the morning announcements on the Public Announcement system. I took full advantage this morning to raise some awareness about the Earth.

Good morning Dover Middle/High School. As you likely know, today is Earth Day… but are you doing anything about it?

Here are three simple things you can do to decrease your carbon dioxide emissions and help out with the climate crisis.

Change a light. Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Recycle. Recycle everything you can at home and never throw away a piece of paper at school. Remember, put your used paper in the recycling bins.

Turn stuff off. Simply turning off your TV or computer will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Use a sleep timer at night on your TV or shut your computer down at night. It’s not hard and it makes a difference.

Remember, this is the only planet we have. It’s up to our generation to ensure it’ll be habitable for our kids and other life on Earth. Are you up to the challenge?

That’s what the paper I wrote said, but I paraphrased it as I went along. Of course, no one called me on it. I find it somewhat sad that it takes a concerned student who is willing to break the rules to raise awareness about my generation’s most significant problem.

The closest thing to a recognition of Earth Day that Dover had today was trimming some trees around the school. The groundsmen left giant branches all over the campus. Lovely.

It’s no secret: I’m a fan of Al Gore as an intellectual. I’ve watched An Inconvenient Truth and read The Assault on Reason (here’s my review) and think Gore is a decent man who wants to change the world in two central areas – the climate crisis and the democracy crisis. [Video]

I’d never heard of John Doerr before watching the very emotional speech on the climate crisis in 2007. He starts saying, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.” Find out why. [Video]

There’s a group on facebook called “Free Rice Challenge” that asks you to play FreeRice and post your totals on the group’s wall. They’ll then add up the totals and see just how much of that rice is coming from facebook members.

If you don’t know what FreeRice is, here’s what the BBC has to say:

An internet word game has generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has said.

The game, FreeRice, tests the vocabulary of participants. For each click on a correct answer, the website donates money to buy 10 grains of rice.

Companies advertising on the website provide the money to the WFP to buy and distribute the rice.

FreeRice went online in early October and has now raised 1bn grains of rice.

That is enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day, the WFP said on Friday.

‘Viral marketing’

The head of the WFP, Josette Sheeran, said: “FreeRice really hits home how the web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for he world’s number one emergency.”

She said word of the game has spread with the help of internet bloggers and websites like Facebook and YouTube.

“The site is a viral marketing success story.”

FreeRice is the invention of US online fundraising pioneer John Breen.

I maintain that FreeRice is a genius idea. You boost your vocabulary, and someone gets to eat. Brilliant.

There are fifty levels of vocabulary in total. For each word you get wrong, you move down a level, and for every correct three in a row, you move up a level. According to their FAQ:

This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

I am so angry that I didn’t have this website a year, or even a month, ago. It’s a spectacular, entertaining, and righteous way to prepare for the SAT. Pretty cool, huh?

Wonderful video originally by Karl Fisch of Arapahoe High School, redone by XPLANE. Link found on Christopher Penn’s blog. Take a moment to think about it. It’s a deep video that makes me realize just how much I’m not learning in school.

Video.

Photos on Facebook, publicly viewable.

I did three posts today, woah. In that light, I might take tomorrow off from Exposay to do some heavy knowledge work. I’ve got some cool stuff coming.

My selections thus far have been Al Gore‘s, The Assault on Reason, and Barack Obama‘s, The Audacity of Hope. The two works shouldn’t be treated as a single unit by any stretch of the imagination; although I’m grouping them in this post, they’re vastly different in purpose, content, and style.

I very much prefer Gore’s book, an unapologetic assault of the Bush Administration’s deplorable and undemocratic actions, never resorting to ad hominem attacks. It’s an eclectic piece covering the revolution started by the printing press; the public forum and marketplace of ideas; the foundation of the United States; the importance of the filibuster; the danger of television; the process of votes becoming a commodity; the danger of signing statements; the revolution triggered by wikis, user generated content, and blogs; the climate crisis; net neutrality; and more. Al Gore is a spectacular intellectual, and I wish he was running for the Presidency. I respect him significantly.

One specific point Gore elaborates on is the “marketplace of ideas“, and how the free flow of information is the lifeblood of a democracy. He believes that the Internet will enable us to take back what the wealthy have bought, the media. This point really hit home with me. I don’t watch television, which isn’t to say that I don’t consume media. I do, and too much of it. I choose to listen and watch independent programs on the Internet that cater to my interests and let me give feedback. Usually, these content creators elicit and value one’s feedback, always changing to accommodate their specialized audience. While new media is a refreshing conversation, old media is a boring lecture. I highly recommend dumping the television habit in favor of a more rewarding medium.

The concept of sharing information and spreading democracy through the sharing of information, rather than the dropping of bombs, reminded me of the One Laptop per Child project. The MIT project plans to produce a fully-functional laptop for around $100 for use in lesser developed nations. Many people flame the project with the rhetoric that charity is a zero-sum activity. Rather than produce computers, money could be used to give people food or medication, they say. However, I believe that while one project tries to port technology to other markets, others could be producing such basic needs. How can I justify this? The laptops give Internet access. The Internet informs; it’s a direct combatant against ignorance and oppression. It was the printing press that enabled the protestant reformation, perhaps the Internet can enable (more) revolutions of its own.

Obama’s book is a lightweight in comparison, basically outlining his campaign for the 2008 Presidential Election. A New York Times review sums it up as this:

In a more perfect world, a graduate program complete with a doctoral thesis might be required of all those seeking the presidency. In certain ways, ”The Audacity of Hope” qualifies as Senator Barack Obama’s thesis submission.

Obama takes great pains to seem very personal, and his style is very friendly and human, contrasting to Gore’s stern distance. Barack Obama is obviously an intelligent man with impressive political views and would be an improvement over George Bush in office. Then again, who wouldn’t be? I first became interested in Barack Obama after his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I loved this excerpt from the speech, which inspired the book’s title:

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

It was packed with some great one-liners, too. I love this one.

Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question.

I couldn’t help but be slightly fazed when Obama did chapters on his family and his religious stance, typical and christian, respectively. It’s not that I found anything he said particularly shocking, I just prefer matters like these as far away from politics as possible. I can’t fathom the relevance; then again, I’m not the American people. I’m not looking for someone I would consider a friend, I’m looking for someone who can enable me to have the best future possible through intelligent, calculated actions that do not undermine the future of the nation.

I don’t know which Democratic candidate I’m going to throw my support behind. I’ll be 18 years of age in November 2008. The prospect of finally being a participant in this concept I’ve studied for so long, Democracy, excites me. I remain hopeful.