An Inconvenient Truth about Access to Safe Drinking Water

The phrase inconvenient truth associated with global warming and climate change has received a great deal of publicity some years back. The objective of this article is to highlight a different kind of inconvenient truth which affects about 29% of the world population. It is about the lack of access to safe drinking water that results in over 1.2 million preventable deaths annually. The first two targets of UN sustainable development goal 6 (SDG6) aim at providing universal, affordable and sustainable access to “water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)”. Recognizing the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a basic human right, issues related to this problem as well as possible options to alleviate the problem are discussed.

US COVID-19 EXAM FAILURE MAKES WORLD LEERY ABOUT AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND LEADERSHIP

For a newbie in the USA, heath care, education, science and economy are presented as exceptional; the best of the world, but these nice words are not backed by reality, and it is hard to openly talk about these issues as they turn into an inconvenient truth, and the fact that truth is anti-American and anti-human makes it more difficult to correct the problems, as it turns difficult to openly acknowledge the issues and look for solutions. Trump and revealed a bunch of American truths, removed the of kindness and exceptionalism, and put in the limelight a lot of inconvenient realities of the actual USA, a country ideologically divided and under Lord , a nation sunk in alternate realities and facts, with a political leadership inept for progress. Looking to understand why this aberrant behavior in front of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we discovered that the F++ grade USA obtained at this “ecologic” exam, is routed in education of the last 50 years, that produced such population with very low real IQ, but loud arrogant and oblivious of their situation, with little respect for reality and knowledge. From the education stand point, the thinks appear even more complicated, because failures in education are routed in society, and the education system produced exactly what society asked and paid for, everything becoming a “chicken or egg” problem, under “what to solve first” dilemma The present research was looking to find an answer to this very complex problem, at minimum to openly list the issues, and propose idealistic solutions, looking to become a wake-up moment not only for the USA but for many other nations which are confronted with the same issues, of a decadent democracy and consumerist economy, without pleading for extreme left solution manifested autocratic regimes.

An ‘inconvenient truth’? The problem of recognition of the political message – commentary to Huttunen and Albrecht

This commentary reflects on Huttunen and Albrecht’s exploration of the representations of young people’s environmental citizenship within the framing of the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement in the Finnish news media and on Twitter. In particular, it problematises the issue of the recognition of young people’s agency by their adult contemporaries, at a watershed moment for global environmental activism. It argues that although young people actively bring the climate change in the forefront of political discussion aiming to shape how environmental responsibility is being understood, the success of the movement will largely depend on the acknowledgement of their political message by its intended recipients; namely their adult contemporaries and politicians.

Racing Rhetoric: A Burkean Analysis of Ecodocumentary Rhetoric

Ecodocumentary films such as The Cove, An Inconvenient Truth, and Sharkwater have demonstrated the power to influence audience behavior, establish public discourses, and inspire social change. This MRP explores promotional videos for a new ecodocumentary, Racing Extinction (Psihoyos, 2015), which explores the possibility of a sixth mass extinction of species, and what humans may be able to do to stop it. As such, this MRP attempts to discover more about the persuasive process, audience engagement, and how ecodocumentaries can work to enact social change. Using the Burkean concepts of dramatism, guilt-purification-redemption, and identification, this research analyzes the rhetoric of three promotional videos by assessing their dramatistic elements, how audiences may identify with the narratives therein and, to make a statement about their motives. The three videos have been selected to both exemplify the language of the filmmakers, and represent their two distinct objectives: to sell tickets, and to create social change. This research provides an examination of the persuasive tools used by the Racing Extinction filmmakers, and an overview of the levels of audience engagement online. For Burkean scholars, this research begins to fill key gaps in analyzed content. Through analyzing the promotional content for Racing Extinction, I seek to improve the scholarly understanding of the persuasive processes associated with ecodocumentary rhetoric.

Racing Rhetoric: A Burkean Analysis of Ecodocumentary Rhetoric

Ecodocumentary films such as The Cove, An Inconvenient Truth, and Sharkwater have demonstrated the power to influence audience behavior, establish public discourses, and inspire social change. This MRP explores promotional videos for a new ecodocumentary, Racing Extinction (Psihoyos, 2015), which explores the possibility of a sixth mass extinction of species, and what humans may be able to do to stop it. As such, this MRP attempts to discover more about the persuasive process, audience engagement, and how ecodocumentaries can work to enact social change. Using the Burkean concepts of dramatism, guilt-purification-redemption, and identification, this research analyzes the rhetoric of three promotional videos by assessing their dramatistic elements, how audiences may identify with the narratives therein and, to make a statement about their motives. The three videos have been selected to both exemplify the language of the filmmakers, and represent their two distinct objectives: to sell tickets, and to create social change. This research provides an examination of the persuasive tools used by the Racing Extinction filmmakers, and an overview of the levels of audience engagement online. For Burkean scholars, this research begins to fill key gaps in analyzed content. Through analyzing the promotional content for Racing Extinction, I seek to improve the scholarly understanding of the persuasive processes associated with ecodocumentary rhetoric.