Developing World Climate Blog Post

Tropic of Chaos was written more than 10 year ago. Critical questions include: What has happened since then? Is the analysis Parenti makes accurate or limited? What about other countries on those continents that he doesn't address? What will happen in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as the climate crisis continues to unfold?

As part of this assignment you will participate in creating a public blog examining one, narrow and specific dimension of the research and analysis set forward by Parenti with the intention to update, develop, and advance our understanding of the present, past, and future impacts of the climate cisis by further research on the issue you focus on. 

The blog Climate Crisis: Africa, Asia, and Latin America is posted on blogger and you will receive an invite via email inviting you to become an author on the blog. In collaboration with me you will select a topic, engage in substantial research, and create a thoughtful and insightful blog post.

A blog is a "web log" -- in its most essential form, a commentary on other sites on the web. Your post will be about exploring connections between research, resources, news, commentary, and ideas on the web and topics raised by Tropic of Chaos. There is substantial room for choice, creativity, and exploration of your own thinking and analysis.

Writing on the blog is in a public voice, thoughtful and careful, appropriate not only to the academic project of the class, but mindful of the possibility that your writing is published to a world-wide audience.

Your blog should meet these minimum requirements:

1) Evidence of reading Parenti's book - describe / refer to some specifics in Tropic of Chaos that lead you to your research on the contemporary state of things.

2) Online or library research addressing the topic you are exploring. Include at least 3 links. Don't just write the word "here" and make it a link or, at the other extreme, you don't need to write out the full URL of the article - instead, when you refer to it, make the link either to a few key words that capture the main idea of the article or to the title of the article and make either the key idea or the title a link to the full URL. When the links are there you don't need to have a separate bibliography.

3) Of course, tie in to the climate crisis.

4) Write between 800-1000 words.

5) Your post should be visually attractive. Each post needs to include at least two or more images. Don't use the over of Parenti's book as one of your images.

I suggest first writing blog entries in your own word processing program before cutting and pasting into the blog. The blog is an easy to use space that allows you to use images and links, and to receive commentary by your classmates and other readers. 

You are expected to read all the blog posts of your classmates and reply to at least 10 of them. Replies should not just say "good job" but join in the conversation about the post, comment on specific points in the post, open dialogue, raise questions and ideas, and further the thinking.