Let it snow, Tucson
It’s about time Tucson experiences winter weather this season. Yesterday morning, students and faculty alike braved the chilly, windy, cloudy climate to attend classes. The cold can be difficult to adapt to, particularly for Arizonans who are accustomed to sunny days year-round. Tucsonans are ready for a change in temperature, especially since typical Arizona heat has overstayed its welcome this year. Students expect the torridity to subside by the beginning of November, and there was no such luxury this winter. Now that it’s cooler outside, students can actually bundle up and maybe even have an excuse to sleep in one morning. For finally providing everyone legitimate winter weather and toning down the scorching heat, Tucson gets a pass.
Dead Day? How about Dead Week?
Whether students are ready to accept this fact or not, the final examination period begins in just three days. The last day of classes is tomorrow, and after that, students only have Thursday as a “”Dead Day”” to catch up on academics and possibly wind down. Unfortunately, a single day is not enough time for anyone to get all their necessary studying done, and the start of finals marks an extremely stressful week. Other universities across the nation seem to have this in mind when they give students extra time for final preparation, as they should. Princeton University holds Reading Period, which is a weeklong downtime before final exams start. Yale University also has a Reading Period “”to provide a period of about a week during which students might conclude their course work and prepare for final examinations.”” Wouldn’t it be nice if the UA had this option, or at least something more than just Dead Day? For allowing students just one day in between the end of classes and the final examination period, the UA gets a fail.
UA connection to Climategate e-mail release
Critics and citizens all over are unsure of how to react to the recently-released e-mails to and from prominent UA climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck, who, among many other scientists, is under scrutiny for possibly pushing colleagues too hard to conform to global warming theories and failing to heed comments from other scientists that gave weight to skeptics, according to yesterday’s Arizona Daily Star news report. Overpeck responded that critics aren’t familiar with how scientists create major studies such as the reports from the International Panel on Climate Change. Regardless, the released e-mails show that there were definite scientific uncertainties about some key theories underlying the idea that today’s warm weather is caused by humans, said Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at Guelph University in Ontario, and this led many commentators to wonder what the truth really is. The global warming situation is much more complicated than an e-mail scandal, so even if leading scientists, including Overpeck, withheld certain details about the cause from the general public, the planet will still continue to warm. Citizens have no choice but to hope that scientists are still working hard to sort out the core of the global warming problem. But for potentially hiding contradicting evidence from society, Overpeck and other scientists involved get an incomplete.
Arizona carbon dioxide emissions see a 61 percent increase in 17 years
A recent news report shows that carbon dioxide emissions in Arizona increased faster than in any other state since 1990. Arizona has experienced a 61 percent increase since 1990, topping the list of states with the most increases. Compared to the national increase of 19 percent, Arizona’s emissions are embarrassing and disheartening. The state’s rapid growth as a whole has contributed to the problem, but it’s not the only reason for the skyrocketed carbon dioxide emissions. State corporation commissioner Paul Newman told the Arizona Daily Star that Arizona is very car-dependent and is behind on energy efficiency, both of which can cause the state to have a higher level of carbon dioxide emissions. Arizonans can do a better job of decreasing the emissions by being more sensible with consumption, and these emissions could have surely been reduced. For seeing such a drastic increase in carbon dioxide emissions in less than 20 years, Arizona gets a fail.
— Editorials are determined by the opinions board and written by one of its members. They include Alex Dalenberg, Laura Donovan, Justyn Dillingham and Heather Price-Wright.
