RCL

I’m still not sure I have a full idea in my head yet but an outline helps me figure out where I’m going with it.

Topic: The three terms that are single-handedly changing the transportation industry in Europe and beyond.

Purpose: To explain how small notions and terms have grown into a revolution and to discuss if a similar phenomenon will happen in the U.S.

Thesis Statement: European citizens and activist networks created a movement that gained so much traction it was able to make its way up to national and international governing bodies, inciting environmental legislation and change that will improve our world and protect our future.

Introduction Attention Strategy/Orienting Material: How will you begin this presentation in a way that appropriately garners audience attention? Start by letting them know how important the future is and that if the whole world continues its current environmental behaviors, there will not be a future. Show two pictures, a buzzing, clean metropolis next to a smoggy dark city.

Body

I. Main Idea – The term flygskam, a Swedish word meaning “flight shame” is becoming ever more popular.
A. Flight shame has decreased the number of flights and percentage of people flying in multiple European countries.
1. “The number of people flying between German cities dropped 12% in November from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg report of ADV industry group data, which showed the fourth straight month that airline passengers have decreased.”
2. In the first quarter of 2019, domestic flights in Sweden were down 4.5% compared to the year before (Abend 2019)
B. Greta Thunberg has spearheaded a movement captivating not only Europe but the world.
1. Her and her mom will not fly within Europe anymore and on a trip to New York City, Greta travelled by sailboat.
2. Other celebrities have backed this and now will avoid flying as much as possible (draw from article used in paradigm shift paper about lecturer who lost jobs because she wanted to zoom into conferences)
II. Main Idea – The term tågskryt meaning “train-bragging” has also risen in popularity.
A. Increase in train usage
a. “This has also been seen in Thunberg’s home country, where Sweden’s main train operator SJ told the Associated Press earlier this year that it sold 1.5 million more tickets in 2018 than the previous year, as more people ride the rails to reduce their own carbon emissions. The train company reported that the number of business passengers rose 12% in the first three months of this year.”
B. Activist movements dedicated to increasing train usage
a. Tagsemester meaning “Train Holiday” and Flygfitt that have facebook groups and resources dedicated to increase in train usage

III. Main Idea – The hashtag #stayontheground takes both terms into account taking both flight shame and train-bragging into account.
A. Talk about frequency of the hashtag and when it was trending

 

Conclusion- The media among the people has had a great impact on the present and future of the shift in preferred European travel methods. Hashtags and terms such as Flygskam, Tagskryt, and StayOnTheGround have accumulated a group of people with our future in their best interest.

Concluding Remark – A closing statement; last words If you lived in Europe, would these terms have any effect on you and your environmental decisions? Your decisions have a great effect on our future so I hope so.

 

Reference Page(s)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/flygskam-is-the-swedish-travel-trend-that-could-shake-the-global-airline-industry-2019-06-20

 

In this column, offer brief slide description and its function alongside the idea it is intended to support.

Slide One     Purpose: Give a nice beginning slide showing the future

Slide Two   Purpose: Show the work flygskam and what it means so there is no confusion

Slide Three  Purpose: Create a link between Greta Thunberg and flying in the audience’s head

Slide Four Purpose: Give empirical evidence to show the decrease in German flights

 

More to come…

 

 

 

This is a very very rough draft but it was very helpful in getting a lot of my ideas down and organizing my thoughts!! Welcome to my thought process.

Intro

Hook—How important is the future? Are there changes we can make as humans to ensure we have a future? The continent of Europe can answer both questions easily; The future is very important and one way to ensure that there is a future is the increased use of more sustainable transportation, among other factors.

Establish that a shift happened—In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on train travel, specifically electric high-speed train travel in Europe. There are many sources I have found at the bottom of this outline that support my argument that this shift did in fact occur.

Thesis: The European Union, working diligently on their Green New Deal, emphasizes train transportation as much more environmentally friendly than air or automobile transportation. This increased change in preferred transportation mode highlights a systemic paradigm shift, starting from individual citizens and making its way up to National and International governing bodies.

Body

Both human transportation and goods transportation aspect of the argument will be analyzed

“Literature review” or a review of the shift 

1. A few very important terms will need to be defined for the argument to make sense in case the audience is not aware of these terms. Sustainable- pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse. Carbon Emissions are a type of greenhouse gas that enter air after human action. They make up 82% of all greenhouse gases and the more carbon emissions, the faster climate change will occur. Explaining why carbon emissions are a bad thing will make a good base for why this paradigm shift occurred.
2. Before this mass shift in European ideology, many more Europeans were taking short flights between countries within Europe, not thinking about the effects their air jaunts had on the environment. I have yet to find a distinct year in which this paradigm occurred, it more just happened in phases/stages over the course of the last few decades. I will do more research to try to find an event that catalyzed this shift, however.
3. After the shift- We are still in the after stages of the paradigm shift. This shift has occurred in Europe but will continue to spread by diffusion to other countries such as our Country who has not made this huge shift from modes of transportation that cause massive amounts of carbon emissions to more sustainable and environmentally friendly options.

1. 1. I could argue that for any paradigm shift, the after stages would include the present because there will always be improvements and shifts related to a topic. Because this shift is not the explicit result of a law being passed, it’s hard to observe an obvious before and after, like other paradigm shifts.

Analysis of Causes

1. The main reason the shift has occurred has to do with the environmental concerns. Europeans seem to be much more environmentally conscious than many other countries.

1. 1. Trains, specifically the electric or steam-powered ones, emit much less carbon than the other common modes of transportation.
   2. Many citizens now will go out of their way to travel within Europe using methods that are not cars or planes, such as buses, ferries, and trains.
      1. Highlight man from Sweden who opted out of a short plane ride just to use more sustainable transportation.
      2. There is an increased number of citizens who are choosing to take much longer ways to get there as long as they don’t have to make a plan because they know how bad aviation is for the environment.
      3. Flygskam Anti-Flight Movement causing an increase in train travel and a decrease in air travel
2. Talk about both transportation of goods (freight) and for leisure/business travel.
   1. Statistics on freight trains in Europe compared to the number of freight flights and compare CO2 emissions.
3. Show governmental organizations strategies and plans to combat climate change with an emphasis on changing travel modes.

Critique of the shift:

1. The shift has a lot of economic costs associated with it. It’s not cheap at all to build railways and trains that are electric, or steam-powered. The cheap alternative is to use less eco-friendly modes of transportation. People are also impatient and will most likely opt for the fastest mode or cheapest mode of travel, not always the most environmentally friendly. The same is for businesses and freight transportation companies, businesses look to cut costs, not worry about the state of the environment as much. While Europe has done a good job of keeping their priorities straight, other countries may not follow suit so easily.
2. This shift matters because if there was no transition from our current modes of transportation to more sustainable and green alternatives, the negative effects on our climate will increase drastically. It matters to every person living in the world because, without these strategies, the world will cease to exist relatively soon.

Conclusion

(My conclusion will be much better when I have the rest of the essay to write the conclusion off of but basically…)

Increased emphasis on climate change awareness in the EU and the rest of the European continent has created a paradigm shift among both citizens and governments on the importance of green train travel over car or air travel despite the fact that it may be more expensive, or time-consuming. Many European citizens are willing to make this sacrifice to cut down on carbon emissions and hopefully slow down the effects of climate change. This ideology, while very common in Europe, has yet to spread to other countries with the same degree of traction but effects are starting to be seen in the United States as well as a result of the European Union’s leadership. We are in the after stages of the paradigm shift of Europe and hopefully, these stances will become just as common in every other part of the world.

Sources I plan on using for the paper…

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en

https://back-on-track.eu/more-emphasis-on-trains-in-europe-to-replace-flights/

https://www.eurail.com/en/get-inspired/everything-you-need-know-about-eurail/advantages-train-travel/why-eurail-your-greenest-choice#:~:text=Sustainable%20travel,are%20far%20more%20sustainable%20too.

https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&searchType=ts&userGroupName=psucic&inPS=true&contentSegment=&prodId=GRNR&docId=GALE|KEEXGW427739822&it=r

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692314001513

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/news/2020-03-04-promoting-sustainable-mobility_en

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europes-flight-shame-movement-has-travelers-taking-trains-to-save-the-planet/2019/08/02/1bd38486-ac96-11e9-9411-a608f9d0c2d3_story.html

https://time.com/5641390/europe-train-air-travel/

https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/interrail-sustainable-travel/why-train-is-best-option

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport_en

Ecopassenger calculator

https://www.greenmatters.com/p/how-do-carbon-emissions-affect-environment

My next big assignment in this class is the seven to ten page research paper on a specific paradigm shift. After careful consideration and discussion, my chosen focus is going to be on the heightened emphasis on train travel in recent years in Europe.

The European train systems are more sophisticated and interconnected than we American’s could never imagine. For example, a train ride from Paris, France to London, England is only 2 hours and 15 minutes. That completely changes the game when it comes to European travel, especially because the train goes under the English channel.

America doesn’t offer anything close to this system. We have railways, but they’re confusing, expensive, and take a lot of time. Luckily however, there is a push in our country recently as to create something similar.

 The reason behind this shift can be attributed to multiple factors such as environmental concerns, ease of mind, less expensive than alternative methods, and the busy lives passengers have.

I will cover the more recent years in my paper and analyze when the rail systems were built compared to when they rose in popularity. The analysis will most likely start in 1970’s when the first high-speed rail line was built in Europe but also compare travel before that time.

Environmental aspects of it will certainly be highlighted in more recent years. One of the most interesting parts is that Europe has created a sort of stellar model for other countries to follow and we might be able to see how other countries and areas are implementing similar public transit options.

This shift is significant because in analyzing patterns in a well-developed continent such as Europe, we can see how similar situations or phenomenons might arise around the world. With many people searching for more eco-friendly options in all aspects of their lives, if they prioritize public transit, they will be cutting down on the emissions caused by planes and cars.

I am very in-favor of more countries taking after this European model and if a similar high-speed train system was implemented in the United States, I would definitely take advantage of it!

This week I gave my RCL Civic Artifact speech about a State College Visitor’s Map & Business Directory. I was the second person to speak so needless to say, I was nervous.

I feel that I did well on the vocal delivery of my speech. I felt that my voice was powerful, captivating, and I had good intonation with my words. I also think my closing section of the speech did a very good job of tying up any loose ends from the body of the speech.

Some areas that needed to be improved are the fact that I said “um” a few times and when I noticed I did while I was giving my speech, I psyched myself out which then resulted in me saying it a few more times after that. I also should have done more to prepare so I wouldn’t have to even look at my speech outline. I also should have tried to “make eye contact” more because even when I was looking at the audience, it looked like I wasn’t.

Because I was no nervous, I was definitely excited for when the speech would be over. Since I had this mentality, a few things happened during the speech that I wasn’t really aware of until now. I realized that I said “every year for State College football games,” when I really meant to say Penn State football games. State High football games do not bring nearly as many visitors into the town so that may have confused the audience. I also realized when I talk about the advertisements, I seem to list my points in a way that sounds less scholarly and more informal. With this listing, I was also uptalking for that section.

While it is very uncomfortable to watch yourself speak, I think it is beneficial to break it down and analyze what you did well and what you can improve upon. Until next time!:)

This blog post is dedicated to creating an outline for my civic artifact speech! Enjoy my brain processes!

I. Opening

Humans have used maps for over 5,000 years. Can anyone in this zoom say they have never used a map (digital or physical) at any point in their life? The answer is most likely no. Maps help us perceive the world in a way that makes sense. Without maps, we as a people would be, no pun intended, lost. Luckily, we don’t have to imagine a world without maps because we have plenty, even right here in State College. The civic artifact I chose to analyze is a Visitors Map & Business Directory of State College and the surrounding areas. Because it is not just a simple map and it includes other aspects, it fits this topic very well.

II. Body

A. What is the major proposition (argument/thesis) of the speech? How does the artifact frame the civic?

The artifact is civic as it facilitates a sense of belonging to the State College area community. While a person uses the artifact to navigate to a place or business in which they may buy something, they are supporting local merchants. It would be difficult without the map and business directory to find the correct business for the mood. The artifact frames the civic by creating a way that people can fully utilize the many opportunities the area has to offer and helps them support the local municipality.

B. How is this artifact a response to a particular exigence? Does it take advantage of a kairotic moment?

The artifact is especially helpful when thousands of people visit State College for Penn State football games. People will want to explore the town and find fun places to shop or eat. The name of the artifact speaks for itself when it is called not only a visitors map but also a business directory. It’s a one-stop-shop when trying to navigate Happy Valley.

C. What ideologies are at the artifact’s core? Are there any commonplaces used that help to reveal this ideology?

There are many commonplaces embedded in the artifact, mostly occurring in the advertisements. The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau represents a commonplace with using the term “Happy Valley.” Happy Valley was coined to describe the area that Penn State sits in and represents how everything is always fun and happy while you’re here. There is also an ad for the University that says the ever so popular phrase, “We Are Penn State,” which a commonplace among current students, faculty, and alumni meaning that we are one altogether. These commonplaces reveal the ideology that people who support the University also support the community and that our area as a whole is very enthusiastic about a community feeling wherever you go and whatever you do.

D. What evidence will you use to prove your thesis about the artifact? Will you use extrinsic proofs (evidence related to context, history, documentation) or intrinsic proofs (an argument related to the nature of the object itself)?

• Try to find statistics on how many people use the guide each year
• Compare businesses mentioned in the guide to business not mentioned and see which ones do better
• argue that maps are very helpful and that advertisements work and local sales build up local sales, better to buy local
• Analyze certain aspects of the guide

III. Conclusion

Maps are used every single day by people around the world. They help us navigate our great big world and help us make sense of the things around us. But maps do so much more than tell us the distance between two stores, they help us enact our civic duty. Local visitor’s guides go above in beyond in supporting the local community and pushing for an increase in tourism. The borough of State College realized that this phenomenon occurs and created an opportunity for people to support the town. This artifact keeps the home of our great University running, don’t you want to see Penn State thrive? Thank you.

 

Note: I do plan on using visual aids, however, I have not chosen which ones yet.

 

One thing I really love is maps. Whether digital or physical, I love looking at diagrams and images of the world we live in. Because of this lifelong love I have for maps, I chose to analyze a visitors map for our lovely town, State College, Pennsylvania.

The artifact was constructed by the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau, the Centre County Chamber of Business & Industry, and Barash Media.

The artifact is necessary for visitors to make the most out of happy valley. Without a map, it would be quite difficult to know how to get from place to place. It also includes a separate bus route map which would be helpful when trying to use public transportation because the buses can be tricky.

Over time, as more things become digital, the need for this tangible visitors map/guide becomes less because we can access something very similar on our phones. However, I think it is always rewarding to physically hold a map and use it to navigate. This map also acts as a one-stop-shop in that it includes a business directory with addresses and phone numbers so you don’t have to separately search for that on your phone.

The artifact has a much different meaning for someone visiting from out of town compared to a townie. For example,  since I live really close and my mom works for PSU, I’ve spent a lot of time in the area. I use the map occasionally to explore places I haven’t been before, while for people from outside of the area, they would use the map for everything; from walking from campus to downtown to exploring the surrounding areas and learning which roads connect to which. It’s definitely more of a curiosity thing for townies while it’s a crutch for out of townies.

There are many commonplaces embedded in the artifact, mostly occurring in the advertisements. The Happy Valley Adventure Bureau represents a commonplace with using the term “Happy Valley.” Happy Valley was coined to describe the area that Penn State sits in and represents how everything is always fun and happy while you’re here. There is also an ad for the University that says the ever so popular phrase, “We Are Penn State,” which a commonplace among current students, faculty, and alumni meaning that we are one altogether.

The artifact is civic as it facilitates a sense of belonging to the State College area community. While a person uses the artifact to navigate to a place or business in which they may buy something, they are supporting local merchants. It would be difficult without the map and business directory to find the correct business for the mood. The artifact frames the civic by creating a way that people can fully utilize the many opportunities the area has to offer and helps them support the local municipality.

A podcast published in 2009 paints Penn State to be a raging party school. However, anyone who is familiar with the school should know that we have so much more to offer. Now while I didn’t with many of the arguments presented in the podcast, I did find it very interesting to listen to.

I grew up less than half an hour from University Park. My mom has worked at Penn State for as long as I can remember and I have attended many events from homecoming afterparties at the Hintz Alumni Center to a football game at Beaver Stadium. When I think of Penn State I think of academics, family, and home. It’s shocking to hear about my school in such a negative way.

There are many ideologies present surrounding the “party school” standing given to Penn State, stemming from both ends of the spectrum.

Among college students, there is a common ideology that drinking makes you cool. The idea that “if you don’t drink, you’re lame” encourages a lot of students (especially underage students) to consume alcohol. This mindset not only encourages students to drink, but it also promotes irresponsible drinking habits because kids want to prove to their friends that they can handle large amounts of alcohol.

Another common ideology is that all drinking is bad. In the podcast, the producer who lives in State College talks about how she has to deal with irresponsible college students, but then she realizes she was much like these students in college.

Because it was herself, she doesn’t see it as bad, but because the shoe is on the other foot, she is irritated by the drinking. As long as students are responsible, drinking doesn’t have to be such a terrible activity but the podcast shone all of Penn State’s drinking activities in a negative light.

There are a few commonplaces present in the podcast also. Greek life being related to partying is a commonplace not present only in Penn State but in colleges and universities around the country. When I personally hear about frats or sororities, I think about the parties that occur. Most of the party investigations in the podcast were surrounding frat parties and all the bad things that can happen at them. Frats seem to be the way many people get into partying and practicing irresponsible drinking habits and it has been accepted as a common occurrence over the years.

The most well-known Penn State commonplace is the “WE ARE” chant. The phrase fosters a community among not only current students but also alumni and their families. This emphasizes that no matter what we do or where we are, We Are Penn State. The podcast discusses this phenomenon in a positive light and perhaps gives the best view of the Penn State population.

No matter the partying, the national ranking, the stereotypes, or unfair ideologies…We are Penn State, and we are not exclusively a party school.