Day After Tomorrow

FTER Hollywood cinema and climate change: The Day After Tomorrow. Ingram, David. In Words on Water: Literary and Cultural Representations, Devine, Maureen and Christa Grewe-Volpp (eds. ) (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008). Climate change, like many other environmental problems, is slow to develop, not amenable to simple or fast solutions, and caused by factors that are both invisible and complex (Adam 17).Making a narrative film about climate change therefore does not fit easily into the commercial formulae of mainstream Hollywood, which favour human-interest stories in which individual protagonists undergo a moral transformation before they resolve their problems through heroic action in the final act. Can such classical narratives mediate an issue as complex as climate change without being not only inadequate, but even dangerous, lulling their audience into a false sense of security about our ability to deal with such problems?Ecocritic Richard Kerridge observes that a British journalist responded to the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 by framing it within the familiar narrative of the Second World War, with its emphasis on ‘a successful outcome and a narrative closure'. For Kerridge, such narrative strategies may be an overly reassuring way of representing environmental threats, and reveal therefore that the ‘real, material ecological crisis' is ‘also a cultural crisis, a crisis of representation' (Kerridge 4).Yet, as Jim Collins argues, ‘mass-mediated cultures', including those of popular Hollywood cinema, are characterised by ‘semiotic complexities of meaning production', which leave even popular, generic texts open to multiple interpretations (Collins 17). Film theorist Stephen Prince describes a Hollywood movie as a ‘polysemous, multivalent set of images, characters, and narrative situations', which therefore constitute what he calls an ‘ideological agglomeration', rather than a single, coherent ideological position (Prince 40).This polysemy may arise from the Hollywood industry's commercial intention to maximize profits by appealing to as wide and diverse an audience as possible by making movies which, ideologically speaking, seek to have it all ways at once. One consequence is that, when we theorize about the effects popular movies may or may not have on public awareness of environmental issues, those effects are more complex, and less deterministic, than is often assumed is some academic film theories.This essay will explore the range of meanings generated by The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which frames the issue of anthropogenic climate change within the familiar genres of the disaster and science fiction movie. Ideological analysis of the film, combined with a study of its audience reception, suggests that even a classical Hollywood narrative can generate a degree of ideological ambiguity which makes it open to various interpretations, both liberal and conservative. Th e ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow derives in part from the way its narrative mixes the modes of realism, fantasy and melodrama.A realist film will attempt to correspond to what we understand as reality, mainly through the optical realism of its mise-en-scene and the sense of psychological plausibility produced by both its script and the performance of its actors. Melodrama, on the other hand, will simplify character and heighten action and emotion beyond the everyday. Hollywood movies tend to work by moving between these two modes of representation. Some genres, such as science fiction and horror, also move between realism and fantasy, a mode which exceeds realist plausibility by creating a totally fictive and impossible diegetic world.As a science fiction movie, then, The Day After Tomorrow deliberately blurs the distinction between realism and fantasy. The narrative begins from a scientifically plausible premise: the melting of the Artic ice-cap, caused by anthropo genic global warming, cools the North Atlantic Current, colloquially known as the ‘Gulf Stream', and thereby affects the weather in the Northern hemisphere. The movie then extrapolates from this premise beyond even the worst-case scenarios proposed by climate scientists.The switching off of the thermohaline current generates a global superstorm, as a result of which an ice sheet covers Scotland and a tsunami floods Manhattan. The movie's literary source, it is worth noting, was The Coming Global Superstorm (1999), by Art Bell and Whitely Streiber, whose television talk show on the paranormal suggests an interest in the ‘parascientific'; that is, in speculation beyond what is provable or falsifiable by scientific method. When interpreted literally, that is, as realism, The Day After Tomorrow clearly violates notions of scientific plausibility.The basic climatology in the movie is inaccurate: hurricanes can only form over large bodies of warm water, not the cold seas found in high latitudes, where polar lows are the main storm systems. The movie also distorts the science of climate change, mainly by accelerating the time frame within which its effects take place, and by making them much worse than predicted. Any slowdown in the thermohaline current would take a period of years, at least, and probably centuries, rather than the days featured in the film.Moreover, even if the North Atlantic Current did switch off, average temperatures would still be likely to rise, rather than fall, because of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere (Henson 112-5). The film's central narrative, in which government paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) walks in sub-zero temperatures all the way from north of Philadelphia to the New York Public Library, to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall) who is sheltering there, is thus impossible: neither would survive such low temperatures.For helicopters to freeze in mid-air, temperatures would not only be too cold for snow, but also too cold for human survival. Burning books in a library would be insufficient to keep people alive. Such implausibilities are worth pointing out, not because cinema audiences necessarily take what they see as scientific truth, but because science fiction often provides an opportunity to learn some real science. Indeed, as we will see later in this essay, environmental groups used the release of the movie as a ‘teachable moment' on the science of climate change (Leiserowitz 6).The two-disc DVD edition of the movie includes a documentary on the science of climate change; screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff commented on its release that, although ‘our primary concern' in making the film ‘was entertainment rather than education. On the DVD, there's room for both'. Acknowledging that the time frame he created for the movie was accelerated for fictional purposes, and that the ‘superfreeze' was ‘purely a cinematic device', he added that ‘t he political, agricultural and societal consequences of a sudden change in the ocean currents would still be catastrophic' (Nachmanoff 1).To dismiss The Day After Tomorrow purely for its scientific inaccuracies, then, clearly misses the point of the movie, which is to use realist elements of climate science as a starting point for melodrama and fantasy, so that it can dwell on the spectacle of extreme weather, appropriate for a blockbuster disaster movie, and also invite the audience's emotional engagement with the human-interest story that becomes the main focus of narrative. It is to these elements in the film that we will now turn.As a ‘natural disaster' melodrama, the film works on an opposition between nature and civilization, and invites an ambiguous identification on the part of the viewer: in Hollywood terms, we are invited to ‘root for' both nature and civilization at various points in the narrative, although the values of civilization eventually become the domi nant ones. Before that happens, however, the scenes of extreme weather make the experience of environmental apocalypse strangely attractive. As Maurice Yacowar observes, the natural disaster movie ‘dramatizes people's helplessness against the forces of nature' (Yacowar 218).The set pieces of extreme weather in The Day After Tomorrow reveal the sublime power of wild nature: violent, chaotic, powerful beyond human control, and therefore exciting and seductive. Environmentalist Paul Hawken writes that the concept of doomsday ‘has always had a perverse appeal, waking us from our humdrum existence to the allure of a future harrowing drama' (Hawken 204). As Stephen Keane points out, although disaster movies regularly feature television news reports commenting on the events that are taking place, they do not go on ‘to make the critical point that we are all electronic voyeurs' (Keane 84).The Day After Tomorrow follows this pattern. The audience's complicity in seeking cin ematic thrills in the scenarios of mass death and destruction caused by the weather is encouraged, rather than questioned, by the movie itself. Indeed, such thrills are the raison d'etre of its genre. Yet the aesthetics of the sublime have always been based on vicariousness; if we take pleasure in the destructive forces of nature, it is from the safe distance of our movie seats, where we are in the position of voyeurs, rather than of victims.This construction of victimhood in the disaster movie depends on narrative alignment: when people die, we do not dwell on them, nor on the bereaved people they leave behind. Typical of the disaster genre, the focus of nature's destructiveness in The Day After Tomorrow is the city. Hollywood disaster movies, writes Geoff King, share with millennial groups ‘a certain delirious investment in the destruction of the metropolis' (King 158). When a series of tornadoes attack Los Angeles, the mise-en-scene focuses on familiar landmarks: the Hollyw ood sign, the Capitol Records building, and a billboard advertising the model Angelyne.Screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff observes on the DVD commentary that preview audiences greeted the moment where the Angelyne sign flattens the television reporter with cheers and applause (Emmerich). The sense of retribution is difficult to avoid: perhaps there is poetic justice in the media figure, parasitical on other people's suffering, finding his nemesis in Angelyne, the model and aspiring actress who paid to advertise herself on her own billboards, and thus became for some emblematic of the meretricious values of the city.As Mike Davis observes, Los Angeles is often given special treatment in apocalyptic narratives. ‘No other city,' he writes, ‘seems to excite such dark rapture'. Unlike other cities, the destruction of Los Angeles ‘is often depicted as, or at least secretly experienced as, a victory for civilization' (Davis 277). Geoff King draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin's notio n of the ‘carnivalesque' to account for such moments of ‘licensed enjoyment of destruction', based on an ‘overturning of cultural norms' (King 162). But the destruction is too cruel, as well as unfocussed and generalised, to be simply an anti-authoritarian gesture.As Susan Sontag noted, science fiction films provide a ‘morally acceptable fantasy where one can give outlet to cruel or at least amoral feelings' (Sontag 215). Freud's notion of the ‘death wish' thus better captures the dark side of such fantasies. For Freud, such aggressions were natural drives that need to be controlled; art provides catharsis for such anti-social instincts. Patricia Mellencamp draws on Freud to argue that American television is both ‘shock and therapy; it both produces and discharges anxiety' (Mellencamp 246).The disaster movie works in a similar way, mobilising and exploiting our negative drives and emotions. But are there unconscious meanings specific to the natura l disaster movie? One reading of such movies is as ‘revenge of nature' narratives, which enact a fantasy of nature getting its own back for its mistreatment at the hands of human beings. Psychoanalyst Karl Figlio draws on the theories of Melanie Klein to argue that scientific thinking itself is an act of repressive violence towards Nature. ‘Nature killed,' he writes, ‘is nature in a vengeful mood, a primitive retaliatory phantasy that fuels apocalyptic forebodings.The more scientific the culture, the more it is at the mercy of irrational fears, and the more it is dependent on scientific protection from them' (Figlio 72). He cites Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an ‘extreme example of scientific mapping that calls forth revenge from nature' (75). According to this reading, then, when we watch nature getting its revenge, we as viewers are able to purge our guilt about its degradation. However, as Yacowar notes, the moral attitude of the typical disaster movie is ambiguous. Poetic justice in disaster films,' he writes, ‘derives from the assumption that there is some relationship between a person's due and his or her doom'. However, this notion breaks down when the ‘good die with the evil' (Yacowar 232). The Day After Tomorrow works according to these generic expectations, with Nature at times appearing amoral in its destructiveness, and at other times, a force of moral retribution and punishment. The arrogant businessmen who bribe the bus driver, and the corruptible bus driver himself, get their comeuppance when they drown in the tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan.Jeffrey Nachmanoff reveals in the DVD commentary that, in an early draft of the script, the businessman had been negotiating an insider deal with the Japanese businessman killed by the hailstorm in Tokyo (Emmerich). In the final version, the latter lies to his wife on his cell phone moments before his death. The ethical critique in these scenes fits into the ideological agenda of many disaster films. As King writes, such films ‘include an element of criticism of capitalism, but this is a gesture that for the most part leaves its core values largely intact.A few ‘excesses' are singled out, such as the greedy cost-cutting that undermines the integrity of the eponymous star of The Towering Inferno, leaving the remainder mostly untouched' (King 153). In The Day After Tomorrow, then, greedy, self-interested individuals are punished. Yet innocent people also die in the movie, including the climate scientists who freeze to death in Scotland, led by the avuncular Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), and Jack's friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders), who falls to his death through the roof of a building, after cutting his own rope to prevent his friends from endangering their lives in trying to rescue him.These are figures of heroic sacrifice, also central to the disaster genre, because they bring out the redemptive aspects of the apocalypse. The film does not stat e clearly where the British royal family stand in this hierarchy of innocence and guilt: what is clear, is that death by climate change is no respecter of class privilege and wealth. The disaster movie, then, is about which values are the key to survival. The rescue of the innocent, French-speaking African family is thus crucial in einforcing the movie's ethical hierarchy based on racial, national and gender differences: they are saved by the white American woman (Laura), who in turn is saved by the white American male (Sam), thereby enacting in miniature two important themes in the movie. The most important of these is the narrative of male heroism and redemption. Melodrama, writes Linda Williams, is about a ‘retrieval and staging of innocence' (Williams 7). In this film, the melodramatic plot of father rescuing son makes the moral point that hard-working fathers need to take a more active role in bringing up their sons.The movie implies that, although millions of people may be dead, if one American family can be saved, then at least some good has come out of the eco-apocalypse. This message is more liberal, or at least not as unambiguously patriarchal, as in earlier disaster movies. In keeping with Stephen Prince's notion of ideological agglomeration, mentioned earlier, although Jack's wife is a doctor, she ends up playing the role of surrogate mother to a seven-year old boy with cancer, separated from his parents by the storm.The movie can thus be interpreted as either liberal (she is a doctor) or conservative (she is placed in the stereotypical female role of nurturer). The second important theme in the movie is the United States' self-appointed role as global protector-policeman. The rescue narrative trumpets the frontier values of male physical heroism, strong leadership and individualism, encapsulated by the iconic image of the torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the waves of the tsunami that engulfs Manhattan.However, America's role in w orld politics is also questioned by a more liberal discourse in the movie, when American refugees are forced to flee illegally into Mexico, in an ironic reversal of the real politics on the national border. This ironic reversal is itself made ambiguous, though, when later the United States government writes off all Third World debt, but in return, wins the right for its citizens to live as ‘guests' in those countries. It should be noted that not all Hollywood movies with environmental themes are as individualistic in their proposed solutions as The Day After Tomorrow.Some have endorsed more collective forms of action, even in narratives led by strong individuals: an image of placard-waving protestors recurs in Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995) and Fly Away Home (1996) as a sign of collective resistance. Ultimately, The Day After Tomorrow prefers American notions of liberal individualism, which it turns into universal values by identifying them with human civilization as a whole. Indeed, civilization, rather than wild nature, becomes the real object of audience identification by the end.The choice of the New York Public Library as the place of sanctuary and rescue is significant in this respect. One of the survivors makes sure he preserves the Gutenberg Bible from burning, not because he believes in God, he says, but because, as the first book ever printed, it represents ‘the dawn of the age of reason'. ‘If Western civilization is finished', he adds, ‘I'm going to save at least one little piece of it'. Ultimately, then, the movie celebrates reason and science as the values most central to Western civilization. Unusually for a Hollywood disaster movie, scientists are neither evil nor incompetent.As Yacowar notes, specialists in disaster movies, including scientists, ‘are almost never able to control the forces loose against them'. The genre thus serves ‘the mystery that dwarfs science' (Yacowar 228). This is also true of The Day After Tomorrow, in that the scientists are unable to contain the devastating effects of climate change once they have begun. ‘Ultimately,' writes ecocritic Sylvia Mayer, ‘the movie makes the point that the most advanced and dedicated scientific work is still powerless against the forces of nature once they are unleashed' (Mayer 111).Nevertheless, the scientists are the heroes of the movie. Their advice on the risks of climate change was ignored by the politicians until it was too late. As the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration angrily tells the Vice-President: ‘You didn't want to heat about the science when it would have made a difference'. The scientists' computer models prove correct: in the movie, unlike in real life, climate science provides the clear, certain and unambiguous knowledge necessary for survival.Moreover, advanced technology is ultimately a force for good. Jack is able to locate his son in the Public Library un der the frozen wastes of Manhattan because of his friend's portable satellite navigation system (which, of course, would not work in such a massive storm). He is also seen driving a hybrid Toyota Prius earlier in the film. Reason, science and technology thus win the day. However, as Sylvia Mayer also notes, the movie stops short of simplistically advocating a technological fix for environmental problems as complex as climate change (Mayer 117).The values of civilization finally triumph over the destructive forces of wild nature when the pack of wolves, which escaped from Central Park Zoo earlier in the movie, return to attack Sam and his friends when they are searching for medicine and food. That the wolves are computer-generated special effects only adds an extra layer of irony to the triumph of civilization and benign technology in the movie. Indeed, the movie itself can be seen as a paean to the imaginative power of Computer Generated Imaging.In Eco Media (2005), Sean Cubitt argu es that The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2002-3) can be read as a celebration of the computer technologies from which it was made, which are an artisanal mode of production that demonstrates a creative place for technology within ‘green' thinking. There is an ‘increasing belief', he suggests, ‘that through the development of highly technologised creative industries, it is possible to devise a mode of economic development that does not compromise the land' (Cubitt 10). The thematic resolution of The Day After Tomorrow is ambiguous, however.The ending of the movie follows the recurrent pattern of the genre identified by Geoff King, in which ‘the possibility of apocalyptic destruction is confronted and depicted with a potentially horrifying special effects/spectacular ‘reality', only to be withdrawn or limited in its extent' (King 145). Typically, then, destruction is extensive, but total apocalypse is prevented at the last moment. The superstorm passes, the reby confirming Jack's earlier opinion that the storms will last ‘until the imbalance that created them is corrected' by ‘a global realignment'.Gazing at a beautiful, calm Earth, an astronaut in the International Space Station comments that he has ‘never seen the air so clear'. In Winston Wheeler Dixon's phrase, this could be the ‘exit point for the viewer' that disaster movies invariably provide (Dixon 133); the moment where the audience is let off the hook with a simplistic, evasive solution to the seemingly intractable problem explored in the rest of the movie. To return to the question posed at the start of this essay, does such an ending merely encourage evasion, denial and complacency in regard to issues such as anthropogenic climate change?Dixon argues that contemporary American cinema serves those who ‘wish to toy with the themes of destruction', from movies about atomic apocalypse to those that flirt with Nazism. This cinematic ‘cult of d eath', he concludes, is ‘the ultimate recreation' for an exhausted, media-saturated culture, a cult which ‘remains remote, carefully contained within a box of homicidal and genocidal dreams' (Dixon 139). But the ideological ambiguity of The Day After Tomorrow, as well as its audience reception, suggests that the process of interpretation is more open and varied than this.From an environmentalist perspective, the melodramatic ending of the film is ambiguous. No matter what human beings do, it appears, the Earth will heal itself. According to this reading, the message of the movie is that, because the storm eventually passes, we don't need to worry. This message resembles the right-wing appropriation of the Gaia hypothesis; that is, the idea, proposed by the British chemist James Lovelock, that the Earth as a whole is a self-regulating system in a natural state of homeostatic balance.In his 1999 book Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists, Peter Hube r used the concept of Gaia to justify a conservative manifesto that called for the dismantling of existing environmental regulations. The ‘most efficient way to control' pollutants such as greenhouses gases, he argued, ‘is not to worry about them at all. Let them be. Leave them to Gaia' (Huber 128). The notion of Gaia, we should note, is not the sole property of New Age environmentalists or deep ecologists.According to this interpretation, the movie appears to endorse the idea that humanity, through a combination of ingenuity, courage and chance, can survive whatever Nature may throw at us, an argument used by conservatives like Huber to justify a non-interventionist approach to environmental issues. It is a mistake, however, to assume that the final moments of a movie, when narrative closure is achieved, dictate its overall meaning. An analogy may be drawn here with the critical analysis of the role of women in film noir.As Janey Place argues of the female characters in films such as Double Indemnity (1946), ‘it is not their inevitable demise we remember but rather their strong, dangerous, and above all, exciting sexuality' (Place 48). In a similar way, the most memorable images in The Day After Tomorrow are probably the scenes of extreme weather. The main advertising image for the movie showed the shot of the hand of the Statue of Liberty held above the storm surge: an image of survival which at least includes a sense of struggle, rather than the calm, reposeful Earth revealed at the close of the film.Indeed, the above interpretation of the film as conservative is contradicted by its more explicit message, which advocated liberal political reform in the election year of 2004. Early in the film, Vice-President Becker, played by an actor who bears an obvious resemblance to Dick Cheney, refuses to listen to the advice of scientists on global warming, arguing that to take action would harm the American economy. In another reference to George W. Bush's presidency, we are told that the administration in the movie has also refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.At the end of the movie, Becker, now President, appears on television to apologise to the nation out of a newfound sense of humility: ‘For years we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet's natural resources without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong'. Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole movie, the President's public apology confirms the words of the African-American homeless man earlier in the film, who refers to people with their ‘cars and their exhausts, and they're just polluting the atmosphere'.The disaster has been a wake-up call for America, and the new start will allow for the changes in lifestyle necessary for a more sustainable future. The government will also change its attitude to the Third World from one of arrogance to gratitude. In these moments, th e movie works as a secular form of jeremiad; ‘secular' because the environmental catastrophe is not seen as punishment from God, but as human-created. Opie and Elliott argue that both ‘implementational and evocative strategies' are necessary in successful jeremiads, and cite Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) as a powerful exemplar (Opie and Elliott 35).The Day After Tomorrow also uses both pathos and rational argument to convince its audience of the need to take steps to avoid environmental catastrophe. Critical speculation on the effectiveness or otherwise of making a disaster movie about global warming can draw on the conclusions of an empirical study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research of the reception of the movie in Germany. This found that the movie did not appear to reinforce feelings of fatalism in its audience. Less than 10% of the sample agreed with the statement, ‘There's nothing we can do anyway', whereas 82% preferred, ‘We hav e to stop climate change'. Reusswig). Indeed, the Potsdam study makes hopeful reading for environmentalists. It found that the publicity surrounding the film triggered a new interest in climate change, and raised some issues previously unfamiliar to audiences, such as the role of oceans in global warming. A similar study of reception in the United States concluded that the film ‘led moviegoers to have higher levels of concern and worry about global warming, to estimate various impacts on the United States as more likely, and to shift their conceptual understanding of the climate system toward a threshold model.Further, the movie encouraged watchers to engage in personal, political, and social action to address climate change and to elevate global warming as a national priority'. However, whether such changes constituted merely a ‘momentary blip' in public perceptions remained to be seen (Leiserowitz 7). These empirical studies are important because they show that audienc e reception is a more complex and variable process than it is sometimes taken for in film theory. According to some versions of psychoanalytic ‘subject positioning' theory, Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow tend to render spectators passive.Under the influence of Bertolt Brecht's theories of narrative, film academics such Colin McCabe and Steven Heath argued that only modernist or avant-garde narrative techniques can produce a more active (even revolutionary) film spectator. As the 1992 textbook New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics puts it, psychoanalytic film theory ‘sees the viewer not as a person, a flesh-and-blood individual, but as an artificial construct, produced and activated by the cinematic apparatus' (Stam 147). In his book The Crisis of Political Modernism (1999), D.N. Rodowick exposes the flaws in such thinking. The politics of political modernism, he writes, assume ‘an intrinsic and intractable relation between texts and their spectators, reg ardless of the historical or social context of that relation' (Rodowick 34). But film viewers are flesh-and-blood individuals, and when they are treated as such by film theorists and researchers, the phenomenon of film reception becomes more complex and nuanced, and less deterministic and stereotyped, than that imagined by subject positioning theory.Empirical audience research shows that we do not all watch the same movie in the same way, and that audience responses are complexly determined by a long list of variables, such as nation, region, locality, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and, last but certainly not least, individual temperament. When we look at the public reception of The Day After Tomorrow, then, it is clear that different interest groups appropriated the movie in different ways.Both sides of the public debate about climate change interpreted the movie within a realist framework, either positively or negatively, and produced selective readings in order to fur ther their own agendas. Patrick Michaels, one of the minority of scientists who stills rejects the idea of human-created climate change, pointed out the scientific flaws in the movie, and damned Hollywood for irresponsibly playing into the hands of liberal environmentalists by exaggerating the threat of global warming (Michaels 1).Liberal-left environmental campaigners also understood that the movie's foundation in science was flawed. However, they found its scientific exaggerations and inaccuracies less important than what they saw as its realistic portrayal of the American government's denial of the scientific evidence for global warming. As former Vice-President Al Gore put it, ‘there are two sets of fiction to deal with. One is the movie, the other is the Bush administration's presentation of global warming' (Mooney 1). Gore joined with the liberal Internet advocacy organization MoveOn. rg, which used the movie's release as an opportunity to organize a national advocacy ca mpaign on climate change. Senators McCain and Lieberman also used the movie to promote the reintroduction of their Climate Stewardship Act in Congress (Nisbet 1). Greenpeace endorsed the ‘underlying premise' of the film, that ‘extreme weather events are already on the rise, and global warming can be expected to make them more frequent and more severe'. It summed up its response to the movie with the line: ‘Fear is justified' (Greenpeace 1-2).The use of this movie to encourage environmental debate suggests that it is perhaps only if Hollywood movies like The Day After Tomorrow are people's sole, or even main, source of information on the environment that we should worry. As Sylvia Mayer argues, Hollywood environmentalist movies ‘have the potential to contribute to the development of an ‘environmentally informed sense of self' that is characterised by an awareness of environmental threats, by the wish to gain more effective knowledge about them and by a d isposition to participate actively in efforts to remedy the problem' (Mayer 107).In this respect, a classical, Hollywood-style narrative does not necessarily inculcate or reinforce a feeling a complacency or denial it its audience. In any case, no narrative can be as complex as the reality to which it refers; all art is a process of simplifying, selecting and giving shape to reality. Classical narrative forms and genre movies such as The Day After Tomorrow can focus thought and provide an imaginative and provocative response to environmental crisis. WORKS CITED Adam, Barbara (1998), Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards, Routledge, London and New York.Bell, Art and Streiber, Whitely (1999), The Coming Global Superstorm, Pocket Star Books, New York. Collins, Jim (1989), Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, Routledge, New York and London. Cubitt, Sean (2005), Eco Media, Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York. Davis, Mike (1998), Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Henry Holt and Co. , New York. Dixon, Wheeler Winston (2003), Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema, Wallflower Press, London and New York.Emmerich, Roland, director (2004), The Day After Tomorrow, 20th Century Fox, Two-disc DVD. 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King, Geoff (2000), Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster, London and New York, I. B. Tauris.Lieserowitz, Anthony A (2004), ‘Before and After The Day After Tomorrow: A U. S. study of climate change risk perception. ‘ Environment. 46 (9), 22-37. www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1076/is_9_46/ai_n856541/print, 1-12. Mayer, Sylvia (2006), ‘Teaching Hollywood Environmentalist Movies: The Example of The Day After Tomorrow', in Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson (eds), Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Trier, WVT. Mellencamp, Patricia (1990), ‘TV Time and Catastrophe, or Beyond the Pleasure Principle of Television', in Logics of Television, ed.P atricia Mellencamp, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Michaels, Patrick J. (2004), ‘Apocalypse Soon? No, but This Movie (And Democrats) Hope You'll Think So. ‘ The Washington Post, May 16th 2004, B01. www. washingtonpost. com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28338-2004May14? language=printer Mooney, Chris (2004), ‘Learning From Nonsense? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/doubtandabout/global-warming Nachmanoff, Jeffrey (2004), ‘Jeffrey Nachmanoff on The Day After Tomorrow'. http:// www. amazon. co. uk/gp/feature. html.Nisbet, Matthew (2004), ‘Evaluating the Impact of The Day After Tomorrow: Can a Blockbuster Film Shape the Public's Understanding of a Science Controversy? ‘, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www. csicop. org/ Opie, John and Elliott, Norbert (1996), ‘Tracking the Elusive Jeremiad: The Rhetorical Character of American Environmental Discourse', in James G. Cantrill and Christine L. Oravec (eds), The Symboli c Earth: Discourse and Our Creation of the Environment, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Place, Janey (1978), ‘Women in Film Noir', in E. 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Yacowar, Maurice (1986), ‘The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre', in Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader, University of Texas Press, Austin.

Human Resource Forecasting Essay

PART 1: HUMAN RESOURCE FORECASTING Reference: Adapted from Human Resource Forecasting Assignment, pp 108 – 110 in Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., McAfee, R. B. (2008) Human Resource Management Applications: Cases, Exercises, Incidents, and Skill Builders, 6th Edition Due date: Week 9 LEARNING OBJECTIVES †¢Practice in forecasting an organisation’s people needs †¢To familiarize you with some of the factors that affect an organisation’s future people needs †¢To familiarise you with the complexities involved in making human resource forecasts †¢To point out that all human resource forecasting is based on assumptions and that these assumptions are critical to the accuracy of the forecast INSTRUCTIONS It has been a busy year with staff turnover, new employees and new equipment on order. Your CEO has requested a forecast of the human resource needs for North West Regional Hospital for the coming years. North West Regional Hospital (NWRH) is a purpose built, 180-bed inpatient facility and the largest regional hospital in the state. NWRH also has 15 outreach sites located throughout tropical, northern Australia, each of which employs approximately 17 individuals. In total, NWRH currently employs 700 people. Over the coming three years, NWRH is planning an expansion into additional regional areas and expects to add 25 new outreach sites. Each outreach site varies in size according to the needs of the community, so the figures  represent averages. During the past month, NWRH has placed an order for 3 new dialysis machines to increase its renal support services. These machines are scheduled to be in operation December 31, one year from now in existing outreach sites only. NWRH has found that for each new machine purchased requires four (4) additional nurses, on average. In addition, five (5) new doctors are added in year 2. A breakdown of NWRH’s current staffing is shown in Table 1. Your CEO has asked you to perform three human resource-forecasting tasks. First, based on the assumptions given below, you are required to determine employee turnover for the inpatient facility office, the old outreach sites, and the new outreach sites. The CEO would like to know this information for each of the next three years and for each of the major personnel categories (i.e., Doctors, Nurses, and Inpatient Facility Administration staff). Your job is to complete Table 2. Second, your CEO would like to know the number of new employees NWRH will need to hire for each major personnel category for each of the next three years. Your job is to complete Table 3. Finally, your CEO would like to know the total number of employees who will be working for NWRH as of the end of each of the next three years. Your job is to complete Table 4. Table 1: Present staffing Total Employees700 Number of outreach sites15 Doctors per outreach site5 Number of Doctors75 Nurses per outreach site12 Number of Nurses180 Outreach facility employees255 Inpatient Facility Employees445 Table 2: Turnover Employee CategoryCurrent YearYear 1Year 2Year 3 Old outreach site Doctors Old outreach site nurses Inpatient facility New outreach site Doctors New outreach site nurses TOTALS Table 3: Number of Employees to be hired Employee CategoryCurrent YearYear 1Year 2Year 3 Old outreach site Doctors Old outreach site nurses Inpatient facility New outreach site Doctors New outreach site nurses TOTALS Table 4: Year-End Employment Employee CategoryCurrent YearYear 1Year 2Year 3 Old outreach site Doctors Old outreach site nurses Inpatient facility New outreach site Doctors New outreach site nurses TOTALS In order to complete your assignment, your CEO has told you to make a number of assumptions. They are: A.You are making all projections in December for subsequent years ending December 31 B.With regard to the existing outreach offices, assume a.The 15 existing outreach offices employ 5 doctors and 12 nurses each. b.On December 31 (one year hence) 3 new dialysis machines are placed in operation and require an additional 12 nurses (4 per machine). c.On December 31 in the 2nd year, 5 new doctors are employed. d.Turnover rate is 40 percent for nursing personnel, and 20 percent for doctors. C.With regard to new outreach sites, assume a.New outreach sites are added as follows: 6 in Year 1, 10 in Year 2, and 9 in Year 3. b.Each new outreach site employs 17 individuals (5 doctors and 12 nurses). c.Turnover is 30 percent for nurses, and 20 percent for doctors. D.With regard to the inpatient facility, assume that turnover will be 15 percent per year. PART 2: WRITING JOB DESCRIPTION & RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENT References:Adapted from Job Analysis: Writing Job Description, pp 97-99 in Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., McAfee, R. B. (2008) Human Resource Management Applications: Cases, Exercises, Incidents, and Skill Builders, 6th Edition Note: For your presentation in Week 5, you will use one (1) Job Description to develop one (1) Advertisement to present as a group. The developed advertisement cannot be used in the Portfolio Assignment. LEARNING OBJECTIVES †¢To familiarise you with the job analysis process and with job descriptions †¢Practice in writing job descriptions †¢To make you aware of different methods for recruiting candidates and stand out from the crowd INSTRUCTIONS:Job Analysis, Writing Job Descriptions and Recruitment Advertising You are required to write three (3) job descriptions, one (1) job advertisement, and one (1) selection criteria for the Portfolio Assignment. The job advertisement should reflect one (1) selected job description (choose one (1) – doctor, nurse, and inpatient facility administrator), and the selection criteria should reflect the selected job advertisement to create a flow in your portfolio. A.Draw up a set of job descriptions for each of the (3) positions in the case (doctor, nurse, and inpatient facility administrator). You may use whatever sources you want, including interviewing people you may know in these positions or similar positions or searching relevant web sites as you want job descriptions and lists of duties that apply specifically to regional hospitals and outreach facilities. The Job Analysis Questionnaire (below) can be used as a guide to help determine the major responsibilities and tasks of the job and the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal characteristics needed to perform the job. Remember to write the job description using action verbs when describing the employee’s tasks, duties, and responsibilities. It is also important that specific duties be grouped and arranged in descending order of importance. The complete job description should follow the format shown in sample provided (below). B.Choose (1) job description to draft one (1) job advertisement, to attract the right people to apply for that position. Write the advertisement as if it will appear on an online employment agency (e.g. seek.com). It will need to stand out amongst the many thousands of other positions being advertised. Job Analysis Questionnaire A.Job Responsibilities and Duties a.Job title b.Department title and/or division title c.Title of immediate supervisor d.Description of duties (describe the duties in enough details to provide a complete and accurate description of the work) i.Provide a general overall summary of the purpose of your job ii.What are the major results or outputs of your job? iii.Describe the duties and tasks you perform daily; weekly; monthly. iv.Describe duties you perform irregularly. e.List any machines, instruments, tools, machine, materials, and work aids used in your job. Indicate percent of time used. f.Describe the nature of your responsibility for nonhuman resources (money, machinery, machine and so on). What monetary loss can occur through an error? g.What reports and records do you prepare as part of your job? When are they prepared? h.What is the source of instructions for performing your job (e.g. oral or written specifications)? i.Describe the nature and frequency of supervision received. j.How is your work reviewed, checked, or verified? B.Reporting Relationships a.How many employees are directly under your supervision? What are their job titles? b.Do you have full authority to hire, terminate, evaluate and transfer employees under your supervision? Explain. c.What contacts are required with other departments or persons other than you immediate department in performing you job? Describe the nature and extent of the contacts. C.Working Conditions a.Describe the working conditions present in the location and environment of your work such as cold/heat, noise, fumes, dust, and so on. Indicate frequency and degree of exposure b.Describe any dangers or hazards present in your job. D. Job Qualifications (Be certain not to list the incumbent qualifications, but what is required for performance by a new employee). a.Describe the  kind of previous work experience necessary for satisfactory performance of this job. b.What is the amount of experience required? c.What kinds of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) are needed to perform the job? d.What is the minimal level of education (grammar, high school, degree etc.) required? e.Are any special physical skills and/or manual dexterity skills required to perform the job? f.Are there any special certification, registration, license, or training requirements? Sample Job Description Job Title: Shift Supervisor (Mining) Position Purpose: The purpose of this position is to maintain a safe and efficient plant operation through directing the activities of the operation’s personnel and providing a management support function for the plant superintendent. Typical Job Duties: 1.Directs the activities of the operations personnel and coordinates the activities of the maintenance personnel. 2.Issues written communication to employees concerning personnel policies and operational concerns. 3.Administers a maintenance request program through collecting requests, scheduling, and recording maintenance activities. 4.Administers the plant tagging procedure. 5.Conducts the training and safety programs for shift employees. 6.Schedules shift assignments to reflect workload and vacation schedules. 7.Performs administrative tasks such as recording workers’ time, maintaining records concerning operational activities, and updating written procedures. 8.Prepares annual budget for assigned plan area and maintains the inventory level on these items. 9.Appraise performance of shift employees annually 10.Counsels employees on disciplinary problems and job-related performance. 11.Assumes plant superintendent’s duties when assigned. Physical Requirements: walking and climbing stairs Working conditions: Remote locations; secure fully furnished housing is provided. Quarterly rotations between locations are available. Four day rotating roster with morning, afternoon and night shifts. Machine and Machines Used: CRT, spectrometer, PH metre, conductivity metre Reporting Relationships: The shift supervisor reports directly to the plant superintendent. The shift supervisor directs the control room operator, two or more utility operators, trainees, and other assigned personnel, and coordinates the activities of the maintenance personnel present on shift. Qualifications: Education: Associate degree or equivalent training (e.g. management training classes) OR five (5) years of management experience Related Experience: Minimum of three (3) years as a control room operator for a coal-fired boiler operation. Job Knowledge/Skills Required: 1.Comprehensive understanding of plant systems. 2.Fundamental understanding of electrical systems and motor control centres. 3.Thorough knowledge of boiler chemistry. 4.Comprehension of flow, logic, and electrical prints. 5.Ability to perform elementary mathematical and algebraic calculations. 6.Communication and human relations skills. 7.Ability to operate CRT, spectrometer, PH metre, and conductivity metre. 8.Managerial skills. PART 3: WRITING SELECTION CRITERIA References: Adapted from Selection Decisions, pp 131-138 in Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., McAfee, R. B. (2008) Human Resource Management Applications: Cases, Exercises, Incidents, and Skill Builders, 6th Edition Selection Criteria adapted from Practical Exercises: Graduate trainee  selection at Yarra Bank, pp 269–271 in Stone, R. J. (2010) Managing Human Resources, 3rd Edition LEARNING OBJECTIVES †¢To help you develop skills in developing selection criteria and evaluation measures †¢To make you aware of the complex criteria often used to select candidates †¢To help you develop skills in planning and implementing semi-structured interviews †¢To give you practice in preparing for the selection interview INSTRUCTIONS:Selection Criteria Using the job description, you chose for the job advertisement: 1.Develop a list of key selection criteria for an upcoming vacancy in this position in terms of experience, qualifications, skills/abilities, personal qualities and special requirements (see template below). 2.Outline how you would evaluate the candidates on each criterion. What questions would you ask? 3.Identify your interview selection panel. Indicate the number of people to be on the panel, the positions that they hold and provide a brief explanation of why they are required on the panel. Key selection criteria Experience: What type of and how much experience is required to perform this job successfully? Qualifications: What are the minimum formal educational qualifications required to perform this job successfully? Skills/Abilities: What special skills and/or abilities and knowledge are required to perform this job successfully? Personal Qualities: What special personal qualities (physical characteristics and personality  characteristics) are required to perform this job successfully? Special requirements: What special requirements are required to perform this job successfully?

Women are Still Treated like a Minority in the Workplace Personal Statement

Women are Still Treated like a Minority in the Workplace - Personal Statement Example And progressively higher numbers of women are taking part-time positions which are associated with lower pay rates than men, even after other dynamics have been factored in. Women’s employment opportunities are highly concentrated in traditionally female-dominated careers which are usually the lower paid. Women continue to be under-represented in the better-paid positions within occupations. Qualified women are typically deprived of top-level employment in corporate organizations, but instead of calling it what it is, discrimination and sexism, this form of disproportionate treatment are called the ‘glass ceiling’ effect. Women certainly are expected to have to perform more work a man to maintain the same pay rate and a similar position. Despite greater than ever levels of labor market involvement, women are still not uniformly represented, particularly at senior positions within organizations. This includes those corporations that cater expressly to women consume rs. This plainly observable fact of business has been termed ‘the glass ceiling.’ The phrase refers to the â€Å"invisible, artificial barriers that prevent qualified individuals from advancing within their organization and reaching full potential† (Hewitt & Roche, 2003).

An empirical study on foreign language anxiety and its impact on Thesis

An empirical study on foreign language anxiety and its impact on students' language acquisition and classroom progress and achievement - Thesis Example The foundation year is a crucial phase between school and university level study which often determines the course of a student’s academic career. It is a time when study habits are formed, and choices are made about future subjects. There is considerable research on what factors help and what factors hinder students in second language acquisition. Early research looked at motivation and attitude (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) but since then several different approaches have been developed and the terminology used to describe this field does vary considerably. Young (1998) and Arnold (1999) approach the subject using the broad term â€Å"affect† to cover all kinds of emotional contributions that students bring to the classroom, while Horowitz (1997) uses the approach of â€Å"beliefs about language learning† which emphasizes the kind of concepts that students have in their minds about the business of learning a language. Horowitz (1988) demonstrated that what students believe about language learning influences how they learn, and most crucially also how well they learn. In an empirical study Horowitz et al. (1986) focus on the element of foreign language anxiety as â€Å"a conceptually distinct variable in foreign language learning† and note that this may be partly caused by teaching methods that encourage a defensive position (Horowitz et al. 1986, p. 125). Its effects can include the production of shorter written texts, more concrete utterances and fewer qualifications. Test anxiety is factor for some students, while others are even afraid to speak in class because they fear being negatively evaluated by their classmates or by the teacher. The work of these researchers on group of second language learners in Texas resulted in the development of the â€Å"Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale† (Horowitz et al., 1986, p. 129). This is a very useful tool designed to ascertain the sco pe and severity of foreign

Discussion 8 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Discussion 8 - Assignment Example This can be considered as one of the major strength due to the fact that he is capable of tackling every possible situation and as a result, keep the workforce motivated. Moreover, at times he also becomes equally participative towards the job roles assigned to the employees so as to help them achieve their targets in a quick and effective manner. Due to his participative nature, he attains a lot of coordination and support from the employee group (Dow Jones & Company Inc., 2014). Contextually, it can be stated that the transformational quality proves to be a major strength for him as being a leader whereas the participative and transactional quality proves to be major strength for him as being a manager. One of the major weaknesses identified is his hyper aggressiveness in case of stress related situations. In term of differentiation between leadership and management skills, it can only be stated that the leader is a visionary who strategizes measures for the improvement within performance and overall development of the employees. On the contrary, a manger regulates the flow of work within every team and ensures that the assigned deadlines gets meet up before time (Dow Jones & Company Inc., 2014). During my professional career, I was made to work under this leader for a period of one year. During this time, the team led by him attained the highest level of performance over other teams within the organization. His immense knowledge and participative nature facilitated the team members in effectively understanding the assigned job roles and complete the task in an effective manner (HubPages Inc., 2014). The management and risk handling capabilities of the leader taught me two crucial lessons, which I believe will turn out to be a major help when I will get the role of being a team leader. The first lesson is regarding coming up with some innovative plans for getting work done and second regarding motivating the employees

Terrorism---criminal justice Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Terrorism---criminal justice - Coursework Example The conversation on this topic has largely been avoided and there is little understanding among the public on this issue. Amimut refers to the Israel official policy of concealing information on nuclear weapons adopted in 1969 in the Nixon-Meir deal. Amimiut is a Hebrew term that means ambiguity or opacity. Amimut evolved out of various decisions that were continuously implemented due to strategic and political needs of the country. In the mid 1970s Shalhevveth Freier and the team of Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) formed the rules of the national doctrine on nuclear policy. The reasons for the country’s possession of nuclear were varied. Some leaders were of the opinion that the country’s possession of nuclear is a symbol of the country having a weapon of last result. Other leaders were of the opinion that Israel should not be the first country in the Middle East to be in possession of nuclear. During the Six-Day War, the then chief of Mossad, General Meir Amit was of the opinion that if Israel had nuclear weapons, this would act as an incentive for Soviet Union to supply Egypt wi th nuclear weapons. After an accident that occurred in Dimona complex in 1966 that left one person dead, the then Prime Minister of Israel Eshkol was shaken about the nuclear project and was of the opinion American diplomacy could be a better method. However, after heavy casualties that Israel suffered in the Six-Day War he changed his mind and supported the idea of the country creating a weapon and testing it in the desert so as to demonstrate the country’s nuclear capability (Cohen, A., 2013). Israel was also forced to make a stance of not been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This stance was because NPT was against the countries acquired nuclear capabilities. NPT also lacked adequate guarantees against protection by nuclear possessing countries such as the Soviet Union. Despite the heavy thought of the

Prison and National Probation Service cooperation Essay

Prison and National Probation Service cooperation - Essay Example While some perceived of it as a constructive step toward the reduction of reoffending rates and a positive contribution towards the greater national aim of crime reduction, others critiqued it as a misinformed strategy which would confuse the boundaries between prison' and community.' Such confusion, as critics maintain, will have dire societal consequences insofar as it is predicated on the assumption that inmate and out-mate offender management subscribe to the same concern, principles, aims and, thus, paradigms (Valios, 2004; Palmer, 2003; Peters, LeVasseur and Chandler, 2004). Proceeding from the background and controversy outlined in the above, the dissertation shall focus on the aims of the proposed justice system reform, critically analysing Noms from the perspective of best practices managerial theories. The rationale for selection did not simply emanate from the contemporaneous nature of the issue, or solely from its societal value but because the researcher has been professionally involved in both prison and probation services for a number of years and is, consequently, in a position to analyse Noms and argue the exigencies of its implementation on the basis of experiential evidence. Apart from the experiential knowledge and both subjective and professional interest in the issue, the topic was further selected consequent to the fact that the researcher's professional background places him in a position whereby he can collect primary data, conduct the requisite surveys and administer the necessary questionnaires with comparative ease. In other words, the researcher's professional background and awareness of the fact that community safety and societal interests are best served through the articulation and implementation of an effective and...As earlier stated, the primary areas of co ncern are the National Offender Management Service and organisational and people management theory. As pertains to either of these two issues, the existent wealth of academic literature testifies to their respective values and the extent to which the latter may be constructively informed by the former. Over the past two decades, offender management literature has articulated the imperatives of utilising existent people and organisational management tools and strategies in order to attain the managerial efficiency and effectiveness level upon which the goals of the justice system are predicated. The justice system, operating according to the principles of offender exclusion and rehabilitation within a prison system, followed by the release of offenders into society and under the supervisory guidance of the probation service, has been largely incapable of satisfying the justice system’s expressed goal of reducing overall offence rates and eliminating reoffending. The persistent inability to satisfy the articulated goals exposes what some have identified as a fundamentally flawed people and organisational management paradigm. According to the aforementioned perspective, the failure of the justice system to either reduce crime rates or rehabilitate offenders, thereby offsetting reoffense potentialities, is indicative of the greater failure to embrace effective and efficient people and organisational management paradigms.