THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY MAY 10, 2007
NEWS
DUST BOWL
3A
Kansas climate may shift
Professor gives dim projection for future of Kansas' environment
BY BRIAN LEWIS-JONES
Donald Worster says in the next hundred years, all times might become bad times on the plains.
Contrary to the Kansas state song, "Home on the Range," where "seldom is heard a discouraging word." Worster, distinguished professor of history, said Kansas could see a repeat of the dust bowl from the 1930's as a result of climate change.
The state song, he said in a lecture at Spairh Auditorium yesterday, promised Americans "a safe refuge in a troubled world." However, Worster said the song left out a few key notes, including dark clouds full of dirt during the depression era, some of which were "dramatic black blizzards that came with high rolling turbulence."
"If predictions are right, those dark clouds will become dirtier and dustier than ever," he said.
Worster, who specializes in North American environmental history, said the great plains may shift back to a time when "the present corn
belt was dry prairie and the present wheat belt was desert." The blame, he said, would be placed on rising temperatures and the extraction of underground aquifers.
"Over the past century, we have discovered an energy abundance lying under our feet to mine and to sell," Worster said. "Yet in a time of global warming, those fuels have become a source of danger. Our habits of mining and consuming have made us one of the most economically vulnerable regions in the United States."
Worster said the pursuit of private wealth, dependence on the government for assistance and the expectation of technological fixes perpetuated economic and social strife that the state could face in the next hundred years.
"If the predictions are right," Worster said, "We're going into a hotter, drier future without these water resources."
Guorong Gao, a visiting scholar who received his doctorate from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China, attended Worser's lecture.
He said dry soil and erosion in Kansas was similar to that of China. He plans to do a comparative study between climate change in the states and in Inner Mongolia, he said.
"Some people destroy the environment to some extent just for no reason," Gao said.
Gao decided to attend the University of Kansas for a year-long program instead of Yale or Harvard after he saw Worster speak in China.
Worster said Wednesday that the best solvent to the Midwest's impending crisis was simply to talk and communicate with one another.
Until people begin to conserve more, he said, new lyrics to "Home on the Range" could be dismal.
"The ground has no plant cover" he said. "The wind is starting to blow the topsoil away. The blue skies are turning to darkness at noon."
Kansan staff writer Brian Lewis-Jones can be contacted at bljones@kansan.com.
Edited by Lisa Tilson
Panel expands understanding of atheism
BY TYLER HARBERT
Henry Bernheim was asked to give a brief introduction about how he came to be an atheist during the "Ask an Atheist" event Wednesday night in the Kansas Union.
》SOMA
Bernberg, Northbook, ill., sophomore, said his faith, or rather no faith, started when he began to question what he had previously believed.
"How likely is it that there is a creator?" he asked. "I came to the realization that I don't really agree with religion."
"Some people have the assumption we have horns,' Bemberg said. 'We want to say what we believe and why we believe it.'
Bernberg, along with Chris Redford, Wellington graduate student, and Colin Barnes, Overland Park freshman, were part of the three-person panel representing the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics that fielded questions from the audience about the hows and whys of what they believe and disbelieve.
Barness' aisthet bolei came about as a result of alfelfong interest
in religious literature. Even though his parents were religious he said his parents didn't push their beliefs on him.
"They felt it was best that I educate myself," he said.
He shifted to Quakerism later in his life because he said he appreciated the open nature of Quaker beliefs. From those beliefs he said he progressed to nonreligious beliefs and ultimately to becoming a "strong" atheist, meaning specifically that he believed there isn't a god.
Redford said he had been a Pentecostal whose life goal was to understand the will of god.
"My number one priority was being a Christian," he said.
After debating with an atheist professor from Arizona online, Redford reached the conclusion that he had been making a lot of assumptions about the universe.
"You could explain everything I was explaining without a god there," he said.
The panel was then asked what brought them to Kansas, a recurrent hotbed for debate over religious issues like evolution and abortion.
Bernberg said he had known about religious issues in Kansas, but that those arguments never struck him until he returned to his home in Illinois and caught up with some of his former high school teachers.
"The science teachers were good-heartedly making fun of me for going here," he said.
The panel was also asked why they trust science over religion, if it takes more faith to have no faith than just having a belief in the supernatural, and if they've ever been persecuted for their atheist beliefs.
Barness said he felt like regardless of faith, everybody is at times persecuted for something and that committing to atheism could have some negative effects.
"If somebody in the presidential election announced they were atheist, their campaign wouldn't make it even though the qualities of leaders don't have anything to do with religion," he said.
Kansan staff writer Tyler Harbert can be contacted at tharbert@ kansan.com.
—Edited by Lisa Tilson
SEX CRIMES
Former teacher reaches plea agreement for sex with student
BY DYLAN T. LOVAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOMPKINSVILLE, Ky. — A former teacher charged with having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student and running off to Mexico with him pleaded guilty Wednesday to a sodomy charge.
Angela Renee Comer, 28, would serve 10 years in prison under her plea agreement, in which the prosecutor agreed to drop most other charges. Besides one count of third-degree sodomy, Comer pleaded
gully to one count of custodial interference.
She had faced up to 20 years on each of four counts of first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor and up to five years each for two counts of third-degree sodomy.
Comer said in an interview with The Associated Press after the court hearing that she was glad to avoid a trial, which had been scheduled to start Thursday.
"A trial is very stressful for everyone, and I just want this to be over," she said.
Comer entered the courtroom wearing jeans and an orange jail T-shirt and answered a series of questions from the judge before entering the plea.
Police said Corner had a sexual affair with the boy, who is now 16, and took him without his guardian's permission. Authorities found Comer, her young son and the teen in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on Jan. 10, 2006.
The boy's grandmother watched as Comer entered the plea. The boy, who was not in court Wednesday,
was removed from her care after the incident and placed in a foster home, she said.
"I'm relieved that it's over. This has been going on for 16 months and I don't think anyone should have to wait that length of time. It's been very difficult for me" the grandmother said.
The Associated Press is not using the grandmother's name to protect the identity of the boy. It is the policy of the AP not to identify victims of sex crimes in most cases.
The grandmother said the boy is
a high school sophomore now. He's embarrassed by the incident and has little contact with his family since he was moved into foster care, she said.
"He doesn't want to come back here, because he says they'll judge him," she said.
Corner said he expected to be eligible for parole after serving 24 months of the sentence. She said she also would be required to complete a sex offender treatment program that takes from 12 to 18 months. Corner has been in jail for
the 16 months since her arrest
Comer also said since her arrest her ex-husband has not permitted her to see her 5-year-old son, who is autistic.
Prosecutor Jesse Stockton declined to comment, pending Comer's formal sentencing, scheduled for June 20.
Tompkinsville, in rural southern Kentucky, sits along a two-lane highway about 100 miles northeast of Nashville, Tenn.
THIS WEEK ON CAMPUS
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ALPHA PI UPSILON PRESENTS
1st annual Blades of Glory in support of
the Susan G. Komen Foundation
When: May 12th
Time: 7-10pm
Where: AMF Ice Chateau (87th and Metcalf)
$8 to skate
Feel free to add ice skating logo or something
ALL FIELDS OF STUDY NEEDED!
Join Engineers Without Borders on June 16th work with Habitat for Humanity
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'Please email ewbku@ku.edu'
UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS COUNCIL
Come listen to Google's Senior International Marketing Manager, Katchen Gerig talk about the future of e-marketing and her professional success.
Google
Friday, May 11th at 11am Place: Summerfield RM.428 Sponsored by the GBC and UBC
May 10th,2007
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