Presentation on Creedmoor, NC

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Education and the Proliferation of New and Old Concepts

This article streams from the idea or belief that "earth is a common treasury," meaning that limits should be placed on a variety of things. Some of these include land ownership and even the possible creation of a federal maximum wage. The article takes into consideration many leaders in America's history to focus on the agrarian aspect of wealth and the industrial aspect of it. There were pro-industrialists like Marx and Ricardo that believe specific things within a community need to be decided fully and that there was nothing that could stop the advancement of industry. Ruskin, another scholar alive during the 1800s, was famous for not agreeing with the fact that "poverty was brought on by the poor themselves." It seems as though many of the leaders the author chose were those that were either pro capitalism or against it. The author of this article seems to create a debate on how the economy should be handled from a government perspective, meaning whether you believe the government should not burden citizens with many tasks or whether you believe a government should have many requirements of its citizens. Overall, it can be said that no one is still quite sure how much government we need in our lives and that a system that is dominated by the upper class is not one that is beneficial to all. It is important for educational systems are not only responsible for preparing students for their futures as well as allowing for creativity and opinions. Therefore, this author believes that education is the main way to stop capitalism in a sense by allowing agrarianism and a maximum wage.

Indigenous Resistance- March 26, 2012

This article was mainly about the Coast Salish people and the hardships they had to go through for preserving their culture during colonization. The North American imperialists attempted to use the residential schools to turn the Coast Salish people and other indigenous people into more modern people just like those settling the land. North America created very racist public schools and tried to force these people in them instead of their typical residential schools. I found it quite shocking that in one part of the article, it talks about how Canada and America assigned spaces for these people to live in the Pacific Northwest. I find that rather rude considering the fact that these people inhabited the area before. These people were simply expected to stay out of the way of American and Canadian development. I also find it kind of rude how the Americans and Canadians expected the aboriginal people to "shake off... their pre-modern life-ways and fully embrace the cultural standards of their colonisers." Once again, this type of logic is extremely absurd. That would be like going to another country and forcing those people to believe in only what you believe in and telling them that they are wrong. It just doesn't make sense. I just feel bad for these people because they weren't allowed the be themselves and were forced out of their cultures. They had to fight for their own beliefs and that just isn't fair to them.

The Meatrix

Honestly, this website talking about factory farming is kind of scary. The city that I'm from is known for having quite a few farms around town. Some of these include tobacco farms and several other family owned farms. Many of my friend's parents rely on the income they get from selling their products in order to make money. Therefore, it is very scary to think that maybe shortly in the future, factories will try to buy these farms and land out in order to demand more food and more animals. The entire town would lose its small-city feel and I don't want that at all. What's even more scary, however, is the fact that this is happening in so many areas already. So much of our food is no longer family owned and grown. Most of our food comes from these big farms that demand a certain amount (typically a large amount) of output in order to make a lot of money. All of the antibiotics that the companies put in the feed is probably getting into humans when we eat the animals. That cannot be healthy for humans. Overall, people need to stop supporting factory farms and demand that our food be returned back to family grown in order to save ourselves and the precious lives of the animals that are being affected by these machine-like companies.

March 12 Response

This excerpt from the Real Text book is mainly about writing within the field of biotechnology. Writers within this field are required to use proper rhetoric in order to persuade readers and their audiences into believing various things. The issues that biotechnology writers write about are usually variable all about healthy and affordable food. By reading these pages in the text book, I discovered how writers can say things in order to persuade an audience's opinion. The other part of our homework was to watch the Food INC preview. This short clip kind of reminded me about what I read in the textbook. Industries create ads and other things in order to sway audience's opinions and in the case of Food INC, to make an audience not really worry about what they're eating. I'm quite excited to continue our talk about this video further in class.

EPA and Fracking in Wyoming

          The article entitled EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination that was featured on the Scientific American website is quite a shocking article to read. This particular article talks about hoe hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, has recently been linked to water pollution underground in Pavillion, Wyoming. The Environmental Protection Agency crafted a rather large report on the water contamination in the Wyoming town.

            The people of Pavillion began having distasteful water in the 1990s and the situation on got worse after the gas wells began to be fracked in nearby fields. Once this water began getting repulsive, the gas companies began giving water for drinking to the residents.

            The report that the article mentioned found some of the compounds that are commonly used for this particular gas drilling process. Even after these compounds were found in the water, the EPA looked for other possible explanations for the contamination but none were proven as well as the fracking hypothesis. The EPA even found that the cement around the gas wells for protection actually separated from the well, which could have caused even more contamination. These findings are quite shocking for many reasons.

            One of the main reasons is that the water contamination caused by fracking strongly challenge the original argument from the gas drilling industry claiming that the process is safe. It is also shocking due to the fact that it has struck a political debate in Congress on new regulations and standards for fracking by oil industries. 

            The industry that has been fracking the area in Wyoming claims that it is impossible to prove that fracking could have caused the water contamination due to the inconclusive data. The EPA report has yet to undergo the peer and public review process in order to go through the publishing process, however.

            Overall, the findings are shocking enough to want to dig deeper and discover more on the water contamination issue in Wyoming. If, in the end, fracking is found to cause the contamination in the wells in the town, some major laws will have to be implemented to make sure more water is not contaminated in the future in other towns across America.

Environmental History "Artifact"

http://www.cfr.org/interactives/GH_Vaccine_Map/index.html#map

I chose this "artifact" dealing with environmental history because of the history it contains within the medical field. Since I'm a biology major, vaccines, medications, and outbreaks of certain diseases, bacterial and/or fungal infections is pretty interesting. This map of the world shows outbreaks within a particular timeline of various highly contagious diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella (which is also what I wrote my paper #1 about). It's very interesting to see how various diseases can have different types of outbreaks. One particular disease could cause an outbreak of 1000 cases while another could only have 6 cases and be considered an outbreak. I feel as though this map relates to environmental history due to the fact that it shows the recent outbreaks of certain diseases, which is a sense, is history.

What should be the relationship between religion and the environment?

Previously, religion and the environment have not been two related topics of interest. When one typically thinks of religion, they think of churches, preachers, and trying to prevent living a dreadful afterlife. When an average person typically thinks of the environment, they think of "tree-huggers" and nature itself. Recently, however, scholars have started to link the two entities together for the main reason that religion does have a strong connection with the environment. For example, in Christianity, God hopes to protect all of the environment and not just the humans in it. God wanted humans and various types of animals on Noah's Ark and not just humans. Therefore, Christianity is rather big on protecting all lifeforms and not just humans. Also, like the religion and environmental studies video that we watched in class dealing with Yale University, Buddhism could possibly save trees in Thailand. Since many people look to religion on how to live their daily lives and what to believe, it's important that the environment be stressed within religions in order to attempt to save the earth. For example, in the article "Faith in Conservation, New Approaches to Religions and the Environment," many Christian churches have realized that one way to help spread the word about environmentalism is to do it via churches. One church has even gone as far as promoting "What car would Jesus drive?" to try to implement proper environmental decisions on purchasing items like cars. There are also several organizations that combine the environment with religion like the World Bank, Alliance of Religion & Conservation and even the World Wildlife Fund (Worrell 365-6). Overall, I do believe that religion and the environment should have a slight relationship. Since organizations have tried other ways of marketing eco-friendly products and they haven't exactly succeeded too well, I feel as though the church could step in and make this marketing a little more productive. After all, the first religions were based on thee relationship between man and the environment and even the Christian God loves "the whole world."

Worrell, Ernst. "Faith in Conservation, New Approaches to Religions and the Environment." Resources, Conservation & Recycling 41.4 (2004): 365-6. Print.

Shit _______ Say

The video that we watched in class called "Shit Yogis Say" made me think about a lot of the other videos like that that I've seen previously. These types of videos are quite humorous and are guaranteed to make you laugh. This particular video was mainly about the earthy and funny things that typical "yogis" say on a daily basis. One of the funnier videos I've seen is called "Shit College Freshmen Say." I find this particular video funny because even though it makes fun of my current status as a college freshman, the things that the "college freshmen" actually say are quite true. For example, the actors in the video make fun of the fact that college freshmen think they know everything about a particular subject since they've taken the introductory course to that subject. More specifically, the video specifically says "the economy is going to turn around eventually, trust me, I've taken intro to econ." Even though it's so embarrassing to admit, college freshmen really do feel like they know everything about a subject even though they've only had the intro course to it. The college freshmen video also talks about the various fraternities and sororities on campus and how they just don't know which one to pick from. The actor then starts naming off the random greek groups like tri delta, chi o, kappa delta, sig ep, and ends the scene with brb, std, wtf, and other random acronyms to prove the "stupidity" of college freshmen. Satiric videos like this are quite hilarious. There are so many of them and each one is definitely guaranteed to at least make you chuckle. 

Feb 3, 2012 HW- Richard Kahn

Rebecca Purvis

Dr. Taylor

February 5, 2012

ENG 101

Schools and the Environment

            “Towards Ecopedagogy” by Richard Kahn functions as a call-to-action for not only Americans, but for individuals of the earth to figure out how to teach sustainability properly in schools. Kahn briefly describes the environment that American’s are currently living in, mentions that problems that arise with environmental education and the need for a more beneficial type of education, and examples of environmentalists with opinions on environmental education.

            In the beginning section of the article, Kahn talks about the state of the environment as an effect from the various social events and happening of the past century. Kahn talks about the “threat of [mass being] extinction (Kahn 1)” caused from the globalization that occurred in the Post- World War II world. Globalization, according the Kahn and his colleagues, is one of the causes of the unbelievable degradation of natural resources that has happened in the last few decades. The large corporations within capitalist systems that are big on fast production, more product, and huge profit, have forced humans to become a species of consumers. Kahn talks specifically about the fact that “tree consumption… has doubled… resulting in about half of the planet’s forests disappearing (2).” He also talks about the disappearance of 90% of major fish species over the last forty years. The lifestyle that many humans have acquired is not healthy, nor environmentally sustainable and Kahn is sure to point that out.

            He then goes on to write about the legislation that mandates environmental education to become a part of the public education since apparently a shocking number of American’s have no idea what’s going on in the world from an environmental aspect. One example of how this legislation is being put into play is with the Apple Valley, Minnesota “Zoo School.” Although the school’s students are primarily taught on the zoo grounds where they are able to learn through independent studies featuring environment themes, Kahn still wasn’t so hip to this idea. He claims it doesn’t actually teach students how to voice opinions and make change because it forces them to simply stress doing better on standardized tests and to get good grades.

            Since Kahn wasn’t so thrilled to hear about the “Zoo School,” he decided to research various ideas about how to weave ecopedagogy into schools in more beneficial ways. He writes about leaders within the field such as Jim Cummins, Dennis Sayers, Frijtof Capra, David Orr, and many other scientists and environmentalists with their own beliefs about how students should be taught the concept of sustainability.

            Overall, Kahn effectively shows the need for change in how school children are taught about the environment and sustainability. Due to the large metamorphosis that the world has had to endure since the end of the Second World War, it’s important that students be taught how to prolong the amount of natural resources available and learn important concepts of saving the environment. 

Kahn, Richard. "Towards Ecopedagogy: Weaving a Broad-based Pedagogy of Liberation for Animals, Nature, and the Oppressed People of the Earth." n. page. Print. 

Water Forum & Google Alerts Response

During class on Friday, we talked a lot about Postel's essay on water and several classmates talked about the videos that they found and their thoughts on them. By reading the essay and listening to the various stories and videos, I've realized that something has got to be done about our freshwater supply. Postel really opened my eyes to the effects that our wasteful mindsets are having on the supply of freshwater and my continuing to hear and learn of the various polluted freshwater bodies throughout the world forced me to become a concerned citizen about this problem that no one really knows/ cares about. The only options for fixing this problem that we talked about in class were mainly just the ones that Postel suggested but I feel as though we need to come together as a world to make a change because just a few people caring and changing their lifestyles isn't going to do much. One of my google alerts for "loss of biodiversity" was actually semi-linked to the problem of freshwater that we talked about in class. This article talks about how the habitats of many organisms (specifically those in water) severely need their habitat protected because their ecosystems are becoming extremely polluted. I thought that this tied in greatly with the fact that our freshwater supply is being polluted and used up. The article is linked in my response as "this article."

Patagonia Response Jan 26, 2012

The "New" River
       While reading the Patagonia environmental story, a few things really stood out to me. It was hard to believe that the author of this essay was terrified that putting their feet in the particular body of water was going to harm them. Therefore, I looked up rivers around America that are very similar to this and I found one called the New River in southern California. This river was created completely by "accident" when an irrigation system failed and created it. About one hundred year ago, the New River began running from California to Mexico and neither country could figure out who should claim it. Therefore, it just kind of became a river that didn't belong to anyone. Factories, farms, and people began dumping trash and disposing of everything in the river turning it into a toxic wasteland.
       The group that's in charge of monitoring bacteria levels and contamination levels within this river were brought into the video and talked about the processes that their group had to go through in order to test the water and even the results compared to typical rivers. The testers dress up in what looks like hasmat suits for super toxic chemicals. They wear several pairs of gloves and even masks and robes everywhere in order to prevent any bodily contact with the water. The leader of the group stated that typically, any amount of bacteria over 260 per ml of water is deemed contaminated and isn't allowed to be used in people's homes. This particular river, would sometimes test at millions per ml of water. That finding is astonishing. It's hard to believe that in less than one hundred years, a body of water that was pristine has now been turned into a wasteland that you cannot even come into contact with.
       Another thing that was quite astonishing about this video was how it showed several illegal immigrants from Mexico using this river to cross over into the United States because border patrol wouldn't follow them into such contaminated areas. Just imagine all of the bacteria and diseases that they bring with them once they get into America and all of the sicknesses that can be caused just from exposure to a person with all of this bacteria on them.
       Overall, this story was quite astonishing and even a little bit scary. In the part of the country where water is hard to come by, is it really safe and reasonable to turn freshwater (that is REALLY limited in our world) into a huge wasteland? Something needs to be done about this river before it begins to flow into seas where it can cause a lot of damage for larger cities in the western part of the USA.

Go Local! Haiku

Local farming is
Better than importing the
Much Bigger farm's food

Sustainability Jan 17, 2012

My initial experience with google alerts and twitter is very positive. After perusing the sustainability websites, I decided to set up google alerts for loss of biodiversity and I decided to follow several conservation ecology twitter accounts. So far, I've been able to read a few websites that talk about plant life biodiversity. In some areas where the plant biodiversity has begun to decrease, the availability of drinking water and even some food and energy sources have started to decrease. It's horrible how just the decreasing plant biodiversity can cause such drastic things like this to occur. Just imagine if some important organisms in food webs and ecosystems begin to disappear. That can only cause harm to our environment. Overall, the loss of biodiversity is harming our ecosystem in more ways than one.

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/ecosystem-biodiversity-key-climate-change-buffer

Environmental Issue

I feel as though one of the environmental issues that could contribute to the need for an "island civilization" is the rapidly increasing human population. The earth simply cannot support over seven billion people with the limited amount of resources that it has. Much of the technology that humans have created has led to global warming which is very harmful to the environment. Also, the growing human population is causing a lot of deforestation and habitat loss for a very large amount of other organisms. It’s not right for humans to be so selfish and to feel as though they are better and more deserving of the “wilderness” than the other types of organisms. In previous classes I’ve learned that population growth is the most in developing nations and these nations typically don’t have all of the resources that they need in order to survive. I feel as if many other countries, even developed nations, get to the point of a huge overpopulation, they won’t have a sufficient amount of resources either. Overall, I feel as though if the human population growth were limited, the environment would clear up drastically in more ways than one. 

"The Interaction of Population Growth and Environmental Quality"

Jan 10 Nash Reading Response

            Island Civilization: A Vision For Human Occupancy of Earth In the Fourth Millennium by Roderick Frazier Nash highlights several of the key historical events that forced the earth to become the not-so ecologically friendly environment that it is today. It talks about the fact that since humans have evolved into somewhat of a dominant species and no longer see themselves as a part of wilderness and nature, the majority of the decisions they make about the environment are extremely anthropocentric. Humans have once seen nature as almost pointless and that it’s better to just conquer the territory no matter what the consequences because human expansion is seen as power. The article goes on to discuss the recent radical changes and laws passed within the second millennium that forced humans to look at other types of life forms as important and beneficial and gave them the right to live in their land peacefully.

            The article talks about the changing minds of humans and how we are attempting to learn to see ourselves as part of the environment and nature without being separate from wilderness. Humans are trying to learn conservation skills to try to maintain and preserve all types of life and not just their own. The most important topic of this article wasn’t the description of the ever-changing thoughts of humans and their environment, but rather the possible consequences that can come about at the start of the fourth millennium in close to one thousand years. There are two different extremes to what can become of the entire earth’s biotic relationships- either the earth enters into the “wasteland scenario” or the humans in the earth learn to become completely sustainable and use their technology and intelligence to create “island civilizations” or something of the sort.

            The “wasteland scenario” can occur if the planet and the people in it continue to trash it leading to a planet with a very low amount of biodiversity. On the other end of the eco-friendly spectrum is the “island civilization” in which humans move to little islands and allow for wilderness to continue in the mainland in order to limit the ecological footprint that humans leave. In between these two scenarios include the possible “garden scenario” in which humans end up controlling all parts of nature and our society becomes completely anthropocentric as well as the “future primitive” in which humans learn to use technology in a much more efficient and responsible way.

            Overall, I feel as though Nash has an excellent point when he talks about the fact that everything humans create and everything humans do pretty much revolves around the wants and needs of our particular species. It’s not fair to cause all of the other species that we share this planet with to suffer and possibly lose their habitats for the enjoyment of humans. Although the changes that humans have created in order to benefit other species on the planet have been rather minute, it’s a rather large step in helping to get our earth in functioning in the way it was ten thousand years ago.

            As phenomenal as the “island civilization” scenario for the fourth millennium seems, I highly doubt anything like that will ever occur. The only scenario I could actually see occurring on this planet in the future are the negative ones. The human species is incredibly selfish and I cannot see them giving up their mainland and moving to islands in order to support the rest of life on the planet. I can understand humans learning to recycle and using their technology more efficiently but I know there will be billions of stubborn people that refuse to go through and allow the drastic change that the earth needs to return to it’s primitive healthiness.

            One point that Nash did make that I completely agree with was that one of the main ways to help earth is to get population growth back to a stable percentage. The fact that human populations are growing in such an extreme manner, it’s limiting the natural resources and using all of them up. Overall, something has to be done about the current environmental situation. However, I’m not sure what laws one could pass or what changes could be made that will be the most beneficial in order to prevent our planet from turning into a rather large wasteland.