Reflection: Weeks 5&6

End of week 6 already? Wow time really flew by! These past two weeks have been eye opening for me, there have been a lot of great share and voices, and I feel like I learned a lot.

During week 5 we watched a documentary called "Diet For a New America" with John Robbins. It was about the meat industry and it was really interesting. If you click on the link above it will bring you to come clips of the film. I missed the last half of it because I was gone sick but I wish I could have seen the rest. I was sick for about a week and I fell behind in all of my classes. I didn't have any Internet access for a couple days which made me go crazy. Who knew that by the fifth week of class all I could think about was logging into Blogger and checking out what was going on.

During week 6 we watched another documentary called "The Future of Food." I found myself shaking my head throughout the whole film. The sad stories of the farmers and the lawsuits that were brought against them my Monsanto were insane! I couldn't believe some of the stories that were being told. The thing that made me most upset was that these big companies have so much power and so much money they can do almost anything they want. I don't think that's how it should be and I disagree with their views but it seems almost impossible to stop them, which is very unfortunate. These people of power need to have compassion and a genuine desire to help people instead of just trying to make money.

Overall these past two weeks have made me realize more of the problems that we have going on right now. It is heart breaking and not fair but it give me and I'm sure many others more of a reason to try and make a difference. Hope the last two weeks went well for all of you too!

Share and Voice: Can't wait for Summer

So I am looking outside and it is snowing like crazy and it looks super chilly. I started to look through some of my pictures and I found some I took in California last May. These pictures made me think of summer and thought I would share them with anyone who is ready for winter to be over and CAN'T WAIT FOR SUMMER!

Hope you enjoyed a little taste of summer!

Share and Voice: The Endless Feast

Hey everyone! So we got some new channels at my house when the big digital switch happened and we have a channel called Create. I was flipping through channels last night and I watched a show called the The Endless Feast. This show was really interesting. The show is based on a couple people who travel around the country to bring together local farmers, artists, and many other people to have one huge feast comprised of only local foods and drinks. The feast takes place outside usually in a field where some of the food came from. The episode I watched took place in California and the dinner had 5 courses. They interviewed a couple farmers who provided most of the meal, a guy who had his own cheese factory, and a guy with his own vineyard who provided 5 different kinds of wine to be accompanied with the meal.

I thought this was a really interesting idea and though it would be cool to be able to have a huge gathering of local people enjoying local food and drink. If you wanna check out the show just click one of the licks above it explains a little more about what The Endless Feast is about and what times its on TV.

Enjoy!

Review: Reading 22 Climate Policy Needs a New Approach

This article was written by David Applegate in May of 2001. This reading starts off talking about former President Bush and how he reversed a campaign pledge to regulate power-plant emissions of carbon dioxide and also made a statement that he would not take any action "that will harm our economy and hurt the American workers." My first thought was what good is our economy and our workers if we don't have a stable environment to survive in? This reading also stated that global warming is a problem and the public is realizing it but Bush needed to take action by enforcing a clear climate policy.

No Regrets
It has been known for some time now that carbon dioxide levels are rising and we are starting to link these levels with our warming climate. No Regrets strategies are policies focused on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases without the having to wait for extensive scientific research on climate change and an agreement on what it causing it.

Resilient Today, Adaptable Tomorrow
This section suggested that some geologists argue that hurricanes and natural disasters will occur more often and become more deadly with or without global warming. Wealthier people see the coast lines as the optimal place to live with its warmth and beauty, these people in some ways are just putting themselves in harm's way. I found this section to be interesting because it brings up points questioning the impact of human lifestyles on global warming. It is stated that the Antarctic ice sheet has been melting for thousands of years which would suggest that it is not all human related. For me I find this debate on whether global warming is happening or not to be silly. Who cares if its not? If its not happening and we take precautions and reduce our impact on the earth what do we lose? If we don't take any precautions and keep living the way the majority of us are living what is going to happen? What are we going to lose?

A Modest Proposal
David Applegate suggests that the President should consider a strategy that helps our society more resilient to natural hazards and policies for addressing climate change. Basically, we need to make progress and start moving in the "right" direction. Its better to be safe than sorry

Opposing Views
I found something interesting on the Douglass Report website, it was called The Truth about Global Warming. It calls the idea of global warming a "cash cow." Dr. Douglass is stating that global warming research has generated millions for the scientist, he even brought up Al Gore saying he has everyone brainwashed. The funny thing about this page is that there is advertisements all over saying "just enter your email address here to get your FREE copy of Dr. Douglass' The Cold Truth About Global Warming, Plus Dr. Douglass' Health Newsletter!" If this doctor was really trying to improve peoples knowledge and be beneficial to societies views, why is it necessary to plug his book and newsletter all over?
Another opposing viewpoint I found was on the Minnesota Public Radio website. It stated that the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman said "I can't find a single link between any warming that may have occurred and the activities of mankind." John Coleman also thinks global warming is a hoax and blames the media for creating this scam.

My Views
I am not any kind of doctor or scientist but from what I have read and learned on this topic there is a lot of convincing evidence that proves global warming is real and if we don't take specific action to stop harming our environment, very soon we are going to be in hot water. I found the reading informational and I agree with David Applegate the our country needs to take the initiative. I found my opposing view points not to have much of an influence on me and I am going to keep trying to get more green and learn more about this topic. I guess this assignment leaves me with one question. Is there any reason why we shouldn't reduce our emissions and be more environmentally friendly even if global warming doesn't exist??

Eye Opener: CSPI

For this Eye Opener I chose to take the eating green calculator. It started off asking me how much servings of beef, chicken, pork, milk and yogurt, hard cheese, and eggs I eat each week. It took me a little while to think of all of these because I guess I have never really thought about how many servings I consume in a weeks time. After I entered in my servings I clicked the calculate impact button. I was surprised when I saw the results. It stated that because of my diet I use up 0.6 acres of grain and grass needed to feed the animals I eat, 20.8 pounds of fertilizer and .02 pounds of pesticides needed to grow the food these animals eat, and the most shocking number is the animals I eat create 3890 pounds of manure! GROSS

After reading my results it asked me if I was able to cut down my servings of animal products I eat each week. I don't think it would be too hard to cut down on some servings so I re-took the quiz, imputing fewer servings and got better results. After the second time the quiz stated that with the changes that I made I would be consuming 13% less fat, 23% less saturated fat, and 44% less cholesterol each week and I only cut my beef, chicken and milk servings down by one.

At the end of the quiz it asked me if I was willing to take a pledge to eat less meat and dairy products and I took it. I think I can reduce my impact just by adding more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains to my diet. I am looking forward to starting to be more concious of the food I consume and making a better impact on our earth.

Review: Reading 15 Feeding the World

This reading was very informative but also created some concern for me. The first sentence states that in 1999 the world's population grew over six billion! Currently supply and demand are growing at the same rate but there is growing evidence that demand will soon grow higher than supply. This reading is broken into five sections that explain the concerns with this issue, Society's Four Transitional Stages, Evidence for Negative Poplulation Growth, Future Food Supply/Demand Balance, Protecting the Environment, and The Challenges Ahead.

Society's Four Transitional Stages
The four stages of society discussed are traditional, developing, developed, and mature. These stages are based on demographics, economics, agriculutrual productivity, and technical advancements. Each stage referrs to a society's upward movement toward higher food production and technological output, lower death rates, and investments in education and science.

Evidence for Negative Population and Growth
Issues such as declining marriage rates, high divorce rates, increasing career goals, more women in the business world, and growing desire for financial success leave some to beilieve that fewer people are making having childeren less of a priority. This section was a little confusing when it states the United Nations projections of populations. I think it is good to be aware of the different things that may affect the population around the world but I find it hard to narrow it down to a certin ratio as they do. The low/medium world populaiton the UN projects for 2050 is 7.9 billion people and then a decline to 6.4 billion by 2150 (Mckinney, 56). I am assuming that these numbers will change over the next few years but crazy to think that in about 40 years our world popluation is going to be raised by about 2 billion!

Future Food Supply/Demand Balance
This section describes that in the future the demand for food will pass our food supply. This is kind of a hard thing to think about, right now we can access food almost anywhere and with little effort. I wonder what it would be like if there was a shortage and we actually had to worry about where to find food. I think most of us living in the United States have been spoiled with our resources and it's time to start making sure we can preserve them for as long as possible.

Protecting the Environment
The benfits of becoming more "green" and what do for our world is looked at in this section. The more people we need to house the more land we need to clear of forests and natural habitat. This section explains that the more people we have with higher incomes the more stress is put on saving our environment. Higher income promotes lower population growth, better recyling and consuming practices, more environmental quality concern, and more educational research all can contribute to preserving our environment.

The Challenges Ahead
This section pretty much sums up the rest of the sections stating agian that if we want our resources to keep providing for us we need to keep an eye on our population growth, the products we use and how we dipose of them. We need to look at all the possoble outcomes and be ready for anything. It would be silly of us, as one of the most developed countires to put off this likely disaster.

I think this reading gave me another view of what is needed for us to sustain our way of living. While it is great that people recycle and try to reduce emissions, a lot more needs to be considered. The growing population really needs to be looked at. As our healthcare gets better and better the average life span is getting longer and its taking a toll on environment. Education along with getting all of the up to date information on these topics is key if we are going to be successful in keeping our supply and demand equal as long as possible.

Reflection: Weeks 3 & 4

Hello again! These last two weeks have gone a lot smoother than the first two. I think I pretty much got the hand of this whole blogging thing! In the past two weeks I have learned a lot of new things. I have posted a share and voice, an eye opener, and became more familiar with Google Reader.

The last three class periods we watched Al Gore's documentry An Inconvienent Truth which I found very informational. The film was about global warming and it explained that the world is in our hands and what were doing to it is going to have devistating effects very soon. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about this issue and what was going on with our government and our environment. Some of the pictures and stories he had were shocking.
I also had the chance to take an ecological footprint quiz to see how my lifestyle affects our environment. This definately open my eyes to the way I live and the things I need to change. Since taking the quiz I am proud to say that I have bought energy efficent light bulbs and switched out the old ones all through my house. I know this is a small step but I am taking it one step at a time and every little bit helps! We have also had readings from our textbook that people have written responses to which is cool beacuse I got to read about what the readings meant to them.

I think everyone in class is really getting good at going green with blogger and no paper assingments. I am looking forward to what Dr. V has in store for us in the next couple weeks. I am curious to see what else we'll learn!

Share and Voice: Make a Difference

Hey everyone! I found this cool site that offers great ideas to make a difference for the environment right here in Duluth. It is the American Towns website. There is a lot of different options to pick from such as... Local Foods near Duluth, Recycling Guide for Duluth, Energy Efficient Products, Saint Louis County Pollution Report Scorecard, Nature Conservancy projects in Minnesota, Minnesota Environmental Protection and many MORE~ just thought I'd share it with you all! I hope you find something useful

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

I just took the Ecological Footprint quiz and if everyone lived the way I did, we would need 5.28 earths! My first reaction was what am I doing?? After I read some other blog posts I realized I am not the only one which made me feel a little better but I was still shocked. To the right is a graph showing what my usage is compared to the country's average. This graph also made things look a little better and it was interesting to see it all broken down. I live in a small apartment which is why my housing footprint is a lot lower than the country's average, but in every other category I am pretty much even.

This quiz really opened my eyes. The quiz asked questions that I never really took the time to think about and now I see how much even the little things effect the environment. I do some little things like recycle, trying not to take long showers, and my roommate and I pretty much always have slippers, sweatshirts, and sweatpants on because we keep our apartment between 60-65 degrees.

After seeing what my lifestyle is doing to the earth I plan to make some changes. I am going to start off slowly by trying to remember to unplug our small things when were not using them, and buying some new lightbulbs...anythng will help right?