11/21/11 Reading

The article about the Portland City Hall initiative highlights a survey conducted by hired company was part of a campaign to raise awareness about recycling and waste management. The telephone survey asked residents of Portland if they rented a room in their house to others, tried to repair broken items instead of replacing them, using cloth napkins instead of paper ones, shared tools with others instead of buying brand new ones, and shopped at second hand stores. While these questions seem to bounce around to many different subjects, they all focus on the ability to reuse or use recycled materials, and conserving energy. I believe that this survey did a very good job of highlighting many different kinds that ordinary citizens reduce, reuse, and recycle and really got people about their habits in order to save their environment.

Life's Pretty Good :)

To Whom It May Concern,
      While everyone is writing angry letters, mine is going to be fairly pleasant. I had been stressing out about my CH 101 test today, but that's over with so I have some sort of feeling of relief. Now I can concentrate on whether I want to do Winter Guard next semester or not. I've always wanted to do it, but didn't have the time/money in high school and now I'm fairly excited that I still have the opportunity to do it. And the best part is that it may even count as a PE credit!
       I'm also fairly excited for this weekend because I get to spend time with my family. My cousin is getting married on Saturday, so my dad is picking me up Friday afternoon to spend a whole two and a half days with them, including my dad's birthday (for which I got him and NC State baseball hat :) ). The only things that would make this weekend perfect would be a minimal amount of English homework and that NC State will destroy Boston College in football on Saturday!!
Sincerely,
Kaitlyn

"Education and the Proliferation of the New (Old) Concepts" Response

In the article "Education and the Proliferation of the New (Old) Concepts," the author Paul Theobald points out that we need to make a better effort in educating our citizens to get the most out of the ideas of agrarianism, the commons, no-growth economics, and the maximum wage that can help solve the world's problems. Theobald discusses the need to educate the common people so better ideas can be introduced to society about fixing the world's problems.  When discussing agrarianism, Theobald shows that we need to return to an agrarian world view because can help reduce the heating of the atmosphere, but we need to educate more people about it so that this global warming can be stopped. The author also introduces the ideas of no-growth economics, which is the idea that society should maintain equal levels of population and economic activity, and maximum wage . However, to be able to put these into play, we must educate the public about it and its benefits to our society. The problem with our society is that our education system is too dependent on training the workforce than it is on education for the sake of knowledge and being a good citizen. However, if we slowly start teaching society about these concepts, we will be able to repair our world.  

"Mapping Everyday" Response

The article "Mapping Everyday: Gender, Blackness, and Discourse in Urban Context" by Dr. Taylor analyzes how college students interpret their surrounding environment with respect to race, gender, and the issues surrounding these topics. Through these studies, Dr. Taylor discusses how these students see violence immersed in the media and how they interpret in their own lives. It is sad to think of how these students and others are so young, yet even they can recognize violence portrayed in the media and think it is wrong, when other people just tend to ignore it. But by pointing out these problems with society now, maybe that young generation can change these standards of our community in the future.

180 Degrees South

180 South is a very visually intriguing documentary. It follows the story of Jeff Johnson and his friends as they travel to Patagonia to climb to the top of a peak as inspired by Yvon Chouinard. Along the way, they see beautiful scenes of nature, meet interesting people, and talk with them to better understand the importance of preserving nature like Patagonia. While watching this documentary, I was completely in awe of the beautiful landscapes and mountain peaks, and I couldn't help but be very sympathetic to Jeff's cause. During the movie, Jeff Johnson kept bringing up the ideas of society to change nature to make it better suit our needs and how we need to stop that from continuing and reverse the process. Just the thought of someone destroying something as beautiful as Patagonia and all of its wildlife is a complete travesty. From watching 180 South, I have a newfound respect for nature and the measures that people take to keep it intact. 

"Indigenous Resistance" Response

In the article "Indigenous Resistance," author Michael Marker evaluates the indigenous people of the Coastal Salish region between the border of Washington State, USA and British Colombia, Canada and the efforts for assimilation over the years. Marker discusses the issue of Salish youth in public schooling situations. In the public schools of Washington State and the church-run schools of British Colombia, these indigenous youth faced enormous amounts of bullying and racism. There were boarding schools that were established specifically for the Coastal Salish youth, but when they closed, they faced these severe bullying issues. Parents were afraid to put their children into these public school situations and searched for alternative to avoid the trauma of the bullying in school, such as the residential schools that were also for the Coast Salish children. With a racism comparable to that of the racism against African Americans, the Coast Salish families actually wanted their children to be separated from the bullying problems of the public and church-led school systems of the United States and Canada.

Response to Butterfly Lessons

One claim that Elizabeth Kolber makes in Butterfly Lessons is that because of all the pollution playing into global warming, it is uncertain how this will affect the species of the world and we cannot know what the consequences will be. In the article, Kolber quotes Chris Thomas for the University of York, "If we are in the situation where a quarter of the terrestrial species might be at risk of extinction from climate change-people often use the phrase of being like canaries-if we've changed our biological system to such an extent, then we do have to get worried about whether the services that are provided by natural ecosystems are going to continue."
Butterfly Lessons is directly related to my project on Germany's power supply because they are trying to scale down the carbon dioxide emissions so we can know more certainly the fate of our fellow species on Earth. This reversal of energy sources can save many of the species on our planet from extinction.
 

Solar Power: We Should Not Embrace It

        For thousands of years, people have been using the sun as a source of energy. Even today, the scientific community has come up with new and interesting ways to utilize this energy source. However, is the sun really the best, most powerful energy source out there? Even though it is one method to get around using the old energy sources, like coal or gas, it is not necessarily the best or easiest to use. Instead of embracing solar power, we should focus on using nuclear energy because it is much more powerful and not nearly as expensive to harness as the sun's power. 

Charles C. Mann's "1491"

            In the article “1491”, Charles C. Mann’s central premise is that Native American’s way of life was very useful, resourceful, and beneficial to their people, whereas the Europeans were very detrimental to the Indians, destroying their people through disease and their land through building their settlements and introducing new plant and animal life to the Americas. As Hudson, as described by Mann, says in this article, “ ‘the window opened and slammed shut. When the French came in and the record opened up again, it was a transformed reality. A civilization crumbled. The question is, how did this happen?’” The European exploration of North America was a bad idea because these Indian tribes were doing well enough on their own; they had plenty of land and natural resources, so they didn’t need any intrusion by the Europeans. This article also suggests that the state of historically considered Western knowledge is fake. Mann describes on multiple occasions that Europeans exploring North America thought that they were correct in their dealings with the Indians, or correct about food sources or shelter in the New World, but history always shows how the Native Americans always had the better way of life. The relationship between scientific revolution and re-evalutation of Western knowledge and “development” is that science shows that the Indians did have a better quality of life, from having very few diseases to have an abundance of good food to having decent shelters.

What Does It Mean To Be in Denial?

I think that being in denial means not taking responsibility for your own actions. For instance, one of my closest friend blames everyone else for his own problems. He blames his mother for not signing him up for driver's education classes on time when he should have taken responsibility and done it himself. He harbors  so much bitterness toward his mom because he has to wait until he is a freshman in college before he can get his driver's license, but he really should have taken the initiative to sign up for driver's education himself.

It really irritates me when people put themselves into situations like this and then start to blame other people for their problems. If you always go around blaming people when things go wrong, you will never learn how to solve your own problems and you will always have to rely on other people. When my friend starts to blame other people, I always ask him, "why is it the other person's fault? Couldn't you have done anything about it?" Hopefully, when I ask him these questions, he will change his thinking and start to realize that he is, in fact, in charge of his own life. Whenever I see people in denial, I always hope that they have a close friend that will set them straight too.

Graded In-Class Writing

When examining the speech "The Living Spirit of the Indian" by Luther Standing Bear, one can pick up on the theme of Indians verses Europeans in relation to ruling the land. He says that the white men are "too far removed from [Earth's] formative processes," so how can they have any say in the ruling of the land? Standing Bear points out that the Indians are and have always been deeply rooted in the Earth and all of its processes; they are the most in tune with the spirit of nature, so they should ultimately be there rulers instead of those of European descent.

Similarly, the speech supposedly given by Chief Seattle also depicts a theme of Indians verses Europeans; however, this theme of this piece compares the religions of the Indians and the Europeans, rather than land ownership. In this speech, Chief Seattle talks about how the European people's God has no interest in helping the Indians and He only cares about the interests of his "pale-faced children" as opposed to his "Red children." Chief Seattle goes on to say that since the European's God never cared for them, that they are of two completely separate and distinct origins. He goes on to list all of the blatant differences between the two cultures, such as how the Indians always stay near their buried ancestors while Europeans move away from them, or how their religion is based on their ancestors while the European’s religion is based on God’s law.

The controversy centered on Chief Seattle’s speech deals with the actual originator of the speech. According to the article, “Chief Seattle's Speech Revisited,” by Arnold Krupat, there are several reasons why Chief Seattle could not have given this speech as recorded by Henry Smith. One of the biggest reasons is because there is no record of Smith ever being present at the time Chief Seattle supposedly gave this speech. Another reason is because in two separate events, Smith describes Chief Seattle’s physical appearance in two radically different ways. According to Krupat, Smith described Seattle as “was the largest Indian I ever saw, and by far the noblest looking. He stood nearly six feet in his moccasins, was broad shouldered, deep chested and finely proportioned (Krupat np).” Another writer about 4 years later describes ‘"Seattle was short and heavy, weighing as much as 180 pounds. He was round-shouldered. . . . His face was refined and benevolent but not particularly strong.” (Krupat np)’ These are obiviously two completely different descriptions of supposedly the same person so this evidence, in addition to the lack of records confirming Smith’s attendance at Chief Seattle’s speech shows how Chief Seattle may not be the true author of the speech.

Krupat, Arnold. "Chief Seattle's Speech Revisited." The American Indian Quarterly 35.2 (2011): 192-214. Project MUSE. Web. 30 Mar. 2011. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

"Authorship" of Chief Seattle's Speech

Peer-Reviewed Article

Based on the article, "Chief Seattle's Speech Revisited," there are several reasons why Chief Seattle could not have given the speech as later 'recorded' by Henry Smith. The first reason is that there was no record indicating that Henry Smith was ever present at the speech that Chief Seattle made. The second is that Smith describes Chief Seattle's physical description in 2 totally different ways, so there could be no way from him to have seen Seattle when he made the first speech. If both of these are true, then there could have been no possible way for Smith to have taken accurate "notes" at Seattle's speech, which indicates the very real possibility that Smith made the speech up. Even though this speech is very moving and descriptive, there is no way the Seattle could have said this speech in the way the Smith outlines it in his writings.

Eco-Friendly Building Materials

Eco-Friendly Building Material to be Presented at Conference

This article describes a small, one-room model house that was constructed out of eco-friendly building materials. It says that this model house will serve as an example for builders and architects all over the world to use in construction of new homes or retrofitting existing homes with completely "green" materials. It is important for people to start thinking about using these materials so that we can reduce waste products and cut the amount of energy our houses use. These materials will not only cut down on costs that used to be associated with building or remodeling a house but also help to make our environment a cleaner, safer place to be.

Environmental Ethics Artifact

I thought that this picture was very interesting in dealing with environmental ethics. This picture displays different forms or energy (windmills and a incandescent light bulb) with a picture of nature inside the light bulb. To me, this demonstrates how everyone should be responsible for taking care of our environment. One way this is illustrated in this picture is by using alternative energy sources. When people start using alternative energy sources, we can all help a little bit in cleaning up our environment.

Religion and the Environment

I read the article "Religious environmentalism as a vital contribution to sustainability" by Anne White of University of Calgary for this assignment in interdisciplinary subjects. In this article, Anne White discusses the spiritual and other reasons for why humans do not treat Earth as we should. The main reason is because we are a self-serving people by nature, as described in most world religions. We all like to make things more centered the individual as opposed to the community as a whole. As outlined in most world religions, we need to shift the focus from ourselves to the world around us. I tend to agree with the conclusions that Ms. White reaches because I too believe that the world is too focused on the individual and we need to make a drastic change to save our planet.

"The 5 Best Nature-Inspired Green Technologies"

This article outlines 5 unique and interesting technologies that have been developed by studying different aspects of nature, like how plants make energy. My favorite technology that is outlined in this piece is the LEAF, which uses dew-drop formation, like in the leaf of a plant to collect, and store water for household environments. I also thought that the jellyfish inspired air purifier was quite interesting because it uses the body structure of a jellyfish to balance the weight evenly so it can stand upright on its own. This technology uses a liquid inside the "jellyfish" to purify the air. The other technologies are also interesting, making use of solar panels and other durable materials to be able to function in our environment without actually damaging it.

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/5-nature-inspired-green-technologies/