Essay 4 Progress

http://apps.facebook.com/my-surveys/polls/w0em2l/answers?fb_source=notification&ref=notif&notif_t=app_notification

The results of my survey are coming in as predicted; the majority of the people are more willing to do little things to help the environment than commit to major changes that will last in the long run.  Also, the majority of people appear to be very concerned with the state that the Earth is in and very few have no concerns.

Essay 4: Masterpiece in the Making

Currently I have the majority of my survey planned out and a hypothesis for the results.  My topic is global warming and how people deal with it.  I will be utilizing the Rational Choice Theory - I believe that people (college students) participate in more short term green-habits, than long term.   As soon as I have perfected my survey, it will "go live" on facebook and once the results are compiled I can integrate the information into my essay.

Coast Salish People

The Coast Salish people of British Columbia and Washington State have been feuding.  Britsish Columbians and Americans designed the schools to eliminate memories that were associated with the
Indigenous people. Their goal was to rid of the Indigenous people completely.  The Coast Salish people tried resisting the racism and to keep their own culture.  They feared that their culture would be lost and they would mold into a single culture.  Because this occurrence happened across the border, analyzing the research has proven to be difficult. The differentiation of policies and cultures made it hard to measure the responses of the people. The Coast Salish people that are across the Canada-Washington State boarder are well aware of the conditions on the other side.  The children tend to be more physical in the US and in Canada the children try not to be noticed.

Home of the Grape Pickers

            In my home town of North East, Pennsylvania the people of the town are completely dependent upon the grape crop.  Some of the townspeople are grape farmers, some own wineries and the rest work at the Welch's factory  It's easy to conclude that if the grapes are low in sugar content the whole town suffers.  As one can only imagine, the town is completely engulfed in grape vines.  Decades ago when the grapes were farmed with only the help of elbow grease the grapes were the sweetest they've ever been. 
           But as technology progressed, farmers started investing in bigger tractors, fertilizers, and pestisides to help produce more of their crop.  The town was bombing, Welch's was prosperous and everyone was happy.  That is until 5 years ago, when two 17 year old boys were diagnosed with testicular cancer.  The one thing they had in common; the grapes.  It was never officially announced that the pestisides were the cause of their illness, but parents are now wary about letting their children out when the grapes are being sprayed.  We used to walk across the street and snag a bunch of grapes to eat right off the vine, but nowadays we have to wash them off first.  Before the pestisides, the only harm from not washing the grapes was a little dirt - which is proven to help build ones immune system.  Things just aren't the same as they used to be in North East.
           

Ethical Dilemma

As humans, it's natural to use our hunting instincts and creative genius to build weapons and traps to hunt.  Unfortunately, often the animals we are not hunting get caught and we end up in an ethical dilemma; is the demand for tuna or king crab worth the lives of innocent sea turtles and dolphins? Sometimes we only look at animals as a way to make money and we forget that we share the planet with them and we are being too greedy. 

Sustaining Humanity

                Maintaining life on the planet is not as easy as it used to be.  Humans have been around for approximately five million years.  For about ninety-seven percent of those five million years, humans were hunters and gathers, living off what Mother Nature provided for them.   Our ancestors were able to keep humanity sustainable for five million years, without a McDonalds’ Big Mac or an Iced Chai Latte with Soy from Starbucks. About 10,000 years ago came the domestication of food, but that didn’t last long because now we are just over 100 years into being industrial agriculturalists.  Meaning that we now have McDonalds and Star bucks readily available at all times.  Unfortunately, because our population is increasing at an exponential rate, even with our advanced technology, it’s proving to be impossible to provide food for all of humanity. 

                In “The Sustainable Humanities” the term sustainable humanity has been coined to suggest that sustainability and humanity have "always been compatible projects." In order to keep humanity alive, we must look back at our past.  Looking back to times before keeping records of the weather was the norm, there are only the authors who recorded their environment for us to analyze.  Henry David Thoreau's seasonal notebooks are currently being scrutinized for any evidence of a climate change during his era.  It is of great importance that we do not overlook any evidence as to how our planet ended up in such an awful situation.  Possibly even more important is that we do our best to reverse the damage humanity has created.  This is crucial for our survival as humans.  Going back to the ways of our ancestors as hunters and gatherers is not necessarily what is being suggested here; there are 7 billion people on this planet, it's about time we put our heads together and got creative about how to solve this dilemma.

 LeMenager, Stephanie, and Stephanie Foote. "The Sustainable Humanities." 127.3 (2012): 572-578. Web.

Fracking

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth.  Essentially fracking allows for the injection of highly pressurized fracking fluids into the shale area. Creating new channels within the rock from which natural gas is extracted more quickly than it would be otherwise.

According to the report released by the EPA, officials said that the town of Pavillion, Wyo. had contaminations that were most likely from the gas wells.  The area was polluted with at least 10 compounds known to be used in frack fluids.  Fracking is polluting the water systems, but because the proof that the EPA has is inconsistent and sparse, the fracking continues.  Doug Hock, the spokesman for Encana defends fracking to the end, "Inconsistency in detection and non-repeatability shouldn't be construed as fact." It is true that the evidence against fracking is weak, but there is no other explanation.  Hock is putting the blame on Mother Nature.  This debate is being to shape up how the country will regulates and develops natural gas in the eastern states. 

                Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is suggesting that higher standards and more regulations should be put into place regarding fracking. The EPA has reported thirty-three abandoned wells that were once used for fracking and are now polluting the shallow ground water.  But they could not be responsible for the pollution found in the monitoring wells 1,000 feet underground. More regulations on fracking must be enforced   to ensure the safety of the citizens.  In some cases the water is reported as explosive and the citizens are provided with replacement drinking water because the contaminated water could be detrimental to their health.  Carcinogenic chemicals were even found in the water. The EPA also concluded that sporadic bonding occurred in the cement in areas which led to the barrier that kept the chemicals in their intended zone had been weakened.

"What Is Fracking." What Is Fracking. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.

The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

                One of the points brought to attention by Kahn is the increasing gap between rich and poor.  According to Kahn, in 2000 the ratio was 1:72, meaning that for every one rich person there are 72 people living on less than $2 per day.  The increasing gap between the poor and the rich is also directly related to the population. 

Just looking in the United States, it’s a well-known fact that when couples make more money, they tend to have fewer children and couples who fall below the poverty line tend to have multiple children.  Many different factors go into this such as the lower class unable to afford birth control or needing extra help around the house or farm.  Back when science wasn’t fully developed, it was normal for a woman to have around a dozen children. This was because she knew that not all of them would live past the age of 4 and she and her husband needed as much as possible on the farms.  In this day and age, it’s impractical to have so many children because farms are no longer as common and modern medicine has made the complications of child birth and caring for infants much safer. 

Because of the fact that the poverty stricken have many children who then grow up to have even more children – more children that rarely escape the poverty level, it’s inevitable that the gap between the upper and lower class will increase at a steady rate.  So how do we stop this?  First, we have to educate everyone, let the young girls know that just because they were born to a teenage mother they too don’t have to become a teenage mother.  Not only do we have to educate, but we also must encourage the use of contraceptives.  The population of the world is already exceeding the Earth’s limit as is, it’s about time we cut back on the reproduction rate. 

Turtle Island (3)

Gary Snyder knows a lot about nature and the wild and he makes it very obvious through his poems that he loves and wishes to protect the natural beauty of our land.  Although he wants to protect nature, he still understands that many aspects of nature are a resource.  In his poem "The Wild Mushroom" Snyder portrays a journey into the forest in search of mushrooms.  He is very appreciative of the resource that mushrooms are to man, "for food, for fun, for poison/ They are a help to a man." Snyder is able to understand bioregionalism and is very concerned with the fact that we, as people, have become too detached from out natural roots.  His writing serves as a reminder to us all, that we are animals and sometimes it is best to let our instincts take control and forget about technology and civilization.

Turtle Island (2)

In Gary Snyder's poem "Facts" many ugly truths are revealed about how the United States uses the natural resources of our planet much more than anyone else in the world.  According to Snyder, the US only holds 6% of the world's population, but consumes 1/3 of the world's energy and 1/3 of the world's meat. Turtle Island was written in 1969, so these numbers aren't quite exact - but they haven't budged too much since.  In Jules Pretty's Can Ecological Agriculture Feed Nine Billion People? similar issues are discussed.  Pretty makes a very eye opening point, "there is enough staple food produced worldwide to feed everyone adequately, but much is fed to animals and much is wasted in the upper levels of the social pyramid by the rich."  So if we ate less meat, then there wouldn't be such a need for livestock and more food would be able to go around to those who are malnourished.  We also can't waste food as much as we do; the Earth just can't handle the strain we are putting on it for much longer.

Gary Snyder: Turtle Island - Themes

Gary Snyder observes nature and portrays his observations through poetry in his Turtle Island.  Some of his observations can be beautiful, but others can be hideous, such as his "The Dead by the Side of the Road" which depicts exactly as the title implies.  Snyder wanted to capture all of the aspects of nature in the form of poetry.  Many of Snyder's work is titled in a very literal sense of what the poem is about.  Although his "No Matter, Never Mind" is a very thought-provoking concept. 

McKibben

McKibben brings up vital points about the environment and how there is not much time left before the world collapses from the all the abuse.  Something serious has to be done or there will be no more life on planet Earth.  McKibben also addresses the fact that Earth is not the same planet as even 30 years ago.  Earth has transformed into a completely different place; a place that is on the verge of catastrophe. There are simply too many people, and this creates too much waste and CO2 emissions and in turn is destroying the planet. In addition, there is not very much time before this catastrophe happens.  There is not another 100 years to figure out a solution, steps should've been taken yesterday to prevent a catastrophe.  Time is running out fast.

A Need for an Island Civilization

A Need for an Island Civilization

                Noting the way we, as humans, treat the Earth, it’s clear that something disastrous is in the forecast.  I’m not normally one to preach about global warming, but the evidence is too overwhelming to ignore.  Global warming doesn’t just make the air temperature hotter; it intensifies all of the seasons.  This means more hurricanes, longer droughts, and unbearable heat waves.  It has been recorded that in some areas, the winters are more mild and shorter; but that is not necessarily a good thing.

Coming from a small farming community near Erie, Pennsylvania, I know a few things about the importance of a lake-freezing winter.  Back home I can just walk through a couple acres of grape vineyards and be at Lake Erie.  Actually, nobody can go too far without seeing the two most important aspects of my town: the grapes and the lake. However, when the grape roots don’t freeze during the winter, the sugar content in the grapes lowers which makes it more difficult for the farmers to sell their crops.  Some of the crops even started blooming in February instead of May, causing a panic during March when we had a small snow fall. Because this winter was one of the warmest ever recorded in North East, Pennsylvania, the farms are going through one of the hardest times in history.   Not even the lake froze over and, much to my dismay; we didn’t have a single snow-day at school.  Of course because of the fact that the lake didn’t freeze, nobody was able to go ice fishing which in turn caused numerous businesses to suffer during their normally most prosperous season.  So you see this weather is affecting not only our environment, but our economy as well and in turn our wellbeing. 

In all honesty, if something isn’t done, my hometown will no longer be in existence and I know it’s not the only one of its kind. Developing into an island civilization could be a solution.  Within an island civilization, there would be less pollution and therefore fewer greenhouse gases which would at least slow down the process of global warming, if not, reverse it. But trying to be realistic, full-on island civilizations are not exactly necessary here; we could just take certain aspects of the concept and apply them to each town like mine.  Everyone could live the same as they do now, just more consciences of the environment and how it directly affects them.  By driving electric cars, recycling, planting more trees, and making aerosol cans go extinct, we could really start something. 

This movement will be a lot like the acceptance of African Americans in United States.  At the start, it seemed virtually impossible, and it was very hard in the early decades. Because of the way children were raised by their parents, racism stayed alive for a long time after African Americans were able to gain all the same rights as everyone else.  But because I grew up in a completely different society as my grandparents, the fact that our President is African American doesn’t seem like much of a feat to me.  If we can change our mindset from thinking “slave” to “President” in 143 years, then I’m pretty sure we can change our mindset to start being more friendly to the environment.  We just have to teach the upcoming generations to treat the Earth with respect and in time, an island civilization could be very possible.