Survey Update

I have received a lot of survey results. 39 students responded to my non-textile student survey and 27 textile students responded to the textile student survey. The results are very similar to what they were the first time I posted to blogger. However, I think it is pretty crazy that 100% of the 39 non-textile students who took my survey have never intentionally went shopping for eco-friendly clothing. I think this shows a lot about my research. Overall, the surveys have been very helpful to my research and I am confident that my results will help me with my paper.

Survey 1
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N2XCWHR

Survey 2 (textile students)
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NY5VMB3

Survey Results

For my paper, I created two surveys discussing college student's opinion's and awareness of eco-friendly  clothing. I have received 30 responses from my non-textile student survey and 15 responses from textile student survey. Both surveys have shown an overall lack of awareness and interest for eco-friendly clothing. However, the textile student's had more of an awareness and interest than the non-textile students, but both were still relatively low numbers. I found a couple of very interesting facts from my survey results. First, my results showed that 100% of the thirty non-textile students have never sought out eco-friendly clothing while shopping, but 58% of the survey takers said this survey made them want to look into purchasing and becoming more aware of eco-friendly clothing. I thought it was surprising because all it took was a little ten question survey and people seemed concerned by it. The other fact that I found very interesting is that 73% of the textile students are aware of the harmful affects of non-eco-friendly clothing, but only one person answered that they feel that eco-friendly clothing is strongly important to them. This made me want to research exactly what it will take to make students care strongly about purchasing eco-friendly clothing.

Synthesis and Response to Indigenous Resistance

This essay begins by giving a brief introduction of the Coast Salish People of British Columbia and Washington State. These people are a group of Aboriginal individuals who pride themselves on not assimilating with the American culture and maintaining a place-based consciousness. However, first the USA, and then a decade later Canada, began assimilating this group’s children by forcing them to leave the land and attend public schools. The essay continues to talk about the decolonization of this group as a whole in the nineteenth century. The group was forced to be confined to borders of the empire, and were told to shake off their darkness of their pre-modern life-ways. Children in public schools were even punished for speaking their native languages. Boarding schools were created for the children, and somewhat became a safe haven for them even though the objective was to break them from their culture. The essay continues on to speak about the steps America and Canada took to cruelly assimilate this group.

This essay was very upsetting to me. I believe that no one should be forced to leave their culture because a government told them to. As long as they are not a threat, I see nothing wrong with letting the tribe maintain their ways of life. 

Food Sustainability

      For my new place, I wanted to choose somewhere that is making steps in the right direction to consume food that is sustained through animals who are not caged their entire life. Therefore, I did some research, and found a place I had been to that is making their food completely sustainable from their backyard. My place is the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The Biltmore was originally created to be completely food sustainable. George Vanderbilt, the original owner and builder of the Biltmore Estate, built the mansion in vision that it would be a totally sustainable and self-efficient estate. However, over time the Biltmore had become very far from that.

     William A. V. Cecil, George Vanderbilt's Grandson, is now in control and wanted to get the Biltmore Estate back to the way his Grandfather envisioned it. Through a lot of work, he has successfully gotten the Biltmore back to making his Grandfather proud. It is very interesting to read all of the ways the Biltmore functions with sustainable food. This is going to be very neat to talk about for my next essay.

source
http://www.bunkycooks.com/2012/09/sustainability-at-biltmore-estate-a-recipe-for-lamb-shank-sopes/

Artifact

My text that is symbolic of an artifact of environmental ethics is literally telling the history of climate change and when we first started finding elements that damaged our environment. I thought this would be a good "artifact" because it shows when our environment first starts changing, and what was found first. The article explains that In 1753 we found carbon dioxide, in 1827 we found that the earth was getting warmer and presented the idea of a green house, and in 1896 we found out that burning emissions could lead to global warming. I think it is crazy how long ago these facts were found out, yet not until the last ten years the Earth hasn't really focused on preserving the Earth very much. We just recently started "going green." Whether that means inventing new technology that does not harm the environment, or finding other ways to preserve our resources, this did not start until a little over a decade ago!

The link to this website is: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Thewiderenvironment/Climatechange/DG_072901

Fracking Synthesis

     The peer reviewed article I picked is titled, "Natural Gas: Should fracking stop?" This article was written in September of 2011. The point of this article is to inform the reader about how dangerous fracking is to natural gas. Although natural gas from shale is typically known as a clean fuel, this article clearly states that it is does not believe it is. The two new ways to extract shale from the ground are fracking and drilling. However, fracking is much more common than drilling. 

      This article is very similar to the article titled "EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination." Both of the articles agree that fracking is harmful to the environment. The EPA article is more focused on how fracking is bad for water contamination, and the Natural Gas article is focused on how shale gas from fracking is bad. However, both of the articles talk about the government's involvement in dealing with fracking. In Natural Gas, the author states a very interesting point, "Many of the fracking additives are toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic. Many are kept secret. In the United States, such secrecy has been abetted by the 2005 'Halliburton loophole' (named after an energy company headquartered in Houston, Texas), which exempts fracking from many of the nation's major federal environmental-protection laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act." This point reminded me of when the EPA Article talks about how the Senator called the EPA's investigation of fracking "offensive." It is just so surprising to me that the government would allow loopholes to fracking and for a Senator could call it offensive to investigate more on the effects of tracking to the environment.

      Both of the articles give clear points on why fracking is bad for the environment. The Natural Gas: Should Fracking Stop article gives a point about water contamination, "It found that about 75% of wells sampled within 1 kilometer of gas drilling in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania were contaminated with methane from the deep shale formations." This point even further proves the points about how fracking leads to water contamination in the article EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination. The fact that both articles have exact facts on how fracking is bad for the environment makes it even more startling that the government has been able to let fracking have a loophole, and not promote the investigation of the side effects of it. However, both articles state that the reason the government isn't involving itself in stopping fracking is because it is a cheap resource to use. Even though it is cheap, we should still be focused on how it is harming our environment. As a reader, both articles have convinced me of the dangers and risks involved with fracking. 


The Link to the Natural Gas article is: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7364/full/477271a.html

     

Fracking EPA Article

     This article is definitely an eye opener. It is crazy to think that these studies show that there are so many pollutants going into drinking water because of fracking. The sad part is, I did not even know what fracking was until I read this article. I believe that Gary Snyder and Richard Kahn would both agree that this article is another true example of how much bioregional knowledge I am lacking. However, this article definitely made me sit there and want to find out where my drinking water is coming from, what are the chances there are pollutants in it, and I even want to test my drinking water for pullutants myself. It is just so frightening to think that I could be drinking chemicals that are bad for me every single day without even realizing that I am!

     One of the quotes in this article that astounded me was “After a phone call with EPA chief Lisa Jackson this morning, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., told a Senate panel that he found the agency's report on the Pavillion-area contamination "offensive."” How in the world can you sit there and say that a study to make sure the drinking water of the inhabitants of your state is offensive? That just drove me crazy when I read it. I think Snyder and Kahn would be appalled as well. It would also be one thing if this was just an innocent bystander who claimed this was offensive. However, it is a senator! That just makes the government look extremely terrible in my eyes, relating to this environmental topic.

     Truly, this article made me think about bioregional knowledge more than anything we have talked about in class. This article hit me harder because it is so recent, and so eye opening. It honestly made me think about my drinking water more than I ever have. It also made me think about how our senator would react if this was being done in North Carolina.

Kahn's Discussion in Class

The class as a whole had really good quotes to talk about from Richard Kahn's article. Despite the article being very hard to follow, the fact that he stated so many eye opening facts really captivated the reader's attention. One of my favorite quotes from the article was “This relationship – to think ecologically is to think about the relationships between things – declares that a threat to either the organism or its environment is a movement towards the ecology of death: the life process requires both and any process that so binds the one or the other so as to threaten “both” is in some sense courting death and moving away from the love of life.” This quote is the one I chose to discuss because I believe this point right her correlates to everything we've been learning in class about the environment's relationships with humans. What I took out of the quote is that humans have to react to things happening to them with the knowledge that the environment and other species are being affected as well.


 

additional themes

The first poem that really made me think about Snyder's view on where the bioregion is going is the poem, FRONT LINES. This poem's imagery is really what made it stand out for me. I believe Gary Snyder is calling the destruction human's are doing to the Earth as cancer. The line, "the edge of the cancer swells agains the hill-we feel a foul breeze- and it sinks back down," makes me think of the humans destructing the earth as a disease. Also, the "foul breeze" reminded me of pollution.

In CONTROL BURN, Snyder has a very pessimistic attitude about the destruction being done to the Earth. He talks about how the Indian's burnt everything down, which is clearly not true. In fact, the Indians managed to live off of the land with out over consumption. At the end of the poem, when Snyder says the Earth will return back to how the Indian's maintained it when they held it, Snyder is being sarcastic and really means the opposite. I also think he could mean that we would have to go back to how the Indian's actually lived; living off of the land.

The most blatant part of Turtle Island thus far has been  FACTS. In this section Gary Snyder's true annoyance with the over consumption of the United States is just straight written in the form of facts. I really hope I can find a way to intertwine one of my facts with my essay.

Turtle Island Themes #2

FOR THE CHILDREN is by far my favorite poem I have read in Turtle Island. I interpreted the theme as invoking life lessons on the younger generation. These life lessons I perceived from the poem were all from the last stanza that was italicized. I interpreted stay together as keep the people you love close. Learn the flowers immediately reminded me of bioregional literacy. I took the saying as learn your surroundings, just like I learned that I didn't know my surroundings very well thanks to the bioregional quiz. Gary Snyder would not be proud of me. Go light is the only saying that didn't immediately speak to me. After pondering, I interpreted that the saying meant be careful throughout life.

O WATERS theme came off to me as starting new. The first stanza is really what made this theme stand out to me. Snyder talks about water washing off us and me. This theme somewhat relates to the theme of FOR THE CHILDREN because starting over new is a part of life that many people do more than once. Such as moving to a new place, starting a new job, and so on.

TWO FAWNS THAT DIDN'T SEE THE LIGHT is a very, very morbid poem. It took me a while to interpret any sort of theme, but eventually this thought process occurred: both of the foes were mothers, which led me to think of mother nature, which proceeded into thinking maybe the foes represent nature and the foes being killed by the humans represents how the environment of Earth is being destroyed. The unborn deer represent the humans that won't be able to enjoy the Earth because the population will destroy it before they get to experience it.

Gary Snyder's Themes in Turtle Island

In Turtle Island, one of the themes I saw was gratitude. I especially saw this theme in PRAYER TO THE GREAT FAMILY. He uses the word throughout the poem. He suggests to treat the Earth like a family member and to give thanks to it. I also saw this theme in WITHOUT. He made me think about what it is like with nature and without nature, which made me grateful for it. THE USES OF LIGHT also has gratitude as a theme. It speaks specifically about how important light is.

Blog without pronouns

The bioregional quiz and Bill Mckibben's podcast have a very interesting relationship. This relationship shows the population that there is much knowledge about the Earth to be learned. The bioregional quiz shows how little or how much a person knows about the Earth, and then Bill Mckibben makes people realize that knowledge of the Earth needs to be a necessity. 

In the beginning of the article, it is known that Mckibben calls Earth by Eaarth, because of the belief that the Earth today is a very different place than the planet that was originally created.  Mckibben explains many of the sections of the Earth that need to be studied more intensively to make the "Eaarth" last longer, and possibly prevent some catastrophic events.  However, in the article it is stated that it might be impossible to dodge catastrophic events from happening because of the damage the population has already done to the planet. 

There is also a connection that can be made between Island Civilization and Bill Mckibben's podcast. This connection is that Island Civilizations states that "humans are the most dangerous species to Earth" and Bill Mckibben connects this fact by mentioning the multiple ways that humans have acted in selfish ways that have resulted in harm to Earth. For example, Mckibben talks about how Barack Obama will not take many steps toward become more eco-friendly because it is costly and could bring down the economy even more than it is today. The president being more concerned about the economy than the environment that humans survive off of shows that the population of the United States is focused in the wrong direction for our planet's survival. 

Bill McKibben Part 2

I do agree with Mckibben that people relatively see farming as easy and simple. However, he could not be more right saying that it is far from simple. I have seen this first hand; I have family in Columbus who lives on a farm, and I have heard about the many things that go wrong and the work that goes into farming. It's also crazy to think that farmers now look on youtube to find out the newest methods other farmers have come up with. I'm pretty sure my aunt and uncle have probably done that, too!

His section on soil is eye-opening. I didn't know that industrialized farming is ruining soil, and that is frightening. 

I was really confused in the section talking about the economy and how we have built things too big. I was especially confused when McKibben said that building these huge industries were more dangerous than nuclear plants. Thankfully, it all started to make sense when he presented this analogy, "think the analogy I use in the book is you know we don't need a racehorse exquisitely bred to go as fast as possible, but whose ankle breaks [the minute] there's a [divet] in the track. We need [a ploughhorse] built for not for speed but for durability." A very clear image popped into my head when I read this analogy. Also, when McKibben gives the analogy of a terrorist coming to attack his solar panels, it also gave me a better understanding as to why we should not have these massive industries in the United States.

The terminology for kids spending too much time in front of a video game is quite humorous, "videophelia." It really is a good point that if kids are spending less and less time outside they are not going to care about the Earth as much as the kids who spent their entire child hood playing outside. 

Over all, it really is an interesting pod cast. I especially was intrigued by the technology aspects McKibben covers. Also, my results from the bioregional quiz show that McKibben would definitely shun me for my knowledge of my surroundings. I only knew/guessed on four of the questions. 

Bill McKibben Part 1

Before the pod cast started, I was so confused as to why the title is called Eaarth. Once it is explains that it is to show that the Earth is not the same as it was when it was originally named Earth, I thought that was very clever. I also think it is cool that his home is solar powered. It just proved to me that he is very passionate about this subject. I liked that he pointed out that twenty years ago we never would have thought the Earth would be the way it is today. This fact caught my attention because I always thought people didn't think about the damage being done to our Earth until recently, and it was news to me that people actually did think about this twenty years ago. What's somewhat depressing, is that it took until recently for everyone to begin going "green," when people actually did think about it twenty years ago.

In Island Civilization it talks about how humans are the most dangerous species to Earth, and when McKibben says its unlikely that we can prevent catastrophic events from happening to our Earth because of the damage we have caused to it, it definitely supports the fact from Island Civilization. On another note, I really like the internet section of the podcast. It is so cool and true how he says that when the internet came out people stopped feeling like they need to get out of their little towns to get into the big world. As he said, they can get on the internet and feel like they are a part of something on the other side of the globe.

At this point in the pod cast I am very annoyed with how many times he has said you know and so on. However, it is quite awesome how Mckibben created the largest day of political action on the planet through Skype.

I definitely agree that Obama hasn't focused very much on being more eco-friendly because it would put the economy in a worse place than it is now. That alone just shows how selfish the american population is when it comes to preserving our earth. It is a shame, though.

I also think the section on farming is interesting. McKibben's ideas about needing the big farmers, like the ones in the 50's, are something I haven't heard an environmentalist really talk about too much. I typically hear about going green, reducing air pollution, and all of that. However, it is almost impossible to imagine going away from our industrialized ways. I believe the country as whole would see that as back tracking, no matter how good it would be for Earth. Also, it is shocking to know that less than one percent of America is farming.

McKibben having his family eat only natural foods for a year seems nearly impossible for my family to do! We wouldn't even know how to do it... He put a nasty image in my head when he talks about the cows being on cement and having corn thrown at them.

Overall, part one has been interesting. The repetition of you know is very annoying, you know.

Environmental Issue affecting Place

     The environmental issue I chose to blog about is air pollution. Air pollution is the contamination of the air with toxins, and is the main cause of global warming. Global warming is the increase of the Earth’s average temperatures. Global warming is such a scary thing because if it continues to raise the average temperatures then one day the temperatures could be so high that humans could not live on Earth anymore. What is also scary is that the air pollutants that contribute to global warming are sometimes visible, like smog, but some pollutants are not. Therefore, without being able to see everything that is polluting our air, many humans are ignorant to the damage the pollutants are causing.

     Carbon dioxide is the main pollutant that is harming our Earth today. It is the main pollutant because there is a greater amount of carbon dioxide in our air than any other gas. Carbon dioxide is most frequently polluted into our air by cars, planes, and any type of human activity that burns fossil fuels. Methane and sulfur dioxide are two other main pollutants.   Not only do these pollutants contribute to global warming, but they also can cause major health problems for the humans who are constantly exposed and inhaling these gases.

      Air pollution is an environmental problem in so many places around the world because of the amount of fossil fuels that are burnt everywhere. However, the place that I want to focus on is the public schools in the United States. Many U.S. citizens, especially parents, do not realize that one in three public schools in the United States are in the “air pollution zone.”  I thought this was a very interesting place to focus on because I went to a public school my whole life and never would think that one in three public schools are in an area where children could easily develop lung problems from just breathing in the air on the play ground or as they are walking into school. The reason that there are so many schools in the “ air pollution zone” is because more than thirty percent of American public schools are within four hundred meters, or a quarter mile, of major highways. As I found out how many public schools were so close to highways, I sat back and thought about all of the public schools in my hometown and how far they were from a big highway. Shockingly, I realized there was an elementary school very close to a major, four-lane highway. I did a little research, and then realized the elementary school was definitely one in the “air pollution zone.” I doubt any of the parents who send their children to school there know that their kids are at high risk for developing lung diseases later in life, do you think that they would send them there if they knew that?

     In conclusion, it shocks me that an issue that affects so many people would go unknown. If I knew that my children were in an “air pollution zone” every day when I sent them off to school, I sure wouldn’t be sending them to that school anymore. Also, it makes me wonder what other issues that might affect me do I not know about…

    http://healthnews.uc.edu/news/?/7358/ 

Island Civilization

Rachel Leonard

Summary on Island Civilization

Dr. Taylor

19 August 2012

     Island Civilization, by Roderick Nash, begins by listing quotes that made me think about my place on earth as a species. My favorite quote out of the ones listed is the one by Wallace Stegner. I had never thought about how we are the most dangerous species but also the only species that will try to save something before it is destroyed. The author then begins talking about millenniums. I found it very interesting that he points out how as a society we never celebrated the first millennium ending, but we made the second millennium a huge deal. Next, the Nash states the mission of the essay. He asks the reader to stretch his or her mind and try to imagine what the future will be like at the beginning of the next millennium, a thousand years from now. That’s such a crazy question to think about and at this point in the essay I am excited to see what his response to that question will be.

     Roderick Nash gives a detailed history of the wilderness. He talks about the literature back round involving the wilderness, and he also explains the rationale of the early wilderness movement. I am slightly familiar with this subject because we read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer my junior year of high school. It is a novel about a man who is so obsessed with the wilderness that he hikes up to Alaska just to live in the wild with no contact with civilization. The main character from Into the Wild loves authors like Henry David Thoreau and Jack London, who Roderick Nash also talks about in the essay. After Nash explains the back round of the wilderness he begins to explain how society started to change their opinion on the wilderness and wanted to start conserving it.

     The Wilderness Movement of 1964 is mentioned in the essay, but Nash does not define what it is. Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition and found out that the wilderness movement gave the legal definition of what a wilderness is in the United States. Nash mentions that the Wilderness Movement of 1964 was formed to benefit the people. On the contrast, Nash brings up the new wilderness act that was formed within the last fifty years. The difference between the two is that the new act is formed to benefit the animals and the nature; not the people. I thought it was clever he called preserving the wilderness “planetary modesty.”  After Nash talks about the dangers and destruction that can be done to the wilderness from society he begins his proposal for “Island Civilization.” His fact on how much of the world is legally protected as a wilderness area is mind blowing!

      Nash then explains his theories for how the natural world could end. Theory number one is the wasteland theory where trash and other waste could pollute the earth to the point of it not being able to survive. The second theory is the garden theory. It basically means that the earth is like a garden and we would run out of room to plant in the garden. We would basically make it so that wilderness other than what is absolutely necessary exists. The third theory, future primitive, really shocked me. Nash explains that this theory means that civilization would go back to primitive times and use the hunting and gathering technique. I thought that was an absolutely crazy thought! I could not fathom going back to the primitive time era.  Lastly, the fourth theory is called the Island Civilization theory. Nash claims this is more of a dream than a theory. He then continues on to explain that in this theory the world would cluster on a planetary level. I thought it was a very interesting theory, well dream if you go by Nash’s words. However, the thought of having no human and being dictated by technology is quite frightening. As he goes deeper and deeper into details about Island Civilization I could not imagine living in that type of environment. Not having any thing but nature is so crazy to even picture in your head. In conclusion, Nash really got me thinking about what things could possibly turn out to be. However, I would rather not live in Island Civilization.