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.