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.