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-A.
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32 comments:
Testing... 1, 2, 3.
Is this thing on?
excellent! it would seem this virtual arena is prepared for a veritable meeting of the minds
Mhm. Yep.
So here's my first lecture response:
How easy it is to diminish the relative size of the world; we can enlarge it through differences, localize it by reaching out to near communities, and we can very nearly ignore it altogether losing ourselves in the minute sphere of our every day concerns and possessions. As discussed in the first lecture, intergeneration remote tyranny explains the idea that our actions, no matter how large or small, affect others far distanced from us, both presently and in the future. It is our responsibility to become a globally informed and knowledgeable citizen. And how else to do that than by becoming global in the first place? We need to relish our insignificance; one body in a sea of over 6.7 billion. The triangle model of we, the single individual, interacting with a larger population of society, cooperating with the exponentially bigger sphere of the world, which in turn relates back to the one person, is a fitting illustration for the networking of the human population.
I discovered much about my global surroundings in the lectures: China emits approximately 3 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, India 1 ton, and the United States an outrageous 18-20 tons. I learned that one million children die of malaria in Africa each year, the same number of people as inhabit Detroit, but how can we be letting that occur? I was informed that nearly 40% of the people of Botswana are HIV positive, that 70% of Africa lives on $2.00 a day. Yet as urgent as these facts are, they are still only statistics. I am still sitting in my plush, contoured seat in a million-dollar facility, well fed and clothed, satisfied, financially sound. Like Derrick Jensen demands of us, there is a world of difference between learning of the world and hoping it will change, and consequently sacrificing one’s participation in that endeavor, and learning of the world and leaving behind the cushioned comforts of our safe box.
Meredith Kramer
ADP III: Discussion Response #1
Ashley Lieber
09/10/08
So much relevant information came our way during these past two lectures. Listening to the immense amount of statistics and facts that Professor Trumpey presented, made me realize just how ignorant I am as a young adult in this day and age. I now ask myself: can the changes I make in my day-to-day life really affect the future of this vast earth?
One of the things that caught my attention the most from Wednesday’s lecture specifically was the discussion we had about ethanol use. On the surface, the idea of using the natural qualities of corn to replace oil sounds like the perfect solution to the unsolvable problem. Having a deficit of corn is not something that is worried about, so why not use it for other things besides a food source? If you take a closer look and do some research on the other elements that are involved in producing ethanol, you will realize that an excessive amount of energy is used to ship the corn to states that don’t produce it naturally. Which got me thinking on this logic. You can’t stop searching after the first solution comes to mind. Just because on the surface that solution might seem like it solves the problem, doesn’t mean that there aren’t other problems that are linked to the solution. In this case with the ethanol, a lot of oil goes into growing the corn, and only a 20% gain is acquired when the ethanol is used instead of oil.
Facts like these are depressing yet inspiring at the same time. It also links to the Jensen article. Just hoping for things to change isn’t enough to actually change them. I believe in hope, but I also believe that getting up and actually doing something about the problem is the only way it will be diminished or solved.
These lectures have also tuned my brain into becoming more intact with my natural surroundings, and how much artistic inspiration I can draw from them. James Balog’s photographs are proof of how beautiful and strong a piece of art can be with something so natural as a tree as it’s subject. His photographs of animals were also quite amazing and made me remember an exhibit I saw a couple of years ago. Gregory Colbert is an amazingly skilled photographer who put himself in the thick of different environments to capture amazing moments of the interactions between humans and animals. Walking through the exhibit makes you want to go out into your environment, and even travel to foreign ones to learn more. I will end this post with a link to a particularly striking image from the exhibit.
http://thesift.atlblogs.com/images/water.jpg
It is interesting how we can walk by something everyday and have no idea what it is or the effect it is having on our environment. The questionnaire made me realize how little I knew about nature, and consumption. I could not name ten different plant species native to Michigan. I pass by the same trees and plants everyday walking around campus, and I do not know what kind of plants they are. At home I am not sure where our garbage goes, and at school I am not even sure when it is picked up. There is a dumpster in the parking lot of the apartment building, and I do not know when it is emptied. I do however; know where the water from my home comes from. It is not something I would have researched or just known off the top of my head. The only reason why I know this is because about five years ago we had a blackout. There was no electricity or water for three days. After terrorist attack was ruled out, I learned that heat lightning hit Niagara Falls that caused the water to stop flowing to peoples’ houses and business’. I found out that the water came from Niagara Falls and not the Detroit River. I just recently remembered about the blackout, because of Professor Trumpey’s lectures. One of my concerns is how technology is taking over, how some people cannot live without their cars, cell phones, laptops or anything that has made our lives easier. I remember spending a lot of time outside during those three days without electricity and water. I showered in a lake, and by rainwater, we cooked over a fire and were forced to walk everywhere. It is a memory in which at every moment I was extremely happy. I was not held down by technology, I could not use any of my appliances or my cell phone, I was detached from the web world, and it was great. I can remember some people not knowing what to do without the television or the internet, they felt unconnected. At times I could almost see people feeling relieved, more relaxed and less strained. Work really did not matter during those days because there was nothing anyone could do. It was a break from technology, a much needed break.
I wonder what those three days did for our environment. There was little air pollution because no one could really drive because gas was inaccessible and the traffic lights were out. Did C02 emissions decrease at all and how much energy was saved during those days? As Americans we use 18-20 tons of CO2 each per year, would no electricity or water for three days affect those numbers? This class has opened my eyes, I always considered myself to be an observant person, but I am now noticing how much I miss in the world. This class has made me realize that I am not as observant as I thought I was.
-Brittany George
These last two lectures have really brought home the affects of the human race on the world, where our actions have been focused solely on comfort. I find myself overwhelmed by the statistics given to us during the lectures. A flood of questions, confusion, and anger (at myself and others) has erupted inside of me. How is it that we have come to a point were we have overpopulated the world at our current consumption rate? When was it that we as United States citizens decided that it was all right to consume unnecessarily, that we could ignore the problems of others, and the environment? How have we been able to ignore the natural world around us for so long that we have come to a point where we know store names better than the natural beauty that always surrounds us. The connection between gorillas and cell phones was probably the most jolting, to me, piece of information that we were given. It is so real, not a statistic that could be incomprehensible, and now it is so hard to listen to friends that are getting new cell phones when their old ones are perfectly fine just outdated. The discussion we had about cars also had a great impact on me. That the car manufacturers have decided to create these enormous gas-guzzling cars because it was profitable, instead of being concerned over what the impact of these behemoths might have on the world, is astounding. How can they say that they are blameless when one American car company (I can’t remember which one) had released a car years ago that ran solely on electric power, only to recall them weeks later. Even though the car worked just fine, and they had a waiting list of people interested in buying them. How can they say they were listening to us, the consumers then?
I believe that it is our shrinking world that has caused us to ignore the world around us. We don’t have to look around when we are satisfied with our phones, TVs, cars, and computers. What need do we really have to appreciate the complexity of nature? We keep speeding up, and creating our own bubble of reality that it is unnecessary to care. Yet here I am as affluent as the rest, wanting to change, but unable (or afraid?) to take the jump. It is too easy to keep using, wasting. Too easy to consume rather than recycle or create. Why be depressed about the future when our present is so comfortable? The worst of all of my questions is: How can I be an artist who creates things, who consciously contributes to this affluent behavior, how can my peers and I continue to do what we do? I find myself paralyzed by this.
-Erin Murray
Betsy Peters- ADP III
These last two lectures have really opened my eyes to just how ignorant I have been to the state of the world around me. Confronted with the statistics Professor Trumpey told us (for example, the US represents 5% of the world’s population, yet we consume more than anyone else), I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. What can one person possibly do when so many don’t care, or won’t face the truth? Even the good aspects of our society, like our national parks, have negative undertones to them. We only pick the “pretty” areas to create national parks, and they only represent less than 2% of the area we occupy. Looking outside at the rain, I wonder how much of it is acidic or polluted. I can see a tree with brown-red leaves in the middle of September, and I wonder how long it will take before the leaves don’t grow back at all.
There is so much beauty in this world, and I feel like it will all be gone before I even get a chance to see a tiny percentage of it. Not only that; what kind of world are we leaving for our children? To me it seems like humans across the globe (Americans in particular) don’t deserve this wonderful gift we’ve been given. We kill gorillas to make our cell phones; we stop sending food to places that need it so we can make fuel for our cars… what next? The Jensen article added to my sense of despair by telling me to give up on hope, which made sense by the time I finished the article, but somehow seemed contradictory to everything I’d been taught.
Does it mean, then, that the people in control would rather have me hope than actually act? I feel like our government doesn’t care nearly as much as it should about our rampant destruction of our only home. But unless the people in power do something to reverse the effects of our consumption and emission, there is only so much I feel I can do myself. And that makes me feel pretty hopeless.
Issues of locality have been central to both lectures in this past week. Given the survey on our knowledge of surroundings, Aldo Leopold’s statement, “We grieve for what we know,” in A Sand County Almanac seems quite true.
For many we tend to concern ourselves with the situations that present themselves directly to us, causing us to be unaware of our indirect consequences parts of the environment. Further, many of us have grown up in areas that have long been industrialized and populated by the sprawling masses.
We have been absent for the long, snaking chain of events that lead to the clear-cut of forests, consumption of natural resources and construction of cities. When viewed in this lens, it would seem much easier to dissect and analyze our impact.
Yet, even fewer of us come from a facet of agrarian life. Our parents and their parents seemed to make their way to the city or suburbs long ago. There is a certain amount of familial detachment from these aspects of our life that often affects our world-view.
It seems though in Michigan many of us should be more aware of our surroundings. With the mitten’s stranglehold on most of North America’s fresh water resources—one that is integral to our economy—it would seem we would be better versed in issues such as watershed development and invasive species. Instead, most of us just turn on the tap without much thought of where the water comes from or where it eventually ends up.
Even if some turn of events created a greater awareness of our surroundings, there are many issues of infrastructure that must be considered. So much of city life has been developed that a shift towards an environmentally conscious society is day-by-day more difficult.
As an example, electric cars offer a consumer level response to the burgeoning price of gas. However, on the global scale of environment this solution merely shifts the burden of pollution. By plugging cars in at night, suddenly coal producing power plants are working overtime to create energy, simply replacing where the pollution is being made.
- Matt Hallock
Samuel Hanson
ADP 3
Lecture Response
September 13th
We like things big. Really big. As an American citizen, on average I am the number one consumer in the world. This could be because of my SUV, or my weekly trips to Wal-Mart Super-Center, but is that really the problem? Because if I stop driving my suburban, then the chances are good that I will drive a Prius instead, and here in lies a large problem with American consumerism. From the lectures this past week I realized an underlying theme, that we are trying to “go green” by consuming more. People are so unwilling to change their way of life that instead of investing more money in a green public transport system, they would rather keep their own lifestyle and get a slightly more fuel-efficient car. People are changing and buying the latest and greatest in fuel and quality instead of just stopping. So how can this be solved? We got a small taste of it this summer when oil prices soared well above 4 dollars a gallon. Bikes were locked to every street post and the paths were crowded, so it seems like everyone has their price.
The media and companies have caught on, and are driving the “go green” idea. It’s as simple as putting it in their advertisements that there new product was made with the finest green organic material and the consumers feel good about themselves. I equate this to the facebook group. By joining a group for a selected cause, hurricane relief for example, they feel good for helping the stranded people on top of their flooded houses. The idea that they played their small part stops them from actually doing anything about it. This is similar to the paper we read on hope. It puts it in someone else’s hands while you sit by idly watching, hoping that something gets done.
Another lecture note that interested me was the less than 2% remaining farmers in the U.S. This means that our food supply is in the hands of a minute fraction of the population. This paired with the idea of using ethanol as an alternate fuel source makes me nervous and sweaty. We would, in essence, put a main food source and fuel in the hands of <2% of the population. Because this is such a small percent one of two things would have to happen; either one of the two commodities would fall short or there would have to be an extreme rise in the amount of production of the base commodity; for example corn. Another reason to be hesitant about ethanol rests on the food aspect. With many countries still living in poverty around the world, in rural as well as slum areas, it is one less crop to help solve food shortages. With people living on less than a dollar a day it is important to continue producing a cheap food supply such as rice and corn to distribute.
In conclusion of this weeks blog, I would sum up the lectures by saying that there are a lot of problems in the world, but there is still hope (yeah I read the article, word choice is intentional) for the world. So to end with a huge generic statement, we all have to work together to start seeing a positive change in the world.
Sean Thompson
We as people are having an intense impact on the Earth we live on. Technology, industry, commerce, and development have grown exponentially in recent years. This has led to both an uneven and exuberant usage of earth’s natural resources as well as environmental problems caused by pollution and other forms of human impact. We face a horrible destiny, as been the population increases as well as the average ecological footprint of the population as a whole in places like China and India. Everything we do has an effect on the earth and society both now and in the future.
Derrick Jensen comes out and states that we are killing the earth and most people don’t even consider it a problem, or if they do are unwilling to take action. Jensen charges the reader to give up hope of a better future for our planet and fight because when it’s gone, it’s gone. Turn from hope and fear and instead stand up for your own righteous goal to protect the earth instead of remaining a slave to a repressive culture.
Artists and designers need to understand these issues in order to have a correct view of the world. In Africa the population is increasing, as is the spread of developed areas. Coupled with the low standards of living and the fact that a large percentage of the population is infected with HIV, makes Africa a potent and eye opening study in the modern human condition and its effects on the earth.
It is truly taunting to realize the width and breadth with which the human race is consuming, destroying, or otherwise perverting the natural world. It occurs to me that the ways in which the earth has changed in the last century or so can only be compared to perhaps the hardening of the earth’s molten surface at its birth or the ending of an ice age. Growing up with active members of the Sierra Club as parents, I realized the importance of conservation. I also learned to recognize the political and industrial organizations that are causing the problems. Even though this class has just begun I already have a heightened awareness of the effects of human civilization on our planet and the level at which we are effecting it.
The past few lectures have been a huge reality check for me. I have realized how wasteful and oblivious the majority of Americans are to the environment. I had no idea how wasteful I was until I took a carbon footprint quiz. If everyone lived my lifestyle, we would need 6.4 earths. I also took a quiz, which tested how much I knew about my environment. I was embarrassed at how little I knew—the watershed of my hometown, where my trash goes, and the names of 10 plants native to my town. However, I had no problem naming 10 stores in the mall.
This lack of knowledge to our environment is the result of less and less time spent outside by each generation. As time goes on, American kids spend much more time inside watching television, playing video games, texting on cell phones, and surfing the Internet. This increase in technology has secluded us from our environment and made us unaware of the resources we take for granted.
When you’re thirsty, what do you have to do to get a drink of water? Go to the sink and fill up a glass from the water purifier? Purchase a bottle? What about when you have to wash your hands, dishes, clothes, the car, or brush your teeth? All you have to do is turn a handle and clean water continuously flows out. In Africa, access to water is much different. Women have to walk two miles to fill up a tub of dirty stream water. They then have to carry that tub on their heads the whole two-mile walk back. It is selfish of Americans to be so wasteful of this necessity, when people across the world have to struggle for a tiny bit.
Water isn’t the only resource we take advantage of though. Paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum are all recyclable materials many Americans just throw away to be lost in piles of garbage, never to be reused. Forests are being chopped away because it’s too much of a hassle for each person to throw recyclable materials into a recycle bin, rather than the garbage. If Americans limited the amount of water they use and make the extra effort to recycle, our environment would recover, and Americans would be much more aware of the world. I am definitely going to pay much more attention to the resources I use, what I recycle, and I will do my part to help the environment. I will try not to live so much through technology and appreciate the resources I have always taken for granted.
I must first make it clear that I am not going to relay information that was told in class. You were there for it, I was there for it, and from my understanding this is not a summary of Professor Trumpey’s lectures of statistics. These are thoughts that were/are evoked due to the lecture components. I would also like to state that I do not consider myself a pessimist, rather, a realist. My thoughts, understandings, and personal opinions and notions to the information we are receiving are quite contradictory. With more facts concerning the environment being thrown my way I find myself asking more questions that have dead end answers. For example: the emissions from our vehicles and polluted trails from airplanes are terrible for the environment yet they’re necessary in the prevention of global warming. We are being told to limit our gasoline dependant travel, however, if we do so we are aiding the global warming process. To drive or not to drive, we are still contributing to our planets demise. How can the human race “fix” this? Global warming is just one element in the plethora of ecological and social issues of today. How are we to save this planet when we can barely solve only one facet of the problem?
This lecture course appears to be excessively informative in regards to environmental issues and defects. However, I am growing increasingly concerned that there will be little information as to how we can make a difference. I realize that as future artists and designers it will be part of our creative process to not only create but also create in such a way that a positive impact will be made… or at least I hope this is the case. It is just extremely difficult to imagine that one educational course (that reaches the smallest group of the student body) will make a huge impact. This is not to say that I do not support the course; I do. Regardless of these beliefs I fully intend on continuing my practices for environmental improvement.
I continue to ponder the idea of designing and making your own clothing a trendy thing to do. Being self reliant and less dependable on foreign imports/exports and media pushes. The problem is that making clothing is cool and trendy… for many art students. But try telling Miss Prada bag and Jimmy Choo shoes across the room that making her own clothes is the cool thing to do. Here inlays the job of the future artist and designer. It is a difficult one but one that I, and many others, am more than willing to take on.
Karin Alpert
ADP III
Weekly Response #1
This has been the first week of ADP lectures. Much of these lectures have been quick overviews and an introduction to what our class will be discussing over the course of the semester. It is nice to take a look at what this course entails and what information we will be discussing especially since I do not think I know very much at all about the environment or technology. I am a little worried that things may go over my head or that I may be lost or not understand a lot of what we discuss so I will try my best to look things up on my own or ask questions to keep up as much as possible.
I thought the World clock Professor Trumpey showed was fascinated and I have looked at it several times since class. I never knew there was a system that tracked the world’s population along with death, birth, illness, population of the incarcerated, as well as information on energy and the environment. I find it shocking how often the numbers change as well you can barely read a number before it is changed again and again. I’m hoping that through time I can also begin to learn the meanings of all this numbers and how it is affecting my life and the lives of others so that they become something more real rather than just big shocking numbers that are constantly changing.
This seemed to me like a much larger and more intense scale of the in class surveys we all completed and Professor Trumpey shared with us in class. I know when I took those surveys it made me feel terrible how little I truly did know about my home and the land I live in and how much what I do affects the smallest things. However, what shocked me more and caused some moral debates of my own is that once I saw from the Stats Professor Trumpey posted in class is that most of my classmates know almost as little as I do or around the same amount about their environment as well. In one way it comforted me that I wasn’t the only one out there who knew nothing about technology and the environment, but then thinking about it more it made me feel even more awful that I was justifying my lack of knowledge with the fact that others lacked the same knowledge. Instead I should have felt ashamed and concerned that so few people realize how much our behavior contributes to every aspect of our environments health.
For example one topic Professor Trumpey raised in lecture was CERN. I was completely lost when he was discussing this for the short period of time he brought it up and so I have taken the liberty to research it more and begin to educate myself on “the world’s largest particle physics laboratory (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/).” The world constantly impresses me with so many new inventions and advances in technology. I’m glad to think that this new invention will for once benefit the earth and our knowledge of the universe unlike much other recent technological advancement, which seem to harm our environment rather than improve it. I can’t believe that something that seems so abstract and unknown like the black hole may actually be able to be described as something and can be defined all because of this new scientific breakthrough.
Maggie Baczewski
ADP III: Discussion
Section 005
Beyond Hope completely changed the way I think of the word ‘hope’. I used to associate hope with optimism. To me hope was something that everyone used to help himself with depression. Before hope was such an innocent thing that made us good and human.
Now that I have seen the light I realize hope is the reason why nothing changes. When we hope that something will change, we are waiting for someone or something else to do all the work for us. We believe in a higher power because we like to think something is going to take care of our problems. Doing the work for us.
The surveys we filled out on the first day prove how dependant we are on others. Most people don’t know where his drinking water comes from or where his trash goes. When we turn the shower faucet we don’t pray that water will come out because we are so used to the rest of the world taking care of things for us. We don’t hope that other people will take care of us we expect it. The same thing goes for all of our waste. It’s placed on a curb or washed down the drain where the responsibility is placed in another person’s hands. Every person is dependant on another human being. It is what makes the world go around.
It’s great that everyone works together to maintain our standard of living but we also need to be aware. The population should be educated on the who, what, when, where and how. We need to know where our resources come from and care about the affect our actions have on other living things.
Marcia Kosin
Lectures 9/8-9/10
After doing the carbon and ecological foot printing I was very upset with how much waste I was producing, and frustrated at the same time; because I am living life the way I was taught. I have a car, but I take the bus to school everyday. I have five roommates and we pay all of our utilities so we are constantly turning lights off, recycling, and taking fast showers. But being an American means I waste more than anyone else in the world and I don’t understand why we are raised to live so wasteful. I am not a crazy environmentalist, but I do care about the earth and I want to help make it a better place. I really enjoyed reading Beyond Hope, by Derrick Jensen; I feel he makes a good point by implying that if hope didn’t exist we could take saving the world into our own hands and actually be the people making things happen than rather asking god to fix what we have done wrong. I do believe in hope, but I found this point amusing because hope in this context is meaning, “things are bad” and are going to continue to be bad until some powerful thing called hope helps us out.
I grew up on a small farm 80 miles north of Ann Arbor. I already know all about corn and soybeans and tractors running on diesel, and how many times a tractor drives up and back over hundreds even thousands of acres each spring and fall. All of the land around my house has been cleared and used as fields for around 100 years I think. Farmers have to plough, drag, plant, spray, fertilize, spray for weeds again then harvest in the fall. Yeah that’s a lot of oil along with many hard hours of work. Farming has been in my family a long time. I grew up on 200 acres of land, I spent a lot of time out side, and I appreciate nature and home. Ann Arbor isn’t that much of a city compared to New York City, but it was a big change for me. I definitely know I put fewer miles on my car now here in Ann Arbor; I would drive 12 miles one way to school back home. I know there is an energy crisis, but I have never been in a class that really showed me how bad some of the things we do are. I am curious more than scared to so what will come of it all.
Well I just transferred in last week and was able to at least catch a discussion and Wednesday’s lecture, but I can tell already that this class is going to be quite the eye opener.
Though last Wednesday seemed a mess of comments and questions circling the “green shift,” there were however, a few points brought up that stuck with me. The class was on the topic of hybrid cars and someone commented that it seems as though we are only trying to win the battles and not the actual war. In other words, we as a human race are procrastinating. We build hybrid cars to cope with the rising gas prices, not because its better for the environment. Rather than finding new solutions with zero emissions that eliminate the need for gas and its harmful emissions, we find ways to move around the bigger picture: the earth.
Another topic that irked me was the discussion on ethanol. What a terrible solution for rising gas prices. Why would anyone believe that stripping the soil of nutrients by growing immense amounts of corn, using gas powered machines and fertilizers, resulting in a product that uses almost as much fuel as it takes to make as it saves would be a good idea.
Lastly, it seems as though man has always had the desire to conquer nature; for example clear cutting entire forests for parking lots and buildings, or even our backyards. When was the last time you saw a Lowe’s with the original trees left to grow freely in the parking lot or a tree preserved during the building process and allowed to grow through the roof of the man made structure. Why do we constantly shape our landscape instead of letting the landscape shape our buildings and structures? Why can’t man find more of a middle ground as opposed to all man or all nature?
One common theme in the introduction to the class was a simple lack of knowledge about what happens around us every day. While we may know where we bought something, we may not be able to trace where the store bought it. And once we dispose of the item, we may not know where it goes. There is a cycle that all goods go through, and it is important to know and be aware of it when we consider how the goods we buy affect more than just our lives, but also our neighbors, our town, and the bigger pictures of our country and planet.
In addition, we generally do not know much about something that we see every day in some way, the outdoors. The survey we took at the beginning of class seemed to prove that most of us have not taken time to learn more about the plants that we pass every day on the way to class. Perhaps one of the major reasons why we should know more about these plants is so that they become intimate to us again as they were to our ancestors. And when they are again close to us we will care about what happens to them just as much as we care about what happens to our family and friends. That is one of the things I am most looking forward to exploring in completing the first observation assignment.
The survey also showed that most of us are not knowledgeable about a somewhat "unpopular" continent in relation to others, Africa. I found it interesting that I am indeed guilty to what Prof. Trumpey mentioned in the lecture-- referring to the entire continent as if it were one giant nation, yet specifically referring to specific European nations with ease. The lectures presented just one reason reason why I should have a greater interest in this continent that remains mostly a mystery to me-- and that is the purchase of my cell phone could be related to the brutal treatment of animals in the country where the materials to make it are harvested. Just this one link has opened my eyes considerably.
For as much as the first week has begun to change my perspective, I was unfortunately greatly offended by a smaller element of the class so far. In the first article we read, the author explains to me why I should lose hope and specifically, why religion interferes with the ability to act and make a difference. I vehemently and respectfully disagree with this idea. As a lifelong Christian I have been raised to believe that while God certainly is present in my daily life, He does not hold my hand. He has provided me with tools that are enabling me to become both a better person and a better person to others. I do not "hope" that I will have a positive impact on others and wait for God to tell me what to do. God guides me. God does not tell me that I must volunteer and help others, I make the decision to do so on my own. Simply put, if I decide to take action to help save the enivornment it will be my doing. My faith in God has never prevented me from positive action. I am not the only one. There are countless religious people (certainly not just Christians!) who have made tremendous positive differences in the world, and I am sure that hope was a reinforcing feeling and not an inhibiting one to those people.
Whoops, sorry, "Emma" is "Emma Bumstead"
I'll work on changing that for the future, I'm just using an old account at the moment.
I have always ignored issues about the environment and our economy. It’s not that I didn’t care, but it seemed very distant to me. I was relying on someone else to resolve them. I turned a blind eye, hoping that somehow our environment would magically restore itself. I have always done my best to recycle, and tried to remember to turn off the lights when I left a room, but I didn’t believe that my contribution was making a difference. When I failed to follow through on these efforts, I assured myself that it did not matter. How could my actions really affect our world? I did not understand how much our environment and economy were suffering, and how much deeper these issues go beyond recycling. It wasn’t until I was directly affected by rising gas prices that I started to change my ways. Even though there have been articles written about limiting our oil use, and companies that have stressed the importance of hybrid cars, our society didn’t respond until our pockets started to get empty. We are so focused on ourselves that we don’t take action until we are affected on a more personal level. These past lectures have also opened my eyes to how we are treating the world, and I am surprised at how interested I am on these topics.
I found it very interesting when Prof. Trumpey showed the slide “If the world were a village”. I did not realize how much of a minority we are. I knew that countries like China and India had huge populations, but when he compared them to the United States the results shocked me. We never consider ourselves minorities because our country is so centrally focused. It makes me feel incredibly guilty that we consume a majority of the world’s resources even though we are only 5% of the population. It really put things in perspective.
Our society wants us to be enormous consumers. We are encouraged to buy newer products, to always have the updated model of something. For example, Apple comes out with a new iPod every year, and we buy them. It’s all very alluring. But at the same time we are encouraged to take care of our environment. We are told to not be wasteful, and to help restore struggling parts of the world. But how are we supposed to act if one source of information is telling us to take care of our surroundings and the other source is telling us to waste as much as we possibly can? I think that this makes it incredibly difficult for Americans to know which direction to go in. There are so many service organizations that donate food and supplies to underdeveloped countries to try and improve their quality of life, but no matter how many soup cans we send, we are not going to fix the problems in our world if we don’t drastically change how we live. I think that the solution starts with becoming more educated on how we affect our environment. This class is definitely making me think twice about how much energy I consume. I need to remember that even though I am only one person, my actions do have a significant influence on the world and others around me.
-Caroline Aulis
I suppose one thing that particularly struck me from the past few lectures was the demographic of the imaginary village created from the world. I found myself surprised that Americans comprised only five individuals in this vast village. If that surprised me, imagine my shock that being nearly the smallest in population, we somehow manage to consume the most!
Technically, I can piece it all together easily. We do consume at ridiculous rates in America and are not keen on the idea of self-deprivation. Yet there is nothing quite like a statistic to open your eyes to the degree of such a thing. I wonder where we get such a sense of entitlement to so much of the world’s resources. We all enjoy our comfortable lives with amenities always at hand while others barely scrape by. How do we live with such a burden? Well, we don’t. We often feel too far removed to feel remorse over “hogging” food, oil, water, energy, and other expendable resources.
This makes me reflect back on a trip I took to the Dominican Republic the summer after 6th grade with a group of kids from my class. The trip was eye opening for me, even at a young age. I remember being shocked as we were invited into homes that were one room shacks. There was barely enough space to move around with a tiny stove, one bed and a folding square table. Somehow all the kids and parents had to squeeze onto a single bed. I remember my dad later commenting upon our return that we could fit six shacks in our backyard alone (which, for the record, isn’t extraordinarily large). We also spent a day working with children at a school. Many of them were lucky to even be able to go to school instead of helping their parents with farming. We made god’s eyes with the children and taught them games like limbo and other things they normally would never get the chance to do. The kids were thrilled with these simple things. We also had bought small gifts to exchange with the students. Loving art myself, I had picked out bright colored pencils and crayons and fun markers that also had various stamps on the other end. The girl I gave my gifts to was beside herself with excitement. She could not believe her luck! She too loved to draw, but would never have had the opportunity to own nice things like that. In a show of gratitude, she gave me the one black pen she had. I just remember that moving me so deeply. So many things in my life, I took for granted, and she had so little but wanted to give me one of her few possessions to thank me.
I wish it could have ended with that positive experience, but I also recall visiting the local hospital. It had been in construction for years and parts of the floor were missing. Kids were screaming and crying as we came to perform various skits for the children. Families had to provide meals and even the very sheets for the beds their children would stay on. The hospital couldn’t afford IV’s so you would see kids with shots taped to their arms instead. I remember being completely horrified. All of us in the group were scarred by these painful images.
And yet, years later I can return to my everyday life all too easily. It saddens me greatly. This experience was so powerful for me and yet I fail to question my consumer-crazed society. I think it’s easy to slip into passive routines. I felt a similar disappointment with myself when filling out the questionnaires at the first discussion. In 6th grade I attended a one-year environmental program/6th grade academy in my city. We raised chickens, we spent time in the woods constantly, we identified trees and plants and made drawings and extensive leaf collections. We did marsh studies and tapped maple trees in the winter for maple syrup. It was one of the best years of my elementary schooling. Yet here I find myself in college, mind completely blank, unable to identify 10 plants indigenous to my home region. I can easily prattle off 10 stores in my local mall back in Grand Rapids. I try to rationalize this by telling myself that I hardly spend my life in the mall; I just so happened to have a retail job this summer in the mall, so store names are familiar to me. Yet, that doesn’t make up for my inability to name indigenous plants. I have passively accepted my consumer world of excess and forgotten the eye opening experiences I had as a child. I find myself alarmed and realizing that I need to re-open my eyes and become more aware of the world and nature around me once again and do more to rebel against the ways of our current society.
Sydney Evans
Between the ecological footprint test, the map of africa, and the survey we had to take, I came to the realization that I have a lot of work to do concerning the environment. When I saw the statistics the next day in lecture on how the rest of the class did on the survey, it was comforting to me that I was not alone on my ignorance of the environment, but it was also sad at the same time.
A lot of us don't know where the resources we use daily are coming from, but we just continue to use them as if they will never run dry. It baffles me that America makes up less than 3% of the world’s population, but we consume more than 30% of the worlds energy. I myself thought I was doing a good job about conserving the earths resources, but I was embarrassed to find out during the ecological test that I waste around 4.3 worlds. It makes the article about hope make a lot more sense. Looking at all the statistics that Trumpey showed us make me feel hopeless about where the world is going. But the way I see it is, we all worked together to destroy this earth, so we should be able to work together to improve it also.
After sitting through the last two lectures, I left the lecture hall and felt a gigantic wave of guilt wash over me. Everything professor Trumpey said regarding consumerism, the environment, and the statistics he gave made me realize that I am guilty of doing all of these different things. I have bought a new cell phone when an old one worked perfectly fine, I have driven places when I clearly could have walked if I left twenty minutes earlier, I did not by a hybrid when I bought a new car, and I do spend hundreds of dollars a month on gas. After listening to the lecture, and after taking my own ecological footprint calculator, I was told that if everyone lived the way I did, it would take 4.8 planet earths to support us. That was a slap in the face, and made me realize that I had to make a change. At first when I realized I couldn’t name ten plants native to Michigan, I didn’t feel guilty because I am from New York and I convinced myself I didn’t need to know. Then I realized I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t as bad as it was. I couldn’t even name ten plants native to New York if I tried, and I also realized that Michigan is my home now and I should be aware no matter where I am or what I am doing.
The Statistics given to us regarding population were interesting, but the most moving to me was the image of the Congo. The fact that the Congo is being killed to make cell phones was apauling and disturbing. After the lecture, I was curious and wanted to learn more about this. I went on the Internet, and did a little bit of research and discovered that they are killing the Congo for the substance called columbite-tantalite, (coltan for short), which is one of the world’s most sought-after materials. When you refine coltan, you get a highly heat-resistant metal powder called tantalum, which is selling for about $100 a pound and is become increasingly vital to modern life. For the high-tech industry, tantalum is considered magic dust, which is a key component for mobile phones, computer chips, stereos, and VCR’s. It is an industry that is currently making $6 billion a year, and we are achieving these strides in technology by exploiting coltan mining to help finance a bloody civil war in the democratic Republic of Congo.
This research made me realize how far humans will go for money and new technology. And when are people going to realize what these technological advancements are actually doing to the world we live in? Our instincts should be to protect ourselves and the earth that gives us the resources to live the lives we do; yet we are doing everything possible to destroy it. There has to be a way to become less dependent on technology, to take a step back, and look at what the environment has to offer us, and we need to make a change before we completely destroy this earth and everything and everyone in it.
Samantha orshan
As we are introduced to the specifics of this class, I find the question of most impact to be in regards to the life cycle of the different aspects of our environment. On our first day of class we answered questions about the systems around us that we typically take for granted. Professor Trumpey showed us the alarming statistics about our ignorance to where our garbage goes, what our watershed is and how much time we spend observing the natural world around us as opposed to living vicariously through our computers and televisions. This speaks to the facets of our personal responsibility. We may use something and discard it without contemplating where it is going or where it came from. Our “my stuff” project, and other aspects of this class seem to aim at moving us to better understand the process and the full life of the things that surround our everyday life.
In “This Steer’s Life” the author, Michael Pollan, contemplates where his beef comes from by taking an active role in following the life cycle of one cow in particular. I find this process interesting because, in doing so, Pollan discovers more than just what happens in the process of our beef; he truly begins to see the weight we, as Americans, put on different areas of our economic and social practice. Pollan learns of the change this process has gone through over the years because of our need for a higher production, a quicker turnover, for more money as well as more food. In lecture we often hear Professor Trumpey say, “there are no silver bullets,” and this appears true in beef production as well; while production may increase, we also witness the cattle rancher, responsible for the birth and early life of the calves, begin to loose money per head. With competition up, one needs to produce more and more calves in order to stay in business.
Another case of taking an individual taking an active role in his surroundings can be seen in A Sand County Almanac, in which the author, Aldo Leopold, and his family find a tree struck by lightning and feel privileged to be able to use this sort of gift from nature to heat their home. In the process of cutting this tree, Leopold counts the rings on the tree and contemplates every year of this tree’s life and all the history it has witnessed. I found this recognition of the full cycle of the things we use to be astonishing. I cannot remember the last time I thought about where the things I accumulate come from and what they may have been through, or why I should be the one to procure them.
In both these examples I feel the author’s individual sense of responsibility. This week I have come to define responsibility not as knowing the right or wrong answer in every instance, but as thoughtful observation and questioning as to why we act the way we do. In my day-to-day life I may not know where my trash goes or what my watershed is because I have been programmed to believe that the government or whomever “they” are will take care of those things in a proper manner. I may merely believe that the process by which I get beef is perfectly fine because there are so many standards set in place, none of which I really need to worry about, and I may take for granted where the source of heat for my apartment comes from without knowing any specifics of whom I affect by staying warm each night. I’m beginning to see that personal responsibility means questioning the process, knowing how things work and how the process has developed over the years and why changes have been made. While there are no “silver bullets” it is important that I have information about the way things occur around me so I am not mindlessly part of a process that may have a better solution.
Kelsey Sovereign 9.16.08
The past two lectures have been eye opening, Professor Trumpy has enlighten me on my preconceptions on where our energy comes from and how much energy we are consuming as well as the rate that we are consuming it at. Ethanol was one of the topics we looked at into. Many outside sources make ethanol look like the end all solution to the fossil fuel crisis. In reality it is a poor idea to convert a major food source into a fuel source. Another point in the lecture that I found shocking was that less than 2% of the American population is a farmer. This leads to the conclusion that most of the food consumers find in the grocery stores is produced on corporate farms or factories. This knowledge becomes even more disturbing after viewing “The Meatrix”. Where the reality of American Businesses drive for profit at any cost comes to light. Is the drive to create the maximum amount of profit is it to further fuel the economic machine which is capitalism? Or greed?
Lecture reaction 9-10
I really didn’t like this lecture, I feel I’ve heard it too many times before. The message is the same: “We don’t know enough about our environment, we are irresponsible stewards of our environment, we’re screwed.” It’s frustrating to sit in a classroom with 100 energetic students who are ready to take action, and then listen to what we already know. Going over the results of the class survey only reinforced the monotony. Yes, we don’t know enough about our local plants. Yes, we don’t know where our trash is going. Can we have a conversation about what we might do to change this? Can we have a conversation about how we can create positive impact? Maybe a discussion on the merits of different approaches? Maybe we could even do something.
Joe loves to create questions, to leave us asking more than when we came. I really appreciate that; he is trying to force us to think outside our comfort zone, to confront issues that we might not normally think about. My concern is that he creates so many questions for me that the questions drown in their own confusion. Really, the best way to promote apathy is to give us so many problems that we don’t even know where to begin.
Let’s talk about how to get people to truly believe that the environment is each individual’s responsibility, and that every contribution is positive impact.
How about that for a rant, eh?
Lecture reaction 9-15
Nice to have a lecture with more facts, less “we’re so totally effed.” I was particularly interested in the genetically modified, or selectively bred, corn seed and how the argument for, or against this corporate tactic might proceed. Essentially: seed producers create corn seed that will not “come true” after one harvest. This forces the seed buyers (farmers) to purchase the seed year after year. The reason this is bad is because farmers, who are already not making enough money, are forced to pay to grow their corn every year. The counter-argument might be that corn growers don’t need to buy the GM corn seed, or also, what is wrong with having farmers pay for seed every year to have a superior crop?
Also, found the pictures of families and their weekly food consumption to be beautiful.
Carolyn Wiedeman
Lecture Reflection
Sept 15th
Many people believe that “hope” is a word thrown around too liberally, too frequently, and enough to make people numb to it. Especially in the Obama presidential election, hope is basically the driving force behind him and all of his beliefs. The argument in the article is that just the idea of hope automatically creates a barrier, like an unreachable level that is left up to some superpower to achieve. Placing hope on an idea or a vision puts the pressure out of the persons hands, and it loses the idea that one person really can make a difference. I believe that hope sets a standard on an issue, simply saying the word brings solace to so many people. So how could it be false and misleading? When the topic of the election is brought up among some of my conservative peers, they argue that people are just jumping on the bandwagon for Obama because its cool to have liberal thinking and support the minority and the rest of the young people in the world. I would not argue against that, I would say that people are definitely becoming interested in Obama and the election, now perhaps for the first time, because of the press and the excitement behind supporting something new, but is that wrong? Is that not the point of a campaign, to inspire people, to change people’s minds, to get them to jump on the bandwagon? I believe that it’s the way that the world is changing right now, as young people are caring more because they see how cool it is. The negative stigma that is attached to this idea is that youth will do anything to be cool, but if the world of cool, trendy and fresh was not picked up by young people and spread throughout, then how would the world make any progress?
Samantha Orshan
9/16/08
After sitting through the last two lectures, I left the lecture hall and felt a gigantic wave of guilt wash over me. Everything professor Trumpey said regarding consumerism, the environment, and the statistics he gave made me realize that I am on of the millions of people overlooking what his/her actions are doing to our environment. I have bought a new cell phone when an old one worked perfectly fine, I have driven places when I clearly could have walked if I left twenty minutes earlier, I did not by a hybrid when I bought a new car, and I do spend hundreds of dollars a month on gas. After listening to the lecture, and after taking my own ecological footprint calculator, I was told that if everyone lived the way I did, it would take 4.8 planet earths to support us. That was a slap in the face, and made me realize that I had to make a change. At first when I realized I couldn’t name ten plants native to Michigan, I didn’t feel guilty because I am from New York and I convinced myself I didn’t need to know. Then I realized I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t as bad as it was. I couldn’t even name ten plants native to New York if I tried, and I also realized that Michigan is my home now and I should be aware no matter where I am or what I am doing.
The Statistics given to us regarding population were interesting, but the most moving to me was the image of the Congo. The fact that the Congo is being killed to make cell phones was apauling and disturbing. After the lecture, I was curious and wanted to learn more about this. I went on the Internet, and did a little bit of research and discovered that they are killing the Congo for the substance called columbite-tantalite, (coltan for short), which is one of the world’s most sought-after materials. When you refine coltan, you get a highly heat-resistant metal powder called tantalum, which is selling for about $100 a pound and is become increasingly vital to modern life. For the high-tech industry, tantalum is considered magic dust, which is a key component for mobile phones, computer chips, stereos, and VCR’s. It is an industry that is currently making $6 billion a year, and we are achieving these strides in technology by exploiting coltan mining to help finance a bloody civil war in the democratic Republic of Congo.
This research made me realize how far humans will go for money and new technology. And when are people going to realize what these technological advancements are actually doing to the world we live in? Our instincts should be to protect ourselves and the earth that gives us the resources to live the lives we do; yet we are doing everything possible to destroy it. There has to be a way to become less dependent on technology, to take a step back, and look at what the environment has to offer us, and we need to make a change before we completely destroy this earth and everything and everyone in it.
Samantha Orshan
The one thing that stood out most to me in lecture was how much Americans consume compared to other countries, specifically Sudan. Americans spend $160.00 a week on groceries and those who live in Sudan spend $1.23 a week on groceries. Looking at the pictures and how processed our food is comparative sort of shocked me. I knew we eat processed food, but everything was boxed, or oversized, there was little that was actually fresh. In Sudan and other countries most of the food was fresh produce or grains. They live on a healthier diet than Americans do, but malnutrition also plays a part. Americans consume more than is needed to survive, where it is possible to live on just produce, to me it did not seem like enough. The picture of the Sudanese family did not show any meat in it where as the American family had a larger range of food, including meat. It is not a luxury to us anymore, because you can buy it so cheaply, but then there is that issue of whether or not it is good meat. Americans consume 250 pounds of meat per year. Most all American, excluding the vegetarians, eat meat on a regular basis, where as a Sudanese family will eat grains everyday. Our diets compared to the diets in Sudan come down to mostly processed foods versus fresh produce. Although it seemed as if the family in Sudan did not have a lot of food, it was healthier, better for the environment and for your body.
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