I am in health this year. Fascinating. At the beginning of the semester, everyone broke up into small groups for a guest speaker project in which every group would organize for a guest speaker to come in and talk to the class. My group, thanks to my recommendation, invited an Indian Shaman to come in and demonstrate Native American rituals or cleansing chakras. As fascinating as that was, my inspiration for this blog entry has absolutely nothing to do with energy work!
Rather, it is about another group's speaker - a business man came in to talk to us. The first thing he said was that he knew nothing about health. By the end, I more than believed him.
He was in the farming industry, not a farmer himself, but he represented many farmers. He began talking about making sure the food we eat is healthy etc. However, near the end he began talking about productivity and the money making aspect. He then started talking about the scientific part of farming that included the use of fertilizers and pesticides and how wonderful those things are because they boost productivity.
I asked him about the many many environment problems that come from agriculture. I inquired him on subjects such as nitrates and phosphates polluting freshwater sources as a result of the use of fertilizers and the pollution of groundwater by the use of pesticides. He suddenly became very defensive. He avoided the question. I was not about to make a big deal about it because it is rude, he was coming to share his job with my class and not to be bombarded with real issues that impact the world.
Not two minutes later, someone else in the class - even possibly my teacher Mr. H - asked what would happen if pesticides and fertilizers were eliminated or made environmentally friendly. His answer was that profits would be cut.
This made me so angry. I had just come from environmental science in which I learn about these environmental problems and how a great portion of the world ignores them to this health class in which a prime example of this ignorance and greed was standing before me.
This man was proof to claims that I had not fully believed after reading my textbook. Many people do not care! This earth is not an invincible place, it can be destroyed just like anything else. I am still discovering whether or not people are aware of this, but I am sure this professional in the agricultural field is not clueless to the damage that agricultural runoff has on the earths water and environment in general.
It disgusts me to see people like this knowingly destroy the earth and even advocate to use more and more harmful chemicals.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Mankind and the Enviroment: In a Bad Romance
In English class I have been messing around with creating pocast, vodcast, and videos - learning the new literacy of our world which is heavily dependent on the internet. I decided to make a video using one of my favorite songs - "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga - and mashing it up with a video displaying how humans are destroying the enviroment. The mash up takes both the video and song to a new meaning. The human race and the earth are at odds and are having a "bad romance." Much like a dysfunctional human relationship, the human race as a whole is having a dysfunctional relationship with the enviroment. I thought I would share this video on my blog.
Follow this link to youtube to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8FkokzuN-0
Follow this link to youtube to see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8FkokzuN-0
Oil Pollution
Of all the different types of pollution that I have been learning about recently, oil pollution surprised me the most in two specific ways.
Reason #1
When I imagined oil pollution, I would imagine a huge tanker hitting an ice burg and dumping massive amounts of oil. However, while this is an extremely terrible tragedy, it is not the culprit for the world's majority of oil pollution. Runoff is the biggest culprit! That means that people like you and me are the biggest contributers to oil pollution!
Reason #2
Cooking oil! I love to cook, and previously when I was finished cooking I would dumb my oil down the drain. This is a huge no-no. Even oils like olive oil and vegetable oil cause water pollution and dumbing these oils down the drain harm the water supply. Finding this out was personally a wake up call because I used to do this all the time, and I think a lot of people do this because they do not know that dumping oil down the drain is bad.
So, do not dump oils of any kind down the drain or garbage disposal!
Reason #1
When I imagined oil pollution, I would imagine a huge tanker hitting an ice burg and dumping massive amounts of oil. However, while this is an extremely terrible tragedy, it is not the culprit for the world's majority of oil pollution. Runoff is the biggest culprit! That means that people like you and me are the biggest contributers to oil pollution!
Reason #2
Cooking oil! I love to cook, and previously when I was finished cooking I would dumb my oil down the drain. This is a huge no-no. Even oils like olive oil and vegetable oil cause water pollution and dumbing these oils down the drain harm the water supply. Finding this out was personally a wake up call because I used to do this all the time, and I think a lot of people do this because they do not know that dumping oil down the drain is bad.
So, do not dump oils of any kind down the drain or garbage disposal!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
One in 6.7 BILLION (and growing)
I am human, so inevitably I have fallen as a victim to laziness. It is undeniable that I have my living green flaws, many flaws at that. Yet, even though I am at guilt of at times taking long showers, I am trying to make a difference by changing things that I do that are not environmentally friendly. To be honest, I would not have made any changes to my ways if I had not been educated and taken my AP environmental science course.
This feeling of being so small and insignificant is awful, TERRIBLE! But, it is not the population's fault because they really do not understand what their waste and laziness does to the planet. Yes, they are told and they have an idea, but do they understand to a point where there is an emotional or some kind of response that will get each person to go out of their way and recycle that can of pop rather than toss it in the convenient trash bin? At large, not at all. It is natural for people to feel small and insignificant. They do not know their impact, and "The Tragedy of the Commons" is not a widely understood concept.
I hope that if anyone out there reads this posting that was just like me, unknowing, possibly ignorant, and by no fault of your own uneducated on such a matter that you take just a few moments to try and understand that every person makes a difference. Every one in the 6.7 billion people on the planet matters. And if everyone thought that they were insignificant, which often happens, that our world will be trashed - it is a sad reality.
Here is a link to the Tragedy of the Commons, it heavily applies to water in that water is seen as a huge and nondegradable resource while in truth it is precious and the earth only has a paltry amount compared to what people think it has.
http://dieoff.org/page95.htm
This feeling of being so small and insignificant is awful, TERRIBLE! But, it is not the population's fault because they really do not understand what their waste and laziness does to the planet. Yes, they are told and they have an idea, but do they understand to a point where there is an emotional or some kind of response that will get each person to go out of their way and recycle that can of pop rather than toss it in the convenient trash bin? At large, not at all. It is natural for people to feel small and insignificant. They do not know their impact, and "The Tragedy of the Commons" is not a widely understood concept.
I hope that if anyone out there reads this posting that was just like me, unknowing, possibly ignorant, and by no fault of your own uneducated on such a matter that you take just a few moments to try and understand that every person makes a difference. Every one in the 6.7 billion people on the planet matters. And if everyone thought that they were insignificant, which often happens, that our world will be trashed - it is a sad reality.
Here is a link to the Tragedy of the Commons, it heavily applies to water in that water is seen as a huge and nondegradable resource while in truth it is precious and the earth only has a paltry amount compared to what people think it has.
http://dieoff.org/page95.htm
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Article: "Bringing Safe Water to the World"
http://www.nrdc.org/international/safewater.asp
Some stand out statements from the Article:
2 million children are killed by such diarrhea diseases each year, and 90 percent of them are kids under five
One billion people around the world don't have access to clean, safe water
U.N. estimates that if the proportion of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation were halved, countries around the world would save $7.3 billion per year in health care costs, and the annual global value of adult working days gained because of less illness would be almost $750 million
The number of people without safe water is increasing
Over the last few months of my class, I have learned about some of these statistics. They really disgust me. The reason I choose clean water as my topic is that I think the rising water crisis will be the most painful and inhumane situation that our race will have to deal with. An image that always has stuck in my head since I saw it was a picture of the earth without its, for the most part especially if not desalinated, unusable water (ocean water, salt water, etc.) - our planet resembled Mars. This was an eye opener. And to think that we continue to severely pollute and waste the very little water we have! This is evil.
Changes must be made. Global awareness is a key step, and this is why I felt I needed to do my part and choose water as my topic. Making safe water available to the world is necessary, and it will be a huge step in the advancement of the human race.
I personally, after hearing these facts and learning more in depth about the water crisis - which I encourage anyone who is unaware of the issue to mimic, looked at the EPA's website and found a page in which things I could personally do to do my part in avoiding a water crisis are listed. Here is that URL:
http://www.epa.gov/watersense/water/index.htm
Some stand out statements from the Article:
2 million children are killed by such diarrhea diseases each year, and 90 percent of them are kids under five
One billion people around the world don't have access to clean, safe water
U.N. estimates that if the proportion of people without access to safe water and basic sanitation were halved, countries around the world would save $7.3 billion per year in health care costs, and the annual global value of adult working days gained because of less illness would be almost $750 million
The number of people without safe water is increasing
Over the last few months of my class, I have learned about some of these statistics. They really disgust me. The reason I choose clean water as my topic is that I think the rising water crisis will be the most painful and inhumane situation that our race will have to deal with. An image that always has stuck in my head since I saw it was a picture of the earth without its, for the most part especially if not desalinated, unusable water (ocean water, salt water, etc.) - our planet resembled Mars. This was an eye opener. And to think that we continue to severely pollute and waste the very little water we have! This is evil.
Changes must be made. Global awareness is a key step, and this is why I felt I needed to do my part and choose water as my topic. Making safe water available to the world is necessary, and it will be a huge step in the advancement of the human race.
I personally, after hearing these facts and learning more in depth about the water crisis - which I encourage anyone who is unaware of the issue to mimic, looked at the EPA's website and found a page in which things I could personally do to do my part in avoiding a water crisis are listed. Here is that URL:
http://www.epa.gov/watersense/water/index.htm
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Hi, Andy!
Glad to see your blog up and running. Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns.
-Mrs. B
-Mrs. B
The Launch
Hi! My name is Andy, and I am starting this blog about clean water and its importance to our world. I am doing this as a part of an advocacy project for my AP Enviromental Science class. If anyone has any suggestions on how I can further advocate for clean water and against its contaimination and pollution I am wide open to ideas. Thanks for reading! I will start posting my thoughts and deep contemplations ASAP. =)
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