Deforestation in the US

This is an image of the progression of deforestation in United States. Each little dot on the map represents 25,000 acres. The image starts at the year 1620. Over half of the US was covered by forests. As time progresses to present day, we can see that the number of forests are astronomically less. There are almost no forests left today. Especially not on the Eastern side where it all once was. Deforestation can impact the US and its inhabitants on several different levels. The rate of expansion is getting almost too much to bear. Negative impacts of this have already revealed itself, whether it be climate change or extinct species.

Source: http://conservationreport.com/2009/02/24/deforestation-area-of-virgin-forest-from-1620-to-today/

Article related to Religion & Environment

http://www.jstor.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/stable/pdfplus/1386911.pdf?acceptTC=true

Don't worship the Earth

I believe that God created this Earth for His people to inhabit. Obviously, we should take care of what He's provided to us. We must be respectful of our planet. But I don't think we should go as far as to make a whole "religion" out of this environmental practice. If people start consuming themselves with saving the planet, and what-not, the focus starts to turn away from God and onto mankind and the planet itself. Planet Earth begins to be worshiped and seen as a sacred deity. That's really the main problem I have with this religion and environmental relationship. The Yale video condescends how "past religions" focuses on a personal relationship (with God). I still believe firmly that "religion" is, in fact, a personal relationship with God. There's no room for worshiping the Earth because God is not in the picture anymore, God created the Earth and gave us the Earth to live in. We should worship Him not it.

Lulu Lemon

"S*** Yogis Say" is a comical video making fun on yogis. Apparently, the stereotypical yogi is some environmentally friendly freak who drinks wheat shots and "ommmms" more than speaks. Lulu also talks about the contents of her yoga mat. She makes herself out to be a stupid, yet healthy individual. She is seen sipping on a wheat grass drink in which she coughs after she drinks because of the horrible taste, yet she still offers it to her friend. Yoga is a lifestyle to Lulu as she talks about her "yoga hair". She also makes fun of saying "Namas De" or however you spell that. It was a hilarious video!

Article

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/07/4245214/hertz-launches-global-sustainability.html

Towards Ecopedagogy

Richard Kanh’s article was very precise and convincing when it came to various arguments about destroying the environment. At the beginning of his article, he states that “a threat to either the organism or its environment is a movement towards the ecology of death” (1). His point being that if an organism is threatened, than the environment and vice versa. The reality of humans’ actions on our environment are made known with this sudden realization

What struck the most interesting to me was this environmental education. For one, I had never heard of such a thing. Secondly, it seems to help in other aspects of education such as social science and mathematics. I was fascinated when reading this. At first I was extremely skeptical about this so called Zoo School where “ high school-aged juniors and seniors attend school on the zoo grounds, treating the institution and a nearby park as an experiential learning lab where they conduct independent studies and weave environmental themes into their curricular work and projects” (7). The whole concept behind this school is that these students are actually learning HOW to do these specific tasks instead of just learning about them. It’s an education system like this that can save our environment. It’s all about the up and coming generation because the generation that is going to continue our efforts here on Earth. I personally think that all schools should implement this kind of education especially in an environmental crisis such as this. 

Khan’s article was very affective in that it posed a lot of great ideas with factual background to support it. His statistics, such as “1.2 billion people live on less than $1 per day and nearly 3 billion live on less than $2 per day” (4), really make you think about how much the world is in trouble. It really makes me want to help society and help the environment succeed. 


Source: http://richardkahn.org/writings/ecopedagogy/towardsecopedagogy.pdf

Response to Water & Google Alert

The “forum” we had in class on Friday about water was very interesting and thought provoking. The only thing that comes to my mind though is how can the consumers be blamed for using too much water. We need clothes and food to survive. We’re just purchasing it because we need it to live. The producers are the ones that should be blamed in my opinion. They’re the ones that are using all of the water to produce the product. But then again, they need to produce these things in order to survive and make a living. It’s really a vicious cycle and I wish I had knowledge to offer up in order to help the over usage of water but I just don’t know how to help the situation.

I was perusing my google alerts and came across an interesting article that was sent to me from my “environment” alert. It was about “Tourette-like symptoms” that have emerged from 16 teenagers in New York. All of these teenagers attend the same school and their symptoms consist of face jerking and sudden outbursts, like Tourettes. The cause of this is still being investigated but one of the suspects is thought to be the environment itself. There was a chemical spill about 40 years ago and investigators are saying that this could very well be the cause of these teenager’s disorder. The chemical spill contaminated the water and could have poisoned these kids. Specialists are saying that this kind of contaminated is more common in teenagers, especially girls. Of the 16 teens, all are girls except 1. I’m glad this article was sent to me because it pertains to water, as we were discussing on Friday. It’s sometimes hard to think that water isn’t a big deal in our society because nothing “bad” has happened or we’ve never run out. But water contamination actually does exist and to think that it could product “Tourette-like symptoms” is just baffling and vey scary. It makes everything seem more real. It puts environmental issues into perspective and makes me want to help with the issue of water in our world.