Update on Survey

Link to my survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/285D2Q2

Update: My initial hypothesis for the experiment has proven to be correct. Most people directly correlate almost all of the technology in their lives as having some specific need. Whether it is mass communication, correcting handwriting, or producing some form of data: computers are making our lives easier. I also found that people tend to upgrade technological devices frequently, only keeping the traits that proved to be the most helpful. This supports Darwin's theory of Evolution. I hope to receive more quality information through my survey to better prepare my research for Essay 4.

Darwinism Theory of Evolution applied to technology

My studies have proven to be more initially helpful than the survey itself. I have only had two people complete the survey which does not produce quality information. This being said, my research with an article comparing the darwinism theory of evolution has been really helpful in understanding the trends and reasons behind technology in the lives of society. The article explains that all parts of technology have been created to solve a problem. The history of technology is directly related to the discoveries that we have made in past decades. My survey studies are working to confirm that though we might not see tweeting as correcting a civil problem, it in fact does just this. After the survey is completed by multiple others, the information will become more helpful. 

Article: http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Darwinism-theory-of-evolution-applied-to-technology

Indigenous Resistance

            Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival by Michael Marker describes the separation of indigenous people from society.  The article focuses on educational policy and the ways in which the Coast Salish have adapted to society.  The Coast Salish population has set forth measures to resist conforming to society. Marker focuses a lot of the education barrier of racism when indigenous groups in society integrate into public school.  Coast Salish and other groups in society have created government boarding schools to continue their culture.  It keeps the problem of creating cultural barriers away from public schools.

            In response to Marker’s article, I believe that it is important for every group in society to keep their culture. However, segregating yourself from society to avoid racism is a bit of an extreme. Conformity is not always a bad thing; sometimes it is good to embrace other’s cultures as well as your own. 

New York City: Food and Sustainability?

Fact: Population = 8,244,910 people
Now how do we feed them?

If we consider the environment of just one specific location, the problems become more obvious. 
-We are importing food to sustain the population (No food grown locally)
-We are using Genetically Modified Organisms and Urbacides to increase food production (What does this do to our heath?)
-Health regulations are being sacrificed 

I found a video that we read in class called "The Meatrix" really interesting. It called out several of the issues that have been formed to meet the growing society's need for food. We all picture the typical barn with hay and pigs running around, but yet we never think about how expensive and impractical it would be to feed everyone off of these farms. The result is the agriculture businesses. They border line animal cruelty and use many different chemicals to produce more, regardless of how it affects your health. It is important that we start thinking for once about the food and sustainability problems we are facing. I would much rather eat quality meat than genetically-altered and processed meat that that is cheap and abundant. We need to act now.

Environmental Ethics

Martin Heidegger and Environmental Ethics

http://www2.hmc.edu/~tbeckman/personal/Heidart.html

This article is by Martin Heidegger regarding his views of technology and how it is affecting our environment. The article also includes how the essence of art adds to our environment. Art enriches our culture and reinforces good environmental practices. Our attention is focused too much on the technology that surrounds or lives, that we lose the essence of the environment. "Whether we embrase technology, or condemn it, for we are all equally enslaved by our misunderstanding of what technology actually is."Heidegger portrays a different sense to technology as something that should not be just a part of our lives, but something we use in addition to the environment. It is really important to openly think about how much technology is involved in our lives. Heidegger's article is apart of works that influence us to think more openly.

Lustgarden, Kusnetz, and McKibben

The peer reviewed article “Seven days: 4-10 May 2012” discuses several interesting scientific topics that took place during this week period. The are article includes an excerpt with information about the United States Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management releasing a draft on May 4^th of rules that would require companies to disclose the chemicals that they use in hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” (Thompson). The reviews were in response to “public protest” that was provoked by “fears that chemicals used in the process could pollute ground water”.

            The article is of most importance to Lustgarten and Kusnetz’s article because they highlighted the issues of fracking and its concern that it left with the citizens of Pavillion, Wyoming. It is a relief that the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management reviewed the case and released new regulations. These new regulations will help control the use of dangerous chemicals and protect the surrounding citizens from harm. Although the article most directly relates to Lustgarden and Kusnetz’s article, McKibben would also be influenced by it. The regulations not only benefit the community but they stop harmful chemicals from contaminating ground water and soil. This peer reviewed article serves as a great follow up, regarding action, to the problems we have discussed in class. 

Fracking in Pavillion, Wyoming

            It is fair to say that water is one of the most important things in our lives. Besides air, there is not anything that a person cannot survive for at least a few days without. A person can even live without food for over a week! Scientific American posted a story by Lustgarten, Kusnetz and ProPublic about an issue that was just raised around the town of Pavillion, Wyoming. The problem is that the processes involved with “fracking” for natural gas has been linked to contaminating the water supply in underground water supplies. The Environmental Protection Agency began observing the case in 2008 and came to the conclusion that the hydrocarbons and contaminants had a correlation with the chemicals used in fracking. The case continued to 2010 where the testing results also reported that the water was becoming unsafe to drink. They also cautioned that the high levels of methane in the water were explosive! It was not until the following year after the EPA drilled in two more wells and found that they confirmed increased levels of carcinogenic chemicals. In December of 2011, the EPA connected the issue with 33 abandoned oil and gas waste pits.

The citizens of Pavillion, Wyoming had filed complaints about the water and it took four years to prove that they were right! The fracking process polluted the water that they drink, bathe, and surround their lives with. This contamination could have been the result of death among many people of the community. This issue should not be taken lightly. Every process that involves the uses of toxic chemicals should be thoroughly examined to ensure that they are not going to put any community’s lives at risk. It is very reassuring that the EPA is not taking this observation lightly. They are working to correct the problem as fast as possible and are creating new safety measures to prevent it from happening in the future.

The cement that surrounded and protected the well must be designed to be more reliant. The “sporadic bonding” that was described in the article should have been something tested and foreseen before it jeopardized lives. It is important to understand that not every problem in society is prepared for, however this issue is something that could have been avoided if the correct safety measures and testing were performed. 

Visual Rhetoric

"Every leaf traps CO2"

The image above is a great representation of the effect that rising CO2 levels have on our environment. The image uses visual rhetoric to portray how the CO2 emissions from a large airplane are absorbed into the environment. The picture of the airplane and fumes is depicted inside the leaf to give it an absorbing effect. The purpose of the image is to reduce CO2 emissions in our atmosphere.

Observation of Snyder's Works

Theme(s)

Man vs. Nature – Separate Worlds

Human Wreckage – Effecting future generations

Spreading Nature to Others

Sample Selection of Snyder’s Works

It Pleases Pg. 44

Affluence Pg. 50

Ethnobotany Pg. 51

            Continuing my analysis of Snyder’s work, several reoccurring themes that were found in other sample selection poems appeared within the context. “It Pleases” is a passage regarding a large bird, soaring over the busy town of Washington, DC. Below the bird are thousands of tourist cars, a police officer, old white stone domes; the center of power, as Snyder states. Snyder makes a vivid depiction of what we as people view Washington, DC to be. We think of the tourist attractions, monuments, and other man-made beauty. Meanwhile, the nature behind what we have created and destroyed goes unnoticed as “the world does what it pleases.”

            “Affluence” portrays another one of Gary Snyder’s reoccurring themes throughout Turtle Island: human wreckage. The poem opens up by depicting a forestry scene with pine needles, limbs and twigs, and then draws the comparison to human wreckage by including several stumps in the image. “And this from logging twenty years ago . . . it was the logger’s cost, at lumber’s going rate then . . . now burn the tangles dowsing . . . paying the price somebody didn’t pay.” Like several of Snyder’s other works, the poem is describing how much humans are depleting the environment. Without safe environmental practices, our future generations will be in even deeper trouble.

            “Ethnobotany” by Gary Snyder, portrays a less pessimistic theme than the majority of the other works. This poem paints a vivid image of the “sour fresh inner oak-wood smell” of a splitting tree. Although Snyder includes human wreckage in this poem, he follows it up with the line “taste all, and hand the knowledge down.” In this sense, Snyder has a much more optimistic tone that we can learn from our mistakes. “Taste all” – observe our wrongdoings and “and hand the knowledge down” – prevent it from happening in the future. 

Theme(s)
 Man vs. Nature - Separate worlds
Depletion of Nature in Human Life
Human wreckage

Sample Selection of Snyder's Works
Control Burn Pg. 19
The Great Mother Pg. 20
The Call of the Wild Pg. 21

When reading another selection of Snyder’s work, I came across another them of human wreckage. Most of Snyder’s poetry focuses on the separation of man and nature through man’s obliviousness, however in The Great Mother and The Call of the Wild specifically: Snyder shows a new view that man destroys nature in their own lives by shutting it out.

One of the best representations of this mindset is in The Call of the Wild. After the coyote howls, man will “call the Government.” “Trapper who uses iron leg-traps on Coyotes… my sons will lose this.” The next generations will go on unappreciative to nature because their forefathers are destroying it. The Great Mother looks at men who cross the road as “savages”. For once we begin to see that not only has man been oblivious to nature’s value, but they are depleting it. Control Burn compares humans to Indians who took the lands for granted, burning them several times a year. Loggers are no better than indians, the savages just obtained a different name.