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.