Open Blog 3

What It means to Be Green

Being green to me means keeping our planet healthy and beautiful for the benefit of all beings and future generations. It means creating an environment where all can grow spiritually, emotionally and physically healthy - loving, living, and being happy - the way it was meant to be. A healthy environment means a healthy and happy soul. There are so very many ways one can contribute to the health and well being to our beautiful planet.  There is an old saying that goes, "Sayin ain't doin." We can talk about going green all day long, but until we actually do something, even if it is a tiny step, it doesn't really do much good, does it? To make a positive impact on the environment, you can start out by shutting down and unplugging all electronics when not in use, wash your clothes in hot water, recycle, use refurbished electronics (you can often find these at incredible prices), swap CD's and DVD's with your friends or a business that swaps CD's, DVD's and books, start using reuseable shopping bags instead of plastic or paper, and use energy saving light bulbs. If you don't think changing your light bulbs will make a difference, consider this: If everyone changed just ONE light bulb in their home to the more energy efficient ones, it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes a year. Other ways I have added to my green lifestyle are using environmentally friendly cleaning products, starting a compost pile for our organic garden, setting the thermostat lower, and instead of buying bottled water, I have installed a really good water filter in my house to help with this which has made all the difference.In today's world, I know I can't do everything, but I do what I can to contribute to a healthy environment, not only for our local community, but for our global community as well. Whatever we can do at home benefits everyone 

Open Blog 2

I have been noticing a lot lately that it seems that for many people eating organic and being green is a fashion statement, or a way of showing off how much money they have. In my opinion I don't really care why you do it, as long as it is helping. But when the fad makes it cheaper to buy processed foods than whole foods, something is seriously wrong. So here is list of ways to be green without breaking the bank. If you just start with these little things it will big difference. Here it is:

        -Find a CHEAP bulk food or whole food store and buy your stuff there, don't feel bad that       it isn't organic.

-Grow what you can. Guess what, if you grow it, it's organic! Just don't use chemical pesticides. These are easy to grow and can even go on a balcony: Herbs, tomatoes, small lemon tree, and peppers. I am sure there are more as well.
-Exchange produce with friends and neighbors. This is what people do in the country where i am from. You grow one thing, have too much of it, so you trade a little bit with a friend or neighbor who grows another thing. It is a fantastically cheap way to get fresh, and usually organic produce without having to learn how to grow a million different things.

-Farmer's market! In most places it is much cheaper and it is a great way to support your local economy. Plus they are a blast


Being green is not just an upper class luxury. It bothers me that our society has turned it into an expensive fad. It can actually be very easy if you just know where to look and change the way you look at things. 

Open Blog 1

I have always had an interest in being green but when it comes to practicing it I have really only gone as far as recycling. Even when comes to recycling I really have only tried to put bottles and plastic in the blue bin that the city picks up and when there is one near use put water bottles in the containers around campus. I also try to keep the lights turned off when I am not in a room and make sure the water does not run to much. I do have to admit that this is more to save money than anything. Over this past semester and in part due to this class I have tried to be more green and even taken the step of thinking green. I have tried to make being more green not so much of a chore but more in line with saving money. I have found that in many areas these to go hand in hand. If you just start look at things different there are things all around that you can recycle to make new things. It amazes me the things that people just throw out because they are either to lazy or do not know how to fix. Also things that are commonly thought of as waste can often be used for other things. For an example my roommate and I wanted to add to are backyard as it was to shaded to grow grass. We decided that we would a patio and firepit in. We did want to spend a lot of money on it and I decided that it would be cool if we could make it for free and out of stuff that we found with it still looking nice. We ended up using pallets and bricks that we found and it turned out really cool and has been a real hit with friends. It is always cool to see peoples reactions when we tell them we did it all for free. 

 

GREEN POLITICS: Blog Assignment for Environmental Policy

I do not think that the U.S. should have signed the Kyoto Protocol because it had fundamental flaws in its design. The first being that it did not act fairly towards both developed and undeveloped countries. One main problem that I found with it was that undeveloped countries could sell their unused emissions to other countries that were more developed and over their limits. Countries such as Russia who emits a large volume of emissions would be under it's limit and could sell to thier countries. This was the case because Russia has so much land mass.

I believe that getting environmental policies signed at all levels is hard because everyone wants to protect whats in their groups best interest. This however is hard to do because not everyone has the same ideas and many times the ideas are very different from each other and only compounds with the larger the scale. I think that communities should try and fix this problem by looking at the bigger picture and what is best for everyone as a whole. I would like to see more policies supporting sustainable communities and issues such as reducing reliance on fossil fuels, supporting local farmers and merchants, encouraging green practices and building, consideration of native wildlife, and adoption of mass transportation and cleaner methods of commuting.

Ecofeminism

Before viewing the readings on ecofeminism I had a sort of a negative view towards it. I had kind of a negative attitude towards it. I had not really ever read a lot on it but what I heard and thought the idea about it was all about hating men. After reading on the subject I found the idea to be out there a bit. I found ecofenminism to focus to much on a mystical connection between women and nature and not enough on the actual conditions of women. I found form the readings that ecofeminism is the social movement that regards the oppression of women and nature as interconnected. I also saw that it aimed to examine the interconnections between sexism, the domination of nature (including animals), and also racism and social inequalities. I also gathered that it hoped to fight the oppressions of gender, race, class and nature. I did not really have any strong feelings on the subject. I think that if you look you can see the forms of dominance all around you. I think that a problem that sometimes occurs is that people trying to stop the domination of one group by another tends to shift to far and then begins to oppress the group that was dominating in the beginning. I think that this is something that people should be careful to avoid.

Blog # 11

I was raised Baptist but this really has no affect on how I view social ecology. My views have changed as I have gotten older and I tend to view things as they are presented to me with an open mind. I do not agree with the Gaia hypothesis. I do not think that Earth is a living breathing organism. It is an ecosystem that changes based on the what change each organism makes. If there were no organisms changing then there would be no change in regards to Earth. I do however see the thinking behind it. I believe that it is trying to say that both are codependent on each other and cause change in each other. This can be seen with changes that are caused by inorganic actions of the earth such as volcano and earthquakes. I however do not think this is enough to suggest that the Earth is a living organism by itself. I do believe that in some aspects that we live in a hyper-masculine society but I feel that it is some what exaggerated and villainized. I think that there is no question that being masculine is portrayed as a good thing in our society through the media, which can be seen in the movies and TV shows. I however do not think that in everyday life that such things that a idolized on TV are not so in reality. Things such as being violent and having an aggression toward women is not seen as a good thing. If one is over violent this is seen as for lack of a better word being a dick.  

Blog # 10

Social ecology is defined as the science of the relationships between human populations and communities and their environments. Social ecology advocates an empowered and re-constructive view of environmental and social issues, and envisions a moral economy that moves beyond scarcity and hierarchy toward a world that re-harmonizes human communities with the natural world while celebrating diversity, and creativity.

I found the readings to be very interesting and informative. The readings really made me thing about the way I see our environment. I really started to think about the hierarchies that we have in place. I have to be honest and say that that even though this way of seeing the world is a great thing to imagine I however do not think it possible for it ever to be like it. I see this way of viewing the world as ideal which is not how life works. It is like looking outside and seeing that it is raining but telling yourself “hey I wish it was not raining so I am not going to take my umbrella.” The fact still remains that your going to get wet. I do not not think there is a better alternative. Utopias do not work. Everyone that has ever tried to exist has failed. If they could work there would be one. There are to many different wants and ideas on how society should exist. Without hierarchy there would be ciaos because there would be no checks and balances. It would be akin to a football game where there is no refs, no coaches, no making play calls. It would be a cluster.

I firmly believe that hierarchy is a natural fact of being not only humans but also an animal. I think this a trait that is carried through out the animal kingdom. Hierarchy is needed, it makes things run smooth. People are to complex of a species not to have classes.