Culture and Diversity

While searching for something to write about for this blog I came across this video interview of Juan Mayr, the former Environment Minister for Columbia. What he talks about furthers our discussion we had this last week on culture and the environment. Juan Mayr believes culture and diversity are the most beautiful things given to us by god.

In the article Lessons from our Ancestors we read about the traditional cultures of the Tibetan nomads, farmers from Bali, the Inuit, and Kogi were each group had a high understanding of their local environment. But in recent years all four of these culture’s environments have become threatened from western ideologies to climate change.

In the Tibetan nomad example their highly specialized adaptation to their environment is being threatened by Chinese growth and the influence of monoculture. Juan Mayr’s comments about how some people can’t understand diversity and only see their own views points is a strong example of this, but it's also seen nearly everywhere.  

-Matt Spohr

The Un-Envioronmental Environmentalist

So, I was thinking today during an especially hot and long shower, about how I used 92% biodegradable shampoo while showering. I thought about how I should buy more products that are more sustainable in order to reduce my carbon footprint. Shortly thereafter, I was struck with a pretty obvious problem. I was taking a hot shower. Not only that, but I had been in the shower for almost 20 minutes already. I started thinking about how I should take shorter showers because I was completely counteracting the positive environmental impacts of my shampoo with the length of my shower and the energy consumed in it. I decided that I was, at times, an un-environmental environmentalist.

I think that this can still be constructive, though, if looked at in the right light. I see a lot of people who think that preserving the environment somehow makes them more "righteous" than the next guy. There are people that look down on people who don't recycle or (like me) like hot and long showers. I tend to think of these types of people as more uneducated, rather than wrong or stupid. I can fix my showering habits, and it's something I'm working on.

But, the environmentalist movement and helping to preserve the environment in general, should be a constant cycle of self criticism. What can I do better? How can I reduce MY footprint? The second we stop criticizing ourselves, it's easy to fall into a pattern of thinking that we are as good as we can be- that we're doing all for the environment that we can. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Always look at yourself and think "What else can I do?" Encourage your neighbors and friends to be more sustainable. But don't ever condemn anyone for not being as sustainable as you, because in reality we're all a detriment to the planet. It's just the degrees of our impact that differ.

- Will Stott

Culture Shock Sudanese refugees coming to America

this is a pretty neat video.
i like when they say the sprinkles look like beans :)

-Lauren Shippen

Green Fire

It was very interesting to me how Leopold's teachings are still practiced today.  A man that did not see what we are dealing with today has made such an impact on the way people treat the natural world today.  I think it showed how far ahead of his time Leopold actually was.  He showed that people need to have a little more respect for nature and not just use it anyway that we feel needed.  Leopold has been and probably always will be one of the best conservationist that people will come to know.  I think if people followed his teachings a little more we would be in a better situation now.

Wolves Are Still In Trouble

We talked a little about wolves almost becoming extinct in the 1800s.  I came across this website and discovered that wolves are still in grave danger.  The website gives you some information about what is happening and has a link to sign a petition to stop this horrible killing of such beautiful animals.  One of the videos stated that Idaho expected to sell 70,000 permits to kill over 200 wolves, with the goal to cut the already low population in half!

http://action.defenders.org/site/PageServer?pagename=savewolves_homepage

I find it interesting that with all of the worries about pollution these days, every time it snows we put tons and tons of pollution on the roads to melt ice. I am talking about NaCl, in other words salt. I just read an article that talked about how much salt that we were put on the roads which each snow storm that we get, and where it runs to when it gets melted. Being a former "snow fighter" as we liked to call ourselves, limiting the amount salt was never an issue that we were concerned with, all we worried about was removing ice from roads. I found it very interesting that only a cup of salt into a 5 gallon bucket could kill fish, I understand that there is way more water that runs through streams and rivers, but there is still a lot that runs into them. I didn't know of too many studies that has been done to see what effects this has on the habitat and ecosystems in these areas.

Image obtained at:http://connect.in.com/paradigm-shift/images-paradigm-shift-512011-listen-or-watch-1-1610713467648.html

I came across this little sketch and I think it is somewhat symbolic of what we have been discussing in class this week about religion and people's views on the environment. It's really important to understand where people are coming from, their culture, their upbringing and their religion, all of these things shape a person and have a role in why they believe and do the things they do.