Reading Responses #6-10

Article #1

Bryan Walsh starts out his article “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food” by drawing a picture of a pig being raised for slaughter in the state of Iowa. His picture contains confined pens, chopped of curly tails, antibiotics, and the waste produced by all of these pigs wafting up into the air to be smelled by the surrounding houses. Not only do the surrounding houses get to smell all of the lovely pig feces, but when the “manure lagoons” overflow they can expect it to go into the river and straight to the ocean. Another nightmare I can now add to my list.

Walsh mentions The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair in 1906 because it changed the food industry for the better, but only to a point as though America is receding back into how it was when the book was published. Walsh doesn’t mention any of the good changes that the food industry has made, only the bad. He brings up that one of the changes to the food industry was now being able to produce massive quantities of product for cheaper by adding a high risk of health effects to the environment, animals, and even humans. If only the food industry would fight back and say they have improved in every way possible it would make for a great argument between Walsh and industries.

Walsh sees the worst of everything being that the massive quantities of food in America does make is exceedingly bad for humans. He brings up a contaminated food incident to prove his point of how the food industry is anything but safe. By trying to make an even greater impact on his readers he throws out that 8 people were killed and 600 became sick due to a salmonella outbreak.

With all this in mind it is safe to say that soon our land will no longer be able to provide for us. It would be very interesting to take all this and go a bit further into the food industry and see how they truly operate with no red curtains to cover up the truth.

Article #2

Alan Weisman wrote an article that he titled “Nothing Wasted, Everything Gained” which conjures images of resourcefulness and the waste not motto. Weisman you can tell at the beginning of his article that he is more of a story teller writer. He describes the area as though he is driving nowhere. Weisman even calls the roads “dust-chocked” and when the rain begins he describes the road as “jeep-swallowing” because of all of the mud. Taking you from all the negative thoughts he brings you to an opening filled with colorful houses that sounds like a dreamland.

Weisman’s first sign of what he is really trying to get at in this article is when he mentions the buildings having solar collectors. He then goes on to explain the scientific experiment that started in 1971 that ended with the creation of a town that is self-surviving. Started by an idea from a man named Paolo Lugari who had a vision to make a place that seemed to be inhabitable and inhabit it.

Now my first thoughts will all this makes me think of a cult initially that wants to sustain itself and be left alone form society, but Weisman does a good job to quickly deter these thoughts by adding “the scientist weren’t seeking an alternative lifestyle.” It would very interesting to visit this town of 200 people and see how exactly it operates and look even further at everything they have created out of what they have been given by the forest.

Weisman absolutely blows my mind by describing all of the materials used in creating things like water purifiers and heaters. These scientists did everything right by using all of the resources given to them making sure they waste nothing. I can’t see a negative in being resourceful and leaving nothing to waste away. The best thing, the scientist’s community is one of “peace and sanity.”

Article #3

“Sperm Whales Bear Testimony to Ocean Pollution” is exactly as its title says. Written by Dan Ferber who talks about the ocean pollution is not just along the coast line, but is also in mid-ocean areas as well. It is very heart wrenching to know that we truly are affecting the whole earth, not just the places we have popularized. There is no arguing hard evidence taken from 424 whales showing that they have pollutants in their body even though they are far away from land. This means if the whales are being affected in such a huge way what other animals are we, as humans, affecting? This is an older article written in 2005 and Ferber does talk about some studies that are planned for 2006 and 2007 on testing humans that live close to contaminated and heavily polluted areas. It would be great to know if this research was ever carried out and if so what their findings where.

Ferber makes it clear that the contamination of the ocean is “not pretty.” He also makes it clearly understood that human made chemicals are everywhere and this is not something to be proud of. Humans are truly destroying everything including what is thought to be pristine. The whale research, Ferber points out, is a big indicator of the health of the world’s oceans. What a depressing reality to know that the world’s ocean is on the brink of destruction.

Website

Richard went out to make a difference, creating a blogging community labeled Guerrilla Gardening. It is easy for the reader to get lost in his writings as he talks about great gardening ideas that you can do around the city of London. That is not all though he talks about what is going on with guerrilla gardening in Poland and even the United States, specifically New York.

The point Richard hopes to get across is to create a community where public space to grow plants are no longer neglected. From the looks of his community he is accomplishing just that. By taking these public planting places and turning them into beautiful gardens he is not only helping out the environment, but helping out the local resident’s eyes. Richard gives 12 steps to too follow when going after “orphaned land.” He puts it in warfare terms, which makes it cute and fun to read.

All of this hard work has barely any negatives, besides maybe a back ache from the lifting of plants and the bending over to dig. For the sake of argument, a true negative would no longer being able to continue the guerrilla gardening because of the lack of donations. It seems that to plant and replenish the earth with which it is naturally supposed to be given costs money. The sad truth it is, but it would only be a minor setback purely because where there is a will there is a way and someone with that much drive will find a way to continue what they love to do.

Film

“The Inconvenient Truth” is directed by Davis Guggenhiem, but the true star and creator of “An Inconvenient Truth” is Al Gore. Al Gore gives a speech about the issues of global warming and showing people that this is not only a United States problem, but a worldwide one that could have been avoided or lessened if we as humans paid attention to scientists just forty years ago.

Al Gore’s speech is truly effective to anyone who watches this video, not only was it effective, but he made it fun and easy to listen to by incorporating some of his real life experiences into the speech.

His power points are telling and give an amazing realization of how global warming is affecting us in more ways than just one. He starts with the heat being locked into our atmosphere along with flooding in places that usually have drought and drought in places that usually have flooding. He doesn’t just give his argument on the subject, but countless others, proving that in some cases scientists in there reports where made to alter their findings about global warming! If that is not American politics I can’t tell you what is.

Going further into his speech he lightly covers the effects that global warming has on animals. It would be interesting to research that further because I am very curious on what the extinction of some animals, plants, and insects have on the earth. Learning about what humans are doing to the earth and its ecosystems is by itself depressing. It almost makes me wonder where we would be at today if Al Gore had won presidency.