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Art & Design Perspectives III, School of Art & Design, University of Michigan
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement 1
9/21/2009
The idea of tracking the journey a product makes before it winds up in one’s possession has been a key point in Professor Trumpey’s lectures and is an idea that fascinates me.
I have a selective and hypocritical conscience when it comes to this mode of thinking, with no other excuse than that it is very hard not to. For instance, I consider myself, to an extent, to be a moral eater. I don’t buy or eat meat, or meat products. It is sometimes tempting to feel really wonderful about this, but the truth is that I still support a whole variety of animal cruelty practices, because I both buy and eat egg and dairy products.
When it comes to clothing, my conscience rarely even enters the equation. I have shirts from all corners of the world. Some from places I didn’t even know existed. (Ever heard of Macau?) I’m aware of this, and, in a vague sort of way, I’m aware that the conditions in which these shirts were made are probably not what most would consider moral . . . But I still bought them.
So why am I willing to go out of my way to (at least partly) not support the cruelty of animals, but not willing to do the same for the sake of human beings? This question both fascinates and disturbs me, and I don’t have an answer to it.
It could be that the idea of a slaughterhouse in the United States is more tangible to me than the idea of a sweatshop in China. Thanks to a number of animal activists that have taken footage of slaughterhouses while undercover, I have a pretty good idea of what a slaughterhouse is. Enough to feel that it’s not something I could support and feel okay about. Where as the idea of a sweatshop in China is still somewhat ambiguous to me.
Whatever the reason might be, it’s not really a proper excuse. As buyers in what is, basically, a free market society, we choose to a large extent what gets made and what does not. In buying a t-shirt, we are essentially supporting every part of the process that produced it, and then transported it to where we got it from. From the pesticides used in growing the cotton, to the working conditions in which it was manufactured, to the gas used to power the barge that brought it over here. With our money we are saying, “Yes, this is acceptable. Please continue.”
Unfortunate though it may be, we live in a world powered by money. If we’d like to see the world become a better place, we have to be willing to alter how we think about the things we buy.
Danielle Battaglia
ReplyDeleteOf all the topics we discussed and read about this past week, the most intriguing to me is organic foods. I believe if we can find some way to fully switch to only producing, selling and eating organic foods, so many problems can be resolved. Granted many new problems could arise, but the main thing would be that we would all be a lot healthier and could find a way to deal with these new problems. And this is a real possibility as we can see with Cuba’s organic food revolution. Much less energy will also be spent to produce the food. The bottom line I believe is that we have to get a little more proactive about this and stop being lazy and settling for easier, cheaper more convenient unhealthy food. There are chemicals and preservatives in nearly everything we consume, except organic food. And before talking about it in class and reading the steer’s life, I never even considered the chemicals that unintentionally get into our food such as the antibiotics in the cow products. The chemicals in food don’t just link to obesity. It has been proven that preservatives and chemicals can cause cancer, heart disease and a whole host of other problems many people don’t even know about. It is going to take extra work time and money, but the trade off for good health is priceless. Not to mention the money we would save in other ways such as shipping and energy could balance out the extra costs of grass feeding, vacuum sealing and the other more expensive methods of obtaining organic foods. We would also be saving huge amounts on antibiotics, and the manure used to fertilize our food would be cleaner. Cuba went organic by necessity, but if we were to do it, it may prove more difficult. We are a capitalistic country and making money easy and fast is what everyone’s goal is. Taking more time, money and care to make quality organic food would not be an easy shift for many farmers who are used to harvesting large fast quantities of produce. And we couldn’t be certain everyone would follow a no chemical law even if there were one. The fact is not everything we eat is all grown in the U.S. either, and trying to get other countries to go organic may be asking too much at the present economic time. But perhaps we could take a cue from Cuba and have as many people as possible plant their own small garden of produce to feed their family and maybe trade neighbors for other produce they grow. It sounds like taking a step back into the agricultural age, but then again food was all-organic back then so perhaps it’s the right way to go. My Aunt has a small tomato garden and she grows enough tomatoes for my family and hers all summer. We never buy tomatoes anymore. If everyone did something similar to this, and bought less and less from the store, it would put pressure on the manufacturers to make their produce organic to pick up sales again. In truth our country is making an attempt to go organic, there are more and more ads on TV and in stores that say organic, or no preservatives, or no high fructose corn syrup. My family shops at a supermarket chain called Trader Joe’s that sells mainly all organic food from cookies with no high fructose corn syrup, grass fed beef and fruit and veggies that that organic. The price is a little higher, but it is really worth it to know you are eating food that won’t get you sick or kill you down the road. If we gradually rebel against the processed food industry maybe we can make a change for a healthier more efficient world.
Laura Gillmore
ReplyDeleteLast semester my English class read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and a lot of his research and ideas seem to come back to the ADP III lecture this semester. I have to admit that I at first thought this class was very “hippie-dippy” if that makes any sense – I mean, let’s be honest, our first paper was to discover our relationship with a plant. But I think that Joe Trumpey, this class, and authors like Eric Schlosser are really trying to make us look into the specific details of the things that surround us in our daily life. These details being the origins of things that we might eat, consume, purchase etc.
For example there are many things we might eat that we are unaware are bad for us or the environment we live in. That would include something like beef from cows, which we read about in the “Steer’s Life”. The details we learned were that cows are being injected with hormones as to make them grow bigger and faster. These hormones are in turn bad for us. That detail I and I would assume most of us new before lecture (that’s why I only eat organic produce) but in that article we learned why hormones are being used. I found it really interesting to read that the reason why farmers are giving their cows hormones is because it enables them to slaughter cows at a younger age. One of the interviewed farmers described how when his grandfather was slaughtering cows to when he is now slaughtering cows, the age of cow slaughtering has dramatically decreased. Another thing I found interesting is how one of the interviewed farmers stated that he would love to stop giving the cows hormones, he just has to keep up with the competitor. It’s sort of a vicious cycle that these farmers have to go through because they have to take care of themselves financially also. So its interesting to learn the complicated (almost intimate) details of something people eat everyday.
Another one of things we consume that was further brought up into detail is corn. I learned to avoid things like junk food that uses corn syrup from my mother a while ago. Although scientists are not positive, they do strongly believe that the surplus of corn syrup in food products has led to the increase in obesity. That’s pretty obvious. Yet, I am going to confess that I did not know that corn production was so cheap. I knew it was used in so many things we use in our environment. I guess I should have just made that connection. Anyway, I was amazed to hear that things like little paper products and their coatings came from corn. Corn is used to create so many things in the room I am sitting in right now.
Discovering the origins and details of things surrounding my environment leaves me with feelings of bewilderment, admittedly. I avoid red meat (“avoid” as in try not to eat it) and eat foods that are organic yet I feel like the best thing for the environment is to become a vegetarian. Is it so wrong that I don’t want to? Am I hurting the environment because I want to have chicken in my salad? I also feel torn when it comes to the overproduction of corn-issue. I feel like its disgusting that corn syrup is in everything because it is so much cheaper than sugar cane but it allows cheap foods to become available to families who can’t afford organic food. I am not trying to solve anything but its kind of unfortunate to think that people are nearly forced to eat bad foods and thus suffer from serious health issues (such as obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes etc.) because that’s the only food they can afford.
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response 2
The World Clock
I’m an artist and I’m not good at math, but even so, numbers have the power to amaze me like few other things can. Because even though, when they get too large, and I’m not able to truly understand them, I can still understand something as a singular, which makes the immense multiples seem that much more astounding.
Take for instance: one mile. It’s long enough to be a pain to walk, too short to not feel guilty about driving it. Now take the earth: It has a circumference of 24,901.55 miles. That’s too many miles to walk, or drive for that matter. Now take the sun: its circumference is approximately 109 times larger than that of the earth, and whose distance from the earth is 92.58 million miles. Then we get to stars like Antares whose diameter is 700 times that of the sun and is more than 1000 light years away, and suddenly my mind is blown, and all I can do to try to make sense of it all is to go back to my understanding of one single mile.
Now, take a chicken. It’s the animal that lays the eggs we eat. Having a basic understanding of one chicken is not so hard, but wrapping your mind around 34,897,715,000 chickens, which is how many have been slaughtered so far this year (as of 9/28/09, 11:02PM), requires some mental gymnastics that I’m not prepared to undertake.
Then if we think about people. How say, there are over 34 million of them living with HIV. Or how over 5 and a half million have died already this year from cancer. Suddenly then, these numbers become real, because we know people, we love people, and we know the pain of losing those people.
Numbers tell a story that emotions cannot, though. To me, numbers tell me that our species’ priorities are in serious need of redirection. If I look at a United States military budget, numbers tell me that we spend too much of our energy building bombs, and not enough caring for the sick. If I consider the scientific estimations of how many stars there are in the universe, numbers tell me that I should spend less time worrying about my problems and more time looking up at the sky. To me, despite their inherent incomprehensibility, numbers have a way of making things crystal clear. I only need to remember what the singular means in concrete terms, and numbers put things in clear and indisputable perspective.
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
http://www.co-intelligence.org/newsletter/comparisons.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_distance_from_the_sun_to_the_Earth
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_circumference_of_the_sun
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080105140646AAkyET2
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, but He is no longer the only one to do so. When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: he could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: he could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.” (p.72)
ReplyDeleteThis quote stood out in particular to me while reading Sand County Almanac because I find it relevant to many of the environmental issues we are having today. The quote can continue on to more modern examples of inventions that give any man the right to give or take. Such as China having technological advances that give the people the ability to mass produce any product for extremely cheap. Yet these technologies are also giving them the opportunity to pollute the airways with exhaust and toxic fumes.
There is no easy way for a country on their way to an economic boom to also have serious concerns for the environment. Man is a greedy breed, and we often see what’s in front of us and go for it, and worry about the mess later.
It is a terrifying thought to think about the power man has to destroy everything we know. Weapons of mass destruction are an invention that give man the power terminate entire countries in seconds. Who deserves that kind of power? And just because we CAN, does this mean we will someday?
- jen silverstein
What I’ve chosen to write about for my weekly statement number two is a subject that we’ve beaten to death already in lecture as well as in our personal class. However, I feel like putting together one end-all commentary on it is something that would be useful to me in terms of really gathering my thoughts on the issue. This focus is on how we’ve lost our connection to nature in today’s society and whether we should get it back, or even why it’s not important anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt all started, really, with Professor Trumpey’s poison ivy versus Mercedes-Benz logo showdown in our preliminary exam. As I’m sure he expected, very few people were able to identify the poison ivy, and he brought this up in the following lecture. However, from that point, it seemed that the students of the class were incensed that he would even dare assume they wouldn’t know this stuff, and why it was important. Probably at least a dozen students raised their hand to say “We don’t know this because we don’t need to in today’s society” in slightly different ways. This personally was just irritating to listen to on some level. Obviously, not many people are going to argue that the identification of poison ivy is essential to modern life in America today. However, that’s not the point, at all.
The point of the poison ivy question as well as the larger issues surrounding it is simply that we’ve begun to lose our connection with nature. For generations we’ve slowly been moving away from the natural world as much as possible, in an attempt to be as much in control as possible. The sort of bond that Native Americans had with their environment was enviable and unbelievable, especially compared with today’s standards.
I think that the loss of this connection is a very negative thing. When we lost touch with nature, we also lost our respect for it. There are so many phenomena, organisms, and processes in nature that are awe-inspiring that we don’t deserve to ignore it in favor of our own creations. And, as we lose our sense of wonder about these amazing natural occurrences, they seem less and less important, and the idea of completely wiping them out and destroying them seems much more palatable.
I think that the connection from us to our environment is one of the saddest casualties of the modern age and, though in the way we live today it would be impossible to exactly duplicate how it was in the past, it’s up to us to make a more concentrated effort to be more actively connected to the world in which we live, and not just the parts made out of concrete.
Could you make it to class without being able to identify any plants? Probably. But it couldn’t hurt, either.
Megan Sawyer
ReplyDeleteResponse #3
Finishing Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” was really a little bit upsetting for me. Not because I didn’t enjoy the book (I did), but all the arguments seemed like they were written for this day and age, not more than fifty years ago. The fact that a book that old is still so relevant, and still seems so fresh, is disturbing to say the least. Despite the fact that there is clearly something off kilter about how we are misusing our environment, change is slow and plodding.
Oddly, I think this almost has something to do with our American mindset as a whole. Living in Ann Arbor, and surrounding myself with fairly like-minded people, I often forget that there is a large percentage of our society that still holds fast to the fact that climate change is a myth.
This fact was brought to the forefront of my mind while watching some of the backlash from “The Story of Stuff”. If you haven’t watched it, “The Story” is basically a manifesto to stop the high-paced consumer-driven lifestyle that we live in. Reasons being that American hyper-consumerism and cheap goods comes at the cost of not only our natural resources, but also the quality of life of people in disadvantaged countries and frankly our own mental health. Some of the data might be a little inflated, but as a whole it contains sound information and a very valid social position. I watched this and though “Yeah, it seems insane that we have so many belongings that we don’t need (myself definitely included), the social and environmental ramifications aren’t worth it”.
So I was more than surprised when I saw the Glen Beck “review” of this video from Fox News. Beck was appalled that they were showing this video in schools, stating that it was shameless “liberal indoctrination” and an assault on capitalism. Not that YouTube represents the shining intellectuals of society (or even the norms of society), but it was disgruntling that all the video’s comments wholeheartedly agreed with him. What Beck was basically saying was that our system is not in fact broken, and if people heeded this video and did stop buying, that capitalism would fail and our wonderful America would be ruined.
Which makes me wonder, why in the world is capitalism put on such a pedestal in our society? Should buying and selling really be the driving force of our culture, the thing that we hold to at all costs? I personally don’t think so. I wonder if the reason we are in such a precarious relationship with our natural world is because of our modern capitalist notions.
It’s this clinging to old ideas, old systems that are proving faulty that “A Sand County Almanac” seeks to upend. Leopold states “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions.” The reason this seems to ring so true now is becase we (American society as a whole) appear to still have the same “loyalties, affections, and convictions” as we did back when Leopold put pen to paper. “The Story of Stuff” is essentially a modernized version of the same theme, adding a human rights element.
I wonder if our cultural attitude will ever shift, or if we as a nation have too much pride in our stated political and economical ideologies to ever become more than what we are today, and I wonder if there is any way one person could possible make a dent. Part of me thinks our “group project” assignment would only be truly effective if our entire ADP class agreed on an issue and mobilized. That would be pretty awesome.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteResponse #4
ReplyDeleteThe WWOOF program sounds really interesting; I’ll have to look into it! I worked on a farm during most of high school, and it was a really great experience; probably one of the reasons I get so passionate about this whole discussion we’ve been having about food. The farmer I worked for didn’t use organic production methods, and said that many farmers he knew that were organic still used pesticides, they were just “organic” pesticides. He didn’t use them because the product was still too new and since the farm was quite small, he needed to get maximum productivity out of his land to make a living. I was reminded of this when Prof. Trumpey shared his opinion that buying local might be the best option over organic. The spectrum of what can be “organic” is definitely something to keep in mind.
On an entirely different note, the readings from Collapse left me feeling a lot like the author when he says: “While I was writing this chapter, I found my own feeling lurching between despair at the mind-numbing litany of depressing details, and hope inspired by the drastic and rapidly implemented measures of environmental protection that China has already adopted”. It does really seem like for every great new “green” thing people are trying, there are things going on in the world like the insane pollution caused by Chinese industry. Wrapping your head around the statistics in Collapse can be hard (what does a 400 ton shipment of “electronic garbage” even look like?), so I suggest you take a look at photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work (http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/index.html). I learned about him a few years ago, and his landscapes of open landfills are staggering. It helps put a face, and increases the impact of what can be very dry statistics.
Reading the Collapse chapter about China was very frustrating, because part of me can’t comprehend why a government would put economic growth and “First-World” living standards as more important than the overall health of it’s land and people. I suppose growing up and living in a “First World” society I can’t see what the attraction is, why anyone would want to emulate our frantic wasteful lifestyles. Aren’t there greater things in this world to aspire to, than just an abundance of consumer goods? Of course I say this sitting on my couch after just eating a full dinner and typing on my MacBook. Having lived a life blessedly free from want, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to aspire to owning a car and a lot of things. Still, can be an area between poverty and excess.
The case studies in Collapse between the Dominican Republic and Haiti were also fascinating. Two countries share one island, and due to their divergent histories, you can now see a marked difference in the landscape at the border of the countries. Author Jared Diamond goes into great detail describing both the subtle environmental differences between the east and west of the island and the tumultuous political histories, and how those contributed to the devastation in Haiti and comparably less problematic situation in the Dominican Republic. Reading especially the chronicles of the colonialism, rebellion, dictatorships, and presidencies, I wonder how much of the environmental damage was more left to chance, than any willful destructive tendencies of either country. I’m not frustrated like I am when I read about China, because I feel like the citizens of those countries didn’t exactly know the far-reaching effects of what they were doing at the time. They had different concerns.
That being said, I think that it’s pretty abhorrent when a modern government knowingly foregoes environmentally responsible choices (especially ones that are clearly a detriment to human health). Unlike post-colonial Haiti, today we have at least some idea of the impact that our industrialization makes on the environment surrounding us, and should act accordingly. As Diamond says “a society’s fate lies in its own hands and depends substantially on its own choices”.
Shaili Das
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #3
For this weeks statement I would like to discuss the topic of fishing and technology. Joe’s class discussion regarding the increase in fishing and methods the fishers go about in order to get their fish made me to start thinking; is there any other way to go about fishing without negatively impacting our environment?
I didn’t realize that fishing was similar to cattle herding. When Joe described how salmon farms existed throughout all the major rivers I was shocked. I didn’t realize that the fish are kept in cages and then when they are fully-grown those are sold. Although this didn’t seem as cruel as the cattle or chicken I didn’t realize how much impact it has on the environment. It was when Joe explained how the excess poop causes issues in biodiversity. What I would like to suggest is possibly have the farmers clean the poop out of the water so that it doesn’t effect the environment as much.
Secondly I feel like it’s unnecessary to feed the salmon with dye in order to make it pinker. I know the dye technically doesn’t harm us when we eat it however it makes me wonder how a certain chemical that is released into the water has no impact on the marine life as a whole.
Joe’s lecture also taught me that by having these fish farms the food chain within the rivers and lakes go off balance. This is because apparently fisheries try to produce fish that are the easiest to maintain. For example, most of the salmon is Atlantic salmon because they can with stand most of the environmental changes compared to other types. This however creates a problem because since they are so aggressive they kill of their ancestor species forcing them to become extinct. This again is an example of how we are impacting our earth because we have been ignorant to what impact we have on it.
What I would like to suggest is what if we monitored our fish farms and our intake of fish so that we wouldn’t have such less fish these days. Maybe if we bred the fish only where they were supposed to and created mechanisms to collect their poop then it wouldn’t be hurting their environment as much. Also what if we created “fake” lakes where we would mimic the environment for these fish except we could control the lake so that it wouldn’t impact the rest of the environment negatively yet we could still get the type and amount of fish we would like. Lastly, what if we only ate fish that was in during that season. Then we wouldn’t have to place fish in locations that they are not used to and won’t disrupt their lifestyle.
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #3
A sand County Almanac
October 5, 2009
In my discussion group last week, we discussed A Sand County Almanac. Towards the end of class I made a comment along the lines of “ I feel like A Sand County Almanac is about nothing and has no meaning other than nature.” After seeing some of my classmate’s reaction to my comment. I decided to re-read pages 53-92 and to go over my notes from our previous class discussion on A Sand County Almanac, to see if I could find a deeper meaning for myself.
I decided to break this up into two parts. In part one I wanted to figure out what the author wants his readers to realize about nature. And part two; I want to find something in the book, perhaps a quote or sentence that interest me enough to find a deeper meaning in it.
While this book is not an easy read for me, and I sometimes find it to be a little repetitive, the one thing I wanted to figure out was, what exactly does the author want his readers to get out of reading this book. And what I concluded is, the author wants us to understand that everything in nature matters down to the tiniest insect. And if we took the time to be aware of nature in its entirety we would grow to understand it and appreciate it as much as he does, if not more. Now I would like to talk about a sentence in the book that interested me.
On page 70, the author says that “ It is interesting to meditate that this insect’s preference for squatting in the sun determines not only her own continuity as a species, but also the future figure of my pine, and my own success as a wielder of axe and shovel. I know we talked about this sentence briefly in class, but I wanted to elaborate a little more on it after thinking about it further. What I got out of this sentence is that not only is everything in nature connected in someway, but also the smallest insect can have a significant amount of impact on things in nature much larger than itself. More importantly, looking at that statement on a larger scale, everything/everyone in on this planet is connected in someway and things that we do here on earth can affect our planet greatly. For example, the carbon dioxide that comes out of cars is severely hurting our planet.
A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold is and environmental handbook on how people should view and treat the environment as well as the reality of how people actually interact with the environment. Leopold takes the reader through his own experiences on the land and by doing so instills the idea of awareness in the mind of the reader. His essay titled “Good Oak” presents the parallel between art and nature. Ingrained with a rich history, the oak slows down the pace and gives attention to all details of time. The same as with a painting, one can appreciate the piece more when actually viewing its process.
ReplyDeleteLeopold poetically integrates the necessity for people to understand how other species are affected by what we do as humans, whether directly or indirectly. By becoming ore aware of our surroundings, we can improve our impact on the world. This posing the question, how can we create personal connections to the land? Humans are not supposed to be separate from the cycle of all animals. In fact there are many important lessons to learn form the plants and animals around us. It is an extreme problem that we do not understand and relate to the world around us because the chance that if our society were to collapse we would not be able to identify the necessary plants in our environment. The devastating impact people have made on this planet is to the point where if we do not revolutionize our habits, we will run out of resources and our world will inevitably collapse. Leopold is able to address our issues without diminishing the light of hope, and that is what people need in order to persist in this fight.
Laura Gillmore
ReplyDeleteTuesday, October 6th, 2009
Weekly Statement #3
In last weeks discussion in ADP there were a lot of interesting thoughts brought up and I also learned knew things too. I’m going to use this week’s Weekly Statement to discuss what I found personally beneficial.
First off, I really liked the discussion of organic food. I do eat organic food and food that is as fresh and as natural as possible, but the reason why I eat organic is maybe for more selfish reasons. One: I don’t want the growth hormones in my body. My eating organic foods is not because I care for the environment. I’m not saying that I don’t, I’m just saying that I’ve been eating organic for a while because I don’t want the growth hormones in me. Its not because I’m concerned about the cows and the bad gasses/chemical reactions they release. Two: I also eat organic or fresh foods because I think processed foods are scary. Twinkies? Come on! Those are disgusting! I also heard that the Twinkie itself is a precipitate of a chemical reaction. Anyway, I don’t eat processed foods because they go through so many processes (to be redundant) and I’m trying to watch my girlish figure. If I want to stay in shape I’ve told myself to get to foods that are as closest they can be from the ground So to continue on why I liked the organic food discussion from last week is because I learned a lot. I knew the obvious things such as organic foods feel or taste a certain way but I didn’t know that there are certain things one could do to differentiate from organic to unorganic. For example, I never knew that someone could taste the difference between an apple with pesticides and an apple without. I thought that was really cool actually. I know that I can differentiate from an apple clearly on steroids (hormones) and an apple without, but the fact that a person can taste the pesticides on their food is revolting. It’s eye opening too. Another thing that I learned last week was the egg test. I’m still trying to pinpoint how exactly it is performed but apparently if you crack an organic egg and an unorganic egg open you can notice the different in the yoke. You can also notice the difference in texture of the eggshell. So this makes me wonder: what other little tests, experiments, or comparisons can be made with foods? Not that I don’t love reading a Sand County Almanac (sarcasm) but I think it would be cool to do some sort of organic versus unorganic food test in discussion. I don’t know what other foods this could be possible with but maybe we can do some sort of taste testing thing that Ashley mentioned she had to learn in Culinary classes. We could try to see the difference between low-grade, hormone-injected meat versus local organic meat. We could try soda with real sugar cane versus soda with corn syrup. I think it would be an efficient way to get everybody participating in the class. It might even create some organic converts. Overall, this discussion was really interesting for me because it focused on something I do everyday in life: eat.
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response 3
So, I watched, The Future Of Food, and naturally, as I’m sure it was meant to do, it got me all angry and green-tempered. Of course, I’d heard of the controversies surrounding genetic engineering, and of patenting life before watching this video, in much the same way I’d heard of the gigantic collections of trash floating in the pacific: in passing, with brief surprise, then vague mental dismissal.
Watching a whole movie on the idea, (and on other things of course), forces you fully consider the implications of controlling, and then patenting life. Life, after all, is not controllable in the same way a plastic or a metal is. If you manipulate life, or create something new out of it, it is not going to stay that way, as a plastic or metal (essentially) would. It spreads and it evolves. I believe an example used in the film was the idea of a toaster. If you make a toaster and get it patented, the toaster is not going to breed, make more toasters, and eventually evolve into an oven. With, say, a seed, there are no guarantees.
Controlling life, at least at this point, is still beyond the complete understanding, if not power, of humans. Not to say that it would be unethical to tinker with the mechanics of life (as I think many, from a religious perspective, would argue), but rather that this should take place in a contained lab until we are certain of the possible consequences. Because, unlike a toaster, life cannot be controlled, and if we make a mistake, (the idea of the “suicide-gene” came up in the film; A seed that is designed to be sterile after one crop. The implications of this gene spreading to other plants are frightening to consider) there’s no telling how far it will spread.
At a very gut-level, there is something simultaneously horrifying and intriguing about this manipulation of life. It causes one to think: if we can develop a “suicide gene” in plants now, what could we do to human genes ten years in the future? Could we control the genetics of people? Perhaps there are as many positive possibilities as there are negative ones at this prospect, I can only speculate. Still, I can’t help get the feeling that some are venturing too close to something that they can’t completely understand, with an eye on short-term profit, without consideration of long-term ramifications. I for one would prefer to err on the side of caution.
Weekly Statement 3
ReplyDeleteAfter Professor Trumpey’s lecture today, I really started to think about certain aspects of trying to live environmentally. More specifically, to some of the reasons and thoughts people have with respect to taking personal actions to save the environment.
I personally have never been the greenest person in the world. I do pay some attention to what I’m doing, but I’m also not the person bringing their own bags to the grocery store or searching a farmer’s market for organic foods. Some of this behavior I guess could be attributed to the usual reasons of not wanting to change personal life or even just some degree of laziness, but I think that an underlying cause for a lot of people is the intimidation of trying to live green.
There are so many things to do to save the environment and so many of them have varied opinions on their effectiveness or confusing details that it can be a little discouraging to try to begin living that way.
I think that this idea was reinforced by sections of Professor Trumpey’s lecture today in which he almost systematically corrected everyone on what was actually healthy for the environment. One of the recent posts on this very blog is about abandoning plastic bags and switching to paper, and now we learn that the transportation of these paper bags may in fact be wasting energy.
The environment and our effects on it is a hugely nuanced and multifaceted problem, and I think it’s a serious problem that an average citizen may not be able to get their mind around just how it all connects. I think that a lack of understanding and a need for simplification is a serious obstacle in convincing the population to follow green principles and really changing their life.
(For 9/29)(I posted on the wrong section blog that week, and I am reposting it here)
ReplyDeleteThis week in lecture we learned about consumerism, agriculture, food, energy, and about the carbon cycle. We were introduced to different cultures and their material choices. One thing that was very apparent from this lecture is that America leads a very materialistic life. Peter Menzel’s Material World: A Global Family Portrait compares different countries of the world and shows, through statistics and photos, how much “stuff” an average family owns. It was stunning to see a photo of all the stuff an average American household has compared to an average household in Thailand, Mali, or Samoa. In one photo, for example, there is a happy family of four from Thailand sitting on their family motorcycle. Behind them are their belongings, which include basic, necessary items such as a table, a fan, a television, refrigerator, dresser, bed, and a dog. The photo with the American family shows a family of three, standing in their backyard with an immense amount of belongings. They have at least three bikes, a car, slides, a basketball hoop, three beds, children’s toys, a carriage, at least four desks, etc. The two photos compared to each other blatantly showed me that Americans have too much unnecessary “stuff.”
I also learned a lot from reading Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. One quote that stood out to me in particular was “Why is the shovel regarded as a symbol of drudgery? Perhaps because most shovels are dull… I am uncertain which of these two facts is cause and which effect.” This observation was interesting because it is true. In today’s culture, planting with a shovel is considered drudgery. Leopold talks about how he enjoys shoveling because he knows how to shovel the correct way. It does not feel “dull” when it digs into soil, but instead feels sharp. It is the fact that people today do not practice the act if shoveling enough to know how to enjoy it. Also, he points out that “acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets” but anyone with a shovel can actually plant a pine and do handiwork.
WEEKLY STATEMENT 3
ReplyDeleteIn part 2 of Sand County Almanac the narrator tells his many stories about where he has been and what he has seen. The reader learns many life lessons along the way of his travels. In chapter 13 the narrator talks about peoples' ability to enjoy nature with what is pretty or what is aesthetically pleasing (ex: the crow, actual sand counties, and the Flambeau- damn put in, trees chopped down). In 14, the narrator gives a very strong opinion about the state of Illinois. His views claim that the people have no idea about their own land, no respect for the state. I find these to be very presumptuous opinions for somebody who is merely driving through the state by bus. In 15 we learn lessons about our predators, and the natural order of life. (examples, the wolf-deer, escudilla-grizzly) – I appreciate the story in the beginning of this chapter about the top of the mountain- I don’t feel like he is preaching in this small part. The following chapters are about marshes and invasive species a “necessary evil” in some cases.
One of my favorite quotes- "I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer." Chapter 15 pg. 132 , I think it means every being in nature has natural predators. Once the wolves were killed off and done away with, the deer over ate the crops and left a barren mountain with starving deer.
Some issues I had with part II came with the narrator’s perception of Illinois, I do not think he is entitled to these opinions. Another general concern I have with the novel is narrator’s love for nature, yet passion for hunting.
Laura Gillmore
ReplyDeleteLast week plastic bags were brought up. I have always tried avoiding the use of plastic bags as much as possible. It’s not necessarily my wanting to encourage the ban of plastic bags but it’s more of my dislike of the random bundle of plastic bags that amount under my kitchen sink or closet. But as of recently I’ve learned that there’s a negative impact of these plastic bags. I didn’t know plastic bags were so harmful to the environment and us. Well, I guess at this point in ADP everything is terrible for environment. But I had no idea that the production of plastic bags was so bad for us. I had no idea that the print on the bags were so toxic, that the bags took at least 100 years to decompose, and that the bags harmed humans in ways of getting in our breast milk.
I decided to read the World is Green article titled “is there an alternate solution?” and something stood out at me. The author suggested using reusable bags. As we discussed in class reusable bags maybe expensive but they are a one-time investment. They save the unnecessary amount of plastic bags that build up at home which will most likely become harmful waste when you throw them away. I decided to read the comments people posted on the article and one reader made a really good point. He said “BYOB bring your own bag, just like our parents used to, when going grocery shopping”. That is an excellent point for several reasons. Yes, it’s pretty obvious to bring your own bags but also reusing those extra plastic bags is a good idea! So the person at the register might get annoyed with having to bag with crumpled bags. Big deal. Its better for the environment to reuse the plastic bags one already has, which therefore reduces the amount of plastic bags, needed. The reader’s comment is also excellent because he brings up the point of doing things like how our parents used to. My mother starts her sentence with “well, when I was growing up” all to often. However, in this scenario of reducing and reusing our “stuff” my mother is very right. Almost everyday my mother reminds me how in her day products and things were built to last longer than they are now. To make this a little more clearly, my mom still uses her electric mixer, blender, and even BLOWDRYER from when she was my age… in the 70’s. I have gone through three Conair blow dryers while my mother is still using her same one. So when she says, “things aren’t made how they used to be” she is absolutely right. I feel like all sorts of electronics and overall STUFF has been made to last for a short period of time just so consumers are forced to buy more. I understand companies want to continue making money but imagine all those electronic parts, wires, plastic, rubber that they are just wasting. This is really sad. So how does this relate to plastic bags? Well the more one buys the more one consumes (because things are falling apart) which means the more plastic bags are being used to carry these items out of the store. It’s a positive feedback system! Does this mean that another alternate solution is to make companies make things last longer? I don’t know. To be honest products have become like clothing. Things like lamps, kitchenware, television sets, and other electronic products are made to have trendy innovative design so they look cool when put in your house. Style changes from year to year so people continually want the latest design. So where do we stand as artists, designers, and people who care about the environment? That’s a tough one because it is our passion to create something with aesthetic and visual presentation yet we have to realize we are creating something that will probably be thrown away and replaced with a new design. That’s why I like ADP III we are made to realize that the environment should be a key part in our design.
As discussed in lecture today, humans are naturally developed to be social creatures. It is in our biological DNA. Relatives, such as the Bleeding Heart Baboon, possess the largest brains in the animal kingdom next to our own. And as expected, these creatures are significantly social beings, living in populations up to 2,000. These baboons live in an environment where they are socializing with each other on an hourly basis.
ReplyDeleteSo, back to humans, our brains have enabled us to develop beyond the animal kingdom because of our ability to socialize and understand outside influences; we can work together.
Over the decades, as we continue to develop and utilize the natural word to produce and consume goods, our happiness seems to diminish. US material goods and consumption has more than tripled since WWII. Houses are more than triple the size, and self-storage is in the top five growths since the past ten years. But how much of this is really equating to a happier, healthier society?
An annual poll since WWII has proved that the American happiness level peaked in 1956 and has steadily declined since, demonstrating that money and goods can only take happiness to a certain point.
But when happiness was viewed globally, some of the richest Americans proved to be just as happy as the Amish and Masai. Proving that happiness simply cannot come from material items; our emotions were not built to stimulate from money but from family and community. As proven earlier, humans are built to be social. And when we take away unnecessary goods, you can see the correlation between happiness and family. If families in third world countries are just as happy, what are we doing wrong? When will people finally realize the downfall of money and goods and its destruction of humanity’s happiness?
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly statement #4
October 12, 2009
The one thing that has been bothering me since last weeks lecture is the potential depletion of our oil reserves due to the population increase of China and India. It’s one thing to hear the repetitions of going green and breaking our dependence on foreign oil, but it’s another thing to actually see the numbers and projections as to when we will run out of oil. When Professor Trumpey talked about it in his lecture, it hit me. What are we doing to get ready for this oil depletion? And thinking about what we have done thus far in terms of going green and decreasing the amount of gas powered cars. And in thinking about that, I just answered my own question, which is…not a whole lot. I believe that the government is not doing enough to ensure that we are headed in the right direction when it comes to GOING GREEN! As it stands, I can only think of two electric cars that exist right now today in the United States. One is the Tesla, which is currently on the road and the other one is the Chevy Volt, which is in production right now. So, right now today we only have two cars that are/will be powered by electricity. If you ask me, that’s a sad attempt at us trying to rid our dependence on oil. I feel that the government needs to take more extreme measures towards getting rid of our dependence on foreign oil. For example, Former President of the Dominican Republic, Joaquin Balaguer took extreme measures to stop the logging in his country. He made logging illegal because he knew that preserving the forest was essential to his country’s growth. I believe once our government comes to the realization that our oil supply will run out soon, then maybe, just maybe they will take extreme action that ensures the right people (automakers) start making the necessary and urgent steps toward electric cars and less action on gas powered cars.
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response #4
This week we read a chapter in Collapse concerning the various environmental and economic issues of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two countries that share the island, Hispaniola. This island had the common misfortune of being colonized and exploited by white people in the late 1400s, and has, as a consequence, suffered tremendously since then.
What struck me most about this chapter though, was not the cruelty of the French and Spanish colonizers, but rather a man named Joaquin Balaguer. Balaguer was the president of the Dominican Republic from 1966 to 1978, and then again from 1986 to 1996. He was a somewhat curious character; for every despicable trait he had, he seemed to have a good one counter it. He was a man of contradictions.
What is amazing to me though, is despite his many ill traits, how much he was able to do to protect the natural environment of his country. He protected his country’s trees the way the United States might protect its oil wells, mercilessly, and sometimes incurring a body count. (Okay, maybe an unfair comparison . . .)
One can’t help but to look back at our own country’s sorry environmental impact and feel humbled by the accomplishments of an iron-fisted dictator. Granted, there are probably more humane approaches to environmental protection than to incur deadly gun battles with loggers. There are morals at stake here beyond the safety of trees, but still, one can’t help but admire his effectiveness.
Okay, yes, I’m being a little facetious. All I’m trying to say is that sometimes it’s frustrating to live in a country where any positive change in environmental policy takes so long to be put into action. For instance, the United States has yet to, (and shows no intention to) ratify the Kyoto Protocol, something many countries did 10 years ago, and which is, in it’s self, a fairly minimal agreement to battle greenhouse gases.
Joaquin Balaguer was certainly not a hero, as he was complicit in many horrible things, but I can’t help but to admire his resounding commitment to the protection of his country’s environment, and wonder if perhaps there’s a middle ground between our approach and his . . . Where we can effectively preserve our natural environment, but still hold true to our morals and freedoms
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #3
I found Malthus theory in Rwanda’s genocide really interesting. It had me thinking was population growth the key to solving the US’s environmental issues? The reason why we have to genetically alter food is so that they grow better and larger to feed the masses. If we did not have as much people in the world farmers wouldn’t have to be forced to use pesticides or engage in animal cruelty in order to compete in the market. The amount of garbage and animal waste would also decrease. But countries can’t go around killing off people in order to restore thier environment, so is war really beneficial in an overpopulated country? One quote that really stood out was from a French scholar of East Africa, “ The decision to kill was of coarse make by politicians, for political reasons. But at least part of the reason why it was carried out so thoroughly by the ordinary rank-and-file peasants in their ingo was feeling that there were too many people on too little land and that with a reduction in their numbers, there would be more for the survivors.” (p. 326) The thought that the genocide might actually have been helpful in the end was disconcerting. The author states that the reader should not blame population alone for the Rwandan genocide and give examples of densely populated countries such as, Bangladesh, Netherlands, and Belgium, that are fine. The thing is that these countries were probably more developed and surrounded by countries whose economies are farther along than the countries surrounding Rwanda. Struggling countries that could offer no aid in times of need surround Rwanda. Overpopulation seems to be the main contributing factor in many economic issues in countries. With too many people in one space and without the technology to support it, a war seems inevitable.
China is currently going through their own industrial revolution and using harmful chemicals and pollutants to rapidly work its way up to a First World Country. I thought of our (American) industrial revolution and all the mistakes the US made during their revolution. It took years for the US to realize their mistakes and start improving things. China is growing at such a rapid pace but does it have to use all these pollutants to catch up with the rest of the world? China’s population and size will effect the rest of the world no matter what it does. We all live in the same world and anything one country does affects another in the long run. But the United States already has so many problems of its own. Should the US help China out with their current environmental issues since everything going on in their economy will affect the US’s in the future? Or should the US fix their environmental issues first before they start helping other? China should at least be pushed and warned not to use harmful pollutants for the sake of everyone in the world. Perhaps other countries could provide advice on how to reduced harmful chemicals they have learned through their economic history. China has a lot of potential for changing the world quickly but it seems its up to them to decided which issues they want to resolve first.
10/12 (Weekly Statement #4)
ReplyDeleteThis week, I read about overpopulation, Third World countries, and First World nations. Chapter 10 was about Rwanda and the genocide that was caused partly due to overpopulation: “The decision to kill was of course made by politicians, for political reasons. But at least part of the reason why it was carried out so thoroughly… was feeling that there were too many people on too little land, and that with a reduction in their numbers, there would be more for the survivors.” Jared Diamond points out that it isn’t rare to hear a Rwandan argue that a war is necessary to control overpopulation in order to have a proportional amount of available resources to persons. However, we cannot justify that the genocide was caused purely on overpopulation pressure. There are other factors, and we should understand them to avoid another such happening in Rwanda or another area.
The following chapters look into China and Haiti. The chapter about Haiti discusses the effect that differences between two peoples in one land had on both societies. Haiti used to be richer and more powerful than the Dominican Republic. Haiti even launched major invasions of the Dominican Republic. However, it is Haiti that went into a steep decline because of their history, attitude, self-defined identity, and institutions. Instead of environmental problems causing their decline, it was the societies’ responses and the actions/inactions of their leaders. For example, the Dominican Republic today faces many environmental issues. However, the country is growing: it is well organized; and it is willing and able to challenge the government towards an environmental movement. The chapter about China is called “China, Lurching Giant” which is basically true. One quote that stood out to me most was: “China’s Large population, economy, and area also guarantee that its environmental problems will not remain a domestic issue but will spill over to the rest of the world, which is increasingly affected through sharing the same planet, oceans, and atmosphere with China.” This is true, and the problem is that because of China’s past believe that humans can and should conquer Nature, that environmental damage affected only capitalist societies, and that social societies were immune to it, China faces major damage costs. The point of this chapter overall is that China’s decisions will affect the world as a whole because of its size. Any outcome from China will affect the whole world more than any other country.
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #4
I found the documentary Future of Food really fascinating. I had no idea how competitive the agricultural industry was. Companies seem to be forming a monopoly on the industry.
I also thought that it was ridiculous that farmers were being sued because their crop contained a copy written gene. The farmers have no control how their crop is pollinated. Farmers cannot control where an insect/bird flies or what direction the wind blows. Even if farmers fenced in their crop it would still be impossible to protect their crop from other genes. Farmers spend years developing their seed and for companies to sue them because their gene worked their way into another crop is unfair! It reminds me of an incurable disease that keeps spreading.
The thought that a pesticide company was controlling the seeds was a bit alarming. At the end, the film stated that the company wanted to find a way where the crops would only grow if it were to be sprayed with pesticide. I thought that was absolutely wrong. They’re altering a natural process and only letting it grow only when a chemical is applied? That is going too far. I also found the part about breaking through the plants defensives really unnerving. The film explained that plants had developed natural defensives over the years and the only way to penetrate them is to inject viruses into them. That does not seem to be a good idea at all because well we’re eating the food the virus gets injected into!
I believe that all food that has been genetically modified should be labeled. People could be allergic to something in genetically modified foods (GMO) and have no idea where it originated from. I can relate because over the summer I had a really bad allergic reaction where I had hives and my throat closed up after eating a bowl of grapes. I have been eating grapes all my life and never had an allergic reaction before. My doctor still has no idea what I am allergic to. If European countries have started to label GMO’s why can’t the US?
Connie In
ReplyDelete10/21
“Chapter 14: Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?” of Collapse was a scary read. In this chapter, Jared Diamond brought up the “elephant in the room.” He talks about the failure of societies to anticipate and perceive, and asks the question, why do some groups/ individual leaders follow one of the paths to failure while other did not. We are aware of these problems but our society fails to act as individuals. Diamond points out the reasons why societies fail to anticipate problems.
A few reasons were obvious but they were reasons I had not fully understood before. The first reason was reasoning by false analogy. The concept was obvious to me: societies that had previously won wars make the common mistake of planning for a similar war. The problem is that they didn’t anticipate what the losing team was planning. Another major issue was “creeping normalcy,” when slow trends are concealed within noisy fluctuations and are shown only after a long period of time. This problem is also obvious in our society, but the main reason why it is such an issue is that problems like global warming take a long time to perceive, thus making it too late to resolve the problems. A similar issue is “landscape amnesia,” when we forgot how different a landscape used to look like 50 years ago because of its gradual day by day change.
Most of the issues Diamond talks about are based on how society acts as a crowd. “Tragedy of the commons” harms commons and all consumers because of the way individuals think when realizing that they are part of a crowd. For example, a fisherman may think that if he doesn’t catch a fish, another fisherman will catch it anyway, and therefore catches the fish himself. This is how the majority of the fishermen will think and eventually lead to the destruction of the site. Another action a crowd will take is when the public widely dislikes a certain group that perceives a problem. Overall, it bothered me that we, as a modern society, have recognized of all these problems, but haven’t figured out how to solve them efficiently nor why some groups that have faced these problems have failed and some haven’t.
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #5
11-1-2009
Ed Burtynsky's film, Manufactured Landscapes
For my weekly statement, I would like to discuss the film, Manufactured Landscapes and the things that I remember the most about the film. The one thing that sticks out in my mind the most from the film is the part that shows an assembler assembling a circuit breaker. The shocking thing about that part of the film is these assemblers assemble about 400 or so circuit breakers for 10 to 12 hours a day without any over time at such a fast pace. Also, the scale of the factory was shocking; when they showed the amount of people that worked in the assembly line it was breath taking. I’ve never seen so many people working almost like slaves in building before. Furthermore, I remember a scene from the film that should hundreds of irons hanging up. I was amazed to see the amount of irons that the assembly workers had put together by hand in the short amount time that they did it in, there had to have been hundreds and hundreds of irons just hanging there. Throughout the film you could see a constant haze/fog, which was none other than pollution. It was a depressing feeling to see the haze and no sun and even when there were scenes in the film when the sun showed, you couldn’t clearly see it because of the pollution; I wonder how the citizens must feel about that. I remember when Professor Trumpey said in his lecture that China takes our recycled materials such as: computers, metals, wires etc…because they are in need of materials. And what’s sad about this film is when they showed the women digging through our recycled metals that we shipped to them, so that they can find metals that are reusable. It’s not so much shocking that they were picking through the recycled metals, its how they were doing it (by hand) and how much they had to sift through…That was the shocking part of it all. Furthermore, the way they were doing it was unsafe health wise. I couldn’t image being exposed to all that copper and lead.
The last imagine that sticks out in my head is the image of the old women sitting in her chair on her front porch and directly behind her on her porch is a pile of metals, wires etc…And the sad part of it all is, that’s the norm for them.
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #5
I was going through my old books and came a across a book called Massive Change. I talks a lot about the issues we discuss in class so I decided to write about some chapters.
The book Massive Change talks about using different types of resources and innovations to help conserve energy. It also talks about different systems that can be utilized to live more efficiently.
The chapter begins with living in an efficient environment. I was very surprised to read that New York City was one of the most efficient cities because of its population density. I always thought of cities to be huge areas of pollution. Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace, says “They tend to require lass transportation, fewer sewer lines, fewer power lines, fewer roads, and more tightly packed structures, which in and of themselves are more energy efficient.” Once I read this, I thought about it for a little bit and it made sense. It made me think about my high school parking lot full of cars that every student had. Each student at the end of every day would drive a mere 2 miles to go back home in their nice SUV all by themselves. In my city everyone had to drive to get some place. It was kind of absurd to think about walking anywhere. I realized suburban areas really do waste a lot of energy when it comes to transportation.
The next chapter started to talk about alternative ways of transportation. Such as the Segway scooter, Maglev train, or the Cargo Lifter. I found the section about innovations of personal mobility very interesting. I did not know there were so many inventions trying to replace the car. I agree that people do use their cars wastefully. There is a great example an author gives in the book about a woman driving two miles to return some movies and pick up some coffee. I’m guilty of doing this myself. People are always on the go in this generation and need to get everywhere faster. I also believe by having all this technology that has allowed people to do things easier and much faster has made this and future generations lazy. I was very surprised that the book did not mention the bike more often. The bike is a perfect mode of transportation. People overlook the bike as a means of transportation. In the summer all I needed was a bike; I hardly ever needed a car. The bike not only gets people where they need to be faster but they’re exercising at the same time and do not have to worry about parking. More bike lanes should be put on roads instead of car lanes.
The book also talks about how public transportation being implemented in cities helps its economic growth. Parents have more time for their children, the crime rate falls, and less traffic accidents occurred. The subway and bus system in Curitiba, Brazil is a prime example of how efficient public transportation is. It is a fast way to get people where they want to go without clogging up the city with cars. This made me think about the public transportation in Ann Arbor. I believe that public transportation is one of the main reasons why I enjoy living here so much. I can get almost everywhere on a bus. It makes my life much simpler; I do not have to worry about parking tickets, paying for gas or insurance. Suburban neighborhoods need to implement more public transportation. This would greatly cut down the amount of cars on the road.
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #7
The section of “Noise” in Culture Jam really hit me. The author wrote, “Ultimately, everything becomes background noise and we hear almost nothing…Can’t work without background music. Can’t jog without a Discman. Can’t study without the TV.” I absolutely agree, I constantly need a soundtrack to my life. Even as I am reading Culture Jam and writing this response I am listening to music. Whenever I get into my car I turn on the radio and when I get out I put my head phones on. I actually thought it was kind of sad when I got on the bus and looked around and everyone was looking down at their ipods or cell phones. I was guilty of listening to my ipod as well. I think I want part of me wants my life to be a movie that always has a soundtrack for exactly the way I’m feeling. And that makes me wonder is that what everyone else is doing as well? Do we all want our lives to be this perfect made up story in our mind?
The section entitled “The Ecology of Mind” really interested me as well. The author talks about the increase in mood swings in the successive generations in the twentieth century according to The American National Institute of Mental Health. That is also something I find myself doing. I’ve noticed that I have major mood swings even when I know it isn’t the time of month when girls are supposedly hormonal. My moods can change in a matter of seconds and I have no idea why sometimes. Some days I’m so happy but most days I’m just fine; I sort of feel like I’m a vegetable going through my daily routine. The author writes, “We soar the skies one moment, then feel slack and depressed the next.” This quote made me think about the way I go from being happy to frustration during my mood swings. Is it because I’ve grown up with all the comforts of home and once something doesn’t go my way an immediate reaction or irritation follows it. Or is it because I always need to be entertained in some way and when I’m not I find life boring?
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement # 6
November 9, 2009
For my weekly statement, I would like to discuss a few points that was brought up in the introduction to the book Culture Jam, that I felt was important for me to remember. First off, before I even read the introduction/book, I thought it was going to be a bunch one sided, propaganda stuff, but as I started to read it, my views on the book quickly changed. My views changed because the very people they described in the introduction as falling prey to the big corporation’s lustrous, convincing, cool buy me ads, I realized that I was one of those people. This realization brings me to my first point that I would like to talk about that was brought up in the introduction. On page five of the introduction the author mentions that boredom is one of the reasons why we do a lot of compulsive shopping. I find that statement to be true when it comes to me because when I’m bored, and heaven forbid if I’m watching TV, and an ad comes on for something that I want and can afford…I go out and buy it. And do you want to know the sad part of it all??? Nine times out of ten, the item that I purchased out of boredom, I get bored with it within a week or so.
The last that I want to talk about was a comment the author made on page two of the introduction. He said, “ America is no longer a country. It’s a multitrillion-dollar brand.” I felt that was probably one of the most powerful lines in the introduction. I got to thinking about that phrase and what it meant to me and how I interpreted it. And this is what I felt that phrase meant. I agree with the author when he said that American is no different than a McDonalds or General Motors. Quick story, when I went overseas to Uzbekistan, the citizens of that country did not ask me about what kinds of opportunities there were in a America, they did not ask me about our government, or what’s it like to live in America, no…they didn’t ask any of that. What did they did ask me was did I know Michael Jackson, and what they showed me was their sports jerseys and their Nike hats and shoes. You’re probably wondering why I told you that story. I told you that story because the author’s phrase that America is no longer a country, but a multitrillion-dollar brand is true. The world no longer sees us as America…they see us as brand. Brands like Nike, celebrities/brands like Michael Jackson and so fourth. And that’s sad. Just reading the intro made me realize that America has lost its meaning of freedom, opportunity, and so fourth…American has a new image such as: Nike, Air Jordan’s, celebrities, etc…
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #7
I find the Situationist movement discussed in Culture Jam to be very interesting. I think the direct approach they take in their practice is admirable. How they didn’t like the small scope of things that society (please forgive me for phrasing it like this. I won’t blame you if you stop paying attention right now, It’s what I do every time I read that word) expected them to be, or the ways they were supposed to act, so they created avenues where they could be who they wanted to be or act how they wanted to act. They didn’t let norms dictate how they were.
Though certainly somewhat different from the Situationists, they remind me of Nick Tobier’s work. Essentially what he does is create abnormal situations that force people out of their routine . . .Or at the very least, they force people to acknowledge that something different is happening. I guess I just admire when people create what they want to see in the world and who aren’t limited by prescribed avenues of expression. I admire people who do something to create what they want to see in the world, and not just talk about it.
I admire the Situationists also because I am convinced by their philosophy. I believe that more joy can come from acts of spontaneity, from living and acting in the present moment, than by sticking to a scheduled life.
On the other hand Spontaneity can get you into trouble too.
Kalle Lasn was, of course, using them as an example of how a group of people can subvert the system. It’s clear that Lasn loves this stuff, and it’s what he tries to do. He creates what he calls “subvertisements.” Essentially, they are Anti-ads. Advertisements against advertising. Which is a strange sort of conundrum.
I’m reminded of the Dadaists, whose goal was to create anti-art. The problem was that they used artistic expression as a way of conveying their stance against art, so they ended up making art. Is Lasn doing the same thing? That is, even though he is fighting against it, doesn’t he contribute to the cultural “noise”? As far as I’m concerned, it’s a different message, but it’s the same noise.
Nick Tobier does something different. He creates a “spectacle” (to use the terminology of the book) outside the realm of the everyday “spectacle” created by television, advertisements, entertainment, etc., and therefore does not need their methods.
Weekly Statement #10
ReplyDeleteThis week, I would like to address some of the things that I have been discovering while doing research for the “My Stuff” project. After cataloging all my possessions, I was most surprised by how much makeup I own, considering how “low-maintenance” I usually am. I realized that I had absolutely no idea what in the world goes into making these products, so I decided to investigate.
Initially, it took awhile to find any information whatsoever. While there are millions of “how-to” books for makeup, there are very that are actually about the industry. While I’m sure that most of the ladies in our class are more familiar with makeup products than some of the other products we’ve been learning about this semester, there is much less research about the topic.
When I did manage to find a book and a few articles, the information I found was exceptionally startling. Many cosmetic products contain ingredients that are reproductive, developmental, or neurological toxins, especially in the large brands like CoverGirl, Maybelline, and Revlon. The makeup companies insist that is perfectly safe to use these chemicals in small doses, completely disregarding the fact that most women rarely use just one product, but a variety of soaps, shampoos, makeup’s, deodorants etc (even the low-maintenance ones like me). In addition, many products also contain parabens, which are estrogenic substances. Exposure to higher levels of estrogen can increase the risk of breast cancer in women. These substances don’t just flush out of the body, and for women, are transferred into the children in their wombs and their breast milk (Malkan, Stacy: “Not Just A Pretty Face”).
These are just the problems created by these chemicals in the bodies of the consumer, I haven’t even gotten to finding the impact that manufacturing these goods has on the environment. Judging from the scale of these larger make-up companies, I can only guess that it isn’t a pretty picture. Even if the chemicals are in very small amounts in the products themselves, multiplied that thousands of items produced gives you an idea of the amount of chemicals that must go through any one factory.
While I’m tempted to take some of the themes in “Culture Jam” and blame all of these problems on marketing of these products, and while this most definitely is a component, I think makeup use isn’t just determined by advertising. Makeup has been around for thousands of years, used by the Egyptians and the nobility in 18th century France. In light of this much history and tradition, I think women (and some men) have the right to adorn themselves however they see fit, and they should be able to do so without having to risking their health.
Despite the reassurances from the makeup companies, if this class has taught me anything, it is that large corporations rarely have our best interests at heart, and their assurances are to be gathered with skepticism. I was appalled that the products I’ve been using in good faith could actually be a serious threat to my health. I’m fairly conservative with my beauty routine, but I still use soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, concealer, powder and blush on a daily basis. I found a great resource to help evaluate the potential risks in the products you use, as well as search for safer alternatives: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php. I suggest that everyone (male and female) check it out.
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteNovember 16, 2009
Weekly Statement # 7
For this weekly statement I would like to talk about culture jamming in relations to an article that I saw in the New York Times. Last Monday, I was reading the New York Times online and I noticed an article in the art section that caught my eye in relations to culture jamming. The article talked about how Aerosmith’s lead singer Steven Tyler Has Quit the band. That was interesting to find out, but what caught my eye about the article was what Steven Tyler said when asked why he quit Aerosmith.
In the article, Aerosmith Says Steven Tyler Has Quit, Steven Tyler Said, “I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” Mr. Tyler said, “but it’s definitely going to be something Steven Tyler: working on the brand of myself - Brand Tyler.” It’s one thing to hear how America is looked at as the author of Culture Jamming put it; America is look at as a multitrillion-dollar brand.
It’s another to hear Steven Tyler actually say that he wants to start working on branding himself. I was shocked that he said that, but in reality I shouldn’t be shocked because look at Michael Jordan, he is a brand…Air Jordan’s, he’s a multi million dollar brand, a walking brand. So it’s happening and it’s not uncommon, but I guess I didn’t expect to hear someone mention how they want to start working on branding themselves. I figured branding yourself is not really a choice or decision; it’s something that kind of just happens, it comes with being famous or a public figure.
I guess branding yourself is the wave of the future…
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ReplyDeleteI think the biggest problem we have with environmental change is that people simply just don’t know. I had a conversation with my friend who was not in the art school and had not taken an environmental class that truly enlightened me to the way people view this entire environmental movement. I was arguing that his dream of the white picket fence and the house with a lot of land is not sustainable. Surely, if just he was the only one with such a house, perhaps the overall environmental damage wouldn’t be so great. But now everyone all over the world has that or a somewhat similar dream. Everyone wants his or her big house on a nice property. If that were to happen, our planet would die within seconds. All our resources would be immediately exploited and depleted.
ReplyDeleteAs I was trying to explain that to him, he approached the situation from an economical standpoint. He argued that that point would never happen because we would switch to more sustainable resources when the economy mandated it so. Meaning, that because we have exploited the resource, its price would be too high for people to afford and force another more affordable or economically sustainable resource to come into play. With that I countered him why wait till that breaking point where it is too expensive. If it is at that price that means it has done way more damage to the environment. We should instead stop now and prevent that by already switching to a more accommodating means without waiting for the economy to point out the red in the environment.
The point of all this is that people don’t know. They are not educated to see what achieving their “American dreams” can mean and how it affects the rest of the world. If anything they see how it affects everyone economically and not environmentally. They are basically blind to the other side. Although there are a lot of people crying out loud about the environment, they are usually disregarded as liberal naysayers or simply rebels starting a raucous without a serious cause. People need to be educated that we’re not yelling about the environment for no reason – it’s because we’re already in the red with some of our natural resources. People need scientific fact and backing. Politicians need to stop undermining facts found out by scientists. Each time a politician undercuts new research, they add disbelief to the community on the environmental issue. This needs to stop in order for people to actually believe and take to heart the information being presented to them.
After we have people’s attentions and realizations, they need to be further educated in what is specifically wrong with our environment and what procedures need to be taken to change it. In schools there need to be clubs and classes as well as in the universities. For the rest of the population, there should be sessions at workplaces that teach their employees how to think consciously of making our world greener and developing our products and working in such a way that we conserve the most but still can gain the most out of it. When we start the education at the very beginning in our lives, we can carry out an even bigger change in conservation.
Krista Boyd
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement #10
November 30, 2009
For this weekly statement I would like to talk about black Friday. For the past few weeks in our discussion group we have been talking about the book Culture Jam. And I told myself after reading that book that I will manage my TV watching, and spending habits. Now I don’t spend money really, but sometimes I get my urges and I spend, like most of us. Over the thanksgiving holiday, I decided to go to a few places and look around for black Friday because we all know that sales are abundant during that day.
My first stop was Best Buy because I’m a lover of electronics and gadgets. Now, usually the place is pretty normal what ever you defined that to be. But on black Friday, the place was a mad house. There were sales all over the place and to be honest, I felt like I was in heaven... I saw people digging through the video games, grabbing at the DVD’s, drooling over the cheap priced laptops and heck I caught myself drooling a bit too…
What was funny about my trip to Best Buy was not that there were so many people because I expected that. The funny part of it all was how everyone was acting and the way that people looked. I took a few minutes to observe people’s facial expressions and boy were they funny. Some people were happy, but most were angry and focused. I wonder why people change when it comes to sales or buying things. It’s almost as if people go into survival mode on black Friday. All and all I fought the urge to spend and left that was one of the first years I didn’t buy anything on black Friday.
Emerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement 11
So, I was looking at Edward S. Curtis’s work. The guy who photographed the Native Americans (Indians? American Indians? Does anyone else find the politically correct phrase really awkward to say?), and whose integrity was called into question, as a number of the images appear to have been staged, or as Professor Trumpey pointed out, primitively photoshopped.
Putting aside their authenticity for one second, the images are quite beautiful. Many of them carry an air of nobility, while some of them carry more the feeling of theater. A lot carry both.
What’s sad is that Curtis’s photographs are probably one of the largest visual resources we have of Native American life . . . Or . . .How to word it . . . Pre-utter-domination-of-the-land-by-white-people Native American life. And yet a lot if it is, at least sort of, fake.
And much of the images we hold in our heads of Native Americans from this time are based on these semi-fake images. This means, obviously, that we hold a distorted view of history . . . One that is hard to clear up with words, since the images we’ve seen tend to take priority in our brains. You know that old saying . . . It takes a thousand historically accurate words to clear up one historically inaccurate picture . . . Something like that.
Maybe my point is that history is such a wishy-washy thing. It’s so easy for it to become distorted, and biases are often more common than facts. And of all the things that are happening right now, how can we make sure the important ones are the ones getting recorded? How can we be sure that our forebears got it right? We even have a hard time agreeing on what actually is happening right now. Sort of weird to think about. I feel sorry for future history students, that’s all I’m saying.
Anyway, even if Curtis’s photographs aren’t 100% true, I’m still glad we have them. The photographs are of actual people, after all, and generally they are portrayed as such in the photographs. Maybe this is more important than historical fact.
Week 11
ReplyDeleteThis week in ADP I read the final chapter of Collapse: The World as a Polder. At first I didn’t know what a “polder” was. I looked it up on Google and found multiple results. I’ve come to the conclusion that a polder is a land that has no connection with outside water other than through man-operated devices. A polder is also at risk from flooding at all times. So learning the definition of Kalle Lasn’s final chapter frightened me before I started reading it. I thought, here we go: I’m about to read probably the most depressing chapter.
Lasn did less depressing and more about predicting. He talked about how there is hope even though the threat of ecological meltdown seems to get greater by the year. He reiterates that we need to start being more aware of our individual responsibilities in order to sustain any kind of future.
A thought I found interesting though was, “What will happen when it finally dawns on all those people in the Third World that current First World standards are unreachable for them, and that the First Word Refuses to abandon those standards itself?” Does this lead into World War 3? It makes sense that that could actually happen. However, I don’t think that the First World can ever “share” its wealth to the Third World country to even anything out. I think that it is impossible and that people of the Third World will never rebel against the wealth that First World countries have. That being said, I think Kalle Lasn over exaggerates/overdramatizes the problems we face today. We are definitely facing huge ecological problems, but I think that he takes everything too literal or too far.
Connie In
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ReplyDeleteEmerson Schreiner
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response #12
I’m probably a little behind everyone else with this, but I just got done poking around the “Story of Stuff” website which I think is a really good resource. Even if Annie Leonard sort of talks to me like I’m a kindergartener, the information is presented clearly, and it’s important stuff to know.
So I watched the story of “Cap and Trade”, which is something that I’m completely ignorant about. According to the video, Enron and some other corporation designed the idea. From what I understand, corporations would be given permits to pollute, but they would be given out at a decreasing rate in conjunction with the “cap”. That is, pollution would only be allowed within the parameters of a projected constant reduction in carbon emissions. But, these “permits to pollute” can be sold and traded to other companies. The idea is that if one company sells its pollution permits to another because it has already adapted more sustainable practices and doesn’t need them, then the same amount of pollution would be put out anyway, even if one company were polluting more. I’m probably not wording this the best, it makes more sense with the funny illustrations. (http://www.storyofstuff.org/capandtrade/)
Annie Leonard has beef with this policy, and it made sense to me when I watched her talking about it, but I don’t think I’m going to explain it very well, so I recommend watching the video. The main point, I think, was that adopting a Cap and Trade policy would require gutting much of the Clean Air Act, and putting the emission standards into the hands of the market instead of having all-encompassing guidelines. The ideas driving Cap and Trade are the same ideas that drive consumerism, and you can’t fix a problem the same way you created one.
That makes sense to me. What are we doing now? Privatizing the rights to create emissions? I personally think we need to stop worrying about hurting the economy we have now, and start building one based on sustainable practices, where the cost of something reflects its actual environmental and humanitarian effects. Our current economy is about moving products fast; it should be about creating products that will last, so we don’t need to continue sucking our earth’s resources to keep the system moving. Cap and Trade, as I understand it, is a system designed to keep our current economic system running, while we try to cut emissions. But how can we do this when such a substantial part of our economy is based on fossil fuel consumption, as well as other unsustainable practices?
Anyway, that’s my take on the whole thing. If I got anything wrong, please let me know, or if you guys have arguments in favor of Cap and Trade, I’d like to hear those too.
Connie Huang
ReplyDeletePost #13
For my last post I wanted to talk about Mental Detox-ing from technology. I feel like that is a very hard thing to do today. There seems to be no place undiscovered, no virgin patch of land. Even you want to go to the Arboretum to escape you can still hear faint sounds of car and construction. And sometimes when you’re think you’re escaping to the woods to go camping you hear Sponge Bob coming from a TV in the next campground. I think it is very hard to get a complete mental detox from technology but that doesn’t mean we can’t control the amount of technology we use. After thinking about it, I realized I use technology almost every minute of my life from the minute I wake up, which is a bit shocking. I’m either on a computer, listening to an ipod, texting, watching tv, or doing 2-3 things at a time. There were a couple times in the semester where I had my TV on, I was listening to iTunes, and talking on the phone at the same time. Eventually I was aware of how ridiculous I was being. I know that technology is suppose to make everything more convenient but I think my generation has reached the point of abusing it. I know when I have kids I will be limiting how much they’re on the computer or TV. I have a feeling that abusing technology will get worse before it gets better. I was also wondering what would happen if we did stop abusing technology? Would people be more aware of the environment because they’re using less technology? Or would the environment get abused even more because more people would be using it?
I have seen some things on TV and the Internet that give me some hope that things will get better. In Australia there is an event called breakfast on the bridge. It takes place on Sydney Harbor Bridge road deck. Instead of the usual traffic the bridge is covered in grass and 6,000 people will be picnicking on the bridge. I think it was a fantastic fusion of technology and nature. It brings the entire city together for a picnic outside. With more events such as this I believe there is hope for a cleaner world.
http://www.breakfastonthebridge.com/
http://blog.flickr.net/en/2009/10/30/breakfast-on-the-bridge-in-sydney/