Reflections: Week 5 and 6

Picture taken by: Me!

Let me start by saying, I cannot believe that week 6 is over and only can I not believe that it is already over, I can't believe we're all still living! I want to throw out a congrats to the class and say how well everyone is handling everything right now!

Week 5

We had a plethora of activities going on in week five including our 2nd eye opener, a reading review, and a documentary viewing! The 2nd eye opener was called CSPI aka Center for Science in the Public Interest. We had to take a few quizzes on our eating habits, and see just what impact our food habits had on the environment. Just when we thought we were maybe doing better with our environmentally friendly habits, boom.... we're not! I was flabbergasted by my results after reading how much manure I'm making and how many acres of land I'm using up. There was a pretty neat pledge that we could take, saying that we'd make a conscience effort to eat less animal products that I took because I thought it was important to try to do my part. Our reading for week 5 was titled Feeding The World. This article however short it may be had a lot of really great information and brought up a lot of great points I really liked the part about the four transitional stages and where we thought the U.S was. I think the US has a long ways to go.The documentary that we watched this week was, Diet for a New America by John Robbins. After we were all thoroughly disgusted in the first 5 minutes by the fat being pulled out of the artery, this movie was great! This movie really just kind of amazed me, with the main point of the documentary saying to stop eating meat, and eat more natural foods,because not only is it good for the environment, it's much better for ourselves. If you would like to read a full review on it, I had to do one so here is a link to another review. Throughout this week, we also of course blogged, blogged, blogged. Its really getting easier to blog and remember to blog throughout this week.

Week 6

In week 6, we had a lot of commenting on other peoples blogs to do, did another eye opener, and watched another documentary. The 3rd eye opener that we did, was each person in the class got a different reading in the book and reviewed it. I got number 36: Economic Growth and the Envirornment: Alternatives to the Limits Paradigm. This article took me quite awhile to read but after I finally got through it, it posted a lot of interesting thoughts. At first I thought it was kind of silly, and didn't like it because the author was kind of challenging what everyone else says about the population and resources... but then it kind of made sense to me. There was a really great analogy of the little boy who cried wolf. It was saying how we keep saying and saying that this is going to happen, and it hasn't fully happened yet, so when it does, it asked if people are goign to truly believe it this time. I did a full review on this reading here. It was fun to read everyone else's reviews and discuss the questions that they posed. The documentary that we watched this week was entitiled Future of Food. Btw, they have a very nice website which you will directed to if you click on the title of the documentary. This movie kind of blew my mind. It talked a lot about if you should be able to put a patent on the environment. I could hardly believe that farmers were getting sued for having something on their farm that they didn't even put there, and it just got blown there because that's what the earth does! I find that absolutely ridiculous. Also,the fact that some people even think that we should have a patent on humans I think is ridiculous. I guess really this video made me think a lot because I haven't thought a lot about genetically engineered food until watching this! And of course, last but not least... we did a lot of blogging this week. A lot of commenting on group members blogs (which are looking great). So many people have found so many amazing Share and Voice's that it's just really neat to look at! Blogging is literally consuming my life these days, which I can't say I mind anymore!

What did I learn this week?

This week, I decided to buckle down and finally use my google reader! I'm mad at myself for not using this earlier, because not only is it a much more efficient way to see my group members posts, but I'm finding that I have time to look at the rest of the classes as well, and it's great to see what everyone is coming up with!

Good luck on the next two weeks everyone!!

Share and Voice: TerraCycle Inc and... SPAM

I don't remember how I ran across this because it was before this class and I just happened to have thought it was cool, but I found this awesome company via website that does some majorly cool things! The company is called TerraCycle Inc. It started with just two Princteon students wanted to make a business but keep it ecologically and and socially resonsible. They took solid waste from teh cafeteria at school, and and made plant food which was all-natural, all-organic, and packaged in reused soda bottles!

The company now has all sorts of cleaning products that not only are very appealing to the eye, but they are all environmentally friendly! They as well, are all made out of reused soda bottles!

Not only do they make cleaning products and plant food, but they have also started a really great new idea. They have schools and offices recycle products that normally wouldn't be recylcled such as energy bar wrappers, drink box wrappers, boxes, cell phones, and corks, and you can apply to get paid so many cents for each one that you bring in. With the materials that they get, they make products from the waste. They make everything from school supplies, bags, and they even make holiday things! Each link will take you to the website page and show you some of the things that they make. I seriously think this is one of the neatest companies ever. Not only are we helping the environment, but it's a really great way for schools to encourage students to recycle and make money in doing so.

As most of you know by now, I'm from Austin, MN... home of SPAM. When I lived at home, I worked in the SPAM Museum at the gift shop.One thing that we sold that I had never thought about were these bags as you see on the left. After hearing about TerraCycle I called my boss back at home to see how we get the singles containers that we make the bags out of. After contacting a few other people, I found out that we make these out of recycled singles containers! Which I was happy about, because part of me was nervous that we just used new ones. I am very glad to say now, that the SPAM shop is environmentally friendly :) As I was looking on the website just yesterday, I also saw that we now make SPAM purses! As I think about it now... I'm thinking a whole new post is to come about SPAM... and Hormel, so before I turn this into a whole new Share and Voice, i'll end with this!

This TerraCycle Inc company is really neat, and has some really great innovative ideas! You shoud definitely check it Out!

Thanks!

Eye Opener: Review of Reading 36: Economic Growth and the Environment Alternatives to the Limits Paradigm

In the reading, Economic Growth and the Environment: Alternatives to the Limits Paradigm, the topic of what to do when we run out of resources is discussed. This article talks about limits, and what to do when we reach them. The idea of this reading is that there are biological and physical limits to economic growth beyond which both ecological and economic collapse would occur. Right now, humans are causing environmental degradation at a pace like never before. Because of this, we must find other ways to adapt our lifestyles.


Alternative Metaphors for Environmental Destruction


In this section the author, Carlos Davidson, gives many metaphors as to what our ecological limits to economic growth can best be seen as. First he gives the example of a plane analogous to the Earth. Pulling a rivet from the planes wing is like an act of environmental destruction. A plan has a lot of rivets, so at first pulling them has little or no affect, but after awhile, it takes its tole and the plane will crash. Another example Davidson gave was like a car speeding toward a cliff. If the car doesn't stop, it will go over the cliff.

Actual Environmental Destruction: Limit or Continuum's?

There are five types of limits possible: input limits, limits on waste assimilation, entropy/thermodynamic limits, limits on human use of the products of photosynthesis, and limits attributable to the loss of biodiversity. Input limits receive the most attention. The message of this is that limited natural resources must limit human population and economic activity. One thing that I found interesting in this section was that predictions of economic limits generally fail be cause they are based on the assumption that limits can be calculated according to current resource use and current resource stocks. Waste absorption was another topic it discussed. It stated that only so much of a pollutant can be released into the environment before the environment will no longer absorb the waste. However, the fact that pollution is causing environmental degradation does not mean that there are limits. The article then talks about entropy, and shows how flexibility of production and how we dont want to tie limits to the use of any specific resources for which there may be alternatives. Biodiversity limits talks about the limits on our species and economy.

The Politics of Limits


This section of the article discusses the different sides that different people take. It's known that we need to turn this problem around, and fast, but first we have to get everyone on board. I found it interesting that this part talked about how for so long we've been saying this will happen, it is kind of like the boy who called wolf. Everyone's been waiting for this huge catastrophe to happen, and nothing has happened yet, so now that we're closer to things happening, no one wants to believe it.

An Alternative Approach

In an alternative approach to limits, we would examine economic structures, social relationships of power and ownership, control of state institutions, and culture. There are many equally important factors when thinking about our growth, and unless all aspects are looked at, we are not going to get the appropriate and correct approaches figured out.

My Thoughts

At first while reading this, I was kind of mad at the author. I felt like he was challenging everything that anyone has ever said about environmental degradation. However, after continuing to read I realize now that the author actually had some really great points. This is a line from the book that really made me think, "Similarly, in The Population Bomb, Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s from absolute food shortage." Hearing this, it made me actually ponder for a moment how much we could be wrong about thinking that we're going to run out of resources, like tomorrow. I definitely think that we need to be conserving our resources and continue looking for renewable resources. I also still think that this is a pressing issue, and one that needs to be dealth with, but it just makes you think.


Terms

environmental degradation: the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil.

entropy: the measure of a disorder of a system.

limits: said to describe the behavior of a function as its argument or input either "gets close" to some point, or as the argument becomes arbitrarily large

metaphor: is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects

continuum: a continuous extent, succession, or whole, no part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts except by arbitrary division.


Additional Resources

The Population Bomb: This is a book that was written that discusses more about the population and resources.

Opposing Views

Here is an opposing view of my article. It's about how they think the Population Bomb is going to happen. Click Here

Discussion Question

What do you think? Are we going to "cry wolf" to many times, and end up being in trouble when we really need help the most?

Review of Documentary: Diet for a New America

Summary of Diet for a New America

Diet for a New America was a documentary on how food choices are affecting our health, life, and our earth. This movie was by John Robbins. The documentary started by talking about heart attacks and major diseases and why they are directly correlated to what we eat. In the 1990's heart attacks were the number 1 cause of death. Research showed that this was because of a buildup of fat and cholesterol in the arteries. After this discovery, the correlation of what you eat and what it does to your body started to come to attention. China did a study of fats and diets and found that when you ate a low fat diet, there were lower rates in breast cancer and colon cancer; 2 of the leading cancers in the United States. The documentary then talked about how developing countries are now scared that they will become more like us, where meat will become the main course of meals.

A large portion of this documentary was dedicated to raising animals and what they have to do with our eating. The documentary talked about how when raising animals, they are kept in very small areas, so that they cannot move so that their muscles become soft. In feed lots, cattle are confined and fattened; instead of grass to fatten them, they are fed grains. A big thing that happens with all of the animals, is the manure that they produce. The manure can leak into ground or streams which is harmful to the community. The manure can have fertilizers in it which contain nitrate in them which is a very harmful substance. When talking to the residents of the community, this was an issue that many residents definitely were concerned about. They were nervous that birth defects in children would happen because of them drinking the water or the moms drinking it during pregnancy. They were also nervous about neighbors who still drank the water after knowing that it could be contaminated.

Concepts that Challenged my Thinking

This documentary definitely had some moments in it that made me think. The first one was when discussion came up about us in comparison to other countries in our meat intake. The fact that one serving of our meat is approximately 5 servings in another country blows my mind! Even more than that, being that this documentary took place in the 1990's, I am sure that our portion sizes have gotten even larger since then. The next time I have meat, I will for sure look at it and take into account the amount of it that I am eating. Another thing that I was kind of amazed at was when Robbins was in the classroom and talking about turning grain into ground beef. 12 pounds of grain could turn into 12 loaves of bread, or 52 boxes of corn flakes. However, when it was turned into ground beef, only 1 pound could come out of it! That is crazy I think! We could get so much more use out of it I guess if we turned it into things that can go farther. A statstic that shocked me was that 80% of grain is consumed by animals, and not humans. I love my meat way to much to ever give it up, however I will definitely start thinking about it before I eat it, and I'm going to cut WAY back on it!

Terms

So I know that most of these are kind of common words, but I wanted to get true definitions for them because I think that they are important.

Atherosclerosis: A disease affecting arterial blood vessels.
Saturated Fat: A fat, most often of animal origin, that is solid at room temperature and whose fatty acid chains cannot incorporate additional hydrogen atoms. An excess of these fats in the diet is thought to raise the cholesterol level in the bloodstream.
Cholesterol: A lipidic, waxy alcohol found in the cell membranes and transported in the blood plasma of all animals.
Feedlot: A confined animal feeding operation which is used for finishing livestock prior to slaughter.
Contaminated:To soil, stain, corrupt, or infect by by contact or association.

Additional Links

The first link provided is a website about John Robbins and all of the work that he has done. It talks about the books he has written and has a question and answer forum that is kind of neat.
The Food Revolution

The second link that I found useful was an article form the New York Times from 1990 that was about the Chinese study on fats and diets.
Huge Study of Diet Indicts Fat and Meat

Eye Opener: CSPI

CSPI

For this eye opener we had to go to the CSPI website and take a quiz on the weekly amounts of food that we eat. According to their website, the CSPI has been a "has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science. Its award-winning newsletter, Nutrition Action Healthletter, with some 900,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada, is the largest-circulation health newsletter in North America." They work to do things like get junk food out of the schools, reduce sodium in restaurants, make sure honest labeling is on food packages, and much much more!

Eye Opener

For this activity I chose to do the Eating Green Calculator. I had to put in how many servings of pork, beef, eggs, milk and cheese, and chicken I eat in a week. After putting in how many I eat a week, they give you the results of the environmental burden of the animal products you eat in a year. My results kind of surprised me. My most shocking result was the amount of manure created by the animals that I eat: 6,196! That's really gross I think. I used 27.9 pounds of fertilizer to grow the animal feed. I was kind of surprised that I only used 1.0 acre of grain and grass for the animals, but that could definitely be a lot lower as well. The last of my results we're that I use 0.2 pounds of pesticides that were used to grow the animal feed. I think that most of my results we're like this, because I eat a lot of chicken and cheese. I don't eat eggs or pork though, so hopefully that helped out my situation a little bit. After your first results, you then put how many servings a week that you are willing to take out your diet and see how your scores are affected! With only a little bit of change it can help a lot! At the end of the quiz, there is a pledge that you can take to help you eat better and more healthy foods. I decided to take it, as I think this is a very good thing!

Pledge

To protect my health and the environment, I will eat a more plant-based diet—more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts and fewer fatty meat and dairy products. When I do eat animal products, I will emphasize ones that are lower in fat and raised in humane ways that minimize harm to the environment.

Share and Voice: Help for Heather's Sneezes?

Me.... Sneezing, of course...

Suffering from chronic allergies myself, I am always looking for ways to help my nose and constant sneezing (which you are all so very familiar with) see some better days! I was searching the web for some ideas... when I found this really cool thing! For those of you who don't know, dust is a very common allergen, and one of the greatest places that it murks... is in your bed! One thing that my doctor has told me to do to prevent dust mites, is put allergy covers on my mattress and pillow cases. Any of the cases that my parents and I have come across thus far are the most annoying, loud, uncomfortable plastic cases ever! However, in this article that I found they now make organic bedsheet covers! The covers are made out of wool, which is a natural dust repellent. According to this article, organic wool covers are the best ones you can buy.

Not only will these covers help me from sneezing ever 5 seconds but they are also environmentally friendly! They have no chemicals in them because no chemicals were ever put into the grass where the sheep graze from. Also, the hay that the sheep graze from are chemical free and is grown organically! Apparently, the wool also keeps you very warm in the winter, and breathes well in the summer! It helps regulate your body temperature faster so you can get to sleep quicker and easier. On top of everything else, this is also a natural fire retardant... so when my candles start the smoke alarms off every other night, like normal... i'll know that I'm safe!

I definitely am going to try to figure out where to buy these, and I will let you guys know (or I'm sure you will notice...) if they are working or not! If your interested in reading the article, or are interested in some other great tips (which they have a lot of) check it out!

Going Green

Reflections: Week 3 and 4

Picture taken by Ashley Penrod

Hey all!
I can hardly believe that we just finished our 4th week of class! Where is this semester going?! I hope everyone is finally getting the hang of this and smoothly working out any last bubbles there may be.

Week 3
Week 3 was where I finally started to feel like I learned something about the environment. We had our first readings due, and our first reviews on the readings. The first reading talked a lot about biodiversity, the climate, weather, population and health, food, and water. The second readings was about film and environment. It gave a lot of great and different viewpoints on how we can't always believe what we see on film, and that we need to watch out for how the films portray our environment and pick which parts we choose to believe. I loved getting to talk about these readings in class, because sometimes they are hard to understand and hearing about them from everyones perspective and new ideas they have to say about them, make them much more bearable and understandable! Throughout week 3 we continued to blog! We made some comments on other people's blogs and continued writing some Share and Voices! Which have all been great so far! Week 3 is finally the week that I started getting the hang of blogging and how to make my page, mine. I'm finally not stressing out about being late for something or not blogging on time, and think I'm getting the hang of this!

Week 4
During week 3 we started watching "The Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. We continued to watch it throughout week 4. We had discussions about the movie after each day of watching it. I'd never seen the movie before, but have heard most of the book, as mu roommate read it this summer and absolutley LOVED coming in my room and annoying me with facts from the book. As I just said, it used to annoy me, because I didn't understand or really, didn't even care. Seeing this movie however, makes me care, semi-understand, and it probably wouldn't have even annoyed me anymore! I think I'm going to read the book, just to be able to go over the facts that Gore said again. The fact that really got me on Thurday was that by just changing a few things in a few areas of our lives, we could really turn this around! When he broke it down, and showed the little colored triangles of where we could be, and it turned out that we could be healtheier than in 1970 I could hardly believe it! To know that we could be doing this and aren't amazes me I guess. My roommate always says that she doesn't "believe in global warming." I can hardly see how that's true now... During week 4 we also did our first Eye Opener blog. We calculated our Ecological Footprint and found out how many planets it would take for everyone to live like I did! My results discusted me, but I guess they could have been a lot worse at a rousing 4.2 earths. We continued blogging our results or our footprints and commenting on other poeples blogs. I think everyone in the classes blogs are starting to look amazing, and you can really see the presonal touch brought on by all of them! Great job guys! Let's keep it up :)

Share and Voice: Podcast

So the other day, I was on I-tunes and I was looking around at Podcasts, because I've found some really neat ones that I listen to on a regular basis before. I came across one put out by the National Public Radio and I came across an environment podcast! It comes out once a week, and discusses pretty much every environmental topic that is in the news at the time! It's not exactly a really exciting podcast to say the least, but it gets the information out and is very informational! Included is a link to the NPR: Environment website and to the podcast itself! Enjoy!

Here is this week's Podcast!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprints

Before having to start this assignment for an eye opener, I really had no idea what our ecological footprints were. I now know that this is the demand that we as humans use on our Earth's ecosystem. Taking these quizzes (which I absolutely loved because I'm a dork like that) really opened my eyes, as I saw how unfriendly I am being towards this earth! YIKES! (Picture taken by Ashley Penrod)


The first quiz that I took was the Ecological Footprint Quiz I could hardly even stand my life when I got my results back! First of all, if everyone lived like I did it'd take a rousing 4.2 Earth's to give us enough resources. Who do I think I am taking up this many planets?! I didn't really understand the next part of my results, which was that it would take 18.6 global acres of the Earth's productive area to support my lifestyle. After looking into it a little bit more I think it's so high because of the electricity usage. I could see the whole electricity thing being pretty high... our last heating bill for our house was $340.00. Don't ask my roommates and I how it got so high, because really our house is freezing cold for at least 23 out of the 24 hours a day. We usually try to keep it at around the high 60's. However, we would keep it on all day. After this last bill, we set our heat up on a timer so it only comes on at like 5:00-10:00 and then goes down for the day, and the night, while we're not using it very much. We'll see if this helps (for our sanity and our wallets lets hope so) when the next bill comes around. One thing that makes us wonder about our heat situation is that we don't use the downstairs of our house other than the kitchen. One of our roommates moved out at semester and she was the only one living on the main floor (If anyone knows of someone who needs a house for next year let me know!) With her gone, there is no need to heat up the entire downstairs, however there is really no way around this, so we feel we're wasting a lot of heat on that. Other than the whole heat thing, we really do try hard to conserve as much energy as possible. We're pretty big sticklers when it come to leaving lights on or running unnecessary water. So, I'd hope this is why my results are so high.

I also thought I'd take the test about traveling, because I travel WAY to much and I know this. My results didn't really surprise me... I got "worse than average". Here's some reasons that I would guess this could be like this. First of all I work in Gary West Duluth. For those of you who aren't familiar with that neck of the woods, I've included a map of how far "West" it is. Honestly, I drive at least 30 miles a day for work (and I work 4-5 days a week.) I know this is horrible, but really there's not much I can do about it. My roommate works with me at the same house as well, and on days we can, we try to drive out together, but sense with both work with girls, and they have their own lives and activities it's hard to do. Saturdays we usually try to get them to want to do the same thing, for the sanity of us all. Another reason I could see my results being so high, is because I live almost 300 miles away in Austin (home of SPAM.) I go home way to often and don't go home for long periods of time. So the gas really piles up. I thought that once I got my job I'd cut back on the gas and going home, but that really hasn't seemed to happen. I usually don't have passengers either, because everyone from Austin has cars up here I swear. So, in the future... or like now, I'm going to try not to go home as often or if I really want to/need to, I will try really hard to bring a passenger, although I don't know if they coudl put up with my singing for 4 hours of car rides! Anyways, these quizzes really opened my eyes (which is why there probably called eye openers?) I use way more of everything that I should, and even though I know the reasons I haven't tried all that hard to stop them! But from here on out, I'm going to try. I made my roommates take the tests as well! They didn't like their results either, so together we're going to change some things; less heat, drive together more, no lights, more candles, etc... Together we can do it!

Share And Voice: Youtube Video

Okay, so this is slightly embarrassing, but I am kind of in love with the Jonas Brothers. (Give me a break, I work with a 10 year old girl). The other day we were watching some of their videos on Youtube when we came across this video. The video is about "going green" and how they don't want to get in a car without it being environmentally friendly! This is so important because so many young girls (and some boys to I suppose) love the Jonas Brothers right now, so them relaying this message, will help the younger population see how important it is for them to start "thinking green" and environmentally friendly :) ENJOY

Review of Reading 27: Seeing Green: Knowing and Saving the Environment on Film

I thought that Seeing Green: Knowing and Saving the Environment on Film was a very interesting article. It began, by explaining to us why mass media was so important and crucial in getting the world about environmental problems and solutions out there. I enjoyed the part right away in the article when it stated "In other words, we can be told that rain forests are disappearing at alarming rates, but the often-cited statistics (Picture taken by Ashley Penrod) are not as compelling until one has actually seen the destruction." I think that this is important, because it shows how until we, as humans see something, we don't really believe it usually. This is the reason why documentaries and films are so important, because it shows us what's going on in the world and not just hear about it.

The Fantasies of Natural History Film
This section of the article talked about how environmentally committed documentaries include wildlife and natural history films. It starts by talking about two books, both of which challenge the notation. This section talks a lot about how Americans probably think that and expect nature films to be like the real thing, when in reality they are very "made up" and not very well portrayed, much so like a fantasy. Most films on wildlife are focused on Darwinian topics or on animal relationships. Because of this portrayal, it can be hard to have boundaries between the use of these films as entertainment or for the sciences as an educational tool.


Framing Environmental Degradation
This section of the article discusses how films go about showing the deterioration of the environment. It said that most of the time, it's easiest to establish a problem briefly, while all the while examining the solutions. It gave an example of keystone species in an area, in which they are indicators of a healthy ecosystem, because they require more space and more resources. The article gave two examples of films that talk about degradation. In the movie, Since the Company Came, a Malaysian logging company has been cutting and exporting tropical limber. In the film, they talk to the loggers, the townspeople, men and women, and get their thoughts on what the logging is doing to the culture and environment. The film depicts women who are not for the logging for the purposes of wanting clean water and wanting to continue to be able to eating fish from the water. The loggers themselves often said that they were thinking about the future and how this would effect their lives. The second film, Second Nature: Bulding Forests in West Africa's Savannas, focused on how they differed from the normal narratives and broader aspects of environmental degradation. A quote from the book said that the film "uncritically place blame on local ecological mismanagement and overpopulation" rather than thinking about the problem in a more worldwide tone.

Visualizing Green Crusades
Films often raise questions of how and what strategies will work to help us to save the environment. Save the Panda and The Rhino War are both documentaries which use images of wildlife, music, and dramatic story lines of destruction and redemption to get peoples attention. The article stated however, that they both brought a new aspect to the film, a person who is trying to help save the animals and their environment. "These films confirm two basic points famliar to natural history film audiences: (1) that proper conservation is to set up pakrs managed by experts and patrolled by armed guards, supported by efforts to educate locals about natural resources while keeping them separate from each other; and (2) that individuals, with the appropriate knowledge (science) and equipment (radio transmitters and guns) can make a difference." I think that in saying that, the films are trying to show that anyone can go out and make a difference and help, all you need is the proper equipment and training. Another type of film that is used is "green primitive." In these films, it is shown that we can live in harmony with nature. They often create romantic visions of what the environment and its surroundings can be like. The problem with these types of films, is that the people in it claim to represent the agency and often deny the voices.

My Thoughts
I thought that this article was very intereresting to read. It showed that we do need documentaries and films on the environement and environment related topics, but how and what to put in them is still very contraversial and may not always be relevant to what we actually need in them. I really liked this quote from the article, "So there is growing realization that conservation is not simply about what kind of nature activists imagine or know they want to preserve or restore; it is also an important arena in which they, explicitly, project and reimagine community, political-economic relationships, and social justice." With this growing knowledge, hopefully we will be able to see a really effective way of getting the word out about the environment and how we can help it! There has to be a way that we can get out the important topics and show the need for them. This article definitely made me open my eyes to the fact that we need to find these ways as soon as possible.

Some Terms
nonmediagenic mechanisms: I couldn't find nonmediagenic... but I found medagnic, so I'd just put the word not in front of it to take place of the non.
Not attractive and appealing to viewers and readers of the news media

archetypal: A stereotype or oversimplification

Environmental Degradation: The deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife.

Matrilineage: Line of descent as traced through women on the maternal side of a family.

I found this website called, The Environment A Global Challenge, that I thought was pretty cool. It talks about Environmental degradation, something that I'm interested in! Check it out!