Share and Voice: Green Sex?

After I Read Sara's Let's Talk About Sex post, I got intrigued (because I am also in Peer Health Educators so constantly thinking and talking about these things) and wanted to do a little bit of research on if there's anything you can do in your sex life to be more environmentally friendly. I was pleased with my results! The first results I found we're about things that you can buy that are more eco-friendly that have to do with sex: "Even Sex Can Be Environmentally Friendly"

Eco-Friendly Sex Toys: I learned something new, sex toys are NOT friendly for our environment AT ALL! Most toys are made from PVC which releases toxins into our air. Pthalates are also used to soften the hard plastic, and pthalates are being tested for producing cancer right now. Because most toys have the warning "for novelty use only" on them, they aren't necessarily being made with the intent that one will use them with the body, because of this, the companies put whatever chemicals they want on them, SO for your bodies sake, use a condom.

Earth-Friendly Bed Sheets: As in one of my previous posts Help for Heather's Sneezes? This part talks about organic bed sheets and how they are so much better for not only the environment but ourselves!

Underwear is Fun to Wear if you Wear... Greenknickers?: Greenknickers are underwear, but they are made from a cotton and hemp blend, and not synthetic materials.



Another website that I found about going green for sex is Eco-Sex Guide. Here are some of their tips.

Turn off the lights: Obviously, this helps energy reduction.

Passion for fruit?: If you enjoy using fruit to start off your night, the article says to make sure that the fruit it was not genetically engineered, something that our class knows oh so much about now!

Last, But never least, this is my favorite, a website has come up with contraception that is eco-friendly!

Condoms: The new condoms are made out of sustainable sourced rubber from French Letter .For each pack of condoms that is sold part of the money goes to healthcare, and disadvantaged people. For vegans, these condoms do not contain milk- based proteins during production. These condoms have passed the UK safety testing.

DISCLOSER: So after speaking with Dori Decker (Health Educator from Health Services) we are not sure what the difference in the standards are between the UK and the USA. I did much googling to try to figure these differences out and could not find anything. The closest I got was the UK's Department of Health website on contraceptions. Although it does not straight up say "Here's our rules" it shows what the UK aims for and what they value important in sexual health. So, before you think about ordering the new condoms online, just read over the UK's thoughts. :)

So, next time you want to engage in sexual activities, please keep these tips in mind on how to help our earth while doing so :)

Reflection: Weeks 7 and 8

We are officially halfway through the semester! Yay! I feel like weeks 7 and 8 got way busy and kept me on my toes for sure! (Picture taken by Ashley Penrod)

Week 7

During week 7, we had a ton of stuff going on! The week started with Reading 16; III Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door.This reading was more touching because it was told in a more lifelike manner. It talked about a girl from Buffalo, who lived down the street from Borden Chemical. This story gave me mixed feelings, as it was about a girl who lived in a small town who her family members were getting sick, and she suspected it was from the chemical plant. I did like this story because it kind of left the door open for discussion and for you to kind of decide yourself what you think the cause of the cancers were. It led to some great class discussion!

On Tuesday and Thursday of week 7, we watched a documentary entitled, Green by Laura Dunn. I absolutely loved this documentary and it was definitely my favorite thus far. This documentary talked about Cancer Alley, which is a 100 mile stretch in Louisiana in which 150 petrochemical plants lie. In this movie, Dunn interviewed a lot of people that live in the stretch, and they all think that the chemicals are creating a lot of health problems for the residents. It was so sad to see the kid's talk to the camera who all had health issues of their own, knowing that there is nothing that they can do about them.

Last, but not least for the week, we did an Eye Opener! This one was a really cool one I thought, we went to the website entitled Environmental Working Group. We then chose our favorite cosmetic item that we used, or cosmanic item according to Steve at Steve Goes Green, and typed it into the database. It then told us how healthy our item is for the environment, ourselves, etc... I chose to test out my favorite mascara and my results were pretty bad! I scored a 5 out of 10, and my results showed that my mascara led to cancer, allergies, toxicity, warnings, and plenty of other concerns. The thing that I noticed most in everyones results were that there are still a lot of companies testing on animals! I think that is horrible, as I'm sure there are better ways to test things.

Week 8

Week 8 started off by another reading, Privatizing Water. This reading also tied in with our documentary for the week, Thirst. The point of the reading and the documentary was to show us the fight for not giving the rights of water to a company. I don't think that anyone should be able to own our water, and charge us a high price. Companies are trying to make a profit on anything that they can get their hands on, and it's not right! I use so much water it's probably ridiculous! I should really start thinking of cutting back as much as possible. The movie stopped working on Thursday so we couldn't finish watching it to see what happened, but it led to a great class discussion! We talked about things that we feel passionate about to stand up for... and after much though, I have no idea what I would stand up for! I know that one thing would be comprehensive sexual education in all classrooms.

Anywhose... These past two weeks have been fun. We had some great Eye Openers, and watched 1 (and a half?!) really great documentaries. I'm realizing that I need to make some major changes in my habits in order to really help out :)

Share and Voice: Red and Green Team

As probably no one knows in this classroom... I love HGTV. This is probably the first channel that I turn on every time I t urn my television on! The other day I was looking for something that I had seen on their website, when I found.... Red hot and Green, a show on eco-friendly housing and decorating. All of the ideas that the show contains are earth friendly, which is really neat! Not only can you watch full episodes and quick tips from the show, they frequently have little quizzes to see how eco-friendly you are in your house.They have everything from kitchens to garages to bedrooms to bathrooms, so it's a really inside and outside show! The picture shown is an example of a before and after of a cluttered living room that they have. Next time you're thinking about making some changes to your house, check out this website and get some friendly environmental tips and ideas!

Share and Voice: ENVIROcool award

Hey Everyone!
I recently was awarded the EnviroCool Blog Award from Katie for my post about TerraCycle and SPAM! I was really excited, because I was really excited about that post! Now it is my turn to pass on this award to Abbey for her Share andVoice post on Everyones doing IT! This post made me laugh, and had some really cool products! Actually, I love reading all of Abbey's posts, because they are all unique and sound like her! Make sure you check out this Share&Voice. Great Job!!

All you have to do is pass this award along to other! Congratulations!! Great Job on your bog! Instructions are below...

Award Instructions

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.

2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).

3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger(use main blog URL) and the blog title ( use specific URL for that blog post).

4. Copy and Paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.

5. Publish the post.

6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.

7. Continue the process..

Share and Voice: One Hundred Months

With all the talk about what's happening with the climate, I found this website that I thought was so really! It was called One Hundred Months. It is one of the simplest websites I have seen in a long time, although it has a lot of impact. All that the website is doing, is ticking down the time that we have until the effects of global warming are irreversible. There is a report on carbon dioxide that you can read, and this tells how they got this information. You can sign up for monthly actions, send the information to your friends, and even print off banners to put places that you want. Something that I thought was cool, were the many links that were partners to this website. They all have something to do with the environment or global warming or going green, so I thought they were pretty neat! When I checked out the website, the picture up above shows how many months, days, hours, and seconds we had until we run out of time. How much time will be left when you go to it?

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

So, for this eye opener, we had to choose a cosmetic product that we use, put it into Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database and get our results to see how healthy and environmentally friendly it was! I chose to test out my Maybelline Define-a Lash Mascara in brownish-black. My results were petrifying to me! These are the results that I got from my mascara.

Ingredients in this product are linked to:
	Cancer
	Developmental/reproductive toxicity
	Violations, restrictions & warnings
	Allergies/immunotoxicity
	Other concerns for ingredients used in this product: Neurotoxicity, Endocrine disruption, Persistence and bioaccumulation, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Multiple, additive exposure sources, Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Contamination concerns, Occupational hazards, Biochemical or cellular level changes

This manufacturer::
	Compact for Safe Cosmetics signer
	Conducts animal testing

SCORE

5

moderate hazard (out of 10)

My Thoughts

Being that this is my favorite product in like the whole wide world, I was sad that this product did so bad. However, what concerned me even more was the fact that Maybelline didn't sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics! What that means, is they didn't sign a contract stating that they would try to use safe ingredients and ingredients that were known not to cause health problems. I was also not happy with the fact that they use animal testing... who does that these days?! I suppose it's hard to make make-up that is all healthy, but come on! The score of 5 made me feel a little bit better, because it's not the worse that it can be! Even after learning this, I can honestly say that I will not stop using this... because it is my favorite although it did bother me that they test on animals. I found myself grabbing my makeup bag and shower things to see what all of them had in it! Some really shocked me and I may stop using them! I found this Gorgeously Green Community Board that talked about some mascara's that we're environmentally friendly :) Check it out!

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!

Reflections: Week 1 and 2

The first 2 weeks in Environmental Health have been very uneventful environment learning wise in my eyes. I can see why this is of course, as we just started the course and have been trying to get these blogs under way and working! I really liked the first day of class when Dr. V showed us the power point trip Washington, DC and how the different monuments had sayings about the environment on them. I thought that it made us think in out of the box ways, and started getting us in the mindset on how much the environment impacts our life.

Over the first 2 weeks, I have learned a lot about blogs and how to make them very "your own". I had to use blogs in my Computers in Education class, but never this in-depth or this on a schedule. It took me awhile to learn where all of the special features were and fine tweak my page so it looked and had the content of what we wanted. Some of the things that this included were: following blogs, comment on other students blogs, how to add special features to my own blog and make my page looked like I wanted it to look. Although I found it difficult at first to capture what exactly was expected of us and when and where things had to get done, it's making much more sense now that it's actually happening.

After being in class and hearing about what's going to happen over the semester, I am now very excited to be in this class! I've never had an environmental class before, although I do have an interest in learning about the environment, so being in this will be a new experience for me and hopefully teach me many things.

Welcome to Heather's Healthy Environment!

Picture Taken By Ashley Penrod

Hey there! My name is Heather and I am a Community Health Education major and a Psychology minor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. This blog is going to focus on the environment and health! Mostly, about why the environment is good for your health and a necessary part of keeping you healthy!

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

1. Advocacy Project
2. Eye Openers
3. Reflections
4. Reviews
5. Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.

The members of my web group are:

1. Steve @ Steve Goes Green
   
2. Christen @ Christen's Environmental Health
   
3. Kaileigh @ Kaileigh's Nature Log
   
4. Kathy @ Choh's Changing Environment
   
5. Shar @ Shar's Virtual Environment
   

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile."

I Iearned how to make an avatar at FaceYourMange.com and how to make a signature at LiveSignature.com. I hope you'll continue to stop in and see what this has in store!