Soapbox Project- Audrey and Jessica

Jessica and I chose "Eating Locally and Seasonally" as our soapbox topic. We decided to team up because her idea was to do a project on eating locally and my idea was eating seasonally and we realized: You can only eat seasonally if you're eating local. In other words, if you're eating locally you have to be eating seasonally as well. They fit together quite well, because you can't really do one without the other. We wanted to choose something that we hadn't covered too extensively in the class. And although it was important that we felt passionate about the topic, we loved that there was still much to learn for ourselves within the topic. I certainly learned a great deal. Toward the end of my research I read something that we didn't end up including in the video, which was that most Americans are more willing to change their eating habits to eat locally/seasonally than they are willing to cut a food group out of their diet (vegetarianism/veganism.) I thought that was really interesting. Hope you learn as much as we did!

It told me that my file was too big to upload here, so here's a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/4NqxUrDWNDY 

Cowspiracy after-thoughts

For my environmental documentary, I chose to watch Cowspiracy on Netflix. I've been hearing about this documentary through the grape vine for years, so I'm glad I finally took the time to watch it. As the name suggests, the film follows one man in his search for the truth on how animal agriculture effects climate change. The viewer follows his search, and learns along side of him. Cowspiracy reveals the unfortunate truth that many of the world's leading climate change activist groups still do not recognize and speak out about the negative impacts of animal agriculture. And the film goes on to show how it's more than just negative impacts--it's the leading cause of deforestation and CO2 emissions.

I feel like I learned so much from this documentary, I really do recommend it. I'll just touch on a few points that stood out to me. The narrator had extreme difficulty getting interviews with green organizations (was even turned down by Green Peace) and even when he was able to get in for an interview, often times the representatives were confused or uncomfortable with his questions about animal agriculture. Cowspiracy came out about three years ago now. Out of curiousity I looked up Green Peace's current page about sustainable food production. If you read it you'll notice that the "Fixing Our System" blurb fails to mention that animal products are the main problem.

There was a short part of the film where he wonders if maybe a "backyard farming" lifestyle could be the solution to our unsustainable farming. He visits a backyard farmer, interviews him, and witnesses the slaughter of one of his animals. The narrator is then shown saying "I couldn't do that myself. If I couldn't do it, I don't want somebody else doing it for me." That really resonated with me. I'm a new vegetarian, I just started the diet change about two months ago. And I've often wondered if I could justify eating a small amount of meat again if it came from as local of farms as possible. But after watching that, I really agree with his mindset. Not to mention, he goes on to do the math of the sustainability of even a backyard farm, and it's not nearly as sustainable as a produce garden.

Animal agriculture is the main industry in New Zealand, where the majority  of the land has been cleared for the raising of livestock

I'm feeling a little passionate so I could go on and on but really you all should just take the time to watch the documentary. For years I had a resistance to any sort of talk about going meatless or vegan. Change is hard to accept. And it's much easier to stay in the dark so that you don't feel guilty for the lifestyle you've been accustomed to your whole life. But to quote one of the final interviews in Cowspiracy, "If you eat animal products, don't bother to call yourself an environmentalist." It sounds harsh, but if you look at the math it's hard to dispute. If you can't bring yourself to watch the documentary, at least take 10 minutes out of your day to look through the website.

Three Degrees

The first major problem that occurs at 3 degrees of global temperature rise (as we just discussed on Monday) is drought. The chapter begins by telling of the country Botswana, where rain is cherished for its rarity. (A movie just came out with a lot of educational material on the country of Botswana, and also a romance) The narrator than goes on to say that by the time our planet reaches 3 degrees of warming, much of Africa and, indeed, our own country will be surrounded by drought. The drying of the region also leads to the building of an environment which fosters the Kalahari Dune Fields, which in turn creates essentially a larger desert, complete with new dunes, and violently blowing sand. It's estimated that this region in Africa will be unsuitable for human life by 2070.

The chapter reveals that at our current emission levels, a 3 degree rise in global temperature could occur as soon as 2050. In addition to widespread drought, 3 degrees could bring the death of the Amazon jungle. This is because warmer temperatures cause CO2 absorbing plants to release the gas in large quantities instead of absorbing it. So not only does 3 degrees bring death of our jungles, it feeds into a vicious cycle which pumps out even more carbon into our atmosphere. And, as talked about in Eaarth, temperatures raising also leads to more frequent, more unpredictable, and more powerful tropical storms (hurricanes, mostly.)

Not sure what movie this is from. A wave overtaking Manhattan.

There's many, many more than three large issues coming our way that are raised in this chapter. But I'll focus the last one on something that hits close to home for our country. The book says that the flooding of New York City is not a question of if but when. Sea levels are rising all over the planet, thanks in part to our melting polar ice caps. Along the New York coast, they've risen 25 centimeters over the last century. They're projected to rise anywhere from another 25 centimeters, to a full meter by the time our planet reaches 3 degrees of temperature rise.

He goes on to talk about food shortages, Australia becoming inhospitable, extinction of plant life on land and in sea, and flooding in Europe. A lot of the stuff at 3 degrees seems to be what Eaarth talked about, and what we heard as projections for our future planet in the presentation by Dr. Karowe. At the end of this chapter, I'm truly terrified to hear what happens beyond 3 degrees. Because 3 degrees sounds like the apocalypse our movies keep portraying. Hope everyone liked Mad Max!

Apocalyptic waste-world portrayed in Mad Max fury road. Hot temperatures, widespread drought, food and water shortages.

Also from Mad Max. Sounds like the sandstorms Six Degrees predicts happening in Africa.

Eating Locally and In Season--Bibliography source

I read a journal posting from Human Organization titled: "Community-supported agriculture: A sustainable alternative to industrial agriculture?" by Cynthia Abbott Cone and Andrea Myhre.

I initially thought this source was spot on for my topic given the title of the journal. As I read I discovered that although still relevant and pertinent to my research, it wasn't quite spot on. It talks about CSA's. Which are a growing social trend. They involve agreements set up between local farmers and "members" of the CSA. Basically people get together and decide that they want quality, local food that is supportive of their environment. And they all create a pact together; the farmers agree to terms of raising the crops, the members agree to help with expenses, help with transportation of the goods, etc. Usually CSA's are primarily for fresh produce, though occasionally meat or dairy products are involved as well. I did not know that I knew what a CSA was. But as I read more about them I remembered a friend of mine from high school. Her mother was very health conscious, and I remember being at her house one day in the summer when a large cardboard box full of vegetables was delivered to her back door. Not your average amount or selection. If I remember correctly it was like, a lot, of eggplants and a few batches of kale. Because that's part of the agreement in a CSA. Whatever is in season, whatever there is an abundance of healthy crop for, whatever is sustainable--that's what you get. It's not like an online delivery of groceries, you don't check a box for zucchinis and tomatoes--you get what you get. Anyone interested? Look here for some information on local CSA's. People's Food Co-op (which we've talked about in class as an option for more environmentally conscious grocery shopping) is also reminiscent of a CSA.

The authors conducted research on eight CSA's. They researched the farmers and the members; motivations for creation and joining, and personal statistics such as married/unmarried, kids/no kids, education level. Overall I learned a lot about how CSA's make eating locally and in season more practical and doable, but that they can tend to attract only a certain type of person or household (typically a household unconcerned with any monetary commitments.) I also learned about why industrialized agriculture is so unsustainable, and how CSA's are one way to nudge communities out of their dependence on modernity. 

Ishmael Final Chapters

Chapter ten begins with the pupil seeking out his missing teacher. He goes on quite the chase, his failures due mostly in part to his being unable to admit that he's actually searching for a gorilla and not a person. When he finally finds Ishmael, on exhibit in a circus of sorts, the reader goes on the same journey as the pupil does: How could this happen to him? How could people treat him this way? Why did he let himself be subdued in this way? It's amazing how much more sympathy we have for an animal when we know that it is human-like. Even though, most of our lives we know this to be true anyway-- we usually quiet that voice in our minds, and insist that it's okay to mistreat animals because we are above them. But I suppose the book's already delved into that.

Ishmael and his student argue a bit at first about his current circumstances, but they end up going on as usual; Continuing the lesson from the point they left off, after the fall of Adam and murder of Abel's reinterpretation. I have to admit I was a bit jarred that they continued on so fluidly. I almost wish they had spent a bit more time in the "how" and "why" of their new circumstances, being that it's a bit odd for them to be continuing this lesson as usual being in a circus. In the new lesson one of my favorite parts was when they're talking about the Takers' view of the past: "...we're a very 'new' people. Every generation is somehow new, more thoroughly cut off from the past than the one that came before." I found this very interesting, as I've always been a bit obsessed with how life circles around in that way. Each generation seems to be doomed to repeat a cycle something along the lines of this: starting out a 'new' way of thinking which divides them from previous generations, unifying in that new mindset, growing older in that mindset and starting families of their own, raising their kids in that mindset until they're old enough to start their new way of thinking, making the older generation suddenly outdated, 'conservative,' and often times unwelcome to the new thinking. I'm not even sure if this is exactly what Ishmael and his student were getting at, but it's where my mind took me. (Some light reading on generational theories.) Bringing it back to that excerpt though, this particular cycle lends to the Takers' way of thinking that he's pointing out in this section: That the people alive today are smarter than any people who have ever been alive, and we are more advanced and more capable of life than anything else that has ever been on Earth. I love how this book has made me so aware of this mindset and it's dangers.

An interesting section; If everyone knew the teachings of Ishmael to be true, would we care?

The book wraps up with talking about the prison that the Taker culture puts us in, which is our stubborn need for power and "Consuming the world." Ishmael and his student disagree on one point in this section, which is that Ishmael believes humans could agree that destroying the cultural prison of the Takers' is something everyone could agree is worth striving for. His student argues that even in the event that every person involved in Taker culture heard Ishmael's lessons, they would still buy into Mother Culture and not "give a damn that it's a prison and . . . [not] give a damn that it's destroying the world." Unfortunately, with everything we've learned in this class I'm inclined to believe that the student is more likely to be right in this disagreement.

In the end, when Ishmael has declared his lessons finished, his student sets out to rescue him from his imprisonment at the circus. Instead, he discovers that Ishmael has died. The ending of the book really wraps a bow on the package for me. I think that Ishmael dying is the only way to have made all of their interactions and all of his teachings more impactful and eternal. Overall this book was a great complement to Eaarth; reading them so closely together was a very powerful experience for me.

Ishamel Ch 9

The beginning paragraph already had a sentence that got me thinking."...I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me." I love that idea. Ishmael has as much cause to fear his pupil as his pupil believes he has to fear him. It reminds me of talking to my friend who had recently studied abroad in South Africa, and had spent a small amount of time in Rwanda. In the time she spent there she went gorilla trekking, and she told me the story of it. Apparently, the tour guides were all carrying large guns, and my friend asked if they were to protect them from the gorillas. The guides laughed at her, and responded that the gorillas would never hurt them, the guns were because they were near a war zone. I think that really relates here. That all humans probably would've assumed the same as my friend in that situation--"We're going into the wild, we need to protect ourselves from the wild." When, ironically, the wild that they needed to fear was not the habitat they were entering.

Ishmael goes into great detail about the gods and how they came to rule the world, and put man in it. One of my favorite parts of this section was this:

"'Whatever I can justify doing is good and whatever I cannot justify doing is evil.' But the others scoffed at this, saying, 'This is not the knowledge of good and evil.' 'Of course it's not,' the other replied, 'but how would Adam know this?'"

This book is great at revealing truths of human nature, and this is no exception. For the most part, this is absolutely how we operate. If we can justify it, we must be right. If we can't, then it's wrong. And while the counter argument to this is, "Well, of course, that's how morality works." I can see the problem with this. To think like this puts ourselves at the center of our own universe, and says that all things happen for our own benefit.

The chapter concludes with identifying Adam as the protagonist in the story of the Takers, making the distinction that Adam began the culture we know today, not the race of humanity we know today. I enjoy this point a lot. I look forward to finishing this book!

Ishamel Chapters 5-8

When I take breaks from this book to read other things, I find the writing style very refreshing. Right of the bat I was excited to read more analyses of humanity and our ways of thinking, and I wasn't let down. I love the way he describes our relationship to the earth; We believe we were put here to conquest it, and will keep on attempting to conquest every single part of nature until we "rule" over nature. This way of thinking reminds me of Eaarth and McKibben's talk of acidifying oceans, increased tropical storms, wild fires, general unpredictability of nature. And I can't help but feeling smug on Nature's behalf: we're no match.

"Until the last three or four decades, the people of your culture had no doubt that things were just going to go on getting better and better and better forever. There was no conceivable end in sight." This line brings to mind all of the dystopian future movies that have been released within the last ten years or so. It makes me think that perhaps our culture collectively feels a sense of foreboding; That perhaps we know we've gone too far, abused too long, put out of mind long enough the damage we're wreaking on our planet.

Coexist!!! Taken in my backyard.

One of my favorite parts of the reading was in Ch. 7 part 2, when Ishmael is talking about "wild life" and how humans understand it vs. how it actually functions. He establishes that there is a fundamental law of peace that allowed all creatures and "Homo sapiens sapiens" to live peacefully on Earth for three million years, but that when Humans decided that we were exempt from this law, that Nature was ours for the taking and it was made for us, is when the destruction of Earth began. "'Their explanation is that something is fundamentally wrong with people.' 'Not that you Takers may be doing something wrong but rather that there is something fundamentally wrong with human nature itself.'" I love this part. It's revealing of the psychology that allows us to go on living with the fact that we're trashing the planet. While it's exciting to read this book because of what it reveals of human nature, it's simultaneously discouraging because you realize how right Ishmael is about all of our flaws.

Last but not least, Ishmael's reveal of the law that allows Nature to coexist, diversity, brings it all home for me. This is truly what we've lost touch with. For me it brings to mind the fact that we're killing off our bees with pesticides and chemicals. I recently read this article about the creation of small robots/drones that pollinate flowers. We're trying, once again, to rise above nature, say to nature "we don't need you," instead of being humble enough to admit what we're doing wrong and fix it.