Orr

The whole time that I am reading this essay I couldn't help but think that this guy is completely nuts! He is without a doubt the most radical writer that we read this semester. I would never place biophobics on the same level as sociopaths. Some people just don't like nature, it doesn't make them a good or a bad person. However when I read something I cant help but play devils advocate for Orr. My family says its the defense attorney in me. In todays society we are so immersed in technology that most of us don't remember what it is like to be without it. One of my favorite things to do when I go home to Minnesota during Summer vacation is to unplug. I spend at minimum a week where I shut off my phone, unplug my computer, and cover the television and just enjoy living. And to be completely honest with you its one of the most rewarding times in my year. I get to enjoy the little things, like brushing my horse Peyton or walking out in the swamp with Indy. Spending lazy days floating down the Rum River on an inner tube fishing. Just typing this is making me smile. I cant imagine a world where nature doesn't exist to allow me a refuge. However I do understand that not everyone feels the same way that I do. I was just born a Biophiliac as Orr calls us. Its in my blood and it isn't going anywhere!

Field Trip Reflection

My favorite field trip this semester was without a doubt ECHO. It was so interesting to learn all the different ways that food can be grown. Growing up on a farm I never thought that urban gardens could be successful. When I saw those urban gardens where they used things like the pine needles and moss instead of soil I was amazed. It made me realize that as a culture we are so uneducated about methods to grow our own food. I think sometimes we use the fact that we live in cities as a cop out to not having to learn about ways to grow out own food. Something else about ECHO that really made an impact on me was their efforts to teach people how to live simply with what they already have. I think it is so cool that they will teach anyone how to institute the practices at ECHO at their own homes. In a world that is filled more and more with famine, starvation and food shortages we could save so many lives by just educating people about ways to provide themselves with their own food. A lot of the great civilizations societal problems that Shiva talked about could be solved through education. We need to start educating ourselves towards change lest we become just another page in the history books. That's why ECHO is so great! They created a zero cost system where we can use things like TIRES!! to build a hill to plant trees and reduce local flooding. There were so many things that I was amazed by at ECHO that I cant even think of them all at this moment. It truly was my most favorite field trip of the semester! Than you for taking us!!

Dry Walk Field Trip Make-Up

Wet Walk Field Trip Make-Up

Food Forest Field Trip Make-Up

Goodall

Jane Goodall and I could be soul twins. While reading her article I identified so much with her idealistic view of the world and the people in it. I loved reading the reasons why she has hope for the future of our world: our extraordinary intellect, the resilience of nature, the energy and commitment of informed young people who are empowered to act, and the indomitable human spirit (pg. 161). Reading these words just made me smile because they are exactly how I feel about the future of our world. As a political scientist I am trained to understand that social structures are not eternal and everlasting. They have a dawn and a dusk just like everything else. This allows us to visualize a world beyond tomorrow where a movement started by the youth of a generation can rise and change the shape of their destiny. Much like our founding fathers did during the War for Independence in 1776. Our planet too can see a rebirth from the ashes of human destruction, all it takes is for the youth to stand up and say enough. However its going to take work. The stories that are sighted in Goodall's article are proof of that.

Programs such as TACARE seek to redirect social problems that are causing environmental destruction. For example in the article Goodall show us how the education of women in underdeveloped countries leads to decreases in birth rates, which puts less stress on local economies and the environments. Instances such as this and others that Goodall stated in her office show us that just a little change can have a dramatic positive effect towards our efforts to help rebuild out world. Some people may ask why we should even bother to try and fix what mankind has destroyed (pg. 178). Beyond the obvious reason that increase consumption will result in the devastation of mankind as a species, we must also change our ethical view of our environment. While we have a moral responsibility to fix that which we have broken we also have an ethical responsibility to the land and the plants and animals that occupy it. The animals and plants were there long before man showed up, and they have the right to remain there. Much like the grey wolves in my home state of Minnesota, we don't help rebuild and reintroduce an endangered species to an area because it will benefit us somehow. We do it because the wolves have a right to be there and survive because it is their place just as much as it is ours, probably more so.

 

Like Dr. Goodall I see the world for what it could be and not what it is now. People have the power to make little changes with big results. That is why programs like colloquium are so important to the future of our world. We need to give future generations the knowledge and motivation to make positive changes that can help heal our planet.

Carson

Carson states that, "Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species-man-acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world (Carson 153). As children of the new millennia and the technology that it introduced sometimes I think mine and later generations forget about the state of the world that existed before the age of technological advancement. A little over a hundred years ago people lived with none of the modern advancements that we enjoy today. They had very little ability to alter the nature of the world beyond constructing buildings and establishing crop lands. However with our modern advancements that allowed us to alter the shape of our world, also came the consequences of those actions, things like acid rain, and the greenhouse effect to name a couple. People lived very simply at the turn of the 20th century and they relied on their land directly for their care and well being. However with the increase in technology and urbanization that came with the industrial revolution our society took a shift, forgetting about the environment that provides us life in favor of greed and industrialization. If we would bring someone from the 19th Century to ours they wouldn't recognize anything from their time. The rapid societal change we have seen in the last 100 years is unprecedented to anything that has come before.

According to Carson, "The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature" (Carson 154). Man has tampered with the fundamental aspects of nature, taken those gifts and warped them to suit their own twisted purposes. Now we are spiraling towards disaster and are scrambling to find ways to fix what we have destroyed. However it is always easier and quicker to create a problem than it is to fix one. I'm reminded of a quote from the movie "Cold mountain" that actress Renee Zellweger says "They create they rain, and then they stand in it and say Crap! its raining". While Renee was talking about the actions of men during the Civil War I find this to be true in regards to the environment. We destroy the environment to fulfill our short term goals of greed and prosperity, however our actions have consequences. So we inevitably have to fix what we destroyed, however that costs us money, which upsets us. So we try and put a price tag on the environment to limit the amount of money we "have" to spend to satisfy our guilt. The whole thing is backwards. We need to think about the long term ramifications of our actions before we make decisions that could affect future generations forever. We must think about someone besides ourselves, its the only way for a society to survive let alone survive.