The video “The Story of Stuff” gives a lot of information on what goes through the process of making a consumer item like an ipod for example. It gives informative details on how it starts from the Earth, to the factories where it is made, to the consumer’s shopping building, then to their home, and finally to the disposal of that item that they have bought. It’s a through process that takes much of the Earth’s natural resources and results in something that just creates more garbage. What Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes describe in their essay, “The All-Consuming Self” is how we, as Americans, are one of the top world consumers and have actually admitted to not stopping our world consumption. They say that the companies have found ways that trick our mind into buying their product. They create images that attract the viewer and, according to Kanner and Gomes, “…advertisers need to create a false image of the ideal consumer, one which people will wish to emulate.”
Companies have found ways to sell their product without changing much. All they do differently is convince the viewer that they are watching someone who has made a better life for themselves, that is really just a false life, just by buying that companies product. The commercials make the viewer think that they need this product and that if they don’t get it, they will never be successful. It has become more than some marketing trick and is now a way of life. According to both Kanner and Gomes, “According to Business Week, the average American is exposed to about three thousand ads a day.” Three thousand ads a day they say is what we view daily and what companies shove into our faces to buy their product. It’s become something more than just selling a product but now has actually become a way of life because of how much advertising has changed us as a society.
Kanner, Allen D., and Mary E. Gomes. The All-Consuming Self.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Background In A Photo
The world is changing and we aren’t caring enough on what is happening. This photo by amazing photographer Ryan Southen is from his collection called “Southen’s Photostream” shows just the amount of how much we really care about our planet. In the photo, clearly shown is a gym with people working out. In the background of the photo is a whole city with lights and smoke coming from air conditioners and other places in the area. It’s showing us how detached to we are from our world. We care too much on how we look and how we are around other people that we completely forget the impact we are causing on the planet at the same time. It’s a shocking, but true realization that needs to be noticed.
Leon Kolankiewicz said in the video “Immigration Numbers Rise – Environmental Suffers” that “the impact of the American growth was much greater because of our much higher levels of precapica consumption and technology.” He was saying that we, Americans, consume more resources than the rest of the whole world. We strive to use what resources we have to look our best and it’s what we use that is what we should be conserving, natural resources. As shown in the picture, we’d rather use lights, air conditioning, plastic bikes and metal dumbbells to gain a better look than just run outside, enjoy the fresh air, and not use any resources. It’s our addition to the Earth that is the main problem.
While I do believe in living a good life and having a nice look, it’s the Earth who needs the better look now. We are ruining our planet’s surface with unnecessary building. A company competes with other companies by creating stores or places that other stores down the street do the same thing. It’s an unnecessary waste of materials taken from this Earth. The only way to stop all this waste on places like extra gyms, food markets, malls, and stores is to place a ban on stores that sell the same thing in another store in the same city. The way to make sure this works is to keep the older store, get rid of the new one and make a park out of the empty space, saving another part of mother earth. It’s how I believe cities should be made.
(In the video quote, Leon spoke a work that I couldn't figure out how to spell. Precapica was what I thought he said.)
Photo:
Urban Lifestyle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southen/2184781085/in/photostream/
Immigration Numbers Rise – Environmental Suffers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-NtQr89u4&fmt=18
Leon Kolankiewicz said in the video “Immigration Numbers Rise – Environmental Suffers” that “the impact of the American growth was much greater because of our much higher levels of precapica consumption and technology.” He was saying that we, Americans, consume more resources than the rest of the whole world. We strive to use what resources we have to look our best and it’s what we use that is what we should be conserving, natural resources. As shown in the picture, we’d rather use lights, air conditioning, plastic bikes and metal dumbbells to gain a better look than just run outside, enjoy the fresh air, and not use any resources. It’s our addition to the Earth that is the main problem.
While I do believe in living a good life and having a nice look, it’s the Earth who needs the better look now. We are ruining our planet’s surface with unnecessary building. A company competes with other companies by creating stores or places that other stores down the street do the same thing. It’s an unnecessary waste of materials taken from this Earth. The only way to stop all this waste on places like extra gyms, food markets, malls, and stores is to place a ban on stores that sell the same thing in another store in the same city. The way to make sure this works is to keep the older store, get rid of the new one and make a park out of the empty space, saving another part of mother earth. It’s how I believe cities should be made.
(In the video quote, Leon spoke a work that I couldn't figure out how to spell. Precapica was what I thought he said.)
Photo:
Urban Lifestyle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southen/2184781085/in/photostream/
Immigration Numbers Rise – Environmental Suffers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-NtQr89u4&fmt=18
In Class Blog
What some people see that most scientists don’t is that it’s not our actions that are the cause for global warming, but instead immigration and the amount of people living on this planet. Leon Kolonkiewicz, a wildlife biologist and environmental planner, has been studying the ways human population is having an effect on the planet’s ecosystem and environment. He says in the video “Immigration Numbers Rise – Environmental Suffers” that “if you look at the oil imports, I can safely say that we wouldn’t even need any oil from the turbulent middle east if it weren’t for the 100 million people we’ve added since 1970.” Leon also suggests that it’s the population growth that is causing the increases in the amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases emissions. He is similar to Mark Maslin in that his information on carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions by stating how it’s our fault, it’s our problem, and it’s our actions that have caused global warming. While I do believe Mark Maslin’s idea of slowing down carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases emissions, I believe more in what Leon is saying. It is the increase in population that has caused this world to become overpopulated and low on resources. I do suggest that we control the amount of growth population by limiting families to two children so that families do not overpopulate the world. It can be enforced by keeping yearly track of families and legalizing abortions to people who break that rule. It’s an effective way that would make sure the population growth is controlled.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Suburbia
The suburban lifestyle has changed drastically from when they were first really introduced in the 1950’s. They first started appearing after World War II when all of the soldier’s came home from the war. As shown in the video “1950’s”, the American Dream for everyone was to settle down in a nice suburban lifestyle and have a good job with a nice family. It was the year where people were starting to adjust to a life after the war and move on. Brand new inventions emerged like the plastic bag, microwave, and barcodes. Starting in 1950 and lasting until 1964, there was a boom in the increase of babies countrywide. It was a time where people were having babies right after the war. It became the era called the “Baby Boom” era. It also shows at the end how while the white folks were living perfect lives, the blacks were being abused and tortured. It’s a great representation of how the 1950’s was the start of the change of the country.
The video “Radiant City: Suburban Landscape” describes the way people got things back in the early days and up until now. People who built the cities decided to place everyday needs like gas and food stores far apart from each other. This was a way for people to keep buying gas and traveling around their suburban lives. This is also a huge contributor to global warming. Forcing people to travel from one place to the next just makes them use gas more and more. This resulted in more emissions of carbon dioxide, resulting in more greenhouse gases which is not at all what people were expecting back in the 1950’s when they first thought of this idea.
The other video, “Gangs and White Flight” created a huge contribution to global warming. In the video, they talk about how whites were first adjusting to the addition of black residents. They didn’t like how they were moving in and going to their schools so some had decided to take action. White gangs were created in response to their new residents. A gang called the Spook Hunters attacked black residents. This resulted in violent crimes and blacks to create their own gangs in retaliation. Having black gangs scared most of the white residents in the suburban area, causing them to move farther away. This forced the white’s to build new houses, use more supplies and create a whole new settlement away from the blacks. Creating a new city just because they were scared of the blacks was a dumb idea for the whites. They wasted tons of resources to restart their community and this resulted in problems that we face today like global warming.
Work Cited:
Racism Divides the Working Class - Gangs and White Flight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVHMJz0IYQM
Radiant City: Suburban Landscape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeWCVWZbdo&feature=fvw
1950's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhKhA2w4cXs&feature=related
The video “Radiant City: Suburban Landscape” describes the way people got things back in the early days and up until now. People who built the cities decided to place everyday needs like gas and food stores far apart from each other. This was a way for people to keep buying gas and traveling around their suburban lives. This is also a huge contributor to global warming. Forcing people to travel from one place to the next just makes them use gas more and more. This resulted in more emissions of carbon dioxide, resulting in more greenhouse gases which is not at all what people were expecting back in the 1950’s when they first thought of this idea.
The other video, “Gangs and White Flight” created a huge contribution to global warming. In the video, they talk about how whites were first adjusting to the addition of black residents. They didn’t like how they were moving in and going to their schools so some had decided to take action. White gangs were created in response to their new residents. A gang called the Spook Hunters attacked black residents. This resulted in violent crimes and blacks to create their own gangs in retaliation. Having black gangs scared most of the white residents in the suburban area, causing them to move farther away. This forced the white’s to build new houses, use more supplies and create a whole new settlement away from the blacks. Creating a new city just because they were scared of the blacks was a dumb idea for the whites. They wasted tons of resources to restart their community and this resulted in problems that we face today like global warming.
Work Cited:
Racism Divides the Working Class - Gangs and White Flight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVHMJz0IYQM
Radiant City: Suburban Landscape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeWCVWZbdo&feature=fvw
1950's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhKhA2w4cXs&feature=related
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
In-Class Assignment / Nightly Blog Assignment
Dear Person,
I understand that you choose not to believe global warming exists and I respect that opinion. What you do not know is the consequences of global warming and how what you believe in is actually false. What your parents do as CEO’s for a major oil company is destroying our planet and needs to stop. The reason you should believe me is because of what you are not seeing and what is hurting the planet daily. Increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are the most dangerous to come from global warming.
The increasing temperature affects the world the most. With increasing temperature, the polar ice caps would melt, causing global water increases, flooding coastal cities and destroying them tell they are completely underwater. The increase would also affect the amount of rain dry places like deserts receive yearly and the amount of rain that places in wetter areas receive. Now, you might be saying how stupid this all sounds and how it could never happen. Well, to your surprise, all of what I have said already has happened, multiple times. Scientists have known this information by studying past glacial patterns and the air trapped in bubbles in the glacier. With this data, scientists have predicted the weather going back hundreds of thousands of years and have been able to predict future weather patterns using this same data. By going only a few decades in the future, predictions put our Earth’s temperature far higher than it ever was before, which scientists have deemed the name, global warming.
Now that you know about the increasing temperatures, I believe it’s a good time to talk about carbon dioxide increases. With ever car that is turned on, machines that are being used, factories that emit smoke, and destruction of forests for bigger homes, we are creating a build up of global carbon dioxide emission. Each day we give out tons and tons of carbon dioxide, much more that we have ever given in the past few hundred years only due to our recent advancements in technology that give off carbon dioxide, like oil companies and their drills. The cause for all of those increasing temperatures I’ve told you about is because of carbon dioxide emissions we, as a group worldwide, put out. It’s the biggest cause of global warming and it needs to be stopped, starting with factories and companies run by people like your father.
Sure, you could be reading all of this and be like, “Why am I reading all of this?”. Well, it’s to make sure that you start believing that global warming does exist and is a serious problem. Unlike disbelievers who give bad reasons to their ideas, there is actual proof to global warming. Those disbelievers claim that scientists have altered data to make global warming seem worse than it really is. My question to those who claim that is “Why would they change something that would affect the whole world?” It doesn’t make sense why hundreds of scientists would purposely fake data to get a point across.
Another claim that people who don’t think global warming exists is that it’s not our fault at all, but instead the sun’s fault. How does the sun affect the Earth other than giving us light, heat, and solar power? Sure, the sun gives off heat that builds up in the atmosphere but that’s because of our carbon dioxide emission that blocks the heat from leaving. Only recently, with increases of carbon dioxide emission has global warming and climate change gotten worse like a fruit that is left out for too long because it’s not attended to before it rots. Only we are to blame for our future demise.
People like Dr. Tim Ball who claims global warming doesn’t exist are to blame for all of the skeptic’s beliefs. Political people who have power that can change people’s opinions are a big problem. They try to counteract the truth with false facts that politicians like Al Gore have already proven true. It’s a hard thing to believe that people would think global warming is false but they are wrong and this is what you, as a skeptic, need to know or else it will definitely be people like you who are the cause for the end of the world through global warming.
Your Informative Friend,
--Eric Bobrow
Maslin, Mark. Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc, 2004.
I understand that you choose not to believe global warming exists and I respect that opinion. What you do not know is the consequences of global warming and how what you believe in is actually false. What your parents do as CEO’s for a major oil company is destroying our planet and needs to stop. The reason you should believe me is because of what you are not seeing and what is hurting the planet daily. Increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are the most dangerous to come from global warming.
The increasing temperature affects the world the most. With increasing temperature, the polar ice caps would melt, causing global water increases, flooding coastal cities and destroying them tell they are completely underwater. The increase would also affect the amount of rain dry places like deserts receive yearly and the amount of rain that places in wetter areas receive. Now, you might be saying how stupid this all sounds and how it could never happen. Well, to your surprise, all of what I have said already has happened, multiple times. Scientists have known this information by studying past glacial patterns and the air trapped in bubbles in the glacier. With this data, scientists have predicted the weather going back hundreds of thousands of years and have been able to predict future weather patterns using this same data. By going only a few decades in the future, predictions put our Earth’s temperature far higher than it ever was before, which scientists have deemed the name, global warming.
Now that you know about the increasing temperatures, I believe it’s a good time to talk about carbon dioxide increases. With ever car that is turned on, machines that are being used, factories that emit smoke, and destruction of forests for bigger homes, we are creating a build up of global carbon dioxide emission. Each day we give out tons and tons of carbon dioxide, much more that we have ever given in the past few hundred years only due to our recent advancements in technology that give off carbon dioxide, like oil companies and their drills. The cause for all of those increasing temperatures I’ve told you about is because of carbon dioxide emissions we, as a group worldwide, put out. It’s the biggest cause of global warming and it needs to be stopped, starting with factories and companies run by people like your father.
Sure, you could be reading all of this and be like, “Why am I reading all of this?”. Well, it’s to make sure that you start believing that global warming does exist and is a serious problem. Unlike disbelievers who give bad reasons to their ideas, there is actual proof to global warming. Those disbelievers claim that scientists have altered data to make global warming seem worse than it really is. My question to those who claim that is “Why would they change something that would affect the whole world?” It doesn’t make sense why hundreds of scientists would purposely fake data to get a point across.
Another claim that people who don’t think global warming exists is that it’s not our fault at all, but instead the sun’s fault. How does the sun affect the Earth other than giving us light, heat, and solar power? Sure, the sun gives off heat that builds up in the atmosphere but that’s because of our carbon dioxide emission that blocks the heat from leaving. Only recently, with increases of carbon dioxide emission has global warming and climate change gotten worse like a fruit that is left out for too long because it’s not attended to before it rots. Only we are to blame for our future demise.
People like Dr. Tim Ball who claims global warming doesn’t exist are to blame for all of the skeptic’s beliefs. Political people who have power that can change people’s opinions are a big problem. They try to counteract the truth with false facts that politicians like Al Gore have already proven true. It’s a hard thing to believe that people would think global warming is false but they are wrong and this is what you, as a skeptic, need to know or else it will definitely be people like you who are the cause for the end of the world through global warming.
Your Informative Friend,
--Eric Bobrow
Maslin, Mark. Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc, 2004.
Monday, July 13, 2009
My View of Nature
My view of nature has only changed a little throughout my life. Only recently, with the increasing information on global warming and the damage it’s doing, has caused me to change how I live my life. It has, though, significantly, changed how I view nature. When reading the third chapter of Mark Maslin book and how people determine the future, I’ve realized that I believe, according to Maslin, in the myth of “Nature perverse/tolerant”.
I believe in that myth because I do believe that even though global warming could be the end to the Earth, I also believe in that we have the ability to change the future. There is no way for a “Nature benign” myth to be true when the proof is appearing every day in the world. I do think that the myth of “Nature ephemeral” is similar to what I believe in and that with the slightest change; the world could be placed into destruction. I must say that the myth of “Nature capricious” is wrong in that with today’s technology, we have the ability to predict the weather for weeks ahead, proving that nature is predictable, making this myth wrong.
We can make sure that global warming is at least slowed down until we find a solution to bring the Earth back to the way it was. Also continuing with the third chapter, I’ve discovered that I fit in the group of a Heirarchist of human nature. I believe in a world where everyone and thing is in an organized and civil manner, creating a peaceful and ordered world. Over time, though, I know that with the ever changing world, me fitting into the Heirarchist group would not change. As the world is becoming ever so different with climate change and increasing weather problems, a civil order seems like a good idea at times of crisis that the world may face in the future.
Masslin, Mark. Global Warming A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc, 2004.
I believe in that myth because I do believe that even though global warming could be the end to the Earth, I also believe in that we have the ability to change the future. There is no way for a “Nature benign” myth to be true when the proof is appearing every day in the world. I do think that the myth of “Nature ephemeral” is similar to what I believe in and that with the slightest change; the world could be placed into destruction. I must say that the myth of “Nature capricious” is wrong in that with today’s technology, we have the ability to predict the weather for weeks ahead, proving that nature is predictable, making this myth wrong.
We can make sure that global warming is at least slowed down until we find a solution to bring the Earth back to the way it was. Also continuing with the third chapter, I’ve discovered that I fit in the group of a Heirarchist of human nature. I believe in a world where everyone and thing is in an organized and civil manner, creating a peaceful and ordered world. Over time, though, I know that with the ever changing world, me fitting into the Heirarchist group would not change. As the world is becoming ever so different with climate change and increasing weather problems, a civil order seems like a good idea at times of crisis that the world may face in the future.
Masslin, Mark. Global Warming A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press Inc, 2004.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Reviewing the Websites
The first website contains a very scary and disturbing image if climate change cannot be stopped or even slowed down. I find it frightening that it’s our doing that what might soon cause what is going on in the image. The other website is much more detailed and informative than having just an image. I like how it gives people free information on tons of global warming issues and studies. It’s also very good at showing how much they care by the amount of stuff registered users are given and how much they give out even without registering to their website. Overall, I prefer the second website more than the first one because it’s much more detailed and gives me a better idea of what global warming is doing than just an image of a sunken Manhattan.
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