Environmental History artifact

The map shows the deforestation of Mato Grosso an isolated area in the amazon of Brazil. The grey beige regions show the heavy deforestation between 1992 to 2006

Relationship between religion and the environment

I beleive that the relationship between religion and the environment should be one where they are tied together. The environment can be thought of as a major component of religion and vice versa. The Native americans and early humans used the world in a sustainable manner, taking only what they used and being cognisant of their effects on it. In essence they made mother earth or gaia their religion. In modern society we need to learn to respect the earth and count it as sacred to be able to live sustainably and in fairness to the earth and its environment. The tying of religion into the environment would do just that.

In class viedo response

After watching this video I was very confused. I thought what is the purpose of this and why are we watching this in class. Taking queues from the shi people say meme. It seemed very random, following things some yoga doing girls says. I believed it to be idiotic and dumb but in a hilarious way. It has no semblance of a reason other than entertainment value and this is what makes it great. Its made to make people laugh and be the next popular viral video of the day.

Under this exterior of a funny hilarious video is what the video is really about. This is noted when you check who the sponser to this video is. A canadian yoga clothing company Lululemon. It turns out to be just an ad for "stuff".

Kahn response

In Richard Kahn’s Towards Ecopedagogy: Weaving a Broad Based Pedology of Liberation for Animals, Nature, and the Oppressed People of Earth Kahn notes the ongoing problem of people not realizing the effect we are having on the world. People are not conscious of how close to global ecological catastrophe we are.  Kahn in his article points to  his idea of Eopedagogy, defined as a movement and an approach to education to teach children literacy in the environment.

Recently the earth has been experiencing a mass extinction of many species. This extinction being the greatest in the last sixty-five million years. All of this in the past 30 years with no trend of slowing down. This is all do to the massive growth of humans. Take the rainforests for example. We are rapidly clear cutting those forests for our own purpose with no care for the many different organisms we are driving to extinction, many left never to even be discovered. Also some of these might hold keys to the cures for modern diseases and even diseases that are yet to arise.

Kahn gives note to how the human race is actually very ignorant to the environmental issues and problems we are enacting to the earth. Some facts stated about Americans on page 6, which I believed to be very well educated, 45 million Americans s think the ocean is a fresh source of water, 125 million Americans think that aerosol spray cans still contain

stratospheric ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) despite the fact

that they were banned from use in 1978, 123 million Americans believe that disposable diapers represent the

leading landfill problem when they in fact only represent 1% of all landfill

material and 130 million Americans currently believe that hydropower is the country’s

leading energy source when, as a renewable form of energy, it contributes

only 10% of the nation’s total energy supply.

These numbers are very troubling as we our one of the most educated societies on earth and we are this ignorant. This means that it’s even worse for other countries where people have little to no access to education, even on the elementary level.

I believe that Kahn is right in that we must make a move towards Ecopedagogy and is necessary for our future and the future of the earth as we know it. We need to better inform the public of what our effect and consequences are on the earth. Schools such as the “Zoo School”, would be a great way to teach students the necessary knowledge for a new environmentally conscious society.

Presidential Remarks on BP Oil Spill reimagining

Patrick Imperial

Presidential Remarks on BP Oil Spill reimagining

A different speech where Obama admits that the federal Government was to slow to act on the spill and apologized for the slow response would have a different effect then the speech that exists now.

The speech as written acknowledges the same concerns in a different fashion. He displays his understanding of the situation and states the work that has been completed towards the cleanup. He diverts any dissatisfaction toward the government’s slow response back toward BP as the real culprit and fully responsible. He leads people to feel comfortable in their government as capable of solving the crisis. Finally he ends with a call to arms type reaction with, the containment and cleanup of the oil spill.

If Obama were to give a different speech, instead admitting to Federal Government’s slow action towards the Oil Spill with an apology for the slow reaction, there would be an altogether different effect perceived by the audiences of Obama’s speech. People would not feel a call to action, they would be left with more disdain for the government and think of the Obama administration as incapable and ineffective bureaucracy. I personally would not find this speech as effective in getting trust in the systems in place. In the other speech Obama does not even mention the Federal Government as being slow to act he only gives the positives and displays what has been accomplished. At no point does he apologize to the audience. This prevents people from thinking that they are under an inept administration. In the case of this speech an outright apology would be a bad choice, it would give the idea that federal Government is inefficient and trying to control the damage of their ineptitude.

This speech reimagined would be harmful to Democrats up for reelection as they would be seen as part of the bureaucracy that failed the people. Candidates running against them would have a field day with this and this speech could very well lose the Democrat their seat in government. This would in turn be damaging to the Obama administration as the candidates taking their place would be a Republican, mortal enemy of the Democrats. This would weaken the Democrat numbers in government and thus make the Obama administration less effective.

BP oil executives would be able to take this speech and have their responsibility lessened of financial burden. They would be able to seem less at fault for the damages to the gulf and adjoining states.  They could in all possibility, shift blame toward the Federal Government and their slow response.

Engineers working to stop the oil spill might respond to this reimagined speech with, as opposed to the increased vigor of the real speech, a dislike for the lack of acknowledgement of their hard work in fixing the problem. As with the other speech Obama gives clear note to the progress being made to remedy the situation. They may change their perception of the problem and be less focused on fixing the problem and start thinking back to if they had been able to get at the situation sooner they might have been able to fix this problem with much more ease.

Still the main audience of the people hit the hardest by the Oil spill, people of the Gulf Coast states, would not feel their economic distress properly dealt with.