Class Participation 2/26/14

#SustainableFarming
#Crops
#WaterAvailability
#GMOsAreFaux
#Renewable
#LandUse
#Preservation
#Plants
#Fertilization
#Production
#Organic
#NaturalVsUnnatural
#Acreage
#BackToTheSource
#Soil
#CropRotation
#SeasonalFarming
#WhatIsNonrenewable
#ConsumerSatisfaction
#TruthInTheLie
#Conservation
#Economy
#Ethics
#Ethical
#Deadzone
#EcologicalFootprint

Library Visit Reflection

I really enjoyed our class visit to the library because it gave me a chance to find some really great sources and articles. Finding a good source always stresses be out because what if the information isn't reliable or you can't even find out who wrote it and/or where it came from? This library visit also made me realize that I have many topics I can discuss on this next paper and helped me brainstorm these ideas. I'm so glad that I now know how to use the resources that the library gives us so I can better my research.

Class Participation 2/21

1) One topic that can be brought up from "Compromise, Hell" is that if we love our land as much as we say we do, then how can we keep destroying and ruining it the way we are be not being sustainable with the way we use our resources.

2) Claim: The way Americans proclaim and pride ourselves on about how much we love our land does not match with the way we actually use our land and our farming resources.

3) For example, using a confined animal-feeding industry, which is what most companies due to be able to produce food quicker, exploits everything that is involved in that process. The way we are producing food at this time and speed can ruin most of land of our country in years to come, to the point where there won't be any resources left for us to have. One solution to this would be to actually enforce laws to make industries produce the way we should and to not keep animals in confined-feeding areas. This would also go into staying true to what the labels say when companies say that products are "organically" raised or "all-natural"

4) The way Americans proclaim and pride ourselves on about how much we love our land does not match with the way we actually use our land and our farming resources, because using a confined animal-feeding industry, which is what most companies due to be able to produce food quicker, exploits everything that is involved in that process- the animals, people, and the land. Producing food at speed can ruin most of the land of our country in years to come, to the point where there won't be any resources left for us to have.

Blog Post 10

Berry's reading was a little confusing to me. Although he made a lot of good points about how we need to use our resources wisely and what not but he took it all to a new level. He pretty much compared the problem of  how we use our resources to the problem of being invaded by terrorists. Berry states, "The governmental obligation to protect these economic resources, inseparably human and natural, is the same as the obligation to protect us from hunger or from foreign invaders. In result, there is no difference between a domestic threat to the sources of our life and a foreign one." That was the most troubling thing for me with his article. The government doe shave laws against how we use our resources and how foods are produced, the laws just aren't as enforces as they should be. Of course, that is a big problem but I do not think it should be compared to terrorists. In my opinion Berry takes his examples a little to far.

Compromise, Hell!

Berry brings up the discussion about how Americans have lost the motivation to maintain our land because we have increased pollution by using so many fuels. We don't take control of how our food is produced and some don't even care to know how it's produced. He uses rhetorical devices such as red-herrings to get his point across. He states "towns and cities have been gutted by the likes of Wal-Mart, which have had the permitted luxury of destroying locally
owned small businesses by means of volume discounts" but he fails to mention how these discounts greatly help people who don't have much to spend. Berry also uses pathos to appeal to the reader by saying, "The governmental obligation to protect these economic resources, inseparably human and natural, is the same as the obligation to protect us from hunger or from foreign invaders. In result, there is no difference between a domestic threat to the sources of our life and a foreign one." That is a very big exaggeration. There is an enormous difference between foreign invaders and not using resources properly in America. I see that how we use or resources but being compared to foreign invaders is a little dramatic.

     









   

Class Participation 2/7

1. When it comes to hunting I feel as though I am somewhere in the middle. I think hunting is alright and in some cases good for the environment if done so sustainably. But when it gets to the point that people consider it a sport and kill over the limit of some animal that they are supposed to is where I get a problem with it. Killing animals shouldn't be for a sport but to keep civilization going.

2. By using secondary sources I am going to show an argument from the pro-hunting side by Ted Williams and an argument from the (sort of) anti-hunting side by Michael Pollan's story on hunting in omnivores dilemma. Both sides of this argument go into detail about why they feel the way they do and give personal anecdotes to their reasoning.

3. One counter-claim that I could use to strengthen my ethos would be address wheat each author says about a certain topic such as how one person might say that it is un-Christian-like to hunt while the other person might say it's un-Christian-like to not hunt. Looking at both perspectives of a story will boost up my ethos greatly.

4. Hunting is both good and bad and if not handled properly can be very harmful to the environment.

5. One reason that hunting is good is because if a species is over populated it could make the food chain get out of whack. For instance if there are too many foxes in an area and not enough rabbits to sustain the foxes then the rabbits will either die out or the foxes will from not getting enough food. Then whatever the rabbits like to eat will increase rapidly because nothing will be able to stop them from reproducing if nothing it eating them. One reason hunting is bad is when it is taken to an extreme and people just hunt for the fun of it. There is a law that says you can only kill a certain number of the animal and if everyone doesn't follow that law then the species could be wiped out completely.

6. Hunting is necessary to keep the environment in check but if taken to an extreme can also have a negative impact on society.






http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20071013120158/http://magazine.audubon.org/incite/incite0203.html

Intro, Thesis, Outline

Thesis: The first, a side of an active hunter and the second, a side of a animal rights activist. I believe myself to be somewhere in the middle of both of these extremes.

 

Intro: Hunting has been a controversial topic since the beginning of time. Hunting used to be a necessity to staying alive and still is. However, people have taken hunting to an extreme level and consider it to be a "sport." To analyze this argument I am going to look at two different sides. The first, a side of an active hunter and the second, a side of a animal rights activist. I believe myself to be somewhere in the middle of both of these extremes.

 

 

 

Outline:

 

Paragraph A: Intro

 

 

Paragraph B: Analyzing Sustainability

 

1.      Article [a]

 

 

3.      Article [b]

 

      Paragraph C: Analyzing Morality

1.      Article [a]

 

 

3.      Article [b]

 

      Paragraph D: Analyzing Animal Rights

1.      Article [a]

 

 

3.      Article [b]

 

 

Paragraph E: Analyzing hunting as a "sport"

 

1.      Article [a]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article [b]

Paragraph F: Conclusion

The Impact of Food Inc

My senior year of high school in my Contemporary Issues class, we watched the movie Food Inc. directed by Robert Kenner. This movie was made in 2008 is basically about how much the food industry has changed since the 1950's. Food Inc. goes into detail about food products themselves, the animals that produce the food, and the assembly line of how the food is processed and distributed, and then explains how the safety and health of all of these things are over looked by the companies and by the government. Theses companies and the government just want to provide food at the lowest cost possible and do not pay attention to these bad consequences. Watching this documentary actually made me sick to my stomach. It made me realize how naïve I am when it comes to buying food and how much I don't pay attention to what I am actually consuming. The part of the movie that I remember the most and will unfortunately never be able to forget is that a woman named Barbara Kowalcyk had a 2 and a half year old son who ate a hamburger and died 12 days later because it was infected with E. coli. When I was a kid, and even to this day, I always loved to eat raw cookie dough and my mother would always tell me that I would get sick if I did that, and I never believed her. But after I heard the story about Barbara Kowacyk's son, I never ate it again. Granted he was 2 and a half and I'm 18 and probably have a much stronger immune system then he does, that still doesn't make it safe. Anybody can get sick from the food we eat and I never really noticed how important this way until I saw this documentary. This documentary also showed how these animals are raised. I remember seeing chickens that were too fat from being injected with drugs that they couldn't even move. They just sat their wholes lives until they were slaughtered shortly after. I also remember seeing pigs being dragged by machines to be slaughtered. That is no natural, healthy, normal way to die and it is certainly not right.

In-Class Blog Post 2/3

Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic ethanol and other Biofuels are Not Sustainable and are a Threat to America’s National Security
By: Alice Friedemann

This article is about why using certain fuels are not a sustainable way to go about agriculture and it is hurting America. Friedemann goes about her argument by diving the article into seven parts and titles them in a sarcastic manner. The first part is called "The Dirt On Dirt" and explains why biomass fuels have predictable reasons for failure. Basically, the more work left to nature, the higher the energy yield, but the longer the time required. The second part is called, "The Poop on Ethanol: Energy Returned on Energy Invested" and explains how much oil is used for all of the food we consume. The third part is called "Biofuel is a Grim Reaper" and talks about how bad of a place using all of these fuels puts America into by a dramatic increase in soil loss, deforestation, global warming, pollution, and other factors. The fourth part is called "Biodiesel: Can We Eat Enough French Fries?" and talks about how biofuels have yet to be proven efficient and this strategy may not be a great way to go about in a world of declining energy. The fifth part is called "If We Can't Drink and Drive Then Burn Baby Burn. Energy Crop Consumption" and talks about how pollution consumption is hard to control but if we don't it could have bad effects on the environment. The sixth part is called "The Problems With Cellulosic Ethanol Could Drive You To Drink" and talks about all the problems with transportation, storage, harvesting, erosion, nutrition, etc. have no known solution and scientists have been trying to solve for over thirty years now. The seventh part is called "Where Do We Go From Here?" and talks about politics, jobs, and how we can reform our non-sustainable agricultural ways. Friedemann then ends by listing her references.

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1

The Oil We Eat

The first part of this article that really struck me was when Manning stated "It is no accident that no matter where agriculture sprouted on the globe, it always happened near rivers. You might assumer, as many have, that this is because the plants needed the water or nutrients. Mostly this is not true. They needed the power of flooding, which scoured landscapes and stripped out competitors. Nor is it an accident" (3). All throughout elementary, middle, and even high school I was told that plants would grow near water merely because they needed water. Never was I told about the flooding situation, this rattled me. The next part that really took me by surprise was when manning stated, "Ever since we ran out of arable land, food is oil. Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten" (6). That is just so bad and it worries me for our future. If that is just the United States then what would happen if the rest of the world ate like we did. This reading has made me think about my senior year of high school where in science we took an "ecological footprint" quiz online to see the amount of area and land we use to sustain our consumption patterns. The results are pretty scary.