Share Some Knowledge With Someone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phcPLg22pkk

This movie clip and so many others on environmental issues are so extremely moving. In our free time as college students, we tend to get carried away on the internet and look at this site more than ay other: YouTube. But instead of watching movie clips that share knowledge about the world around us, we watch silly videos of Joe riding his dirt bike and getting stuck in the mud. Personally I wonder what the higher authorites, such as people in congress and maybe even the president, do in their free time? I would assume they try to spend a lot of it with their families after a long day of work in the office. But what if they spent some of that time on YouTube? Would they learn about the world around them and how it is changing due to the toxins their cars and SUVs emitt everyday as they drive to and from work? Would they teach their kids how to recycle and compost? I realize that the president and even congress are trying to change some things to help heal this

planet, but when do they here from the public? How many of us have written to our senator? I think that if these higher authorities were to watch a couple of informational movies on YouTube, they might understand how much we do actually care and want to make a difference for this planet and future generations. Hey, maybe we could send them this blog website!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vge67xmNirc&feature=related

Boaters Behaviors

Two summers ago I realized something. I do a pretty good job at keeping my own living space prim and proper, recycling what should be recycled and not littering the ground with my trash. However, as I venture out of my own comfort space I tend to forget my habits and don’t care as much when I see the rest of the world used as a dump.

As I sat besides the fire at the boat club I belong to and watched the flames dance and crackle to life I also noticed several bottles and cans tossed in along with the wood. I have always been a fan of recycling, especially cans since they seem to be the easiest to sort and so I began to wonder why after all my life of belonging to this club I haven’t decided to bring my habit of recycling to one of the places I love most. Truth is I didn’t feel obligated to keep any space that wasn’t my own clean and until that moment and I never really even noticed all the bottles tossed in with the fire. I’m sure I’ve tossed a few in myself more than once. But the more I thought about it I began to notice that there was a complete lack of recycling bins. At home I always have the recycling box close by and because it’s so close I feel motivated to do good and recycle. The reason I didn’t recycle here was so ridiculously simple: there was merely no recycling bins. I actually had a good laugh at how silly it was that I could forget my good habits simply because there was nothing to remind me but that just goes to show how forgetful the human mind can be. Ironically this was also the summer that my dad had been elected as the club’s president and both my mom and I had the same idea to start implicating recycling. He agreed and thought it was a great idea and so we placed several big blue bins around the pavilion.

The next time I sat down besides the fire I couldn’t help but smile. Not a can or bottle was to be seen because behind me the recycling bins were filled.

Now that I realized my actions reflected on what was around me and what was influencing my behavior I‘m now more conscience of my surrounding environment. But it now also makes me wonder why there aren’t more recycling bins in public places. In my opinion people are willing to help out the environment as long as it isn’t too much out of their way.

"Circle of Irony"

As the new century unfolds, there are two developments which will have a defining impact on the future of humanity. Both have to do with networks and both involve new technologies. One is the rise of global capitalism[1], which is concerned with electronic networks and the other is the creation of sustainable communities based on ecological literacy and the practice of eco-design. The goal of the global economy is to maximize the wealth and power of its elites; while the goal of eco-design is to use sustainability to maximize the way of life.

“Economics and politics are the governing powers of life today, and that's why everything is screwy."

-Joseph Campbell

One can not underestimate the powerful relationship between environmental issues and the global economic/political system. Solutions to our environmental crises will essentially come from systematic changes to the system. Thus where our problem lies because our economic system is largely focused on serving individual or nationalistic needs, as opposed to community or global needs.

I want it to be known that this problem isn’t recent; the view of nature has always been and will always be misrepresented. For example Karl Marx, founder of Marxism wrote; “The environment is a medium for human labor. Nature is to be used by humans for their production purposes. Though humanity was a part of nature, nature's destiny was to be shaped by human labor.”

To Marx this meant that the ultimate stage of Communism, from the environmental point of view, would mean that nature had been humanized to the greatest possible extent. Through science and technology, Marx thought humanity would progress to develop greater control over nature. In doing so, people would free themselves from being dependent upon the environment, mastering it instead of being enslaved by it.

John Foster believes that yes it is true that technology has changed, introducing massive new threats to the biosphere, however he brings up a good point that capitalism’s antagonistic relation to the environment was also apparent to the 19th and 20th century socialists[2], thus reflecting the fact that technology is not the primary issue. According to Foster, the problem is the nature and logic of capitalism as a specific mode of production. He acknowledges that socialists have contributed in fundamental ways to the development of the modern ecological critique. However to uncover this unknown legacy, which is a vital part of the overall endeavor to develop an ecological materialist analysis, which will be capable of addressing the devastating environmental conditions that face us today, we must first acknowledge the relationship between our environmental issues and the global economic/political system.

"People only protect what they love, but they can only love what they know."

- Jacques-Yves Cousteau

My purpose in writing this blog isn’t to tell you want to think (what’s right and what’s wrong). No, my purpose in writing this is to tell you “how” to think. In order for anything to make sense and be successful, one must first realize the connection that links the vicious circle together.

http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Economics/marxism_on_the_environment.html
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj96/foster.htm
http://earthrenewal.org/global_economics.htm

Footnotes

[1] Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor.

[2] Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with an egalitarian method of compensation.

The "Coke" Way of Responding

Environmental communication is all about communicating with the public sphere. It’s about finding the right way to present your environmental issue with the public sphere in a way that will get their attention. A condensation symbol, according to political theorist Murray Eledman, is a symbol that is a short or catchy expression or slogan that is able to compress images, attitudes, reactions, and judgments into a verbal form. Condensation symbols are used on a daily basis as a type of environment communication whether it be a video clip on YouTube/T.V., a catchy picture, or a commercial.

So I was thinking of condensation symbols and trying to point them out one day while watching T.V. and noticed numerous commercials that used them, however the Coca-Cola commercial with the Polar bears struck me as odd. Why polar bears drinking coca-cola in the snow. So I decided to do more information on why the advertising agency would use polar bears. And I got my answer on a website that said, “Polar Bear Support Fund.” I clicked on the website and a whole website committed to helping save the polar bears from their depleting habitat.
Their message was very clear it said,
“It’s time for us all to take action.
To reduce our human impact on global climate change.
To help support the Polar bear.”

The Coca-Cola Company is committed to doing their part to address global climate change.As part of their ongoing commitment to the environment,they created The Coca-Cola Company Polar Bear Support Fund to help build awareness and support for the polar bear. In 2007, the Coca-Cola Company made an initial contribution of $100,000 to World Wildlife Fund to help World Wildlife Fund's efforts to protect polar bears and their habitat. In 2008, they increased their contribution to $300,000 for WWF polar bear conservation efforts in North America. An additional $100,000 was raised through the MyCokeRewards brand loyalty program to help support World Wildlife Fund's efforts.

Its condensation symbols such as Coca-Cola’s commercial with the polar bears, and people like me that wonder why and go that extra mile and find out that Coca-Cola supports the cause! All it takes to raise awareness is a catchy commercial that “catches” the right type of people. Plus, you can never go wrong when you add cute animals..people can’t help but be captivated.

Refrences:

http://polarbears.thecoca-colacompany.com/

Global Warming

In one of my classes we were talking about problems that already exist in the environment and potential problem that could occur in the environment. We talked about whether or not environmental problems exist before they are named as a problem. I feel that they are. Something might not be a real problem yet but if it is looked at in the sense that it could be a problem in the long run we might be able to prevent a lot of things that could have a negative impact on our environment, such as global warming. Knowing a head of time the things that "we" are doing to our environment might have a negative impact in the future, we might be able to change our "ways" and save the environment from something that could be a potential risk to our health or our way of living. We should be more sensitive to how we treat our environment, because who knows, it might just backfire back at us.