A Forest Returns

This film was an inspirational film because it talked about all the success the Wayne National Forest has had over the years. It did not make the government out to be the bad guys like many things do when it come to protecting the environment. This film talked about how the government did things right and created jobs by having people plant trees to create this magnificent forest. This movie was very interesting and had me leaving wanting to go out and do my part of helping the environment and plant a tree. This film overall was very informative in a positive way that gives people hope that we can all do our part in helping the environment.

Research Prospectus and Bibliography

Global Warming has been a major issue that I have been hearing about for the last ten years or so of my life. Some people say that the human activities of the emission of greenhouse gases are causing the earth to warm. On the other hand, people are saying that global warming is a hoax and is not being caused by humans and actually an increase in carbon dioxide has increased plant growth. After hearing people around me talking about global warming so much I decided to look more to the facts and find out what really are the issues of global warming, if any.

I truly come into the debate undecided because environmental issues are not one of my top priorities to learn more about. This statement does have me coming of as selfish, but this topic has been coming up more recently, which in turn, I am finding myself looking for answers about the specific topic of global warming. Global warming has actually been changed to global climate change in the recent years because scientists have found that the world is changing but not necessarily warming.

One of the main issues with climate change is the potential killing off of animals, humans, or just the environment in general. There is an article that states, “Rising carbon emissions might kill off the oceans coral reefs by 2050, warns an international coalition of scientists (Scientists).” One of the main reasons the death of the coral reef is so important is because according to studies, coral reef fisheries in Asia feed an estimate of one billion people (Scientists). This is definitely a serious issue if this is the case, because not only are humans losing a source of food but the coral reef is home to many different types of fish which would most likely go extinct.

One the other side of the issue, an argument is, “Atmospheric CO2 fertilizes plants. Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates (Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric CO2).” The main reason this is a good argument is because plants provide food for animals, which in so doing is also enhanced. The amount and range of plant and animal life have both amplified during the past half-century.

With this debate going on and the points from both sides being given, you can see that this is a tough topic to side on. With many different reasons for climate change being caused by humans and bad for the environment a person could easily jump on that side of the debate. But listening to the other side of the argument and why climate change is not caused by humans and CO2 increases helps the environment people could easily find themselves on this side of the debate.


Bibliography

Robinson , Arthur B., Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon. Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Cave Junction, Oregon: Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, 2007.

Rowlands , Ian H. . "Ozone Layer Depletion and Global Warming ". Peace and Change July 1991: 260-281.

Scannell, Leila , and Grouzet Fredrick. The Metacongnition of Climate Change . British Columbia; Canada: Elsevier Ltd., 2009.

Scientists: Global warming could kill off reefs by 2050." USA Today [No Volume/Issue] (2007) [No Pagination].

David Maywhoors Presentation

When I was listening to David Maywhoors presentation I was finding myself confused at some of his points. I believe he was very educated about his point of view but he was so set on not touching the forests at all. He would say that he doesn’t want to do anything to the forests but we as humans need roads for transportation and also need the wood for our houses. I understand the point that he wants to save the environment and leave the forests alone all together but in reality we need to use the wood from the forests, unless us humans can find another way to build houses and fires without wood. I enjoyed listening to David Maywhoors presentation; I just believe that he was to one sided about a majority of his topics. The one thing that I did agree with Mr. Maywhoor about was the burning of the fires should be prohibited. I do feel as if the parts of the forest we do not need to touch we should leave alone and not burn them to clear the land to start over fresh. The points he was making about this topic I definitely agreed with.

Research Prospectus: Global Warming

With the Research Prospectus project presented to me, I immediately thought of the idea to investigate and do extensive research about the different thoughts on global warming. I hear many different problems with global warming and how humans are killing the earth little by little everyday, but I want to know if it is really us humans or if it is just the cycle the earth goes through. The say that global warming is happening, but where did the great lakes come from? I believe they came from global warming melting glaciers to create the so called great lakes. If you look at maps from many years ago and then take a look at the maps from today, you would see the continents sifted and changed sizes over time. I have read that we are now starting to go through a mini ice age, so after reading this I would like to go find out the facts and see if this is true and why the media is so set on trying to help global warming.

My main point of this paper will try to use information from both sides of the issue to find out which side is being backed up with better or more facts. For instance, for the side trying to prevent global warming’s main points would be on the side of the emissions of greenhouse gases. The side saying that global warming is a hoax would say that global warming is caused by the environment and humans have some, but little to do with it.

Lost Mountain Part 3

Wendell Berry discusses two different mindsets, Rational and Sympathetic. He discusses a rational mind as the people that are not worried about the environment as much as they are about the profit they are making and the economy they live in. He goes on to talk about how the sympathetic minds are the people that are all about the environment and the wild. He explains that rational people to “think like the mountain,” or in other words look at the entire environment as a whole. He, you could say is a rational mind by the way he discusses it and makes it out to be a more healthy way of living.

Reece shows his sympathetic mind by showing his frustration on page 184 by saying, “It’s already f***** up anyway. Why not mine it.” He is saying that this is the way these ignorant people think. He discusses how the ignorant people already trashed the mountain and then further believe since it is already trashed why not mine it. By showing his frustration this is a clear time where Reece shows his sympathetic mind. Another time he shows his sympathetic mind is when Peter Edelman was giving his speech, he was discussing the benefits of the level land and how he believes the way they are mining is a great way and hope to be doing it ten years from now. Reece then writes how he could have mentioned forest fragmentation, species loss, flooding, and the sham of reclamation. He is showing here how he is thinks first about the environment rather than profit or the economy.

There are many great quotes that Reece said in the conclusion but the one that keeps coming back to me is, “In America today, the environment is almost a wholly other. We are over here, and it is over there. We are in the air-conditioned mall; it is hot and crawling with bugs. And anyone who prefers the out-there is an environmentalist, that oddly dressed guy who thinks this diminutive planet might be worth saving (p.230-231).” I also agree with Reece on this quote because Americans do think in this manner about the environment. Americans feel as if they could not live without air-conditioning in their houses because it would not comfortable. If Americans were to switch lives with people in a 3rd world country, we would quickly see how spoiled and dependent on clean water and air-conditioned building Americans are. This is not to say it is wrong because anyone that is raised with the privileges Americans have would all feel deprived going to other a 3rd world country and living without the necessities we have here in America. I do believe that Americans can give some of there living styles up for the better of the world’s environment.

Flow E.C.

After attending the movie Flow on Monday, I have had many different feeling about the information the movie provided. The movie made many points about the water supply running out for people to drink and all the harmful chemicals we are polluting the water supply with. If I do not recall, I was taught growing up that water goes through a cycle and is not capable of running out on us.

The arguments throughout the movie had people saying that it was the scariest movie they have ever seen, and feel they need to help in some ways to protect the remaining water we have on earth. The movie also stated, at the rate we are consuming the water; it could kill off humans in the next twenty years. After hearing all this, I just kept coming back to the thoughts that humans have already found different types of technology to clean the salt water for drinking water. I just did not find this portion of the movie very life threatening or “scary” as others would say.

On the other hand, the film discussed the fact that humans have been polluting the waters with harmful chemicals. They discussed a specific situation going on in poor countries over seas where Coca Cola has built manufacturing plants that are using up all the water supply and also polluting the water supply that many different groups of people use for drinking water in there communities. This I do not deal with first hand, but knowing that companies are polluting water supply that people are drinking out of because they do not have enough money to pay for clean water is wrong. They instead are threatening people’s lives and on top of that charging them for the water that they are in a sense taking from the communities.

Lost Mountain pt. 2

After reading the next section in Lost Mountain, I find myself siding more and more with the idea of banning coal mining. This second part was really moving in many ways, first starting of with the flyrock. Flyrock is everything that scatters when the explosives are detonated (P. 88). The example that was the scariest to me was about the older couple that was sitting around their pool and a massive bolder came flying into the pool and cracking the cement underneath. This presents a huge problem because the coal mining companies are not always following the rules about staying a certain distance from residence, which in turn will most likely kill humans as well as all the animals already being killed.

Since I am on the topic of human death, another huge problem that was presented was humans killing themselves off. Krupa said, “With our levels of population and rates of consumption, it’s just a matter of time before we kill ourselves off.” With the rate that people are demanding coal for energy, the environment is taking a huge punishment and will soon be so bad that we will no longer be able to live with a clean environment, especially the water.

The final thing that was the most important to me was the coal slurry impoundment that broke through an underground mine shaft and spilled over 300 million gallons of black, toxic sludge into the headwaters of Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek (P.129). What worries me about this the most is that after 10 years there is still sludge and the President of the Kentucky Coal Association had claimed that coal is as harmless as mud. This just brings to mind how many different ideas coal mining companies come up with to try to influence the public that coal is clean and not a threat to the environment.

After reading this much of Lost Mountain, I am already changing my initial thoughts about using coal as a primary source of energy and now believe that we must find different ways to create energy that is not such a threat to the environment, and especially to the humans future on earth.

Lost Mountain #1

Eric Reece has very strong feelings about leaving the forest of Appalachia intact. He gives many different examples of why he believes what he does. Some of these examples are the Appalachia Mountains are not supposed to look like the western deserts in Arizona. Also, he talks about the wildlife and how different types of birds and mammals populations are taking a huge hit with the destruction of the mountain tops. He goes into talking about how the how the forest demonstrates an intelligence that has been honing for 290 million years. He states how he believes that the forests economy is superior to the human economy because it has a design and also says that the forest knows what it is doing. He later explained the scene when he snuck onto the worksite to see the workers bulldozing the trees down one by one. He explained how it looked and the saddening environment it was turning into.
In the reading Eric Reece was explaining the activist and counter activists and what different signs read which one caught my attention the most, “If it can’t be grown then it must be mined.” With this statement the author was trying to make a statement on how ignorant people can be. This statement means a couple of different things to me. First of all, if money cannot be grown then mining is creating jobs for people to make money and also if energy cannot be grown then it needs coal (or mining) to create the energy we need to live our complex lives. This is not necessarily the best way to look at this issue for the environmental side of things, but for the economical view it is the better way.
It would be very difficult for me to relate myself to these issues because I do not live near the Appalachian Mountains to see what is going on or what is being destroyed. I do believe if I lived near there to where I could see the destruction of the mountain; these problems would be running through my head more often. Another problem that brings me to the environmentalist side of things is the effect on the wildlife. The coal mining and mountain top removal is killing mass amounts of wildlife which I believe needs to have a law against or different ways to prevent this from happening.

Clean Coal

When looking into both, This is Reality and America’s Power, my first impression was that Americas Power was set up in a more formal layout. With America’s Power, the site was set up to where the readers come to find out that majority of America’s power sources come from coal and also that coal is the cheapest form of energy. Because it is set up more formally than, This is Reality, it seems more credible. This is reality, is more informal and is not set up as well as it should be. The first page on this site is called “Reality Fly By” and on the page there is nothing but a signup pop-up on the bottom corner. This pushed my first impression to thinking this site is not as credible as America’s Power.

The audience for both of these sites is hard to pinpoint because everyone uses coal for energy. I would say that America’s Power is directing more of its attention to home owners because they have a game on the website that shows where possessions of homeowners energy comes from, for example, they have a washing machine that uses lots of energy which would need coal otherwise it would be a costly wash. This is Reality, is even broader when it comes to the audience because they are just looking for anyone that is willing to read the site and inform them about the bad issues of coal.

Seeing how “America’s Power” is sponsored by the ACCCE, and This is Reality is sponsored by the Alliance for Climate protection, I would have to say that I believe America’s Power seems more credible. I find America’s Power to be more persuasive because in this webpage it shows were all the energy sources come from and how coal is the least expensive. Also, it shows that there has been a ton of money spent trying to clean up the coal plants and the pollutions. I also like the example that talked about either you plug in your car, which is “going green”, or use fossil fuel from other countries, but the problem is either you use coal for the energy for your plug in cars or you pollute the environment with burning fossil fuels.