These Blogs O' Mine (If They Coud See Me Now)

Within the course of writing the blog I discovered that I was really attempting at the beginning to write a series of journal entries. I simply disregarded the audience as a whole and was merely trying to write what I felt would be reflective of my attitude to a particular piece or idea. It was almost like I was using the blog as a way for me to look in the mirror of my consciousness and attack or challenge the ideas that I had about environmental affairs. Especially in the first post, I was acting as a skeptic towards the severity of environmental issues and attempted not to buy into the “bleeding heart” pathos of certain environmental groups.

However, I discovered that as the writing progressed and I began to get feedback from readers, that, lo and behold, I was not alone on the Internets. The suggestions and ideas that I received from people, even if they were not inspired to reflect on what I had written and simply regarded my post as a place to fulfill a part of the assignment, began to encourage me to open up a little and start a dialogue. Instead of merely writing down diary-like entries, I wanted to write in a way that would force the reader to think just a little bit. My reflection on the conclusion of Lost Mountain became one of my strongest pieces because I stopped merely putting up and challenging conventional environmental attitudes and started to really see nature in more of a symbiotic light.

My weaknesses, however, are reflected in my stubborn hardheadedness towards certain that do not jive with me. My inability to understand the significance of what strip-mining does to the wilderness still evades, even though I have such sympathy for the people who lived at the foot of those mountains. George Carlin said, I paraphrase, “Mother Nature will kill us long before we kill Her” and that is a sentiment I live by day to day. I believe I could have been more open to protecting the environment for its own sake, but to be honest, I did not and still do not have the time. I found that the post that were the most uninspiring were the ones in which I did not dwell to deeply on the readings that we read, but instead I merely read them with the same glossed-over preconceived mind of a person who is bored. Not to say that I did not read every single one and attempt to reflect hard on them, but sometimes I just could not relate to what any of the writings were saying to me.

A strength and weakness that I also had was my inability to ever choose a side outright. Throughout this process, I simply told myself to be torn between both sides and not try to come out supporting one or the other, which unfortunately serve to alienate the audience I was attempting to capture. If I really think about it, as my writing progressed and I began to think of attracting an audience, such as either Dr. Rouzie or my peers or another outside interest, I realized that middle-of-road was only going to bore and frustrate readers who enjoyed some of my blogs, but had to disagree with others. This became my Achilles' Heel that I never really got over because I could not bring myself to fully support the environmental movement or completely go against it. I feel a failing that I had was not being radical enough in my thinking and playing it conservative in order to keep down passionate debate.

Which is funny in its own right because I think that I attempted to challenge the other bloggers in much more prolific way. This was best reflected in the comments that I made to other bloggers because I do not believe I ever simply wrote a “Hey great post! Loved It!” I tried as hard as I could to play Devil's Advocate and challenge their conventional wisdom about the issues we investigated. In a way, I was doing what I had been doing to myself in the earlier posts and that was trying to create polemics in which the other blogger would have to rationalize their worldview in more succinct and comprehensible way. It really helped me challenge my thoughts about things because playing the side I did not agree with started making me think in that way. Sometimes the logic train would take me to places I never imagined I could go and overall, that was beneficial to my learning.

All in all the blog postings helped me to synthesize and reflect on the readings that we had, however, they sometimes only brought out the more emotional side and less of the rational side of myself. Which has its ups and downs, depending on how you look at it. Being emotionally charged leads to great rhetoric and philosophical musing, but it cannot ever be good starting place for rational discourse on very serious issues. As soon as the emotions make their way into a debate, then all sides stop listening and begin yelling, “I can't hear you!” However, at the end of the day, the blogs served as nice cathartic place where I could lay down my thoughts and opinions for all the world to see and hope that someone somewhere could appreciate the ideas that I was having at the moment.

Issues concerning abusive groundwater use

Thesis: Groundwater pollution and contamination of our vast groundwater resources are quickly being depleted. In addition, abusive agricultural systems, such as irrigation in the American Southwest, have vastly exacerbated the problem. In this essay, I will address these issues in the public sector, personal life and business practices. To conclude, I will present some solutions that can be used to stop these abusive methods.


I. Intro

II. Groundwater Abuse

A. Irrigation

i. Use leads to lowering of water table and unsustainable agriculture production
ii. Done in areas when safer and practical uses for land can be made

B. Home and Personal use

i. People deplete groundwater by leaving on taps, etc.

III. Groundwater Contamination

A. Personal

i. Pollutants from household chemicals and motor oil leaches into aquifer
ii. Trash disposal in landfills leads to toxic chemicals leaching into the groundwater system.

B. Business/City

i. Industry routinely dumps pollutants in rivers, which absorb into the system
ii. Overuse of aquifer near the coast leads to saltwater intrusion.
iii. Desert cities lower water levels to dangerous areas; can exacerbate drought and sinkhole in arid regions

IV. Solutions

A. Responsible groundwater use

i. Bills like the CWA support responsible and comprehensive control

B. Effective use of irrigation in agriculture

C. Personal Responsibility

i. Cutting down on water use in general

V. Conclusion

FI 183-213

Joel Salatin's essay arguing for the ability to opt-out was an eloquent and well-written article. Since seeing him in the film, I've been impressed with Salatin's ideas and the way that he can make them accessible to almost anyone. This article really focused heavily on making everyone believe that they could simply opt out of the massive agro-industrial culture and begin cultivating plants and animals in a safe and sustainable way.

One my favorite parts was a brief passage when he is addressing safety issues with cultivating and slaughtering animals outside. His analogy that he draws to the hunter who "gut-shoots a deer" and then proceeds to drag the carcass through squirrel shit, hang it up in his back yard for a week and then feed it to his children. This man is revered as a patriot and so to Salatin this means that safety is not a problem. He goes further to argue that you have a better chance of contracting a disease from CAFOs then you could by having an animal slaughtered outside underneath the warm sunshine.

Marion Nestle's article on eating made simple explains the world of food science through the eyes of a scientist and not an activist. I appreciate this worldview because the book and film are bogged with journalists and farmers/activists whose opinions will be skewed because they are coming from an inherently biased side. Nestle, however, argues for safer and healthier eating, i.e. organic, because she is concerned mainly with the health of people and their eating habits.

I think her argument can appeal to anyone who is automatically turned by the images of cows being slaughtered and the "unethical" treatment of chickens and pigs, but who still want to engage in healthy eating. My mom would hate the movie because the images are graphic in areas and she doesn't have the strongest constitution, but she would love Nestle's article because it's not primarily arguing for the animal's health, but for our own. I think a small but striking fact about the article was a little fact she threw in to the mix. She said that the cardiologist Ancel Keys promoted the balanced diet of fruits, veggies and whole grains as a way to garner a healthier life. In addition, according to Nestle, Dr. Keys died in 2004 at the ripe old age of 100. If that's not incentive to eat healthy, I don't know what is.

FI: 91-122 ; 169-177

I really enjoyed Robert Bryce's article ("The Ethanol Scam") because it answered a question that I had been asking my internally during the whole viewing of Food Inc. It seemed to me that ethanol didn't sound like a very good idea, rationally, because it took something that could be consumed by starving humans and converting it into something that runs our Hummers and SUVs. It doesn't solve the problem, but only absolves those who abuse the ecosystem by being able to say, "I drive a vehicle that gets 5 mpg, but it uses ethanol. Therefore, I must be environmentally conscious."

Then to top it all off, Bryce indicates that it actually causes more environmental issues than just plain ol' run-of-the-mill Saudi oil. I think can think back to that naive age when I thought, "Gee, making fuel into something that should actually be eaten by starving children sounds like a bad deal, but the government subsidizes it, so ethanol must be good, right?" Oh, how the university makes cynics out of us all.

To be honest, I kind of blew past Lappe's (imagine an accent over that e) article because I'm frankly fatigued on conversations dealing with global warming and all the things that lead to global warming. It's kind of like when a news story comes out that explains how there's a strong link between oxygen and cancer, you just resign yourself to the idea that anything you do will eventually lead to cancer. It's the same with global warming. I could lessen my carbon footprint, but some contrarian notion inside me wants to burn coal in my front yard for kicks and giggles and leave my kids to clean up the mess.

However, "Why Bother" by Michael Pollan made me want to grow my own vegetables. I don't know if its the way he writes or... yeah, it's the way he writes that speaks to "sympathetic Pat." He captured my attention with the cynical "We're all doomed" talk that always gets me excited. But somehow, he seamlessly segued from doom and gloom to hope and change. He did kind of what a negotiator does when dealing with a person who's about to jump of a building. He sympathized with my cynical notion and then all of sudden, he made me not so cynical about environmental efforts and for the rest of the day I was hopeful, thinking "Be the change you want to see in the world."

And then I woke this morning. Good day everyone!

Argument Essay- The Problem with Irrigation

In the research essay, I discussed the problems with the depletion of groundwater within the United States. Along with researching these problems, I discovered that the United States and a lot of other are becoming enamored with the idea of water irrigation in areas that are not able to grow agriculture normally, such as deserts. The idea of idea of irrigation says that one can bring sustainable agricultural growth to a region by artificially watering crops through use of sprinklers and other methods of extracting water from the ground.

This essay will focus mainly upon why this is ultimately not a sustainable technique and why, in fact, irrigation leads many communities in arid regions to dry up and die more quickly than when they never adopt it as a farming technique. I will suggest alternatives to irrigation in these regions and also suggest, utilizing information from my previous essay, where and how to cultivate the best crop without damaging the ecosystem too badly.

Food, Inc and Whatnot

I think the part that struck me was when Barbara, the mother of the infant who died from an outbreak of E. coli, was recounting the story of her son's death. This shows the human side of something that we typically relegate to the radical fringes of animal-lovers like PETA. I mean that, for me, I don't really care how my food was made or what it was, or for that matter how it was treated, before it became my hot dog. However, showing that people do have to deal with disease and death that could have easily be prevented by a few simple laws and regulations is powerful.

The thing I found most persuasive and tear-jerking about that segment was that it was a very toned-down part of the movie. It, purposefully and respectfully, showed Kevin playing in a lake with his parents and sister, while his mother is recounting this truly horrific incident and then showing him in the hospital after the E. coli had broken out in his system. This section of the film starkly contrasted some of the more glitzy parts of the film (i.e. the computer graphic of the cows on conveyor belts being herded into a big, monolithic slaughterhouse) and put forth a simple message that everyone understands universally, "Death is bad. Children dying is worse. And children dying from the food they eat is evil."

Ultimately, this section of the movie, and the film as a whole, has made me become more aware of the problems that are inherent in the agro-industrial complex. To me, if we're going to regulate an industry heavily, we should probably regulate in favor of those who are consuming the product and against who are only making a profit. (Ick, that's a very anti-capitalist statement for me, but c'est vrai as the French say)

The interview with Eric Schlosser in the first chapter of the book works as a great supplement to the film with regards to the more philosophical side of the conversation. After watching the film, Schlosser points in the direction of how to answer the big question on how we came to live this way and what to do from here on in. He and Hirshberg both challenge the idea that unhealthy is more affordable. And like with Lost Mountain, the idea that something is cheaper presently is terribly myopic fallacy. To think of the three-course dollar-menu diet is to short-terms economy, but failing to recognize that this food actually so many more long-term consequences is a failure of our society as a whole. The film shows this, but the interview with Schlosser really brings it home.

Paraphrasia

Large groups of farm animals, such as pigs or chickens, are confined in close quarters and as a result are subject to dying from communicable diseases unless antibiotics are given to them. However, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, well over half of antibiotics produced in this country are given to animals raised on factory farms. While animals will grow more rapidly using antibiotics, an ever-present issue is whether or not the agricultural industry could survive without the full-scale use of pharmaceuticals on their livestock. (Pollan) http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/22/tenure

Groundwater depletion

This essay will focus mainly upon the problems of groundwater depletion by looking at case studies in regions that have suffered it. Also, it will touch on the basic ways that groundwater is extracted and look at the ways to conserve this vital resource in areas such as the Appalachian Mountains.

For a majority of the population in the United States, groundwater acts as the primary source drinking water. This is because areas that lack direct access to large bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, must rely upon water that has been soaked into the ground from rainfall. According the United States Geological Survey (USGS), groundwater is “the source of drinking water for about half the total population… and it provides over 50 billion gallons per day for agricultural needs.”(USGS) However, because groundwater is dependent upon a steady amount of rainfall to replenish its wells and the ways in which it is being used; many questions are asked as to how to keep groundwater from disappearing.

A question that comes to mind is, “Why concern oneself with preservation of groundwater?” This is relevant because aside from the high costs of desalinization, the process of removing salt from water, most regions in the United States can get access to water without necessarily taping into the groundwater supplies. In other words, worst comes to worse for these regions, they can always look to the oceans or other more distant, but nonetheless, viable bodies of water for drinking and agriculture. However, the most dramatic effect that can happen as the result of human-caused groundwater depletion is the formation of sinkholes.

Sinkholes form as the result of groundwater naturally dissolving the bedrock of an area of land and over enough time, enough of the bedrock can be broken down that the overlaying structures of soil and sediment can give way. This happens dramatically because while sinkholes can be forming for years, usually their appearance happens quickly and without much warning. Now while the formation of sinkholes can happen naturally, the appearance and increase in sinkholes across the United States has been attributed to the depletion of groundwater in areas of high construction according to the USGS. As groundwater is pumped away from the area that a sinkhole may form, the structures that the groundwater itself was once holding up become compromised and collapse.

I feel that this essay will continue to look at the problems associated with groundwater-depletion and begin to formulate examples in which groundwater has effected not only the region it occurs, but how it effects all of us in one way or another. I will draw from: the Atlantic coastline, in which naturally desalinized groundwater is becoming polluted by the creeping of ocean water in the aquifers of the region; the Appalachian region which has no real abundant source of attainable water outside of groundwater; and finally, the Southwest, whose practices in cultivating agriculture have lead to massive issues dealing with groundwater depletion.

Bibliography

Alley, W.M., Reilly, T.E., and Franke, O.L. "Sustainability of ground-water resources." U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1186. (1999) p. 79.

Grannemann, N.G., Hunt, R.J., Nicholas, J.R., Reilly, T.E., and Winter, T.C."The importance of ground water in the Great Lakes region." U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4008. (2000): p.14.

Perlman , Howard. "Groud-Water Depletion." (2009): n. pag. Web. 29 Jan 2010. (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html).

Taylor, C.J., and Alley, W.M. Ground-waterlevel monitoring and the importance of long-term water-level data. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1217.(2001). p. 68.

"A Forest Film"

The short film, "A Forest Returns", is an excellent documentary about the history of the revitalization of the Wayne National Forest during the past 70 years. As told by retired Jackson-based journalist and editor, Ora Anderson, the story shows how even in the midst short-term, "rational" interests, we can come together and help nature by in some cases neglecting it.

Anderson tells a compelling story about how areas that had been ravaged by deforestation in order to fuel the hot fires of iron smelts. After most iron production moved North after the extraction from the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota became more accessible, jobs in Southeastern Ohio began to dwindle. FDR's plan was to establish a national forest and purchased the land from homeowners who could do little, but cultivate a small garden for food. Everything else on their property had to "return to nature."

As the film shows, in a short amount of time, geologically speaking, the forests blossomed back in full color. Now, one can only really see the damaging effects of human industrialism from the various iron ovens scattered about the region.

I felt that this was an optimistic look back at how we can help stop, to a certain extent, the damage that we wrought against nature by merely leaving it alone. Now while this won't solve all of our problems, I feel as though "A Forest Returns" represents an idea that perhaps not all is lost because of our short-sighted self-interested motives.

Research project

I want to do my research project on the depletion of drinkable water in our world. It almost seems like a joke because the idea that water, a natural resource that we for granted, can somehow ever run out. This paper that will not focus primarily on the problems of third world countries that have polluted water supplies and are unable to gain access to them. Instead, I will look at the effect of this issue in America.

This will probably end up becoming a discussion on the neglect of something that is essential to survival. The inability to recognize that the demand of 6 billion + humans to have clean, drinkable water will one day outweigh the supply of something that seems endless is something that I want to explore more readily. An interesting article, "Our Drinkable Water Supply is Vanishing" (http://www.alternet.org/environment/64948/), highlights the serious threat that is posed when we come to face the fact that we can't just make more. The paper will trouble-shoot some of the questions and attempt to provide pragmatic solutions that we all can do.

I also want to look at the increasing privatization and outsourcing of water to different businesses. Though, I would not like this to become an attack on capitalism itself, I would primarily like to see where and why the government thinks it's a good idea to put a dollar on sign on something that is a much more invaluable resource. It's also interesting to note that plenty of water we deem drinkable, we use to water our flowers, wash our cars, and in general, just wash down the gutter, literally.

LM Finale

A. Wendell Berry sees the rational mind as something that is cold and calculating. It has no time to chew over the implications or the effects of its decisions, so long as it can profit, even in a minor way, from the objectives at hand. The sympathetic mind, on the other, attempts to view the world as a whole and as a more organic entity. It looks at the implications of its decisions and refuses to believe that its own individualistic profit is the only measure of gain.

For Reece, he demonstrates this well in the reflection in the August 2004 chapter, in which he argues against those that believe "it's already fucked up anyway" so why not just finish the job. He argues defense of a culture and an area of which he himself is not a native. He shows that while the people in the area have hurt the ecosystem in some ways, they have also contributed to it in other ways.

One thing that I enjoyed was the other way he expresses his sympathetic mind. In Before the Law, he actually goes out and fights for the rights of the people to whom he has no allegiance. I admire that he is not only talking the talk, but actually walking the walk and takes time in order to help, in whatever way possible, save the land and preserve the rich culture of Appalachia.

B. The quote that I found most astonishing in the conclusion was actually the quote of Frank Lloyd Wright that Reece uses. The quote is, "The actual difference between 'individualism' and individuality of a true democracy lies in the difference between selfishness and noble selfhood." (242) This distinction is profound in that Reece, through Wright, is not attempting to express the idea of selflessness, but recognizing that we have a place in the bigger picture. Instead of extracting ourselves from the picture entirely, in the case of selflessness, we must see the role that we play in order our world, our picture, more perfect.

The connection of Lost Mountain the mountain to this idea is that ultimately we come from and are a product of nature. We will inevitably die and we will become food for everything in nature. Essentially, though our human bodies can destroy mountains with our machines, the stuff that makes us who we are is the very same stuff that creates mountains. Or planets. Or galaxies. So in a very literal sense, we are not the overseers and protectors, as our egos try to convince us, but instead, we are nature. We are not extracted from, we are not superior to. We just are. And with that sense of selfhood in relation to everything in our universe, we must realize that our legacy depends upon something much larger than our selfish and destructive quests for comfort. Our legacy depends on those that come after us. In sum, if we fail to insure future generations, then our 'self' becomes irrelevant.

I'm poked and prodded out.

Lost Mountain (85-165)

In this last section, Reece begins exploring more of the story lines around him. He interviews many locals who are indeed as concerned and pissed off about strip mining as Teri Blanton in the previous section. One, Mickey McCoy, was a former mayor in a town in Martin County whose color adds a certain appeal to anyone who has ever had that crazy, yet wise, uncle. He also continues to look at indicator species such as the Southern flying squirrel who, like the cerulean warbler, needs cast amounts of contiguous forest in order.

As indicated by my previous, I was interested in, but unmoved by the stories of dying birdies and displaced, cancer-stricken people. I thought that business is business and sometimes the little guy gets screwed in order to provide a commodity for all. However, I was struck by the indifference of the EPA and the various supposed watchdog agencies who permit, and in some cases encourage, the criminal acts perpetrated by the coal industries. In "Acts of God" and "Whitewash in Martin County," Reece hammers home the point that freedom of speech is moot if you don't have the dollars to back up that talk.

In sections like the "Ecovillage" and his reflection on the Chinese poet, Wang Wei, Reece finds the brighter side of life. Even with odd juxtaposition of the smiling Professor Krupa saying, "Oh, we're all doomed," there is a certain amount of hope that as long as someone can see it, we still have time to turn the ship around. For me, this book continues to fascinate me. And yet, I wonder if by the end I, too, am a "goddamn... beatnik!"

Lost Mountain (1-85)

In one of the opening chapters, The New Canary, Eric Reece discusses the importance of contiguous forests for a very specific type of bird, the cerulean warbler. This bird needs a vast amount of uninterrupted forest in order to nest because they are often pushed out by another animal named the cowbird, which invades the nest of cerulean warbler and makes their nest its home. The reason why, in Eric Reece estimation, the warbler is so important is because it represents, like its coal mining brethren, an indication of the change going on in Appalachia. The less you see of the cerulean warbler, the less you see of the Appalachian forests as a result of strip mining.

His arguments are directed towards the idea that the forests are a place of reflection and are needed in order to dispel human arrogance and create an atmosphere that is humbling and perhaps, even religious. Reece realizes that man looks at a mountain in two ways: As a thing to be conquered or as a thing to be revered. He believe that by holding the mountain in reverence, and of all nature for that matter, we can better understand the beauty and intelligence of the natural world.

When dealing with this debate, I am torn in both directions. Reece's comments are powerful and invoke a deep-seeded love with the wilderness that I have had since I was a young boy. Nature is the thing that brought me to Ohio University and kept me here. On the other hand, Ohio uses close to 90% coal in order to power itself. I am not ashamed to to admit that when it comes to my creature comforts here and now versus the extinction of a species of animal far away from me, I will typically choose my comfort. But perhaps in the course of reading this book my mind will be changed.

Clean Coal

On first impression, I felt that This is Reality is presenting a much more emotional appeal. It's a very slick and professional website, but it's professional in the sense of marketing, not substance. This is Reality bombards with quotes from EPA officials trashing the idea of "clean" coal technology, but seems to be able to ever give context to these discussions.

On the other hand, America's Power gives much more detailed information from the start, however it's bulky opening page and drab layout give the reader too much information at one time. Instead, they have opted to give readers the option to choose from seemingly endless accounts of information without, again , contextualizing why and how this information is pertinent to their beliefs.

Obviously, in the case of This Is Reality they are speaking to younger more active audiences in how their website is set up. Every link seemingly can send you to their "Join Now!" section and the layout is simple for the tech-savvy generation. America's Power appeals to a much more business minded group of people who are less concerned with saving the world and more concerned with saving a little bit of money.

This Is Reality shows the issue at hand is that the use of "clean" coal is a misnomer. They appeal this point by presenting numerous statements by different governmental agencies and authorities concerned with environmental affairs as being opposed to the idea that coal by its very nature can ever be clean. The website encourages that readers look and oppose this obvious attempt to "greenwash" something that is inherently not green.

With America's Power, they want to argue that "clean" doesn't mean 100% pure. They recognize the inability of the coal industry to remove all toxic pollutants in the production of coal, but they appeal to the idea that it is 77% cleaner than ever before. Their logical arguments stem from the idea that coal, while its getting cleaner, also substantially helps save money on energy costs. So while This Is Reality attacks the idea that coal is harmful environmentally, America's Power argues that it is beneficial economically.

On the whole I find that I'm split between the two websites. However, because the issue at hand is to show whether or not clean coal exists, America's Power fails to address the fact that there is no such thing as clean coal. In other words, 77% is clean, perhaps cleaner, but not clean. I feel as though This Is Reality hammers this point home effectively and their point is made clear through their effective use of the Coen brothers and the quotes from different professionals.

About me and me

Hey, my name's Patrick, Pat if you like. I'm currently a Public Administration undergrad at OU. I hope to finish up my minor in Philosophy if I have the time. I work as a student manager at Nelson Dining Hall, which by the way is the greatest place to work in the world and if there is a heaven I hope it is modeled after the wonderful atmosphere of that great and beautiful place. Out of obligation I have to name-drop Shawna, so there it is.

I have probably an unhealthy fascination with the evolution of Batman over time in film and comic books. However, I am not a comic book nerd, I just so happen to absolutely go ape for anything and everything Batman.

I love music and film in general, however people would probably consider my tastes extremely snobbish. I can't even begin to tell you what my favorite's albums/movies/books are because they seem to change from week to week. Right now, though, my favorite album is Electric Ladyland, my favorite movie is Boogie Nights (P.T. Anderson is a genius) and my favorite is Infinite Jest.

That's about it for now, but keep breathing and you'll see more...