Reflections: Weeks 5 & 6

Wow I can't believe we're already on week 5& 6 review! Feels just like yesterday when we were babies at this blogging thing. Now I feel like we're well on our way to becoming professional bloggers ;)

Week 5

A few things we did in week 5 were reading Chapter 15: Feeding the World, completed another Eye Opener called CSIP and watched a film, "Diet for a New America" for which I wrote my first review on. Feeding the World was quite an interseting chapter that was eye opening and even a little shocking to me. It focused on the environment, population and the food supply of our earth. I found it alarming that at some point, not too far away, our future demand of food will pass our food supply! I chose to visit the CSPI website where I did a Tour of the Food Supply. I learned quite a bit on the food factories, farm animals, grains, and a lot more. If you haven't been there yet I recommend checking it out! The film, Diet for a New America was really interesting. I feel that by doing a review on it, I got into it a bit more. It was based on John Robbins talking about how the food choices we make every day effect our health, happiness, and the future of life on earth. Check out my review for more details on it!

Week 6

This week we had an Eye Opener of an indivdually assigned reading and watched the film "Future of Food". My assigned reading was on Chapter 29:Growers and Greens Unite. Basically what was going on in this chapter was that in some places farmers and environmentalists are coming together to solve problems together, rather than working against each other. Something I found interesting was that Organic farms are pretty limited to about 8,000 in the US, but they're profits are improving by about 25% each year! Hopefully these other farms will catch on soon. The film we watched was almost scary to me! It was talking in depth about the very disturbing truth behind unlabled, patented, genetically engineered foods. At first the concept seemed like a good idea, great lets make more food that could (weasle word) help feed the hungry. I see that being an awesome attempt, but in reality isn't the case. I think at this point scientist have gone too far. As a consumer there is no way to know if my food has been modified and I think I have the right to!

The past two weeks I have enjoyed reading the chapters and watching these films. My eyes have yet again, become more open! I look forward to the next couple weeks.

Eye Opener: Summary of Reading

Growers and Greens Unite
The title of this chapter really sums up what seems to be happening in some areas of our country. Despite the sterotypes of the diverse groups of farmers and environmentalists, it seems that they are overcoming this "mis-trust" to work together. "People with wildly different backgrounds are learning more about each other as the come together to defeat common opponents". The book stated stereotypes such as farmers are often seen as stubbon and narrowminded by the environmentalist and the environmentalist are seen as people who dispense rules and don't understand what really goes on in a farm. At this point, when farm factories (CAFOs) are becoming detrimental to the environment (and the surrounding people) farmers are even known to defy the Farm Bureau to join the environmentalist to help with certain issues. It was interesting to see that in hog farming factories, 1 hog produces two to four times as much raw sewage as a human being! In reality there are only about 8,000 farms that are "certified organic", but their profits are growing 25% each year. If only the CAFOs didn't consider this "alternative" farming as risky, they could see that there are other options. Durastic change isn't going to happen over night, but it's good to see that there is common ground of interest in change on the rise.

A few questions for discussion: Would our environment change durastically if these farms went to all "organic"? What would happen to the price of food? Would organic farming really be "risky" or is it just different?

Bottom line, whether or not a farm is organic or a big factory, they are all just trying to survive. With a main issue of whether they are doing it environmentally friendly or not, regardless it has to be a combined effort on both sides.

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Review: Diet for a New America

The film we watched this week was Diet for a New America. It was made in 1995 based on John Robbins. John Robbins, who was the son of Irv Robbins one of the co-founders of Baskin Robins. Rather than following in his fathers ice cream legacy, he found something that was more rewarding to his life. John was quite sick growing up with Polio, which seemed to be his biggest motivation. He often wondered how he could regain health. Johns solution to regaining health was being more concious of the foods he would consume. Being health concious lead him to realize that there was a link between agriculture, health, and the environment. John had various doctors come on film and explain just how the food that we eat has an imact on our health. The doctors explained that the excess amount of (saturated) fat consumed, goes into the blood which can cause various complications such as blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and even cancer (while also keeping in mind heredity, medical history, diet and exercise). One doctor even showed a tube of blood where you could actually see the fat seperated, it was a pretty disgusting visual!

The video went on to explain how different countries have different ways of eating, some are even "scared to become like us". To one of our American servings of meat, could feed a family of 4 or 5 in other countries who use meat as a side dish! Not only did John talk about how bad the meat was after it was cooked, he explain the harsh environments that these animals are kept in before they reach the slauter house. On some farms (of course not all!) cows are kept in confined places where their movement is constricted to make sure that the meat will be "tender" when cooked.

In order to produce all the food grain needed to feed the cows, there are mass amounts of pesticides and fertilizers that are used. Essentially the cows are eating it which obviously turns into manure. The video went into detail explaining the problems that cow manure has on the environment. Some live stalk making up to 6,000 lbs of manure each year. These cow feces go into the ground, essentially entering the water and becoming destructable to the environment and the people surrounding the farms. Nitrate (from the fertilizer on grains that are fead to the cows) can enter the drinking water, causing harm and birth defects to babies called Blue Baby Syndrome.

This movie was a little challenging to watch (depsite it being a little out dated) because it goes against most (not everyone) of what our normal up-bringing as an American is. Personally, I grew up in a family where all of our dinner meals were based off of meat and a side dish of vegetables. I have always been a "picky eater" (what my family calls it), and since highschool I don't really eat beef that often. I still get werid looks and comments from my brother and dad when I eat a turkey burger at dinner while everyone else is eating a beef burger! Essentially this movie was an eye opener to me for realizing how the health, environment, and agriculture are so closely tied together. This movie was very biased, but I think watchin it with an open mind helped me realize some important points that were made.

Polio-A viral disease marked by inflammation of nerve cells of the brain stem and spinal cord.

Pesticide-Chemical preparation for destroying plant, fungal and animal pests.

Fertilizer-Mixture of substances used to make crops more productive.

Blood clot-A semisolid gelatinous mass of blood that consists of red blood cells, white blood cells and plateletes trapped within a fibrin network.

Stroke-A blockage of a blood vessel leading to the brain causing inadequate oxygen supply.

Heart Attack-Damage to an area of heart muscle that is deprived of oxygen (usually an artery)

Share and Voice: The Environmental Guy

Is anyone fans of Jim Carrey?? I think he is so hilarious :) Here is a video of him trying to do his part for the environment. It's pretty ridiculous and I'm not sure if he's mocking or trying to make a point! Let me know what you think.

Eye Opener: CSPI

I visited each site briefly in the Eye Opener section: Food Tour, Eating Green, and Score Your Diet. I decided to further explore on the Food Tour because I thought I could get some interesting new facts!

Basically it was a virtual process of where our food comes from and what is done with the fertilizers, land, slaughter house, super market, and much more.

Some interesting facts I learned:

Ferilizer Facts: Producing feed for the U.S. livestock, consumers about 22 billions pounds of fertilizer annually, and that energy used to manufacture it coule provide one years worth of power for about 1 million Americans.

Factory Farm: I was not aware that Farm animals in the US are not protected by strict laws and are often tortured and/or badly mistreated.

Animal Feed: Livestock are fed trash! At one point they were even feeding cattle with other cattle remains (YUCK!) which caused Mad Cow disease, which is illegal now.

Manure Lagoon: The methane released from livestock and their manure is equivalent in environmental destruction to the annual release of CO2 from about 33 million automobiles.

Super Market: Contaminated food cuases about 5,000 deaths each year. About 1/5 of them are linked to meat poultry, dairy and egg products. (Any one hear about the peanut recall?!

Hospital: The CDC estimates that contaminated food causes about 76 million illnesses, 325,00 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths each year. The main culprits ranging from hamburgers, milk, and eggs.

Obviously if I put in all the things I learned from this site, it'd be a little over kill. I just put in the ones I thought were most interesting. If anyone hasn't seen this website I highly recomend it. There are tons of facts. Although these facts were alarming, I have a hard time believing that all farms contribute to some of these horrendous things (such as the cruelity and contamination), but it was interesting learning about them all! If anyone was considering being a Vegitarian, this site will pull you towards that for sure!

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Share and Voice: Baby Panda Zhen Zhen

This summer I spent a couple weeks in California. I spent most of my time in San Diego. I went to the San Diego Zoo and got the cutest pictures of the new baby panda Zhen Zhen just shy one 1 year and her mom Bai Yun! Zhen Zhen is the fourth giant panda born at this Zoo. Giant pandas are about the size of a stick of butter and hairless at birth. The mother cares for their cub very well but more often then not many do not survive. There are special captive propagation programs in China and other Zoos around the world designed to study and care for these new panda cubs to help them reach adulthood. There are only around 1,600 Gi ant Pandas surviving on earth, therefore making them endangered. Several reasons why they are endangered is because they have a low reproductive rate, there is a shortage of bamboo (which 99% of their diet is made up of, eating nearly 84lbs a day!), habitat distruction (China's has over 1 billion people), and hunting. In China there is a wildlife reserve making sure that these pandas have food, and space to live with little human interference. Check out these links they have a lot more information than I have, but just thought I'd share some pictures!

Reflections: Week 3 & 4

These past two weeks went a little smoother with the blogging! I finally got the hang of commenting and posting on the correct days. I even figured out a fun trick to schedule an early post for a specific time and date!

Week 3

We had a couple readings from our book, Outlooks: Readings for Environmental Literacy, chapter 1, The Challenges We Face and chapter 27, Seeing Green: Knowing and Saving the Environment on Film. Both readings were interesting. Chapter 1 was pretty much an intro to the environment. It touched on topics such as population & health, food, energy & climate, and biodiversity. A quote that caught my attention right away was "The globe doesn't need to be saved by us, and we couldn't kill it if we tried". It then goes on to say that we have done a pretty good job at putting the climate, air, and water all out of balance and it is us that we are trying to save. I thought that this was a powerful and alarming statement. Chapter 27 focused on environmental films and the fact that some are educational with a powerful message while other films can often show the environment as a "fantasy". It is one thing to hear about an issue but it is another to actually see a picture and get a visual for what is going on. The meaning behind films being fantisized is when they portray the "natural" environment on screen, but hide or edit out the areas may be polluted or overpopulated.

Week 4

We had an Eye Opener assignment to get our Ecological Footprint. I found out that if everyone lived the way I do, it would take over 4 Earths! It was a good way to get a visual of just how much each of us are wasting with each day and how every little thing we do adds up. This week we also started watching "An Inconvenient Truth" featuring Al Gore. It is a powerful film that goes into detail about how our climate is changing and the effects it has on the land, water, ice, animals people, and much more. Here is a quote I thought was meaningful, "There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now." The point being, we need to do something about this serious problem fast.

The past few weeks I feel like I have taken in a lot of information about the Earth and Global Warming. I realized now is a better time then ever to take action. I look forward to what is ahead in the next couple weeks!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

How much of the Earths resources does my lifestyle take up? According to this quiz from the Redefining Progress, if everyone lived the lifestyle I live it would take 4.35 Earths! My results seemed to be somewhat below the Country's average, but it still surprised me that 1 poor college student took up over 4 Earths!

Since college I have defintely been introduced to the advantages of conserving electrcity, water, gas, heat, etc. not only for my wallet but for the Earth in general. We as Americans rely so much on water, electricity, heat, air-conditioning, driving etc, that we don't realize how much is going to waste.

I'd like to think that I contribute by taking the bus, carpooling, recycling, conserving, using hand-me-downs (it seems the list could go on and on) but there is always room to improve which I think I could.

What I found challenging about conserving had to do with the house that I live in. It's an old house, with old windows, oil heat and we rent it. That itself makes it difficult to be eco-friendly. We do try hard to contribute by puting in the correct light bulbs, blocking off windows and doorways, unplugging and turning things off, and keeping our heat in the high 50's (which believe me is chilly, you don't see us walking around our house with shorts and t-shirts on, it's more like jackets and hats still on!)

I thought this activity was fun but it just made me feel guilty that I need to do a lot better. I wish I had the money to have the hybrid car, or the solar panels in our house, but it's looking like that isn't happening for me any time soon, so I'll keep doing my part the best I can. I think the little things like recycling, turning off lights/appliances, and using public transportation can make a big difference!

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Share and Voice: Santa Barbara

This thursday I will be going to Santa Barbara, California for lacrosse! I'm doing a share and voice to try and see if I can make my post "scheduled". I will have to miss class in order to make my flight. I have to pack light and a laptop will most likely be pointless to bring, considering we are staying in a hostel that has no internet connections.

Here is the link to schedule if anyone else would like to try it out. I'm in the process, so this may or may not work the first time. Good luck if you try it out!

Reflections: Week 1 and 2

The first two weeks of Environmental Health have been mainly an introduction to the course and learning how to use Google Blogger. The first week I enjoyed when Dr. V showed us pictures of Washington, DC and brought photos into a different perspective. She used photography and quotes to show us that Environmental Health is very important and that we all can make a difference.

This second week focused more on blogging. We were taken through a step by step process on how to create and make our own blogging space. It was quite a learning experience. Some of it was complicated and other parts were really fun. I like being creative and I'm still working on my page to make it original. A few more weeks of this class and I'm sure I'll be whipping through these blogs and adding more advanced features!

I'm excited for what is to come of this class throughout the semester. I look forward to learning about specific environmental issues and continuing my blogging adventures.

Introduction

Welcome to Going Green With Jayme!





My name is Jayme. I am a Community Health major at UMD. This blog is created for Environmental Health. We will be using it for various ways to show our progress in this class and to share fun and interesting things about the Environment.

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

Advocacy Project
Eye Openers
Reflections
Reviews
Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.

The members of my web group are:
1. Sarah O.
2. Derek
3. Randy
4. Kevin

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile." (Make sure all these gadgets are in place).

I hope you enjoy my blog!