With my survey up and running, I have gotten a number of responses. The results show that most people are not now, nor have they ever been, vegetarian. Most people also eat an average amount of meat throughout the week with few eating it never or more than thrice a day. Almost everyone has seen a documentary on the food production industry about meat with a slight effect on their lifestyles. Almost everyone is aware that most of the meat in the US comes from industrial farming. Again almost all of the respondents said that organic meat is healthier than non-organic and that it is also more expensive. No one eats organic meat many times throughout the week, but it is eaten. Most also believe that organic meat is not marketed as strongly as it's industrial counterpart. Then for the last question I found that people are willing to eat organic meat if it is cheaper of the same price as industrial meat, but not if it is more expensive. My findings are proving my hypothesis about why people eat non-organic meat over the organic option.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C6CGLXC
English 101
Monday, November 19, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
The Survey
Although my survey hasn't been finished a large number of times, the few completions are allowing me to form a beginning hypothesis. Since I have only asked a few friends so far to complete the survey, the hypothesis is not very extensive and has yet to be proven without a doubt. My initial thoughts were correct though. Many do not know that most, if not all, of the meat that eat comes from industrial farms. Also after sharing a few details about the practices of the farms, most said that they would try and eat sustainably raised animals. The only problem then comes from the increased cost of sustainably raised meat which people are usually not willing to pay.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Indigenous Resistance
Marker’s
piece on the Costal Salish people of the Pacific Northwest demonstrates what
happened to the native people of the Americas when Europeans arrived. When the
Europeans arrived, they started to take over the land and the people. When all
was conquered and the people were broken, they demanded assimilation. They did everything
in their power to make this happen. Schools and churches were the best way that
they found to teach the natives their culture. Through the schools many natives
of the Americas were converted to the European religions and taught the
languages of their conquerors. There were many cases of entire peoples broken
without much resistance. This was not the case for the Costal Salish people of
the Pacific Northwest.
The
Costal Salish people took home in the area that is now covered by Washington
State and Canada above it. Because the lands were divided, the people were as
well. Both sides, however, tried to assimilate the native people. They used
private schools and public schools to try to get the younger generation of the
Costal Salish to become assimilated in the culture of their surroundings. The
people resisted. They did not assimilate as planned and fought against their
captures culture. The children in both situations had difficult times resisting
the constant barrage of culture, but kept strong with their families. They did
get reaffirmations of their culture through the winter spirit dancing revivals
which healed “the psychological trauma from attending both residential and
public schools” (Marker 769). The Costal Salish people are strong willed and
have strong spiritual and cultural bonds.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Third Essay Plans
For this next essay, I thought that
it would be a good idea to choose a place that has been making great strides
toward sustainability and agricultural solutions. After a bit of searching I
found that Asheville has been doing just that. The city has been praised by
many vegetarian organizations for its friendly environment towards their
practices and way of life. Asheville also has a very large Earth Day festival
and has been voted as one of the best places to be on Earth Day. Asheville has
been trying to localize agriculture even more than it is now and will continue
to improve in the future.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
A Second Artifact
This is a
picture of many hands holding the world. If looked at closely, it can be seen
that the hands are different racially as well. This is because the world does
not care about race or ethnicity. This means that anyone can help out with the
problems that earth is facing if they really want to. There are also many hands
wrapped around the world signifying that many people are needed to help with
the problems that we have.
The world
that we live in is in grave danger of being destroyed by our actions. We can
only fix and undo everything that we have done to the world by working
together. How a person looks should not determine how they feel about the earth.
The picture shows all different races helping out and holding the earth and
that is how people should be with the crisis that we are facing. We are
ethically bound to help the earth that has housed us for thousands of years, so
we should not let petty, superficial things stand in the way of us doing just
that.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Environmental Ethics
This
is a picture of a light bulb. The bulb is filled with a peaceful landscape and
behind the bulb is a row of wind turbines. This picture can be interpreted in
many ways, but the main way that I see it is that people have a responsibility to
safely power the earth. All of the crazy things that people do to power their
homes and life are destroying the environment. This should not be the outcome
of attaining energy, but far from it.
Environmental
ethics is caring for the environment in the same way that we care for other
people or animals. People need to treat the environment with respect because it
is the only one that we have. If we destroy everything on this earth that is
green, there will be no way of restoring the planet to what it once was. One of
the best ways that people can treat the planet respectfully is to use more
environmentally friendly energy alternatives. We cannot rely on fossil fuels
forever; we need to get people to start using better, sustainable alternatives.
As the picture shows, using sustainable wind energy can power a light bulb while
keeping the earth in pristine, beautiful condition.
As
a people, we have a responsibility to keep the earth clean and livable for
future generations of people. We should not be consuming all of the natural
resources that we do at such an alarming rate, because there are not enough to
support that lifestyle. There are environmental ethics that we have to abide by
if we want the earth to survive long enough for another thousand of generations
to come. This all starts with figuring out ways to create energy more
sustainably and recycling many of the items that we use to reduce the amount of
garbage on the planet.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Carbon Capture and Storage
With
the high amount of carbon dioxide that is circling in the air at this time, the
world is in a very difficult spot. In order for the world to return to a
manageable amount of carbon in the atmosphere, the total needs to be cut by
about twenty percent. Now this may sound like a daunting and difficult task,
but there are solutions out there. One of these solutions is a technique called
carbon capture and storage (CCS) and it involves taking carbon from the
atmosphere and storing it below ground.
After
people have entirely drained a gas field or an oil reservoir of its contents,
all that is left is a space in the ground that people will never think to look
at again. CCS takes these spaces in the ground and finds use for them. The
carbon that is taken from the atmosphere is stored down there and pretty much
sealed away so that it will be taken out of the equation. This process has
become fairly controversial in the past few years because of the risks that it
can involve. There is a small chance that the carbon dioxide will leak from the
reservoir and will contaminate its surroundings. The reason that this is so
controversial is because the contaminants could spread into the groundwater
that people drink. This is a controversial problem but a very unlikely occurrence
because of how many times it has been tested and proven unlikely. A fairly
modern storage facility in Australia proved that this was the case.
In
the case of carbon dioxide storage in depleted gas fields, the benefits highly
outweigh the risks. The ability to take away almost a large chunk of the carbon
in the atmosphere is a great necessity and people have found a way to do it.
Now all that needs to happen is for the public to develop a greater
understanding of the process and how insignificant the risks are when compared
to the benefits.
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