Water

This group decided to focus their water presentation on the ocean.  They informed the class that only 2.7% of the world's water is freshwater, the rest is saltwater.  The ocean is very connected to human activity.  For instance if the ice caps were to melt due to global warming, the ocean would rise and could cover land masses such as part of Florida.  Another event that could occur in the ocean is a change in the pH.  This could have a hugely detrimental result on the species that live in the ocean.  They need a consistent environment to live in otherwise they can't survive.  For example, shelled species need the pH to be a certain level in order to extract carbonate from the water to make their shells.  The rise in pH can be the result of carbon sinks, which sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

Over fishing can also be a problem.  Large companies are after short term profits and are not worried about  using sustainable methods that would result in profits for years to come.  Since they do not fish in a sustainable way, the fish populations have dwindled in many areas.  If they were to limit their catches a little to allow the populations to recover, they could actually be more profitable in the long run.  The Sustainable Fisheries Act was passed in 1996 to protect the fish and to promote conservation.  Over fishing can be related to Animal rights.  Singer would probably suggest avoiding any fish that was not sustainably harvested if you have to eat fish at all.  Fish have a right to live a good and undisturbed life.  It all depends on what your definition of what an animal is though, some would not consider fish to have animal rights.  Another approach is utilitarianism which would suggest sustainable methods because many people enjoy eating fish, so if fish are not sustainably harvested and some species go extinct, then no one would be able to enjoy them.

The group also talked about hypoxic dead zones.  This is the result of eutrophication which is when there is excess plant growth and the plants use up a large proportion of the oxygen in the water.  Organisms in the water cannot use oxygen and they die as a result.  Additionally this process can warm up the water, preventing nutrients from mixing, which would normally occur if there was both cool and warm water.  This relates to the land ethic in that this problem is due to human pollution, mostly from farming.  By disrupting the eco-system, humans are not "thinking like a mountain".

Shelter

My group decided on the topic of shelter.  I really liked researching this topic because if I decide to build a house someday rather than moving into an existing house, I would want to build it in the greenest way possible.  LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, "provides independent, third party verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health" (http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988).  LEED awards four levels of certification: certified, silver, gold, and platinum depending on how sustainable the building is.  They focus on 9 different important aspects such as the use of sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, locations and linkages, awareness and education, innovation and design, and regional priority. 

Now that I have learned more about LEED certification I know the ethical reasons behind choosing a LEED certified house.  The main ethical theory I associate with is sustainable development.  I am a strong believer in this theory because I feel that our generation owes it to future generations to practice sustainable methods.  This is why I think LEED is so important.  If everyone who could afford to build a new house made it a LEED certified house, there would be a huge improvement in energy efficiency and a reduction of construction waste.  It would even be healthier to live in because of the air quality standards.  Additionally, the LEED houses don't even cost all that much more than a regular house, especially when you figure in the money saved from lower energy bills.  It would be a really good investment for not only the future of the house owner, but also for the generations to come.

Another ethical theory that has a lot to do with LEED certification is the land ethic.  Aldo Leopold suggests that we all "think like a mountain".  In other words it is best not to disturb the ecosystem because only nature has the best plan for the organisms that live in an ecosystem.  LEED encourages people to avoid any disturbance to the ecosystem by making sure to avoid run off that can cause erosion, decreasing pollution, and by using local plants for landscaping.  Overall there are many ethical implications for LEED.

Space

I liked the space presentation because it was interesting to learn about how suburbs are not as good as I thought they were.  They actually cause a bad carbon footprint on the the atmosphere because the people that live in them have to drive everywhere.  They cannot just walk to the grocery store or the gas station to buy milk, they have to drive there.  Since they are not in walking distance to anything and they do not have a lot of public transportation they just drive a lot.  Just having a green lawn does not mean that you are living a "green" lifestyle.  Yet it seems that living in a suburb and owning your own house and lawn is the American dream.  Living in a big city would be a better dream if one wants to live sustainably.  In the city there is public transportation, and one can walk to many of the places one needs to go. 

Planning the way things are built in the city are important as well.  For instance, the way roads are placed can have a huge impact on how people decide what transportation to use.  Before cars were made it was common the have very close roads used for walking, after cars became more popular, the roads became more spread out and harder to use for walking to places.  By planning a city in a manner that promotes walking to places, they can be more sustainable.

Greenways are also important for cities to have.  They are even better when they are connected by green strips.  This allows for an increased species diversity because the populations in the two parks can come together rather than being separated by a a few blocks of buildings.  This improves the health of the organisms in the park. 

Finally they talked about urbicide.  This term means "violence against the city".  Urbicide occurs when people destroy a city.  This destruction is really bad because it can kill people.  Even when people survive, they have part of their life killed because everything thing they own is gone and they must start over.  This is a really horrible thing to happen to a city.

Food Presentation

I really enjoyed the food presentation.  I liked how we had to answer questions during the presentation because it was a good way to learn about the topics.  The food industry has so many labels with so many meanings it can be hard sometimes to really figure out who is right and what to eat and for what cost.  For example, organic food can be very expensive.  This is because the farmers have to jump through a lot of hoops in order to be certified organic.  For instance, they cannot use pesticides on their crops, they have to use sustainable methods, they can't use as many medicines like antibiotics for the animals,  and so on.  The presenters talked about a drawback to this.  Since there are so many regulations about the way the organic foods are produced sometimes just making sure that things like e-coli can be a problem because sanitation is not as regulated. Additionally, the presenters talked about how studies about the nutrition of the organic foods compared to regular food.  The studies have mixed results and may be bias, so as of right now there is no reliable information telling us whether or not organic food is actually more nutritious for people. 

The presenters also explained about food miles.  This is a term used to describe how many miles food must travel to get to your table.  It is often a good idea to buy local food in order to reduce one's carbon footprint.  Buying tomatoes in the middle of the winter may not be a good idea because they could be coming from Mexico, whereas in the summer they could be coming from somewhere more local.  One must also consider the impact of not buying food from poor countries as well because while the food has a lot of food miles, it is also helping out the economy of that poor country. 

Finally, the presenters also talked about Whole Foods.  This is a grocery store chain that is dominating the organic food market right now.  This chain can be looked at in both a positive and negative light in that they do sell good, sustainable, and organic food, but they have also been known to run out other smaller organic businesses.  Either way Whole Foods is a company that has definitely found its niche.  The presenters also talked about how Whole foods can be a bit pretentious because of their high prices.  In a way only the rich people can be sustainable and by this better organic food.  Since their prices are so high, people of the middle or lower classes can't really afford to shop there.  One must consider the other side though, Whole foods is a company that must make enough money to stay in business and pay their customers, and organic food is more expensive to begin with.  Whole foods really takes care of it's employees too, paying them well over minimum wadge.

Grizzly Man and Ecofeminism

Grizzly Man is a documentary about Timothy Treadwell.  This film had a lot to say about how people view the environment and gender. Timothy had a pretty normal life growing up, he was on athletic teams and had a loving family.  He felt that something was missing though so he moved to California.  After he lost the part of the bartender in Cheers to another actor, he lost it.  Sick of being rejected, he turned to alcohol, which did not solve his problems.  Finally, he found happiness in spending time with the bears of Alaska.  While in Alaska, his trouble with human society seemed to melt away.  As he became closer and closer to the magnificent beasts he often forgot that they were wild animals that could harm him.  He often said that others, who might try to live with the bears as he does, would not survive, yet while watching the documentary, one gets the sense that he himself does not see the danger.  It seems as if he thought he was invincible because he had learned a few of the bears habits, but he still didn't know everything.  During his last expedition he decided to take his girlfriend along.  She and Timothy decided to go back at the usual time, but due to a conflict with the airlines, he decided to go back to his bears.  The combination of being in the bear territory at such a late time and the distraction of having his girlfriend may have lead to his untimely death, as well as his girlfriend's. 

It is sad that he could not have survived, yet at the same time it does not surprise me.  If you mess with nature, it will eventually respond to your presence.  I think that really symbolizes humanity's connection with nature.  The more we spend time  changing things, being where we shouldn't be, the more likely nature is going to fight back. Timothy spent extra time being where he shouldn't have been and humans in general have been spending too much time destroying the environment, therefore nature is going to respond at some point.  This relates back to ecofeminism.  Timothy as a man, was part of a hierarchy.  While his intentions were good (trying to save the bears) he was still just doing whatever he wanted to do.  He was dominating nature in his own way, using it for his own purposes.  He used to bears to sort of fix his problems when poaching wasn't even a huge problem in Alaska anyways.  Timothy would have been better off making his documentary on a more important environmental problem so that he could have made more of a difference.  On the other hand, Timothy may have seemed feminine in the way he seemed to care so much for the bears.  Caring is seen as a female trait usually, since female traits are usually seen as not as important, caring for the environment has been put on hold.  This is a problem ecofeminist see in society and they relate it to the dominance hierarchy in which males usually are on top.  All in all, Timothy was just trying to help, even if he was a guy. 

Environmental Justice

The Environmental Justice topic was a bit hard to swallow.  Living in the United States with a nice farm house and a cabin up north, going to a nice private college, I have it pretty easy.  Sometimes I lose sight of how the convenience I have, has a negative affect on the environment, and people in far off places.  Argentina seems so far away.  I have only been out of the country once, and that was to go to Canada when I was little.  It is amazing to me to think about how the oil companies that provide me with gas for my car so that I can go to my cabin, house, the mall, etc., can have such a negative impact on the people in Argentina.  In the book Flammable, the two authors delve into the thoughts and feelings of people living in a shantytown near a compound containing multiple companies such as a petrochemical company and a chemical company.  The pollution and contamination that they face everyday in their environment and their bodies is horrible.  I can't imagine visiting a place like that, let alone living there.  It makes me think twice about my gas consumption, plastic usage, etc. because of all the damage to the environment it causes.  No one should have to live in a place like Flammable.  "We ought to respect the rights of others and live up to the responsibilities that each of us has individually" according to DesJardins (pg. 225).  While it is difficult to determine the responsibility each of us has individually to fixing the situation in Flammable, we should consider our consumption and reduce it in any way possible.  There are a lot of problems in this world and we can't fix everything ourselves, but it is best if we all begin to take at least some responsibility for our actions.  The convenience that we experience may have a much higher price than we realize.

Into The Wild, Deep Ecology

Into The Wild was a very interesting movie.  I thought it was really sad how Chris McCandless, or "Alexander Supertramp" as he called himself, did not realize that happiness has to be shared to be true.  There were so many people that loved him, even if they were all flawed.  I think that he was unable to deal with the fact that people are flawed.  He hated how his family could not treat each other with respect and love.  He reacted to the flawed people in his life by running away from them.  While this had its ups and downs, he seemed to be happier on the road, with the new people he met.  Even these people did not satisfy him though, he still felt the need to go to Alaska to have his adventure.  He never dreamed that he would realize happiness depends on people, nor that he would die on his Alaskan adventure. 

This movie really speaks to the notion of deep ecology.  Chris knew that the land had its own intrinsic value, that society and people were the ones who were destroying the land, and in a way each other.  This was so frustrating to him.  In the end I think he realized that there is an inherent worth to all living beings, even human beings.  He wanted to find happiness in nature, and he found it to some extent there, but he realized that without human companionship, he cannot truly enjoy all of its beauty and grace because humans too have intrinsic value.

Animal Ethics

I really liked the approach of reading Life of Pi during our animal ethics topic.  I absolutely loved the book.  At the end of the book when the investigators are asking Pi about his experience and they don't believe him about the algae island and the meerkats, I felt that this really related to society's view on nature.  If we can't see it, hear it, touch it, smell it, or taste it, then it can't exist, so we can't be harming it.  It reminded me that humans are destroying habitats of species that we don't even know exist yet.  This is not a good animal ethic to have.  Rather than relying on tangible proof that a species exists, humanity needs to realize that there are still undiscovered treasures in nature that should not be destroyed. 

In relation to that, we need people like Rick O’ Berry from The Cove.  He helped humanity discover injustices to a species that is more relatable and very tangible.  Like the investigators in Life of Pi, I was ignorant of the on goings in Japan.  How was I to know that dolphins were being killed for their toxic meat?  They were brutally killed and the fishermen seemed to think nothing of it.  It made me wonder how they could kill so easily.  Were these men in a dire circumstance, such as being very poor and needing to feed starving children?  While I see that they are doing something wrong, I also wonder if the video is somehow biased, it just seems to sad to be true.  It seem that the fishermen were excessively violent; there are kinder ways to do the job that would reduce the awful suffering.  Even if these men are in dire circumstances, can they not find a less brutal job?  I just feel that animal species should be respected and protected, whether or not humanity can see them suffer.

The Land Ethic

How did your childhood shape your relationship with the environment?

This is a hard question for me to answer without writing an entire book on the subject.  In my childhood, I spent a lot of time outdoors.  My brother and sister and I would play outside all the time, literally until our cows came home.  Growing up on a farm gave us a lot of room to explore.  The woods behind our house became a perfect place to play imaginary games.  We would pretend that a fallen tree was a grand castle that we had to protect from invading armies.  It seemed like I never had shoes on and I was constantly dirty, much to the despair of my mother who was constantly trying to clean up the dirt we tracked all over the house.  I always loved being outside, especially in the summer.  This is where it started, I wanted to fix every flaw in the environment that humans have ever made; quite the undertaking for a 13 year old.

My dad was truly the person who influenced my love of nature though.  As a farmer he cares for the earth as much as he cares for my siblings and me.  When he had cows, he knew all of their personalities, and named them accordingly.  His favorite, Bessie, was the kindest and he would always milk her first.  He could never hurt a cow, no matter how frustrated he was with them.  That is how he taught us to treat animals.  Even as an avid hunter, he focuses on making the deadliest shot so that the deer doesn’t suffer.  He provides the deer population with food and salt licks in order to take a deer for food each year.  He always told me that one should never kill unless it is for necessity.  

I have a strong memory of a kitten I once had.  I kept it in the barn with heavy doors.  It always tried to run after me so I would slam the door shut before it could get out because I didn’t want any animals to get to it.  One day, the kitten was too fast for me, I slammed the door right on the cat.  The most horrifying screech resulted.  I quickly opened the door only to see that its middle had been smooshed and it was still alive.  I instantly burst into tears crying with big heaves, not knowing what to do.  My dad was just around the corner and came up to me asking what happened.  He told me to go to the house and he would take care of it.  I cried all the way home wondering how dad would fix the poor thing.  When he came home I asked if the kitten was better.  He shook his head sadly, he had had to kill it so it wouldn’t suffer a long slow death.  I cried all night, feeling so sad for the poor kitten.  This is why I would never eat veal, cows deserve to be given room to roam around and decent food.  They should not suffer.   I have always felt that they had their own intrinsic value.

Growing up in a strongly Catholic family, we were taught to be stewards of the earth.  Humans are here to use the earth for their use, but they are also to take care of it, respect it, and maybe even improve it.  That is what my dad tries to do.  We have free range chickens that use for meat and for eggs.  We also have a garden so that we can have fresh produce.  But as humans, we are not perfect, my dad still uses some pesticides and recently turned an untouched meadow into a field, because it was no longer profitable to keep it natural.  He says the taxes were just too high to let the meadow go unused.  While I think this is a shame, we also need to make a living.  My dad recently bought hunting ground that he is keeping in its natural state (other than the food that he planted for the deer), which he says makes up for turning the small meadow near our house into a field. 

All in all, I love the environment, and while I no longer desire to fix all of the world’s environmental problems (for that is just too large an undertaking), I plan on making my impact on the earth as small as possible.

Post #1

As I read Environmental Ethics by Joseph R. DesJardins I realized that environmental ethics are much more complex than I originally thought.  It isn’t just “don’t harm the environment” because sometimes there is no realistic way to avoid it.  Sometimes humans need to decide which is a lesser evil of two decisions.  There are so many different ways that a situation can be interpreted.  For example, the situation where a farmer must decide whether or not to drain a wetland can be very complex.  If the farmer is desperate to put food on the table and he views this as his only viable option is it ok for him to harm the environment?

If we look at the situation from a religious point of view, specifically a Christian point of view, one might argue that the farmer should drain the wetland so that he may prosper in a difficult time.  Since he is human, he has dominion over the other species that inhabit the Earth.  God has placed man as stewards on the earth; they are to take care of the earth.  So while at the moment the farmer’s needs are more important.  This does not let the farmer off the hook though.  If he is to harm the environment in order to prosper, then he should try to undo the damage when he is able, or help out the environment in some other way.  If he does not act as a steward in some way he is most likely liable to have some sort of punishment from God later, therefore it is in his best interest to take care of the earth in some way. 

Next we could look at the situation in a utilitarian way.  Utilitarianism focuses on what is best for the greater good.  In other words, it means the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.  In this way, the farmer should drain the wetland in order to feed not only himself, but others who may be in need of food.  While it is not good for the earth, it is good for the farmer, his family, and neighbors.  While this does not bode well for the earth, the greatest number of people are satisfied. 

On another note, one could view the situation in a teleological way.  The wetland would have an extrinsic finality if it were used for the farmer’s needs.  The farmer is using the wetland as a means to an end; having more farm land to use.  Opposing that would be the wetland’s intrinsic finality in which the wetland serves its purpose to be a wetland, just to be a wetland. 

Finally, we can look at the situation with deontology, holistic views, anthropocentric, and non-anthropocentric views.  There are many perspectives that will argue either for or against draining a wetland for farm use.  Which is right?  No one really knows, even environmentalists don’t always know the best approach to certain environmental situations.  Personally, I like the deontology view, if everyone is a good and moral person, he or she will try to make the best and moral decision, with everyone making good decisions, some improvement is bound to happen. 

Biography

Hi, my name is Stephanie Heinz.  I am a senior biology major here at CSBSJU and I have just finished applying to graduate schools for Occupational Therapy.  I am really excited for March because that is when I find out whether or not I get in.  OT is my dream job because I love helping people so I really hope I get into St. Kate's.   

I grew up on a farm outside of Henderson MN a small town of 900 people.  I have a younger brother and sister.  We live with my parents and my grandparents have a house about 20 yards away from ours on the same farm.  During the summer I work at an assisted living home called Golden Hearts.  I love my job there, especially the residents.

I chose to take this class because I like environmental studies and I thought it would be fun.  I have taken two other classes that have focused on environmental studies and found them to be enjoyable.  My last one was my upper theo which focused on the environment and how different religions view it. I loved that class, especially the teacher Bernie Evans.  I also took a class that focused on the enviornment, food, and gender.  It was a pretty interesting class.