Climate Change Week 7

I would say climate change is definitely a combination of both manmade and natural causes.  This is really not a good thing for me to be blogging about because I really know very little information about it.  I would say Al Gore is definitely a very UNreputable source for climate change information.  I would be very hard pressed to actually believe anything the man says, so when he makes a movie about climate change, I'm not sure how accurate it could be.  I also don't know how accurate a book that Professor Durham's friend wrote that was actually funded by Exxon Mobile. Obviously the gas companies are not going to fund anything that doesn't make them sound good or make them sound like they are not a contributing factor at all.  
I think it is nearly impossible to find a reputable source on this topic.  Everyone is bound to have his or her own opinion.  There are certain hard cold FACTS to take into consideration, but past that, everyone sort of forms an opinion of their own.  The best thing we could do is to take all the facts and review different sides of the spectrum to formulate our own individual opinions.  
I would say that the media portrays climate change as a much more manmade phenomena than anything else.  In more recent years there has been a huge push to break away from our dependency on fossil fuels.  This is for many reasons, but a huge one being its negative environmental impacts.  Another huge cause of global warming is carbon emissions.  After hearing what my carbon footprint was, I was a little shocked.  However, I am not going to stop eating meat products or seeing my boyfriend who is in the military and requires either a 10 hour car ride or a plane flight to see.  I don't think anything I do is really that bad, however it would be nice if there were alternative solutions to some of these issues.  If we could develop an effective way to use ethanol and biofuels for transportation, we could cut back on CO2 emissions greatly.  
I am hoping as time and technology progress, we can figure out safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives to our current practices.  Hopefully future generations will be spared of any further climate change. 

ECHO Farms Week 6

I really loved the field trip to ECHO.  I wish that it had not been so rainy that day though.  We ended up having to cut our tour short due to the weather.  When the tour guide first started the video, I was thinking, "Oh great, here we go...." but it ended up being very entertaining.  The video was a very good background to ECHO's mission.  Basically what ECHO is trying to do is provide poor people with the necessary resources to be self sufficient.  They teach others how to farm and harvest properly.  They also look at each region specifically and offer plants and foods that will thrive in every living condition.  ECHO has really done a great job at creating many "MacGyver-like" tools and apparatuses to get every job done.  They have found seeds to purify water and created special heating boxes to cook food using sunlight.  It is just really neat to see all the different things they have come up with to get every job done.  


These examples do not compare at all to my view of "American" agriculture.  When I think of American Agriculture I think of huge fields all containing different "typical" American produce.  Then I think of huge industrial tractors harvesting the crops when the time comes.  I feel that the work ECHO is doing is completely relevant to the developing world.  They are certainly not focused on improving industrialized American farming.  They truly want to help find what works best for each particular village or region.  They are highly specialized in knowing exactly what the effects, benefits, and uses for every plant are. For example, if they know a certain disease is highly prevalent in an area, they might be able to suggest a plant that reduces symptoms of the disease.


I would have been interested in performing my service learning here, however I already found another site I really liked.  I do think it is an absolutely wonderful cause though and maybe at some point in my future career I might have time to volunteer or get involved with ECHO. 

The most pressing global environmental issue Week 5

I would say the most pressing global environmental issue facing us today relates to food and our lack of adequate distribution.  There is plenty of food on this earth to feed every human being living on it; however millions go hungry everyday.  Why is this?  There are is no clear answer and probably millions of contributing factors.  The distribution of wealth in this world is so skewed that a huge portion of the world can't even afford to keep their families fed.  But we are seeing this right here in the United States as well.  We are supposed to be one of the wealthiest countries, however it is a fact that many American's still don't get enough to eat.  According to the Department of Agriculture, nearly a half a million households suffer from hungry each day.  If we, as Americans, can't even take care of each other, what is the hope for the rest of the world?!!  It's also extremely scary that the governmental bodies in some of these third world countries are actually to blame for inadequate food distribution.  I don't know exactly how I would go about spending $100 billion dollars to address these issues.  I really love what Echo is doing.  The old saying give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime, couldn't be more true.  If we just keep feeding all the poor people or all the people that do not have access to enough food, we are only solving the problem for a short time.  Unless we continued to do this forever, the problem will continue to prevail.  I feel like it would help to start at home, so maybe a good chunk of that money could be donated to trying to restore America's economy.  How would we do this? That I have absolutely no idea.  It would just be nice to see the lower class get an opportunity for work and to get themselves stable again.  After that, we could spend another portion of the money continuing efforts mirroring those of ECHO.  It might not solve any problems right away, but they are slowly spreading and helping more and more people.  With the right financial resources, we could get help out faster.  I would not want to spend the entire 100 billion on this issue, even though I think we could easily spend the entire amount.  There are many different global issues facing us today and even a tiny fraction of that money could go a very long way.