"High Tide"

Yeah, that was depressing. The chapter "High Tide" hit you with more facts about what he have done to the Earth. This time McKibben concentrates on how these issues affect person to person interactions, he touches on economic instability, resource wars, diseases, insurance claims and so on.

One of the mini issues he touched on was, the idea of environmental justice. We have pretty much manipulated or fully destroyed our ecological set up. The problem is nature, isn't going to choose who it is or isn't going to punish. We all suffer. I felt overwhelmed and angry to think about developing countries such as Bangladesh or Darfur that are simply trying to follow the economic growth model to escape poverty. That is the problem, though growth. We just keep growing and encouraging each other to keep growing.

Growth, Growth!

Growth is what has caused us to keep drilling, keep burning and keep expanding. It has allowed us to put environmental issues on the back burner but as McKibben says environmental issues catch up, and they catch up fast. He goes on to give the change in fishing industry in the Canadian Province Newfoundland, that literally has no more cod to catch. Resource depletion is happening in front of us an it is scary that stories like these aren't showcased to show how quickly it is happening.

I also found fitting that this, book speaks on President Reagan and his views on economic expansion and I can't help but think about what is happening now. McKibben says " It would be nucer to fire up the engines one more time, a la Reagan. But we can't grow. ....There's too much friction. We're on an uphill planet. So we'd better change"(McKibben, 97). Yet aggrivating enough, despite all lthe stats and facts Trump truly believes we can still keep growing. He carries the same "sunny optimism" that Reagan carried, which according to McKibben and this wondnerful thing called Science allowed us to emit more carbon in the air, reverse any progress President Jimmy Carter tried to push. It is scary how fitting that past reality stares back at us again.

Except this is worse way worse, past the research that is show in this text. This is now and we NEED to change.

Nothing Was The Same

Some people are familiar with the album title "Nothing Was The Same", by rap artist Drake. The album cover has gone on to be a factory for memes about people or things that will never go back to being the same,just for laughs. I thought about making one with Earth on the album cover, but it is not funny. Bill McKibben's "Eaarth" makes that very clear from the first page. It hits you with statistics left and right, funny enough acknowledges how abrasive the text is and lets you know you have to keep reading, the many statistics need to mean something to you. 

Nothing Was The Same Album Cover Art 2013

As you go on to read, it stops being another environmentalist talking about doomsday.. No, there are facts and so many of them and the biggest fact of them all doomsday has already happened. There is no going back, we have already fundamentally changed what is happening to us and what will happen to our children and grandchildren. Even with all our hard work, he says " We are not, in other words, going to get back the planet we used to have, the one on which our civilization developed. We're like the guy who ate steak for dinner every night and let his cholesterol top 300 and had the heart attack. Now he dines on Lipitor and walks on the treadmill, but half his heart is dead tissue"(McKibben, 16). 

We are still eating steak, smothering it in the butter we do not have and just assuming that it will always be there. There are a few of us, who have don't butter the steak anymore, who only eat steak once in awhile and those who don't eat at all. The point is, we are already there, we are already at 300 or in carbon parts per million we are at 390. To be healthy, we need to be at wait for it... 350 and the problem is we keep living like we still have room for error. 

Earth now 2012.

The tone of this book is everything that a skeptic needs to listen to. It's funny I am reading this at a time where it is 60 degrees at the end of January in Michigan or that we just discussed tone in my Environmental Policy class. How people don't take global climate change seriously because the tone is so futuristic. 

After reading the text, I went back to look at the album cover and noticed how fitting it is that a younger Drake is looking up at an older Drake with a clear blue sky in the background. People always say "we are doing this for our grandchildren". No, we NEED to do this for us, right now. 

"Walking" Thoughts

Prior to class, we had been asked to read the long passage in Old English named "Walking" by renowned writer Henry David Thoreau. I will speak more on my experience with the text later. It is what we decided to do before we discussed the text in class today, that sums up pretty much everything Thoreau was trying to get across.

Before we discussed "Walking" we did just that, we walked. The goal of the walk to just think, stay within your thoughts. Whoever wanted to aimlessly lead the walk could walk up to front and the rest of us physically aimlessly followed but were supposed to keep thinking and about what we were thinking about. Of course we all talked, got to know each other a little better and even though this wasn't part of the instructions,it was great! There were moments where we would  get these little pockets of silence, and you would pay attention to the wetness underneath your feet, the bus noises, people talking and so forth.

When we got back we were asked to do a fast write for seven minutes, where you don't stop writing whatever is on your head is what you write. The prompt was "Walking makes me think...."I divert back to the actual piece Walking. As expected it is a long passage in Old English, it has a very preacher tone to it, Thoreau has found freedom in nature and pities those that cannot see what he sees. The quote that really stood out to me particularly after this class activity was

                               

"The best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,—when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road, and walking over the surface of God’s earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds." (Thoreau, 233). 

As we walked today, we noticed how manipulated nature is on the Campus and is in our lives, we want to feel apart of nature but it has to look good and serve our aesthetics. Thoreau's point is that's where the freedom lies, the wildness of nature and part of the pleasure we receive from it, is the fact that it is not owned nor tamed. It allows us to reach our higher selves, which was so vivid when we began our fast write exercise. You don't realize how many things you think about, different sounds bring up different questions and the amount of clarity I felt after writing all that down was surprising!

"Walking" is a good read, Thoreau's point is well beyond walking it is what the connection with nature does for us. So the lesson, take a walk and if you would like to try a fast write exercise  it is well worth it! 

"The Audit"

    This is a short story, was very informative particularly on the topic of carbon footprints. Which is a way of calculating your impact on the earth as far as your daily routine goes, how much energy you use up and how much energy is used to keep your lifestyle the way that it is. I liked that it showcased all this information without losing the narrative style to it, which makes it more compelling to a wider audience one that perhaps needs to hear this more than anyone.

  Bill's journey to being awakened is nothing short of a fairy tale but the lessons that are brought up through his experiences allow us to begin conversations with those like him. What I think this short story also brings up, are how should the solutions for these environmental problems be executed.

Tiny homes, alternate lifestyle

We go from reading " How Close to Savage the Soul" which just shows the world completing collapsing to this that offers the solution of the Global Climate Audit where individuals are now forced by the government to live a certain way in order to keep our environment in order. One must really think is that what we want? Or the idea that Bill could go to Goodwin in order to continue living the way he does, which reminds me of the cap and trade system now which allows developed countries to keep outputting as many gases as possible, while developing countries are forced to remain stagnant economically.

Surprisingly Bill is able to see that maybe he can have the best of both worlds but sadly alot of people do not want to change their lifestyles whether that means having less, or eating better food. It is just hard to think about your impact on the environment when you have families to feed and money runs every aspect of it. I think solutions come in different shapes for different people, the key is making sure one's intention/ goal is to be as sustainable as they can be so future generations can do the same.

Introduction

My name is Bethel Mwenze. I am interested in the implications of Western relationship with nature on developing countries. How these perspectives and reflecting policies can help and/ hurt developing countries and their sustainable efforts and cultural preservation. I hope this class and the discussions had, will widen my views on our roles in nature and its interplay with culture.