My Feelings About Earth Day

Earth Day is nice for a friendly reminder to help do your part in keeping the Earth healthy. It not only reminds us to turn off our lights but it also gives us a day to learn more about the things we can do to help be more sustainable and reduce our carbon footprint. Not to mention, it is a day of celebration for the amazing things, creatures, and places that are on this earth and helps to remind us that the earth is more than just humans going to work and school and coming home every day. What we do directly affects the planet we live on. If I make two trips to the store a week, rather than planning in advance and making a single trip a week, I'm wasting my money-- as well as releasing more CO2 into the air from my extra driving and wasting our limited fossil fuels. Although I recognize Earth Day as a time of celebrating all living things on earth and a time to help wake people up again to restart or adopt new habits to be more eco-friendly, I have mixed feelings about an Earth Day. I like the idea of waking people up to remind them that they directly affect everything on earth in the decisions they make; however, I do not believe that it should only be once a year. It makes me sad that we have an excuse once a year to wake up, when the world needs us to be aware of its needs everyday. We become so busy, but we can't afford to do something good for the Earth one week out of the year. I do feel that it is important in bringing about new information and reminding people to do their part though... without any reminders and awareness, many people would not think anything about their bad habits. Earth Day has only been around for 40 years or so and should continue to be around as long as earth is around, but people should act more like every day is earth day in their habits.

Guest Speaker: Joe Medeiros (ANWR)

I've always been against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; however, I've never actually had the knowledge of why to back up my argument. Before we listened to Joe's podcast on ANWR from last semester I didn't want them to drill in ANWR because it was a pristine wildlife refuge--true wilderness, and because i knew deep down that it would cause more harm than just displacing the caribou a little bit. I knew that it had hazards such as accidents that would spill oil and damage the surrounding wilderness. Also, i wondered about the potential air pollution that would occur in the process of extracting oil. Although I wasn't far off in my thinking, Joe Medeiros put it into perspective. ANWR is 19.5 million acres, also including 8 million acres of wilderness. The drilling project would take 375 acres of this land. They argue that its not much land to take; however, there is a large danger for spills and ugly tunnels connecting everything. It is too much of a danger to risk all of the migratory species that come there. It is amazing land to risk, 0 alien species. This is all crazy! If ANWR was our sole source of oil, we would only get enough oil to last us 9-12 months after the ten years it'd take to build!!! This is ridiculous that we even consider this risk! Instead, we should invest in alternative energy sources... and not risk an entire ecosystem.

Guest Speaker: Ray Darby

Ray Darby's talk was very insightful in how a person can save money and energy, all around living more "green". He brought up the fact that people don't think about transportation enough. They may live in a more energy efficient home, but if they're driving a hummer, they kinda cancel each other out. Also however, is transportation in regards to our food. If our food we buy is imported from across the country, or even from another country, it took alot of energy to get it to you. It took energy in storing it, fuel and oil to transport it by plane maybe and then by truck, not to mention the gasoline it took you to drive to the store where its at and back home. We need to start thinking about these things because they can make a big difference. If we buy locally grown food, it took less resources to make and is more sustainable. Also, buying lower on the food chain can make a big difference because it takes alot more resources to raise a cow than just eating the grass or vegetables directly. Another thing is considering a short term loss for a long term gain when building a house/thinking of getting solar panels and other more energy efficient remodelings...they save in the long run. In his own home, Ray Darby did simple things such as just not placing very many windows facing the south, where the sun will hit and absorb energy throughout the majority of the day. This reduces air conditioning costs without costing a cent more. Ray Darby provided us with simple things to consider about everyday life to significantly decrease our ecological footprint.

My Viewpoint on the Environment

Although I've had environmental classes before, they were more technical: inversion layer this, the coriolis affect that. While they were effective in teaching me about how the world works, and how important it is to keep our world working the way it should, they were so gloom and doom in the way they were taught that I always left class feeling like there was no hope. Over the semester, while i may have learned some more technicalities, i've learned realistic approaches to bringing about the change that we need. In this sense, this class has dramatically changed my viewpoint on the environment throughout the semester. I get so frustrated and feel so helpless about how to fix all of the problems that we've caused for ourselves and this world, and with the guest speakers and Keely, i've learned that every little thing adds up. This class has really helped to put into perspective how i directly affect my environment. Not just by how often and how far i drive my car, but by what i buy, if i unplug my cell phone charger, if i dump oil down the drain. While all of the little things can add up to help save our environment, I realize how it can all add up to harm it as well. Now when i'm washing cars, i think about where the soap is going to go, I already knew that soap in our water ways could cause great problems like eutrophication, but this class is bringing me and my affect on the environment full circle. I alone can both help or harm my environment, and it is up to me to decide which i'd rather do.