Space

I found the presentation on space to be very informative. With an increasing population and the growing problem of carbon emissions, we must find a way to use space efficiently and lower environmental impacts.  One solution to the problem is the New Deal of 2009 which is a plan to create a national high speed rail system.  The system would be less dependent on bio fuels and lower environmental impacts. Although the system would reduce the amount of carbon emitted from cars driving long distances, it does not solve the problem of the short driving distances in everyday life.  The presentation also focused on sprawl and the suburbs.  I was surprised to learn that suburbs aren’t the fabulous places they are made out to be.  In fact, suburbs used to be for people of lower income.  After WWII, they began to boom as the invention of new modes of transportation allowed people to travel farther.  Suburbs were now a luxury because they were less congested then the inner city and people had their own private yards.  However, suburbs actually have a large carbon footprint and greatly impact the environment.  Neighborhoods grow outward instead of upward taking up more space and possible animal habitats.  The farther outward the suburbs grow from the inner city results in more driving to and from work, stores and other places of need.  Having a green lawn in your front yard does not mean you are living an environmentally friendly lifestyle.  In fact, it probably means your causing more damage to the environment then those living in apartment complexes in the inner city.  The presentation definitely gave me a new perspective on suburbs and may affect the choices I make in the future when it comes to buying my own home.  Although some solutions have been presented, we need to continue to find ways to reduce our impact on the environment and use the space we have available efficiently. 

Food

I found the presentation on organic food to be very informative and well put together. I learned many new things about organic foods I had never known before. It has never been proven that organic food is more nutritious then conventional foods however, evidence does prove that it is better for the environment. Using fewer pesticides and other sprays reduces the amount of waste and runoff into our water supply. It is also healthier for our farmers as they suffer from the effects of using pesticides. However, organic food may not always be local, which means it may have had to travel far to get to the supermarket creating carbon emissions. When buying produce, people should buy those that are in season as they are the most likely to be locally grown and better on the environment. The organic food industry has grown quickly in the past few years and continues to grow as more people are realizing the benefits of going organic. The premium prices charged are not a scheme for farmers to get rich fast.  Organic farming is a lot more expensive than conventional farming and produces a lot smaller yield forcing farmers to charge more to make a profit.  Hopefully in the future we can find ways to make organic farming less expensive so everyone has the ability to buy healthy environmentally friendly food products.  Before the presentation, I used to think of organic food as expensive and for those people in the upper classes of society. After hearing about all the great benefits to buying organic for my own body as well as the environment, it may be something will consider in the future if it means paying a little more for the products.

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man is a great documentary about a man named Timothy Treadwell who lived amongst grizzly bears for 13 summers studying their habits and ways of life. Timothy truly believed that these dangerous and ferocious animals were his kind and loving companions. He felt it was his duty to protect the grizzlies from our society who would only cause them harm. Timothy wasnt always this way however, he was actually an alcoholic and an accidental overdose of pills that nearly killed him is what changed his persona and way of life. From then on, every summer, a pilot would drop Timothy off at the beginning of the summer in the grizzly habitat of Alaska and pick him back up at the end of summer. At the end of the thirteenth summer, the first summer Timothy had ever brought a human companion on his adventure with him, the pilot returned to find only the dead bodies of the Timothy and his companion Amy. They had been mauled by a grizzly bear at their campsite, a fate many had expected for Timothy. Timothy's adventures into the wild to "protect the grizzly bear" bring about several environmental questions and views. Was Timothy really protecting the bears or was he causing just as much harm as anyone else entering the bears’ habitat? The argument could be seen from both ways. While Timothy did believe he was protecting the bears from poachers and other people entering their habitat, the bears he was studying were living in a federally protected land area. Grizzly bears like to be left alone and not disturbed within their territory but Timothy was entering this area anyways as he felt it was his job. Timothy may have been causing more harm than good by scaring the bears and stressing them with his presence.  Overall, Timothy's fate may have been the consquence of his adventures however, his video clips and studies do provide people today with up close knowledge of the big, beautiful grizzly bears!