By Roman Sanchez
Introduction 
    With over 100,000 tons of chewing gum being consumed every year, it is no wonder that an estimated 374 trillion sticks are produced amongst 115 manufacturing companies in over thirty countries (Chewing Gum). So while it seems as though every person on this planet knows what gum is and plants theories on its practices, this is not the case. 
    With a vast history spanning hundreds of years and a multi-billion dollar industry, the true impact chewing gum has had on us, as a civilization, and on our planet which we call home is extraordinary. Why it has taken us so long to realize the drastic negative impact it has caused and why we have not taken necessary precautions to caution ourselves and our planet’s wellbeing is beyond me. 
A Short History of Chewing Gum
    People throughout history have been recorded chewing on natural materials for centuries. Some Northern Europeans have been historically credited for chewing birch bark tar for over 9,000 years for reasons ranging from medicinal to enjoyment. Even the Mayans chewed a sap called chicle from the sapodilla tree to fight hunger and quench thirst, which they later taught to colonists. Chicle was popular to the native Mexicans and Aztecs whom structured a social acceptance around the chewing of the aforementioned materials. In their traditions, single women and children were publicly allowed to consume. An even more specific aspect is that widows and married women were allowed to chew it privately when using it to freshen their breath. Men were not publicly allowed to do so but, in private, they would do so in order to clean their teeth. The ancient Greeks were even fond of this pastime for similar reasons, as a form of hygiene. 
    John Curtis is credited in the 1840s for producing the first commercial spruce tree gum in which he cut them into strips, similar how we identify packaged chewing gum today. Curtis learned, however, that spruce resin ended up getting hard after chewed and tasted gross which is why he moved to paraffin wax. 
    Following Curtis, New York City’s Thomas Adams was able to cooperate with Mexican President Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna to attain chicle. Antonio had hopes for turning the ingredient into rubber but gave up after not concluding any extraordinary results. Adams followed up with chicle by incorporating it into a set of ingredients to form a better type of chewing gum which was later manufactured to great success. By the 1880s, he was selling his gum all across the country to no surprise. 
    One of the most well-known gum makers today, Wrigley, actually started as a salesman. By this point, there were a plethora of competitors in the chewing gum industry but he did not let this stop his ambition to be the best. Instead, he knew the secret to success was outstanding marketing tactics—Wrigley sent out samples to millions of random people found in phone books and later sent them out to children on their birthday. Clearly, as this was many’s first experience with chewing gum, they couldn’t get enough of it. 
    The concept and evolution of bubble gum came from Frank Fleer, who was a gum maker since the 1880s too. He, like Wrigley, was searching for a way to separate himself from his competition so he spent resources to develop a new chewing gum ideal for blowing bubbles with.  The Blibber-Blubber was introduced in 1906 to no success due to the over-stickiness and it wasn’t until 1928 that Dubble Bubble was brought into the market (Wrigley). 
    Today, each brand of chewing gum has various specific ingredients to get it to their ideal texture and taste but most contain the same core components. Like all mass productions, the process is fully mechanized into a concise set of five steps: making the basis gum base, adding flavor, articulating the chewiness, cutting, and packaging (Chewing Gum Facts). 
Risks, Hazards, and Benefits
    One of the most common and highly debated benefits to chewing gum is that it improves brain retention/health which leads to more success in school. In one of these many extensive lab tests, a group of researches studied over two hundred students from St. Lawrence University. 
    They found that a burst of gum-chewing before testing improved a student's             performance on several of the tests, but only for a short period. The effect was strongest         right after gum-chewing, and dropped to normal levels within 20 minutes. The gum-        chewing helped during recall and memory tasks especially. ‘Within the 15-to-20-minute         'window' of the effect, the chewing-gum group recalled 25-to-50-percent more items than     the controls, which is statistically significant, but in practical terms amounts to a             difference of two-to-three words’ (Welsh). 
    In short, scientists believe that the stimulation in the brain is what helps get more blood flowing to the head and literally get the creative juices flowing. Other benefits to chewing gum include less occupational stress (Smith) because of reduction of stress hormones like cortisol (Scholey). 
    Another debated benefit to chewing gum is how healthy sugar-free gum is to your teeth’s wellbeing. The welfare comes with the type of gum one chooses. The beneficiaries are in the sugar-free gums that are sweetened with xylitol which make it easy for the oral bacteria, Streptococcus, to grow. This prevents cavities from growing because the bacteria loses the ability to stick to the tooth. If chewed routinely, this process can aid in providing protection long-term against certain types of bacteria that causes decay on the surfaces of your teeth. Henceforth, this act of chewing sugarless gum can prevent tooth decay if consumed approximately twenty minutes after meals. The American Dental Association recommends purchasing and using chewing gums that have the ADA Seal of Acceptance. 
    One more highly discusses topic surrounding the chewy snack is what happens when one swallows it. Some debate that it is digestible and nothing hazardous can come from it while others insist that the substance is indigestible and will live inside your stomach for years at at time. However, science has proven that the gum’s ingredients are all completely digestible and does not need years to process. Rather, it only needs a day or two to pass in stool with a bowel movement. 
    The real danger of chewing gum lays in the chance that one can choke on a piece when consuming. Plain and simply, the American Academy of Pediatrics has listed chewing gum as a choking hazard as it poses a threat to clogging the child’s throat (Encyclopedia). With over 80% of the children whom are treated in emergency hospitals being age four or younger, obstruction to windpipes have been one of the leading causes. Too, the death rate for children under the age of three whom have passed due to choking on a food item is skyrocketing with non-food items close behind. 
    The caution of choking does not pertain exclusively to children and toddlers but even poses a threat to adults. With about 3,000 adults dying each year from choking on food, it is a not uncommon to recognize the serious caution that should be taken when consuming this tasty treat. Too frequently can one run across a news article about a semi-bizarre case involving someone choking to death on gum and there is no clear solution to it rather than the obvious Heimlich Maneuver and CPR. 
    Looking through a much broader lens, the production of chewing gum and its’ after life have had a tremendous impact on the environment. One of the most prominent points is the act of littering or improper disposal of the gum and its’ packaging. 
    The first issue is the cleaning materials and chemicals needed to clean gum off of public sidewalks and pavements. The chemicals are not environmentally friendly and are actually considered toxic to nature. With the manufactured ingredients comes a downside of not being biodegradable. This means that when the gum does not end up in a nearby trashcan and instead gets spit out into the dirt or grass, it poses another set of variable threats. Because it is incapable of breaking down naturally like other fruits and compost can, it remains as a pink, white, or  blue blob of material in nature. It is common to see animals such as birds, squirrels, and other small forest creatures mistake the chewed up blob for a berry or food (Baer). This is clearly a serious threat as it clogs their digestive system and causes them to choke or not be able to consume foods which leads to deadly outcomes. 
    In addition to the lifespan of the gum, the industrial waste (resources, time, and energy) that are needed to mass produce this highly demanded product is very unhealthy for our environment. More specifically, the processes to make the product results in byproduct that is damaging our air quality and serving as a catalyst in long-term effects such as global warming and street pollution. Speaking of street pollution, the impact the necessary wrapping and packaging has when transported (in obvious large bulks and quantities) adds to this concept of air pollution.
    The other most commonly or most obvious signs of pollution is the improper waste disposal of the packaging and wrapper. Over $2,000,000 is spent to dispose and collect gum packaging from landfills every year even when only 20% of gum is disposes properly. 
    Another aspect that negatively impacts the environment is due to one of the ingredients: acetate, a gum flavorer. This ingredient happens to be a natural bee pheromone which causes bees to think it is a flower. However, after getting too close to it, it increases the likelihood of one getting stuck to the waste.  Especially in today’s climate and circumstances, the bee’s story has been intensely brought into the limelight so many are aware of the risks that extinction would pose on our environment and society. 
Political Economy 
    Simply put, millions of dollars are being spent on removing gum waste. In London alone, millions of pounds are spent on just the removal from public streets. This is a testament to the hard-working tax dollars (56 million pounds across the United Kingdom) being virtually and arguably wasted on something that could easily be prevented. Now when private businesses, mom and pop shops, or small associations have to get rid of the improperly disposes waste, the costs come from their savings and it is sad that they even have to hit these precautions when it’s not their fault (Lam). 
    In America, chewing gum has median sales upwards of $657 million each year as over 56% of the country chews. It is not hard to comprehend these huge numbers when considering that over 7% of American households have chewed more than sixteen pieces of gum in the last week. This pattern of chewing articulates how addicting the act is and, similar to other drugs or addicting substances, makes people want more than one any given day. 
    In non-profit land, there are many environmental organizations whom have ongoing projects that outline how they will attempt to clean and declutter the gum wastage on areas of our planet. One in particular, Pure Shore in England, has been exceptionally successful. Their website states the following: 
    The campaign demonstrates just how big a problem chewing gum is in our public spaces.         Last year, the amount of gum removed from Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond         Street equated to the size of around 12 football pitches, costing millions of pounds to         clean up. Rory Stewart MP, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Environment and         Rural Affairs, commented: “Councils spend around £56 million per year cleaning up the         horrible mess it leaves and so I’m pleased to see efforts to help highlight the             problem.” (Pure Shore)
    Organizations similar to Pure Shore are putting in valid efforts but the costs to sustain them are significantly high, as noted above and raises the question of whether or not it is ethically, financially, and/or physically worth the time and effort. 
Conclusion 
    With all of this said, I firmly believe that there is no right or wrong solution. Nor am I one to judge because I’d be lying if I didn’t say I chewed an abnormal amount of gum myself. No single answer will make everyone content but if there is one aspect everyone should be aware of, it is the drastic impacts we are making on the world around us with this single object. How can we change things? Can one person have an impact? Based on the aforementioned statistics, I do believe that we can and that it is rather easy. For gum chewers, we must make absolute sure to properly dispose of our sticky friends and perhaps cut down just a tad every once in a while—perhaps an Altoid or Tic Tac instead? For the non-gum chewers, remind your friends of the previous note and I’d also challenge you to consider what other products you consume that could be having very similar effects on our society and environment and try to cut back on that too. As Robert Kennedy said, “the purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better” and this is one step. 
Works Cited
Baer, Andrew. What Effects Does Bubble Gum Have On The Environment? Sciencing. Nature         Column. 24 April 2017. Accessed 9 December 2017. https://sciencing.com/effects-        bubble-gum-environment-8439501.html 

Chewing Gum Facts. How Chewing Gum Is Made? Accessed 9 December 2017. http://            www.chewinggumfacts.com/making-chewing-gum/how-chewing-gum-is-made/

Delta Dental. Gum Chewing: Helpful or Harmful? Accessed 9 December 2017.                 https://www.deltadentalins.com/oral_health/gum-chewing.html                

Encyclopedia. Gale Encyclopedia of Children’s Health: Infancy Through Adolescence. 2006.         Accessed 9 December 2017.  http://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/diseases-and-        conditions/pathology/choking 

Lam, Bourree. Chew On This: What Gum Has Cost Society in Its 5,000-Year History. The         Atlantic. 5 December 2014. Accessed 9 December 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/        business/archive/2014/12/chew-on-this-what-gum-has-cost-society-in-its-5000-year-        history/383452/ 

Pure Shore. The Cost of Chewing Gum. 7 January 2016. Accessed 9 December 2017.             www.pureshore.co

Scholey, Andrew. Chewing Gum Alleviates Negative Mood and Reduces Cortisol During Acute         Laboratory Psychological Stress. NCBI: PubMed. US National Library of Medicine         National Institutes of Health. 22 June 2009. Accessed 9 December 2017. 
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19268676

Smith, AP. Chewing Gum, Occupational Stress, Work Performance. NCBI: PubMed. US             National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. 10 October 2016. Accessed 9         December 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390954 

Welsh, Jennifer. Live Science. Gum-Chewing Improves Test Performace, Study Suggests. 16         December 2011. Accessed 9 December 2017. https://www.livescience.com/17520-        chewing-gum-test-performance.html 

Wrigley. History of Gum. Wrigley: A Subsidiary of Mars, Incorporated. Accessed 9 December         2017. http://www.wrigley.com/global/about-us/history-gum.aspx

Tital image: A before and after image of coral bleaching and later dying in March / May 2016, at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, captured by The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey / Richard Vevers & Christophe Bailhache.
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A Closer Look
A coral structure consists of many individual animals that are the size of an ant, these are called polyps. Polyps are closely related to jellyfish and are extremely small benthic marine animals that feed using stinging tentacles. These polyps form colonies that when put together, construct a calcium carbonate structure for protection; they live stationary here for the rest of their life. When looking at coral the structure of calcium carbonate is what we really see and the soft bodied polyps live inside of it. (Trujillo
                https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/animals-and-nature/jellyfish-corals-and-anemones/corals/
 
            Coral is a unique animal because it is able to adapt in many different environments.  According to NOAA not all species of coral are found in shallow, warm costal water. It has been discovered that over half of the known corals live “…in deep, dark waters where temperatures range from 4-12° C…” and these can be found all over the world. The coral that live here have no sunlight and live off of the food that drifts by them. Like shallow water coral, they also provide a diverse environment for organisms to live in. Deep water coral are some of the oldest animals known on earth and date back thousands of years. Despite how long they have been here, there is very little documented about these coral. (NOAA)
            The more commonly known coral are the types that form reefs. They are found in tropical, warm water which typically has low productivity and is hard for organisms to survive there. However, coral reefs thrive in tropical water and that is due to their symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae called zooxanthellae. This relationship is what allows coral reefs to thrive in their warm environments. The zooxanthellae live inside the tissue of coral where it is protected and able to freely photosynthesis. In return the zooxanthellae produce oxygen and chemicals to make the coral’s protective calcium carbonate structure. This accounts for why some corals have vibrant colors. The NOAA Ocean Service Education says that “…as much as 90 percent of the organic material photosynthetically produced by the zooxanthellae is transferred to the host coral tissue.” This is why coral reefs need to be in clear water so zooxanthellae can constantly provide energy. Even though the water coral reefs are in have low productivity they are considered one of the most productive and diverse marine environments. (Zooxanthellae)
            Besides the mutually beneficial relationship coral and zooxanthellae share, there are a few factors needed to form a reef.  First and foremost, coral is very temperature sensitive and needs water that is an average of 18°C (64°F) throughout the year, which is mainly in the topics. They also need a strong and constantly supply of sunlight to feed the zooxanthellae that live inside of them. The water surrounding them must also be clear so the sunlight can reach the zooxanthellae.  Coral themselves do not necessarily need sunlight to live as the deep ocean coral has proven.  The wave or current activity that surrounds the reef must be strong so that new nutrients and oxygen can be brought to the coral. Furthermore, coral will only grow in salt water; they would die in fresh water. The last thing a coral reef needs to thrive is a hard surface to attach to. Since coral are stationary animals that live in one place their entire, life they need a safe place to attach. (Trujillo)
            “Although coral reefs cover less than half of the ocean’s surface area, they are home to 25% of all marine species including almost a third of the worlds estimated 20,000 species of marine fish”( Trujillo). As many as a 500 million people depend on the reef for their job and food; some of these include tourism, fisheries or scientific research. People are naturally drawn to reefs for their beauty and the rich ecosystems they provide.  
A Short History of Coral Bleaching
            Coral bleaching is a process that causes coral to lose their coloration and turn white. This is a response to elevated water temperatures and causes conflict to the relationship they have with zooxanthellae. Coral and zooxanthellae cannot survive in water that exceeds 30°C (86°F). When temperatures become too hot zooxanthellae will die, become toxic in the coral and have to be flushed out.  The coral cannot live without the zooxanthellae’s nutrients and if it is not replenished in the coral, they will eventually die. This process can happen overnight or over several weeks. (Trujillo)
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This phenomenon is something that has only been mass recorded starting in the 80s.  The warming of oceanic water during an El Niño can cause coral to bleach.  The El Niño event from 1997-1998 raised water temperatures many degrees and has been blamed for the most worldwide coral bleaching event recorded in history; killing 16% of the world’s coral.  El Niño’s have been recorded to cause coral bleaching all throughout the 1900s.  In the years 1982-1983, 70% of the corals across the Pacific Central America coast died due to coral bleaching. El Niño’s can cause severe coral bleaching depending on how much they warm up the ocean (Trujillo). A rise in sea temperature has been named as the most common factor to be responsible for large scale coral bleaching. Recovery from coral bleaching is extremely slow and will not happen if water temperatures continue to remain elevated. In the movie, “Chasing Coral,” they explained that in the last thirty years we have lost fifty percent of the world’s coral. It was confirmed that the early 1980s was the first mass bleaching event of coral and 2010 was the second. In the film they predicted that in about 25 years the average ocean temperature will rise too much for coral to survive and the entire class will disappear.
The history of coral bleaching so far has been short and devastating. More bleaching events have been recorded in the past two years than any other times.  In Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Suffered the worst bleaching even recorded between 2016 and 2017. It has been estimated that about half of its coral died due to bleaching. Mark Eakin, coordinator of Noaa’s coral reef watch program quotes, “At this point I’d say any El Niño, even moderate ones, will probably result in widespread, if not global, bleaching.” Coral reefs need between ten to fifteen years to recover and at the rate water temperatures are raising it may not happen. Besides bleaching coral reefs are destroyed by fishing, pollution from onshore chemicals and reduction in population size from human interference. (Slezak)
Risk the Loss of an Entire Population or Reduce our Effect?
            It is known that if global temperatures continue to raise at their current rate the world population of coral reefs will eventually become extinct. The human population risks losing a multi-billion dollar industry and a provider for over 500 million people if nothing is done.  Many scientific studies have proven that human-caused greenhouse gasses emissions have caused the overall planet temperature to rise. The ocean absorbs a majority of the heat in the atmosphere and has increased in temperature from bottom to top because of this. The global temperature rise that has impacted the ocean so much is called Global Warming.  
            One suggestion to reduce the impact of the global warming is to remove the human caused greenhouse gasses and dispose of them elsewhere. The suggested location is to place it back into earth’s crust or into the deep ocean. The ocean already absorbs a third of the carbon dioxide in the air. The ocean acts as a “biological pump” and takes carbon dioxide from its surface and concentrates them into the deep sea floor. This theory would not work because too much carbon dioxide would increase the acidity in the ocean. If the ocean acidity was increased crustaceans would not be able to form their shells properly and coral would disintegrate. High levels of carbon dioxide also increase algae blooms which cause poisoning in shellfish and prevent other sea plants from receiving sunlight (Trujillo).
            Another theory to reduce carbon dioxide in atmosphere is the iron hypothesis. Oceanographer John Martin discovered that the areas of low productivity were also low in iron. In the 1980s he proposed that the regions of the ocean that are otherwise rich in nutrients but poor in iron be fertilized with iron and it would increase the productivity.  By adding iron to the ocean it would stimulate the productivity of phytoplankton, who will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. His hypothesis was proven correct but has been studied in more depth over time and found that it is much more complicated than just adding iron. “James K. B. Bishop and Todd J. Wood of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have measured the fate of carbon particles originating in plankton blooms in the Southern Ocean…” They have discovered that iron cannot just simply be added to high nutrient low productivity areas in the ocean. The phytoplankton would eventually become to abundant and the zooplankton, their predator, would not be able to keep up with the increase. It has been determined that adding iron to the ocean would have to be carefully observed constantly and the mixing of iron would need to be precise. In other words it is not a theory that is ready to be used on the entire ocean; it is also not healthy to have such a mass amount of iron wide spread for all species (Ocean Carbon). The iron would need to be used over areas of low productivity, that is mainly where coral grown. Dumping iron over coral reefs would cause numerous problems. The zooxanthellae would increase as well as phytoplankton and photosynthesis would become a competition. This would decrease coral nutrients and possibly cause bleaching.  Iron in the coral would cause heavy metal poison to the animals that eat the coral and the sediment surrounding it. This would eventually come back to people since coral reefs feed mass amounts of the world population. Adding iron to the ocean is not a suggested theory at this time.
             
Do we have the moral ethics to restrain and rehabilitate
In Kyoto, Japan on December 11, 1997 a protocol was made to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It was put into effect on February 16th, 2005. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement that has been made by the United Nations to help reduce climate change. The protocol “commits” the participating parties by setting emission limits and reduction targets.  The protocol has commitment periods for countries to abide to and reduce their amount of carbon emissions. The first commitment period was from 2008 to 2012. The second commitment period started in 2013 and will end in 2020. The countries who have joined this protocol make up almost fifty percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. This is one step forward in really reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also a waiting period because the effects are not something seen immediately. (Kyoto Protocol)
            “With an annual global economic value of $375 billion, coral reefs provide food and resources for over 500 million people in 94 countries and territories.” (Losing Our Coral Reefs) Coral bleaching is the most prominent issue at the moment but there are so many other factors effecting coral at the moment as well. Overfishing, deep water trawling and aquarium harvesting are devastating coral fish populations. Pollution from land in forms of run off and chemical dumping cause algae blooms making zooxanthellae compete for photosynthesis. Coastal development and increased tourism disrupt the natural habitats of coral and stresses out the environment.  Coral bleaching is not the only danger to completely wiping out their ecosystem and species. (Losing Our Coral Reefs)
Conclusion
            In total it can be said that coral is a delicate and beautiful animal that needs to be protected. Through the intervention of human caused global warming and destruction one of the top wonders of the world, coral is being destroyed. The Great Barrier Reef, which can be seen from space, has lost half of its coral to bleaching in the past thirty years. The loss of coral would cause untold ecological damage to the ocean and it would cause a huge ecological shift in species within the ocean. People can make a difference individually as well as globally to help prevent this. If a massive change in decreasing carbon dioxide emission happens within the next few years the ocean temperature will only rise about 1°C. This could save a portion of the coral instead of taking it off the map for good. Reducing carbon emissions would require a great effort worldwide but it is something necessary to help our coral reefs survive.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Works Cited

Jeff Orlowski, director. Chasing Coal. Netflix, 2017.

“Kyoto Protocol.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Kyoto Protocol, 30 May 2013, unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php.

“Losing Our Coral Reefs.” State of the Planet, 3 Aug. 2011, blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/06/13/losing-our-coral-reefs/.

 “NOAA Okeanos Explorer: Education: Deep-Sea Corals.” US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA Ocean Explorer Podcast RSS, 11 Aug. 2014, oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/themes/deep-sea-corals/welcome.html.

“Ocean Carbon: A Dent in the Iron Hypothesis | Berkeley Lab.” News Center, 6 May 2009, newscenter.lbl.gov/2009/05/06/ocean-carbon-iron/.

Slezak, Michael. “Worst global coral bleaching event eases, as experts await next one.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 June 2017, www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/20/worst-global-coral-bleaching-event-eases-as-experts-await-next-one.

Trujillo, Alan P., and Harold V. Thurman. Essentials of oceanography. PHI Learning, 2011.

“Zooxanthellae… What's That?” NOAA National Ocean Service Education: Corals, oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/corals/coral02_zooxanthellae.html.
 
 

Nate Jones



In the game of ice hockey, the hockey stick is the piece of equipment a player uses to carry, pass and shoot “the puck.” Finding the “right” stick is part of becoming a hockey player. Custom sticks and sticks patterned after that of hockey's best players make up the general market. A serious player will have as many as ten or more extra sticks because of how often they can break and also to have a variety. Currently, hockey sticks are most commonly made from graphite materials. Other materials, such as kevlar, titanium and aluminum have been used, but historically hockey sticks are made of laminated wood reinforced with fiberglass. A typical hockey stick is about 150 to 200 cm in length. Multiply that number by ten and then again by the amount of serious hockey players there are in the world and the idea of how many hockey sticks are produced annually starts to become clear. According to statista.com, from the years of 2012 to 2016, wholesale sale of hockey sticks has increased from around sixty-one million to over sixty-four million USD. Graphite sticks often retail for well over a hundred dollars. Doing a search for sticks at purehockey.com results in roughly ninety sticks that range in price from one-hundred to three-hundred dollars. Meanwhile, a search for sticks that range in price from twenty-five to ninety-nine dollars results in about fifty options. These numbers indicate that the trend for higher priced hockey sticks is the standard.

The earliest known manufacturers of hockey sticks dates back to the late 1800's and to the indigenous Mi'kmaqs peoples of Nova Scotia. Hockey lore has it that the Mi'kmaqs played pond hockey and are largely credited with inventing the hockey stick. The Mi'kmaqs design was later sold as Mic Mac hockey sticks. The sticks were made of hardwoods, generally maple, birch or ash. Overtime, methods changed and hockey sticks became laminated wood, reinforced by fiberglass. This style lasted clear into the 1980's when aluminium shafts became more widely available. The durability and lightness of the aluminum shafts made them more popular than the heavy, hardwood shafts that dominated the hockey world for well over several decades. The problem with aluminum shafts is that they are metal and lack the responsiveness that wood fibers have. The “flex” and “whip” of a hockey stick are important factors for a serious player to consider. Sticks that can “flex” without breaking and “whip” with consistent responsiveness are the most popular. Graphite shafts have the desired “flex” and “whip,” but are entirely more brittle than aluminum. Nonetheless, graphite sticks took over the market of hockey sticks into the 2000's and are now the standard. Hockey sticks have a tradition of being produced in Canada and the northern regions of the United States. As hardwood hockey sticks became of less interest to hockey players, graphite models took over and with it, production of hockey sticks basically left Canada and the United States.

Hockey sticks are made by weaving graphite strands together. The strands are woven into a shaft and held by epoxy resin. From Dave Feschuk's description of Warrior hockey stick factory process; “The raw material is aerospace-grade carbon fibre that has been pre-impregnated with resin — a glue-like substance. The material is cut to size by a worker with a utility knife. The shaft is created by hand-wrapping ribbons of carbon fibre around a piece of pre-formed plastic that gives it its shape. The blade, a more finicky construction with its angles and contours, is also wrapped by hand around a high-density foam core. Shafts and blades are made separately, but similarly. They’re both placed in aluminum moulds and heated under pressure for about an hour at 300 C. The resin, as it’s heated, expands and travels between the fibres. When the carbon fibre cures and cools and the mould is removed, the once-fabric-like material has the mix of strength and flexibility for which high-priced hockey sticks — some of which retail for as much as $300 — are prized.”

Solvents used to produce the resin are harmful to the environment as well as to the people who use them. People can experience complications ranging from skin irritation to some forms of cancer. Generally, once cured, epoxy resins are considered non-toxic. The formed material, though hockey sticks do break, are hard to break down otherwise. An innumerable amount of sticks have gone to landfills, but many are often recycled. Hockeystickbuilds.com offers ideas and instructions on what and how to reuse old hockey sticks to build something new. The website also offers more in depth information of how to use graphite shafts to build things and how and why the material is considerably different than wood sticks reinforced with fiberglass.

Ryan Leng argues in an opinion article, The Hockey Stick Sham, that hockey sticks are part of the cultural fabric of Canada. When he thinks of purchasing a stick that says “Fabrique Au Canada” he feels that his money is going to a localised place and is therefore mutually beneficial. Leng says that he doesn’t mind spending more money on a product if part of the money is going to the local economy. He feels disenchanted by the notion that hockey stick production has moved far and away from Canada. Most hockey sticks are now produced in China and Mexico. Sports columnist Dave Feschuk visited the Warrior hockey stick factory in Tijuana, Mexico.Warrior is a strong brand name as the company supplies many of the greatest hockey players in the world with their sticks. Feschuck interviewed the factory manager and learned that the employees who make the sticks are people who have never seen the game. The identity of the sport of hockey relates to a sense of culture not of their own.

Sher-wood hockey sticks were the last mass produced hockey stick in Canada. The Montreal, Quebec company moved the last of its production to China in 2011. The move only affected the employment of about forty people, yet it was the sign of the end of what was a culturally rooted Canadian product. The legacy of production stemmed from the Mi'kmaqs of Nova Scotia and grew to a sizable industry in Quebec to be eventually moved out of the country all together. As some will argue that the game was invented in Canada and so ought to be localized as such. On the other hand, the game is growing rapidly. The Kontinental Hockey League recently added a team from China into their schedule as a sign of things to come.   

By Meghan Hennessey
Introduction
            Tampons are a mass of absorbent material inserted into the vagina to absorb menstrual blood. They include a pull-string for easy removal. Tampons are disposable, as opposed to a menstrual cup or sponge, and worn internally, as opposed to a disposable or reusable pad or period underwear.  They are available in various sizes and absorbencies, depending on the menstrual flow and relative size of the user’s vaginal opening.
A Short History of Tampons
            Before the 1930s, tampons were very different than what we know them as today. JR Thorpe’s The History Of The Tampon - Because They Haven't Always Been For Periods  says tampons were used to prevent uterine prolapse, and pregnancy, and to treat abnormal discharge. Tampons were made of different materials than we know today, from rock salt in India, used as spermicide, to goose fat and opium pessaries.
Tampons as we know them now emerged in the US market in the 1930s, as women took a more active role outside the home. There are several stories referring to the origin of tampons. Some credit John Williamson, others Earle Cleaveland Haas, who created the applicator, but Gertrude Tendrich was the first to patent and commercially produce tampons under the commercial name Tampax. Gynecologist Dr. Judith Esser-Mittag designed the applicator free (digital) tampon, founding the o.b. tampon company.
Risks and Hazards Lens
            An understanding of the perceived and real risks and hazards surrounding tampon use highlights two opposite attitudes about women and women’s bodies. TSS and the idea that tampons will cause the loss of a young woman’s virginity contrast the lack of research done on the safety of menstrual products, and the symbolic societal value placed on the sexual debut of women.
Many women who choose not to wear tampons do so because of the threat of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS). TSS is an acute illness characterized by fever, rashes, vomiting, and diarrhea. This fear is fueled by the cultural memory of the TSS outbreaks surrounding the Rely tampon manufactured by Procter & Gamble. According to Ashley Fetters’ article The Tampon: A History, this tampon was manufactured in 1975, and expanded length-wise and width-wide. Rely was made completely out of synthetic materials, including carboxymethylcellulose. Because of its synthetic components, retailers in Japan refused to carry Rely. Some women could reportedly use a single Rely tampon for their entire period. When taking out a Rely tampon, some blood was reintroduced into the vagina. This allowed for Staphylococcus aureus to proliferate inside the vagina. TSS-1, the strain of Staph. aureus that causes infection, was already present in women’s bodies. Vaginas naturally contain Staph. aureus, but only some have the TSS-1 strain. In 1977 there was an outbreak in Denver, CO. In 1979-80, 55 cases occurred, with seven women dying. A 1980 study showed that 75% of those who suffered TSS used Rely tampons, and that the risk of TSS hinged directly on the absorbency of the tampon.
             A perceived risk to tampon usage is the alteration of the hymen, which is perceived to alter a woman’s virginity. This is unfounded, as the hymen is not a membrane covering the entire vagina, and in many women there are openings in the hymen of adequate size to insert a tampon. In some cultures, it is truly taboo for an unmarried woman to use a tampon. The concept of virginity is highly valued in such cultures. As the hymen is the result of development during fetal growth, it doesn’t have any meaning in and of itself. It is a representation that a woman hasn’t had sex. Why does this matter to people? According to Nolan Feeny’s article, Living Myths About Virginity, it is explained by the K-strategist theory. This theory states that men wanted to invest their time in rearing their own offspring, instead of someone else’s. The only way they could be “sure” a child was theirs was if that child was born from a woman who had only had sex with them. And the only way to “know” that a woman was a virgin was an intact hymen. The problem with this theory is the assumption (besides the variables of polyandry and infidelity) that the hymen would break during sex, and that the hymen could only break during sex. Both of these are misguided assumptions that in some cases prove outright false.
Environmental Ethics Lens
            After the Rely tampon TSS outbreak, women began to seriously question what is in a tampon. Most companies do not disclose the material percentages and manufacturing processes used in their tampons. Some bleaching processes produce dioxin, and applicators may contain phthalates. Dioxins are persistent organic pollutants, and carcinogenic. Phthalates are known to cause genital birth defects in children of exposed women. With or without these dangerous chemicals, tampon use requires large amounts of resources for the fibers, packaging, and transportation of the product. Even a 100% cotton tampon can be contaminated with pesticides, and the average woman is estimated to use 16,000 tampons over the duration of her menses. Tampax, in its website, lists cotton, rayon, polyester, polyethylene, polypropylene, and fragrance as possible ingredients in their tampons (What Are Tampax Tampons Made of and Are They Safe?). The applicators are “tightly wound paper or plastic with pigments for color”. Women want to know what is in their menstrual hygiene products. Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York has reintroduced the Robin Danielson Act, or Tampon Research and Safety Act, to Congress. The act aims to investigate health risks used posed to sanitary product users and their progeny. This will be the 10th time the bill has been proposed since it was drafted 20 years ago.
            With the resource extraction necessary for the production of tampons, they already have a significant ecological impact. They require water for the production of fibers, petroleum for plastic applicators, more plastic polymers for the polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester, and fertilizer use to promote the growth of any cotton fibers. Then we consider the bleaching process. Elemental chlorine-free, or peroxide, the use of these chemicals leaves the manufacturer with chemical waste to be disposed of.
One of the biggest problems of tampon use is the amount of waste produced. The amount of garbage generated by a lifetime of tampon use is enormous! Not only is there the product itself, but the wrapper, box, and (depending on the brand) the applicator. Applicators were added to tampons because the American public was uncomfortable with the thought of young women touching their genitals in order to insert a tampon. There was concern that women could experience orgasmic pleasure from tampon insertion. (Fetters) To create distance between the vulva and the hand inserting the tampon, applicators were invented. First, cardboard tubes were used, but companies later modernized their image by switching to plastic applicators. Applicator tampons have the largest popularity in America, while digital tampons are popular in Europe. This is an interesting dichotomy, as Europeans feel that their hands, which they can wash, are cleaner and safer than a synthetic applicator. Conversely, in America, the hands are seen as unclean, and the synthetic applicator viewed as sterile. Discarded tampons often end up flushed down the toilet, where they cause havoc on plumbing systems. All the waste and unanswered questions about how tampons are produced lead some women to opt for organic tampons, or for reusable menstrual cups or sponges. LOLA is a tampon delivery service that sells biodegradable organic tampons. They have been in business for two years, and have a growing business base, according to These women quit their jobs to disrupt the multi-billion dollar tampon industry — here's why, by Natalie Walters and Jaquelyn Smith.
            Tampons are now available in many places around the world, but are not ubiquitous in every culture. Many cultural traditions, myths, and menstrual management practices exist. Some of these practices are harmful to women. According to Around the World in 28 Periods, one such idea is the Nepalese practice of confining menstruating women to sheds. There is also an Afghani myth that washing while menstruating will cause infertility, where as evidence shows that not washing makes a woman more prone to infection. One thing we see in many cultures, including our own as evidenced by the above discussion on the hymen and tampon use, is an absence of adequate sex education. In Malawi, mothers do not teach their daughters about menstruation and sex, and this falls to aunts. The problem with this lack of sex education is that it allows for the proliferation of misinformation. This misinformation can lead to unwanted pregnancies, untreated conditions in reproductive organs, sexually transmitted infections, TSS, and a host of other preventable problems. Because tampons intersect with menstruation and virginity, and therefore sexuality, they provide a catalyst for conversation about female sexual development and health.
Conclusion
            By considering the attitudes about and history of tampons, we can gain a better understanding about how cultures around the world perceive menstruation, and how these perceptions shape the treatment of women. Whether it is taboo, celebrated or somewhere in between provides insight into the roles of women in a culture, and whether or not they are valued as givers of life, or marginalized, or in some cultures, both. The risks of tampons, real or imagined, highlight an interesting paradox in attitudes about women’s bodies. While we care enough about symbolic purity to encourage women to avoid tampons and avoid stretching the hymen, we did not care enough to perform adequate research into the safety of tampon materials to prevent the deaths of women caused by toxic shock syndrome. The environmental consequences of tampon use, inside and outside the human body, also carry important implications for women around the world and across many age and cultural barriers.
Resources
 
Around the World in 28 Periods
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/periods-around-the-world
            12/11/17.
 
The History Of The Tampon - Because They Haven't Always Been For Periods
JR Thorpe - https://www.bustle.com/articles/124929-the-history-of-the-tampon-because-they-havent-always-been-for-periods
            12/11/17.
Living Myths About Virginity. Nolan Feeney - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/living-myths-about-virginity/283628/           12/11/17.
The Tampon: A History. Ashley Fetters - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/history-of-the-tampon/394334/          12/11/17.
 
 
These women quit their jobs to disrupt the multi-billion dollar tampon industry - here's why
Natalie Smith - http://www.businessinsider.com/women-start-an-all-natural-tampon-company-2016-2
            12/11/17.
What Are Tampax Tampons Made of and Are They Safe?
https://tampax.com/en-us/tips-and-advice/period-health/whats-in-a-tampax-tampon
            11/23/17.

Lopez Arielle
Geog 300
11 December, 2017    


Cigarettes and their affects on the environment 


    Have you ever been walking around enjoying the scenery when all of the sudden you come across a bunch of cigarette butts? Cigarette butts are small but they are still considered litter. This includes what is left on the sidewalk, eaten by animals, or thrown in the grass. Cigarette smoking not only causes harm and is hazardous to the smoker, but it also causes a lot of different problems for our environment. Cigarettes are highly addictive and are also stressors on the environment by contaminating the water and degrading the soil. Although it is proven that cigarettes are no small problem, no matter how many risks or health issues arise, people all over the world are still huffing and puffing and ultimately hooked. There are many reasons why people smoke cigarettes, such as to release stress, cultural norms or social norms. The problem is what people do to their cigarettes once they are done with them. 


    Before we talk about the effects that cigarette butts have on the environment, lets go over a brief history of the cigarette. In contrast to acquiring the negative connotation as the “symbol of death and disease”, the cigarette was seen as a cultural icon that represented sophistication, glamour and sexual allure from the early 1900s to the 1960s. According to the New York Times Times article “Tracing the Cigarette’s Path From Sexy to Deadly,” it was seen as a highly prized commodity for one out of two Americans. From the 1930s to the 1950s many advertisement campaigns sold them as “healthy” products. Ads had doctors smoking on cigarettes with slogans that read “More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette”. Smoking became increasingly popular in the 1930s due to health risks not developing yet, especially between women who wanted to smoke. Opposition to cigarettes took a moral rather than a health-conscious tone. It was until WWII that major medical research breakthroughs occurred that could link the association between rising rates of cancer and increasingly higher numbers of smokers (Markel, 2007). The prominent surgeon Evarts A. Graham and a medical student, Ernst L. Wynder concluded that “cigarette smoking, over a long period, is at least one important factor in the striking increase in bronchogenic cancer.” In the 1980s, scientists established the revolutionary concept that nicotine is extremely addictive. There have been many studies done since then proving the link of many diseases and different from of cancers to smoking cigarettes, showing how the tobacco industry had engaged in a 40-year conspiracy to defraud smokers about tobacco’s health dangers. Even with the health risks of cigarettes coming to light, there is still an estimated 20% of adult U.S. women aged 18 years or older (more than 1 of 5) who are current cigarette smokers (US Department of Health and Human Services). The article “Estimates of Global and Regional Smoking Prevalence,” found globally that 29% of persons aged 15 years or older were regular smokers in 1995. Four fifths of the world's 1.1 billion smokers lived in low- or middle-income countries. Smoking continues to be apart of social and cultural norms despite health risks. With a growing population this means more pollution of cigarette butts all over the world. 


    Everyday millions of cigarette butts are flicked onto the floor and are the most commonly discarded piece of waste worldwide. Every year, 1.64 billion pounds of cigarette butts are littered. Thats 4.95 trillion cigarette butts annually that are disposed into our environment creating an enormous environmental, health, and economic burden. Cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a plastic that can break into smaller pieces, but will never biodegrade or disappear (American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation). These types of plastics are made of toxins that get into the soil and eventually can get into our food source through the plants which we eat. Cigarette butts are also a fire hazard during fire season causing catastrophic damages. When cigarettes are thrown near the road, they can also be eaten by all types of animals such as the key deer which eat the butts, get addicted to the nicotine and then hang around the road looking for more cigarette butts to eat and become more prone to becoming road kill if the toxins don't kill them first. The key deer in Florida is an endangered species because of this very reason. An animal that is also affected and often overlooked would be the water flea which play a crucial part in the food chain.Water fleas are consumed by the smaller fish, which are then eaten by much larger fish that are sold for commercial consumption such as bass. Water fleas are used in testing pollution in standing bodies of water and are currently threatened by the toxic run off from cigarettes (Greene, 2014).  


    Cigarettes affect the land and can also affect our water systems. Many people have environmental ethics that cause them to believe that something like a small cigarette wont have a lasting imprint on the planet. One cigarette butt can contaminate water so much proving why they are no small problem. Cigarettes that end up on the floor usually end up in our water, through lakes, rivers and our ocean. A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on small children who had ingested cigarette butts concluded that one-third of them exhibited symptoms of illness such as spontaneous vomiting, nausea, lethargy, gagging, and flushing. In addition, the plastic parts of cigarette butts can be ingested by fish, birds, whales and other marine animals which causes them to die or get extremely sick. Once cigarette butt can contaminate up to 40 liters of water. For fish, the evidence shows that smoked cigarette filters with some remaining tobacco are toxic to fish species at concentrations as low as one butt per liter of water. Smoked butts without any residual tobacco are toxic at levels between 2 and 4 butts per liter, and unsmoked filters without tobacco were toxic at concentrations of 5 to 13 butts per liter (Marine Life and Cigarettes: How Cigarette Butt Litter Harms Ocean Life). The contamination of water can cause very big problems to our food pyramid which then will affect us in the end. The Ocean Conservancy holds an annual International Coastal Cleanup, and the statistics that they have found provides some of the clearest evidence of the scale of the problem with cigarette butt litter in the oceans. Cigarette butts have been the most commonly found item of litter since the cleanups began. In 2015 – the latest year for which a report is available – the cleanup found a total of 2,127,666 cigarette butts, which came out to be over twice as many as the next most common form of litter. About half of these cigarette butts were picked up in the U.S., proving that while the problem may have a global effect, much of it is concentrated in the U.S. (Marine Life and Cigarettes: How Cigarette Butt Litter Harms Ocean Life). n.


    Rising popularity with the tobacco industry caused mass development of tobacco plantations especially in places such as Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. American settlers soon found out that tobacco was becoming a successful export crop. Gad Heuman and James Walvin, the authors of Origins and Development of Slavery in the Americas (2003) have argued: "Tobacco transformed everything. Though labour was organized initially around imported European indentured labour, by the end of the seventeenth century tobacco had been effectively taken over by slaves. As tobacco exports boomed, the number of African slaves increased.” Cultural assumptions that slavery was okay is what caused power structures like the tobacco industry to create major change throughout the political economy of the United States. Plantation owners imported large numbers of slaves to cultivate it, dry its leaves and pack it to be transported to market. Smoking became viewed as fashionable and social giving it somewhat of a luxurious connotation all throughout Europe. While the rich and well off folk puffed on their cigarettes slaves broke their backs to cultivate the tobacco with not a cent being given to them for their hard work. Today China is the leading producer of tobacco with Brazil coming in second. Both countries are known for having cheap labor and cheap land while also being infamous for environmental degradation. According to the book, “Environment and Society” risks associated with cigarette smoking, were long known and proven within the industry. These facts were withheld by tobacco companies until brave whistle blowing former employees risked their lives and reputation to challenge them and reveal the truth about the industry leading to the release of the facts (Robbins). The tobacco industry has put major risks not only onto the land but the people who harvest the land. Many of these people have suffered inequalities tied in with the tobacco industry and the social values that were put on the workers. 

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    Cigarette butts that are thrown on the floor pollute the land, the water, and pose as a hazard for animals and children. According to the Surfrider Foundation, cigarette butts are the most frequent item collected during the each of the group's beach cleanups.  The cleanups are also expensive costing big cities, like the city of San Francisco, an estimated $11 million per year cleaning up butts (American Non Smokers Rights Foundation). A May 2009 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health stated, "Several options are available to reduce the environmental impact of cigarette butt waste, including developing biodegradable filters, increasing fines and penalties for littering butts, monetary deposits on filters, increasing availability of butt receptacles, and expanded public education. It may even be possible to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes altogether on the basis of their adverse environmental impact. This option may be attractive in coastal regions where beaches accumulate butt waste and where smoking indoors is increasingly prohibited.” More cities and states are working towards labelling cigarette butts as toxic waste and pursuing policy approaches that specifically address the serious environmental effect that cigarette butts have. A study published in the April 2011 issue of Tobacco Control, estimated that "tobacco product litter (TPL)" comprises 22 to 36 percent of all visible litter. Estimated removal costs can range anywhere from $3 million to $16 million for major cities and municipalities. The good news is that it has been proven that smoker beach laws help reduce butts on beaches by at least 45% according to the Audubon Society. More immediate, and cost effective solutions for smokers that can decrease their cigarette butt pollution. Pocket ashtrays are small, reusable, and have a foil lining that extinguish the cigarette also blocking out the odor. Trash cans or recycle bins are not always readily available so pocket ashtrays are perfect to store cigarette butts until disposed of properly instead of littering the floor. Cigarette butts are no small problem so if you are going to smoke at least do it responsibly. 


    Cigarette butts affect the whole planet as a whole due to the interconnectedness of the planet’s water system. One cigarette that is littered far away from the ocean can still potentially end up there.  A butt tossed on the street is swept down into a drain, and from there it goes to streams, rivers and ultimately the ocean. This underlines that the overall issue of cigarette butt litter needs to be addressed, not just litter near the ocean. Do you part, be smart because even the smallest cigarette butt can have a big effect on the world. 




Works Cited
“Cigarette Butt Waste .” Cigarette Butt Waste, American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, www.no-smoke.org/learnmore.php?id=731.
“Estimates of Global and Regional Smoking Prevalence in 1995, by Age and Sex.” American Journal of Public Health, 10 Oct. 2011, ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.92.6.1002.
Greene, Rebecca. “Environmental Impact of Cigarette Butts.” The Common Wealth Times, Virginia Common Wealth University, 7 Sept. 2014, www.commonwealthtimes.org/2014/09/07/environmental-impact-of-cigarette-butts/.
“Marine Life and Cigarettes: How Cigarette Butt Litter Harms Ocean Life.” Tobacco-Free Life, tobaccofreelife.org/resources/marine-life-cigarettes-pollution/.
“Marine Life and Cigarettes: How Cigarette Butt Litter Harms Ocean Life.” Tobacco-Free Life, tobaccofreelife.org/resources/marine-life-cigarettes-pollution/.
Markel, Howard. “Tracing the Cigarette’s Path From Sexy to Deadly.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/health/20essay.html.
Robbins, Paul, et al. Environment and Society: a Critical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
“World Tobacco Production by Country.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/261173/leading-countries-in-tobacco-production/.

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​Introduction
 
            When you’re a child the world is at your fingertips. You’re free, full of curiosity and absorb everything around you. Playing with your toys on your parent’s bed, you watch your mom get ready to go out. As soon as she gets out of the shower, she begins her daily routine – she starts by putting moisturizer on her face and lotion on her body. She then throws on her deodorant and begins applying her make up. If you’re a girl, you might be more attentive to this part, as you only hope to grow up just like your mommy one day. She starts with her foundation, followed by eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara to accentuate her bright blue eyes. She applies a little blush and then finally, the last touch – her red lipstick, or should we say “lead lipstick.” She looks at you and smiles – she is so beautiful.
            From childhood, you start to gain an impression of what beauty is. You first see it through your mother or your big sister, and as you grow up you see it on TV, in movies, in advertisements and magazines. As a teenager you begin to look up to celebrities and people on YouTube, always keeping up to date with the latest makeup tutorials, skin care routines, favorite beauty products for daytime, nighttime, and every season of the year. It is no surprise that the beauty and cosmetics is a multi-billion industry especially in American society. Most women use at least ten beauty products every day, men about five. But, while you’re keeping up with all the latest products, have you ever stopped to think about what is actually in them? What are you actually putting on your body? No one really thinks about how a shampoo would make their hair shiny, or how exactly would a moisturizer would hydrate your skin more than the other brand. All you care about is that it gets the job done. As you walk down the cosmetics aisle, you are surrounded with choices. Should I choose the matte lipstick or the gloss? Red or neutral? No one knows that many top brand lipsticks actually contain lead in them.  People often associate beauty with vanity and superficiality, but behind it all, beauty transcends through social and cultural space, while mixing in politics and environmental ethics.
 
 
Brief History of Cosmetics
 
            Cosmetics were known to have been used as early as the ancient Egyptians. During that time, both men and women used products such as oils and ointments to clean, soften and deodorize their body.  (Chaudhri and Jain) They used make-up like products that tinted their lips and cheeks, henna for their nails and a powder called kohl to line their eyes and eyebrows. Natural products like lavender, rosemary, aloe and almond oils were used as basic ingredients for their perfumes. Romans used skin creams made of beeswax, olive oil and rosewater. In the Old Testament, it states that Jezebel painter her eyelids. We have seen beauty products used across the globe and throughout time.[1]
            In the early 1900’s, make-up was not at all popular in the US, and was used exclusively by women who worked in cabarets and on the black and white screen. During that time, face enameling became popular, yet highly dangerous because it was considered arsenic. Pale skin showed signs of wealth because it meant that you had the luxury of being inside, and not out working in the sun all day. Not until 1910 did make-up become a trend, where ballet and theatre celebrities set a standard for what beauty was. And in the 1920’s, Hollywood finally created a boom in the cosmetic industry. Skin whitening made an appearance and was especially popular amongst African Americans and even Asians still today. Chemicals like hydroquinone decreased the production of melanin in the skin, which in turn caused problems like dermatitis and even death in high dosages.[2] During the second world war cosmetics went into a decline because the ingredients that were used in many cosmetics (petroleum and alcohol) were taken into war supply. In the 1960’s and 1970’s feminism led to an anti-cosmetic movement, due to idea that cosmetics made women sex objects to men. It was a goal to bring forth equality to the sexes and minimize the oppression of women.[3] Now, beauty products can be seen on every shelf of every store and are even globally available online. Cosmetics has become a part of our daily routine because we always want to be at our best.
 
Environmental Ethics: How Beauty Affects our Planet
 
            Like all other products, cosmetics have start somewhere. In the past people extracted natural ingredients such as rosemary, lavender, and almond oils to use in their cosmetic products. Today, our products are made up of all types of chemicals, many we can’t even pronounce. To fully understand the impact of what cosmetics has on our planet and ourselves, we need to go back to the basic principle of our materials economy, “toxins in, toxins out.”[4] The life cycle of any product begins with extraction.
            Water is the number one ingredient in about 90% of all skin products.[5] It really has no beneficial effects to us except that it gives us a little hydration, which we can already do by taking showers or drinking more water. Other than that, it’s main benefit is to increase profitability for companies by reducing manufacturing cost. Water already is a concern in itself, from an environmental, political and safety point of view. Human activity have impacted our water quality and availability a great deal. Though our world has a lot of it, the availability of water is scarce because it has become a commodity and is privatized all over the globe. For companies to use water solely for their benefit, and without thought to our environment or their consumers is entirely unfair.
            Palm oil is a popular ingredient that can be found in moisturizers, shampoos, soaps, lotions, foundations and more. It is a vegetable oil that is derived from the fruit of oil palms and has become an increasingly demanded crop. Indonesia and Malaysia, located in Southeast Asia, are the two largest oil palm-producing countries in the world. Oil palm plantations is a major contributor to tropical deforestation and the drainage of peatlands, all of which contributes to climate change. In comparison to natural forests, oil palm plantations support much fewer species, posing a threat to biodiversity in natural ecosystems. In a research study, they found that deforestation caused by oil palm plantations resulted in the decrease of species richness of forest butterflies by 83% and 79%.[6]                  
Going back to the principle of “toxins in, toxics out” we now look into where our beauty products end up after consuming. Sunscreen for one, is something we are encouraged to wear everyday to protect ourselves from the detrimental impacts of UV rays on our skin. Naturally, we apply loads of it before we hit the beach. What we don’t know is that studies have recently shown that our personal care products, including sunscreen, have major effects on aquatic organisms such as coral. In coral bleaching, corals release the algae (zooxanthellae) causing them to turn white. This process decreases biodiversity and alters the functionality of reef ecosystems. Initially there were thoughts that water temperature, pollution and bacterial diseases caused coral bleaching, but recent studies have shown otherwise. In some tourist areas, such as marine ecoparks in Mexico, sunscreen has been banned because of its harmful potential to the environment.[7] The four common chemicals that lead to coral bleaching include paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone and camphor derivatives. Collectively throughout the world, tons of sunscreen are washed into the oceans each year, slowly deteriorating the world we tend to dismiss because we cannot see it.
            Millions of people purchase personal care products everyday. After using them where do you think they go? Like all used up and unwanted products, it turns to trash and makes its way into our landfills. Again, contributing to the deterioration of our planet from beginning to end. Toxins in our products, in the workers, in us and on our planet.
 
 
 
Risk and hazard: Beautiful on the outside, but what about the inside?
 
           You never really thought that making yourself “beautiful” could have such an ugly side.  Everyday, both men and women use multiple beauty products before they start their day, and for many women, this continues throughout the day. If you ever thought to look at the back of the bottle, you can see that each of these beauty products contain a dozen or more chemicals, most you have never heard of aside from maybe water or mineral oil. The thing is, maybe only about “20% of these chemicals have been assessed for safety by the industry's safety panel.”[8] The industry's safety panel? Why not the FDA? About 30 years ago the industry, being self-regulated, pushed to have their own safety panel. Unfortunately, many of these companies don’t even follow the advice of this panel for their products safety, so exactly is the point?
            Many products come with attractive labeling to those who somewhat care about what they put on their body, such as “pure, safe, or gentle.” For others, the result of the product is their number one priority, so labeling like “skin-boosting, natural glow, or hydrating” might be most appealing to them. Often we think of pollution or house supplies as major suppliers to toxic environments, but personal care products are one of the top and direct ways chemicals and toxins enter your body. According to EWG’s Skin Deep Database, at least 146 ingredients in beauty products contain harmful properties such as carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, and plasticizers, many of which lead to serious health problems like cancer.
 
            “Skin Deep’s findings in 2005 included:
 
·           1/3 of personal care products contain at least one ingredient linked to cancer.
·           45% of products contain an ingredient that may be harmful to the reproductive system or to a baby’s development.
·           60% of products contain chemicals that can act like estrogen or disrupt hormones in the body.
·           56% of products contain “penetration enhancer” chemicals, which help other chemicals penetrate faster and deeper into the body.
·           87% of ingredients in personal care products have not been assessed for safety by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, the industry’s self-policing safety panel.”[9]
 
            Johnson and Johnson, a leading baby product line ensures that all of their products are tested and safe to use on babies. The company replaced sodium lauryl sulfate with sodium laureth sulfate, a gentler cleanser than the prior. The conversion from lauryl to laureth involves a process called ethoxylation, creating a petroleum-derived contaminant 1,4-dioxane, stated by the EPA as a definite animal and possible human carcinogen. You can find this contaminant in many products like shampoos, hair straighteners, detergents, creams, and more importantly, baby soaps. Some, however take on different forms of the name such as polysorbate, PEG, or polyethylene glycol. Many tests have been conducted for chemicals or contaminants in people’s bodies. One study shown that these people were contaminated with flame retardants, PCB’s (which has been banned in the 70’s), pesticides, even stain repellents. The unusual thing about this test, however, was that it was not conducted on adults, but newborn babies, right out of the womb.[10] Even babies are born pre-polluted.
            The dangers of paraben and phthalates have been a health concern for many for a while now. Phthalates is a harmful solvent that can be found in many cosmetics and beauty products, and can be very damaging to your organs and reproductive system. Parabens show possibility that it can be harmful to your hormones and have also been found in breast tumors. Many personal care products have already pushed changes to exclude these chemicals from their products and have clearly labeled it on their bottles, which would of course make it more appealing to the consumer. But does paraben and phthalate free mean it’s chemical free? No. Palmer’s Cocoa Butter, for example is labeled as such, but if you take a second look at the ingredients, you can find mineral oil, which is derived from petroleum, it clogs your pores and locks in toxins. As you know, Palmer’s targets pregnant women, ensuring that their product reduces stretch marks. Without any other thought, we pull it from the shelf in hopes that our body will look just as good as it did before we got pregnant. Mineral oil can in fact penetrate through a mother’s body and reach the fetus, causing harmful reactions such as the reduction of nutrient absorption in the baby.
           
 
Conclusion: Beauty vs. Safety
 
            These are just a few of the many concerning facts about beauty and personal care products. So, what can we do to better protect ourselves and our children from these harmful chemicals that are out there? We start buying products that are safe to use. Easy as that, right? Unfortunately, the choices of products we have are endless. It will take a lot of effort and studying to know what ingredients are bad for you, but as a consumer, shouldn’t we just trust the cosmetic companies to either emit the bad stuff or clearly label what is harmful to you? As a consumer, it’s not completely your fault, as the choices you have are already pre-decided by the companies and the government who decide what products go on the shelf. Procter and Gamble, for example, is a multinational manufacturer that makes many of our leading personal care products like Herbal Essences, Head and Shoulders, Old Spice, Olay, Pantene Pro-V, and SK-II. Despite their spa-appealing labeling, Herbal Essences actually contains petro-chemicals made from oil. The terms “natural, pure, even organic” holds no legal definition in the cosmetic industry.[11] There are no laws instilled to make sure what we’re putting on our body is safe, and don’t even require that these companies list all of the ingredients on the label. So technically, they can put whatever they want in our products without us even knowing it. Natural products cannot be patented, and cosmetic and chemical companies hate ingredients that aren’t patented.[12] So instead, they use less natural ingredients and more of the chemicals that are readily available and that have been used for decades. It is a whole broken system that completely disregards the well-being of their consumers. Companies are masking their greed by seducing consumers into buying their way into beauty.
            Fortunately, there are some cosmetic companies who have been making the effort in creating “greener” products. These chemists are doing their best to figure out how to exclude toxins, while creating a more sustainable process. Policies, such as in Europe, have banned certain chemicals, that most companies have been more than willing to comply. It’s not that all chemicals are bad and should be completely be removed from our products. It’s that we need to be fairly informed of the certain chemicals that affects our health. Green chemistry trailblazes for the next industrial revolution and creates a stepping stone for a “carbon-neutral, toxic free, and zero-waste economy.”[13] Many cosmetic companies have already reduced their landfill footprint by encouraging their consumers to recycle their containers, while rewarding their customers with a discount on their next purchase.
            The face of beauty should not lie in the hands of the industry, nor should it lie in the hands of our society's culture. It should lie in our own hands. In a world led by technology and consumerism, social media has a major impact on the image of people today. What we see in others is who we want to be. What products they use is what we end up using. There are so many different types of beauty products out there that people try them and toss them out if they don’t like it. We go through beauty products like we do fashion. We use products to make ourselves feel “more beautiful.” So what does this industry say about beauty, itself, and our culture? As individuals and as a society, we must find our way back to defining beauty by what is inside, both physically and emotionally.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bibliography
 
 
P&G. Accessed December 12, 2017. https://us.pg.com/our-brands.
 
Chaundhri, S. K., and N. K. Jain. "History of Cosmetics." Asian Journal of Pharmaceutics3,    no. 3 (July 2009): 164-67.
 
Danovaro, Roberto, Lucia Bongiorni, Cinzia Corinaldesi, Donato Giovannelli, Elisabetta   Damiani, Paola Astolfi, Lucedio Greci, and Antonio Pusceddu. "Sunscreens Cause Coral Bleaching by Promoting Viral Infections." Environmental Health Perspectives. 116, no. 4    (April 2008): 441-47. doi:10.1289/ehp.10966.
 
Fitzherbert, E., M. Struebig, A. Morel, F. Danielsen, C. Bruhl, P. Donald, and B. Phalan.       "How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity?" Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 23,        no. 10 (October 2008): 538-45. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2008.06.012.
 
  Jacob S. Dorman. "Skin Bleach And Civilization: The Racial Formation of Blackness in 1920s                      Harlem." Journal of Pan African Studies 4, no. 4 (June 2011): 47-80. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 29, 2015).
 
Koh, Lian Pin, and David S. Wilcove. "Is oil palm agriculture really destroying tropical      biodiversity?" Conservation Letters. 1, no. 2 (May 15, 2008): 60-64. doi:10.1111/j.1755-          263x.2008.00011.x.
 
Malkan, Stacy. Not just a pretty face the ugly side of the beauty industry. Vancouver, B.C.:   Langara College, 2017.
 
"Skin Deep® Cosmetics Database | EWG." Skin Deep Home Comments. Accessed        December 12, 2017. http://www.ewg.org/skindeep.
 
The Story of Cosmetics. By Annie Leonard. July 21, 2010.        https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-cosmetics/.
 
Willett, Julie A. The American beauty industry encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA:        Greenwood, 2010.
 
YouTube. December 11, 2013. Accessed December 12, 2017.        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liIjH-UH9X4.


[1] Chaundhri, S. K., and N. K. Jain. "History of Cosmetics." Asian Journal of Pharmaceutics3, no. 3 (July 2009): 164-67.

[2] Jacob S. Dorman. "Skin Bleach And Civilization: The Racial Formation of Blackness in 1920s Harlem." Journal of Pan African Studies 4, no. 4 (June 2011): 47-80. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed December 7, 2017).

[3] Willett, Julie A. The American beauty industry encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010.

[4] The Story of Cosmetics. By Annie Leonard. July 21, 2010. https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-cosmetics/.

[5] Willett, Julie A. The American beauty industry encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010.

[6] Koh, Lian Pin, and David S. Wilcove. "Is oil palm agriculture really destroying tropical biodiversity?" Conservation Letters. 1, no. 2 (May 15, 2008): 60-64. doi:10.1111/j.1755-263x.2008.00011.x.

[7] Danovaro, Roberto, Lucia Bongiorni, Cinzia Corinaldesi, Donato Giovannelli, Elisabetta Damiani, Paola Astolfi, Lucedio Greci, and Antonio Pusceddu. "Sunscreens Cause Coral Bleaching by Promoting Viral Infections." Environmental Health Perspectives. 116, no. 4 (April 2008): 441-47. doi:10.1289/ehp.10966.

[8] The Story of Cosmetics. By Annie Leonard. July 21, 2010. https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-cosmetics/.

[9] Malkan, Stacy. Not just a pretty face the ugly side of the beauty industry. Vancouver, B.C.: Langara College, 2017.

[10] Malkan, Stacy. Not just a pretty face the ugly side of the beauty industry. Vancouver, B.C.: Langara College, 2017.

[11] The Story of Cosmetics. By Annie Leonard. July 21, 2010. https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-cosmetics/.

[12] YouTube. December 11, 2013. Accessed December 12, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liIjH-UH9X4.

[13] Malkan, Stacy. Not just a pretty face the ugly side of the beauty industry. Vancouver, B.C.: Langara College, 2017.

Dr. Laura Johnson
GEOG 300
8 December 2017
                                                                                                                  Cosmetics
               Browsing the gondolas, swatching eyeshadows, and being color matched; these are all part of a typical experience at a cosmetics store. Men and women alike enter these stores with the desire for the new and exciting releases that their favorite influencers have talked about. At this moment in time, the demand for cosmetics is at an all-time high. Social media outlets such as YouTube and Instagram have helped to make this happen. Being a popular influencer on one of these websites has proved to be quite the lucrative career, with some making upwards of $900,000 a year. Through the promotion of brands, collaborations, and sponsorships, they build a career based on what they can sell to the consumer (us). This social media craze has also allowed for individuals to create what is known as “indie brands” to sell cosmetics that they have developed. Browsing Instagram alone will allow for the discovery of dozens of “indie brands” who sell handmade cosmetics out of their own homes. Companies like TKB Trading, LLC, who sell dyes, mica, and pigments in bulk allow for the production of cosmetics without going through a lab. While on one hand this has allowed for individuals to create their own businesses, there is no way to regulate what they are selling. Many indie brands have come under fire because of reactions that customers have had to their products. Other companies have had to deal with outrage over mold growing in the products they sell due to the lack of proper preservatives. However, the lack of regulation that is so commonly associated with smaller brands isn’t unique only to them; cosmetics in general are poorly regulated. From makeup to skin care, many of the products that are commonly used contain traces of dangerous metals or ingredients that are banned in several countries. Many companies also proudly boast that they are cruelty free, while animal testing isn’t required in many countries, it still occurs. Even companies who claim to be cruelty free have had their participation in animal testing revealed to the general public. So, with industry as tumultuous as cosmetics, how do we really know what we are using?
            As far as we know, the use of cosmetics can be traced back for about 6000 years. Proof of the use of cosmetics can be traced to almost culture on earth. This timeline is supported through the evidence found that suggests that Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens used red dyes for ritualistic purposes in Africa (Watts, 392). The use of cosmetics and skin care has been accounted in various documents over the years. Ancient Egyptians used scented oil as perfumes and protection from the windy climate of the area they lived in. Pigments made from various metals were also used by Egyptians to enhance their features. The dark defined eyes that we often associate with Cleopatra was created with kohl. Around 3000 B.C.E. evidence shows that people in China used a blend of natural ingredients to stain their finger nails. The color worn was based on social status. Different levels of a royal family wore different colors, while impoverished people were forbidden from wearing a color. The ancient Greeks, who were big fan of all things theatrical, used white lead as a means of whitening their complexions. Berries were used as rouge, and animal hair was used to accentuate features as well. Many cultures used different ingredients to create white face paint over the years, including the Japanese and Chinese around 1500 B.C.E. (Huo, 1).  Around 100 AD Romans seemed to have an emphasis on skin care, using herbs and other products as a way to treat acne and manage complexions. Hair dyes were being produced in India as early as 300 AD (Olson, 296). Face powders in Elizabethan England gained popularity, using a mix of lead and sometimes arsenic, women powdered their faces in hopes of appearing fair skinned and youthful (Little 1). So, cosmetics have been widely used for thousands of years, and have always had a place in popular culture.
             As described above, historically, metals, lead, and arsenic have been used as cosmetics or in cosmetics. Even during Elizabethan times the harmful chemicals that were present in the cosmetics were heavily criticized for their effects. There was a rise in skin conditions, facial tremors, muscle paralysis, and death among young women. However, cosmetics containing these poisons and other harmful chemicals were still used. These practices carried on through the 19th century, where it was encouraged that women consume tins of arsenic wafers that boasted skin perfecting properties. It wasn’t until 1938 that federal government in the United States started to regulate the cosmetics used. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act gave authority to the FDA is regards to the regulation of cosmetics (Junod, 1). With that in mind, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that the cosmetics that we use no longer contain harmful ingredients. However, that would be false. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act gave the FDA a few responsibilities in regards to cosmetics. First, they are to hold routine inspections of factories and manufacturer plants where cosmetics are made. They are to prevent the sale of misbranded products. Finally, they are to remove products from the market if the products contain unsafe ingredients (FDA). However, what the FDA does not do is approve and inspect the products themselves. Unless notified, they wouldn’t know what the product contains. All products are to have ingredient labels on both the box, as well as websites to ensure that their ingredient are FDA approved. However, what is considered a harmful ingredient by most standards, may not be considered harmful by the FDA. For example, parabens are often used as a preservative. This is to prevent the growth of bacteria that can be harmful when used on the skin. However, the prolonged use of parabens has been tied to an increased risk of breast cancer due to its estrogen mimicking properties. Another chemical that is commonly used as a preservative is formaldehyde. However, formaldehyde has been categorized as a carcinogen by The International Agency for Research on Carcinogens (IARC). The use of formaldehyde has been linked to skin conditions, allergic reactions, and nasal cancers. These two chemicals are just two of hundreds of harmful chemicals that are commonly used in cosmetic production. They are deemed safe enough for use and therefore have never been intercepted by the FDA. Aside from the chemicals that aren’t deemed harmful by governments, what about the ingredients that aren’t listed? A study by the Environmental Defence in Canada surveyed the makeup bags of six women to see what their most used products contained. This included extremely popular brands such as Benefit, MAC, Laura Mercier, and Urban Decay. The use of metals in cosmetic production is banned in Canada, however all but one of the products tested contained traced of metals. The metals of concern that they tested for were arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, beryllium, thallium, and selenium. According to Environmental Defence, the concentration of metals varied from the minimum testing detection limit to 100 ppm (Nnebe 9). There isn’t a minimum concertation that is considered safe because the products are being applied to the face and can either be ingested or absorbed though skin. Seven of the eight metals that were being tested for were found in the makeup products, though the levels of concentration varied from product to product. All of the metals mentioned are associated with adverse health effects, but arsenic, cadmium, and lead are the most concerning because they have been deemed toxic in Canada due to their effects. Of the mentioned chemicals, arsenic was found present in 20% of the products tested. Cadmium was detected in 51%, and finally lead was detected in 96% of the makeup products that were tested. Most of the products tested contained more than one of the harmful metals, with Benefit Cosmetics Benetint Lip Paint containing all of the metals except mercury (Martyn 12). Some of these metals were found in extremely high quantities, however, none of the metals were listed on the ingredients list on the product or the website. Because federal agencies do not do routine laboratory testing of cosmetic products, this goes almost completely unnoticed. Another issue with regulation is how it is enforced. In 2015, popular makeup brand Lime Crime came under fire after one of their top selling products, Super Foils, started to rust in the pans and develop mold. The year before that Glitter Injections pressed glitters had a similar situation, where the product began to become discolored and moldy. Though both of these situation were reported to the FDA and Better Business Bureau, the products continued to be sold. What was found is that both of these products lacked a preservative which was why they began to develop rust and mold. At this point in time, anyone can create a cosmetic product and sell it with the help of social media. However the ingredients in these products have the potential to harm those who use it because lack of regulation is the cosmetic industry.
            One of the biggest steps that the cosmetic industry has made as of late, is the step toward being cruelty free. Many brands boast that they are cruelty free or vegan, however, this is not always exactly true. Many countries do not require animal testing for their products to be approved, however if a brand wants to sell to a certain market, it will have to comply with that markets regulations in order to sell their products there. While many brands who sell makeup in the United States and Canada, do not participate in animal testing for these markets, they do so to sell in the Chinese market. In order for animal testing to occur, test subjects are needed. Most of the animals that are used in testing are bred for this purpose. Both vertebrae and invertebrates are bred for these purposes (PETA 1). Animal testing for cosmetics was first implemented in the 1940s, at this time in history, people had prolonged exposure to beauty products that contained harmful ingredients. As a way remedy this trend, animal testing was introduced. Today, animal testing is no longer needed, as plenty of alternatives have been discovered. At this time, formulas are often slightly altered, but not changed. So constant testing is no longer needed because the ingredients used have already proven to be safe (NAVS, 1). The number of animals that are still used in testing is over 20 million, even though many markets, including the European Union, have banned the sale of cosmetics that are tested on animals. Animals are bred to supply the demand for test subjects, live in cramped conditions, and are often subjected to cruel practices even outside of times they are being tested on. Even though many consumers have expressed interest in cruelty free products, millions of animals are tested on each year. The most common animals that are tested on are small rodents and fruit flies. The tests vary from acute toxicity determination, which is administering an ingredient over a prolonged period of time to observe its results, to testing how ingredients affect reproductive ability. There are laws in place to ensure that the lab animals are treated humanely for the duration of their lives, however the practice of testing leaves the animals in a constant state of stress (NAVS 1). Most of the animals that are used in testing are specifically bred for the purpose, however wild animals are still caught and sold to labs today. It is not a common practice to test on wild animals because of the breeding programs but it is an event that still happens. So, why, with the demand for cruelty free makeup and lack of demand for animal testing, do cosmetic companies still test on animals? Anti-vivisection activists have been asking this same question as of late.
            With the cosmetics industry being as booming as it is, we should be aware of what we are supporting and using. Our government structures have proven time and time again that they will not regulate our products as heavily as they need to be. Generally speaking, we usually fall within the circle of concern of our government, however in regards to harmful materials being present in our health and beauty products, it seems as if we are not. We are constantly being exposed to these hazardous materials because of the laws that are currently in place. Aside from toxic ingredients like formaldehyde (a known carcinogen) being deemed safe enough for use on our skin, other toxic materials are present in the products but aren’t labeled. The FDA should be testing all products that are sold to customers to ensure that hazardous material are not present. As previously mentioned, we don’t fall into the circle of concern in this instance, which is a new idea. However, the exploitation of animals is not. As with factory farming, animal testing is done on a massive scale. Millions of animals are subjected to these tests every year, with many dying in the process. Animal testing first became a requirement during the 1940’s as a solution to the problem of toxic materials in makeup. It allowed for the development of cosmetics that would no longer be harmful to humans. However, animal testing is a practice that is outdated and relatively useless in present times. Because formulas are often replicated and only slightly changed, they are all considered relatively safe and do not require testing. There are also alternatives that do require neither a human nor an animal to obtain results. As consumers, we must be aware of what we are supporting. Many cosmetics pose significant health threats, as well as have a history of animal abuse. We must demand that the FDA test all cosmetic products that are sold to the general public whether they are indie brands or high end. We must also, as a society, extend our circles of concern to animals so that they are no longer subjected to such cruel practices.  This affects our health as well as environment by the capturing of wild animals to the poisoning of people.
 
 
                                                                                                                Works Cited
Watts, Ian. 2009. Red ochre, body painting and language: in-terpreting the Blombos ochre. In         The Cradle of Language, Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight (eds.), pp. 62–92. Oxford: Oxford                 University Press
Olson, Kelly. "Cosmetics in Roman Antiquity: Substance, Remedy, Poison." The Classical World           Vol. 102, No. 3 (SPRING 2009), pp. 294-298. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Huo, Jianying. "Ancient Cosmetology". China Today. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
Maggie Angelogou. A history of makeup. (London: Studio vista Ltd, 1970), 119.
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “Product Testing - Animal Testing & Cosmetics.”                 U S Food and Drug Administration Home Page, Center for Food Safety and Applied       Nutrition.
“TKB Trading, LLC Online since 1997 Pigments, Dyes, Mica and More.” TKB Trading, LLC,      tkbtrading.com/.
“Product Testing: Toxic and Tragic.” PETA, www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-            experimentation/animals-used-experimentation-factsheets/product-testing-toxic-   tragic/.
“Dangerous Cosmetics Are Causing Major Harm to Skin.” Mercola.com,             articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/12/cosmetic-products-adverse-          effects-rising.aspx.
Ayenimo, J. G., Yusuf, A. M., & Adekunle, A. S. (2010). Heavy Metal Exposure from Personal          Care Products. Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 84(1), 8-14.
Nnebe, N. “Report: Heavy Metal Hazard: The Health Risks of Hidden Heavy Metals in Face     Makeup.” Environmental Defence, Environmental Defence, 1 May 2011.
Little, Becky. “Arsenic Pills and Lead Foundation: The History of Toxic Makeup.” National          Geographic, National Geographic Society, 22 Sept. 2016.
Junod, Suzanne. “An Alternative Perspective: Homeopathic Drugs, Royal Copeland, and Federal    Drug Regulation.” Homeopathic Drugs, Royal Copeland, and Federal Drug Regulation, 7     Sept. 2003.
Fitzmaurice, Rosie. “This Is Exactly How Much Instagram Stars in the UK Get Paid per Post.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 24 Sept. 2017.
“Home.” National Anti-Vivisection Society, www.navs.org/.

Brian Dunham 
 
Introduction
 
          A pencil is from the French word pincel meaning little tail, this is because the first pencils was referring to the artists brushes that was made from camel hair (pencil, 2005). From the earliest forms of humans, being able to record important information was require for survival. This can be seen from the cave painting that depicted where the animals were or how something was done in order to show others how it was done. From cave painting to more recent documents, the ability to record information has always been important for humans. Throughout history important documents and papers have been recorded and written down. In order to preserve history the global society was tasked with producing an object that had the ability to write information down. A pen was created first from feathers and later by a small ball point at the end of a metal object. From there people had an instrument to write with but that was permanent. In order to write and have the ability to erase if a mistake was made required a new written instrument. This is where the pencil can to form. Seeing what it takes to build a pencil, how much effort is put forward by people and by the environment a simple number 2 pencil should really put into perspective how little objects can have a massive impact on the global economy.
 
 
 
History
         
          The history of a pencil can be traced back to pre-historic times, when rocks or charred sticks were used to depict all kinds of things on cave walls. Definition of a pencil would be described as a writing instrument constructed of a narrow solid core inside a protective casting that prevents the core from being broken or damaged. According to Ruth Thomson, the Greeks and Romans used flat pieces of lead to draw lines on papyrus, which was used as paper back then (Thomson, 1987). This was the process of writing for many years after, then the discovery of graphite made something close to what we know as a pencil today. The first large scale graphite mine was discovered in England and was very easily used for pencils because of the purity and how solid it was. People were hesitant to use this because of the color and the little knowledge about chemistry in the 1700’s was thought to be lead. Mines were set up in the United States in order to find their own graphite. When the quality did not match what was being processed overseas, chemists developed a method of mixing clay with the graphite to bind it and make it more stable. Soon after this inventing of the graphite pencil factories began to pop up with the first one in Concord Massachusetts. Developing ways to create an automatic process of cutting the wood and pressing the core into each was difficult but soon companies discovered how to mass produce pencils which was useful because at that time an estimate was 240,000 pencils were each day (Franco, 2009). The wood of choice was red cedar because of the quality of the wood to hold up and not splinter when it was sharpened and the smell of this type of wood. Red cedar is a species that grows in the Northwest not in the Northeast. After stocks began to run low many wood types were tried but nothing seemed to make a good pencil stock until someone tried Incent cedar a close species to the Red cedar. Today over 14 million pencils are manufactured annually making this a market that has a lot of impacts towards the production of this object.
 
Lens 1
 
          For my first lens I will be using a political economy perspective to look at the impact on the environment. In order to produce this product large amounts of land is needed and with pencil stock being on just one species, a large toll is taken on this species. Incense cedar, Calocedrus decurrens is a species that does not grow at a fast rate. Compared to other conifers incense cedar grows at a much slower rate making the species vulnerable to over harvesting. This is what happened to the red cedar that once was used to make pencils in the United States. Companies spend great deal of money making sure that their land has a mixed conifer species on it, this usually makes for better quality site for all trees. Having the land that is used for growing trees makes takes up space because you can not just have a little plot of land and expect to grow nice trees. The age factor also changes the amount of timber land needed to produce the necessary amount to support the market for pencils. With ever increasing demand for this product so does the amount of land that is needed to accomplish this.
          For the graphite or pencil lead, is it found in the US. The answer is no there is currently no working mines producing graphite in the US. China is the leading exporter, 80% of the worlds graphite (Graphite, 2017). This is a alarming situation, not being producing any amount of this mineral that makes up so much of a market, and we are just discoursing pencils. From seeing that minerals, that are used for pencils are completely imported that has another serious impact on the ecosystem. Not it is just about taking minerals from the earth it is also about transporting them a great distance in order to be able to produce a product that millions of people use each and every single day.
          There is a silver lining of this whole process the waste. After a pencil is used the waste is as fine as sawdust. Most of it is compostable and could be used as a binder for many things. This is the best part of the entire system because by creating it from living trees and mining the minerals from the earth the ability to have very little waste after all of that is shocking but good. The labor component of this whole system is minimal. There still must be companies that own timberlands and employ loggers that first choose the trees that are going to be cut. They also have to employee the people or fallers who will go out into the wilderness and physically cut the trees down, which is a very hazardous job. After that trees are cut people must move these trees to places where they can be processed and cut down to size to be able to be shipped to places where the pencil stock can be made and meet up with the graphite. The minerals on the other hand is not an easy job either, minerals are dug out of the ground using machines and then transported to sites that can transform the raw material into the straight cylinders we know to be in pencils today. After both items are processed they finally come together to produce a finished pencil. This is not the end of the human component shipping of the finished products must be accomplished. This is the finish line to produce a simple number 2 pencil.
 
Lens 2
 
          For the second lens I wanted to take a closer look at the environmental ethics perspective of this object of concern. Thinking about the environmental ethics really dives into the topic of whether stripping the world of minerals and trees for the benefit and convenience of human lives is necessary or just wanted. Pencils are objects that we as a human society used each day from the numbers above 14 million pencils are produced annually which seems like an extremely high number but its more about what it takes to produce this amount. How much stain does the production of pencils take on the environment as a whole? Is there a point where the numbers will increase to much and begin to over take the actual level of raw product available? These are just a few questions that can be a real concern because things are changing in the environment that has been causing trees to not grow like they have been accustomed to. Increasing temperatures from global warming has made conifer species begin to migrate to higher elevations seeking the temperature range that each species prefers. What changes are going to be made if cedars do not grow if temperature gets to warm? Will a different species be produced to take over the fading cedars?
          This is just looking at the trees, what about the fact that minerals will not last forever even right now graphite has been mined for over two hundred years. That’s a long time what is the timeline for the earth before humans drain the earth’s crust from these minerals. The graphite and clay that is used in the making of the pencil lead is processed and first ground to a powder. The minerals are not like trees we are not harvesting for 65 years and having large abundance of new minerals ready to be used. These minerals have taken hundreds of years to be produce and once they are gone they are gone forever. This is where the vast amounts of minerals being used for something as small as pencils can be seen as a concern for the environment.
          The environmental ethics as a global citizen would be to minimize the impact of society on the environment. After seeing what it takes for a pencil to be made makes me question if we should go back to writing with ink and feathers. This would make a less of an impact of the lumber necessary to produce the pencils, but ink would have to be produced and that’s just trading one problem for another not solving them.
 
Conclusion
 
         
          After looking at a couple different situation how a pencil could affect the environment if definitely shows that even minor objects that not everyone would think that could be seen as a concern could very possible be a concern. The particular puzzle that this object shows would be that from an environmental standpoint is that even though trees are a renewable resource a small object has big implications. Environment plays a critical role in being able to make this object and the societies connections with this object is important. The connection has play roles in the building of great societies, countries, and nations. With all the options that will do the same thing as a pencil, a number 2 pencil still hold true through the test of time being made at unbelievable numbers. With a global society always wanting the newest and best the old fashion number 2 pencil still is here to stay.
 
 
 
 
Work Cited
 
Bennett, Howard J. (26 November 2014). "ever wondered about the lead in pencils?". The Washington Post.
“Graphite Mining in the US.” Investing News Network, 24 Aug. 2017, investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/critical-metals-investing/graphite-investing/graphite-mining-in-the-us/.
Michael Franco. "Famous Pencil Pushers". The Point of it All – History of the Pencil. Archived from the original on 17 June 2009.
Thomson, Ruth, and Chris Fairclough. Making pencils. F. Watts, 1987.
 
"pencil, n". Oxford English Dictionary (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. 2005.

Alexandra Rodarte
GEOG 300
Objects of Concern Paper

                    E-Readers

E-readers are a somewhat new product that have given books a run for their money as we dive into a technology filled world, but in this age how are they affecting our environment? Is there a benefit to having an e-reader versus a physical book? Is there even a benefit between the two or is this a double edged sword?E-Readers are electronic devices that allow you to download an array of printed media such as newspapers, magazines books and sometimes even textbooks. People have called them the books of the future but the question is are they much better for the environment than old fashioned books?
When we compare the two in how they are created we see that e-readers require more natural resources to be made. Some of these resources are toxic such as hexane, toluene and xylene and are mostly toxic when they are released into the atmosphere and can contribute to issues such as asthma and smog and even in some serious cases can cause birth defects or cancer (Palmer). When it comes to water they require about 79 gallons of water to produce one single e-reader as opposed to the paper industry as a whole, they use about 153 gallons of water per year for various products like books, newspapers and magazines. So realistically it depends on how many e-readers are being produced versus how many paper products are being produced per year which was not possible to due so many different products and styles of products. One concerning finding is that “the energy, water and raw materials needed to make a single e-reader is equal to that of 40 to 50 books. In terms of the effect on the climate, the emissions created by a single e-reader are equal to roughly 100 books.”(Omega Institute). And the amount of emissions created by one e-reader are equal to about 100 books (Omega Institute).

There is also the concern of how often one who owns an e-reader decides to upgrade their device and how often they had used their device before upgrading. “If you read 100 books on your e-reader before upgrading it, the effect on the climate is no different than reading those books in print. If you upgrade before that time, your carbon footprint actually increases compared to reading printed books. If you read 200 books on the device, the climate impact is halved. The result is the same for resource and energy usage, though the threshold to break-even is lower.”(Omega Institute) But on the other hand, books are no saints to our environment either with their huge amount of water the industry consumes per year as previously stated and that books alone produced in the U.S in 2006 used about 30 million trees and had a carbon footprint equivalent to 12.4m metric tons of carbon dioxide (Siegle).

There is also the issue of when you go an e-reader, is this product actually being recycled and is it properly being recycled? If they are not properly disposed of they have the potential to release some of the toxic chemicals they contain into the atmosphere or they could be shipped to developing countries who break the product apart and recycle the materials to be used in other products which is incredibly dangerous for not only the people who are doing the recycling but to the environment in which they are working as well. And in terms of environmental ethics, this is not ethical at all. The definition of ethics/ethical according to our textbook ‘Environment and Society’, “the branch of philosophy dealing with morality, or, questions of right and wrong human action in the world.” ( Robbins 67). In short, no, it is not ethical to put other human beings through environmental hazards to “recycle” a few things from a product just to make a few dollars when they are risking exposing themselves to the hazardous chemicals like hexane as stated earlier that is found in e-readers and could potentially increase their risk or cause them to get cancer.

Another issue that needs to be viewed is the environmental risks and hazards that are posed with this product when it comes to being recycled, produced and consumed. During the production on an e-reader about 100 kilowatt hours of fossil fuels are being used which equates to 66 lbs of CO2 (Siegle). We already add enough carbon into the atmosphere due to driving and using energy just to simply light our homes and charge our cell phones and the various other electronics that we may or may not have in our homes, is it really necessary to have a device when you can easily use your cell phone or computer (if you have either) to read books via an electronic device? Books are also failing a bit at this as well, although there are a good amount of paper products out there that are recycled, a good amount of that ends up in landfills actually, according to “Books vs ebooks: Protect the environment with this simple decision” our landfills are composed of about 26% paper. That may seem like a relatively small statistic but that can really add up in long run, especially when so many trees are being cut down every year just for 26% of the products that use trees as their main natural resource to end up in a landfill.

Various studies have shown that having an e-reader can be a better alternative than buying actual books but it comes down to a few factors, some of which are how often you are downloading books onto your device, how often you use the device and how often do you charge the device after using it and how often you are upgrading the device to a newer version.  As previously stated, the paper industry uses a lot more water to produce its products in the long run than e-readers do but they happen to require less carbon emissions during production, which depends on its size, for example, a textbook weighing 2.18kg results in 10.2kg of CO2 being released.(Siegle)  And also stated previously, the amount of trees needed to produce paper products is devastating to whatever areas are being forested. Not only from the amount of fossil fuels it would take to transport the lumber to the facility to be turned into paper but also the fuel to power the plant that this is taking place at and then you have to factor in the fuel to deliver the books themselves to lets say bookstores. According to a web article “Should You Ditch Your Books For An E-Reader?” Stated: “Between one-quarter and one-third of a bookstore's volumes will ultimately be shipped back to the publisher and on to recycling centers or landfills. The carbon footprint of the average book purchased in a bookstore tops 15 kg of CO2 equivalents, more than twice the overall average for books.” That is another carbon factor that we have to factor into the confusing equation and I’m sure the same could be said about e-readers as well. “Providing one Kindle is tougher than on the environment than printing a single copy of Pride and Prejudice (Palmer). But according to Amazon’s website, they do offer that exact book for free to download onto a kindle so that’s a small win in my opinion.

A pro to e-readers is the fact that they are a lot easier to carry around than a book depending on its size and you also have the ability to change the brightness on an e-reader, for a book you don’t. SO when you are trying to read a book at night you have the option of reading it with the lights out, you unfortunately can’t read a book in the dark so you’re having to use a light bulb which also requires energy to use so that’s also adding to fuel and carbon emissions, even though it is something as small as a light bulb. A con to e-readers is the fact they require energy to be used to charge them which also goes back to carbon emissions.

It’s hard to tell whether or not using either one of the products is even helpful when it comes to the environment and it seems that there is no definitive answer and these answers will continue as time goes on and technology changes. What it boils down to is how often you are using an e-reader, how often are you charging it? How many book are you reading on it? How often are you replacing it? Are you buying it new or second-hand?
Some food for thought that I stumbled across in the web article “Should You Ditch Your Books for an E-Reader?” At the very end of the article the author brought up a great suggestion, than instead of purchasing an ereader because let’s be honest, there’s a lot of books that would need to be read in order for them to be better than hard copies of books, that walking to your local library and checking a book out or simply reading there is so much better. A very sad statistic/study was stated from the same article that said: “Studies suggest that fewer than one-third of Americans visit their local library at least once a month, and fewer than one-half went in the last year. Libraries report that the average community member checks out 7.4 books per year—far less than the three per month consumed on e-readers—and more than one-third of those items were children's books.”  
Maybe before we decide to divulge ourselves into the latest and greatest thing that has been released whether it be an ereader or a newly published book maybe we can opt to walk or ride our bikes to our local library instead of the alternative. Also, if you absolutely feel the need to buy an ereader try to buy them second hand or refurbished, not only are they cheaper but in a way they are better for the environment. I recently bought my boyfriend a Kindle White for his birthday, even after writing this paper but I opted to get him a refurbished one because it was half the price of a new one and at least I know it isn’t somewhere across the world being recycled by people who are putting their lives in danger. Or another cool thing that my own town does is, people have made their own kart that is filled with books and anyone is free to borrow them but they have to place a book in the cart to replace the book that they have borrowed, that way people aren’t going out and buying a new book and the wealth is being shared throughout the whole community.





















Institute, O. (2017). [online] Available at: http://Institute, Omega. “Print or Digital: It All Has Environmental Impact.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Feb. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/omega-institute-for-holistic-studies/print-or-digital_b_4860403.html. [Accessed 10 Dec. 2017].


Palmer, B. (2010). Are iPads and Kindles better for the environment than books?. [online] Slate Magazine. Available at: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2010/08/should_you_ditch_your_books_for_an_ereader.html [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

Siegle, L. (2013). Should I stop buying paper books and use an e-reader instead?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/06/should-i-buy-an-e-reader [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

Carpenter, M. (2016). Books vs ebooks: Protect the environment with this simple decision. [online] The Eco Guide. Available at: https://theecoguide.org/books-vs-ebooks-protect-environment-simple-decision [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

Robbins, P., Hintz, J. and Moore, S. (2014). Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. West Sussex: Blackwell, p.67.

​

By Lindsay Craig 

Ivory
           
            Ivory is a hard, white substance that is primarily found in the tusks and teeth of animals.  Ivory is used for manufacturing, and hunted for sport and trophy.  Ivory has been of value since ancient times and is wide spread.  It is used for the following, and not limited to:  dominoes, fans, and false teeth.  Even though you can get it from many mammals such as walrus’, mammoths, sperm and killer whales, narwhals, hippopotamus’, elk, and wart hogs, it is especially controversial in the hunting of elephants to use their tusks. 
The use of ivory dates back to Roman and Greek Mythology.  They used ivory for their precious religious boxes, they used it as their medium in high valued pieces of art work, and they used ivory to create and decorate high end boxes to place costly objects in.  The whites of the eyes that you see in Greek and Roman statues?  Most of them are made out of ivory, since it remains so white in color after many years.  The Chinese have used ivory for both utilitarian resources and for art for thousands of years. It is documented that the Chinese have been using ivory as early as the first century BC, astonishingly.  They hunted and manufactured ivory and then sent it over along the Northern Silk Road for the Western nations to use and consume.  The Chinese used ivory to create art--both three dimensional and two dimensional—used it to make images of their deities, used it to make pipe stems, and even used ivory to create and mold opium pipes. 
There were countries in Southeast Asia that sent over hundreds of elephant tusks with them on their annual tribute caravan over to China for them to outsource the ivory and send it over to the West to be used.  In other Southeast Asia countries, primarily where the Muslim Malay people lived—Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, ivory was served a little different of a purpose.  In Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the used ivory for the making of daggers; they used it on the handles.  They used it in the making of their weapons because ivory is a pretty strong inorganic chemical compound that consists primarily of dentine.  Contrary to popular knowledge, ivory mainly consists of dentine, and dentine is found in every mammalian teeth or tusks; not just in elephants.  The actual chemical compound is as follows:  Ca10(PO4)6(CO3)·H2O).  It was sometimes also used in Southeast Asia to sign important legal or governmental document as different and unique seal.  Ivory was also used to create the faces and hands of Catholic icons and images of saints that were very important to the Santero culture.  Santero literally translates to the worshiper of saints, so they used ivory to create their sculptures in order to worship their saints. 
            It is thought because of the excess sport hunting and killing of elephants to use their tusks in both Northern Africa and Syria is what caused the extinction of elephants.  The high demand of ivory in the Classical world left both Northern Africa and Syria void of elephants.  Even more things that ivory can create and has been created throughout the world over thousands of years and many centuries:  flatware, jewelry, candle sticks and candle holders, teeth, furniture, and piano keys.  As stated above, dentine and ivory tusks can be used for a multitude of objects and resources.  Ivory is obviously very adaptable and easily morphs into whatever it’s use is, it is widely recognized.  Over the past 50 or so years is really where it went from bad to worse.  It is now being mass produced to make jewelry and souvenirs for the trophy hunters and travelers alike.  There is a common souvenir that travelers and hunters get in Japan, it is called hanko.  Hanko was initially made from solid wood, but with the ivories increase in popularity, hanko is now made out of solid ivory.  This means that hanko has gone up in price and demand; it’s a great market for ivory today.  Making hanko out of straight ivory only takes a matter of seconds, whereas the wood carvings would take upwards of a couple of hours.  Because of the increase in demand of hanko, it is thought that it caused the elephant decline that started in the 1980s.  During this decade, the elephant population in the country of Africa went from a whopping 1.3 million to 600,000 in just ten years. 
             With the increase in popularity of ivory, there were many goods that were made of plastic.  Don’t get me wrong, we still an incredible influx of plastic and our waste is at an embarrassing level—heck, just read the entire Environment and Society book written by Robbins, Hintz and Moore.  It’s all over that book how terrible we as human’s beings our being strictly due to our consumption and destruction of plastic.  But, it was once more common than it is now. 
Before the influx of ivory, plastic was used for a lot of those goods that are stated above.  Plastic was and still is widely used because of its versatile properties as well as its ability to change in to basically any color you want it to be.  Namely, white in the beginning.  Before ivory, plastic was used to make cutlery, buttons, artwork, ornaments, piano keys, billiard balls, and even bagpipes.  The use of plastic has been around since the beginning of the 1800s, and probably before that.  Up until the 1970s, billiard balls were strictly made of plastic, not ivory, only changing a short 40 years ago. 
Ivory can be extracted from dead mammals, however, most of the ivory that is used today is taking from dead elephants that are hunted strictly for their tusks.  To put it into perspective, 40 tons of ivory is extracted from approximately 700 elephants.  There are other animals on the endangered species list that are also hunted for sport and for ivory, hippopotamus’ being one of them.  Prior to the Donald Trump administration, the hunting, extraction, importation and sale of ivory was illegal in many countries that it was once legal. 
The Environmental Investigation Agency stated that CITES sales of hundreds of tons of ivory from Singapore and Burundi—a combined total of almost 400 tons of ivory—is the reason the system increased the value of ivory in the international market.  Because of this, there was major reward to the international smugglers.  This gave them the ability to control the trade of ivory and continue to smuggle new ivory into primarily the western countries.  CITES is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.  It is an agreement between governments and how and what species should be on the endangered species list, www.cites.org.  It is the goal of CITES to make sure that the international trade of any part of the wild animal in question and any plants in question that no one threatens their survival.  CITES was first formed in the early 1960s.  It is obvious why we needed CITES and continue to need the organization today.  With this organization, it ensures the continuity of both plant and animal species throughout the entire world.  This is more important now than it was in the 1960s when it was created.  Every year, international plant and animal trade adds up to billions of dollars.  As you can predict, billions of dollars equal millions, if not billions, of dead plants and animals world-wide.  This, in my opinion, is not okay; and it is certainly not a sustainable lifestyle.  With the death of both wildlife and animals, comes the scarcity of food, resources, energy, light, and even chemicals in our precious ecosystems we share.  The level of exploitation of ivory has reached record highs, and it just seems to be getting worse. 
Since the trade of ivory crosses many borders, even through continents, the regulation gets hairy.  CITES is regulated in three primary ways, each equally as important to their respective ecosystems.  The three different appendices are listed below, from the degree of protection that the plant or animal may need.  In appendix I, there are only species that are under the immediate threat of extinction.  The trade of these plants or species are permitted only under certain circumstances.  In appendix II, the species and plants that are under this appendix are not under immediate threat of extinction, but the trade of these goods and resources needs to be controlled to avoid their respective, ultimate demise.  There is also something less used, it is called the Conference of the Parties.  The Conference of the Parties is:
 “the supreme decision-making body of the Convention and comprises all its Parties, has agreed in Resolution Conf. 9.24 (Rev. CoP17) on a set of biological and trade criteria to help determine whether a species should be included in Appendix I or II.  At each regular meeting of the CoP, Parties submit proposals based on those criteria to amend these two Appendices.  Those amendment proposals are discussed and then submitted to a vote.  The Convention also allows for amendments by a postal procedure between meetings of the CoP (see Atricle XV, paragraph 2, of the Convention), but this procedure is rarely used.”  (www.cites.org/eng/disc/how,php, How CITES works, Appendices I and II).
The species that need to be protected in at least one country are the species that fall under appendix III.  This is when at least one country has asked a CITES party for assistance to control the trade of a certain species or plant. 
            Our president, Mr. Donald Trump, along with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made the collective decision on Friday, November 17th, 2017, collectively decided to reverse the ban on importation of elephant hunting for sport from Zimbabwe to Zambia (Eilperin and Fear, Trump puts hold on this week’s decision to again allow trophies from elephant hunts in Zimbabwe, The New York Times, Nov. 2017).  This has been put on hold until further review.  This new decision has been immensely protested.  Animal rights groups and conservatives alike are upset about this post Obama-era rule that now bars ivory imports into the United States.  Mr. Trump has a well known problem with tweeting, again in my humble opinion.  After Trump and Zinke made the decision to lift the ban, he tweeted that the ban will continue “until such time as I review all conservation facts,” (Eilperin and Fear, The Washington Post). 
            As one could easily predict, there was uproar and quite a bit of backlash due to this seemingly rash decision.  There is this idea that trophy hunting will actually help save the African elephant species, (Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants? Cruise, National Geographic).  Sport hunting for ivory is a huge, lucrative business where travelers and locals alike pay upwards of $10,000 for each hunting experience.  There is thought that Western hunters are what provides the vital revenue for this African country.  “Recent losses are largely from poaching for the illegal ivory trade (some 30,000 elephants a year), but also because of the shrinking habitat for elephants, as people open up land for farming and development,” (Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants, Cruise, 2017). 
There is an idea that killing more elephants will actually help save the species; however, Cruise argues that this is a counterintuitive strategy to help preserve the species.  The idea that hunting will preserve the species is broken down into this principle:  “Invite hunters from rich countries to pay generous fees to shoot specified numbers of elephants, and use that money for conservation and to help give local communities a boost.  Do that, the theory goes, and poor villagers won’t need to poach elephants to feed their families,” (Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants, Cruise, 2017).  This idea is good in theory, but the latter argument is simple:  don’t hunt elephants for the poaching of ivory, and their species would no longer be in danger.  Simply not hunting them for ivory would preserve the species in itself.  There is an internationally recognized organization called The International Union for Conservation of Nature and they set the conservation statuses for species.  This organization supports this idea that if we hunt more, they will survive more.  “Well-managed trophy hunting can provide both revenue and incentives for people to conserve and restore wild populations, maintain areas of land for conservation, and protect wildlife from poaching,” (Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants, Cruise, 2017). 
The idea that trophy hunting and the poaching of ivory would help the local villagers and their families and their industry, is debunked right away with the numbers, and the statistics of the redistribution of wealth with elephant hunting and ivory poaching.  Think of it this way, you take one person out to hunt elephants for their ivory, and they give you $10,000; you might go on one hunting trip with 3 or 4 hunters total, bringing the one trip up to $30,000-$40,000, strictly for the company that takes them hunting.  This money that they make, does not go back to their towns and their businesses; it goes back to them and their families.  They flourish, but there is no equal redistribution of wealth.  Many African countries politics are a crooked.  “In Zimbabwe, for instance, individuals associated with President Robert Mugabe have seized lands in lucrative hunting areas.  Trophy hunting isn’t stopping poaching, especially in countries that have poor record of protecting their wildlife,” (Cruise, 2017).”  I have personally been to the country of Uganda, and I think that there are many other ways for their government and their villages to make money without hunting elephants for their ivory.  They have flourishing soil that can grow almost any crop that they want, they have an abundance of chicken, and they also have a huge need to get into politics and help the local villages get general amenities.  All of these different monetary options seem like a better idea to me then hunting elephants to poach them for their ivory. 
Six African countries:  South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania all have a lot of the remaining savanna elephants.  All of these countries allow the sport hunting of elephants regardless of the disappearing elephant populations.  In these respective African countries, their elephant population is steadily declining every year.  Just in Tanzania alone, it’s elephant population has dropped 60% in just 5 years, (Cruise, National Geographic, 2017).  In both of the countries of Mozambique and Tanzania, elephants are now at risk of extinction.  Because of this, their products cannot be traded commercially.  Devastatingly for the elephants and advocates, trophies are not considered commercial products, so the poaching and selling of ivory is still entirely legal in these countries. 
This is all the legal and semi legal ways to hunt and poach elephants for their ivory tusks.  There is a whole other market that is strictly the illegal hunting, poaching, production and distribution of ivory tusks.  Driven by increasing demand in Asia, “which has led to steep declines in forest elephant numbers and some savanna elephant populations,” (WWF International).  Because it is hard to stop the poaching due to weak law enforcement and corruption of governments in these African countries, it is really hard to regulate on a national level.  There have been multiple bans through CITES, local governments, foreign government agencies and WWF alike, and these organizations have helped some elephants recover, yet it is still happening, every day.  Because we live in a world that is way overpopulated with people, there are less and less protected areas for different species and plants alike.  Elephants are incredibly big animals, they need a lot of space, and we are destroying more and more agricultural land to build infrastructures to accommodate for our ever-growing population.  Elephants cannot sustain this lifestyle much longer.  Elephants’ habitats are shrinking and becoming more spaced out.  People and elephants are coming into contact with each other every day, which causes conflict and unnecessary deaths. “Elephants sometimes raid farmers’ fields and damage their crops—affecting the farmers’ livelihoods—and may even kill people.  Elephants are sometimes killed in retaliation,” (WWF). 
 “The illegal trade in elephant ivory is being fueled almost entirely by recently killed African elephants, not by tusks leaked from old government stockpiles, as had long been suspected.  That’s the conclusion of a new study, which relies on nuclear bomb tests carried out in the 1950s and ‘60s to date elephant tusks and determine when the animal died.  The findings could help efforts to halt the illegal trafficking of ivory, but they also reveal just how little is known about the criminal networks behind elephant poaching,” (Morell, Nov, 2016).  
If we continue to kill elephants to poach their tusks for ivory, we as a world will continue to demand ivory goods and material.   Simply put, like all things that comprise of our precious ecosystems, we cannot continue to both legally and illegally kill elephants to poach their tusks for ivory.  Elephants play a key role in their ecosystems, and they are important to our survival.  We do not need ivory, and if the demand for ivory stops, so will the hunting of innocent elephants.  There are so many destructive things that our president is doing, but this could be detrimental to the entire elephant species. 
 
Works Cited
 
CITES Website:  https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/what.php
 
The Washington Post:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/11/15/trophies-from-elephant-hunts-in-zimbabwe-were-banned-in-the-u-s-trump-just-reversed-that/?utm_term=.42e89feb41b8  Trump puts hold on this week’s decision to again allow trophies from elephant hunts in Zimbabwe by Juliet Eilperin and Darryl Fears, Nov. 2017.
 
National Geographic:  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151715-conservation-trophy-hunting-elephants-tusks-poaching-zimbabwe-namibia/  Is Trophy Hunting Helping Save African Elephants, Adam Cruise for National Geographic, Nov. 17th, 2015.
 
WWF Website:  http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/african_elephants/afelephants_threats/ Threats to African Elephants.
 
Science Mag:  http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/recently-killed-elephants-are-fueling-ivory-trade Recently killed elephants are fueling the ivory trade, Virginia Morell, Nov. 7th, 2016, 3:00PM).
 
 
 
 

Brandon Gardner
Professor Johnson
GEOG 300
12/10/17
                                                                                       Object of Concern: Computers
                        Technology can be both a tool for creation and a tool for destruction. Like any tool it depends on how you use it. Unfortunately for computers we have been throwing them away in other people’s backyards and ignoring the environmental cost of computers. Computers have come a long way in people’s lives from being mere calculators to tools that have the world’s information in the palms of our hands. How we deal with waste management is one of the biggest problems facing e-waste. We need to be able to use these machines sustainably.
            Originally computers were sought after for as a way to do mathematics. Some of the first “calculators” were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries known as trigonometric tables. Many of these tables were used in applications such as navigational tables, engineering tables, life insurance tables, and so on. A man named Gaspard de Prony was a mathematician who worked on these math tables and decided to gather other men to work with him to create them mass scale. He decided to divide up the work in specialized tasks after reading Adam Smith’s the wealth of Nations. Charles Babbage another 18th century mathematician saw problems with the tables and saw it mainly due to labor. By 1833 he made his difference engine which is still on display in London’s Science Museum. Babbage then came to light of the idea of a machine which would do large scale information processing. Babbage was intrigued by the large scale information processing of the clearing houses of the 1800s. Then came the introduction of the telegraph which began as a solution to the problems of the early railroads.
The early U.S. also had large information processing problems one of which was the tedious tasks of census clerks. A man by the name of Herman Hollerith developed a mechanical system for data processing and created the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896 (Computer: A history of the information machine 2004). Many office machines were also important to the development of information processing such as the typewriter, record keeping systems, and adding machines. America was right on top of the technology industry as it quickly integrated comptometers into their office work. It was also one of the first in the world to adopt this technology on a wide scale. There were four office machine suppliers that topped the market and these were Remington Rand, National Cash Register, the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, and IBM. Many of the tasks assigned to these machines were that of creating documents, creating databases for information, and accounting. One of the first successful typewriters by Remington still has an impact on us today that use on our keyboards and that is the QWERTY arrangement. One of these companies IBM is still around and makes computer parts today.
In 1939, the Model K and the Z2 computer provide proof of concept for the beginning of computers. Another Company to Emerge in 1940 after that time was Hewlett Packard which made the HP 200A Audio Oscillator and they are still around today making computers. Another competing company Bell Telephone makes a complex number calculator that is credited to Stibitz. Another early computer was created in Germany and was called the Z3 but it was destroyed in the war. It could tackle arithmetic and aerodynamic calculations. Many other computer like devices were created during WWII such as the Colossus, the M-9 gun director, the British Bombe, and the Curta calculator. The Harvard Mark 1 built by IBM was a room sized computer that basically made math tables. After that in 1948 the first computer to have random access memory also known as RAM were built, known famously as the Williams Tube. Similarly large computers were made such as the ENIAC that weighed 30 tons. It is quite a difference to the computers that we can hold in our hands today. Another computer built by Remington Rand was the Era 1101 which was one of the first commercially produced and sold to the US Navy.
            It’s not until 1966 that we get computers that can fit a small space. The HP 2116A was HP’s first computer(computer history museum). In 1968 the first mini-computer was made by Nova and it cost $8,000 dollars. The first commercially advertised computer with a microprocessor was the Scelbi in 1974. The Xerox PARC Alto was something that actually resembles something we have today that had a mouse and a keyboard. This is where Mac first got their inspiration from. In 1977 apple makes their first successful computer called the Apple II. In 1981 IBM introduces its first computer called the IBM PC and popularizes the name PC which refers to personal computers. Increasing computers get smaller, better, and faster.
            One of the problems with computers is that “the PC requires 10 times the weight in chemicals and fossil fuels”(BBC 2004). The short lifetimes of computers and the consumer culture leads people to buy computers every few years instead of taking care of their computers and upgrading them. Instead of using less energy to create computers today we also are trending towards using more energy. When compared to manufacturing cars and refrigerators, computers take the cake in fossil fuel usage for production. Some of the more hazardous wastes that computers release into the environment are lead, arsenic, mercury, chromium, selenium, and cobalt. Unfortunately there is not a lot of research on the environmental impacts of the computers but we do know some of the effects of some of their byproducts.
Some of the problems with why computers are creating so much waste and energy usage is because they are left on overnight and draining energy. Because of consumer culture people tend to buy new products instead of fixing their old machines. It could go a long way to fix something on the computer instead of throwing it away. People also have a lack of resources in where to dump computer waste. Since there is a lack of places to deposit e-waste many developing countries get the waste dumped on them and are forced to deal with the environmental problems associated with it. Companies that take your recycled material are also not being honest about where they put their electronics and many times they end up overseas. This often happens because the labor required to remove the valuable material from the computer is often tedious so this labor is placed among the third world. China has even started to refuse taking waste since they don’t know what to do with all of it. Some of this recycling is being done by certified recyclers but the problem comes with the cost. It has been proposed to burn waste but countries are leaning away from that since that has its own harmful byproducts.
The problem with computer waste for starters is that we actually don’t have that much information on it to begin with. To even understand the impact of computers we need to evaluate the impacts of these machines. Some studies have focused on the problem in India. The average use of a computer is around 2-5 years for both domestic and commercial use of computers. The cost of recycling a computer comes to be a problem when it is no longer usable to another computer user. It can end up in a landfill or be reused. In order to tackle this problem it would be necessary to recycle the material even when it is no longer economically feasible to do so. Some ideas in order to tackle this problem is the life cycle analysis and to apply it to products like computers so that it can be better tackled with a cheaper cost. The ideal way of solving through the life cycle analysis approach has not been concluded yet.
Policymakers in other countries have tried take back and treatment systems to help e-waste. Some of this is handled by retail stores, others by commercial pick up, and some by local municipalities. In the EU 40% of e-waste is handled this way (UNU 2014). The problem can be that some e-waste ends up in trash cans and is processed with the other trash in the landfill. With take back systems private companies take what can be used and sell it on a second hand market. The country that does this has to enable the reselling of used goods. Another way in which computers can be recycled with e-waste are from imports of waste from other countries. These imported items can be sold to be used in a second hand market or to the recycling compounds. Sometimes self-employed entrepreneurs use this opportunity. Many of the materials from computers can be recycled and are valuable to be sold on the market. Some of these include copper, iron, aluminum, and sometimes precious metals.
          In conclusion we need to better take care of our resources. I tackled both looking through computer waste in the political economy lense and the risks and hazards lense.  It seems that market approaches to the answer will not suffice in that they will cost more to get the resources than it would sell on the market. Integrating these problems into the businesses that sell these products might be an answer to the problem in reducing some of the costs associated with getting these materials. However this could also increase the price of goods that are sold by those business. Solutions like adding costs to businesses fail like when Australia had a carbon tax. It hurt the economy and it was quickly taken out. If we want to help the environment then we cannot let our policies be removed. It would probably be best to incorporate both government and market solutions simultaneously to have the best results. Government solutions have yet to reach computers because they are not one of the big polluters. Computers along with other products probably will not be looked at until we first tackle energy solutions and carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The problem can also be that in order to fund these programs money must come from somewhere and we must tax citizens. Most people will not like more taxes so it is best to find a viable economic solution to this problem. Letting people recycle their own products and being environmentally friendly is not enough since many people are not skilled in taking apart many of these devices. Some of the problems that I see with e-waste are some of the same problems I see at the University. We need a separate organization that goes through the trash. Even with properly labeled waste bins some trash still ends up in trash or worse it ends up in the wrong bin and creates problems for the people who want to recycle the material. If we created an organization that sorts the trash then we would not have the problem of trash ending up in the landfills.
 
 
​Works Cited
 
Campbell-Kelly, M., Aspray, W., & American Council of Learned Societies. (2004). Computer: A history of the information machine (2nd ed., Sloan technology series). Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
“Computers | Timeline of Computer History.” Computer History Museum, www.computerhistory.org/timeline/computers/#169ebbe2ad45559efbc6eb3572083fb7.
Hirsch, Tim. “Technology | Computers 'Must Be Greener'.” BBC News, BBC, 8 Mar. 2004, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3541623.stm.
Castillo, Michelle. “Electronic Waste: Where Does It Go and What Happens To It?” Time, Time, 14 Jan. 2011, techland.time.com/2011/01/14/electronic-waste-where-does-it-go-and-what-happens-to-it/.
“A Life Cycle Based Multi-Objective Optimization Model for the Management of Computer Waste.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Elsevier, 15 Feb. 2007, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344907000043.
UNU. “Global E-Waste Volume Hits New Peak in 2014: UNU Report.” United Nations University, unu.edu/news/news/ewaste-2014-unu-report.html.

​Joel Gonzalez
Geo 300 Global Awareness
Laura Johnson        
December 11th, 2017
 
Object of Concern: Coral Reefs
Introduction:
Corals are in relations to sea anemones, although there are many different corals that have different shapes they all share the same simple structure, polyp. Some of the corals are beautiful and are crazy looking with unique structures but some can just be boring to look at and act as if they are a boring bland rock. Corals are the reason why we have reefs in the ocean which can be viewed from outer space. Some people do not even think that they have vital parts of being in our ecosystems but they do indeed. Corals are known as homes for many sea creatures. But they also are living creatures themselves but they cannot be mobile as some people think they might be. I was moved by the film “Chasing Corals” when it was assigned in my Global Awareness course, that it altered my ideas of how I thought climate change did not really effect everything else but humans. This film was eye opening because it shows you the past and present of the coral reefs we are losing on a day to day basis.  Throughout this paper I will take you through a history of the coral reefs and also may possibly grab your attention as to why people need to understand their importance in the daily lives of this world.
History:
Corals reefs date back to five hundred million years ago. According to the Global Reef Project, they go as far back as the Cambrian period the the era of Paleozoic. From that article they have posted online, they state that “They once started off as simple solitary organisms but with having so many changes in their environment take place they had evolved and adapted into the coral reefs we see today in the ocean.” What people do not know is that during the five hundred million years that t hey have been a living organism they have surfaced many extinction events and some how it has become a periodical thing. They have gone through extinction to the point where it has been completely wiped out and it is due to the environment hanging drastically changing. Once the coral starts to show an opening for extinction is when you will see a change in how the appearance of the corals themselves. If we do not have a healthy ocean, then we cannot live healthy. This means that if we cannot survive the environmental changes what makes you think there is a slight chance that any other organism can survive. Corals are such beautiful creatures, they are so advanced and they bring many different objectives to life in the aquatic world that many people do have a clue of.
Corals have a weird but amazing structure, they are just simple organisms that make p the beauty and or boringness of the corals we see. From the neon colorful coral reefs, we see to the boring bland gray corals we see it just is simply amazing that the little particles can build up to make this wide variety of organisms. You might understand that they look so easily structured from the outside but from the inside it is way more complex then just rock like structures. A simple coral is made of thousands of small structures called polyps. Polyps are the exterior structures of the corals and those are the structures that make the corals beautiful or very bland. The hard structure that makes them look and feel like rocks are the skeleton of the corals. Even inside the polyps, there are many little plant organisms such as microalgae, that photosynthesize and uses that part for their food to grow. So when you see the animal itself growing it is because the photosynthesis in the animal itself is making the structures that are over the skeleton grow. Typically, the process of photosynthesis is during the day, but at night is when the magic happens. The animal comes alive at night which is when the tentacles of the coral begin to grow and that is what attracts the animals to live within the sea anemones. On the other hand, the plant essentially sleeps because there is no sun to photosynthesize with. The amazing thing about corals is that even though they are very complex on the inside, the outside is quiet eye catching and simple. They all work together as a whole to make the reefs that we see today and they manifest a large amount of the world population of water.
Back to the reefs going through extinction eras, they come because of how climate change and environmental change is happening. The coral reefs that we all know and the beautiful creatures you see and think of are gone. The way things go are if there are some climate changes or temperature drops in the water that is surrounding the corals and the coral reefs, they begin a process called bleaching. Bleaching means that when the water spikes up a couple degrees in temperature than normal, they begin to stress and bleaching is the color change from its beautiful vibrant colors to the dead looking white appearance of the corals. bleaching begins to kill the animal from the inside and thus making the coral unable to photosynthesize to grow. Overtime the animal dies off and it just becomes the skeleton which you see when the bleaching occurs. They are quite intelligent animals because they know when something is not right in their body, they seem to understand that when a bleaching process is going to occur they know that something is not right. They begin to stop the process of photosynthesis and that is when the growing comes to a pause which leads to starvation because photosynthesis brings in the food source they use to grow. So when the bleaching has finished it process of striping away the life of the animal, there is a fuzzy like substance on the outside of the animal and that is the microalgae that can no longer produce for the animal and it in pronounced dead.
It is astonishing that the entire class of corals are going extinct. According to the NASA Global Climate Change and the film Chasing coral, the ideal problem of this extinction is climate change and it is not how much the temperature has changed throughout this time but how much of the coral is going to be effected. Coral reefs need a specific temperature to survive and the projections of the oceans temperature in the film, say that they are going to reach above the normal temperature of survival and coral reefs will not with stand that warmth. This means that bleaching will occur but in some circumstances, bleaching can be revived but if they continue to bleach every year then there no coming back from bleaching itself. Climate change is going to be effective every year and for the coral reefs to try to survive that, they will not be able to adapt fast enough for a drastic change in the temperature to adjust to a living surrounding. Which then could lead to not having the animals for the rest of the existence of the earth.
Approach 1:
            There are two different approaches that surround this topic. The first one is people do not know. Now this means that people do not know what is going on with how these coral reefs are vanishing dramatically. According to the documentary, Chasing Coral, coral reefs are vanishing drastically and the percentage for that is eighty to ninety percent of the corals reefs located in the ocean by Florida are gone. There are websites, documentaries, geographical news all about this topic and how we can potentially save the reefs that are going extinct. People do not understand the ways they can make the change but it has become far to late to revive ninety percent of the coral reefs that are dead. Climate change is a major factor to this problem that corals reefs are facing on a day to day basis. They face the fact that we humans have no clue of what they are and the use of their existence is on planet earth. Yes, it might not have a purpose in the life of humans but think of it as a problem to those creatures that need their surrounding to survive. Put yourself in the shoes of the creatures who’s lives are being effected by the corals that are dying. It is sad that we do not take charge of the things we are doing that are hurting this world ecosystem.
            We are proving that what ever it is we are doing to harm the world; it is showing results of having the face the fact that we are killing species. Climate change is the major factor of how these animals are going extinct once again. According to the organization CERC and he Global Reef Project, they have the extinction eras that they went through due to the climate change of the water and how that process went about. Climate change is a serious matter because we as humans are still being effected by it and have done noting about it because it is by far to late.
            Climate change is something that has been around for quite a while but has only been something drastic from era to era. Now we face it again but it is making a change in the world that we have no control over. Facing the coral reefs and the topic today, climate change is what’s making these corals go extinct. It is sad that just a temperature or two difference from the normal temperature of coral reefs can change its way of life. If we all join together to help change the ways of this world and stop making it a dumping ground for everything and anything, stop hurting the environment, and learn ways that better all living organisms, we could make a difference. We have to make it known that there are things we can do now to help stop the bleaching of the coral reefs and we can also make this something and present it world wide to catch everyone’s attention to stop the harm of the world under water.
Approach 2:
Coral reefs, how they feel?
Corals are living species, yet they might not be able to express verbally how they feel, they still show tons of emotion and have drastic changes in how they are as an organism. Anything living does have emotions and it is strongly disappointing that we as a human race do not understand the fact that we are harming everything that is living including ourselves because we are letting go of our world. We have destructed many different ecosystems and it is crucial to know that we might even become extinct if we continue to no care about our environment.
            Coral reefs are living organisms that deserve to strive at life no matter what purpose they serve on this plant. They are beautiful creatures and we need to open our eyes and have open minded ideas of how we can change this world for the better. It cannot be stressed enough that global warming has taken place and the fact that we are going through a tough time of many natural disasters happening due to mistreating he environment that surrounds us. Not only coral reefs, but other sea creatures could be vanishing because of how we treat our planet. For instance, plastic island, another great topic that I was going to write about, is one of the major points in the open ocean that is collecting all the trash and plastic that goes into our waters due to pollution. The way it gets caught is by the different currents in that area that circle each other making trash and plastic and many other objects swirl around becoming mountains of trash floating in the middle of the water. Think of all the sea turtles and fish and other spontaneous creatures in the ocean that eat the plastic thinking it is food, or get caught in the trash and have no way to survive or get out, or even having to live and build their homes out of it.
Place yourself into the life of another aquatic animal, do you really think that it is okay for an animal to be living in such conditions? Think of it as you see trash and plastic flying throughout our air, breathing in all the carbon dioxide, replacing our delicious burgers with trash and plastic, our homes being made out of plastic bottles and trash. In your head would you want to live in such conditions where it can be harmful? Breathing in carbon monoxide can kill you, and we are here killing other animals because we deserve the higher end of the stick and cannot care about what they do for this world. It does not help that our president is becoming a human that destroys everything in its path. We have to take a stand for what we believe in and make this a better world or we will end up being those animals’ years from now.
Conclusion:
            In conclusion, corals, and coral reefs are such beautiful creatures to let go of, they go through a daily struggle just to exist on this massive planet. Not being able to adapt and survive on a planet where you have made an establishment for your appearance and also your way of life. From the looks and simple structures to the complex way of being and surviving on the inside it makes me upset that they have to go. It was our choice as humans to take care of the world and be able to have beautiful everything but it seems like we are here for mass destruction and cannot control it anymore. It is not okay to let such creatures and animals go extinct or die off for our own benefit of just having a factory or having oil mines. It is sad that we have become a society where no one has a clue as to what is happening and what we could be doing to prevent this from happening.
            Something really sparked me at the end of the film of “Chasing Coral”. The thought of some scientist having to present the process of elimination of each and every species of corals and show the representation that the coral reefs around the world are slowly dying off is breath taking. One of the narrators says “How do I make it show as if it is important and not so much because it hurts my heart?” another narrator replied with “You don’t, you cannot show a fake smile to your work that you are presenting. Show them that it is important and that you are and others are affected by it.” How is that not something that makes you feel like it is your fault, something like this should be taken into consideration.
            After watching and reading over all of the information and even when we had this topic of discussion in class it moved me because of how it was just so sad that we as humans do not know that climate change is changing the whole entire world not just what we have been facing these past years. Yes, we are receiving notice that we are having more than usual natural disasters and now the ice is melting raising sea levels and threatening our worlds famous places in our country and even around the world. We have been going through drought and other things that are just not safe for any animals nor humans to live amongst this planet but we are not doing anything to save it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Works Cited
 
“Coral Reef History.” Coral Reef History - Global Reef Project, globalreefproject.com/coral-reef-history.php.
“Coral Reefs: Past, Present, and Future.” Coral Reefs: Past, Present and Future, Apr. 2009, www.columbia.edu/itc/eeeb/baker/N0316/Lecture%205/page2.htm
Frost, Emily. “Corals and Coral Reefs.” Ocean Portal | Smithsonian, Smithsonian's
National
“Global Climate Change: News.” NASA, NASA, 19 Jan. 2017, climate.nasa.gov/news/.
Orlowski, Jeff, director. Chasing Coral. Netflix, 2012.

​Object of Concern Paper
 
 
For my object of concern research, I have chosen apple’s iPhone. I have chosen the iPhone because it is one of the most used devices each day around the world, but also has a very short life span. Apple updates their iPhones every single year, and because of this a lot of people are choosing to upgrade to the new phone each year, leaving their old devices in an odd place. It is a concern to me personally on what is happening with the millions of still working but “old” iPhones that we are discarding in various ways each and every year, and I would like to find out a little but more about what is happening with them
 
Apple first introduced the iPhone on June 29th, 2007. It was revolutionary to me, and many others around the world. I couldn’t wrap my head around the combination of the cell phone and the iPod, because these were two devices that I was regularly carrying around with me daily during this time, and the years prior. And that was the thing, I was carrying two devices. I hadn’t really put much thought into the inconvenience that this was back then, because the technology wasn’t there so we hadn’t really even thought of it. However, I do remember a time when my friends and I glued our cell phones back to back with our iPods, as a joke, to try and create just one device we had to carry. Little did we know; big things were coming soon with regards to that.
 
Apple really did reinvent the cell phone as we knew it back in 2007, and no one has looked back since. In 2007 when the very first was announced, the sales were 1.39 million. Most of these were from early adapters who were just eager to try a new piece of technology. Most recently in the year 2017, the sales of the newest iPhones have been 216.76 million. The numbers compared are astonishing, and looking at a chart the sales went up each new iPhone. Since the iPhone came out in 2007, there has always been a new updated phone each and every year. The difference that comes in each phone is small, usually a better camera and a faster operating chip which improves the phones overall speed and performance.
 
Overall, cellphone technology is continuing to improve at a staggering rate each year, enough to get people to disregard their old iPhones like they are trash. Cellphone service companies like Verizon and AT&T even encourage their customers to upgrade each year by offering packages that support it. But the question still remains, what happens to our old iPhones after they leave our possession, and what type of effect is it having on our environment if they are indeed no longer being used?
 
It is September, and a new iPhone has just been announced. You are very excited to get this new iPhone, as a ton of new features and improvements have been announced for it. It will be receiving a new camera that takes much better pictures than your current iPhone, there is also a faster processing chip that Apple created just for this new iPhone. This new lineup of iPhones also comes in a fresh new rose gold color that you just absolutely need to have and show off. You get to the apple store the day it is released, and there are people lined up out the door and around the block. You are a little surprised, but you don’t care much and you get in line and wait in excitement. You eventually make your way to the front, and then you get called to come into the store. The Apple employee greets you and asks how they can help, and you tell them you want the new iPhone. From there, there are two options for your current and now old iPhone. You either hand it in as part of a trade in program (this also goes for the cell service provider stores not just at Apple), or it is deactivated and you take it home with you. One way or another, the iPhone will most likely end up in a landfill, or recycled as E-Waste.
 
Life Cycle:
 
iPhone production mostly takes place in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou. To start the process, Apple buys each and every component for the iPhone from more than 200 suppliers around the world (David Baroza). Apple then sells the components to the manufacturer in China. “There are 94 production line at the Zhengzhou manufacturing site, and it takes 400 steps to assemble the iPhone, including polishing, soldering, drilling and fitting screws. The facility can produce 500,000 iPhones a day or roughly 350 a minute” (David Baroza). The iPhone is then placed in that white box that we all know and love, wrapped in plastic and placed into the trucks that ware waiting to deliver them to the retailers.
 
After passing through the customs, which are large facilities that are built just a few hundred yards from the production factory. This where apple either sells the iPhones to Chinese businesses, or the iPhones are resold to Apple to be resold to retailers around the world. The iPhones are then taken to the nearby airport where they are shipped abroad. Three days later, the very same shipment of iPhones in their fresh white boxes arrive in San Francisco, almost 7,000 miles away. The iPhones are then taken to their respective retailers, and sold to consumers.
 
Risks and Hazards:
 
iPhones in the majority are recycled as E-Waste. One great thing about the newer iPhones from about 2010 and on is that they have been deemed less harmful to the environment. The use of mercury and lead were eliminated in 2009, and 2006. Display glass is now arsenic-free as well. In addition, PVC and phthalates are not being used anymore, and brominated flame retardant was eliminated in 2008.  This is a huge step forward for the iPhone not being as harmful to the environment.
 
iPhones that make their way into the landfills leach toxic chemicals into the soil. In fact, electronics account for up to 70 percent of landfills toxic waste” (Peter Holgate). In order to avoid the guilty feeling that comes with just throwing your iPhone away to be sent off into the landfill, a lot of people send them to recycle centers or E-Waste collections. This is the move that helps us feel good about ourselves, and makes us feel like we did the right thing. The eco-friendly solution to getting rid of an iPhone. But many of us still wonder what happens to our devices after we do this, and if they are truly handled in a way that is eco-friendly. The afterlife of an iPhone starts out by the recycler checking to see if phone is in any kind of condition to be reused, especially refurbished. It is common for the phones that do past these tests and that are able to be reused, to be shipped to foreign countries for reuse. For example, the Motorola Razr was a very popular phone in Latin America long after its popularity faded in the United States (Peter Holgate). For the iPhones that are not able to be reused and refurbished, powerful shredders tear them apart at recycling centers. The metal components are smelted down, and the precious metals such as the small amounts of gold and palladium are recovered from the devices. The unfortunate part of this cycle, is that the vast majority of the materials from the iPhone is burned. This is a huge problem and a terrible way of getting rid of the materials, because it releases toxic vapors into the air such as chloride, mercury and other vapors.
 
The alternative to this smelting option is far worse. The mass amounts of E-Waste, including iPhones, are sold to poor countries such as West Africa, or Agbobloshie, and various places in Asia. From there, the people in the villages that receive the waste personally go through each and every device in order to recover any small trace of anything that can be of value, and then they discard the rest by burning them or throwing them into their rivers. This is having massively negative effects on these “e-graveyards” as the environment surrounding them are becoming highly toxic, which is creating issues for the people living about.
 
Thankfully, Apple has been hard at work at creating a solution for their E-Waste problem. At a keynote in March of 2016, Apple announced that they had created a 29-armed robot, which has been named Liam, is capable of taking apart 1.2 million iPhones each year, providing an environmentally friendly solution for all those old models sitting out there (Orchard). Apple also has a program that they call the “Apple renew program,” which allows for their customers to trade in their old devices. Depending on the age and the condition of the device, customers may even be able to get some money taken off of their new purchase or some money back for the devices. There are also many websites that offer this same type of trade program. In addition to the deconstructing robot, Apple also has been working to make their facilities go completely green. Apple would like to convert their facilities to run 100% on clean and renewable energy, and they are very close to their goal (in the 90% region).
 
 
Environmental Ethics
 
In the past, the factories that produce Apple’s iPhones in China have been the subject of some serious ethical issues. The Chinese laborers who make iPhones are often working extremely long hours, in poor working conditions, and are also being severely under paid. There have been issues where Apple has been asked to raise workers’ wages, and there have also been investigations into the conditions in which the factory workers live. In 2010, a total of 18 people who worked in the Foxconn factory, who manufactures iPhones, jumped off of the top of the buildings to their deaths as a direct result of the working conditions and life styles that they endured. After this spree of suicides, the factory installed what they called “suicide nets” around the building so that no one else could jump to their death from the roof. In 2012 there was a mass protest in relation to the poor conditions in the factory, in which over 150 workers remained on the roof of the factory, all threatening to jump to their deaths in the conditions were not changed. This was considered a mass suicide protest. According to BBC news, an undercover reporter who was working in one of these factories in the outskirts of Shanghai, was forced to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off (Richard Bilton). Another reporter whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: “Every time I got back to the dorms, I wouldn’t want to move. Even If I was hungry I wouldn’t want to get up to eat. I just wanted to life down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress” (Richard Bilton). Apple has been the target of heavy criticism because of these ethical issues, and have claimed that they have always been investigating and trying to do what they can to keep the workers happy.
 
 
Fast forward to 2017, and now Apple is starting to explore the possibilities of producing iPhones in the United States. President Donald Trump has promised the nation that he is going to bring back manufacturing jobs into our country, and Apple is one of the biggest targets of this. Foxconn this year has confirmed that it was mulling $7 billion to create a flat-panel manufacturing facility in the United States (Kyle Wiggers). There has been speculation that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, is planning to invest $1 billion into United States manufacturing. “We can be the ripple in the pond, Tim Cook says” (Jessica Guyunn, USA Today). This would create thousands of new jobs, and help put an end to the poor factory conditions in other countries, who are manufacturing our iPhones.
 
This issue of concern has taught me a lot about the relationship between the environment and society. We definitely live in a time when technology has taken off, and iPhones are one of the center pieces of that. We are developing the technology inside these phones so quickly, that we are able to create an updated version each year, resulting in millions of iPhones all of a sudden becoming old technology in way. I was very happy to learn from this research just how much Apple has been working on being environmentally and ethically responsible with the old iPhones that people no longer want. It is great that they have a trade in program that allows people to have a proper way to get rid of their old phone, without simply having to throw it in the trash or drive around looking for a proper recycling center to get rid of it. Apple has also impressed me with the robot that they created specifically to dismantle and recycle all of the old iPhones that come their way. I do believe that it is their responsibility to handle our old devices, simply because of the rate at which they are influencing people to upgrade to the new ones that they continue to come out with yearly.
 
I think that as a species living on this planet, we have been developing anything and everything that we can that helps make our lives easier. Unfortunately for a long period of time while these inventions were happening, we simply did not make these devices to be environmentally friendly. The first years of the iPhone were made with materials and components that are toxic to our environment and soil when they are not disposed or properly. And at the moment, these are the devices that there are so many of in the landfills and in the e-graveyards. These are the devices that are causing the current issues previously discussed. However, it is incredibly promising to know that all iPhones made today are much eco-friendlier, and that there is a proper system in place to properly recycle them without having to cause harm to our environment. I went into this research paper very concerned about the information I might find about all of the old discarded iPhones. There were definitely some troubling facts, but I do feel good about how the future might shape up to be, at least for the iPhones that are made from here on out.
 
The labor issues are also being addressed, and Apple is looking into moving its labor factories into the United States, where the conditions will be much better and pay will meet the standards of the United States. I think that Apple has been very ethically responsible in both the environment and the political categories, and my concern about the iPhone E-Waste has definitely gone down after writing this paper.
 
 
Works Cited:
 
 
Bilton, Richard. “Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'.” BBC News, BBC, 18 Dec. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/business-30532463.
 
Moore, Malcolm. “'Mass suicide' protest at Apple manufacturer Foxconn factory.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 11 Jan. 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9006988/Mass-suicide-protest-at-Apple-manufacturer-Foxconn-factory.html.
 
Kan, Michael. “Low wages, long hours persist at iPhone factory, says labor group.” CNET, 22 Oct. 2015, www.cnet.com/news/low-wages-and-long-hours-still-persist-at-iphone-factory-claims-labor-group/.
 
Holgate, Peter. “The model for recycling our old smartphones is actually causing massive pollution.” Recode, Recode, 8 Nov. 2017, www.recode.net/2017/11/8/16621512/where-does-my-smartphone-iphone-8-x-go-recycling-afterlife-toxic-waste-environment.
 
“An iPhone's Journey, From the Factory Floor to the Retail Store.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-stores.html.
 
“IWaste: The iPhone Environmental Impact.” Orchard | Blog, 9 June 2017, www.getorchard.com/blog/iphone-environmental-impact/.
“Ever Wondered What Happens to All Those Old iPhones? | Care2 Healthy Living.” Healthy Living, www.care2.com/greenliving/ever-wondered-what-happens-to-all-those-old-iphones.html.
 
Guynn, Jessica. “Apple to invest $1B in U.S. manufacturing fund; 'We can be the ripple in the pond,' Tim Cook says.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 4 May 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/05/03/apple-tim-cook-invest-us-manufacturing-fund-trump/101266056/.
 

By Amy Lautamo
     They sit on almost every kitchen counter in America, they were once given out to immigrants coming through Ellis Island, they make a delicious bread, and they are an integral part of one of the most classic jokes in comedy. Bananas are the American fruit, in fact according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans eat more bananas every year than any other fresh fruit, and yet they do not come from the U.S. The vast majority of the bananas consumed in the U.S. come from the tropics, so how have they become such an integral part of American society? Bananas, like cell phones, or lipstick, or the latest diet pills, are a product that has been sold to the American public as a symbol of health and prosperity. In diving into the history of this yellow fruit and analyzing it through the lenses of political economy and environmental ethics, this paper uncovers the truth behind the peel of America’s favorite fruit. 
     Bananas originated in Eastern Asia and Australia. The bananas the U.S. cannot get enough of is a sweet banana hybrid called Musa Xparadisiaca, a Cavendish variety. Most bananas are grown in the equatorial region specifically in Costa Rica, the Philippines, Colombia, and Ecuador which is the top producer with over 33% of the global banana export. (Robbins) Bananas are grown in a few places in the U.S. such as Hawaii, Florida and Southern California, but the vast majority come from abroad. The banana herb produces fruit all year round making it a vital food source in may developing country and a valuable plant in general. It is also the only fruit that develops a better taste, texture, aroma, and color when it is picked unripe and left to ripen after harvest, say in transport to markets in the U.S. Bananas will also speed the ripening process of other fruits around it due to a ripening hormone released from its seeds. These characteristics make bananas an irresistible temptation to salesmen around the world. (Preston) 
     One of these salesmen was Samuel Zemurray, a poor Jewish Immigrant in the U.S. who made his fortune in the banana industry and can really be credited for making bananas the cultural institution they have come to be in the U.S. Zemurray paid a visit to the Boston Fruit Company and discovered that huge amounts of bananas were being thrown away because they were too ripe to survive the trip to market. He bought these bananas for next to nothing and traveled across the country by railroad, selling them to markets near the rails straight from the boxcars. He quickly made his fortune and became a major player in the banana and exotic fruit industry. (Johnson) Zemurray was heavily involved in bribing politicians and others involved in the fruit industry in Central America, and can be credited with much of the environmental and social destruction wrecked by the banana industry in his effort to ensure bananas became a cheap and easily accessed fruit in the United States. (Johnson) He attempted to counteract this destruction late in his life by putting his fortune toward philanthropic efforts in Central America as well as the U.S., but many would say his efforts were far too little far too late. 
     The real man behind the banana industry we know today was Minor Keith. Keith started building railroads throughout Costa Rica in 1871, a project that would kill thousands, including his two brothers before its completion. (Johnson) Keith planned plantations all along these railroads for easy access and high profits. He ended up marrying the Costa Rican president’s daughter and became known as the Uncrowned King of Central America. After his railroads were completed, Keith founded the Boston Fruit Company that would later fund Zemurray’s fortune. The Boston Fruit Company joined the United Fruit Company in 1899, which later became the largest fruit company in the world. Keith and his company controlled the dictator of Guatemala for a time, basically enslaving the people of Guatemala on their banana plantations giving birth to the term “Banana Republic” and setting the standard for the fruit industry around the globe. (Lawrence) Today, UFCO is owned by Chiquita, and much of the corruption continues. 
     Everyone in America has most likely seen Miss Chiquita, Chiquita’s company mascot dancing on a fruit label or posing in a flamenco style dress, hat, and earrings. She appeared in her first commercial in 1944 as a dancing banana, airing in the U.S. 367 times a day. (Johnson) In 1987 Oscar Grillo, the writer of Pink Panther, transformed her into the woman seen across the U.S. and the globe today. Despite their cheerful image in the U.S., Chiquita has been embroiled in some shady dealings. They were accused of supporting paramilitary soldiers who killed or tortured the relatives of Chiquita plantation workers. Basically, they have been accused multiple times of funding terrorist groups in Colombia and other countries in which they have plantations. (Lawrence) In short, the bananas on the shelves in Ray’s, Safeway, and countless other stores across the nation come from a long history of corruption and exploitation.
     Looking at the banana industry under the lense of political economy provides a deeper insight into the connection between the social and environmental crises we see in this story and the economy. Environmentally, the banana industry is a travesty. Bananas are grown most often in monocultures created by clear cutting the rainforest. These monocultures are the most pesticide intensive of all tropical plants. Herbicides are sprayed over the ground, nematocides are applied directly to the roots of the plants, and the bunches of fruit are covered in blue plastic bags filled with chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide, to protect them from pests and disease. (Perrier) Chemicals must be applied 40 times a year and because bananas demand lots of irrigation and are grown on slopes, 60-85% of all fertilizer is lost through leaching and/or runoff. Post harvest, a fungicide is applied to prevent crown rot during their journey to the top banana consumers: The U.S. and Europe. (Perrier) The chemicals used on the plantation have also been proven to cause sterilization and other complications in plantation workers. The decrease in tree cover in the rainforest can be directly connected to the influx of people seeking greater profit from the forest lands through clear cutting and agricultural practices like banana monocultures. Bananas have become the fifth largest agricultural commodity in the world trade and Americans eat on average, twenty-eight pounds of bananas per person, per year. (Perrier) The roots of the exploitation of banana plantation workers and the devastation of equatorial environments can be directly tied to the banana industry within the global economy. 
     From an environmental ethics standpoint, the banana industry is also problematic. The variety of banana consumed in the U.S. and Europe primarily is, as mentioned earlier, is the Cavendish variety. The first variety introduced however, was the Gros Michel (Jones). The Gros Michel was supposedly tastier than the Cavendish variety, but sadly it died out when it was wiped from the commercial market by the Panama Disease prior to the 1960’s. The Panama Disease is a soil fungus that attacks the plant’s roots and moves up the trunk and leaves with the dispersal of water producing a gummy substance along the way that blocks the flow of water and nutrients. (Jones) The Cavendish was introduced later as a variety resistant to this soil fungus, but now the industry is facing a stronger strain of the disease called Tropical Race 4. Researchers have estimated that the Cavendish will no longer be available outside tropical areas within twenty years. (Jones) Such diseases are an issue in environmentally destructive monocultures that foster the spread of disease. The genetic diversity of bananas in general has been struggling due to the rapid increase in production of sweet bananas, as well as the overall destruction of genetic diversity in tropical rainforests due to deforestation for banana plantations. It leads to questions of first world privilege, exploiting the ecosystems, as well as the people, of far away nations in order to maintain a steady supply of perfect yellow Chiquita bananas all year round. 
     Many of the products on the shelves of grocery stores in America and countries across Europe have been accepted as natural parts of first world diets and society, when in reality these item have been developed and advertised and sold to the public in ways that make them seem necessary and integral to the Western way of life. Bananas have become an accepted addition to countertops across America, but the system that gets them there is anything but acceptable. The best banana bread in the world does not justify the environmental devastation that accompanies the monoculture plantation agricultural system and the social side effects of this exploitive international industry. Taking care to consume organically produced and ethically sourced products of all kinds is important in order to minimize the suffering of many for the luxury of the few. 

Works Cited
Johnson, Thomas. “A Brief History of the Banana.” Ploughshares 2 (1975): 62. Online.
Jones, Clarence F. and Paul C. Morrison. “Evolution of the Banana Industry of Costa Rica.” 
     Economic Geography 28 (1952): 1-19. Online. 
Lawrence, Anne T. and James Weber. Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy. 
     15th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2017. Print. 
Perrier, Xavier. “Multidisciplinary perspectives on banana domestication.” Proceedings of the 
     National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108 (2011): 11311-11318. Online. 
Preston, David A. “Changes in the Economic Geography of Banana Production in Ecuador.” 
     Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37 (1965): 77-90. Online. 
Robbins, Paul, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore. Environment and Society: A Critical 
     Introduction. 2nd ed. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, 2014. Print.

Introduction:
 
            The concept of a restaurant, or a business that offers meals prepared by a separate individual outside of one’s home is a concept that dates back several hundred years. Restaurants began as roadside inns, a proprietorship that focuses on providing shelter, food and drink for travelers. These early restaurants left diners at the whim of the chef as no options or substitutions were offered to the guests (Mealy N.P.). Over time, the dining portion of these roadside inns evolved into what we are more familiar with today as restaurants.
            Spanning the timeline of the development of restaurants, we as a society have grown the concept of a place to conveniently get a bite to eat while traveling, to an institution that provides exactly what you want, when you want it, from a variety of cultures and levels of quality. Instead of, “I am starving and need a bite to eat while on my travels home,” we have, “no, I don’t think I want Japanese tonight, I already ate sushi this week.” Like many other concepts that have developed as we have grown as a society, we have increased access to an increasing variety of options for how we get our sustenance, and with the aforementioned progression, we have become more and more wasteful as a society.
            In the following pages, I would like to address the history of fine dining in society as well as several environmental and social concerns that are exacerbated by a modern fine dining experience. After touching on how we have reached the position that we currently are in, I would like to address some of the issues that are prevalent as a result of modern restaurants, with an emphasis on fine dining. Included in the issues of modern dining are the environmental impacts of restaurants compared to their alternatives, and the ethical dilemmas associated with both the production of the exclusive ingredients that permeate high-end eateries as well as the wealth disparity we have in the world with some people eating single meals at a price point (Bruning et al. N.P.) higher than the average yearly income of our world’s poorest nations (Burton N.P.).
            Each of these issues is pertinent to fully understanding the impact that a fun evening out or a celebration of a special event at one of these establishments can have on a global scale, both environmentally and societally.
 
A History of Fine Dining:
 
            Like many other modern progressions in the culinary field, fine dining, as it is known today, evolved in France. The sale of products in France at the time was divided between guilds, and only authorized members of each guild were able to sell their respective products. However, as a result of the French Revolution in the late 18th century, guilds were deemed illegal and thus dissolved, and as a tertiary effect, many of the chefs that were formally employed by the aristocracy and royalty in the country were left without employment.  As aristocracy was toppled, the chefs were left unemployed, and the dissolution of guilds allowed these chefs to pursue a previously unreachable market.
            In these tumultuous times, chefs brought the traditions of aristocracy with them to their restaurants, such as “delicate china, cutlery and linen tablecloths” (Mealy N.P.), and fine dining was born. One such example of early fine dining was La Grande Taverne De Loudres, an establishment created by Antoine Beauvilliers. Beauvilliers was a former pastry chef for King Louis XVIII’s brother who was able to start his own restaurant that showcased what French cuisine had to offer (Spang 140). Antoine’s restaurant is considered by many to be the first fine dining experience in the world.
            Following Napoleon’s downfall after the French Revolution, the wealthy of Europe flocked to the culinary hotspot of Paris in order to enjoy what the world now had to offer. This process repeated again and again after any large-scale conflict, such as the ending of each world war, and the demand for high quality dining spread across the globe to the point where there are now internationally acclaimed restaurants throughout the world.
            On a modern stage, we have critically acclaimed restaurants throughout the world. In “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” list, a list aggregated by polling the world’s top chefs and restaurateurs, restaurants from all over the globe are represented. In the top ten alone, seven different countries are present. The concept of fine dining has become a widespread phenomenon that is present from its hometown in Paris, all the way to local establishments in Humboldt County – albeit not to such an extreme.
 
Fine Dining Through the Lens of Environmental Impact:
 
            While some restaurants focus on attaining local goods and sustainability, at the highest level, excess and a lack of restraint lead the way. Just based on personal experience, I have seen numerous shows of excess and a lacking of any conscientiousness during my visits to some of the ultra high-end restaurants in the United States. During my time spent at these restaurants, I have seen: a presentation of over a dozen cheeses from almost as many unique countries, cuts of beef that were flown from Japan to the middle of the Nevada desert in Las Vegas, and a dish starring “foie gras” – the result of force feeding geese to the point that they cannot move. These are all products that closely resemble conspicuous consumption, and have relatively large negative impacts on the environment.
            When it comes to fine dining, a culture that expects the absolute best has developed. If you are dining at one of the best restaurants in the world, you need to have the best ingredients in the world backing up your product. The first two products that I would like to look at are imported products, such as international cheeses and wagyu beef. According to a report from the Environmental Working Group titled “Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health,” imported cheeses produce 19.68 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of imported cheese compared to 13.52 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of domestic cheese. Looking at these numbers, cheese, a product that is already the third worst food in terms of carbon dioxide production per kilogram, creates almost 50% more carbon dioxide when it is imported. The culture surrounding fine dining has created an expectancy of perfection that demands the best products in the world, even if they require ten times the transportation resources as other similar products.
            Another example of the garish excess present throughout fine dining is the import of wagyu beef from Japan. Wagyu beef is a beef product that is distinguished from other beef varieties as a specific breed of cattle that produces more flavorful meat and extremely well marbled cuts. While it is difficult to acquire specific information regarding wagyu beef, the aforementioned report reports that transportation impact is three times higher for the transport of beef compared to cheese per kilogram (Environmental Working Group 12). This would give wagyu beef an estimated level of pollution at forty-three kilograms (25 kilograms of carbon dioxide for raising and processing the cattle, in addition to 18 kilograms for transport) of carbon dioxide per kilogram of beef. This results in the impact being almost twice as high for wagyu beef as it is for domestic beef, a product that is already known for having a high negative impact on the environment. 
            The final example of excess in fine dining that I would like to address is a dish that is known as foie gras. Foie gras is a product that is both controversial from an ethical standpoint as well as wasteful from an environmental standpoint. The reason for foie gras’ controversy stems from its production – foie gras is the liver of a goose or duck that has been fattened through a process referred to as gavage, or force-feeding. In their production, the geese or ducks are force-fed for about two weeks of their four to five month lives including consumption of over a kilogram of food per day towards the end of their feeding. Just during the force-feeding period alone, they are fed an amount of grain that equals close to ten kilograms for a yield of approximately one kilogram, whereas the entire lifespan of cattle uses seven kilograms of grain per kilogram of meat, at the high end.
            In addition to the environmental costs, foies gras has been an object of concern for years with one of the more recent controversies surrounding foie gras being the banning of sales in California. California had deemed the production of the product to be unethical and therefore banned the sale of it for several years and was only overturned recently due to a legal technicality that argued that the law regulated interstate commerce and was unconstitutional to have at a state level.
           
Fine Dining Through the Lens of Ethics:
 
            In addition to the environmental impacts and wastefulness of fine dining, the social ramifications of restaurants are widespread as well. According to CHD Expert, a data analysis company that specializes in the foodservice industry, there are over 5,100 restaurants in the United States that they classify as “fine dining,” or as having a per guest cost of over $50. These fine dining establishments average just less than two million dollars in annual sales, whereas the average restaurant brings in under a million. These 5,100 restaurants bring in over ten billion in sales, or just less than one percent of the annual sales in the restaurant business, whereas they make up less than half a percent of the overall number of restaurants. When delivering these products, these restaurants charge rates that range from a magnitude higher than preparing your own food, to multiple magnitudes higher at the most extreme, with some restaurants approaching or exceeding $500 per guest.
            While these ultra nice restaurants are in the minority, spending what amounts to more than the average annual national income in several countries for a family dinner borders on offensive. In addition to the absurd amounts of money that could arguably be spent more efficiently and ethically, the meals contained in these restaurants consist primarily of environmentally demanding dishes. CHD Expert continues their fine dining analysis and they state that “the Steak & Seafood menu type makes up 21 percent of the fine dining segment, while Family Steak / Chophouse accounts for 20% and American Traditional makes up 16 percent” (CHD Expert, N.P.). These three types of food are primarily heavy in lamb, beef and cheese, the first, second, and third most environmentally damaging ingredients per pound. This distinction also takes place before considering that among these ingredients, they tend to choose the especially environmentally damaging products, such as imported meats, cheeses and wines.
            While there are many forms of excessive consumption, one could argue that spending an unreasonable amount on something that others need to survive and are unable to afford as especially garish. While lavish, conspicuous spending on cars, clothes, houses, or other material items may have a greater impact on wealth disparity in both this country and globally, it is reasonable to consider the disparity between the starving and those who consume fine dining to be greater on an individual level.
 
Conclusion:
 
            Ever since their inauguration into society, restaurants have been a symbol of convenience and opulence over necessity. Beginning with their origins as a place for travelers – an affair reserved for the moderately well off – to acquire a bite to eat, to their evolution as high quality dining experience after the French Revolution, restaurants have consistently conveyed the idea of consuming food for more than survival. We as a society trade the convenience and quality for waste and gluttony, an idea that a vast majority of today’s world cannot afford.
            In the modern day restaurant, we have huge amounts of waste, both in the literal sense of food being disposed of, and in the margin between what is needed and what we consume. From the aforementioned products – such as imported cheeses, wagyu beef, and foie gras – that excessively, negatively impact the environment, to the social disparity that occurs between the highest level of restaurants and the lowest levels of accessibility for food, fine dining as well as restaurants in general portray a questionable alignment of our priorities, and it is imperative to consider the impact of our choices going forward.

Burton, James. “Countries With the Lowest Income in the World.” World Atlas, 25 April 2017. http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-lowest-income-in-the-world.html. Accessed 11 December 2017.
 
Mealy, Lorri. “A History of the Restaurant Part One.” The Balance, 12 April. 2017. https://www.thebalance.com/a-history-of-the-restaurant-part-one-2888654. Accessed 11 December 2017.
 
“Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change + Health.” Environmental Working Group, 2011. http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/meateaters/pdf/methodology_ewg_meat_eaters_guide_to_health_and_climate_2011.pdf. Accessed 11 December 2017.
 
Morton, Caitlin, and Sarah Burning. Conde Nast Traveler, 16 August 2017. https://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2014-04-19/the-most-expensive-restaurants-in-the-world/. Accessed 11 December 2017.
 
Spang, Rebecca L. The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern
Gastronomic Culture. Harvard University Press. 2001.
 
“The ‘White Tablecloth’ Segment: CHD Expert Evaluates the Fine Dining Landscape of the United States.” CHD Expert, 31 October 2016. https://www.chd-expert.com/blog/press_release/the-white-tablecloth-segment-chd-expert-evaluates-the-fine-dining-landscape-of-the-united-states/. Accessed 11 December 2017.
 
“The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.” William Reed Business Media. 2016. http://www.theworlds50best.com/list/past-lists/2016. Accessed 11 December 2017.