GEOG 300, Global Awareness
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

OBJECTS OF CONCERN

FALL '17, '18, '19, & '20
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12/13/2017

Gum

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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

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12/12/2017

Corn

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TM
Professor Laura Johnson
Geology 300 Global Awareness
11 December 2017


Object of Concern: Corn
Corn has cultural significance for many people. It plays a big part in our lives here in the United States, and globally. Whether they know it or not, most people in the US consume corn, or a corn-byproduct, daily. How did corn become such a large part of the American diet? Does the way we process corn into food result in healthy food products? How does our production of corn affect the climate and environment, both on small and large scale?
A Short History of Corn
Zea mays, what most of us know as maize or corn, is a very interesting plant with a rather rich history that has come to have a lot of influence. The history of maize, as we know it today, begins some 10,000 years ago in Mexico with domestication through selective breeding ("Evolution of Corn"). Over time, through repetitive artificial selection, maize grew to yield larger and more plentiful kernels, becoming hardier and transforming into what it is today. The domestication of maize revolutionized life for the indigenous peoples of the Americas as it helped fuel the transition from hunter-gatherer communities into those whose lifestyles revolved around agriculture, allowing more time to develop culture and art (Murphy). Later, corn was brought to Europe in the Columbian Exchange, ‘the exchange of plants, animals, and diseases between Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Europe, and Asia) and the Americas; set in motion by Christopher Columbus in 1492’ ("Columbian Exchange"). Corn became a staple crop in the colonial US, and it’s from here that we can trace its journey to becoming the economic power-crop that it is today. Throughout various periods of economic hardship, the US government mostly stated out of the affair of farmers; that is, until roughly the 1930s (Folsom). The economic upheaval of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl marked the beginning of an era of farming subsidies. The Grain Futures Act of 1922, the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 were key points of legislature passed that drastically changed the business of agriculture in the United States. These bills did what they were intended to and helped pull the country out of a depression by allowing the people of the nation to keep food prices low. However, after being given ‘their subsidies, they viewed them as entitlements, and thus were hard to take away, even when the farm crisis was over’ (Folsom). With the rise of industrialism and capitalism over the next few decades, coupled with a surplus of chemical agents (particularly DDT, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) leftover from World War II being repurposed into American homes, lawns, and gardens, the agricultural landscape of the US shifted from one of diversity and labor to one of monocultures and mass-production. Granted, these changes didn’t exactly occur overnight, but nonetheless modern technology and access to a variety of fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides has allowed us to produce far more crops on the same amount of land, following a process known as induced intensification (Robbins et al. 21). Join this with the rise of corporations and the remaining existence of farming subsidies and you get a very special recipe. Cue the modern American agricultural landscape, or what Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and many others, refer to as the American Corn Belt (Pollan 18). The corn belt consists of virtually every state in the Midwestern United States, wherein almost all of the arable land is dedicated to growing corn in vast monocultures. If we’re growing so much corn, that must be a good thing, right?

Overpopulation and World Hunger
The world’s population is expected to reach 9.6 billion people in the year 2050 (Bernard and Lux 128). That’s an increase of over 26% from today’s current population estimations, which put us at about 7.6 billion people worldwide currently. So it seems natural that the question would arise, how do we feed everyone? Questions surrounding world hunger are not new. In fact, they’ve been in discussion for quite some time. The commonly held belief is that we need continual intensification and industrialized mass production of crops and thus food to be able to feed the people of Earth. And in some senses, it has been working. Regarding a 2004 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Robert Drinan, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, wrote that the last 50 years (1950-2000) have probably resulted in the best century for food production in any period of history of the world. Potable water is generally more available, incidences of crop disasters has decreased, and agricultural yields have quintupled or more in some places (Drinan 17). Monsanto is one of many major corporations that shape how conventional farmers operate today. According to their website, they are a global modern agriculture that develops tool and products to help farmers grow crops using energy, water, and land more efficiently; aiming to bring humanity’s needs in balance with the resources of our planet ("Monsanto: A Modern"). Monsanto, and similar companies, sell a vast portion of the world’s seeds. Through the use of GM (genetically modified) corn, such as the RoundUp Ready® corn varieties produced by Monsanto and designed to be resistant to their glyphosate-based herbicide RoundUp®, farmers in the US and worldwide have been able to see huge yields in their production of corn and other key crops such as cotton, soy, beets, canola, & papaya. Food production has, one could say, never been more effective as it is today. Surely the problem of world hunger is being solved with our advanced farming practices, right? Well, the 2004 U.N. FAO’s report mentioned previously, titled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World”, showed that world hunger was actually increasing at the time with 842 million affected (Drinan 17). Drinan added that recipients of European and US farm subsidies are able to sell their crops at much lower prices but in doing so make it nearly impossible for farmers in underdeveloped nations to sell their goods at reasonable prices. The FAO publishes these reports yearly, and has since renamed the report ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ but has kept the original acronym, SOFI. The FAO has also partnered with multiple organizations in producing these reports: the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Their most recent report, the 2017 SOFI, states that—after steadily declining for about a decade—world hunger is once again on the rise; increasing from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016 (FAO et al.). This year’s SOFI report observes multiple forms of malnutrition coexisting, with countries experiencing simultaneously high rates of child undernutrition and adult obesity, and overweight children and adult obesity are on the rise, even in low- and middle-income countries (The State 2). I can’t help but be reminded of Good Omens, a satirical take on the end of days by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, wherein Famine, of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is displayed as being a CEO owning multiple fast-food chains and junk-food companies. He gloats about how he no longer denies people food to starve them, and instead gives them a surplus of “un-food” allowing them to eat their fill yet not be properly nourished. This is the world we live in. The amount of children who are overweight worldwide has increased from 5.3% in 2005 to 6% in 2016; and the global prevalence of obesity more than doubled between 1980 and 2014, affecting more than 600 million adults, or about 13 percent of the world’s adult population (The State 18-19). We currently have some 11% of the global population undernourished (FAO et al.). Compare this to the roughly 13%, or 842 million people, hungry in 2004 and we have to ask ourselves is this really working? If not, what are we doing wrong and what can we do to solve this and help the 1 in 10 people (~10.72%) that are left hungry?

Ethics - Political, Economic, and Ecological
Modern farming methods allow for huge yields and reduced losses. Crop yields, or the main crops that have come to dominate the market, are at an all-time high. We have industrialization, capitalism, and intensification to thank for this. Six major corporations control the lion’s share of both the seed market and the pesticide market. The “Big Six”, as they are known in regards to the agriculture industry, consist of Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, and DuPont. A report released in May 2010, by Emmanuel Dalle Mulle and Violette Ruppanner of 3D, found that the top 3 & top 10 corporations have been gaining more and more control of the global seed market from 1985 to 1996 to 2008. The top 10 seed corporations controlled 50% of the market as of 2008, with Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, and Bayer alone controlling 37% (Mulle and Ruppanner). We see oligopolistic practices from these companies, including frequent acquisitions. As for the pesticide industry, the control is even heavier with the big six—Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, Monsanto, and DuPont—controlling 68% of the global market as of 2008 (Mulle and Ruppanner). When you look at localized and specialized markets, such as the corn and soy markets in the US, the disparity of market control becomes heavily apparent. Monsanto dominates the US seed industry, owning 60% of the corn, 62% percent of the soybean, and about 40% of the vegetable seed markets (Mulle and Ruppanner). That was seven plus years ago. Today, five of the big six are looking to do major mergers according to the USDA’s (United States Department of Agriculture) Economic Research Service. Bayer is looking to merge with Monsanto, Syngenta is looking to merge with ChemChina—an up-and-coming chemical company based out of Beijing, and DuPont is looking to merge with Dow Chemical (MacDonald). Many of these companies have a history filled with bad business ethics. As they merge closer and closer to a worldwide food and agricultural conglomerate, we have to keep a watchful eye on the influence they have on the various agriculture market: seeds, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers,  biotechnology, & foods. But how have these corporations been affecting the world economically, ecologically, socially, and in terms of world hunger? To answer this, we must start with further examining how corn, and most other plants for that matter, are grown today. Induced intensification over the past few decades has done away with the small family farms of last century and created a new beast: monocultures. A monoculture, also known as a monocrop, is the widely used modern industrial agricultural practice of producing or growing genetically similar, or virtually identical, plants over a large areas year after year ("Biodiversity and Agriculture"). This is how the majority of farming is done today. It is commonly argued that monocultures producer greater yields due to plants receiving less pressure from other species and growing under more uniform conditions; however, such a lack of biodiversity leads to increased vulnerability to pathogens ("Biodiversity and Agriculture"). Put simply, monocultures can produce higher yields but are more easily disrupted by insects, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Polycultures, consisting of a variety of species, are the opposite of monocultures and are what we see in nature and traditional farming practices. Polycultures are hardier, more resistant to pathogens, owing to their biodiversity. The industry has a solution to counteract this vulnerability present in monocultures, we simply douse our plants in a variety of chemicals! What could go wrong there? Insecticides, pesticides, and herbicide have become part of the healthy balanced breakfast of most modern crops today. Nutrients, sometimes coupled with chemical growth agents, can be added à la carte as a sweet addition. There is another issue with monocultures though, and that is that they deplete the fertility of the soil upon which they grown. Once again, because of the lack of biodiversity present in monocultures, nutrients in soil are used up and not properly replenished. To solve this problem, we simply add more fertilizers! Voila, problem solved! Monocultures are now viable again. Monocultures, coupled with farming subsidies, produce extravagant yields for low costs. To better protect their investments, these corporations have genetically modified their crops to be resistant to certain pathogens or certain chemical agents. Since they’ve genetically modifying these plants they can also copyright them, giving them industrial property rights. Some of these seeds include specialized genes that cause them to die off after 1 or more harvests. Known as genetic use restriction technology in the business, or as terminator genes or suicide seeds colloquially. This genetically planned obsolescence has both a major benefit and a major drawback. Firstly, if a GM crop contains a trait later found to be undesirable or one that we don’t want to be cross-bred into other plants such as weeds, then the terminator gene helps prevent those traits from spreading (Wright 1). However, subsistence farmers who depend on harvested seeds for the next season's planting are forced to buy new seeds each season, which is a system that is especially detrimental in developing countries (2). Bt cotton is one such product sold by Monsanto that produces its own insecticide, bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, to fend off a common cotton pest—the bollworm. However, since  the  introduction  of  Bt  cotton to the agricultural market of India, tens of thousands of farmers have committed suicide—17,368 in 2009 alone (Shiva 37). “A disproportionate number of those farmers were cultivators of Bt cotton who had incurred enormous debt linked to high costs of seeds, as well as the fertilizers and pesticides promoted by Monsanto and Mahyco as a necessity in order to grow the new cotton varieties” (37). This is not a new problem either. On November 28th, 1998, in Sindhanoor, Karnataka, India, members of the Karnataka State Farmers Association (KRRS) and other local grassroots organizations arrived at one of India's first Monsanto test sites, proceeded to tear up every one of the genetically modified cotton plants growing there, and reduced them to ashes (Kingsnorth 9). Demonstrators gathered in cities and towns across the globe on May 25, 2013, to protest against the agribusiness giant Monsanto, it's GM seeds, hazardous pesticides (glyphosate), intimidation of small farmers, and its bullying of legislators in country after country ("Worldwide March" 10). This is protest that I’ve personally participated in. The list of controversies that the big six have been involved in is too long to list in this paper. Bayer created heroin. Dow Chemical and Monsanto aided in the creation of Agent Orange. DuPont created Polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon), commonly used in non-stick coatings for cookware but later found to contribute to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, and a variety of other health defects. BASF, and most if not all of the rest of the big six, have faced fraud charges for covering up information regarding harmful chemical such as asbestos. The list goes on. What does all of this have to do with world hunger and ecology? Both a little and a lot. These corporations wield incredible influence over the agriculture industry internationally. They control what we grow, how we grow it, and what we eat, which in turn affects our health and our finances. Maize, one of the most commonly grown crops worldwide, is just one of the many tools employed by these powerful corporations to control money, health, and lives of people around the globe. In the US, the majority of corn grown in turned into ethanol or fed to cows, pigs, and chicken living within CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). It’s not being used to feed the world. At least not efficiently. Furthermore, because we grow corn and most other crops in monocultures, our increased use of agro-chemicals and fertilizers, on top of increased transportation costs, weighs heavily on the environment locally and globally. Monoculture are not the answer to solving world hunger, but they do allow a small selection of people to get insanely rich. What then is the answer to global hunger? If we can’t feed the world with the most productive method of agriculture known to man as of yet, how can we? The answer lies in sustainability and polycultures. Organic farming, done on a local level, allows people to take the power away from corporations, keep money circulating locally, reduce transportation costs (both financial and environmental), and lower or even eliminate the need for agrochemicals. Maize, or corn, can once again become the sacred plant it was before, growing alongside many others and helping to feed people, not wallets.


Industrialization has revolutionised how agriculture is operated, capitalism has shaped how it is managed, and intensification has dictated how it is approached. Maize, once a plant cherished as sacred and grown as a variety of species alongside many others, is now grown in large swathes of just a few select privatized species in ecologically unsustainable monocultures. Monocultures have been shown, time and time again, to destroy the land upon which they’re grown. The market of corn, especially in the US, is controlled by a very small set of corporations. These corporations decimate the livelihoods of the farmers that buy their seeds. Their primary motivation is greed—money and profit—pure and simple. They are not out to feed the world; they are out to feed their wallets and bank accounts. Only a very small portion of the corn grown today goes towards feeding people directly. The way we grow it, and most other crops, is destroying the biodiversity and fertility of our lands, advancing climate change, contributing to global socio-economic disparity, and harming the health of nearly anyone involved. The real solution—to reducing world hunger, slowing climate change, building up economies, and healing peoples—is medium- to small-scale local, organic farms and cooperatives.


Works Cited

Bernard, Barbara, and Alexandra Lux. "How to Feed the World Sustainably: An Overview of the Discourse on Agroecology and Sustainable Intensification." Regional Environmental Change, vol. 17, no. 5, June 2017, pp. 1279-90. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=8gh&AN=123224944. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
"Biodiversity and Agriculture." Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard College, chge.hsph.harvard.edu/biodiversity-and-agriculture. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017.
"Columbian Exchange." Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, World Book, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=funk&AN=CO180950. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Drinan, Robert F. "Report Shows World Hunger Increasing." National Catholic Reporter, vol. 40, no. 22, 2 Apr. 2004, p. 17. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=12730046. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
"Evolution of Corn." Learn.Genetics, U of Utah, learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
FAO, et al. "SOFI 2017 - The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World." Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, 2017, www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Folsom, Burton W. "The Origin of American Farm Subsidies." Foundation for Economic Education, 1 Apr. 2006, fee.org/articles/the-origin-of-american-farm-subsidies/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Kingsnorth, Paul. "India Cheers While Monsanto Burns." Ecologist, vol. 29, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 1999, pp. 9-10. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=gft&AN=508763643. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
MacDonald, James M. "Mergers and Competition in Seed and Agricultural Chemical Markets." U.S. Department of Agriculture, usda.gov, 3 Apr. 2017, www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/april/mergers-and-competition-in-seed-and-agricultural-chemical-markets/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
"Monsanto: A Modern Agriculture Company." Monsanto, 2017, monsanto.com/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Mulle, Emmanuel Dalle, and Violette Ruppanner. "Exploring the Global Food Supply Chain." Felixpena, May 2010, www.felixpena.com.ar/contenido/negociaciones/anexos/2010-06-exploringtheglobalfoodsupplychain.pdf. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Murphy, Hugh. "Corn." American Indian Health and Diet Project, www.aihd.ku.edu/foods/corn.html. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Press, 2006.
Robbins, Paul, et al. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed., Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
Shiva, Mira. "Rooted Resistance: Indian Farmers Stand Against Monsanto." GeneWatch, vol. 24, no. 5, Aug.-Sept. 2011, pp. 37-38. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=78200754. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017. FAO, 2017. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, www.fao.org/3/a-I7695e.pdf. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
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MacDonald, James M. "Mergers and Competition in Seed and Agricultural Chemical Markets." U.S. Department of Agriculture, usda.gov, 3 Apr. 2017, www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/april/mergers-and-competition-in-seed-and-agricultural-chemical-markets/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
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Nordlee, Julie A., et al. "Identification of a Brazil-Nut Allergen in Transgenic Soybeans." The New England Journal of Medicine, Massachusetts Medical Society, 14 Mar. 1996, www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199603143341103. Accessed 11 Dec. 2013.
Phillips, Susan C. "Genetically Engineered Foods." CQ Researcher, vol. 4, no. 29, 5 Aug. 1994, pp. 673-96, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1994080500. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.
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"Silencing the Scientist: Tyrone Hayes on Being Targeted by Herbicide Firm Syngenta." YouTube.com, uploaded by Democracy Now!, DemocracyNow.org, 21 Feb. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP-6Gp5RbjQ. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017.
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12/11/2017

Coral

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Coral Bleaching: A Death that is not as Black and White as it seems
​by: Arianna Bowley

Picture
Picture
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)
​
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.
 
 


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12/11/2017

Wildlife

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Recently, the National Geographic released a disturbing video of a malnutritioned polar bear in the Canadian territory of the Baffin Islands. The polar bears are in the front lines in the battle against climate change because they rely on the ice and feast on seals that live in the ice. Due to the climate change, the ice in the polar regions have melted exponentially, thus the habitat the polar bears rely on is disappearing. In Sarah Gibbens’ article, Heart-Wrenching Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land, Gibbens quotes the filmmaker, Paul Nicklen, ‘“We stood there crying—filming with tears rolling down our cheeks.”’ Nicklen also mentioned that he considered intervening by giving the polar bear some sustenance, but he would only be deferring the torment and the inevitable. As long as the ice continues to melt or ice calving continues to occur then the lives of these animals will be in danger. Their extinction is not a swift one that we can ignore because they are leaving slowly and painfully.  
    The animal documented is one of many that are suffering the extent of human greed and displacement. In different regions around the world there are wildlife habitats that are in danger because of the demand in the various type of oils, agriculture, emittance of CO2, and the materialistic and mythical notion that items such as ivory and gills bring for people. Every species in the world has an important role in their environmental niche and removing a particular species is detrimental to the rest of the niche. For instance, predators, low in numbers, sustain the population of prey from growing. The more grazers there are in the world the more degradation of land there will be, therefore, other species will die off. To illustrate, in a TED talk given by George Monbiot, Monbiot states that there was a phenom in Yellowstone National Park when wolves were reintroduced into the wild in 1995. Due to the absence of predators in the park, the grazers managed to reduce the vegetation to almost nothing. Even Though the wolves were at a disadvantage by population, they started to not only eat the grazers, but also transformed the region and gave life to other species. The grazers understood that they were being hunted, so they began to avoid different areas in the park, thus the vacant areas started growing with vegetation. The regrowth of vegetation attracted birds and beavers- nestled in the trees and opened a new ecosystem for many other species. Rabbit population started to rise as well because the coyote population was being sustained as well by the wolves. Predatory birds, bears, foxes, and weasels began their return because of the spring in rabbits. Monbiot also states that the wolves also transformed the flow of the rivers because of the stabilization of collapsible banks. Unfortunately, underdeveloped countries are facing quite the opposite (Monbiot 3:30-6:45).
    As we travel from the United States to the Sumatran Rainforest in Indonesia, the effects of deforestation becomes more profound in which the rainforest is home to a lot of endangered species. In the article, ‘The Last Place on Earth’: How Sumatra’s Rainforest is Being Cleared for Palm Oil,” Naomi Larsson explains that the world’s demand for palm oil has reached an all time high, thus has companies such as PT Agra Bumi Niaga (ABN) illegally growing plantations in deforested areas. The company has been accused of illegally growing and distributing palm oil, but no legal action has been taken. The ABN holds approximately 2000 hectares and some of the land falls in the Leuser ecosystem; a fragile ecosystem. (Larsson). Palm oil is especially used in United States’ products because it is easier to contain and holds up the value of the product. Food is one of the top contributors for the oil because companies replaced some trans-fat due to a more economical outlook. Furthermore, The Union of Concerned Scientists explain that these biomes will only attract more plantations because of the rich soil due to the area being burned down. Moreover, the Sumatran Forest is home to a great ape, the Orangutan. The Orangutans rely on the trees because it keeps them away from predators on the ground. Predators such as the Sumatran Tigers face the fires, starvation, and the workers operating the machinery. Larsson describes the area as The Last Place on Earth because it is also home to rhinos and elephants; the coexisting of these species is what makes the forest.
    In Africa, there are conflicts between tribes and the government due to the greed that involves western countries. The Netflix documentary, Virunga, captures the desolation of the war in the Congo. Overall, there is a lot of resources in Africa such as oil, ivory, and minerals. The documentary depicts Rangers living their lives with the last of the rhinos and offer the rhinos protection. The Virunga National Park is home to the mountain gorillas and poaching has always been a problem especially with the rangers lives on the line. Western companies, S.O.C.O., have infiltrated the park and began extracting oil and gas for their greed. A rebel army has been dispatched to support the westerners in the war. The rebels are the ones being paid to move in and eradicate those who oppose. Another animal that is being threatened is the elephant. The elephant has been hunted because of their ivory tusks. In the documentary, The Ivory Game, director Kief Davidson captures the actual battle to save the elephants and the importance of ivory in China. The film follows rangers attempting to protect some of the oldest elephants in the region, but unfortunately, do not make it at the end. Furthermore, Davidson follows a young man from China that wants to shed some light in the ivory game to his country. Some of the ivory sells for more than $200,000 and the scarce ivory is the more the black market condones poaching because it will raise their prices due to the rarity. Elephants like wolves open doors to many other species in Africa. Elephants eat seeds and unintentionally plant them while they migrate. Without the help of elephants some plant species would be extinct due to the digestive nature in elephants (Imagining A World Without Elephants). Ben Guarino also states that elephants uproot trees and become a habitat for different fauna. For some, elephants can be a nuisance because they trek in places where humans reside, thus, the people want to kill the elephants. Others, like Allan Savory, have killed thousands of elephants because he understood that they were overgrazing the land into desert much faster. The movement to remove elephants did not help the land. Savory gave a TED talk on how to remove desertification and challenge climate change in which he states that killing the thousands of elephants proved to be a mistake.
The continents are not the only regions that are being affected by human activity. Mark Zaloudek’s article, Turning the Tide?, Zalouck explains that the loss of the reefs becomes detrimental to the land mass. The barrier reefs act as a buffer zone for the continent. Hurricanes and storm surges are lessened in strength because the barrier reefs take most of the beating. Unknowingly, human activity is collapsing the beauty and resilience of the barrier. One of the main contributors is the tourist attractions. Irresponsible use of anchoring plays a big role in tearing apart the reef. High rise in CO2 is another contributor to the extinction of the reefs. The reefs are deteriorating and losing the pigmentation because of irresponsible dumping from factories and the CO2 levels in the ocean. Zaloudek also discusses that the reefs offer different marine life. Fishermen would have a hard time catching fish because fish rely on the reef ecosystems as a source of food and defense from predators. Zaloudek estimates that within thirty-forty years 30% of the corals have died with minimal recovery. (Turning the Tide?).
    As time goes by, people generally do not think about where the product they invest in come from or what the effects of it are. With the current president and his administration, it seems as if they want to continue the burn baby, burn model. They recently reorganized the Bears Ears monument in order to make room for the extraction of oil. This issue is parallel to what is happening in other underdeveloped countries. Who is to blame for the plight of the wildlife and their ecosystems? As intelligent beings, humans are not taking care of the world and it seems as if the world is past the point of no return. If there is a return, then it will be detrimental to the world economy and the lives of many people. Wildlife have an agenda and that is to survive and proliferate, but without a habitat that seems unlikely. One of the documentees in The Ivory Game stated that pretty soon all there will be left in the world is humans; without any fauna. Imagine that.

​Sources

Davidson, Kief. “The Ivory Game.” Netflix Official Site, 4 Nov. 2016, www.netflix.com/search?q=ivory&jbv=80117533&jbp=0&jbr=0. 11 Dec 2017.
Einsiedel, Orlando von. "Virunga." Netflix Official Site. Netflix, 07 Nov. 2014. Web. 11 Dec 2017.
Gibbens, Sarah. “Heart-Wrenching Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land.”National Geographic, National Geographic Society, 9 Dec. 2017, news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/polar-bear-starving-arctic-sea-ice-melt-climate-change-spd/. Web. 11 Dec 2017.
Guarino, Ben. “Imagining A World Without Elephants.” The Dodo, The Dodo, 21 Nov. 2014, www.thedodo.com/world-without-elephants-832031961.html. Web. 11 Dec 2017.

Larsson, Naomi. “'The Last Place on Earth': How Sumatra's Rainforest Is Being Cleared for Palm Oil.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/sep/28/last-place-on-earth-deforestation-palm-oil-threat-leuser-rainforest. Web. 11 Dec 2017.

Monbiot, George. “For More Wonder, Rewild the World.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, July 2013, www.ted.com/talks/george_monbiot_for_more_wonder_rewild_the_world#t-413782. Web. 11 Dec 2017.

Savory, Allan. “How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change. Web. 11 Dec 2017.

"Turning the Tide?" Environmental Issues: Essential Primary Sources, edited by Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner, Gale, 2006, pp. 181-184. Gale Virtual ReferenceLibrary,mms02.cerritos.edu:2048/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=cerritos&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3456400077&asid=7cf35c4ef0a979ab60d62928a9ad8bd1. Accessed 11 Dec 2017.
"What's Driving Deforestation: Palm Oil." Union of Concerned Scientists. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec 2017.

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12/11/2017

Avocado

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                                                                           The Dark Side of the Aguacate
​                                                                                       By Mariah Lomeli

           Markets are constantly influenced by what society thinks of consumer products. As corporations and other business interests play a role in deciding what commercials, ads and programs to run, society soaks them in and manifests them into what could be destructive behaviors. These commercials, ads and programs eventually run their course around the world through globalized efforts, ultimately affecting people in every country. As more people around the world gain access to Internet connections, they are constantly exposed to these consumer pressures. Social media is key in influencing today’s generation and products that make a major debut on such platforms become widely accepted and desired. One such product includes the beloved avocado. Health conscious social media accounts promote healthy diets with this super-food that’s packed with healthy fats and vitamins.This however is not the only type of influence. NAFTA created a large market for the U.S that has steadily increased since. As wonderful as it is to get ahold of such a tasty, nutritious fruit at any supermarket, we cannot disregard the fact that this increase in this market creates many negative consequences. This should not be the norm. People should not have to suffer at the hands of capitalistic gain. However, this is almost always the case and in regards to the avocado the destruction is no different. The food that becomes part of a person’s diet does more then give them nutrients. It tells a story of cultural values, globalized trade, social injustice, environmental degradation and our political economy.
       When did the avocado become a precarious object of concern? The increased consumption and demand of avocados began in 1994 as NAFTA lifted the ban on avocado imports from Mexico. This meant that most tariffs were eliminated or reduced considerably, allowing it to infiltrate the North American market completely. In less than a decade, consumption doubled in America (Huacuja, F. E. 2008). However, issues surrounding this demand have mounted to a national concern. The avocado is native to Central Mexico and has ties to much of the ancient history of the land. It can be traced back some 12,000 years ago has spread all over the Americas since. The main geographic location for avocado production is in Michoacan, a central state in Mexico, and grows 50% of all the avocados being exported from Mexico. With approximately 106,000 hectares, Michoacan yields 4- 8 metric tons of this silky fruit per hectare (Haofeng Chen, et al. 2009). During 2001 to 2011 avocado production steadily increased as Mexico supplied 45% of the international avocado market. The United States had always been dependent on the avocados produced by California, however the California drought had strained production enormously.Usually this meant that Mexico would continue supplying the avocado demands of it’s northern neighbor, however a battle against unethical treatment of farm workers was steadily picking up steam in Mexico. This resulted in massive strikes from Mexican farm workers as they occupied offices of the Association of Producers and Exporters of Avocados from Mexico. As negotiations failed to be reached, a total shutdown of the Mexican avocado supply to the US Market was inevitable. This caused an increase of avocado prices all around the world, with some establishments increasing prices 100% (Jeansonne, Brent. 2011). Increased avocado prices have not curbed our appetite for the fruit, and interestingly enough, effective marketing has created an Internet frenzy around the avocado. Today we can’t scroll through our social media feed without seeing an avocado. Consumer demand in the U.S has increased overtime as a result of increased consumer income, population growth and industry advertising and promotion. This created a need to match this demand from Mexico, especially in places like Michoacan.
     The avocado can be seen as an object of concern for many reasons. Such reasons include, its high water demands in water strained areas, the politics surrounding it’s production, its influence in communities and the impact it has on the environment. Although these impacts may not reach everyone directly, it is ignorant not to realize the dangerous situations that the avocado has brought upon the people in Mexico. It has become so popular that America is now importing 80% of the avocados produced by Mexico, thus creating a lucrative market for capitalistic interests (Lamb, R. 2006). Most of these avocados come from the state of Michoacan, a place many associate with cartels such as La Familia Michoacana and more recently the Caballeros Templarios, or Knights Templar. Cartels feed on successful and lucrative businesses in many part of Mexico, most often those associated with agricultural production, by charging a tax. They tax almost every business in Michoacan, for example butchers would be taxed $70-$100 USD a day. Cartels have realized that extortion was more profitable than selling drugs and charge avocado growers $60 and packaging facilities about $2,200 a month. Resistance is always met with threats, kidnappings and murder. The Mexican government has done little if nothing at all to intervene on behalf of the communities in Mexico and as a result, the same communities are forming armed vigilante groups to protect their livelihood and families. One Cheran local explains it in a story covered by FusionTV, “We’ve armed ourselves to defend our rights. Officials no longer carry out justice here.” An avocado production manager from Michoacan stated, "Many of them give money, others don't. If you don't give it, well, you are putting yourself in danger". In another instance, a preacher and avocado grower from the city of Tancitaro, had his daughter kidnapped, raped and brutally killed. This all happened right before her father prepared to transfer title of his grove to the cartel after failing to raise a $600,000 ransom. Although vigilante groups have successfully fought off the Templars in Tancitaro, they remain with a heavy presence in Urapan, Michoacan, the states largest avocado growing region after Tancitaro and where most avocado packing facilities are certified for U.S exports (Paley, D. 2014). Many growers, packers, families and individuals fear retaliation by the Caballeros Templarios, including those linked to the Association of Avocado Producers and Export Packers of Mexico. The last president of the APEAM, Alejandro Alvarez, was shot in his car by unknown men in 2012 and ended up leaving Mexico with his family (Rucker, P. 2010). Working to produce agricultural commodities increases the chance of cartels interfering in the lives of many farmers living in rural parts of Mexico. Avocados are known as “green gold” in Mexico, because of the fortune to be made from such crops. Generations of Mexicans have provided for their families and brought food into our kitchens by directly and quite literally spilling blood, sweat and tears. As we sit down for breakfast and spread avocado on our toast, we can’t hide from the fact that their are real people feeling the heavy impacts of the avocado production near their communities.
     Acts of physical violence aren’t the only detrimental consequences felt by the communities associated with avocado production and handling. As more and more people seek to profit off of global demand, avocado production continues to expand.Thus, all of the effects imposed by avocado groves become multiplied at an increasing rate. This includes, increased pesticide use, increased water usage, increased greenhouse gas emissions and increased exposure to violence. Pesticide use has always been controversial in regards to the negative ways they affect humans and other living organisms. Since the release of “Silent Spring” the harmful side effects of pesticide use have been brought to light. Illnesses and deformities are all too common in those that have suffered exposure. Chemicals used in orchards to treat fungus, pest and other plant diseases are no different. An article written for PBS by a lecturer at Harvard, Vikram Mansharamani, explained the health concerns for those related to avocado production. The people in Jujucato, the heart of avocado land, have come down with more and more breathing and stomach problems from the wind that blows the chemicals into many family homes (Vikram Mansharamani, 2016). Pest problems in public health, agriculture, and commerce are unsteady because pests develop resistance to widely used pesticides and are introduced to new locations without effective natural controls (Alavanja, M. C. R., Ross, M. K. and Bonner, M. R. 2013). Field workers in Mexico are subject to more lenient laws against pesticides and other chemicals. Such form of leniency includes little or no protective gear against the harsh chemicals. These are the people that are the most vulnerable to illnesses. On top of illegal deforestation through the use of fires to clear areas for more avocado groves, chemical residue is left behind in the wake of the fires. SinEmbargo, a liberal media outlet in Mexico that is backed by NGO’s and environmentalist, has challenged this notion of illegal deforestation. Social media and news outlets are often times the only way to voice the concerns and opinions of the people in rural town within Mexico. An environmentalist wrote on the Michoacan Food Sovereignty Defense Front facebook page saying, “Flames devoured the hills in plain view of all the citizens of Uruapan, just like the fields of avocados have decimated entire forests, leaving in their wake highly toxic green wastelands and aquifers contaminated by pesticides, as well as sickness and death for the laborers and their families.” The Secretary of Commission for the Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change of The State of Michoacan, Ricardo Luna Garcia, claimed that the forest fire in the town of Uruapan was started by the “ambitions of avocado businesses”.
     The controversy surrounding avocado groves mirrors similar environmental concerns as those around the palm oil plantations in Indonesia. Avocado trees thrive in the same environment as fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan. This has led farmers and corrupt cartel members to take drastic measures in order to avoid authorities. Activities such as thinning out of forests, planting young avocado trees under the forest canopy, and then cutting back the forest as the trees grow to let in more sunlight on the forest floors have increased since the avocado boom. Occurrences of avocado trees growing in various areas outside of the designated land is all too common. Farmers have even taken to cutting down protected areas to establish avocado groves. This protected area contains much of the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly. These groves are created with little input from local communities and have only increased conflict between communities and government actors. Locals feel that the cartel and greedy capitalistic entities are trying to drive the people out in order take up the fertile land ( Barsimantov, J. 2009).
When a seemingly innocent product is the culprit to environmental issues and community destruction, it is almost inevitable not to feel compelled to act in a way that would reverse the negative consequences. It is easy to say “well I just won’t buy avocados from Mexico” but this isn’t the correct response at all. The livelihoods of many innocent people are dependent on agriculture production to live another day. There are laws and regulations that force big agriculture corporations to treat produce at an ethical standard in regards to pesticide and chemical use, yet the ethical treatment of migrant workers trails far behind and is only exacerbated through the greed caused by explosive avocado market.




























References

Alavanja, M. C. R., Ross, M. K. and Bonner, M. R. (2013), Increased cancer burden
among pesticide applicators and others due to pesticide exposure. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 63: 120–142. doi:10.3322/caac.21170

Atucha, A., Merwin, I. A., Brown, M. G., Gardiazabal, F., Mena, F., Adriazola, C., &
Lehmann, J. (2013). Soil erosion, runoff and nutrient losses in an avocado
(persea americana mill) hillside orchard under different groundcover management systems. Plant and Soil, 368(1-2), 393-406. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1520-0

Barsimantov, J. (2009). What makes community forestry work? A comparative case
study in michoacan and oaxaca, mexico (Order No. 3367705). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: The Humanities and Social Sciences Collection. (304853132). Retrieved http://ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/304853132?accountid=11532

Chan, N. (2016, Aug 24). Why we should assess avocado ardency. University
Wire Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1813809453?accountid=11532

Haofeng Chen, Peter L. Morrell, Vanessa E. T. M. Ashworth, Marlene de la Cruz,
Michael T. Clegg; Tracing the Geographic Origins of Major Avocado Cultivars, Journal of Heredity, Volume 100, Issue 1, 1 January 2009, Pages 56–65, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esn068

Huacuja, F. E. (2008). Abriendo fronteras: El auge exportador del aguacate mexicano a    
estados Unidos1/Opening markets: The mexican avocado export boom to USA. Anales De Geografía De La Universidad Complutense, 28(1), 9-28. Retrieved fromhttp://ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/204249300?accountid=11532

Jeansonne, Brent (June 1, 2011). "Commercial Horticulture: What do we know about
Mexico's avocado production (PDF). University of Florida. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-12.

Lamb, R. (2006). RENT SEEKING IN U.S.-MEXICAN AVOCADO TRADE. Cato Journal,
26(1), 159-177.

Paley, D., & Ebooks Corporation. (2014). Drug war capitalism. Oakland, CA.: AK Press.

Rucker, P. (2010, Feb 07). Mexican drug cartels find 'green gold' in super bowl    
avocados. Edmonton Journal Retrieved from http://ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/251448806?accountid=11532

Velazquez, A., Duran, E., Ramirez, I., Mas, J., Bocco, G., Ramirez, G., & Palacio, J.
(2003). Land use-cover change processes in highly biodiverse areas: The case    of oaxaca, mexico. Global Environmental Change, Part A: Human and Policy Dimensions, 13(3), 175-184. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(03)00035-9



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12/11/2017

Hockey Sticks

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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.   




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12/11/2017

Tampons

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Tampons

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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.

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12/11/2017

Cigarette Butts

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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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12/11/2017

Beauty Products

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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.

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12/11/2017

Cosmetics

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Picture
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/.

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12/11/2017

Pencils

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Picture
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.

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12/11/2017

E-Readers

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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.

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12/11/2017

Ivory

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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).
 
 
 
 

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12/11/2017

Cows

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Introduction
In the United States there is one domesticated animal that everyone is very familiar with, from seeing them in person, advertisements, local farms, and feedlots. Many people would be able to recognize the cow. Here, throughout Arcata you can find many cows and watch them feed on the grass. But many of the cows that are consumed, usually don’t have that kind of life instead many spend their time in feedlots. Once there are ready, they are slaughtered for their meat to be sold and eaten. There hides are also used to make a leather for jackets and wallets. Nowadays there has been a huge increase in the amount of beef people in the United States consume, since more people can afford it. This has lead to an increase of cows throughout the United States, as well as an increase in resources such as land and grain to provide for these cows that we consume. Through this paper I will examine the history of cattle and how it became such a huge commodity as well as its effects in risks and hazards and the political economy.
Short History
Cows go way back in history, they were one of the first animals to be domesticated and provided people with meat and milk, as well as materials to create things such as leather. Because these animals provided many things there were often seen as valuable and therefore have become a huge part of our history.  Cows were brought over to the New World by Spanish explorers and allowed for a few breeds to be spread across America. One breed of cow that was very recognizable were the Longhorns from Great Plains. The Longhorns were the first main cattle that were produced at a large scale. This allowed for cattle ranching to expand throughout the Great Plains. It also started the cowboy culture that we are so familiar with. This also expanded how cows became a commodity by being slaughtered for the hides and meat. Since so much of the cattle was on the Western United States, there had to be a solution to transport the meat to the Eastern states that had huge demands for it. The solution for this was to transport the meat through railroads. According to Lowell, “This allowed cattle which were slaughtered in the West or Midwest to be sold on the Eastern meat markets. High demand for "Western dressed beef" on the Eastern markets was established rather quickly. The number of cattle on the Western rangelands more than doubled between 1880 and 1900.” From this point on more cows were breed in order to meet this growing demand for beef. Americans eat more beef than any other protein. The increase in beef consumption is due to many factors such as increased purchasing power, quality of beef standardized by Federal Grading Service, genetic improvement, and improved feeding and management (Lowell 1). The United States Department of Agriculture also counts cattle throughout the United States throughout the years since 1867 there has been huge increases of cattle in the U.S. and in 2016 there was the highest number of cattle and calves which was 92 million (USDA 1).
Political Economy
Agriculture is a huge asset to the political economy in which it will always produce food that people need. Cattle ranching is a huge business and provides many people with beef as well as other products made from leather. “Livestock production — which includes meat, milk and eggs — contributes 40% of global agricultural gross domestic product, provides income for more than 1.3 billion people and uses one-third of the world’s fresh water.” (Walsh 1) This activity has provided many people throughout the world with food and income. As the population grows so does the consumption and demand of beef. According to Walsh, “The average person in the industrialized world eats more than 176 lb. of meat annually, compared with around 66 lb. consumed by the average resident of the developing world.” Rapid industrialization is allowing for developing nations to be able to afford many things, such as having the resources to have cattle as well as to import, export, and consume beef. Livestock farming in the United States has been around for quite sometime and has allowed for many of the practices to be improved. Other developing countries face more challenges when it comes to this type of farming. The amount of grain needed to feed cows is huge as well as setting aside land to keep huge numbers of cows. Since many developing countries don’t always have the resources to provide grain for these cows, they often really on grasses which is less efficient in feeding cows and therefore cows need more grass to produce more beef. ““The poor feed quality in impoverished regions like sub-Saharan Africa means that a cow there may consume as much as 10 times more feed — mostly grasses — to produce a kilogram of protein than a cow raised in richer regions. That lack of efficiency also means that cattle in countries like Ethiopia and Somalia account for as much as 1,000 kg of carbon for every kg of protein they produce — in the form of methane from manure as well as from the reduced carbon absorption that results when forests are converted to pastureland.” (Walsh 2) In developing countries cows can be more than just an animal that is fattened up quickly and then slaughtered. By having such a hug animal it can be seen as a sign of wealth and often serve many purposes instead of just quickly being slaughtered and consumed.
Risks and Hazards

When you think about cows, the first thing to come to mind is not how they pose a threat to the environment and how they increase the ongoing effects of global warming, but instead on how cute or delicious they are. According the Rachel Nuwar, “Researchers estimate that livestock-based food production causes about one-fifth of all global greenhouse gas emissions. It also sucks up water and land for growing crops to feed livestock and for raising those animals.” Although cows themselves might not be the ones for adding to the ongoing effects of climate change, the resources they need do contribute to it. Cows are huge animals that need huge amounts of water and grain in order to produce enough beef per cow to be profitable. According to Nuwar a study was done to calculate the amount of resources cows need to produce beef, “The team calculated that beef requires 28 times more land, six times more fertilizer and 11 times more water compared to those other food sources. That adds up to about five times more greenhouse gas emissions.” The ongoing demand for beef has increased the amount of cows as well as the amount of land that needs to be cleared for grazing and feedlots. Cows also produce huge amounts of waste that produce nitrous oxide, as well as their flatulence that produces methane gas. Both methane gas and nitrous oxide have a higher warming effect than carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming. Compared to other factors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions livestock farming contributes 18% of those gases. (Walsh 3) Throughout the world, many countries are cutting down their forests to make space for pasture and grazing land for cows. Besides the United States, in many other countries there is also a huge demand for beef. According Walsh, “The FAO estimates that about 20% of the planet's pastureland has been degraded by grazing animals, and increased demand for meat means increased demand for animal feed — much of the world's grain production is fed to animals rather than to humans.” This creates a huge problem in many developing countries by growing huge amounts of grain to feed cows instead of other people. Because many developing countries are able to afford more, the desire for beef has increased. By the ongoing deforestation throughout the world’s forest for cows it allows for carbon dioxide, one of the longest prominent greenhouse gases to remain in the atmosphere and contribute to warming. This creates the problem of constantly needing more resources to supply cows in order to be profitable throughout the world.
Another problem that comes from producing ad having so many cows is that it can potentially affect many people’s lives. According to Walsh, “The expanded production of meat has been facilitated by industrial feedlots, which bleed antibiotics and other noxious chemicals. And of course, the human health impact of too much meat can be seen in everything from bloated waistlines in America to rising rates of cardiovascular disease in developing nations, where heart attacks were once as rare as a T-bone steak.” Many Americans often prefer to eat beef and it has been incorporated in various meals throughout the day. Many people eat huge amounts of meat in every meal that can lead to various cardiovascular diseases. This can be seen throughout fast food chains that offer various kinds of beef burgers. I have also met various people that can’t imagine eating without having meat in every meal. Many cows in huge farms are often subjected to being treated with antibiotics in order fatten them up enough to be profitable. “According to a recent study by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), some 80% of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in farm animals, not in human beings, and 90% of that amount is dispensed through feed or water.” (Walsh 4) These antibiotics can lead to a rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and can infect humans who eat beef.  By using huge amounts of antibiotics, in the beef that we consume, it can lead to our bodies resisting antibiotics. This leads to various people becoming resistant and possibly being in danger from a disease that could have been treated with these drugs.
Conclusion
Overall the cow is able to tell us a lot from our political economy, how we view animals and land, and how we deal with risks and hazards. The cow has been one of the longest domesticated animals in our history and has provided us with meat, milk, and leather. Cattle ranching produce huge amounts of jobs for many people as well as being very profitable due to the huge demand. The huge demand in beef has lead to an increase in the amount of cows throughout the world, as well as an increase in the resources needed to make beef profitable. This practice has also lead to various risks and hazards on people’s health such as increase in resisting antibiotics as well as increased cardiovascular diseases. Livestock is also one of the highest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the ongoing warming of the planet. Cows are valued for the meat and are very profitable which often puts it as a priority and putting people’s health and the environment second.
Works Cited
Lowell, Wilson, K.G. Macdonald, H. H. Mayo, K. J. Drewry. “Development of the Beef Cattle Industry.” Purdue University. March 1, 1965.
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=anrhist

Nuwar, Rachel. “Raising Beef Uses Ten Times More Resources Than Poultry, Dairy, Eggs or Pork.” Smithsonian.com. July 21, 2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/
Robbins, Paul, J. Hintz, and S. A. Moore. “Environment and Society.” Wiley Blackwell. 2014.
United States Department of Agriculture. “Overview of the United States Cattle
Industry.” June 24, 2016.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/USCatSup/USCatSup-06-24-2016.pdf

Walsh, Bryan. “Meat: Making Global Warming Worse.” Time. September 10, 2008. http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1839995,00.html
Walsh, Bryan. “The Triple Whopper Environmental Impact of Global Meat Production.” Time. December 16, 2013. http://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/
Walsh, Bryan. “Farm Drugs: The FDA Moves to Restrict (Somewhat) the Use of Antibiotics in Livestock.” Time. January 5, 2010.http://science.time.com/2012/01/05/farm-drugs-the-fda-moves-to-restrict-somewhat-the-use-of-antibiotics-in-livestock/
Walsh, Bryan. “Environmental Groups Sue the FDA Over Antibiotics and Meat Production.” Time. May 25, 2011.
http://science.time.com/2011/05/25/environmental-groups-sue-the-fda-over-antibiotics-and-meat-production/


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12/11/2017

Computers

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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.

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12/11/2017

Plastic

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By Alejandra Ureno.
​For my chosen object of concern, I focused on an object that is abundantly present in our lives and all throughout the world. Although we live in a complex world and society that uses numerous environmental and physical harmful elements and processes to produce our commodities that support our style of living, one of the less looked at entities is the use of plastics and what they eventually become – microplastics. These plastics are a part of almost every item that involves plastic as a part of its construction, included in baby toys and bottles, pet toys and dishes, our own dishes, cosmetics we put on our face, and so forth. They are made of a complex mixture of chemicals that have chemical additives and residual monomers (Environmental Research and Public Health, 2017). The comprehension of the risks posed to our environment and potentially human health is critical to understanding why microplastics pose such harmful implications to the well-being of our ecosystems and what we think to be the future of our Earth. We will delve into the risks and hazards produced by the presence of these plastics in our environment, followed by the health implications they could risk to our health.
            During World War II, a huge boom in the expansion of the plastics industry in the U.S occurred due to the desire to conserve natural resources for the war. This lead to the production of synthetic alternatives, such as plastic, as the new primary resource. Plastics replaced traditional materials used in various items like steel, glass, paper, and wood and were thought of as a great opportunity to gain wealth through its inexpensiveness, what was considered to be safe at the time, and the fact that people could use it to shape nearly anything they pleased (Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2011). After the war was over, Americans had more money to spend and nearly everything they bought was made of or contained plastic. It wasn’t until the 1960’s when Americans had started to become more aware of environmental issues that the finding of plastic debris in oceans and additional ecological implications were occurring due to human negligence were beginning to stir cognizance among the American people (Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2017).
One of the biggest issues surrounding the use and waste of plastic is the fact that it remains in the environment forever, never breaking down. The industries that produced plastics came up with recycling programs, making consumers think that it could be properly and responsively taken care of after its use, but in reality plastics still ended up in landfills and the environment, not necessarily being a very effective solution. Though so much of our waste comes from bags, bottles, and other disposable items, the majority of the rubble found in our oceans is the broken-down remains of what used to be a larger form of plastic – microplastic. How does this tiny debris make its way inside of our oceans? It breaks down from the bigger plastics (e.g. water bottles, plastic bags, cigarette lighters, and additional trash) that have already made their way into the water. They can also find their way into oceans through drains; it is not uncommon for micro particles to be in face washes, scrubs, or industrial cleaning products that get washed down into waterways (GreenFacts, 2017). Over time, they continue to break down into smaller particles. This process has enormous potential for implications in marine life. We’ve all seen images of seals or sea turtles with entangled fins and flippers because they’ve gotten caught in plastic soda rings, posing risks of drowning and death to these animals. These microscopic elements are also ingested by other animals like whales who filter feed, birds that feed off of smaller creatures in the water and even microscopic organisms like zooplankton. While we might think that the larger plastics are the ones playing a bigger danger to marine life, even the tiny particles that result as the break down of those bigger effect the structure of various sea life. We’re becoming increasingly familiar with the dangers of ingesting fish with high levels of mercury in them; who is to say that traces of microplastics in fish will not cause further health risks to humans?
Furthermore, microplastics can seep into inland waters, soils, our indoor and outdoor air, and the water we drink, not just our oceans. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls, PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), flame retardants, hormone disrupters, and pesticides are only some of the known ingredients used to comprise plastics (Owlcation, 2017). As plastics break down, these chemicals are leached into the surrounding environment. Although we know that these elements have the ability to disrupt the balance of certain ecosystems and organisms, scientists are not currently too familiar with the absolute impacts it plays in regard to the health of humans. We can be certain that traces of these substances are indeed harmful in certain concentrations, but some argue that until we are aware of the undeniable effects they play in the lifespan of a human, we cannot make inferences. I see the reasoning behind this logic to be quite problematic because we can make connections between destructive effects of these compounds in aquatic and terrestrial life, so why exclude ourselves from that same toxic equation?
While the effects to humans are still being investigated, it is no secret that the presence of plastics affect the surface of the planet. Plastics that are left behind on the surface of our planet also have effects. Plastics that sit in heat give off UV radiation, which warms the surrounding area (Weisman, 2007). At first look this may seem like it has very little effect, however; when one takes into account all the plastics that are used and left behind, the effect becomes greater. This heat stays trapped in our atmosphere, increasing temperatures. Already the biggest issue that many scientists and society are facing is climate change. Increase in temperatures has many effects varying from decline in crop production, to our wildlife. “The most direct emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels for energy…plastics are made from fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, which release toxic emissions when extracted from the earth” (Glazner, 2017).
Now that we are more familiar with the risks and hazards associated with the ever increasing presence of plastics in our environment and bodies, we can shift towards the discussion regarding the environmental ethics surrounding the production, consumption, and waste handling of plastic. One of the biggest issues that human kind faces is its tendency to continuously consume and destroy, rather than return and sustain. A part of environmental ethics is having a relationship and playing a role with the environment; when we constantly take from our natural resources to produce things that don’t even have the ability to decay, we are contributing to the lack of care for the earth. We are not being responsible global citizens when we are aware of the implications a particular element brings to our environment, wildlife, and even us and still continue to support its production instead of look towards new and innovative ways of replacing the object or finding more sustainable ways to use it. The public needs to be educated about the ways that these substances are affecting the balances of our ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them.
Being that we are largely an anthropocentric society, it might be difficult to incorporate environmental ethics into our traditional ways of thinking. Additionally, since we are living in a consumer driven world, we are largely susceptible to falling into businesses agendas, constantly striving to sell products, using cheap materials (like plastic) to appeal to the consumer’s pocketbook. We need to keep in mind that dominant corporations will always continue to produce what is most economical for them, regardless of the consequences it has for the environment or those who labor hard hours to produce our commodities; their goal is to remain wealthy and in control. While we do need supplies and various other materials, we must keep in mind that the people have the influence to demand structural changes both in policy and corporate approaches and also have the choice to make informed purchases and conscious decisions in regards to what we buy, how we use it, and how we dispose of it.
Furthermore, we need to take into consideration the legacy we’re leaving behind as modern humans. What kind of conditions are we leaving our planet in to be inherited by our children and generations of theirs? If left untreated or cared for, we will continue to see the degradation of our diverse marine species, land species, potentially even our own well-being. Additionally, we are creating an atmosphere that embodies allowing the further pollution of our world through continued use and irresponsible discarding of what plastics we already have. While society focuses on what we can make and how it can “improve” our lives, we need to shift the focus on how we can improve our already existing foundations of development and transition into a more viable way of consuming and existing.
While we do have problems, we also have solutions. We are caught in a web of being part of a complex society that strives off of producing commodities for the public, maintaining power structures based on profit and wealth, and maintaining traditional uses of the things we have and have been using for so long. Moreover, we are part of a world that values human convenience and welfare largely over other things, especially when related to the environment or animals. However, though we are shaped to value or care about certain things more so than others, we can re-program our minds to be collectively responsible and caring for the impacts we have on our world. We can further educate ourselves and those around us to become more involved in the dialogue surrounding eco-friendliness as well as make more progressive lifestyle choices.
So now that we know the dangers related to the presence of plastics and microplastics in our environment, what are the solutions and what word can we help spread? We can start by informing our audience and calling to the attention of others a noteworthy piece of information: “Americans are currently generating more plastic trash than ever…littering our cities, oceans, and waterways, and contributing to health problems [potentially] in humans and animals” (Ecology Center, 2017). This effects us in more ways than we are probably conscious of. Loss of diverse species and healthy soil, water, and air quality will eventually directly affect us all.
Why should we care? Plastics in all stages of its existence present a threat not only to the well being of our environment and animals. There is a very real possibility of serious health implications that can give rise in humans due to the direct exposure of some of these toxic substances. “There is a large body of scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful effects of BPA in laboratory and animal studies…there is a very strong suspicion in the scientific community that this chemical has harmful effects on humans” (Science Daily, 2008). Although we are currently still in the process of investigating the absolute consequences of the chemicals in plastics to human health, there are strong correlations to be made about its impacts on the earth and other living organisms. We wouldn’t want to expose our children or pets to chemicals like BPA that are released from certain plastics when simply washed with hot water.
What are the alternatives to using plastics? Among the most resourceful is source reduction, in other words reducing the use of plastic. Even more specifically, reducing plastic packaging. Not only will this decrease the amounts of large plastic wastes, it decreases the amounts of microplastics in our water and air, and helps keep emissions and energy consumptions at a new low. How can we do this? Retailers and consumers have the option of purchasing products that use little to no packaging. Even when it is necessary, there are selections that include the use of recycled materials like glass, paper, or aluminum (Ecology Center, 2017). As previously mentioned, we have the influence as consumers to demand changes in products and their production. This means that our purchasing power interprets the ways in which companies and manufacturers continue to make their products.
Another effective way in which we can reduce our plastic footprint is by reusing our materials. A little creativity can take us a long way; using glass mason jars for drinking variety of drinks is much more sustainable than drinking coffee out of a cardboard cup, water out of a bottle, juice from a pouch, or milk from a separate carton. While common misconception tells us that all of those resources are recyclable, we should take into consideration the materials and energy used to ship, manufacture, transport and sell every individual element we separately used.
While education and the passing on of important information to friends, family, and the public is critical to helping spread the word, getting involved on a deeper level is also incredibly beneficial. Consider volunteering at a recycling center, bringing others to visit a landfill and personally witnessing the large impact plastic presents, or even proposing concerns and solutions to companies, even city council officials to bring awareness in your own community. With the combined efforts of all of us as concerned, global citizens we can strive towards the shift from harmful components to more sustainable and eco, as well as health friendly options.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
References
 
Crampton, L. (2017, September 12). Microplastics in the Environment and in the Human Body.
Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://owlcation.com/stem/Microplastics-in-the-Human-Body-and-Potential-Health-Effects
 
 
Marine Litter. (n.d.). Retrieved December11, 2017, from https://www.greenfacts.org/en/marine-
litter/1-2/3-micro-plastics.htm
 
                 
Plastic Bottles Release Potentially Harmful Chemicals (Bisphenol A) After Contact With Hot
Liquids. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130092108.htm
 
Straub, S., Hirsch, P. E., Burkhardt-Holm, P., Kole, P. J., Frank G. A. J. Van Belleghem, &
Ragas, A. M. (2017). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Retrieved December 11, from http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph/special_issues/microplastics
 
 
The History and Future of Plastics. (2016, December 20). Retrieved December 11,2017, from
https://www.chemheritage.org/the-history-and-future-of-plastics
 
THE PROBLEM WITH PLASTICS. (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2017, from
https://ecologycenter.org/plastics/
​

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12/11/2017

Coral Reefs

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​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.

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12/11/2017

Sand

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Picture
Callum Cudby
​

Object of Concern: The Receding Sands
    A natural resource is classified as, “materials or substances, such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain.” People have utilized the abundant resources the Earth has provided since civilization began, but in recent centuries global resources have been reduced from human activity. Unbeknownst to many, sand is one of the most sought after natural resources of the modern urban landscape, having been the key to creating industrialized cities. Sand’s role is often overlooked by policy makers and the general public, as it appears to be a limitless resource to some, however, to create apartment complexes, office buildings, as well as every yard of asphalt road in-between, we need truck loads of the essential ingredient we have come to rely on in modern times (Beiser, 2016). If mining excavations continue unchecked in the pursuit of sand materials, the resource will undoubtedly dwindle in natural abundance resulting in the displacement of countless aquatic species and the worlds intertidal zone.
    Sand’s role in modern society is, literally, the foundation of majority of structures we have built and a basis for economic prosperity. Sand and gravel are mined from all across the globe and accounts for the largest volume of solid material extracted internationally. The United Nations Environment Program stated, in 2012 alone, the world economy used the same amount of concrete equivalent to what is needed to build a wall 89 feet high and 89 feet wide spanning around the entire Equator (UNEP, 2014). Not any form of sand will work in construction either, as desert sand has a different consistency due to it’s erosion primarily by wind, rather than the sand along beaches, river banks, or floodplains having been eroded by flowing water. By taking sand from the natural environment the industry causes disarray within ecosystems, further damaging biomes across the globe. In Indonesia alone, two dozen sand islands have disappeared since the beginning of sand mining excavations in 2005, resulting in the redrawing of some international boundaries (Beiser, 2016). On top of islands disappearing, in Vietnam miners have decimated hundreds of acres of forest to utilize the sandy soil beneath. As well as issues abroad, in 2015 the sand along the San Francisco Bay has been ruled a public trust resource by a California appeals court as sand mining operations have been deemed harmful to the ecosystem at Ocean Beach (Dudnick, 2015). The ruling in San Francisco hints at the larger issue, as we are faced with choices that put society before the wellbeing of the environment. 
    The international demand for sand and gravel is economically driven as usage for the natural resource comes from multiple sectors, ranging from glass, electronics, aeronautics, and the most consumptive being construction. The economic demand for sand results in 47 to 59 billion tonnes mined every year, with the largest and fastest extraction increase from 68% to 85% (UNEP, 2014). Despite being a resource we use more of than any other, besides water and air (Beiser, 2016), finding reliable data on environmental assessments is difficult, primarily the data from developing countries. Another way to estimate the global usage of sand or gravel products is by noting the production of cement for concrete, a statistic reported by 150 countries. For every tonne of cement produced, the construction industry needs six to seven times more tonnes of sand and gravel, based on these numeric assumptions we can deduct that 25.9 billion to 29.6 billion tonnes of concrete are created annually (UNEP, 2014). As well as use in infrastructure, glass products, shoreline developments, road embankments, asphalt pavements, and concrete roads that contribute to the over-all global estimate in sand consumption. By combining all estimates, we can determine the sand usage to exceed 40 billion tonnes a year, twice as much sediment that is carried downstream by all the rivers of the world combined (UNEP, 2014).
    The lack of adequate global information on sand extraction limits regulation in numerous developing countries (UNEP, 2014). There is no global standardization for sand mining, with little to no collaboration between marine scientific research establishments and the marine sand industry, creating further confusion with sand extraction statistics. The European Union is one of the few to enforce regulation efforts with sand extraction (UNEP, 2014). The lack of monitoring systems, regulatory policies, and environmental impact assessments has resulted in undocumented and unrestrained extraction of sand and gravel, causing chain reactions that severely damage the environment and ecological stability. Alternative approaches to the extraction of sand are needed within the sand industry to reduce the already strained utilization of the resource. One way to reduce sand usage is by utilizing existing buildings, or recycling building rubble from demolished infrastructure. Recycling glass products, such as alcoholic containers, could prove beneficial in reducing sand consumption. There are substitutes for sand and gravel materials, including quarry dust which can be used in general concrete structures or incinerator ash replacing 40% of the sand in cement on top of having a higher compressive strength than regular cement (UNEP, 2014). DB Breweries in New Zealand has built numerous machines that crush empty glass bottles into a sand substitute, creating an alternative for roading projects, commercial, and residential construction (Mlot, 2017). As well as finding alternatives to sand, we could improve the environmental impact of our current systems by modifying our approach to environmental ethics. Calculating the annual bed load of a river system, the amount of sand that accumulates yearly, could restrict the amount the mining industry takes out of the ecosystem (UNEP, 2014). By studying the environments where sand is plentiful, we can define the limits of the ecosystem to ensure the smallest impact possible when extracting the sand resource.
    The undeniably massive quantities of sand extracted every year cannot occur without vast environmental impacts. Consequences of sand mining involve fluctuation in biodiversity, land loss, hydrological function, water supplies, infrastructures, climate, landscape, and natural defenses against disasters. Habitat displacement, or destruction, is inevitable when mining for sand and harms the biodiversity of an ecosystem which could result in a chain reaction along food webs. There is both inland and coastal erosion which causes weaknesses in the physical and ecologic structure of the intertidal zone or along river beds. The loss of sand also effects the flow of water, displacing flood regulations and redirecting marine currents. Water supplies are effected because sand removal operations result in lowering the water table and increasing pollution densities. Infrastructure is damaged by sand operations, including damages to bridges, river embankments, and coastal structures. The transportation of the sand, as well as cement production, also effects the climate with emissions. Landscapes are fundamentally altered as sand removal operations cause coastal erosion, changes deltaic sea structures, quarries, and add pollution to rivers. A more subtle complication involved in sand removal is the decline in protection against natural disasters like floods or storm surges (UNEP, 2014). The coalition of environmental issues has become clearer as the sand industry grows, with a change in how we approach the risks and hazards abroad becoming key in preventing the damage industry has done to the world’s ecosystems as a result of sand extraction.
    As the human population continues to grow exponentially, and industry inevitably grows with it, natural resource management will become more critical to humanity’s survival. Resources, such as sand, will decline throughout the world and will not be sustainable for the environmental systems that have been functioning efficiently for millions of years without human interference. The environmental impact of limitlessly extracting resources necessary for humanity’s way of life will result in an unsustainable and unstable future. To ensure society’s comfortable way of existence continues to prosper without abusing the resources the planet provides, more caution and research into resource extraction’s effects on the biosphere is necessary when stripping the Earth of it’s resources.


































Bibliography


  1.     Beiser, Vince. “The World’s Disappearing Sand.” New York Times (June         23, 2016) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/opinion/the-worlds-            disappearing-sand.html?_r=0
2.    United Nations Environment Program, (March 2014). “Sand, rarer than one     thinks” (na.unep.net) 
    https://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWithArticleIDScript.php?            article_id=110
3.    Rudnick, Laura. “Sand mining in SF Bay dealt blow by state appeals court”     San Francisco Examiner (November 18, 2015) http://www.sfexaminer.com/        appeals-court-deals-blow-to-sand-mining-in-sf-bay/
4.    Mlot, Stephanie. “Machine Crushes Beer Bottles Into Sand to Save New         Zealand Beaches.” geek.com (March 3, 2017) http://www.geek.com/tech/        machine-crushes-beer-bottles-into-sand-to-save-new-zealand-                beaches-1690917/

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12/11/2017

Tofu

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In my transition from vegetarian to vegan I also wanted to focus on myself as well. In doing that I began to become more aware of my nutrient intake. I found that necessary protein intake, though in a lot of vegetables, was difficult to achieve. I looked into other sources of protein and found that tofu is a good protein alternative. What is the history of tofu though and how did it come to be? Also, is it good for the environment and those consuming it? First I will begin with the history of tofu. In the history I will discuss both the pros and cons of tofu and the causes of them. I will also begin to discuss the differences in production of tofu while comparing western and eastern culture and the cultural assumptions along with these differences. The first lens discussed is in regards to the cons of the tofu and there causes being due to over consumption and meatless diet assumptions made by Americans. In lens two I discuss the shift from local to a global economy as well as how we can shift back to a local economy with innovation so that it is still a step forward rather thanks seen as a step backwards. 
    When looking at the article Tofu in the New World Encyclopedia, I actually found that tofu originated and China and the more I searched for it I found that to simplify it, tofu is kinda like the cheese of soy milk. Coagulating soy milk is how tofu is made. The curds produced are then pressed. In turn now I’m wondering what exactly is coagulating? Coagulating is the shift from a liquid to a solid and it can be done through salts, acids, and/or enzymes (New World Encyclopedia). There are also different forms of pressing which usually differs per region due to different preferences. There is a greater contrast when comparing western and eastern markets. There is asian firm tofu which drains and presses the tofu but doesn’t contain that much moisture. It is more like raw meat. The western firm/dried tofu is a little more firm and contains almost to no moisture and relates to a more cooked meat feeling (New World Encyclopedia). Is that because western culture is using it primarily as a meat substitute to wean off our meat dominant culture? Vegetarianism and veganism is still relatively new to western culture. 
    There are different kinds of tofu like fresh, processed, and preserved. Tofu is primarily made by soy but also can be “made by processing non-soy products” like almonds or black beans. It originated in China but moved to Japan in the late 18th century which was the beginning go its transition to other parts of East Asia who made it a primary ingredient in their traditional dishes (New World Encyclopedia). When I think of tofu I actually didn’t think of China but of Thailand. As a vegetarian, I always loved going to Thai food places because they gave the tofu alternative for almost all of their meals from fresh rolls, curries, to pad Thai. 
    Pros of tofu is that it is low in calories but contains an abundance of nutrients including iron which at the time was very important for women who approached child bearing age. It also contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. Depending on how its made it also contains calcium and magnesium. It does also consist of isoflavones which can be both harmful and beneficial depending on the quantity. Soy alleviates menopause symptoms, reduces osteoporosis risks, lowers bad cholesterol, and prevents certain forms of cancers. The Why Soy is Bad for You article discusses how soy has a high estrogen prenatally. This actually is what assists in the pro of helping women develop during child bearing age and relieve menopause symptoms. Is this natural though? What is natural? If it is assisting women as an estrogen supplement in moderation is it so bad? What are the other causes though? In men though it is a little more obvious that estrogen will have more prevalent causes including: physical maturation delay, underdeveloped gonads, sperm count falling, etc.. Can these cons be avoided by moderation though? 
    There are three different theories of Tofu’s origination. One in which is that it began during the Han dynasty in northern China where well known figures invented it but this is an unpopular theory because though they may have had made it more known these popular figures aren’t believed to invented it. The other theory is that tofu was first accidentally created when ground soybean was mixed with an impure sea salt which already had calcium and magnesium in it. This thus made the soy curdle and thus make a gel-like tofu. The third theory mentioned was that in ancient china they intentionally replicated the milk process of curdling with soy milk. This curdling of milk hasn’t been practiced in Ancient China before this time though, and believed they replicated it from East Indians or Mongolians (New World Encyclopedia). 
    The technique of making tofu was already standardized in the second century B.C.E.. There are more variations of it today, like stated above, but the general method had already been achieved. The Nara period is when this technique was brought to Japan (New World Encyclopedia). As Buddhism required a vegetarian diet, it became very famous with those in that specific faith because of how it was a good alternative form of protein than meat. 
    From one lens, I can look at tofu as western culture making another consumer choice rather than facing the problem that is disguised with this tofu solution. Like mentioned before, western tofu texture is more resemblant to meat and in turn it reflects their choice to eating it. In the article, Why Soy is Bad for You and the Planet, the author discusses how in eastern countries that soy is still recognized as a super food but in moderation. The article does claim that if the fermentation process is longer, more toxins are destroyed. The article also states that “Soy has never been considered a substitute for animal protein in Asia” though they do recognize the protein nutrients it provides especially for vegetarians. There is a warped view of vegetarians in American culture that they are protein deficient, from my personal experience, though I could achieve it through many different vegetables. I was just tempted by tofu and all its nutrients. With this though, I stick to the serving amount and record it in my food planner app to confirm I’ve met my nutrients for the day. Many Americans today have found themselves thinking they need so much protein especially from assumptions made. They find themselves eating soy bars, tofu, soy milk, and veggie burgers all in one day. You can argue though, that any food/nutrient can be bad for you with too much. The article continues to discuss how we unknowingly already consume an abundance of soy through our vitamins, soups, breads, and other products which is hidden through misguided labels. Again though, I don’t see as soy as the problem but the industries producing it and these products which is a main source of many of our problems here in the United States so why are we allowing ourselves to blame something else? Why blame the genetically modified product rather than the person genetically modifying it? Why blame the negative effects, when it really needs to just be consumed less? Why consume so much of one plant? Why not encourage diversity? These all seem like solvable issues but will require a shift in consciousness to see them. One can not solve the problem without seeing it and I believe many are choosing to be oblivious. 
    From another lens, I wish to regard is tofu’s direct and indirect impact on the economy. As tofu is becoming more prevalent and popular in western culture it is become mass produced. Much of tofu’s economic dependence is on the soybean. With that, there is a greater demand for the soybean itself and mono cropping has been the main form of producing many of grains produced in the United States. The United States, as well as Brazil and Argentia, are the dominant soy producers in the global economy according to Soy Agrigulture. There article discusses how 270 million tonnes annually are produced. It is fed to both livestock and humans as well as used as a biomass fuel. In demand, it has grew in production by 123% from 1196 to 2004. As the soybean is in more demand, deforestation, and genetic modification has followed. In the United States much of our grasslands have converted towards soy production which has caused environmental degradation, industrial soy farms competing with local rural farms, and indigenous communities as well as exploitation of labor, soil erosion, and water pollution. Many of those are problems stemmed from mono-cropping. In the article Deep Seawater Business To Develop Local Economies, Manabu Akaike discusses the pros of deep seawater agriculture. Deep seawater’s pros include: low temperature, nutrient-rich, contamination free from bacteria, chemicals, and particles. Akaike discusses the potential of seawater farming and how this was recognized in 1999 when the Aqua Farm research facility was created. This facility was focused on developing existing local economies that are maintained through fishing and agriculture. They were able to produce many products including: sake, tofu, mineral water, salt making, cosmetics, medicine and more. Ultimately, I believe the possibilities are endless with the technology and innovation we have today. Specifically with tofu, Akaike states that the salt water contributes to the tofu’s sweetness. In a book by Edward P. Glenn and others, Irrigating Crops with Seawater, discusses how the soybean flourishes in soils that are more salty. Glenn’s main sense is that as freshwater becomes more scarce, “looking to the sea for the water to irrigate selected crops” (76) is more sustainable. Water and land is the greatest determinant factor on food production. Glenn’s approach is to domestically salt-tolerant plants for food, forage, and oilseed crops. Though I do this as a more sustainable approach I don’t necessarily think it is 100% foolproof because it is still implementing mono-cropping. Replacing one plant with another. Tofu, will have less of an impact though when it comes to water scarcity and land. Ultimately this is an indication of not necessarily the harmful effects of the soybean but of industry’s use of it. Industry can warp almost any product into a negative one as it is fueled by greed and corruption.  
    In conclusion, I do still see tofu as a good source of protein but believe I should be more aware of where I get it and the issues attached to it. Eating locally will not only help in terms of tofu but in all products. Not only be focused on my nutrient intake but also of the part I play in our global economy as the consumer and try to reduce my impact. I will continue to be aware of not only my soy consumption through tofu but other food products. Tofu isn’t necessarily bad for the environment nor those consuming it but the industries who are mass producing it and encouraging consumerism. Though I do believe we should approach agriculture with innovation, we still have a lot to learn from our past and fellow Earthlings as well by adopting a human culture rather than an American focused one. That way we are taking a step forward but not making the same mistakes as the past. We need to not just focus on ourselves but the community as a whole. An entire community working together both biotic and abiotic is true sustainability which I inspire to see growth towards in my lifetime. 




















































































Works Cited
Akaike, Manabu. “Deep Seawater Business To Develop Local Economies|JFS Japan for 
    Sustainability.” JFS Japan for Sustainability,
     www.japanfs.org/en/takumi/takumi_id034105.html.


Glenn, Edward Perry, et al. Irrigating Crops with Seawater y Edward P. Glenn, J. Jed Brown and 
    James W. O'Leary. 1998.


“Tofu.” Tofu - New World Encyclopedia, 10 Dec. 2015,
     www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tofu.


“Why Soy Is Bad for You and the Planet.” Small Footprint Family, 4 Dec. 2017,     
    www.smallfootprintfamily.com/why-soy-is-bad-for-you-and-the-planet.


“Yale University.” Soy Agriculture | Global Forest Atlas, 2017, globalforestatlas.yale.edu/land-
    use/industrial-agriculture/soy-agriculture.

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12/11/2017

iPhone

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​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/.
 

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12/11/2017

Bananas

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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.


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12/11/2017

Liquor

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Lizzy Blackman
GEOG 300
Object of Concern: Liquor
          For this paper I have chosen to write about liquor as my object of concern. Its hard to know where to begin when writing about liquor because it has had a very long history. This history is rooted in how we function as a society and even some behaviors we exhibit. Liquor is just something were used to, a part of everyday life and it’s like water to some people. There are those that feel it is a necessity for survival. Now, we know that’s just what addiction tell peoples brains, but to them its perfectly rational and they can’t possibly survive without a drink. How did this all start? How did we just decide one day to drink this poisonous thing to what? Feel good?
          Like I said liquor has a long history. One that is much older than you may think. But first let’s start with the many definitions of the term “liquor” which has many meanings that have changed over time. Liquor as defined in modern times, is an “alcoholic drink, especially distilled spirits.” (Kipfer 2007). Fermented beverages have been around for thousands of years dating back to Egyptian Civilization or possibly even older than that. This topic has been widely debated and most believe the first fermented drink was around the 13th century. Though when beginning my research, I knew that liquor had been around for a long time, I was honestly shocked to find out just how long. With fermented beverages dating back to as early as 3000 b.c. in China made from rice and honey, it has had a long history of destroying people’s livers. One of the first drinks to become popular that is still seen today is mead. Mead started in Greece as it was a sweet drink but there is also text from back in Greece warning people of excessive drinking. (Drugefreeworld.org). So, we knew it was a kind of poison that had an impact on our health, but we drank it anyway. We sure didn’t learn much from Adam and Eve now did we?
          In the fifteenth century the knowledge on how to distill liquor made its way around to monks, and alchemists. And in the sixteenth century alcohol was used for medicinal purposes often helping to “numb pain.” In fact, alcohol as medicine is believed to date back 5,000 years.  This was discovered by archaeologists when they found a jar with remnants in one of the first pharaoh’s of ancient Egypt’s tomb; Scorpion I. Scientists analyzed the compounds and found that it had contained wine as well as other herbal ingredients.  Wine, or the alcohol that is created through fermentation, is a perfect ingredient to extract needed elements from plants to treat pain or other inflictions.  Hippocrates is considered the father of modern medicine and use alcohol based remedies to cure a variety of ailments.  Then by the eighteenth century, gin was being “aggressively promoted for production” and many Europeans followed suit. Gin was one of the first popular distilled drinks and had many uses as well as many different forms. Though most distilled beverages were primarily made from grain, a lot of people started to get creative when making distilled beverages. This is especially apparent when Britain refused to supply the colonies with alcohol after the Revolution.
Once distillation was discovered, it changed the strength in what was produced.  This process was acquired from early scholars and was considered the “Water of Life” (Holloway) with people encouraged to drink it instead of disease laden waterways, since the process included a boiling procedure which essentially sterilized the product, making those consuming alcohol feel it was a healthier and safer alternative to drinking water.  As the popularity of this grew, it took little time before it became a commodity with commercial apothecaries producing and distributing it.
          As early as 1683, while alcohol was still being used for medicine and alternatives to drinking water, 13th century philosopher Roger Bacon expounded the virtues and the dangers of consuming, the danger lying in consuming in excess.  Bacon warned that too much “guzzling” would affect understanding, impact thought and lead to “blurry-eyedness.”  By the 18th century, concerns were growing of the impact that consuming alcohol. These included public drunkenness, increased crime and poverty. These concerns continued to grow and in the 19th century, a movement began to restrict consumption and then shifted again towards total abstinence.  Keep in mind that wine had also been used for religious ceremonies for centuries.  In Christianity, wine was thought to have been created by God so was inherently good but drunkenness was also condemned.  While alcohol has played a part in the Christian faith as well as some others, it’s not true for all religious faiths.  In fact, one of the fastest growing religions, Islam, believes that any intoxicate is forbidden.  This is called ‘Harem’ which loosely translates to immoral. It is considered evil and I read that Muhammed may have said that Allah curses anyone that uses it, produces it or distributes it.  A fairly clear message that it is not allowed.  So, while other religions have used it for ceremonial purposes, some have banned it completely.  No alcohol is used in Islamic ceremonies and those of the faith often avoid it even in cooking and baking.  But as mentioned, alcohol has been a part of society for a very long time.  As an example, in colonial times, it was said that the Puritans on the Mayflower loaded more beer than water before casting off to find the new world.  So as you can see alcohol has played an important role in our history.
In the early 1920s, with changing attitudes related to alcohol, a campaign of sorts was launched to lobby for a complete prohibition.  There was increasing crime and what people referred to as gang activity so population for the ban grew.  A perfectionist movement had begun focused on abolishing slavery and other temperance societies, many that were led by woman who saw alcohol as destructive to the family.  Some employers also were in favor as they saw the ban as an opportunity to decrease accidents in the workplace.  This temperance movement picked up momentum and was signed in to law with the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This ratification banned all production, transportation and sale of alcohol or anything considered to be intoxicating liquor.  Oh, there were many that fought back too.  During this time, there was an amazing assortment of creative ways to produce alcohol.  Bootlegging, moonshine and bathtub gin were becoming the norm.  The most famous of bootleggers was Al Capone who is reported to have earned in excess of $60 million from bootlegging and other distribution points.  As you can imagine, there were also lots of hidden establishments that offered this illegal substance such as backrooms, underground, speakeasies and other distribution points that kept cropping up.  It was very difficult to regulate and enforce.  And crime did continue but now more often in the illegal selling or manufacturing of alcohol.  With the country deep in the Depression, politicians including the Democrat Franklin Theodore Roosevelt who was running for president in 1932 was looking at alcohol as a platform.  Not to continue the ban, quite the opposite.  It was an opportunity to add new revenue streams.  Legalizing alcohol seemed like an opportunity to put people back to work, ease some of the burden.  His victory meant the end to prohibition.  After approximately 12 years of the ban, Congress adopted the 21st Amendment, repealing prohibition. 
Now that I have given some background I want to analyze liquor through a political scope. Like I mentioned it was Roosevelt who fought to repeal the prohibition in hopes of creating revenue and jobs during the Depression. This is not the only time you see politics and alcohol interacting. In fact, just recently there was a bill proposed in Wisconsin to lower the drinking age from 21, to 19 years old. (Fox 2017) It is a known fact that many countries such as many European countries have younger drinking ages, as it has been around for centuries, but it is also known the effects it has on a person’s brain. This is probably the biggest argument when talking about lowering the drinking age. A 19-year old’s brain is not fully developed therefore would be more effected by the “side effects” of alcohol.
There have been many times in history that people have tried to lower or raise the age of consumption because of the many effects it has on a person’s health. Some of these health effects include; cirrhosis of the liver, brain cell death, heart disease and even cancer. Many of these effects are permanent and can not be reversed. With these health effects in mind, it’s no wonder people would want to raise the drinking age, but lowering it? As a 19-year-old, you don’t think about these lasting effect, you just think about the short-term ones, the ones that make you “feel good”. This I will never understand as drinking alcohol certainly does not make one “feel good”. In many regions, however, the drinking age is higher and in Kerala, they just recently raised the drinking age to 23 years old. (Thiruvananthapuram 2017)
Now I will look at alcohol through environmental ethics and the kind of impact it has had on the environment. I have touched on the effects of alcohol, its history and where we have seen it interact with politics, but how does in interact with the environment? Well to start, alcohol or liquor, are made from natural ingredient such as grain, honey, and berries for wine and mead. How does something start natural but become so unnatural after its consumed? With alcohol being mass produced and distributed you can see the impact it has on the Earth. With beer cans and bottles littering our lands and waterways, I just can’t understand it. Now, I know many things are littered and many things are mass produced that people dispose of in unnatural ways, but how does something that is so inherently bad for us make its full circle from natural to the pollution it produces? My theory, is the sheer thrill people get when consuming alcohol. Not only does it impair you in many ways, it can be silly and fun as well. When you’re drinking at the beach with a friend and throw your beer can to the side, are you thinking of where it might go after that if you don’t recycle it? Of course not, you’re drunk and only thinking about having fun. This is a huge issue in the liquor industry as the promotion of all the different varieties don’t include a snippet on recycling and sustainability. In fact, most advertising surrounding alcohol is about having fun and being safe. As if drinking was ever safe. Another impact it has on the environment, is the entire life cycle of a single bottle of liquor and the process it must go through to get to the customer. The production of it, including wineries, is impactful, but also the consumer driving to the store to pick up said bottle is impactful. When looking at the different impacts alcohol consumption plays on the environment the production and the consumer behavior were the most impactful parts of the process. Which I was surprised by, because littering is also an issue, but not as much as these other points.
Through my research into liquor, its history and looking at it through a political and environmental standpoint, I can see that it has many issues and negative impacts in the environment and in our society. With alcohol addiction being a very serious illness, its hard for me to believe just how much of it is consumed each and every year. With all the lasting negative effects it has, I would think we wouldn’t consume so much, but here we are. I believe alcohol is an issue that not many people discuss as one and I believe it should be addressed and talked about more. I think people should be more aware of these lasting effects and get educated on the impacts it has on the environment and society. Though, I personally consume alcohol at special events and get-togethers, I can clearly see just how concerning this object truly is. I hope to see some serious changes surrounding it in the future.
 
 
 
Works Cited
Hanson, Ph.D. Prof. David J. “History of Liquor: Distilled Spirits Timelines from Early Beginnings to Today.” Alcohol Problems & Solutions, 10 Sept. 2017, www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/history-of-liquor-distilled-spirits/.
“Historical Background of Alcohol in the United States.” The Free Dictionary, Farlex, legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Historical Background of Alcohol in the United States.
Aprilholloway. “Alcohol as medicine through the ages.” Ancient Origins, Ancient Origins, www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-science/alcohol-medicine-through-ages-001238.
Hanson, Ph.D. Prof. David J. “History of Alcohol and Drinking around the World.” Alcohol Problems & Solutions, 20 Mar. 2017, www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/history-of-alcohol-and-drinking-around-world/.
Collection, Private, et al. “Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze.” National Geographic, 17 Jan. 2017, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/02/alcohol-discovery-addiction-booze-human-culture/.
History.com Staff. “Prohibition.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/prohibition.
Correspondent, Special. “Legal drinking age raised to 23 in Kerala.” The Hindu, 6 Dec. 2017, www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/legal-drinking-age-raised-to-23-in-kerala/article21285612.ece.
“Wisconsin bill seeks to lower drinking age to 19.” Fox News, FOX News Network, www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/18/wisconsin-bill-seeks-to-lower-drinking-age-to-19.html.
Tomorrow, Blue & Green. “The Environmental Impact of Alcohol Production.” Blue and Green Tomorrow, 5 May 2016, blueandgreentomorrow.com/society/environmental-impact-alcohol-production/.

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12/11/2017

Fine Dining

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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.


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12/11/2017

Cannabis

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Maxwell  Plunkett
Geo 300
Term Paper


Declining salmonid populations, dry and damaged creek beds, organized crime, segmented ecosystems, polluted public lands, mass pesticide/rodenticide poising, millions of Americans in prison with families torn apart, increased tax revenues to schools, children recovering from debilitating diseases, less opioid related deaths; all of these can be attributed to one thing and that is cannabis. For decades California’s north coast has been the epicenter of a bustling underground yet commercial scale cannabis cultivation community. While this community has always been deemed illegal and illicit in someway or another, it has helped pave the way for a wave of reform that has seen the legalization of recreational cannabis in a handful of states with California poised to join the ranks as of January 1st. This massive shift of California’s largest cash crop from an unregulated black market to an above ground regulated commodity is going to have dramatic effects on many communities across the state, some for the better and some for the worst. With a 3 billion dollar a year business poised to make it's net worth publicly available to corporations and the like(Smith), it may be prudent to see who really stands to benefit from this process and if it is really in the best interest of the American people. Environmental cleanup, lowered crime rates and added state funding are great on any scale, but is it worth the cost of being in bed with faceless multinational corporations to the detriment of the workers who’ve grew the industry to where it is today. Will the thousands of hard working farmers lose out to large scale agribusiness who can bury them finically and legally. Many thousands of Americans in pain and using strong pharmaceuticals may now have safe access to a natural form of relief, but will it come at the cost of being beholden to major Pharma for any insured medical access. This reform is going to lead to far reaching change which is going to have an large impact on a lot of Californians beyond the pocket books of large southern California business and norther Californian farmers. Entire communities stand to lose all sources of economic value and face a reality of the ghost towns of the early west, while millions of others are guaranteed safe access and a select few grow rich. The legalization of cannabis stands to change the landscape of California politically, economically and environmentally as well.


The history of cannabis is a long and storied one, with it being one of the earliest known crops to be cultivated by man, having not only profound medicinal and psychoactive benefits but many industrious uses as well. The exact geographical location of its first known appearances are difficult to pin down due to its sun loving nature and tendency to retreat from the waxing and waning of the pleistocene glaciers of that time. Although it did move around a lot it is generally agreed that the steppes of central Asia, especially Mongolia and southern Siberia were the first and main locations of its domestication. Some do argue it was possible that the regions of Afghanistan, the Hindu Kush mountains or southern Asia were all viable locations for this domestication as well. The first signs of this cultivation have been found to be around 12000 BC, with carbon dating showing the first signs of the psychoactive values of cannabis being used solely for medicinal purposes. Around 2000 BC it began to spread to the outer exteriors of Asia, then exploding into the west around 1000 AD with the advent of the silk road and the discovery of the new world. It quickly became widely used throughout many tiers of culture and society and has kept that place throughout nearly a millennia,


    -“From prehistoric Xinjiang to the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, from hashish smokers in medieval Cairo to casual pot users on American university campuses, psychoactive cannabis has a long and fascinating historical geography. Cannabis has long been entwined with the world economy and local social and cultural practices in a variety of ways; (Warf).


 This widespread industrial and pharmacological use continued throughout the world until the first ever attempt at prohibition in the US with the 1914 El Paso ordinance that made possession illegal, this was followed by the far more reaching Marijuana stamp tax act of 1937 which implicitly made illegal all uses of both pharmacological and industrial cannabis. Things continued like this for many years, seeing hundreds of thousands of people, a disproportionate number of them being young colored men, being imprisoned for infractions as small as simple possession. Then in 1996 California passed proposition 215, also known as the compassionate use act of 1996, which legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes with the recommendation of a doctor. Soon other states began to follow suit, then in 2014 Colorado become the first state to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. All in total there are now 29 states that have approved the use of medicinal cannabis and as of this year there will be 8 different states that have legalized cannabis in one form or another from either simple possession to full on retail sales. While all of these measures have been agreed upon by a majority of legal voting citizens and put into action lawfully these laws were, and still are, fundamentally at odds with the mindset and laws of the federal government. As it stands today cannabis and any derived substance containing THC, with only one exception, is considered a schedule one substance under DEA guidelines, meaning that they have no known government approved medicinal or any other usage. The one known exception to the rule is an synthetic form of THC made by Abbot Laboratories sold under the moniker of marinol used for the aide it appetite and nausea in aids patients.    


Legalization means regulation, and this is a good thing for consumers. Any product that hits store shelfs for human consumption now has to meet certain standards. These standards that have been set by regulatory committees for the sole purpose of keeping consumers safe from the unscrupulous actions of greedy capitalists, which there are plenty of in the cannabis industry. Living a good portion of my life this area I can tell you I have heard and witnessed some serious horror stories that would make any user think twice about who they get their cannabis from, so some regulation is a welcomed thing. Even beyond the untold atrocious backdoor unbranded backwater remedies that some immoral growers have taken to, there are countless branded products that are sold out of legal storefronts that are just as bad. Many industrial grows have taken to using heavy duty pesticides to ensure the safety of their crops, with one of the most egregious being the branded pesticide Eagle 20. Eagle 20 is made mostly of a substance called myclobutanil, which when is heated as with a flame for ingestion through smoking is converted into cyanide which is then inhaled as a gas with the resulting smoke. In a 2016 study it was determined that 86% of tested cannabis in California tested positive for pesticide residue, and of that 65% of the samples contained myclobutanil residues(Subritzky). This outrageous public health concern that is taking a naturally safe substance and turning it into quite the dangerous hazard has been able to continue uncheck because of the unregulated nature of both the grey medical and black market industry.


This in here is where the dilemma lies, the dichotomy of needing regulatory commissions to guide and ensure the process is done correct, but any such federally connected or funded body of researchers are barred from any involvement due to the federal statues of cannabis. This dichotomy can be most seen in the fact that there are multiple federally accredited or funded agriculture universities or laboratories that are used solely for bettering and testing the techniques we use to grow our nations food and other cash crops. What this means for this new emerging market is that its legitimate growth will be throttled by long ribbons of red federal tape and inability to access federal funds and resources. This leaves laboratories that are needed to provide the crucial testing to make sure safety demands are meet are unable to get the certifications that they need to meet any FDA/DEA standards needed; any state funded commission can get no advice from a federally funded source that may have a load of information on what pesticides may be safe for use in such a crop. This leaves state law makers with only two real choices to go to for inputs on what decisions to make, either the illegal growers who have perfected their techniques over the decades or to major agribusiness. As is not surprising with the federal government it isn't always the people with the best interests of others in mind that help shape policy, in tends to be the those with the most money to buy votes that get that privilege. With large scale agribusiness having untold stores of wealth and looking to get into the fray you can defiantly expect to see these companies come out and manipulate the system to place themselves at a better position to profit than any other. As CEO of Scotts Miracle Grow Jim Hagedorn has said “….invest like half a billion dollars…..we are continuing to work with both individual states and the EPA for special—for the first time ever—registrations that allow pesticidal products to be used on—and we’ll be the only one offering pesticidal products that can be used on cannabis. So I think that’s an opportunity for us…” (Subritzky). While there certainly needs to be in place a set of standards that protects consumers, should they be set by those who stand to profit from those regulations. Historically speaking allowing industry giants the ability to regulate themselves and the market place has resulted in regulation that put profit before people.     


The second problem that this rolls into is the notion of where these legitimate profits will flow to. Over decades of hard work that was done under the threat of loss of personal freedom underground growers have not only sharpened their skills in the trade of growing cannabis, but have also fought from the shadows to change the stigmatization and legal status of the plant that had been instilled through years of prohibition. Without these generations of growers putting in decades of work we wouldn't have either the bustling cannabis industry that is now flowering into its own, nor the political landscape in which such reform would be possible for such an industry to step into. Should large scale agribusiness companies now be able to step in, take over and profit form all those years of grass roots information trading and hard work. While although the black market effect has been profitable for growers, not many if any can stand up to the wealth and power of multinational agribusinesses corporations. When it is time to sit down and write the laws of how and what is allowable, who will be able to pay more to have a spot at the table effectively making their voice louder, industry or grass roots. As it stands right now there is no cap on the size of crop that a company can apply to grow. When cultivation permits for the state start to be processed, what will ma and pa Junes small 5,000 sq. ft. permit be against the 10, 50, 300, 1000 acre grows of cheaply produced big business bud? In a area where the main and essentially last economic vein is that of cannabis, what will happen will the plug is pulled on this areas last lifeline.
    
 If major corporations are able to get their foot in the door and drive down the cost of production by upping the scale and therefore driving price down, what will happen to the well crafted cottage industry that currently exists and produced the current state of affairs. What will happen to the small wayward towns and generations of workers who only know cannabis when there is no longer a market to keep either one working. If cannabis was to up and leave Humboldt county overnight, this would be a drastically different place. With mill after mill closing down, the Korbel mill which had been in continuous operation for over a century closed in 2015(it is actually to reopen on the 18th of this month, but the fact that things got to where they have still remains), there is no longer the robust logging industry as there was in the hot and heavy timber days of the 60’s and 70’s. There was an almost complete closure of the commercial crab 2016-17 fishing season along the northern Californian and southern Oregon coasts and another lengthy postponement of this years commercial fishing. This coupled with historically low prices at the fisheries leaves the fishing economy a shell of its former self. There is very little to no manufacturing jobs, and tourism and college students can only do so much to support an entire north coast community from Humboldt to Trinity and Mendocino county A quick look at the mining towns of the midwest might give a glimpse into what the future holds for these communities financially dependent on cannabis cultivation that may potentially move to the central valley farmlands. What is now Fremont, Wyoming started off its life as a small post WW1 homestead by the name of “Home on the Range” of only three families. Later it whittled down to just one family who opened a gas station in the 50’s to act as a waypoint to the west for the emerging motorist population. Around the same time the American government was growing worried about their supply of uranium for their various nuclear projects, prompting them to increase the amount of subsidies and incentives for domestic uranium miners. Home on the Range just so happened to be in the heart or rich uranium country and Western Nuclear Power was born, generating immense profits the likes the area had never seen before. This transformed the tiny homestead of just a handful of people into a bustling trailer town of a 150 workers with two general stores and a cafe. This growth continued until the early 70’s until imported international uranium was able to drastically drive down the price of uranium spelling disaster for the Mining companies and their employees, nearly completely killing the newly named of town of Jefferson city. Luckily though in 76’ uranium prices jumped and the town flourished like never before, boosting its numbers to over 4000, needing two middle schools, its own high school, two cafes and a deli. Things were good until the late 80’s when prices plummeted again never to rise. This left the town with no other economic recourse and soon it collapsed, leaving shells of buildings still standing about there today(Amundsoin). Is this what we can expect of the already declining Rio Dell’s, Miranda’s and Myer Flats? Would this Migration of work and money away from here be the worst thing for this area though? 


For years now the horror stories from California department of Fish and Wildlife have been growing more and more; illegal stream and creek bed diversions, illegal dumping , widespread unkempt pesticide/rodenticide use and numerous other offenses to the wildernesses. All of this either happening on public lands with trespass grows or on properties which are slowly encroaching onto farm and timber lands causing a large shift in land use changes. For the last two years the Yurok tribe has had no local fish for their annual community fish cook out due to low flows and disease that is caused by low flows, demolishing the local salmon populations. For the past five or six years the Eel river has ran to complete dryness. pine marten and pacific fisher populations are at an alarming low(Bauss); environmental degradation of these ancient forests is rampart due to the unscrupulous actions of trespass and mega grows who easily disregard the environment in exchange for profit. Regulation will definitely do its fair share in curbing such practices by making them illegal and by providing new found funding to help enforce those rules and curtail illegal cultivation. But if this area’s farm are going to need to expand to compete with big business, that might not come close enough to nullifying the damages associated with commercial cannabis cultivation. Water consumption and sedimentation of steams are some of the largest problems that threaten this ecosystem and the communities tied to it, and keeping an expanding cultivation industry wouldn’t do much to abate these problems. As companies expand it calls for the need of large scale equipment being brought to far off places deep in the mountains crossing many streams and depositing sediment into them, and this is even before any of the heavy grading and timber clearing takes place. Then the need for increased size in order to be able to compete means more water consumption for a already water resource heavy crop. So this possibly sees us with the dilemma of either losing our communities last major economic influence or possibly incur the same or greater environmental damages to accommodate for the expanding competitive market.


All of these major changes in this industry are a good thing overall though. Increased tax revenue is always a welcomed sight in times of strong state deficits; and being that colorado was able to pull in over 130 million dollars in taxes in 2015 just from direct retail taxes alone(Blumenthal), California stands to get a nice shot in the arm. The roughly 6,000 people who are currently serving time being bars for cannabis related offenses and stand to revive reduced sentences and wiped criminal records, and their families, will most definitely welcome these changes. The untold number of people who will find solace in the natural medicinal benefits, who were too afraid or uniformed due to try cannabis due to its status to try, leading to a quantifiable reduce in opioid overdose related deaths(Livingston). Just the fact that a natural substance that has been proven to not only be less lethal than the number one consumed intoxicant, alcohol, but also having proven medicinal properties as well is enough for these changes to take place. There are very few people who would argue these benefits of this change, but we need to keep track of who and what will be affected. Will the consolidation of decades of hard work and thereby the wealth of a small community into the hands of a few corporations be what this industry needs? Is the cannabis farmers fate to become like that of the corn or livestock farmers of today, saddled by subsidies and throttled by monopolistic practices from Cargill and monsanto?




















































































work cited


    Amundson, Michael A. “Home on the Range No More: The Boom and Bust of a Wyoming Uranium Mining Town, 1957-1988”. Western Historical Quarterly. Vol. 26, No. 4(Winter, 1995), pp. 483 505. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/stable/970850?origin=crossref&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents


        Bauss, Cristina. “Mapping Marijuana Cultivation Sites and Water Storage in the Redwood Creek Watershed, Southern Humboldt County.”. California Geographer. 2017, Vol. 56, p29-52. 24p. Ebsco. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=69751c13-2fba-4a0c-aa25-9dcab2578429%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=123944961&db=aph
    
    Best, Allen. “Highs and Lows in the Wake of Legalization”. Planning. Jul2015, Vol. 81 Issue 7, p24-29. 6p. Ebsco. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=2a3c9a09-be45-41b5-9f3b-bf56602bbc1a%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=108316515&db=aph


    Blumenthal, Robin Goldwyn. “The Numbers”. Barons; New York, NY. Vol 96, Iss 7, (Feb15, 2016): 14. ProQuest. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/docview/1765368530/fulltext/EAE0814134454FBBPQ/1?accountid=11532


        Livingston, Melvin D. Barnett, Tracey E. Delcher, Chris. Wagenarr Alexander C. “Recreational Cannabis Legalization and Opioid-Related Deaths in Colorado, 2000-2015”.  American Journal of Public Health. Nov2017, Vol. 107 Issue 11, p1827-1829. 3p. Ebsco. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=8cf4b4ef-36f0-4975-9fe7-e4a6348c5ff8%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=125672932&db=aph 
    
    Subritzky, Todd. Pettigrew, Simone. Lenton, Simon. “Into the void: Regulating pesticide use in Colorado’s commercial cannabis Markets”. ScienceDirect. http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/science/article/pii/S0955395917300324?via%3Dihub
    
    Smith, Aaron. “California to Tax Pot as much as 45%”. CNN Money. http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/31/news/economy/california-cannabis-tax-fitch/index.html


    Warf, Barney. “High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis”. Geographical Review. Oct2014, Vol. 104 Issue 4, p414-438. 25p. Ebsco. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=c26a11e6-3ac8-43e6b757-1f842d9e51b2%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=98520086&db=aph




    


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12/11/2017

Cats

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Cats! by Jeramy Freimuth
Bezzlethorp and Umbatta had been orbiting a small moon of Jupiter for 23 milosecs (three thousand years) observing the planet known as Earth. Finally came the time for first contact and Beezlethorp and Umbatta flew down to Earth. They arrived in a small field outside a small town in Nebraska. Beezlethorp and Umbatta exited their craft and slithered across the dry ground to hail the conquering species of this tiny planet called Earth. “Molo, Earthling. We have come in peace. We have been observing your domination of the land of Earth over what seemed to be more intelligent creatures and are impressed. We have come to offer you technology to advance your race.” There was no reply. Bezzlethorp tried again, “Earthling we mean you no harm, we intend to assist your race.” Still the stalk of corn made no reply. “Perhaps this is not the dominant species on Earth, we will try the second on the list.” Beezlethorp and Umbatta locate the next species and approach with the same offer “Molo, Earthling. We have come in peace. We have been observing your domination of the land of Earth over what seemed to be more intelligent creatures and are impressed. We have come to offer you technology to advance your race.” The cat replied, “It is good to be recognized, and thank, but we’ve got this under control.”
Cats are our furry little companions that adore us and are definitely not plotting to kill us, they pretty much hang on our every word. Or do they!?!? What makes an animal a pet? Is it our domination over them? Their apparent submissiveness? They have to stay in the house when we tell them to, they mostly can’t poop where they want to. But then again, they don’t really have a job, we feed them, look after them, make sure they have a dry place to sleep, clean up their poop, buy them toys, worry about them. Who is really in charge here? Our story begins about 8000 years ago when the first ancestor of our modern day domesticated cats appears (Ottoni, Neer and Geigal, 2017). The beginning of the relationship between humans and cats was probably based on rodent control. The cats lived outdoors but because they would kill rodent’s humans allowed them to come around (Driscol, C., Macdonald, D and Obrien, S., 2009). It is actually thought that the cats slowly domesticated themselves and this is the first lineage of our modern-day cats (Ottoni et al., 2017). The second lineage happened in of African cats that made it to Egypt spread into the Mediterranean and would accompany ships presumably to be their rodent control. What is somewhat surprising that when comparing the modern-day cat to these ancient cats the DNA hasn’t changed (Ottoni, et al., 2017). This is a stark contrast to how dogs have been domesticated, their DNA mixed so many times with wolves and dogs bred for specific traits its hard to tell where they came from (Driscol, et al., 2009).
Over the years cats have held an interesting place in human society. Egypt was especially dedicated to cats. Male cats were sacred to the sun god Ra and female cats were sacred to the fertility goddess Bast. (Kitchener, 1991). It was actually illegal to kill cats and if a household cat died all the members of the household would shave off their eyebrows as a mark of respect (Kitchener, 1991) Dead cats were mummified and sent to massive cat cemeteries. Apparently at one point there were so many dead cats that they used them as ballasts for ships and ground them up as fertilizer (Kitchener, 1991). Cats eventually spread from Egypt throughout Europe, in Rome we find them popping up as good luck charms. During the middle ages in Europe though they began to be seen as bad omens and parts of witchcraft (Kitchener, 1991) As recent though as the seventeenth century cats were found built into the walls of buildings which is thought to have been done for good luck (Kitchener, 1991). Now we arrive at the current day relationship that the world has with cats. In this paper I will take three lenses to see the relationship that cats have with the environment, with the current culture and personal. The question is though, do cats rule the world? The first lens that is used to see cats is their effect on our current culture.
It is a debatable claim but possibly the most influential technology to ever grace the planet Earth is the internet. The internet as we know it began around the mid to early 90’s. Its initial version was used through dial up access that took (compared to today’s internet) and incredibly long time to access. Getting any pictures to load in 1995 could take upwards of 10 minutes where as these days you can watch a multi hour movie instantaneously. It’s a pretty remarkable leap in a very short amount of time. One animal that has moved into that spotlight as a part of this technology leap is certainly the cat. You can’t spend five minutes online without running into some cat related picture or video. The first cat video went up on youtube in 2005 and now there are about 2 million and they average approximately 12000 views each (26 billion views total) (Myrick, 2015). It is said that cats own the internet, or maybe they dominate it.
A website launched in 2017 called Crypto Kitties. This website allows you to purchase and take care of little virtual kitties. Aw cute, but so what? In just a few days’ time there was over 1.3 million dollars spent on virtual kitties (Tepper, 2017). The most expensive single transaction was a whopping 113, 000 dollars with multiple kitties being sold for around 23,000$. One of the interesting aspects of the game is the breeding process where “each kitten has a 256-bit genome that holds the genetic sequence to all the different combinations kittens can have. These include things like background color, cooldown time, whiskers, beards, stripes and so on. Some of these genes can be recessive, meaning a kitten without stripes could still breed one with stripes” (Tepper, 2017) Sure it’s interesting, but could it possibly be 113, 000 dollars interesting? What do people get out of these interactions?
A study called Emotion Regulation, Procrastination, and Watching Cat Videos Online: Who Watches Internet Cats, Why, and to What Effect? By Jessica Myrick (2015) attempted to find out just that. There are a few theories as why people engage in such acts as watching cat videos or sharing cat memes. One of those theories is called the mood management theory (MMT) Basically MMT says that the type of media a person selects to interact with online is used to regulate their moods. It says that media is chosen based on its “based on its excitatory potential, absorption potential, semantic affinity, and hedonic valence” (Myrick, 2015). So basically if this theory is correct it should align with Myricks study. Another theory says that people do these things to procrastinate and that if that’s true there may be some guilt associated with the experience. Myrick polled about 11000 fans of a famous internet cat (Lil Bub) and donated a little bit of money for everyone that completed the survey. About 70000 completed the survey and the results were interesting. The strongest predictor that a person would interact with cat media online was emotional enjoyment before and after the video. That being said the strongest “motivation” for interacting with cats was happenstance and not some intent to get online and do it. When the content is interacted with though people tend to do it it multiple ways from commenting on it and sharing it to liking it. This result is in line with the mood management theory. They also found that though some did use cats to procrastinate it ended up being more like a guilty pleasure. They would get the guilt relative to whatever they were trying to avoid but when they got happy from watching the cat media and they would share the media with others and this would sort of alleviate some of the guilt because they were sharing their good feelings. Cat crack! So there is almost no downside to watching cat videos constantly on youtube while the world burns as long as your sharing. This leads us to the next lens; how might these furry little emotion regulators be affecting the environment?
Cats are listed among the 100 most invasive species on the planet. It is estimated that cats kill 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds each year and 6.9 to 20 billion mammals each year in the U.S (Loss, Will, Mara, 2013). It is also estimated that cats kill 258 to 822 reptiles and 95 to 299 amphibians each year (Loss et al., 2013). The U.S. has a bit of an issue with unowned feral cats. A feral cat is a cat that has little to no contact with humans and the generally won’t allow themselves to be touched by them. It is estimated that there are nearly 50 million to 150 million unowned cats in the United States alone (Williams, 2013) They can roam around in colonies of up to about 300 cats (Loss et al., 2013). One difference between the feral cats and owned cats is the feral cats spend more time in a high activity state. What that means is the cats spend more time hunting or just running around (Zeilinski, 2011). They also spend more time awake at night and sleeping during the day because it tends to reflect the pattern of sleeping of their prey. One concern about these massive feral cat colonies is that cats can carry rabies and although its been a long time since someone has died from a cat giving them rabies it is a concern (Weis, 2013). Humans come into the picture now when we start to talk about disease and colonies of cats roaming around at night. Traditionally the way we dealt with stray animals, especially potentially diseased ones was to euthanize them. With cats though there is a pretty strong movement to register the cat colonies and control them (have them fixed). There is even a pretty famous cat colony living in the last place that you would expect them, with Mickey Mouse! A colony of about 100 cats that moved in to Disneyland around 1955 when they opened (Jaeger, 2014). They probably came originally to snack on the little leftovers left by guests, but they are now maintained by the park. They are neutered, tagged and vaccinated by the park There are feeding stations and the employees and local vets keep up with the cats needs (Jaeger, 2014). This is what is called the trap-neuter-return (TNR) approach to feral colonies. There are opponents to this who cite that the cats can carry disease and should be killed or like PETA who says the cats should be handled and given to homes (Jaegar, 2014).
An interesting little study watched a feral cat feeding station that was maintained by a community (Urban Wildlife Research Project, 2013). A person would put a pound of food there a every few days, they set up a camera to see who was eating the food. It turned out that feral cats only actually ate 4% of the food. Most of the food was eaten by raccoons and angry skunks. The people who did the study hypothesized that this could have a negative impact on the local wildlife by introducing this strange food that these other animals weren’t use to eating. They also hypothesize that with so many mouths eating from the same bowl it could also spread disease more rapidly if there was disease to spread. How else might cats be impacting the environment?
Another way that cats impact the environment is through the owned cats need and consumption of cat food. Cat and dog food both contain a certain amount of meat. It is estimated that in the U.S. there are about 163 million owned dogs and cats (Okin, 2017). There is more meat in the dogs and cats diets so it is estimated that they consume about 25 percent of the total calories derived from animals consumed in the U.S. If they were their own country they would rank fifth in the world in total meat consumption (Okin, 2017). This meat production has been estimated at causing about 64 million tons of greenhouse gasses a year which is equivalent to 13.6 million cars (Okin, 2017). On top of all that cats and dogs produce an estimated 5.1 million tons of feces a year which is equivalent to the amount of trash produced in the state of Massachusetts by humans for an entire year (Okin, 2017). One of the issues with this is that it would be unhealthy for the animals to switch to a more vegetarian diet so the meat is necessary. A solution that is talked about is called snout to tail. It is where the more unappetizing parts of animals are used for the dog and cat food. It is estimated that if just 25 percent of dog and cat food made right now was edible by humans it could 26 million Americans (Okin, 2017). The idea of using all of the animal means that less animals will be used in overall production so that will reduce the waste and the energy needed in the long run. Another thing suggested by the researcher was that Americans could reduce their pet ownership in general. This however seems unlikely. The final lens I would like to explore is a personal one.
My mother was a magical creature. One of her charms was that she always had the most enigmatic cats around her. It didn’t matter how many litters of cats they were always unique and awesome to be around, it was a reflection of her. I had a few cats after she died and I will say that they were pretty amazing. I always felt like it was a reflection of my connection with my mom or a little bit of her in me. Cats are kind of my symbolic animal as well. The way that cats act is kind of the way that I am, aloof, independent and a bit mischievous. I would like to share a story about a cat I had named Dilemma. First off Dilemma was one of my mom’s favorite words so the cat was named in honor of her. Dilemma was part Egyptian cat, she was white, tiny with slender legs and tall ears. She could do things I have never seen a cat do. I’ve seen plenty of cats run up trees, which she did, but I’ve never seen them run down them, which she did. She could leap up to this ridiculous height, like weird high. Two massive snub tail neighbor cats bloodied her eye once and chased her around. She singled both of them out and kicked both their asses (she was always super tiny too) in the weeks to follow. She was also the best mother I have ever seen. She was dedicated to getting pregnant, more dedicated than I was in getting her fixed. She got pregnant immediately one litter after another and she would get all fat and happy laying on the cool floor with her massive belly. Her kittens were so freakin amazing and enigmatic, some of the happiest moments in my life so far were spent with them. The relationship I had with this cat was of mutual respect, I don’t know how else to describe it. She embodies what a cat means to me.
Cats are here to stay. They found a beneficial situation with humans and have managed to make themselves valuable, first through their ability to control vermin and then through just being themselves. Cats do however have an effect on the environment and it seems like the unowned cat situation in the U.S. could be a not so subtle attempt at world domination (starting with the birds). Who knows, the world might be a better place with cats running things. Grumpy cat would definitely be president and I gotta say I think it would be an improvement.
 

 
 
References
Driscol, C., Macdonald, D., Obrien, S., (2009). From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication PNAS Vol. 106 doi:10.1073/pnas.0901586106Grumpy cat for president:image (n.d.) Retrieved from December 11, 2017https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoOBeRDWAAAlAMW.jpg
Jaeger, K. (2014). The feral cats of disneyland. Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vdpj7b/disneyland-has-a-feral-cat-problem-1013
Kitchener, A. (1991) The natural history of wild cats. New York, Comstock publishing.
Loss, S. R., Will, T., and Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications 4 (1396) doi:10.1038/ncomms2380
Myrick, Jessica. (2015). Emotion regulation, procrastination, and watching cat videos online: Who watches Internet cats, why, and to what effect?. Computers in Human Behavior. 52. . 10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.001
Okin, G. S. (2017). Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. Plos One 12(8) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181301
Tepper, F. (2017). People have spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain. Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/03/people-have-spent-over-1m-buying-virtual-cats-on-the-ethereum-blockchain/
Urban Wildlife research Project (2013) Feeding the feral: A study on feral cat’s environmental impact. (2013). Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://urbanwildliferesearchproject.com/feeding-the-feral-a-study-on-feral-cats-environmental-impact/
Weise, E. (2013). Feral cat colonies could pose rabies risk, CDC says. Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/17/feral-cats-colonies-rabies-risk/2665359/
Zielinski, S. (2011). The secret lives of feral cats. Retrieved December 11, 2017, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-secret-lives-of-feral-cats-179790776/
 
 
 

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    HSU students enrolled in GEOG 300, Global Awareness, during the fall semesters of 2017, 2018, and 2019. 

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