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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![]() 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. "Worldwide March Against Monsanto." Progressive, vol. 77, no. 7, July 2013, pp. 10-13. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=88166260. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017. Wright, Karen. "Terminator Genes." Discover, vol. 24, no. 8, Aug. 2003, pp. 48-50. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10269457. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017. Works Referenced Anna, GaÅÄ zka, et al. "Changes in Enzymatic Activities and Microbial Communities in Soil under Long-Term Maize Monoculture and Crop Rotation." Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, vol. 26, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 39-46. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ofm&AN=121153711. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Baker, Beth. "Synthetic Biology." CQ Researcher, vol. 24, no. 16, 25 Apr. 2014, pp. 361-84, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2014042500. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. "BASF USA." BASF, BASF SE, 2017, www.basf.com/us/en.html. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. "Bayer Acquires Monsanto for US$66Bn." TCE: The Chemical Engineer, Oct. 2016, p. 14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=118805236. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. "Bayer: Science for a Better Life." Bayer, Bayer AG, 2017, www.bayer.com/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Beary, Brian. "U.S. Trade Policy." CQ Researcher, vol. 23, no. 32, 13 Sept. 2013, pp. 765-88, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2013091300. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. 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. Clemmitt, Marcia. "The Dark Web." CQ Researcher, vol. 26, no. 3, 15 Jan. 2016, pp. 49-72, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2016011500. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Preventing Cancer." CQ Researcher, vol. 19, no. 2, 16 Jan. 2009, pp. 25-48, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2009011600. Accessed 10 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. "The Dow Chemical Company." Dow, Dow Chemical Company, 2017, www.dow.com/. 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. "DuPont USA | Global Headquarters." DuPont, 2017, www.dupont.com/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. The Editors, editor. "Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?" ScientificAmerican.com, Scientific American, 13 Aug. 2009, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research. Accessed 5 Nov. 2013. "Epicyte Pharmaceutical Inc. - Company Profile." BioCentury, Bio Century, www.biocentury.com/companies/epicyte_pharmaceutical_inc. Accessed 19 Nov. 2013. Eric, Coppolino. "Pandora's Poison." Sierra, Sept.-Oct. 1994. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=gft&AN=503293678. 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. Fikes, Bradley J. "Biotech Firm Epicyte Raises $16M." UTSanDiego.com, UT San Diego, 17 Apr. 2001, www.utsandiego.com/news/2001/apr/17/biotech-firm-epicyte-raises-16m/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2013. Foley, Jonathan. "It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System." Scientific American, Nature America, 5 Mar. 2013, www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/. 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. Food, Inc. Directed by Robert Kenner, narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media, River Road Entertainment, 2008. "The Gene Revolution, The Future of Agriculture: Dr. Thierry Vrain at TEDxComoxValley." YouTube.com, uploaded by TEDx Talks, Ted.com, 7 June 203, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQkQXyiynYs. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Glazer, Sarah. "Free Speech on Campus." CQ Researcher, vol. 25, no. 18, 8 May 2015, pp. 409-32, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2015050800. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Rising Food Prices." CQ Global Researcher, vol. 5, no. 20, 18 Oct. 2011, pp. 499-524, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqrglobal2011101800. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Slow Food Movement." CQ Researcher, vol. 17, no. 4, 26 Jan. 2007, pp. 73-96, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2007012600. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Hosansky, David. "Farm Subsidies." CQ Researcher, vol. 12, no. 19, 17 May 2002, pp. 433-56, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2002051700. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Izakson, Orna. "Seeds of Doubt: Monsanto in Court." E: The Environmental Magazine, vol. 14, no. 3, May-June 2003, pp. 11-12. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=gft&AN=503823505. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Jost, Kenneth. "Patenting Human Genes." CQ Researcher, vol. 23, no. 20, 31 May 2013, pp. 473-96, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2013053100. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Karaim, Reed. "Farm Subsidies." CQ Global Researcher, vol. 6, no. 9, 1 May 2012, pp. 205-28, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqrglobal2012050100. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Vanishing Biodiversity." CQ Global Researcher, vol. 6, no. 21, 6 Nov. 2012, pp. 497-520, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqrglobal2012110600. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Katel, Peter. "Food Safety." CQ Researcher, vol. 20, no. 44, 17 Dec. 2010, pp. 1037-60, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2010121700. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Kaufman, Rachel. "Food Labeling." CQ Researcher, vol. 27, no. 22, 16 June 2017, pp. 509-32, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2017061600. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Kiener, Robert. "Food Policy Debates." CQ Researcher, vol. 24, no. 35, 3 Oct. 2014, pp. 817-40, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2014100300. Accessed 10 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. Klein, Ezra, and Susannah Locke. "40 Maps That Explain Food in America." Vox, Vox Media, 9 June 2014, www.vox.com/a/explain-food-america. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Koch, Kathy. "Food Safety Battle: Organic Vs. Biotech." CQ Researcher, vol. 8, no. 33, 4 Sept. 1998, pp. 761-84, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1998090400. Accessed 10 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. McLure, Jason. "Genetically Modified Food." CQ Researcher, vol. 22, no. 30, 31 Aug. 2012, pp. 717-40, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2012083100. Accessed 10 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. Nastasija, MRKOVA?KI, et al. "Dynamics of the Number of Microorganisms and Dehydrogenase Activity in the Rhizosphere of Maize in Long-Term Monoculture." Research Journal of Agricultural Science, vol. 44, no. 2, June 2012, pp. 192-97. EBSCOhost,, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=90267163. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. 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. Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Press, 2006. Price, Tom. "Campaign Finance." CQ Researcher, vol. 26, no. 18, 6 May 2016, pp. 409-32, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2016050600. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Global Hunger." CQ Researcher, vol. 24, no. 29, 8 Aug. 2014, pp. 673-96, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2014080800. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Research and Markets. "Global Agricultural Biotechnology Strategic Business Report 2017: Leading Players Are AgReliant, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, KWS, Vilmorin/Limagrain - Research and Markets." Business Wire, 21 Apr. 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=bizwire.c78247614. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. ---. "Global Commercial Seed Market - Forecasts to 2022 - Key Players Are Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, Land OLakes & Bayer CropScience - Research and Markets." Business Wire, 8 Sept. 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=bizwire.c80543916. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. ---. "Global Seeds Strategic Business Report 2017 - Leading Players Are Bayer, Dupont Pioneer, Groupe Limagrain, KWS, Land O Lakes, Monsanto & Syngenta - Research and Markets." Business Wire, July 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=bizwire.c80282582. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. ---. "Nematicides Market - Canada Industry Forecasts (2017-2022) - Key Players Are Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, BASF, DuPont, Monsanto, Valent BioSciences & FMC Corporation." PR Newswire US, 31 July 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=201707310615PR.NEWS.USPR.IO53977. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. 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. "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. 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. "Syngenta." Syngenta, 2017, www.syngenta.com/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. Weeks, Jennifer. "Factory Farms." CQ Researcher, vol. 17, no. 2, 12 Jan. 2007, pp. 25-48, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2007011200. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Global Population Growth." CQ Researcher, vol. 25, no. 3, 16 Jan. 2015, pp. 49-72, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2015011600. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. ---. "Pesticide Controversies." CQ Researcher, vol. 25, no. 21, 5 June 2015, pp. 481-504, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2015060500. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017. Wolna-Maruwka, A., et al. "Biological Activity of Grey-Brown Podzolic Soil Organically Fertilized for Maize Cultivation in Monoculture." Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, vol. 18, no. 5, Sept. 2009, pp. 931-39. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ofm&AN=45196259. Accessed 11 Dec. 2017. "Worldwide March Against Monsanto." Progressive, vol. 77, no. 7, July 2013, pp. 10-13. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=88166260. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017. Wright, Karen. "Terminator Genes." Discover, vol. 24, no. 8, Aug. 2003, pp. 48-50. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.humboldt.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10269457. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017. Coral Bleaching: A Death that is not as Black and White as it seems |
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/ |

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

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

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.
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.
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 |
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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