so i forgot in even talk about my own consumption.. got a little carried away :) But i would say i like to conserve but as i said in my last blog that doesn't really account for a lot. I turn off my water when doing everything, brushing my teeth, washing my dishes.. i should probably do it more while showing too, but i also try to take the fastest shower ever and not one everyday. I also would like tot think i don't buy a ton of stuff, but i do i guess. I do try to buy already used things because the best thing to do is to reduce and reuse. I do simple things like using a metal bottle so i dont buy plastic bottles, i keep jars for glasses after getting stuff like salsa or i take those to refill them at places that i can, like i can get honey refills. Or i can bring back my egg cartons back to the farmer i buy them from so i don't keep throwing them away... i also try to buy as local as possible!! Let see all those things i find small but one thing that i have done that is a big change in my life is I became a vegetarian because of the environmental effects of producing meat and seafood. And i don't mean production as in the packing i mean everything.. that would be a very long list... okay so now that i made myself feel good about what i do lets look at what i do horribly!! I drive, not a ton but i do make a trip back home and then back to school two times a year.. thats a 12 hour drive of driving.. not to mention the driving i do to the stories i photograph. Oh and I also fly home about once a quarter or i go visit my brother where ever he is. I also travel a lot.. there's more flighting taking up on my list. To be honest there are a million things i do that is horrible but i like to think i try.. i don't try my hardest and i should but i have been slowly moving there. I do think it is something you have to do either i a slow process ( not too slow) or a wicked fast one; just rip off that band-add. When i move out of college im ripping it of lets say. Yes thats in a little over a year but i am going to live the life i believe in that is friendly to the environment.
Its a tough idea to consume less, it is in our nature to have our kids to have more or better than we do so it is a matter i suppose to change what we think is better or more.. more of what? more of healthy air, water and land.. have it so kids don't asthma have at the age of 9.
It may be because i grew up surround by woods but i love it and i plan to try to 'save' it but like my brother said like no one has looked at the sunset and said now that is ugly... nature is just something of beauty .. all of it because all of it added together makes thing like waterfalls with perfect flowers all around and pretty sunset

"Grow inwardly and with knowledge become truly wiser"

Okay can I just say Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp is amazing. Not that I like the idea of the mistreatment of the earth but i love how he goes about it. First of all it is like reading my own thoughts but witty. Although I am a big environmentalist and I try to do my part, lets be honest I do practically nothing and as I read it i keep saying to myself well when I am older i will have my own house and i can making all environmentally friendly.. but that is not now so doesn't count yet.

I found that I could connect with The Conundrum of Consumption because he was talking about where I am from and i could see what he was talking about but i found Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp way more influential. Everything just me think of things in my life like when he talks about driving past crushed animals on the road; that is something i personally can not drive by with out the want to shut my eyes or at lest flinch wickedly. Then he goes into the photo of a sea turtle and it was a fantastic visual of what nature is perceived as but also how it really is. Like we were saying class that 'nature isn't separated from 'civilization' people just think that. Nature is around us; pollen is in the air whether it is in a city or a forest same with mice. :)

When he talks about the gov't finding an "acceptable level of harm" was priceless and so true. In all my environmental classes we talk of the good that does but he puts in a whole new true light. Although realistically we can not just stop all consumption and really that is not natural all things in nature consume and create waste we humans just create a mass amount. But then he then brings but a great point relating to that.. although we can't just stop all consumption we should really think about what we are consuming; "it's been a popular weed killer, even though it has been directly linked with birth defects. You must hate weeds a lot." <>

Later on the consumption of shrimp is talked about and yet again a fantastic point comes up; "When you love something, it had better watch out, because you have a tendency to love it to death."

It is interesting because tourism is then brought up. And i have been thinking about this for the last few days. It bring in money to help fix things and so on but it does have that horrible affect of showing people how amazing the things worth saving are and in return it helps destroy them.

Williams goes on to more amazing points and i could go on for days so maybe i put a few quotes that are great or some that i think shouldn't be passed by and should be thought about:

"wild things exist only of you have the graciousness to allow them to."

(this is about the museum) "three hundred species are there, at least a third of them-the rarest ones-killed and collected by one C.J. McElroy, who enjoyed doing it and now shares what's left with you."

(now the zoo) "You don't want to see too much of anything, certainly. An example will suffice."

"you seem to prefer to continue pondering effects rather than preventing causes. You want proof..."

"Uninhabitable the world has to get before you rein in your requirements."

(to prove pollution they ruined a lake in 80 years) "Now the scientist are slowly reversing the process. But it will take hundred of years for the lakes to recover. They think."

"The Forest Service, which now manages our forest by cutting them down..".... "They can't help us if we've killed them, now can they? <<< **

perfect to end my wicked long blog entry: " The ecological crisis cannot be resolved by polities. It cannot be solved by science or technology. It is crisis caused by culture and character, and a deep change in personal consciousness is needed."

rough draft

Halie Cousineau English 308J

Writing About Reading 1/24/1

“Thinking Like a Mountain” and “Sifting through the Embers”

Aldo Leopold’s “Thinking Like a Mountain” from his awarding book the A Sand County Almanac and Douglas Adams’ “Sifting through the Embers” from his book Last Chance to See may seem like stories about two different subjects when first read. Aldo Leopold uses his character’s memory, of shooting and watching a wolf die, to show how the character came to his epiphany: some human actions can change an ecosystem completely, such as hunting wolves in areas have made the deer population inflate dramatically which can also change the plant life. While Douglas Adams uses his story, a woman trying to sell important books for a high price that no one will buy, then burns them and increases the price until someone pays an extraordinary price just to save the last one, to show how humans do not care for objects, like the environment, as much until it is almost gone. When I read the stories again I found that although the books’ ‘second meanings’ are not the exact same message I do feel that they both express issues dealing with human’s reactions on ecosystems and the idea of true value.

“Thinking Like a Mountain” was one of the more impactful sections I have read about human influence on the environment. Aldo Leopold uses a personal account of watching “a fierce green fire dying in her eyes;” the story of watching the wolf die, to create a personal connection to nature dying. I also think the deeper message is the idea of humans purposely changing their surrounds can have unanticipated negative affect. “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” He uses the mountain, as a symbol of the Earth saying the Earth only listens it does not act. However humans don’t think like the mountain because they don’t ‘listen’ humans just act: “We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness” and humans don’t think of what their actions will react into. I found this to be similar to Douglas Adams’ “Sifting through the Embers” because the people’s actions in the book have an unanticipated negative affect

In “Sifting through the Embers” the books that contained all the knowledge and wisdom of the world represent the environment. Due to ignorance the humans let the book be destroyed until there is only one left, this not only shows that humans tend to only value something until it is rare or gone but also that the true value of something is not calculated until it is gone. Aldo Leopold did not realize the value of a balanced ecosystem until it was ruined and Douglas Adams did not consider the value of the books until all but one was gone.

I do think that both stories have different messages but they can still be related. One story shows humans actions have a ripped effect and the other shows the high price of not paying attention to something until it is gone. But they both show the need to consider the true value of things and until something is gone or almost gone we humans don’t see its value. Our ignorance lets us not care that we are changing in the world and we will have to pay a price.

the discussion in class today made me think of this weekend. Because of the reading and something my brother said we started talking about the ideas that the book was saying (environmental tax) but also other ways to make people become aware of the reactions to their actions. My brother thought of an idea that I think would work but with help of the government. He says that it should be people who will make the real change, because supply and demand, if no one wants it then (unless the gov't forces it) it wont happen. So he said the best way to go about that is to increase education about the environment. If it is a topic we learn in school at a young age and all the negative affect that our actions have on the world then maybe people will start doing little things that will help or even big things. I said how ever that will take a long time, multiple generations. I say this because what your parents teach you tends to be a strong foundation on your beliefs, therefor education of the good environment might have a big effect on human actions in the world, but after the education of two or three generations. So after we talked about that for ever, i thought that maybe with education then once that is getting a start slowly bring in the environmental tax so people have a plus/incentive to buy and react to their education... i ddidn't think of this conversation until class, i'm not saying it is the perfect way but it is interesting to think about all the ways to great awareness of environmental problems.

related video to reading and sustainable living

I put this on the main page in hope people will see it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdo-YUFZd6c

this is just something that has a lot to with sustainable living habits and it related to the web of life the book was talking about,i feel that this video is wicked important for people to watch or learn about

From the Web of Life

This reading was particularly interesting to me because it is something i am very conscious about and something i love to learn about. But i loved the way it was written, yes it so about things i knew but in a different from. At one point he talks about that the ecosystems have no consciousness or culture, no justice or democracy but also no greed or dishonesty but we have the power to learn to be sustainable, more like it is saying we can be the bigger man and pay attention to what we do and the consequences of it.

One of the best sentences in the reading i thought was : " If one tries to maximize any single variable instead of optimizing it, this will invariably lead to the destruction of the system as a whole." put well i thought.

Reaction one

hello, so I made a post a few days ago but on the home page and I didn't even realize it so here is my response.

After reading the history of how people view this country and the wilderness within it, I haven't really changed my idea of wilderness drastically. I have always had my own opinion on nature and wilderness; I live in a pretty dense area of forest in my town so I think of nature as a place that I live not some fairy tail place or a savage land. I also spend a good deal traveling to areas that contain lots of forest but I do how ever vacation to theses areas as the reading said and I do see how people, including me, use the wilderness as a place of peace or a place to go visit. Although it does say people go to visit and don't live there but I do live in a form of wilderness, not too wild but more so than most areas that people live in.

Most of this reading was things had I have already studied in environmental classes that I have taken or it related to what I have already learned. Like how the book says people feel that wilderness is thought to be separated from where people live today. Which is not true at all but even if you think you can draw a line between where "civilization" is and the "wilderness" is, these two places have such an impact on each other that the line is soon erased. The obvious connection is the dependency humans have on the natural world around us for things like oil, medicine, food, air and more. But what people may not see is the influence we have on areas that are thought to be untouched. Even in reserves or national parks in America there is pollution in theses “pristine” places from not just from, America but the winds from Asia bring over pollution as well. The wilderness is getting smaller and more affected by man to the point where there isn't such a line between what people think is wilderness and "civilization". Plus there is the facts there even in the wilderness where no man has gone, there really has been men who have gone there and lived there in one time or another.

One parts in the resent reading that really got my attentions and I wanted to make a quick comment on was the idea that beauty of nature, like fog and mountains was only thought beautiful until someone pointed it out with art, this was on page 62. I am not sure how I feel about the truth of that but it still intrigues me.

A bit about me

Hello my name is Halie, I am a junior at Ohio University, I am a photojournalist and this is my fist blog. I am from Connecticut and I came here to ohio for my major. Although i surprisingly love it here in athens i do miss what my home has to offer from the ocean to sail and swim in to the snow covered mountains to ski in :). A little bit about me, is my family is wicked important to me, i love them parents so much i rather hang out with them half the time and my brother is my only sibling and he is also my absolute best friend in the world and I am his. Although my life right now is very much centered around my family my life now is changing to be more focused on my education of becoming a world journalist. I truly intended to change the world, for better, at lest in specific areas, with my work and I believe and will do so because I am a extremely determined persona and I work hard no matter what especially with things i believe in. Really there is much I could say but I rather have someone find out about me through meeting me and becoming my friend than explain myself in words.

Oh and i apologize for miss spelled words or the wrong word because thats just who and I am.. a bad speller.

-halie-