Journal 12

Damn I sure hope no one  lives like me!

Ok, so I'll be quite honestly with you, before I took this test I thought that I would not have that big of a carbon footprint. I mean I recycle more than all my friends, I turn off the lights more than all of my friends, I try and carpool more than all my friends. I just felt as though 'Oh, I am sure not going to have the smallest footprint but, I am definitely going to have a pretty good sized one. Boy was I wrong. I was soooooo wrong! Once I finished the quiz my results were that if everyone of the earth lived like I live then we would need 6.57 Earths!!! What I mean geeze!! That made me feel sooo bad! I definitely know that I need to do something to get those numbers to start and come down! It is just ridiculous! Recently though I did watch this documentary called Food Inc. and I have been trying to eat more organic and shop more at local farmers markets, but it is definitely a challenge. The only farmers market that I can go to on consistent basis is Whole Foods. Which isn't even a farmers market but it is the closest thing to one! 

          Overall I think that it would be a good idea if everyone took that test. Not so they can just jump of and say they want to change their whole lives, but more so that they will know what THEIR personal impact is and how they can help reduce it.

Journal 11

CORKSCREW SANCTUARY!!!

          When we went on field trip to Corkscrew sanctuary it was actually my second time visiting and this time I actually liked it more than the first time that I went. I think the biggest difference is that the first time that I went I just went with a friends and we didn’t have a personal tour guide we just walked around by ourselves. Plus, last time that I went my friend and I got chased by a raccoon, and that is never fun!!! L

            This time when I went I got so much more information about not only how the sanctuary itself was started and what it’s about, but more the actual animals that reside in the area. One of the most interesting things that I learned this time around was that way back in the day when women used to use bird feathers in their hats that was actually literally killing of the indigenous birds that resided in Southwest Florida. Some of the birds actually resided in the sanctuary. Well (I can’t remember her name) but there was this one lady (YES A WOMEN) who helped start the sanctuary and she helped put awareness out to people letting them know that they were killing the birds and therefore helping save the birds.

            Anyways I really enjoyed our tour guide too, he was super down to earth and when he was giving us our tour he really related a lot of stuff about conservation and the environment directly back to use and gave us ideas of things that we could to as college students to help it out.

Journal 10

 Allocation of Resources- Will a Capitalistic Free-Market Economy Always Optimally Allocate Resources?

  For my research I think that a free-market economy will in fact, always optimally allocate resources. Google defines a free market as 'An economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses'.  In a free market there are many, many stake holders who want certain goods and services and they are willing to pay for those goods and services. Therefore when there is a free market resources are allocated in a way that the person who is willing to pay the optimal highest price gets the good. I think that this is a good way to allocate resources. Is it the fairest way to allocate resources? NO! Most definitely not since there is an un- proportionate amount of people who have money and those who do not have money. This means that is there are goods that are being allocated then poor people will get the 'leftovers', if any at all. But this does not mean that the goods are not being allocated in an unprofitable way. This in fact means the exact opposite.

            Personally I am all for a free market economy. I think that it is a good market that is able to (for the most part) self regulate itself, thus keeping the government out, in a good way. Also in a free market economy buyers can buy any commodity that they want to at whatever price they want to pay. While on the other hand producers can produce almost whatever goods they want to. Another benefit of a free market economy is that price is determined by supply and demand, and there are not price ceilings or price floors.

Journal 9

Reflection upon Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic”

After reading “The Land Ethic” I think that Leopold makes many valid points. I am not saying that he turned me into someone who is going to drop everything and change the way I live my life; I do think that his article made me think a lot about certain things.
The first thing that Aldo delves into is ‘The Community Concept’. He says that every individual is a member of a community and that his instincts prompt him to compete for his place in the community, but his ethic prompt him to also co-operate. Which is soooo true if you think about it! It’s almost when you ask someone their opinion on something that you already know you like. You’re not really looking to know if they really like it but you’re looking for their reassurance and for them to like and do what you want them to do.
      Leopold then points out a good contradiction that we have in our own Star Spangled Banner, when we say for the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we don’t love or appreciate our lands, waters, or our other resources. I had never ever even noticed that we sang that and that we pretty much did the exact opposite! Kind of comical, not in a mean way but really it is!
        Next Leopold talks about our ‘Ecological Consciences’, and says that “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The proof that conservation had not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.” Now when I originally read this there were a couple of important things that I took away. For one I completely and one hundred percent agree with what he said about how changes in ethics take internal change. When you want to change something that has been so ingrained, it truly does take and internal change. You, cannot just all of a sudden one day just wake up and say ‘Oh, yep, I think today I’ll change my political stance. Or the stance that I take on abortion, poverty, war, etc.’ Those are really big choices and decisions that we make through our life experiences. Those are choices that take thought and consideration if you want to change them.
       Next, he says that since philosophy and religion have yet to ‘hear’ of conservation then it is something that people are not going to want to change for the better. To me this means that since people put such an emphasis on their belief systems and personal outlooks, that until those areas of their lives are involved we conservation, then people won’t really take it seriously or put an emphasis on it. Which to me makes perfect sense; growing up I went to church a lot and what I learned there helped make up the things that I think are ‘important’. Since not once going to church did I hear that we are destroying our plant I never put it at the top of my ‘Important Things’ lists.

Journal 8

cancelled!!! :)