Week 5
Starting week 5 off I two of the the CSPI eye openers, both of the quizes involed learning about how what I am eating affects the environment, my health, and in the 'score your diet quiz' it also showed my animal welfare score. I also took a look at the 'tour of the food supply' website which had lots of information about slaughter houses, restaurants, etc. It was a great site!
In class we watched, the movie, Future of Food. This video sparked a lof of great conversation, and questions from the class. I couldn't believe how that farmer and his wife lost their farm of 50 years just because they had a few GMO crops in their field that they didn't even know were there! And I also really dislike the fact that manufactures who use GMO foods in their products don't have to tell us!! It raises the question in my mind about what if a seemingly vegetarian food really has parts of genes from animals, would it still be vegetarian? Being vegetarian, I know that I would be really upset to find out there were parts of animal products being used in some of the food I'm eating. Like the mentioned in the movie, a company manufactured a tomato that has part flounder gene in it.
Week 6
I was actually unfortunately sick this past Monday and wasn't able to make it to class. However, I did watch the video 'Diet for a New America.' The part of the movie that showed a tube of blood with a ton of fat in it after a man had eaten a cheese burgur was distgusting! I also found it interesting that in China only about %10 of their diet comes from meat, and in America it's about %70. Sick. The section of the video about baby cows and how they are raised in tiny little crates so they can't move so their meat is tender made me so sad.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3: Weekly update
My smart goal was that ' I will use a reuable bag everytime I go grocery shopping.'
Success
I have barely gone grocery shopping since last week. But I did go pick up a couple things yesterday and remembered to bring my bag. Which was a good success for me because I wasn't going to bring my bag into the store because I was only going to get two things, so I didn't think I needed one. But I ended up with a more than that so I was happy I grabbed it :)
Challenge
This week was an easy week for my SMART challenge since I didn't do any major grocery shopping.
What I learned
I learned this week that I really enjoy using my reusable bag. It makes me feel like I may help inspire someone else to use them too.
Plans for Next Week
I'm planning on continuing with my goal for this next week. "I will use a reusable bag everytime I go to the grocery store."
Success
I have barely gone grocery shopping since last week. But I did go pick up a couple things yesterday and remembered to bring my bag. Which was a good success for me because I wasn't going to bring my bag into the store because I was only going to get two things, so I didn't think I needed one. But I ended up with a more than that so I was happy I grabbed it :)
Challenge
This week was an easy week for my SMART challenge since I didn't do any major grocery shopping.
What I learned
I learned this week that I really enjoy using my reusable bag. It makes me feel like I may help inspire someone else to use them too.
Plans for Next Week
I'm planning on continuing with my goal for this next week. "I will use a reusable bag everytime I go to the grocery store."
Friday, October 16, 2009
Read 'N' Seed 2: First Quarter of Under a Green Sky
I've read the first two chapers,61 pages, of Under a Green Sky by Peter Ward. And I'm not going to lie, as of right now I don't really like the book. It's like reading a text book from a paleontology class. A lot of the really specifc details go over my head and I have to repeatedly re-read paragraphs to make sure I read it right. However, what I do understand of what I've read so far is pretty interesting.
Though there is lots of background information about the theorys and viewpoints. There has been one main topic that has been talked about a lot so far. And then another that has been touched on.
The first being the K-T extinction. This took place inbetween the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. This extinction caused a lot of controversy because a father and son scientific team from the University of Berkley named Alvarez published a paper saying that this extiniction was caused by a giant asteroid that hit the Earth caused huge environmental changes through out the whole world. Many critics didn't believe his theory and challenged it for a long time. They believe that it the extinction was caused by a long term climate change and extinctions happened over a course of a long time.
Alvarez explained his theory was like a domino effect. The first being that it wasn't just the impact itself that would have killed off so many species, it was a period of darkness that occured after the impact because of the large amount of debris in meteoric and Earth material that was blown into the atmosphere. This would kill much of the plant life on earth. Next, large amounts of sulfer was also in the atmosphere after the impact, that rained down as acid rain. Also, because so much sunlight would have been absorbed by atmosphereic dust particles the Earth cooled down to almost, or to, near freezing temperatures. Which before the impact the Earth had mostly tropical. With all of these drastic changes a mass extiniction was a definite possiblity.
Later, Peter Ward was able to vist a K-T boundary site, which are located all over the world. In his journey there he made a discovery that supported Alverez's theory. He found, tiny pieces of platinum and iridium- which is what stars and asteroids are made out of. Platunum and iridium were then discovered all over the world at other K-T boundary sites. By the 1990s very few people doubted Alvarez's theory. Were the asteroid supposedly hit was the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the impact site being called the Chicxulub Crater.
The other topic, was another boundary that was discovered that was first thought to be a time period when very little extinction took place. But it was discovered, through investigation of carbon and oxygen isotopes, that instead the shallow water of the oceans being more than the deeper water it was just the opposite. The water was being warmed from the bottom. Since the water was becoming more warm, there was less oxygen in the water many organisms living in the ocean started to die out fairly rapidly.
Implications
The topics so far affect society because the more we know about Earth's past the better we can prepare for the future. Actually many scientists in the book said that it is very possible that many of Earth's extinctions could have been caused my meteors, and that it could happen again. So far, not much has been mentioned about a rise in CO2 or global warming but many of the reviews of the book have said it's a big part of Under a Green Sky. So I think that implications that can affect society today are going to be addressed more later in the book.
Though there is lots of background information about the theorys and viewpoints. There has been one main topic that has been talked about a lot so far. And then another that has been touched on.
The first being the K-T extinction. This took place inbetween the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. This extinction caused a lot of controversy because a father and son scientific team from the University of Berkley named Alvarez published a paper saying that this extiniction was caused by a giant asteroid that hit the Earth caused huge environmental changes through out the whole world. Many critics didn't believe his theory and challenged it for a long time. They believe that it the extinction was caused by a long term climate change and extinctions happened over a course of a long time.
Alvarez explained his theory was like a domino effect. The first being that it wasn't just the impact itself that would have killed off so many species, it was a period of darkness that occured after the impact because of the large amount of debris in meteoric and Earth material that was blown into the atmosphere. This would kill much of the plant life on earth. Next, large amounts of sulfer was also in the atmosphere after the impact, that rained down as acid rain. Also, because so much sunlight would have been absorbed by atmosphereic dust particles the Earth cooled down to almost, or to, near freezing temperatures. Which before the impact the Earth had mostly tropical. With all of these drastic changes a mass extiniction was a definite possiblity.
Later, Peter Ward was able to vist a K-T boundary site, which are located all over the world. In his journey there he made a discovery that supported Alverez's theory. He found, tiny pieces of platinum and iridium- which is what stars and asteroids are made out of. Platunum and iridium were then discovered all over the world at other K-T boundary sites. By the 1990s very few people doubted Alvarez's theory. Were the asteroid supposedly hit was the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the impact site being called the Chicxulub Crater. The other topic, was another boundary that was discovered that was first thought to be a time period when very little extinction took place. But it was discovered, through investigation of carbon and oxygen isotopes, that instead the shallow water of the oceans being more than the deeper water it was just the opposite. The water was being warmed from the bottom. Since the water was becoming more warm, there was less oxygen in the water many organisms living in the ocean started to die out fairly rapidly.
Implications
The topics so far affect society because the more we know about Earth's past the better we can prepare for the future. Actually many scientists in the book said that it is very possible that many of Earth's extinctions could have been caused my meteors, and that it could happen again. So far, not much has been mentioned about a rise in CO2 or global warming but many of the reviews of the book have said it's a big part of Under a Green Sky. So I think that implications that can affect society today are going to be addressed more later in the book.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Share and Voice: Plastic Bag Pollution
Here is a Youtube video that I found about plastic bag pollution. It's called Plastic Bag Pollution.
This video has a lot of sad facts about what plastic bag pollution does to the environment, along with pictures. But there is hope at the end of the video!
This is a perfect Share 'N' Voice for me because of my SMART goal. It makes me glad that I chose the goal I did. One fact from the video I found really interesting was that if 1 out of 5 people in the U.S. used reusable bags we would save 1,330,560,000,000 in one life time!
Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2: Weekly Update
SMART goal is to use a reusable bag everytime I go grocery shopping.
I did really well with it the past week! I brought a bag with me every time I went to the grocery store. However, once I only brought in one of my bags, and ended up needing two. So i chose plastic. I went one other time just for a few things and remembered my bags. I also got 10 cents taken off of my bill! :)
The challenge I faced was not remembering to have both of my bags in my car. The strategy I used was that earlier in the day that I knew I was going grocery shopping again, I wrote a reminder note to myself on the white board in my living room.
I felt really great to use my reusable bags! I felt like I could help inspire someone else to use them, by seeing me do it. My plan for next week is going to remain exactly the same :) Even though it didn't work out perfectly I think it's definitely still an attainable goal.
also: the reusable bags pictured at the top are from Greenraising.com
Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2 hosted by Eco-Chic with Amy.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Eye Opener: CSPI
Eating Green Calculator
My Eating Green Calculator Results are listed below. This asked me how many servings of beef, pork, chicken, eggs, cheese, milk and yogurt I eat each week. My answers were 0 servings for beef, pork,chicken. milk and yogurt. 5 servings a week for cheese. and egg a week. According to this calulator it would take:
0.1 acres of grain or grass needed for animal feed.
4.3 pounds of fertilizer needed to grow the animal feed.
0 pounds of pesticides
693 pounds of manure would be created.
When I selected 'improve your diet and protect the environment' the only change I made was to eat 2 less servings of cheese a week. So I went from 5 servings to 3. The impact this made is as follows:
-Fat will be decreased by %4
-Saturated fat will be decreased by %10
-Cholesterol will be decreased by %14
-and my fiber will increase by %7
The impact of my possible changes on the environment are as follows:
-2.9 pounds of fertilizer. As compared to 4.3.
-423 pounds of manure. As compared to 693.
I'm not sure if I could honestly take the pledge to eat 2 less servings of cheese each week. I'd like to, but since I already don't eat meat I like being able to eat cheese on a normal basis. I should because I'm semi-lactose intolerant, but I do anyway. 5 servings a week may have been a stretch for me anyway. It varys a lot.
Score your Diet.
The 'Score your Diet' calulator asked how many servings a week I eat of certain foods. Such as vegetables, cheese, pork, and candy.
I scored the highest for vegetables, 66; Which was in the green. And the next highest for cheese, -9;which was red. I also scored well in fruits and whole grains which are both green. I scored -1 for both eggs and candy, which is red. I scored the lowest for environmental health, which was -15. I could improve this by trying to each more organic vegetables, since I do eat so many. And also try and cut down on eating cheese.
Summary
First of all, I completely missed that Dr. V said choose ONE CSPI activity.... I did all three... My bad. But I deleted the first one because I didn't think I did very good on it, and kept the other two.
I thought the two food calculators were fun to take. I liked the 'score your diet' one better because gave me more food group options and gave information about how my actions affect the environments' health, animal welfare, and my own health. I was kind of surprised that only eating around 4 or 5 servings of cheese a week could have such an impact on the environment and drop my over all score so much. But it gives me motivation to try and cut back a little!
My Eating Green Calculator Results are listed below. This asked me how many servings of beef, pork, chicken, eggs, cheese, milk and yogurt I eat each week. My answers were 0 servings for beef, pork,chicken. milk and yogurt. 5 servings a week for cheese. and egg a week. According to this calulator it would take:
0.1 acres of grain or grass needed for animal feed.
4.3 pounds of fertilizer needed to grow the animal feed.
0 pounds of pesticides
693 pounds of manure would be created.
When I selected 'improve your diet and protect the environment' the only change I made was to eat 2 less servings of cheese a week. So I went from 5 servings to 3. The impact this made is as follows:
-Fat will be decreased by %4
-Saturated fat will be decreased by %10
-Cholesterol will be decreased by %14
-and my fiber will increase by %7
The impact of my possible changes on the environment are as follows:
-2.9 pounds of fertilizer. As compared to 4.3.
-423 pounds of manure. As compared to 693.
I'm not sure if I could honestly take the pledge to eat 2 less servings of cheese each week. I'd like to, but since I already don't eat meat I like being able to eat cheese on a normal basis. I should because I'm semi-lactose intolerant, but I do anyway. 5 servings a week may have been a stretch for me anyway. It varys a lot.
Score your Diet.
The 'Score your Diet' calulator asked how many servings a week I eat of certain foods. Such as vegetables, cheese, pork, and candy.
I scored the highest for vegetables, 66; Which was in the green. And the next highest for cheese, -9;which was red. I also scored well in fruits and whole grains which are both green. I scored -1 for both eggs and candy, which is red. I scored the lowest for environmental health, which was -15. I could improve this by trying to each more organic vegetables, since I do eat so many. And also try and cut down on eating cheese.
Summary
First of all, I completely missed that Dr. V said choose ONE CSPI activity.... I did all three... My bad. But I deleted the first one because I didn't think I did very good on it, and kept the other two.
I thought the two food calculators were fun to take. I liked the 'score your diet' one better because gave me more food group options and gave information about how my actions affect the environments' health, animal welfare, and my own health. I was kind of surprised that only eating around 4 or 5 servings of cheese a week could have such an impact on the environment and drop my over all score so much. But it gives me motivation to try and cut back a little!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Share and Voice: Green Guide
Here's a cool website I found from National Geographic. It's called Green Guide and has tons of information on ways to better the environment. This site offers a 'buying guide' that helps consumers learn what the best 'green' options are from a variety of topics, such as personal care, and cleaning products. With a list of specific items under each topic that you can click on bringing you to a new page with information specifically for that item, for example hand and body lotions. This gives you information like the 'greenest product' and 'what to look for.'
The Green Guide homepage also has plenty of other sites to explore. Flashing along the top are the features from this site. Right now there are topics like, 'plants that will suck your yard dry', and 'infinite photograph-as seen on Earth'. It seems like pretty much every page as other links connecting you to other green pages, or beautiful pictures. Check the Green Guide out, there's so much information, fun facts, and pictures!
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The Green Guide homepage also has plenty of other sites to explore. Flashing along the top are the features from this site. Right now there are topics like, 'plants that will suck your yard dry', and 'infinite photograph-as seen on Earth'. It seems like pretty much every page as other links connecting you to other green pages, or beautiful pictures. Check the Green Guide out, there's so much information, fun facts, and pictures!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Reflection: Weeks 3 and 4
These last two weeks have been really informational. I started by meeting with Steve which was so helpful, because I was struggling with learning on this blogging stuff! I'm becoming much more confident in learning how to blog. I also picked my book for the my Read 'N' Seed posts, which is now "Under a Green Sky," by Peter Ward. I've started reading it and it seems like it's going to have a lot of good information in it. I really liked the movie An Inconvenient Truth that we watched this last week. It was so eye-opening and scary! It makes me really want to start pay attention to my actions and how they may affect the environment. The same goes for the Earth Day Footprint quiz I took on monday. My results we're surprising so I'm excited to start with my Eco-Chic lifestyle change of using a reusable bag every time I go grocery shopping. I went grocery shopping for the first time today and remembered my bags! I hope I can everytime!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 1: My Smart Goal
The SMART goal that I have chosen to do for the next the next 10 weeks is as follows:
"I will use a reusable bag everytime I go grocery shopping."
Monday, October 5, 2009
Ecological Footprint
I completed the "EarthDay foorprint Quiz" Quiz. I answered questions that pertained to my normaly habbits such as how much meat do I eat, how often do I ride the bus, and how much trash do you think you generate compared to the typical American. My findings were that it would take 3.9 planet Earths to provide enough resrources for me! It also takes 17.4 global acres of the Earths productive area which is 18.2 TONS of carbon dioxide. I was shocked by my results for this quiz. I knew I wasn't doing everything I could to live 'green', but i was surprised to learn that my habbits can make that big of an impact. I think everyone should take this quiz at some point just so they can become aware of how many resources we use and how much carbon dioxide just one person can produce. This makes me want to start taking the bus more often, and also when I'm not living in a rental house to be sure that I have energy efficient appliances in my home. Eating more locally grown produce could be something that I could start doing now to help improve my ecological footprint.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Read 'N' Seed 1: Under a Green Sky
Hi guys, I needed to pick a different book so this has been updated! I chose "Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future" by Peter D. Ward . This book will cover a range of environmental topics that seem to mostly be dealing with global warming. Such as at the end of the Permian period their was a rise in carbon dioxide that lead to a climate change which caused major destruction to species. Juding by the titles of many of the chapters this book talks a lot about extinctions and what could possibly be coming in the future. To give you a better idea the chapters are as follows:
1. Welcome to the Revolution
2. The Overlooed Extinction
3. The Mother of All Extinctions
4. The Misinterpreted Extinction
5. A New Paradigm for Mass Extinction
6. The Driver of Extinction
7. Bridging the Deep Past and Near Past
8. The Oncoming Extinction of Winter
9. Back to the Eocene
Finale: The New Old World.
I chose this book because after learning more about global warming in class, I think this book will be really interesting and offer a lot of new insight. I know this book is going to have a lot of facts in it, and from reading the first couple of pages Ward seems like he writes in a "non-lecturing" can of way that will be appealing. This book has 10 chapters and 204 pages. I am going to read chapters 1 and 2 for the 1st quarter. Chapters 3-5 for quarter 2. Chapters 6-8 for quarter 3 and chapters 9 and the 'finale' for quarter 4.
Here are 3 links about the author and the book:
HaperCollins :This offers a summary of the book.
Wikipedia: This site has information about the author, Peter Ward.
Powells: This site offers a review of the book.
1. Welcome to the Revolution
2. The Overlooed Extinction
3. The Mother of All Extinctions
4. The Misinterpreted Extinction
5. A New Paradigm for Mass Extinction
6. The Driver of Extinction
7. Bridging the Deep Past and Near Past
8. The Oncoming Extinction of Winter
9. Back to the Eocene
Finale: The New Old World.
I chose this book because after learning more about global warming in class, I think this book will be really interesting and offer a lot of new insight. I know this book is going to have a lot of facts in it, and from reading the first couple of pages Ward seems like he writes in a "non-lecturing" can of way that will be appealing. This book has 10 chapters and 204 pages. I am going to read chapters 1 and 2 for the 1st quarter. Chapters 3-5 for quarter 2. Chapters 6-8 for quarter 3 and chapters 9 and the 'finale' for quarter 4.
Here are 3 links about the author and the book:
HaperCollins :This offers a summary of the book.
Wikipedia: This site has information about the author, Peter Ward.
Powells: This site offers a review of the book.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Reflections Weeks 1 and 2
Week 1
The first day of class was really hot! We did a rope activity and decided to do it outside. Each student in the class had to fit both of their feet inside a circle of rope that varied in sizes that were scattered around. Each time we switched Dr. V removed one circle of rope. By the end of the activity there was only one circle of rope left for the entire class to fir their feet in to. We had to problem-solve ways for it to work, eventually realizing that all of our bodies don’t have to fit inside the rope just our feet. This lead into our discussion about critical thinking, and why it’s important to always look at problems with an open mind. We then started to learn the basics of blogging and going over what’s to be expected for the rest of the semester.
Week 2
The sencond day of that class we watched a really interesting video clip off of a 60 minutes episode. It was about global warming and how when Bush was in office the government was censoring what information could be told to the public; trying to make things look better than they really were. I thought that was really interesting. We also learned about putting gadgets into our blog.
The first day of class was really hot! We did a rope activity and decided to do it outside. Each student in the class had to fit both of their feet inside a circle of rope that varied in sizes that were scattered around. Each time we switched Dr. V removed one circle of rope. By the end of the activity there was only one circle of rope left for the entire class to fir their feet in to. We had to problem-solve ways for it to work, eventually realizing that all of our bodies don’t have to fit inside the rope just our feet. This lead into our discussion about critical thinking, and why it’s important to always look at problems with an open mind. We then started to learn the basics of blogging and going over what’s to be expected for the rest of the semester.
Week 2
The sencond day of that class we watched a really interesting video clip off of a 60 minutes episode. It was about global warming and how when Bush was in office the government was censoring what information could be told to the public; trying to make things look better than they really were. I thought that was really interesting. We also learned about putting gadgets into our blog.
Introductory Post
Welcome to my Maggie's Environmental Lifestyle page! I'm a new community health major, and I'm not completely sure what I want to do with my major when I graduate. I have worked with children for a long time, and am interested in nutricion, so I could see doing some kind of combination of the two.
This is my first class that is environment related, and I'm already finding it really interesting. Blogging isn't coming too easily for me, but I'm working at it!
My blog will cover a variety of topics; listed below:
*Advocacy project
*Eye-openers
*Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change
*Read 'N' Seed
*Share and Voice
Each blog posted after this one, will be under one these topics.
My group members are listed below:
http://maggiesenvironmentallifestyle.blogspot.com/
http://jordannesjungle.blogspot.com/
http://karlyskaringhabitat.blogspot.com/
http://www.haileyshealthyenvironment.blogspot.com/
You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscibe gadget in my gadget column. If you'd like to follow my blog you can click "Follow this Blog" in the gadget section. If you'd like to see all the blogs I'm following and my complete porfile click on "See Complete Profile."
Blogged for the Welcome Linky Party hosted by http://ecochicwithamy.blogspot.com/
Thanks for checking out my blog!
Maggie@Maggie's Environmental Style
This is my first class that is environment related, and I'm already finding it really interesting. Blogging isn't coming too easily for me, but I'm working at it!
My blog will cover a variety of topics; listed below:
*Advocacy project
*Eye-openers
*Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change
*Read 'N' Seed
*Share and Voice
Each blog posted after this one, will be under one these topics.
My group members are listed below:
http://maggiesenvironmentallifestyle.blogspot.com/
http://jordannesjungle.blogspot.com/
http://karlyskaringhabitat.blogspot.com/
http://www.haileyshealthyenvironment.blogspot.com/
You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscibe gadget in my gadget column. If you'd like to follow my blog you can click "Follow this Blog" in the gadget section. If you'd like to see all the blogs I'm following and my complete porfile click on "See Complete Profile."
Blogged for the Welcome Linky Party hosted by http://ecochicwithamy.blogspot.com/
Thanks for checking out my blog!
Maggie@Maggie's Environmental Style
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