Author: Lily Gillespie (Page 1 of 2)

The goal of living zero-waste is to drastically reduce the amount of trash one produces to almost nothing.  In 2013, the average American produced 4.4 pounds of trash per day (Environmental Protection Agency).  In a society where many items are used and quickly discarded, zero-waste is an appealing form of environmental activism as it dramatically reduces the amount of trash going into the landfill for even one person.  Based on the average, going zero-waste living can reduce 1,606 pounds of waste from the landfill for one person per year.  Zero-waste, and reducing the amount of trash one produces is a tangible and concrete way for the individual to help the environment on a daily basis.  Going zero-waste, and even reducing waste, can take on many forms, but requires some planning and know-how to achieve. In a world of convenience going zero waste takes forethought and intention, but the payoff is the knowledge that you are helping the environment by not contributing to our planet’s growing collection of trash. The following is a guidebook for going zero waste in Durham, NC. It will look into tips and tricks for going zero-waste, where to shop, how to divert items from the landfill, and how to live in Durham and not produce trash. It will explore the costs and time requirements of zero-waste living and ways to reduce waste and save money. This guidebook will explore what it takes in the average day to day life to reduce waste in your life and aid the environment.

Environmental Protection Agency. (2016, March 29). Municipal Solid Waste. Retrieved from: https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/web/html/

One Straw Revolution is an important read because it is not just a book about farming, it is an analysis of the human condition and the perils facing an increasingly technological and globalized world. Masanobu Fukuoka uses farming to exemplify the problems we are creating for ourselves. He notes, “but all I have been doing, farming out here in the country, is trying to show that humanity knows nothing” (Fukuoka, 19). Technology is seen as a tool to make our lives easier, but as the world gets more and more entrenched in the constant use of technology and the constant need to have more and more of it, it becomes more of a burden on our lives than a tool to make our lives better.

Technology and technological development is vital to the current industrial agricultural system. Instead of looking for natural solutions to problems, technology is used to ‘solve’ problems and thus makes even more problems that new technology is needed to ‘solve’.  Agriculture and agricultural technology has become a constantly revolving door of problems and solutions that lead to new problems. Fukuoka’s “do less” approach to farming highlights how agricultural technology has shifted from an aid to a burden on farmers. Industrial agriculture farmers have become inextricably tied to the technology that the system demands. They work tirelessly and pour increasingly more money into these technologies for modest outcomes and profits.  Fukuoka stresses the need for us to see systems as a whole, and be able to recognize when technology is not a benefit but a burden.

A class I took explored the current agricultural system and how it is draining farmers and creating wealth for large companies.  We saw how with the rise of increasingly more complex GMO, fertilizer, and pesticide technology, large agri-business companies are profiting while the farmers suffer. GMO seeds can be created to be resistant to certain pests and have higher yields, but the farmer must buy new seeds every season, and the various associated sprays and technologies to go along with it to get the desired results. They pour money into these new seeds, fertilizers, sprays, and the pockets of GMO companies like Monsanto, and yet Fukuoka sees similar yields with much less monetary and labor input. With low food prices and the high cost of seemingly necessary agriculture technologies, industrial agriculture farming is not longer a feasible means of income. As a result, increasingly fewer farmers own increasingly large monoculture farms.

The question that stuck with me from our class on Friday was: Are we a hopeful nation? I think there is no easy or clear answer to this question. In the wake of erratic politics, growing presence of violence, from terrorist attacks to shootings, to sexual harassment, and the looming threat of climate change, its easy to see how people could feel hopeless. The narrative in the news is often that of doom, gloom, disaster, and tragedy. Despite this, I would argue that America remains a hopeful nation. The functioning of democracy requires hope. People need to feel as though change can be made, and as if their vote counts. People must feel that it is worth the effort to participate in the democracy, and this requires hope.

Despite all of the negativity seen in the news and in the world, American’s are coming out in spades to take action for things they believe in and protest things they want to see changed. From social media to large scale national protests, Americans are taking action because they are hopeful that things can change. Participating in these actions demonstrates the hope that our nation harbors, because a large component of hope is doing something regardless of the outcome or difference that it makes. It is participating in these actions with only the mere hope of change, not the assurance of it. As the narratives of our world seem to grow darker and more discouraging, people seem to be demonstrating the hope they have for our nation and our world. Not only are people harboring hope, but change is being made, and that change generates new hope in bigger change. Hope and change are building on each other, and propelling people, actions, and governments.

Catherine Flowers’ talk had many salient, inspiring, and interesting points, but I particularly appreciated her points on how we must pay attention to rural America, especially in the face of climate change. I found the way that she connected the history of slavery in America, the symbolic importance of the soil where these people live, and the consequences on ineffective septic systems to be an intriguing example of how climate change, and the issues we are facing and will face as a result of climate change, needs to be seen as more than just the current altering of the world. Climate change and the issues that come with it need to be contextualized within the frameworks of human history, cultures, religions, and values. As the climate changes and alters the world, people will be forced to adapt through moving locations and changing behaviors and cultures. Without understanding where we, as humans, have been, the impacts of climate change will be understated and misunderstood. Understanding the cultural, historical, and religions impacts of climate change, such as indigenous people loosing their sacred land to sea level rise, will reveal the true impact of how climate change will affect people, and what will be lost, even as humans find ways to adapt.  As humans we have the ability to place tremendous importance on physical spaces and the ability to visit these spaces act as powerful symbolic entities, for example the 9/11 memorial.  Climate change threatens the ability for humans to connect to symbolic places and thus connect with our histories, traditions, cultures, religions, and people.  All too often climate change is talked about in terms of how it will affect non-human species, and how to use technological advancements to live with a changing climate. Climate change and environmental health is a huge humanitarian problem but yet it is not often talked about as a human rights issue in the ways that Catherine Flowers discussed it.  Her perspective of linking history, culture, the land, and environmental health bring to light the need to understand climate change from a multi-faceted approach. The impacts of climate change will cost more than plant, animal, and human life. It will cost us deep traditions, histories, cultures, and diversity of the human experience.

From topographic maps to Google maps, I’d often thought of maps as stagnant entities that provide simplified information on navigating the world in terms of directions and special orientation. After the cartography lecture, my understanding of what maps can do and provide is growing mere directions to a myriad of ways maps allow and help the viewer to navigate the world.   Thinking of maps as storytelling platforms opens up a whole new dimension for what maps can provide. The map we saw on eviction locations that provided personal accounts of those affected was an example of how powerful and impactful maps can be as a storytelling medium. Robin Kirk noted in her lecture to the class that an important part of successful activism is making people care about the issue. Combining maps with personal accounts and other storytelling strategies is a unique, visually appealing, and interactive way to utilize the power of storytelling in activism to make people care. The idea that maps can challenge the way we understand the world, and show connections and correlations between seemingly separate things is appealing as a useful and diverse form of activism. In a world where social media is allowing people to interact in increasingly more visual and interactive ways, mapping as a form of activism and informative medium can be a powerful tool for activist groups.

Dr. Robin Kirk brought up many interesting and salient points in her discussion with our class, but I particularly enjoyed what she told us about the history of activism and campaign strategy. Learning that the fundamentals of campaign strategy originated with such a large scale, long lasting, and historically significant and successful campaign to end slavery really puts the act of campaigning and being an activist on a historical timeline that I had not really considered before. Learning about how the campaign to end slavery developed a strategy, that continues to be used and successful today, by trial and error makes me think about how every activist action and movement is rooted in a deep history of activism that should be understood, utilized, and more on the forefront of activism than it seems to be now. It is too easy to forget that activist history and act as many movements independent from others who are campaigning for something different.

Another aspect of Dr. Kirk’s talk that I found salient to our most recent class discussions and readings is when she was discussing her career path. In the face of humanitarian injustice, she mentioned that she was frustrated with “just writing”. As a journalist she saw and wrote about many issues in South America, but felt that writing about these issues to a limited audience was not as effective as she wanted to be. After having just read Oil on Water by Helon Habila, I think I understood why she felt that “just writing” wasn’t enough. While I think that both the journalist depicted in the novel and Helon Habila himself are activists, I felt that the book represented a more effective activism than the journalists in the book could muster. While journalism has the potential to be very global and effective, the problem arises when a journalist is writing to a limited audience and an audience who might not then create change. For the journalists in Oil on Water they were writing to Nigerians who are living with these pipelines and their pollution in their own country, while the foreign oil companies work to make sure that on an international level the harms they are creating are largely ignored. Journalism seems to be dependent on the audience it can reach, and what the audience chooses to do with the information they read about. This dependence on others for even the possibility of change is why I can see how Dr. Kirk was frustrated with “just writing”.

Helon Habila’s novel Oil on Water added many nuanced layers to our growing definition of what is activism and who are activists. While there were many people and groups in this novel who I would consider environmental activists, the role of the journalist played most central. The journalists are presented as environmental activists and human rights activists through their ability to witness and write about the damage they see being inflicted on the environment and subsequently the people that live within that environment. While I do without a doubt say that journalists can be activists through their use of journalism, and the access they are granted by virtue of being journalists is vital to the acquisition and spread of knowledge, it was hard to read about the journalists, Zaq and Rufus, often standing by as witnesses when they could take direct action, such as when the soldier was pouring gasoline on the old man and Michael. It is tempting to want to call activism direct action, while journalism can often be very passive, especially as journalists merely witness and later write, instead of stopping an action to the best of their abilities.

The role of activism as both an active and a passive action is an interesting one to consider. At the beginning of the course when defining activism, it was tempting to only define it as active actions, where goals and results are clear things to reach for. As my definition of activism grows and changes the role and importance of a passive type of activism becomes more clear, but also seems more important in the long run of creating change. For journalism especially, the ability to pass on information, to witness as activists and write about what is going on in the world is the first and fundamental step to creating a movement that could gather and create change. Without knowledge and information, people can’t know that there is an issue to take action against.

Habila, H. (2010). Oil on Water New York, USA: W.W. Norton & Company.

Nnedi Okorafor’s Spider the Artist provided an interesting ‘sci-fi’ point of view on environmental injustice. While the premise of Artificial Intelligence robots guarding and inflicting violence on the populations surrounding a pipeline is a daunting and uncomfortable notion, it is not that far off from a possible real future. In this way Spider the Artist reminded me of one of our class’s very first readings, Margaret Atwood’s, It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change. In her article Atwood provided three possible scenarios for the world’s future under climate change. While some futures seemed more improbable than others, two provided an image of the future that privileged some while inflicting violence and suffering on others. Specifically, Atwood’s scenario for the future that predicts wealthier countries who have, or can, invest in alternative energy and shelter themselves from the rest of the world. Both this scenario in Atwood’s article and the issues presented in Spider the Artist bring to light the issue of who suffers the consequences of oil production, environmental injustice, and climate change. While oil continues to flow freely and fairly cheaply in the United States, it is easy to forget that people are living with, and suffering from, the oil origins.

With pipelines and fracking projects being proposed and carried out in the United States, it’s easy to adopt a “not in my backyard” attitude, but the ugly truth is, as long as the world is consuming oil, these undesirable, and unhealthy infrastructures that wreak havoc and violence on those who live in their proximity, have to go somewhere. When looking at stories such as Atwood’s predictions for the future and Spider the Artist the problematic and harmful nature of oil is strikingly clear, and it seems that the solution lines in alternative energy. While alternative energy is much cleaner and less harmful to live near, the evil forces presented, as I saw it, in the form of Zombie robots, is really the corporations and government that allowed violence to be inflicted on those who live near the pipeline. While oil presents inherent and problematic harms to the world, and especially to those who live near it, it seems that Spider the Artist presented argument that corporations and government are the root of the problem for causing harm and violence on the people they exploit. I wonder if a shift to renewable energy wouldn’t in its own way lead to violence and exploitation of marginal people?

Atwood, M. (2014, July 27). It’s Not Climate Change It’s Everything Change.

Okorafor, N. (2011, March). Spider the Artist.

Reading Linda Hogan’s novel Power allowed me to broaden my perspective on how climate change and environmentalism affects people differently. I appreciated this book for bringing my attention to how climate change and environmental laws affect indigenous communities. I have always assumed that environmental protection laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, were inherently good and beneficial laws that should be held up without exception. As a result of reading this book and our discussion in class I am prompted to think more about how laws impact different groups and cultures. Power demonstrates how there is a need for exceptions within certain laws that impact how people can, or cannot, operate within their culture. With the focus on the Endangered Species Act, it was especially noticeable how colonizing powers changed how they are allowed to interact with their environment. Colonizing people came into areas, such as America, and permanently changed the environment, and wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. Due to development and encroaching on the panther’s territory, the panther became endangered, but then it is expected that indigenous people change their culture and ways to protect the animals they were not endangering in the first place. I think reading this book is a step towards thinking about the pros and cons of environmentalism in a more holistic and fully rounded way, and moving forward I want to be sure to consider all aspects and potential impacts of environmentalism and climate change from points of view that I may not normally think of.

Now having taken a closer look at two types of activism, monkeywrenching and civil disobedience, my personal notion and definition of what activism is and may look like is expanding. Off the bat the idea of civil disobedience, such as we saw in the documentary Bidder 70¹, stands out as a more personally appealing type of activism. The story of Bidder 70 follows Tim DeChristopher though a long legal battle as a result of bidding and winning leases in a BLM land auction without the intention to pay for the land. The documentary concluded with DeChristopher being sentenced to two years in prison.

What struck me the most about this documentary, and the outcome of this act of civil disobedience was the fact that he went to prison. Although I do not know as much as I would like to about America’s justice and prison system, to me, prison should be a last resort, and reserved for those who pose a threat to others. I see this documentary as a prime example of how America’s prison and justice system does not operate this way. Bidding in an auction, an act that neither harmed nor endangered anyone, should not result in a prison sentence. While I understand that technically DeChristopher’s actions were illegal, not all illegal acts need to be remedied with a stint in prison. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate². To me this suggests not that we have the most ‘bad’ people in our country, but that our system is too quick to send people to prison over some type of reform program or community service. To send someone who engaged in a harmless act of civil disobedience to prison is, in my opinion, a drastic and unnecessary punishment that does not fit the crime.

Prison should be a last resort and a way to protect people in society from harm, not for big corporations to make a point. Community service or some other way of repayment should be the go-to for such an act instead of jumping right to what should be the last resort. To me, it seemed as though sending DeChristopher to prison was aimed a making an example out of him. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, the average cost per-inmate in 2010 was $31,286³. Society is paying the cost of sending DeChrispher to prison for two years so that the government and large corporations can make a point. Bidder 70 told a story fraught with injustices against the American people, but the one that I see as the most unjust is jailing those who are not a danger to society at our expense.  

Citations:

1. Gage, G. & Gage, B. (Directors).  (2012). Bidder 70.  USA.

2. Tsai, T.,  & Scommenga, P. (2012, August). U.S. Has Highest Incarceration Rate.  Retrieved from: http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx

3. Henrichson, C., & Delaney, R. (2012, January). The Price of Prison: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers. Retrieved from: https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-what-incarceration-costs-taxpayers