My thoughts on Earth Charter

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"We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future." This is a very important point. We as a world need to determine if we will hurt our world more or help it. If we let it get worse, it will greatly affect our well-being in the future. It will make people of the future's lives harder because of the mistakes made in the past. It truly lies in our hands, but we do not seem to notice the power we have to change the world if we work together. This is a pretty simple statement with a very weighted meaning and it not only refers to the environment, but all aspects of life. "To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny." We are a world full of many different cultures. We could learn many different ways to preserve our planet from many different cultures. If we do this, we are working as a team and our efforts will be more effective. No matter where you live on this earth, you are apart of this planet. We have to take care of this fragile place we live in instead of constantly hurting it. "The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life." It scares me to think of how careless we are being with our environment and in many ways we are killing ourselves because of it. I watched a video on global warming and it has definitely woke me up. I never knew how much our environment was in danger until watching that video.  I feel that if everyone saw this video, it would strike just about the same fear it stroke in me. I was finally educated on what our negative actions did to the community. It also showed just how dangerous it is to liter and what air pollution is doing to our communities and us.

My Response to Jane Goodall's Healing Earth's Scars: It's Never Too Late

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"We have shared stories of species that, although rescued from the brink of extinction, are still endangered by the lack of suitable habitat in the wild." (Goodall 161) This sentence caught my attention from the beginning. It is very true in so many ways. As a country we have evolved so much, but it has been at the price of so many different animals. If you were to compare the old time to now, we look completely different and we have become a world less connected to nature. If we want a new home or a  new development, we just cut down trees, instead of thinking how it affects our wildlife. In my presentation for class, I am discussing how we are all connected and how in some ways what we are doing is hurting us in the end in so many ways. When we cut down our trees-also our oxygen-we are killing the habitat of so many animals. When we kill this habitat, the animals have no choice, but to wander. Some wander into towns, some into our very backyards, and some into farms. When they wander into farms, they kill off the crops that the farmers are growing to feed consumers (us). We are affecting ourselves without even realizing it. This can also be very dangerous because if we come into contact with this wildlife, then they can seriously hurt us. Their habitats are there so they can stay away from us, but cutting down their habitats only makes it worse for us. Tropical and old-growth forests, woodlands and wetlands, prairies and grasslands, moorlands and deserts-all landscapes-are disappearing at a terrifying rate." (Goodall 161) This does not surprise me at all. We all have failed to realize the many ways we are hurting our community, but then again it leads back to the need for environmental education. The people that are cutting down these many different forms of nature are probably not aware of the dangers of their jobs. They are just working and performing their daily duties. Goodall did make an excellent point of how we can restore our land. "Why it is I believe that human know-how and the resilience of nature, combined with the commitment and energy of dedicated individuals, can restore damaged environments so that, once again, they can become home to many of our endangered species." (Goodall 162) If we all work together, we can make a huge difference in our world. If every individual does a little, we will all be doing a lot. We are smart enough and once a lot of us are educated on the matter, I feel we would all make a conscious effort to help.

My Response to Rachel Carson "A Fable for Tomorrow"

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When I first started reading this tale, I thought it was going to be a beautiful story written as a fantasy of an imagined, ideal world. "There was once a town in the heart of America where life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings." (Carson 150) We know that this world is not filled with harmony at all, so I felt it was a World that maybe she was hopeful of one day. Then it turns dark real easy crushing that dream. "Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens , the cattle and sheep sickened and died." (Carson 151) This is all fallowed by many other deaths and problems. This can be seen as symbolic in many ways. We all want a more peaceful environment with people who live in harmony and get along all the time, but that would take an immense amount of work and could not easily be done. The darkness can be symbolic to all the problems we are facing today as a society. A lot of us are at war and we are killing each other all the time. We have yet to find harmony in this world. It would take to cooperation of all of us. She then brings it home and actually tells us that she is describing our world. "This town does not actually exist, but it might easily have a thousand counterparts in America or elsewhere in the world." (Carson 151) It is sad to know that all of this has happened somewhere in the world. We are such a hostile group of people and all this misfortune is because of us.

My Response to Vandana Shiva's 'What is Biodiversity and Why is it so Important?'

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"Biodiversity in its turn has shaped the world's diverse cultures." (Shiva 18) Shiva said that the diversity in life is the meaning of biodiversity, but that we are destroying it. In modern times, we have become more technologically advanced in many different aspects of life. While there are many pros to this, there are also some cons. As a society, we happily welcome many different types of technologies and absolutely can't wait until the next invention comes out. Although, we never really pay attention to how this might be affecting our community and our nature. Is this technology at the expense of nature and 'biodiversity?' This is something a lot of people do not even think about. When we all turn on our cars everyday, we are hurting the environment and when we flush our toilets, the waste sometimes end up in our bodies of water. That harms the habitat of many species that live in them. It is basically a cycle of pollution. " Both have been threatened by the globalization of an industrial culture based on reductionist knowledge, mechanistic technologies, and the commodification of resources." (Shiva 38) I agree when he gives different suggestions of how we can make substitutes that can help our environment in a much better way. One of those is exchanging our sources of energy for fossil fuels, but doing this also harms us in some way. "But fossil fuels have given us climate change; agrichemicals have threatened species, undermined soil fertility and human health; and synthetic drugs have had fatal side-effects." (Shiva 38) Even though we have made strives to help our environment, these strives are not all beneficial. People still have not given up. There are still people trying to make the world a better place to live in. I personally have found some alternative medicines work. I am Haitian and when I'm sick, I do not have a lot of money to go and buy over counter drugs, so I make a home remedy taught to me by my mom. We use herbs, plants, and some fruit. I found I feel much better then when I used prescribed medicine or medicine from a drug store. If my throat hurts, I know to squeeze a lemon or lime down my throat because it is a natural antioxidant. It always instantly makes it feel better. Many different cultures have many different ideas and remedies and with all this cultural diversity, others can learn more natural and healthier ways to advance in the future.

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Thoughts on Jared Diamond's 'A Tale of Two Farms'

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"Instead, my trips to Huls and Gardar Farms, thousands of miles apart but visited during the same summer, vividly brought home to me the conclusion that even the richest, technologically most advanced societies today face growing environmental and economic problems that should not be underestimated. (Diamond 17) I found this point to be quite interesting. Diamond previously wrote that even though Huls Farm is technologically advanced, it will 'collapse' in the future. In our generation or at least in America, we seem to think that we can fix everything with technology; but technology is not the answer to every problem. While it has helped America become advanced in many ways, we are still facing a lot of problems. There are a lot of farms having problems today because of technology. People do not want to do things the natural way anymore and are looking for all types of ways to do things faster or create new things with technology.

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"By collapse, I mean a drastic decrease in human population size and/ or political/ economic/ social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time." (Diamond 17) To me, Diamond seems to be saying that we are all connected and that the fall of one business can cause the fall of other businesses. I agree to this because many companies are connected or because you have one company, you have other companies. So, if one company falls, then a lot of others fall as well and that can also mean the fall of a society. We need a lot of companies to stay open for the community to survive and if they were to close, we would all generally be screwed. Some of the companies I am referring to are food companies and banks etc. If consumers do not like a certain company, then the company dies. If a show does not get enough viewers, then the show dies. We are all connected in every way.  

"It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were at least partly triggered by the ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depended." (Diamond 20) I totally agree with this statement because we are all destroying our planet, but a lot of us are not aware that we are doing. A lot of us probably think that one person could not possibly destroy the planet by our actions; but if all of us are that one person then we are definitely destroying the planet. This ties back to the many other excerpts from the book that state that we as a community need to become more educated on the environment. If we do not know what we are doing, then how can we fix the mess we have created. A lot of us do not even know that the world is a mess or that there is a lot that needs to be fixed.

Cities For Peeps

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"The evolution of modern cities was tied to advances in transport, initially for ships and trains." (Brown 145) I find it pretty interesting how developments were made solely for the purpose of ships and trains. I feel like back then, they knew that advances needed to be made. They knew that there had to be a better way for all these people to get around. Trains and ships help people get places in a matter of minutes or hours instead of months and years like before.

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"Cities require a concentration of food, water, energy, and materials that nature cannot provide." (Brown 145) I disagree with this statement. I am a vegan and I feel I have way more energy and I feel 10 times better because I am getting a plant based diet. It provides me with food, energy, and water. I feel this statement was just made to help him make his point and was pretty biased. It also is recommended by many doctors that people do a plant based diet because it has way more nutrients than you can get from eating any dairy or animal products. Although, I have to agree that there are a lot of people who do eat a lot of bad food and a lot of it gets wasted or thrown into the wrong place causing pollution. When we throw these things in the garbage and sewage, it is affecting our communities greatly. With billions of people doing it everyday, I can see how it has become harder for city managers to handle. 


"Early cities relied on food and water from the surrounding countryside, but today cities often depend on distant sources for basic amenities." (Brown 145) This adds on to the point on how even though we have made many advances today, we have also made negative advances today. I feel like before they made better decisions about what they ate and did not have places like McDonalds and Burger Kind to fatten them up. These are many of the struggles we face today. Even If people wanted to live a better lifestyle, it would be pretty hard because of the environment we live in.

A Land Remembered Character Analysis

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Tobias MacIvey is the head of the MacIvey family. This family started off as being a poor family living in Florida, but then became wealthy and well-known for their real estate. Tobias is a 30 year old man who moves his family to Florida from Georgia before the beginning of the civil war. During his journeys, he becomes friends with Seminole Indians and a slave on the run. He seems to be a very caring and giving man in this book who has a lot of integrity. He relates a lot to the natural world and the environment in many ways. He builds a new house and rounds up cattle which are apart of the environment and takes care of them until he wants to sell them. During the book he becomes apart of the wilderness and he makes it an obligation to preserve it and the cattle. He probably did not even realize what he was doing was preserving the environment and nature. I think that he felt a sense of place more at the new house he built then the old house. When the old house burned down, it was a chance for him to start over and give his family a better life. Since he spent so much time taking care of the cattle and his home in the wilderness, I felt that he really loved it and felt a deep connection to it. This book goes on 3 generations of this family, so it depicts their struggles with the wilderness, so the next generation will know of this family will know of the strength and courage of their family and this will also inspire them to be great just like them. I personally feel that he left a legacy of courage and generosity. I picked this character because I felt he had traits that both I had and some other traits that I want to have. I am a caring and loving person and I felt because of that, I could relate to him.