My Impact on the Earth

Compiling a list of 100 items to keep in my life was tremendously difficult. I feel that I would be able to survive on 100 items (barely) but the difficultly in doing this would be in condensing the three or four hundred items my own down to precisely 100. My list ended around 80 items. It was a painstaking process. It was difficult to count exactly how many items I own but my estimate would be about 400-450 items (including all my clothes, hygiene products, my bike, sports equipment, everything! Which is quite a lot but I might even have more!). My group’s “Mapping the Impact” project was quite intriguing. We chose a simple item, a baseball. The number of steps necessary to create a baseball and all the items necessary to produce it fascinated all of our group members. It was amazing to learn that all MLB (stands for Major League Baseball) baseballs are hand-stitched in Costa Rica. Cork, twine, rubber, yarn and all the other components of a baseball have to be shipped to China, where 90% of the world’s baseballs are made. Thinking about all ingredients necessary in making a baseball makes me cringe because I think about all the shipping of the ingredients and all the fuel used in producing them. The 100 items assignment and the “Mapping the Impact” assignment both made me think about all the things we produce and consume in the world (and America especially). I tend to think about these items individually now. Hopefully I will be able to control myself as a shopper and only purchase things I’ll need or use frequently. And my result from the ecological footprint quiz made me hate America. I feel that I’m about an average American citizen. Therefore, our country is obnoxiously wasteful and oblivious. If all people on the earth lived like I did we would need 5.05 earths..just sickening. This quiz has inspired me to reduce and reuse.  I already recycle to the best of my ability but now I aim to reduce and reuse more efficiently. These activities have opened my eyes to the evil materialistic ways of the world and me. I hope to fix that.

Mother Earth Unit: Self-Assessment and Reflection

Throughout our Mother Earth Unit I have changed significantly. As the unit began, my concern for Mother Earth was very sincere. However, my concern for our planet has grown. Obviously, I'm much more aware of the problems that our planet is facing. Pollution is the issue that I view as as one of our planet's biggest problems. Human waste, the burning of fossil fuels, and many other issues fall into this category. Also, this unit has educated me more on the human waste and recycling processes and how truly involved and massive these topics are on a global scale. I've even learned the small stuff. For example, before this unit I had no idea what the significance was of the numbers inside the recycling triangle on the bottom of recyclable items. The part of this unit that affected me most dramatically was the "Tapped" documentary. I was truly flabbergasted by that documentary. I had always thought that bottled water was the best thing since sliced bread until that video. But I'm now educated on the harmful health and environmental effects, the monopolistic companies controlling the bottled water industry, and of the commercialization of a basic resource; water. My entire perspectie has changed. This experience has taught me to dig deeper into issues; to dig deep enough to get past all the propaganda of things. Now, I can't say that this documentary has aroused some anti-government or anti-big business spirit within me, but I do feel empowered to question societal norms more thoroughly now. Also i nthis unit I've been priveleged to be apart of our "Green Team". As part of the team I've helped create recycling surveys, researched facts about recycling and about human waste, and have also helped craft ou letter to Mr.Newman about our intentions as the Green Team. The experiences I've had in this unit will definately be apart of me for a long time. Just the other day I caught a friend who was disposing of a can in a waste bin and encouraged her to recycle instead. Little thigns liek that will sick with me. I have a whole new mindset.