Open Blog #2

Happy Earth Week! Personally, I think that we should celebrate the Earth every day, but it's nice for everyone to take a step back and really think about the Earth out of 365 days. I attended a lot of the events that Sustainable Carolina and the Green Quad put on for this week, including the opening day sustainable eating fair, the movie Thin Ice, and the Sounds of Sustainability concert last night. Friday, I'm planning on going to a few more of the events. I really liked the opening day celebration the most though!

Seeing the dancing fruit do the Cupid shuffle was super funny, and I liked that there was a decent turn out of students there eating food and chatting about Earth day. Cocky even showed up to dance and stuff, and I got a t-shirt :) 

All of these events are fun and stuff, but I can't help but think about the fact that so many students, think of Earth day as just another day. I kind of agree with this just because we have become such a holiday orientated society. We designate a month for women, African Americans, breast cancer, you name it, we have made it a holiday. What bothers me about this are that the issues represented by these days or months of 'celebration' and 'awareness' are that these are problems that persist throughout the entire year. We designate one day to think about the Earth, the planet that we live on and the planet that gives us life every day. Seems a bit out of proportion if you ask me. 

As nice as having an Earth week celebration here at USC is, I wish that we didn't have to have holidays for things that we should always be conscious about. 

Open Blog #1

I went to the recycling team's showing of the documentary 'Bag It' last night with pretty low expectations. Don't get me wrong, there are some good documentaries out there, but usually at the end of a very long day, the last thing I want to do is be bored to sleep by another environmental documentary. I'm pleased to report I was very wrong!

'Bag It' was not only very informative but was also incredibly hilarious. The main character was just a huge goofball which made him very easy to relate to. As I've mentioned before, I'm a marine science major, and I really enjoyed how there was a large section of the documentary that focused on what happened when a lot of plastic found its way into the oceans. They focused on the Midway Island albatross population, which is very ecologically significant. The island is the largest breeding ground for these birds, but recently, scientists are finding that there is a higher and higher percentage of plastic in the guts of these birds. When parents bring back food from out to see to feed to their babies, they are bringing larger quantities of plastic. The plastic gets into the baby birds and stays there, in some cases, until they die. Prior to the 60's and 70's, no plastic was found in these birds, and the populations were a lot more stable.

Another aspect of plastic that the documentary focused on pretty heavily was the banning of plastic bags by many countries. Germany, Ireland, Australia, and many others have either completely gotten rid of plastic bags or put a tax on each bag used. In Ireland, the change seemed to happen almost over night. Why pay 22 cents for each plastic bag each time you needed one when you could spend a euro on a reusable bag one time to use many times?

I wish that the United States as a whole would implement some of these plastic policies, but so far, very few states and countries have any policies in place.

Blog #13 Eco-feminism

What do you think of ecofemisnism before you read, and after? 

Did you have any strong reactions? 

What do forms of dominance do you see in the world around you?

Well, before I did  the readings on ecofeminism I honestly didn't know much about it, but what i did know, I didn't really buy. What I knew was, very generically, that men treat the earth/nature the way they treat women, inferior to themselves. I do think that women are still seen as inferior to men in many ways, but I don't think that this has anything to do with how humans see the earth as inferior. Nature is seen as a female force, hints Mother Nature, but I think humans as a whole are abusing her. After reading...I honestly still feel mostly the same way. I better understand and appreciate the points of view of ecofeminists. 

Ecofeminism believes that Patriarchal society is built on four interlocking pillars; sexism, racism, class exploitation and environmental destruction. I think that to say that society is built on all of these very negative things is incorrect. 

I do see that men still dominate women in many ways, but I think that it's something  that is slowly changing in the world. Some places, it's worse than others, but that is based on religion as much as societal values. Humans, as a whole, dominate nature and pretty much anything else they can simply because we can. We  think that by dominating things we are showing how awesome we are. 

Blog #12 Green Democracy

Would you join the Green Party or not?  

What aspects of green values do you believe should be ideally incorporated into a "green" party?  Do these align, do you think, with the Green Party? 

Also, are the Earth First! activists justified in their actions?  

I don't think that I could ever label myself as part of the Green Party, and currently, I don't consider myself affiliated with any one party. Some parts of their platform, such as doing away with political corruption, look good on paper but would be incredibly difficult to put into practice. I like a lot of their ideas but not enough to actually join the party. 

I think that for it to be a true "green" party, all of the green values should be incorporated to the fullest extent possible. This might be unfeasible because many of the values are rather anti national government and hierarchy, but since these green values define, in essence, how to be green, I think they should be a critical component of the Green Party. 

Currently, the Green Party does incorporate many of the green values we have previously discussed in class. They are non-violent, believe in social justice, promote ecological education, and decentralization. For the most part, I think that the Green Party and green values align as well as they can since the Green Party is a part of a national, centralized, government, they will never perfectly align since the green values don't promote that type of government. Maybe in the future, as the party gains more support, it will align even closer with green values. 

Blog #11 Spiritual Ecology

What religion were you raised with and how does that affect your view of spiritual ecology?

What are your opinions on the Gaia hypothesis? Do you agree or disagree?

Do you believe we live in a hyper masculine culture? If so how do you see it changing?

When I was little, I went to both Methodist and Baptist churches with my parents. Currently, I would not align myself with any particular named religion, but I would still consider myself a spiritual person. I see nature, in particular the ocean, sky, and land to be incredibly spiritual, and I do not consider just God or any faith in Him or any particular pieces of literature as the only forms of religion. 

I find the Gaia hypothesis to be fascinating; the fact that the Earth as a whole is essentially a living organism, is incredible. That being said, I'm not a hundred percent on board with the concept as a whole. I am a scientist. I know it isn't like this for all science minded people, but I have a hard time believing in things I can't touch, see, or have hardcore evidence for. In the Gaia Hypothesis paper, it lists three facts that I can look at scientifically, the age of the Earth, the composition of the atmosphere, and the climate and chemical properties of Earth have always been ideal for life. All of these things I can prove to myself. And yet, it IS highly unlikely that the conditions of Earth have been so ideal all of this time and that it even came to be in the first place. From primordial soup to what we are today...it's astonishing! But I still see it all very scientifically. The definition of 'alive' doesn't even include viruses, which in my opinion, are more 'alive' than the Earth. By scientific terms, the Earth is not alive, but I can see, spiritually, how it is alive. The wind, the waves, tectonic motion etc, all seem to be so very alive. I think I need to try and get out of my own scientific minded way on this one and think about it some more.

I wouldn't say that we live in a 'hyper masculine culture,' although, I do think that men still have more opportunities than women. We have come so far towards equality in this country, but others, such as Middle Eastern cultures and others, women still lag behind men. I think part of this is past precedent and some is cultural and religious. Look how long it took women in this country and other western nations to get to where they are today, and these nations and cultures are 'younger' than some of the cultures where women are still lagging behind. In time, I would like to think that gender will not limit anyone in any way. 

   

Blog #10 Social Ecology

What is Social Ecology? 

What is your view/opinion of Social Ecology?

What forms of hierarchy are in our world today and where do you think they come form?

Are there and better alternatives?

Social ecology is kind of like looking at how humans interact with each other in society and with nature. What social ecology seems to focus on is the hierarchical structures of human communities and how that applies to the hierarchy that humans apply to themselves in nature. I agree with some parts of social ecology. I think that the formation of hierarchies is natural to an extent, but I also think that humans putting themselves above nature is unnatural. 

I never really thought about they whys behind the subdivisions and hierarchy of human society. It's always been that way, it seems. Even back in ancient Greece, Rome, and even Biblical times, there were clear hierarchies and the social classes were divided. When I think about it now, I guess the concept of having a hierarchy free world where there were no divisions of the social classes is about as foreign to us as desegregation was to people in the U.S in times of slavery and segregation. It seems like it will never change or that everyone thinks it's supposed to be that way...until it changes and works. 

Other forms of hierarchy in our world, besides the social class system, are the way that wealthy or powerful countries dominate the weaker or poorer countries, globally. Look at the U.N. Only 5 countries, that never change, get veto power and really get to make decisions. Those 5 countries are, of course, wealthy nations, who more importantly, were the winners of the second World War. 

I don't think that having a world without hierarchy means that there will not be any leadership. There will still be leaders because some people are just naturally influential. Everyone is different and has a different set of talents and abilities, but I think what the social ecological view on hierarchy is trying to get at is, no matter what your talent is, no matter what service or whatever you are providing society with, is just as important as what anyone else is providing. I think that a hybrid of what we do now and what social ecology teaches would be the best method. 

Blog #9 DeepEcology

After reading Arne Naess' "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement," write a twenty-five-word (give or take) response to each of the seven Deep Ecology Movement principles. Do you agree or disagree with each of these principle. P. 90. 

After reading the article "Deep Ecology," do you feel that Devall and Sessions are accurate with their outline of the Dominant Worldview and the Deep Ecology view? Do you feel that the Dominant Worldview is representative of the average person? Please elaborate.

There are seven principles of the Deep Ecology movement. 

(1) Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favor of the relational, total-field image

I agree mostly with this idea. It says that if two things have a relationship, that relationship becomes part of their definitions, and without that relationship, they are no longer exactly the same.

(2)Biospherical egalitarianism (in principle) 

This principle is a bit hard to understand, but what I think its saying is that everything should have an equal chance to survive and that humans should stop seeing themselves as superior. I don't really agree with this because I think that humans have such a high capacity to change and manipulate that we wouldn't be fully using our talents to not see ourselves as superior.

(3) Principles of diversity and of symbiosis

I really disagree with this part, mostly because of the definition it puts out about survival of the fittest. "Live and let live" isn't how nature works. Even plants starve each other of sunlight in order to survive. 

(4)Anti-class posture

I would qualify this principle because I do think that having defined classes both locally and internationally are not the best  thing, but getting rid of them would create chaos. Without leaders, nothing would ever get accomplished. 

(5)Fight against pollution and resource depletion

This is definitely true. It seems like pollution is something that everyone sees as an easy way to 'green' the planet, but they might be doing it in such a way that, as this part says, "increases evils of other kinds."

(6)Complexity, not complication

Once again, I would have to qualify with this one. I don't agree that humans are completely ignorant of biospherical relationships; I think humans just don't really care, most of the time. Division of labor seems like a better idea that fragmentation of labor, but I'm not sure if it would actually work. I don't really understand this principle.

(7)Local autonomy and decentralization

I have a hard time with decentralization, probably because I've been so socialized to believe in it, but I think that localizing everything wouldn't be for the best. It reminds me of how when states used to have their own currency and how complicated that made trade. Localizing some things would be beneficial, but there still needs to be a centralized government or ruling body. 

After reading "Deep Ecology," I feel that Devall and Sessions are accurate about the deep ecology world view but a little off when it comes to the dominant wold view. I do think that our society has become incredibly individualistic, see as humans are a naturally social species. Devell and Sessions make things such as vegetarianism seem ridiculous because they say that vegetarians are saying that the plant kingdom has less rights to live than the animal kingdom. I do not believe that plants have feelings so that's a bit weird to me. Like all papers that argue for something, this one makes the dominant world view seem worse than it is in an attempt to make the deep ecological world view look better. I also don't think that humans see the world as having a infinite amount of resources. We aren't stupid, we know that we will run out of oil reserves eventually and stuff like that. Most people do have this more dominant world view, that's why it's called DOMINANT. It describes the average person give or take a few points. I for example, do believe that humans put themselves above nature and that we should in some regards, but I do not believe that nature has ample resources. 

Blog #8 Making Consensus Decisions

What are the preconditions necessary for using consensus decision making in a group or organization?  

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the process?

Consensus decision making means that when a group of people are trying to make a decision, the majority doesn't rule and nothing can be taken into effect unless everyone is okay with the final decision. Everyone is also responsible for speaking up about their opinion. This doesn't mean that the whole group has to be in agreement about whatever is being proposed, it just means that they will allow it to happen, even if there is still dissent or hesitancy. You just have to reach a point or idea that everyone can get behind. 

Not every group environment is able to adopt a consensus decision making style. There has to be a respectful and open environment in which all of the member's opinions are taken and heard with the same weight. (No ones opinion is worth more than any other person) In chapter three on the Formal Consensus Website, it talks about how trust is the most important thing. Basically, many of the conditions of a group that can use this process effectively mirror the green values discussed in blog #4. Also, there has to be a certain number of people, like in Estes interview, she says that for there to need to be a facilitator the group should number 30 or more people. The group must also throw out all of the old/traditional decision making processes, such as majority rules, because that will hinder the consensus decision making process. 

There are many positives expressed on the Consensus Decision Making Website. One of the ones that stood out most to me was that this process is the least violent way to make decisions. I never really considered how violent it can get when people are all arguing and persuading towards one side and how someone always comes out the loser. Other pros are that it works well in large groups, it is very democratic, and it welcomes more participation. There are some weaknesses to this process as well, it can take a long time to hear everyone's opinion and to see all possible sides, wont work if people in the group are not used to/have never worked together, trust is needed to and for all participants, one person blocking can hold up the whole group, and group leaders must use facilitation instead of attempting to control the whole process.

Over all, I think that consensus decision making is a good thing that works in most situations, but it is hard to implement because it so so radically different than the ways we do things now.  

Blog #7 Culture Jamming

What is culture-jamming? 

What are its forms?

What do you think of it as a tool for activism? 

Culture jamming is defined by dictionary.com as: a form of political and social activism, by means of fake adverts, hoax stories etc, that draws attention to and at the same time subverts the power of the media, governments, and large corporations to control and distort information that they give the public. So um...what does THAT mean? I need a definition for the definition. They best way to really describe what culture jamming is, is to provide an example. 

One of the largest and most widespread examples of culture jamming occurred in Europe entitled Brandalism. Over a five day period, hundreds of billboards. Check out this site to see some of the billboards:

http://sobadsogood.com/2012/07/23/22-brilliant-examples-of-culture-jamming/

Web Urbanist states that there are three types of culture jamming, political, commercial, and social. Commercial culture jamming is more easily recognized as subvertising or using anti ads. Political culture jamming is less common but when it is used, it usually is targeting war or other national issues. Social culture jamming usually is geared toward making a person rethink reality or even just to laugh at how ridiculous a mainstream idea actually is. 

I think that it is a good tool for activism but not a great one. Some people wouldn't take it seriously at all, and it is also rather expensive to rent out billboards. Also, some of their tactics are a bit illegal not matter how humorous they are. 

This site has a bunch of cool videos and images of culture jamming:

http://weburbanist.com/2007/10/03/watch-urban-street-art-in-action-from-reverse-graffiti-to-train-tagging/

Blog #6 GTP Environmental Policy

 What are your reactions to your GTP reading?

What are your preliminary ideas for leading a class meeting focused on this topic?

I am currently taking a marine science class that focuses on marine policy, which is why I was particularly interested in doing the GTP on environmental policy. One of my first reactions to the chapter I had to read and other research about the topic that I did was that there has been little done politically concerning the environment. They can't even decide at what level environmental policy should be handled at! 

Something I would like to do with our class is something that my MSCI teacher is going to have us do on tests which is to take a scenario for an environmental concern and decide how to solve it with new policy. The class would have to take into consideration a budget and deciding who would have jurisdiction on the issue. Also, I would like to do a brief history of the major environmental policies that have been put into place recently. I think that each person in our group should pick a topic on environmental policy that they are actually interested in because it's easier to teach something you care about. 

This is a topic that some people might not find as interesting as I do, so I want to try and make it as interactive as possible instead of just showing a powerpoint full of policies and dates. No one is going to want to sit there and listen to us lecture for 50 minutes about every environmental policy ever created. We can hit on the major ones and some recent developments and assign readings on some more of the history. 

Blog #5 Green Learning Communities

Outline the goals and specific characteristics of a green learning community. 

 How would you know one if you saw one?  

Obviously, a green learning community would embrace living a greener lifestyle, but what else makes these communities different than how most of us are living today? A green community would try to embrace characteristics such as those laid out in the 10 Key Values essay, which include social and economical justice/equality, non violence, decentralization, and personal and global responsibility, to name a few. They would also probably emphasize that humans are a part of nature. 

One of the main goals of such a community would be for its members to achieve ecological literacy. What this means is that instead of just looking at things as they are, there needs to be an over arching question of 'what then?' What's going to happen after that? In a green community, this will have been achieved, but in society right now, as seen in David Orr's "Ecological Literacy" we just aren't there as a whole. Orr thinks that we do not think broadly enough, we see education as a purely indoor activity, and that we lack aesthetic appreciation. So wow that's a bunch of words that don't really mean anything to me. What I think he is trying to say is that we think too one dimensionally  We need to get over ourselves and start considering all of the parts not just the whole. 

Some of the ways I think a green community would be easy to spot is in its lack of a societal hierarchy and its use of a consensus decision making process. These two features combine many of the other values and are easily recognized from the outside looking in as something radically different. Also, of course, there would be an emphasis on all of the other green values and sustainability. Everyone would be encouraged to express their opinions. I wonder how many of these characteristics the Green Quad here expresses. 

Blog #4 "Green Values"

What do you think of Green Values? Which ones do you believe in? What surprised you from the readings?

I think that green values are both similar to and crazy different from the values for other parties. The green party believes that all humans are equal and have the right to have a say in things that will affect their lives. I would be inclined to agree with this. All humans deserve to have the same rights and the same opportunities. Another value of the green party is that they believe that there should be no societal hierarchy because that goes against nature. I think this is kinda silly. Even animals have a social structure in their communities. It's a perfectly natural concept that is not man made like the green party seems to be trying to insinuate. The green party also believes that a large problem with the world is its centralization of wealth and power and wants to revamp the social, political, and economical systems. I kinda agree with this...but at the same time I tend towards capitalistic tendencies. Although I really want to believe that the people are capable of making the correct decisions, sadly, I don't. People are better educated now days than they used to be, but at the same time, a lot of people just don't care. This could be a product of the centralization of wealth and power and also of the way we were raised. I don't think decentralizing everything would really be the best thing. A green value that I REALLY like is that everyone needs to step up and take personal and global responsibility. Some of the green values seem a bit wishy washy to me. Let's decentralize EVERYTHING into small little communities all around the world with no hierarchy and yet try and get EVERYONE to work together...would this literally be everyone or could we have representatives? Maybe I'm a bit confused, but it seems like this would be really difficult to do. 
I was really surprised that a green value says that humans are going against nature with our societal hierarchy. The cream rises to the top! Even ants and bees have a societal hierarchy centered around a queen. I think that this is a perfectly natural concept that shouldn't be dismissed, it should be changed. 

Blog #3 AASHEand Sustainable Carolina

So, after perusing the Sustainable Carolina website for approximately 3 episodes of Law and Order, I've finally found a program that reallllly interests me: The Leadership Training Program. I feel like the only way that things are really going to change for REAL is for there to be more education and more green skills to be available to everyone! Without strong leaders, no movement would ever be successful, and I think its fantastic that our university has a program like this. It's easy for students be unaware of a lot of the things that this campus does to be green, and I admit, I was pretty clueless myself, but Sustainable Carolina seems to be involved in so many different things around campus. I can't believe I'd barely heard about them before! Also, I love the little side bar on the website with tips on how to green up different aspects of your life. 

Wow, I crept the AASHE site for a real long time and maybe I'm website challenged, but I couldn't find many programs. Luckily, I quickly became obsessed with the STARS program! STARS stands for Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System, and it allows universities to get a kind of measurement of how sustainable they are. I was REALLY happy to find that the University of South Carolina was rated GOLD, which is the second highest ranking possible. A school gets a bronze rating for 25 points, silver for 45 points, gold for 65 points, and platinum for 85 points. Points are awarded in several categories including education and outreach, operations, planning, administration and engagement. A school can also receive innovation credits which factor into the overall score. 

A question that I would ask Margaret Bounds about Sustainable Carolina, is how effective she thinks that the Leadership Training Program here at USC is at turning out green leaders to go on and make a difference with their leadership skills after leaving university. 


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Blog #2 So Dis Is Me...

HERRRRRO! 

My name is Sarah Bailey Petersen, and I am a sophomore Marine Science major with a concentration in coastal resource management and marine policy. I'm originally from Chesterfield, Virginia and have lived there my whole life, but now I love living here in Columbia. Before winter vacation, I adopted a kitty named Raisin from Pets Inc., and she's pretty much freaking amazing. She lives in UOaks with me and my 3 awesome roomies and causes mischief pretty much every minute she's alone...and when we're there...and basically she just gets into everything all the time. 

I love travelling and have been to Europe and visited England, Ireland, and Wales, and plan to go to France and Italy next spring. I have a brother who is also a sophomore but at Davis and Elkins in Elkins West Virginia, and we are really close. 

I played soccer, field hockey, and rock climbed in high school, but haven't done much of any of them since because my right ankle is pretty much destroyed. For as long as I can remember, I've had chronic ankle instability that has resulted in numerous ankle sprains and too much time spent on crutches. Basically, each time you sprain your ankle, the ligaments stretch and weaken, and if you don't recover properly, the damage can become permanent. That's what's happened to me! I never give my sprains enough time to heal so my ligaments are held together by scar tissue. Sometime soon, I plan to actually get the surgery to reconstruct two of the ligaments, but until then, I wear an ankle brace almost always on my right leg and sometimes also on my right. 

As of right now, I am planning on graduating in the fall of 2014 and taking the spring of 2015 to get and recover from my surgery. I'm looking into applying for a program here at USC (the real one) called the JD/MEERM. This program will allow me to get my law degree (J.D) and a Masters of the Earth, Environment, and Resource Management at the same time. I've always wanted to go into law, but only recently have I become interested in environmental law. Before this particular plan, I wanted to be a marine veterinarian, but found out quickly that I'm a bit too squeamish. Ever since I was a little girl, I've been OBSESSED with marine mammals, particularly manatees, and I'm sad that I can't really pursue that career. 

Soooo BASICALLY that's me in a nutshell...a tiiiiiiny nutshell. 

Just chilling out after a hike and a dip in the waterfall.

Halloween with my roomie! I was a black widow (cuz I'm afraid of spiders)

and this is Raisin :)

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Blog #1 Introductory Questions

**What do you want to get out of the course?  
What interests you about “green politics?”  
What do you want to explore?**

Honestly, I'm not even sure how one would define being 'green' anymore, so figuring that out would be awesome! It seems like everyone defines it in their own way, and hearing everyone's personal definition will be a helpful way for me to develop my own definition. What I'm really looking forward to taking away from this class is a new set of leadership skills that will better prepare me to help educate others about being 'green.' Also, I'm REAL excited to become more involved in the green movement here at Carolina. I had no idea that there were so many ways that students and faculty members were doing so much to make out campus more environmentally friendly.

I think that those who have the most knowledge about the earth and environment will be better off in the coming future. The environment has become a hot topic around the world, and it's not going away. I'm tired of being ignorant and misguided. My future plans might include becoming an environmental lawyer, and I want to know as much as I can about creating sustainable, green communities. Learning about the different schools of green political thought is something I'm really curious about because I've honestly NEVER heard of most of them! 

What I really want to explore during this class is all of the different ways to get involved on campus. As previously stated, I also really want to explore my leadership potential in this field. I'm actually like mad shy so I'm hoping that with all of the forced interaction in this class I'll be more comfortable about stating my opinions and taking charge of situations. 

PeaceLoveEarth