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.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
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.
'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.
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