Author Archives: cpayne15

ENVIR 385 Reflection

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For my project, we worked with Landesa and linked their goals to the relevant UN Sustainable Development goals and then created infographics based on those.

 

We created a survey to figure out what peoples preferred ways of learning on social media were. We could saw exactly what our targeted audience wanted to see in educational social media posts.

 

Knowing that these infographics I made would be seen by an audience for advocacy and educational purposes was really meaningful to me.

This made me evaluate how important knowledge and education is. We made the infographics because there are people who may not know the information we do. Education is one of the only ways for people to gain more insight on a topic. By creating the infographics I was facilitating the viewers learning. This gave me a great sense of accomplishment when I completed my infographics.

This knowledge can be applied to what’s happening in our lives right now. The Black Lives Matter movement has been going on for years. The murder of George Floyd has sparked decades of built up oppression, inequality, and unjust treatment of people of color to be brought to light through protests. The protests have been larger and on a wider scale than we have seen before. I believe that by completing the Landesa project, it caused me to have a different understanding on the importance of advocacy during this time. Landesa asked us to create social media posts for a reason; social media is one of the most powerful tools we have in modern day. Doing this project caused me to be more vocal during this time. It made me understand that by posting on social media

According to neoreach.com

I actually can engage people. If I post informational pictures, stories, and statistics it can promote education and conversation, which is the first step that people need to collectively get together and fight a truly devastating problem that people in this country shouldn’t be facing. It may not feel like you will make much difference by posting, but that’s the benefit of social media, your post could reach anyone, and that one post could be what causes a change.

 

I wanted to connect my learning this quarter to what is currently going on in our society as this has been my primary focus over the past few weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Local Food System and Education

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Response to: Globalization to Sustainable Development by Rachel

Rachel discusses globalization of the food system in reference to the chocolate contemplative practice. This made me think about where the other foods I eat come from, and I had no idea. The image to the left demonstrates the idea that foods come from all over the world, you can see that many crops Americans eat regularly are not even grown in our country.

The idea of switching from a globalized food system to a localized agricultural system to decrease climate change was brought up in Rachel’s Article. I wanted to further explore this topic and the benefits of buying from local farmers/businesses. According to Lori Starling from One Green Planet, if you buy foods from local markets you’ll gain access to fresher food that have less packaging and took less transport time, therefore having a much lower carbon footprint than buying from the supermarket. In addition, it allows you to connect with the people involved in your foods development so you can ask all the necessary questions and have an expert there to help you make your decision.

But how do we get people to start buying local foods and shopping at farmers markets rather than the grocery store? Environmental education is the answer. Environmental education is important because it builds a basis of knowledge, understanding, appreciation, and sensitivity towards the environment. These perspectives are important in allowing individuals to develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues. Though, it’s not just explaining environmental mechanisms; it’s building a relationship with nature so that informed personal decisions can be made to protect the planet (EPA).

 

So in conclusion, a localized food system can be very beneficial for the environment, but to get to a point where people are willingly buying local foods, environmental education needs to be improved.

 

Sweet Guilt

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I am a chocolate fanatic. I’ve never turned down a piece of chocolate in my life, I always have a chocolate stash, and it’s definitely number one on my list of favorite sweets. I’ve always liked it and probably always will. I’ve never had a negative thing to say about chocolate… until this contemplative practice.

Chocolate is consumed primarily by affluent countries (https://www.statista.com/chart/3668/the-worlds-biggest-chocolate-consumers/)

After the little lecture at the beginning of the session I couldn’t stop thinking about all the negative attributes of chocolate. The first thing that I kept coming back to in my head was the fact that chocolate is mainly consumed in affluent countries. It is something I’ve had at my fingertips for my whole life. I started to feel bad as I realize it’s a product I have completely taken for granted. People work so hard harvesting and managing the cacao plants, developing the chocolate, and distributing it out. I’ve never had a thought of gratitude towards the people who made it possible to have the piece of chocolate in my hand. I felt incredibly guilty.

Alter Eco, an example of a sustainable chocolate brand. (https://www.alterecofoods.com/collections/chocolate-bars)

This feeling continued through the contemplative practice. As time passed my thoughts transitioned from the social aspect of chocolate to the environmental aspect. Why do we like chocolate? We like the sweetness which comes from sugar, and the creaminess which comes from milk, or maybe its the smooth texture that wouldn’t be possible without the use of water or fossil fuel power. All of these ingredients have negative ties to the environment, aka it is unsustainable. Going out of my way to buy sustainable chocolate wasn’t even a thought I had until this contemplation.

The point I want to get across is that sitting down, thinking about a concept with an open mind like we do in these contemplative practices, can really make a difference on how you think about things. This practice allowed me to open my mind to the reality behind chocolate, and it really will change my consumer habits.

A HARDIER RICE FOR A WARMING WORLD

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Rice is a very common food source for the world’s population, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that more than 16% of the worlds consumed calories comes from rice. As populations continue to increase the rice yields also need to increase to offset the rapid urbanization and growth. Unfortunately, rice needs specific temperatures to grow, as the world temperatures continue to rise, it is an immediate threat to the rice industry.

Distribution of rice production in the world

Though there is potential for a solution. Jane Langdale, a professor of plant development at Oxford University has taken on the role as coordinator for a project called “C4 Rice Project.” This project has received funding from the Bill Gates Foundation; he gave them an initial grant in 2008 and then another $15 million for Phase 4 of the research. The goal of this project is to transform rice from a C3 mechanism to a C4 mechanism. What does this mean? C3 is the process that many plants follow to extract carbon from the carbon dioxide molecules it absorbs. Though there are a few plants that use a process called C4, this process allows plants to be more resistant to extreme heat and drought, they would be much easier to grow in different climates.

This is an interesting topic to think about. Initially I was thinking, “Wow, this sounds amazing, a new rice that is easier to grow and could potentially help support the growing population, sound perfect!” Though as I continued to think about this topic, I felt like there were a lot of uncertainties too. Could there be negative impacts in introducing this new type of rice? After all, it is a genetically modified organism. I think that the potential negative impacts need to be further explored so that I can understand the whole story, because this is a very promising solution to the problem rice is facing with climate change.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Original Article Link: https://www.ozy.com/around-the-world/a-hardier-rice-for-a-warming-world/300425/

Image from: http://chartsbin.com/view/1009