Daniel Florez
Blog Post #1: Do You Care or are You Just Pretending to Care?
Going Green
I’d like to find out more and rationalize the current trend of green/eco consciousness. I chose this trend because there are a lot of questions and points that I would like to rise on the subject based on how our society sees it. Although, it seems as if all us know the importance of recycling and reducing energy costs and several other eco-friendly aspects, I’d like to be honest and say that I’m not too knowledgeable on the subject. I found this trend appealing since having a “clean” world has became a very important concern for the future of our planet.
I only know the tree-hugger standpoint on this subject. I know how big of an issue it has become and how there needs to be something done to have a cleaner and better future for our kids. More importantly, I know how big of a trend it has become in anything going on around us, such as new types of cars and other “green” products. What I want to really find out is if all these efforts that we seem to be doing really are enough. I’d like to get more information by simply asking other people’s opinions on the subject and being able to understand how they see it. By knowing people’s opinions on the subject I can compare them to actual studies performed by professionals. I have seen this trend constantly as a “design-driver” in the world of architecture. As an architecture major it made me want to pursue more on the importance of being greener not only for architects, but also for any individual living on this planet.
I can already see different biased perspectives on this subject. There will be perspectives from the common tree-huggers, to those who could care less about this subject and live day-to-day without worrying about their impact on the future. But perhaps with my exploration and inquiry I can find a medium in which we can see this subject not as an opinion of it’s importance, but rather an opportunity to grow on and change our way of seeing it.
There was a particular experience that made me explore this specific subject even more. I had been talking to a friend as he was drinking Coke out of a plastic bottle, when he was done with it he threw it in a regular trash can opposed to the recycling can for plastic and glass bottles which was only a few feet further away. When he did so, it shocked me and I asked why he didn’t simply throw it in the recycling can. When I confronted him on the subject his only excuse was that it was further away from him. This made me think that no matter how many recycling cans you throw into a campus and how many flyers and commercials try to employ the importance of being “greener” people will ultimately do whatever is convenient for them.
The previous experience just made me think of one big question:
Can our society ever become “greener” if all we care about is our own comfort and selfish needs?
Blog Post #2: Resources
Articles:
This blog post is actually a good source because it discusses the cultural differences on the eco-friendly trend between Europe and the United States. I found this an important aspect because it could potentially contribute greatly to the angle or point of view on my research of the cultural perspective on this particular topic. Also, it could be a really strong and valuable source since a US journalist that currently lives in Europe wrote it.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/28/25-of-americans-dont-recycle/
This article provided by an online news source in "Environmental & Energy Management" shows real statistics to the percentage of people that recycle and on which specific items that they recycle such as paper. This would be a good source of information because it also goes in depth on the reasons why certain people don't recycle.
This article has potential to be a good source for content on my research because it discusses awareness campaigns on the "going green" trend. This particular article explains the techniques being used by a graphic design firm to create awareness on the consumption of plastic in the US. Although this article reveals shocking facts, it does not reveal if the awareness campaigns are actually effective or not.
http://www.recyclenow.com/why_recycling_matters/why_it_matters/
This website is simply trying to advertise the pros of recycling and telling the reader the importance of it. The information on here is somewhat elementary and basic. However, this information could be used as great content to use and properly explain why recycling could potentially make a big difference if enough people do it. A drawback to this source is that it is obviously going to be biased and it doesn't realistically show the scales at which recycling would make a difference.
http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/importance.html
I liked this source because it is from the UK. It was important to me that it was from a country in Europe because it could be used as an example of the efforts created to advertise this particular trend to influence their culture into a "greener" one. Also, it discusses the importance not only for the environment but for people. This factor of showing the reader somewhat directly why they should care could make an interesting factor to the cultural differences on the trend between Europe and the US.
http://plasticisrubbish.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/how-much-plastic-waste-do-we-create/
This source is useful because it shows that there are people discussing the amounts of waste that we create. This article reveals the number in tons of the plastic waste being created in the US. This information can be very useful because it also reveals the amounts of plastic waste created as containers and packaging. This contributes to making a point on how our laziness and our comfort leads to the need of companies unnecessarily packaging everything.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/65259
This source is very credible and reliable since the publisher is Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This source however, only focuses on how the trend of eco-friendliness is being used in the field of architecture. This is a good contributor to show how this trend doesn't only have to be in the form of individuals recycling but also in larger scales such as being a design factor in buildings.
Images:
Original Source: rjmatson.com
Original Source: elephantjournal.com
Original Source: funnyjunk.com
I found this image to be very powerful since it was used as a campaign during World War II to promote carpooling to reduce the usage of gas. This was interesting to me because now a lot of people don't see the need to carpool although they know that driving individual cars to the same place is hurting the environment. This image just reflects differences of our culture during different time periods.
This picture is very helpful in making my case of how lazy we are that we would rather waste gas and pollute the air to take a dog on a walk. Also the caption on it reveals how other societies feel about our culture.
This political cartoon shows how "illogical" we are just for our own convenience and to have an easy fix. It works great to show that we are egocentric and we don't worry about the harmful consequences it could bring to our environment. Although it's not a real photograph it does a great job at reflecting how our culture perceives this trend as a non-important issue.
Videos:
Blog Post #3: Annotated Bibliography
Biddle, Mike. "Mike Biddle: We Can Recycle Plastic." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TEDGlobal, Oct. 2011. Film. 04 Dec. 2013.
On this TED Talk a man in the waste industry discusses how recycling right now isn’t working. He first introduces his argument by showing the viewer how recycling is done right now and how it is not making a difference. His introduction to the subject matter is more on the science side by explaining why plastics are not being recycled as much as they should be because they are harder to separate. He briefly shows how other countries are making efforts to recycle plastics but says that these techniques are irresponsible and unsustainable solutions. In the end he talks about his proposal to change the way that we recycle plastics and found a more sustainable solution that re-uses plastic at a larger scale without the need to create more plastic.
This TED Talk was surprisingly a very interesting source, which brings a different perspective into how to be greener. Although it focused on only one factor it became an important one that showed an important aspect to why recycling is not cutting it. He also briefly mentioned how the old form of recycling works better in other countries than in the US since we don’t have recycling policies like they do in Europe. This source brought up an interesting factor and changed my perspective on how becoming greener doesn’t only have to be based on individual people or families but also a big contributor are waste management companies.
Gadotti, Moacir. "What We Need to Learn to Save the Planet." Journal of Education for Sustainable Development. 2.1 (2008): 21-30. Print.
The author in this article brings up an interesting point to the conversation of why we aren’t becoming greener. He argues that education today is simply informing and introducing the theme of sustainability rather than changing logic to find and develop solutions. He differentiates and emphasizes the importance of having both education about sustainable development and education for sustainable development. His focus on this shows the importance of comprehending environmental, economical, and societal factors but most importantly to incorporate new perspectives and values to stimulate and induce people to live their lives in a more sustainable way.
This source was definitely very credible and introduced a whole new factor that I had not thought of. The emphasis on how education perceives our notion of being eco conscious brought a wider perspective on solutions to make a difference. Although this article had somewhat an emphasis on an economical standpoint it raised interesting points. One, which I found most valuable, is the difference on being knowledgeable on the theme of sustainability and having knowledge on how to impel individuals to create solutions or to live a sustainable life.
"What Makes Europe Greener than the US?" Greenpeace International. Yale Environment 360, 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
This article discusses why Europe is greener than the US. A US journalist that currently lives in Europe provides her insights as to why this is. She makes an important point in recognizing that American’s do have a “sincere and passionate resolution to be green”. However, despite American’s efforts she came to four major points that explain why our efforts are not enough. First she discusses social pressure as one of the factors. The social pressure being that in European countries behaving in an environmentally responsible manner is part of a social contract and when doing not so eco-friendly it is something that it’s frowned-upon. She also discusses cultural, spatial, and historical differences as the contributing factors that separate how green a region is over the other.
This article was very valuable because it discussed one of the major points on my research, which are cultural differences. It was also very reliable because someone who had experienced what it was like to live in the US and later on in Europe wrote it. This article not only brought up the fact that Europe is greener than the US but it also raised explanations as to why this could be. Although the four factors discussed might not be legitimate “excuses” for the US to not be greener it contributes greatly to the conversation and is potentially a great source.
This is a commercial for Toyota's Prius "family" of cars. This commercial is simply promoting how good for the environment the car is through it's usage of imagery and also implying that there is one for everyone. These types of cars could be very helpful for using as evidence of the new types of technologies that are contributing to the trend.
This is a commercial used to advertise wind power. The source is credible since it's from platformbreather.org, which is a company who's mission is to conceive, produce and present public service messages giving information and opinions on social issues to the community through mass media. This could be used in my research to show the different ways to make our world better.
This is a scene from the move The Lorax. This movie as a whole is promoting the "going green" trend and being green/eco conscious to children. This movie is helpful in the sense that it gives a perfect example of the efforts being used today to promote the trend, and it's also very important that this message is being conveyed to children, which are the future of our planet.
Blog Post #4: Extending the Conversation
Reading This Could Make a Difference
Have you ever wondered what the future of our planet would look like? Most of us imagine a world filled with robots, flying cars and perhaps crazy and unimaginable buildings. The only problem with this illusion is that we don’t know if we would get that far. That is because we won’t know if our planet would last that long to see those advancements.
The increasingly concern of becoming greener is one that is highly evident all around the world. We see ads and campaigns to increase the awareness of being eco-friendly in our every day lives. As a college student I constantly pass by tons of recycling cans, each for a different type of product such as aluminum cans or paper, throughout campus.
However, there has been numerous times when I’ve passed these recycling cans and see another student disposing of a recyclable product in a regular trash can when most of the time they are right beside each other. On one occasion a close friend of mine did the same thing. When I confronted him about why he did that, he said that the recycling can was further away than the trashcan. From what I can recall, the recycling cans were only but a few feet further away.
From this point on I started wondering if all these efforts just become useless since we are too lazy to even care. So is our comfort and selfish needs a big setback to becoming greener?
I started to explore and rationalize why it might be that Europe has always been a greener society than the United States. Might the social myth of Americans being lazy be one of the contributing factors to this? Or is it more than simply being lazy?
I found numerous sources showing the vast differences between eco-friendly aspects in the United States and Europe. These were in the form of amounts of waste we create, awareness campaigns, and recycling policies (which are non-existent in the United States). However, none of these confirmed why the differences where so big. Eventually, I stumbled upon one source from a person that experienced living in both regions and raised important points. One major point being cultural differences.
In European countries behaving in an environmentally manner is part of a social contract. Meaning that not doing eco-friendly things is sort of a taboo. So why might this be a taboo in Europe, when in the United States it is looked at as sort of an unnecessary action? Could it be because we are just so used to behaving a certain way? Where the constant reminders of the importance of Mother Nature growing up not enough to make us feel guilty for taking better care of the planet?
I can’t exactly say that I have done everything possible to be eco-friendly all the time. I recycle but that still isn’t stopping me from buying bottled waters instead of refilling them. We are all unconsciously doing things that could potentially hurt the environment just for our comfort. For example we could simply walk to a place that is close to us but instead we choose to take the car because it would be quicker.
It’s hard to change a complete life style but there have been a few changes that have somewhat contributed to aid in this change. For example we are all aware of new technology that would help our environment. This trend is not really something new. But a big contributor to this change is making eco-friendly cars. Yes, it may not be as good as riding a bicycle but for our culture it might be the best we could do.
But would driving a Prius and recycling be a big enough of a change to help our environment? One source explains that sometimes recycling doesn’t make it out to the “re-using” stage. This is because plastics are harder to separate. So a waste management company found a solution to this problem. Their innovative solution was to create plastic pellets, which makes it easier to form new plastic products.
This source changed my perspective on this whole issue. That is because even if we all recycled it wouldn’t be enough. It may take more than individuals and families to make a difference. It may also be that bigger steps need to be taken. As an architecture major, I see that creating sustainable and greener buildings has become a big design factor. So maybe other companies and industries also need to take these big steps to make a difference. But could it also be that we need to change our way of thinking? We are all knowledgeable on the theme of sustainability but maybe having knowledge to create solutions or on the importance of living a sustainable life could also be a big contributor. Who knows maybe it’s our education that has failed at making us think differently.
There are simply infinite possibilities as to why we are the way we are. Why we aren’t as “green” as Europe. However, I’m only trying to further implement into the “solution and reason” phase. There is no right or wrong answer to this but what is important is trying to get people to understand that any tiny effort is better than none at all. We could say we are too lazy but in reality we all know that if there is a will there is a way. Let’s not wait until it’s too late to change our way of thinking or changing how companies and industries work. Mother Earth has given us life and many opportunities to simply live and be happy, so why not simply raise more questions and act on them.
Inquiry Reflection
The inquiry process was very easy going. I didn’t really find any challenges. Although, it was somewhat hard to find sources on the specific subject I figured that I could use sources that spoke related on the subject. Later on I would have to accommodate how it would fit in with my research. I found it very interesting when we were asked to find picture and video sources that would relate to the topic. I found this shocking because I always thought that research sources should be only textbooks or articles. Although, shocking to me at first I found it a very appealing concept when thinking of it as a modern piece. I feel as if sources such as these would be used in research, the audience would want to become more involved.
The topic in which to I wanted to inquire was somewhat of an easy search since I found through this inquiry assignment how big the concern of becoming green is. Although I did not find specific answers as to why we aren’t as green as we should be, I found different ways of manipulating what I found to my advantage. I became a much more informed individual through this inquiry. I hope that any person that reads it would find it motivational enough to change their mindset and actually do something about their non-sustainable life style.