Planet: Ecosystem Services (487-491) As an active member in society and the ecosystem, as well as a person with previous knowledge on environmental systems, I find it of vital importance to discuss the importance of resources and ecosystem services. Many disregard the amount of “product” we as humans utilize, which is provided to us from the environment at no cost. In Layman’s terms, we mooch off the environment and it’s free shit. The ecosystem naturally provides services, which we as humans need to survive. The air we breathe, the food we eat, and the climates we depend on are all complimentary services provided by the ecosystem. If not for the ecosystem and the services provided, aspects such as clean water, agriculture, shelter, and food would not be viable. The services provided are vitally important to human survival; however, many take for granted these services assuming that they will always be replenishable, renewable, and free. Recent studies show that “it would cost at least 33 trillion per year to substitute human effort for the services that nature provides for free”, meaning that the ecosystem’s services are not actually free but come at a cost, especially when the ecosystem can no longer provided these services we use so readily. Over consumption of products and resources had led to the depletion of our natural stock. Humans extract resources and utilize services at a greater rate than the environment can provide. Services that should function as renewable, no longer are sustainable because of over use. We as a society need to cherish these services and re-evaluate our usage before we completely destroy the ecosystems ability to provide services. The ecosystem is a company or provider, of products and services that we need as consumer. When the demand is higher than production, and products fees equal greater than the amount being paid, the producer suffers. Through things like increasing biodiversity, recycling, reducing our negative impact, and conservation/restoration, we will slowly be able to set the ecosystem back on track where are consumption is not greater than production.
ICT4D stands for “information and communications technologies for development”. What it means is that many people and groups are trying to use the new and advanced technology of today to improve and help in the lives of people in developing nations. With the Internet these people are better connected to the world and society and can even use it to help with their everyday lives.
It’s interesting that with the advent of Wi-Fi people are actually trying to go around hard line and wire connections to introduce Internet to isolated places. With Wi-Fi it’s able to establish mobile networks in regions that don’t have access or material to wired infrastructure. Along with this in many places the technology has been produced such as cheap Wi-Fi antennas that can be made out of Pringles cans and are thus affordable to those people. With access to the Internet and the affordability this can help developing nations faster than ever before.
Problems have arose however in terms of the Global North passing on recycled computer as hand-me-downs to these countries that are unable to effectively recycle these hazardous computers. In many instances it is just cheaper for these countries to buy newer and inexpensive computers.
Because of this expansion of computers and the Internet many operating systems have been adapted to fit the linguistic needs of different nationalities and ethnicities such as Khmer Software Initiative in Cambodia to create a personalized Web browser, e-mail client, and office suit in Khmer.
I enjoyed reading this passage because it related directly to the first and second lectures that we had in the class. Joe talked about the popularity and disposability of cell phones, which leads to the Busch meat trade in Africa because we don’t recycle our cell phones. Until this was brought to my attention, I never knew about this problem, and after I heard about it I started to think about the amount of people that keep their old cell phones in drawers or just throw them away, myself included. This passage talks about how we should be designing things to be disassembled, because “things cant last forever, and that fashions, in fact, change frequently.” I think it is very interesting that Nokia has prototyped a cell phone that comes apart in two seconds, rather than in two minutes like normal. I think that if all cell phones were made this way people would be inclined to recycle them because there would be no middleman to disassemble them. Additionally, I think that the UK-based company Sprout Design is how more companies should be thinking and making their products. They make knives that come with two blades and are easy to take apart so that when one blade dulls it is easy to switch them out. You can then send the dull knife back to company and they will sharpen it and send it back to you. If more products were made to last, and not be disposed of like they are now, we can reduce the amount of waste that we have and even save money.
10/12/10 Jackie San Fillipo ADP III Rotz World Changing
This photo prompted me to think about our society’s fascination with the “weird”. Some people may think that that squirrel with antlers is cute, or interesting. I on the other hand, am scared shitless. Not because I think the squirrel with antlers is going to haunt me, but because it reminds me of a very real and very immediate issue with GMOs and animal experimentation. It may be a stretch, but it is fascinations like this that desensitize people to the idea that our food chain should NOT be screwed with in any way. Its cute until there are actually squirrels with antlers in the world and realize we’ve finally done enough scientific research to actually impact animal species. I understand that we have done great things such as crossing breeds of species, and cloning animals, and how that can lead to better human medicine. But what if it instead leads to a new species of animal that has no place in our delicate environment? While there is a lot of protest against human and animal genetic research, there is less so with plant experimentation. Page 67, “The Future of Food,” explains, “Genetic modification of crops has become a notoriously controversial and widely protested science. But the same insights that have introduced little-studied and potentially dangerous crops into our food supply can yield safe and beneficial plants that may rehabilitate agriculture”. If this can be said for plants, can the same really be said for animals? Where do we draw the line?
I read a really interesting chapter in the world-changing book. I was drawn to this chapter because the images looked really cool. There was an old record that was bent in a way to make a cool modern candy dish by reusing and DIY it takes out the middle man of the company having to use all the waste to create these products. I feel that I have actually seen this type of product at urban outfitters. Which I know is a store that sells things a billion dollar more than what they actually take to me ( not actually a billion but a lot more). They would sell this piece for about 20 bucks probably when it would take some fire to melt and some tongs. Also another really cool thing that was a DIY was making speakers. You take a card from a deck and put it in an altoids can then poke holes and put your headphones in a man made hole and ta-dah you have yourself speakers. I think that DIY is a great way to reuse and also cut out the middle man of big company’s.
In many third world countries girls do not go to school because their parents see their education as an unworthy investment. Many girls stay at home and tend to housework, while their brothers and male peers learn and educate themselves to enter into the task force. Another reason that young girls fall behind in education in third world countries is because they do not have the proper sanitation supplies to cope with menstruation. The fact that girls are unable to attend school for the week’s duration of their period is unacceptable. It is grossly disturbing that girls are unable to go to school because their bodily functions are unable to be properly taken care of. When girls stay at home uneducated, the society as a whole is being disrupted and set back. When women are neglected socially and academically, the context of a culture is lost. Educated women establish a cultural paradigm that is unmatched by men and cannot be regained once lost. It is important that girls become educated so that they can become empowered women. Educated girls know practical procedures of birth control and see the practicality of contraception. Many rural and urban impoverished school settings are offering free lunches to encourage families to send their young girls to school. The Bank is also offering Turkish mothers monthly installments to send their daughters to school. The patriarchal structures by which our countries are built around are becoming obsolete. Women and Girls need to be educated and empowered to take on the world as their own, aside from men.
The Global South is said to be the greatest source of untapped human potential we have. The need for solutions in developing countries that are practical, easily implemented, and sustainable will lead to a reexamination of the North’s complex and environmentally injurious activities. South-South science is rooted by new and developing ideas along with indigenous and local knowledge. Discoveries of South-South scientists will help us all achieve strong, less damaging systems that will help to ease poverty worldwide. Nations in the global south have realized they can’t simply rely on Western science to solve their problems. Especially when that science is enforced with actions like applying strict patents to important drugs, putting them out of reach for most of the millions of people suffering from diseases like HIV and AIDS. In many Southern countries, you can find Northern technical infrastructures that they don’t have the resources to maintain. Not to mention a problem called biopiracy, when nonlocals patent treatments based on plants used by indigenous communities, taking away a huge potential for economic flow. However, some of the most exciting breakthroughs are coming out of South-South collaborations. For example, Brazil teamed up with China to work on a series of satellites for monitoring agriculture, water pollution, and the environment. Countries are also combining research programs on AIDS, malaria, and other diseases whose impact is most heavily felt in the developing world. South-South science has also begun to create freely available technological innovations that fit the needs of the global south. If there becomes a widespread sense that science and technology are not superior, but that they are in many ways relevant to the daily lives of the most underserved people, it will accelerate a change in perception surrounding the importance of South-South science.
This week in World Changing I read the section about Protest in the Politics chapter. What I focused on is how protesting has changed and how people who try to stand up for various right or causes are sometimes considered to be bad or extreme. When most people think about protesting, they look back to the 1950s-1960s protests for Civil Rights and against war. It seems to me that back in those days, the likely hood of getting arrested, beaten, or killed seemed more probable. These days, making signs and gathering in front of City Halls is more of the norm. I myself have been in a modern day anti-war protest and all we did was make signs, sing anti-war songs, and chant. It made me wonder if people are just less passionate about what they believe is right or if people have just developed the mind of “Oh, someone else will take care of the problem.” In addition to the way protest has changed. One artist has changed the way of questioning what people think is normal. Banksy is a very famous and mysterious graffiti/political artist. Banksy is well known for his murals in Palestine/Israel that make each group think about what’s on the other side. He is really trying to make these two groups of people see that the wall is unnecessary and how it should be torn down. Some have called Banksy an “ art terrorist”(pg 454) cause they believe he is going to stir up trouble and make the citizens of each country turn their back on the Government.
Planet: Ecosystem Services (487-491)
ReplyDeleteAs an active member in society and the ecosystem, as well as a person with previous knowledge on environmental systems, I find it of vital importance to discuss the importance of resources and ecosystem services. Many disregard the amount of “product” we as humans utilize, which is provided to us from the environment at no cost. In Layman’s terms, we mooch off the environment and it’s free shit. The ecosystem naturally provides services, which we as humans need to survive. The air we breathe, the food we eat, and the climates we depend on are all complimentary services provided by the ecosystem. If not for the ecosystem and the services provided, aspects such as clean water, agriculture, shelter, and food would not be viable. The services provided are vitally important to human survival; however, many take for granted these services assuming that they will always be replenishable, renewable, and free. Recent studies show that “it would cost at least 33 trillion per year to substitute human effort for the services that nature provides for free”, meaning that the ecosystem’s services are not actually free but come at a cost, especially when the ecosystem can no longer provided these services we use so readily. Over consumption of products and resources had led to the depletion of our natural stock. Humans extract resources and utilize services at a greater rate than the environment can provide. Services that should function as renewable, no longer are sustainable because of over use. We as a society need to cherish these services and re-evaluate our usage before we completely destroy the ecosystems ability to provide services. The ecosystem is a company or provider, of products and services that we need as consumer. When the demand is higher than production, and products fees equal greater than the amount being paid, the producer suffers. Through things like increasing biodiversity, recycling, reducing our negative impact, and conservation/restoration, we will slowly be able to set the ecosystem back on track where are consumption is not greater than production.
ADP III World Changing Statement 10/12
ReplyDeleteLyle A. Murphy – Sec. 003
ICT4D p. 296-300
ICT4D stands for “information and communications technologies for development”. What it means is that many people and groups are trying to use the new and advanced technology of today to improve and help in the lives of people in developing nations. With the Internet these people are better connected to the world and society and can even use it to help with their everyday lives.
It’s interesting that with the advent of Wi-Fi people are actually trying to go around hard line and wire connections to introduce Internet to isolated places. With Wi-Fi it’s able to establish mobile networks in regions that don’t have access or material to wired infrastructure. Along with this in many places the technology has been produced such as cheap Wi-Fi antennas that can be made out of Pringles cans and are thus affordable to those people. With access to the Internet and the affordability this can help developing nations faster than ever before.
Problems have arose however in terms of the Global North passing on recycled computer as hand-me-downs to these countries that are unable to effectively recycle these hazardous computers. In many instances it is just cheaper for these countries to buy newer and inexpensive computers.
Because of this expansion of computers and the Internet many operating systems have been adapted to fit the linguistic needs of different nationalities and ethnicities such as Khmer Software Initiative in Cambodia to create a personalized Web browser, e-mail client, and office suit in Khmer.
Lindsay Avino
ReplyDeleteADP III
World Changing 10/12
Producer Responsibility p.118
I enjoyed reading this passage because it related directly to the first and second lectures that we had in the class. Joe talked about the popularity and disposability of cell phones, which leads to the Busch meat trade in Africa because we don’t recycle our cell phones. Until this was brought to my attention, I never knew about this problem, and after I heard about it I started to think about the amount of people that keep their old cell phones in drawers or just throw them away, myself included. This passage talks about how we should be designing things to be disassembled, because “things cant last forever, and that fashions, in fact, change frequently.” I think it is very interesting that Nokia has prototyped a cell phone that comes apart in two seconds, rather than in two minutes like normal. I think that if all cell phones were made this way people would be inclined to recycle them because there would be no middleman to disassemble them. Additionally, I think that the UK-based company Sprout Design is how more companies should be thinking and making their products. They make knives that come with two blades and are easy to take apart so that when one blade dulls it is easy to switch them out. You can then send the dull knife back to company and they will sharpen it and send it back to you. If more products were made to last, and not be disposed of like they are now, we can reduce the amount of waste that we have and even save money.
10/12/10
ReplyDeleteJackie San Fillipo
ADP III Rotz
World Changing
This photo prompted me to think about our society’s fascination with the “weird”. Some people may think that that squirrel with antlers is cute, or interesting. I on the other hand, am scared shitless. Not because I think the squirrel with antlers is going to haunt me, but because it reminds me of a very real and very immediate issue with GMOs and animal experimentation. It may be a stretch, but it is fascinations like this that desensitize people to the idea that our food chain should NOT be screwed with in any way. Its cute until there are actually squirrels with antlers in the world and realize we’ve finally done enough scientific research to actually impact animal species. I understand that we have done great things such as crossing breeds of species, and cloning animals, and how that can lead to better human medicine. But what if it instead leads to a new species of animal that has no place in our delicate environment? While there is a lot of protest against human and animal genetic research, there is less so with plant experimentation. Page 67, “The Future of Food,” explains, “Genetic modification of crops has become a notoriously controversial and widely protested science. But the same insights that have introduced little-studied and potentially dangerous crops into our food supply can yield safe and beneficial plants that may rehabilitate agriculture”. If this can be said for plants, can the same really be said for animals? Where do we draw the line?
Sam Goldman
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response
10/11/10
World Changing Response
I read a really interesting chapter in the world-changing book. I was drawn to this chapter because the images looked really cool. There was an old record that was bent in a way to make a cool modern candy dish by reusing and DIY it takes out the middle man of the company having to use all the waste to create these products. I feel that I have actually seen this type of product at urban outfitters. Which I know is a store that sells things a billion dollar more than what they actually take to me ( not actually a billion but a lot more). They would sell this piece for about 20 bucks probably when it would take some fire to melt and some tongs. Also another really cool thing that was a DIY was making speakers. You take a card from a deck and put it in an altoids can then poke holes and put your headphones in a man made hole and ta-dah you have yourself speakers. I think that DIY is a great way to reuse and also cut out the middle man of big company’s.
Caitlin Murphy
ReplyDelete12 October 2010
World Changing
Educating Girls and Empowering Women
In many third world countries girls do not go to school because their parents see their education as an unworthy investment. Many girls stay at home and tend to housework, while their brothers and male peers learn and educate themselves to enter into the task force. Another reason that young girls fall behind in education in third world countries is because they do not have the proper sanitation supplies to cope with menstruation. The fact that girls are unable to attend school for the week’s duration of their period is unacceptable. It is grossly disturbing that girls are unable to go to school because their bodily functions are unable to be properly taken care of. When girls stay at home uneducated, the society as a whole is being disrupted and set back. When women are neglected socially and academically, the context of a culture is lost. Educated women establish a cultural paradigm that is unmatched by men and cannot be regained once lost.
It is important that girls become educated so that they can become empowered women. Educated girls know practical procedures of birth control and see the practicality of contraception. Many rural and urban impoverished school settings are offering free lunches to encourage families to send their young girls to school. The Bank is also offering Turkish mothers monthly installments to send their daughters to school.
The patriarchal structures by which our countries are built around are becoming obsolete. Women and Girls need to be educated and empowered to take on the world as their own, aside from men.
Ben Paskus
ReplyDeleteAdp 3
South-South Science pg. 332
The Global South is said to be the greatest source of untapped human potential we have. The need for solutions in developing countries that are practical, easily implemented, and sustainable will lead to a reexamination of the North’s complex and environmentally injurious activities. South-South science is rooted by new and developing ideas along with indigenous and local knowledge. Discoveries of South-South scientists will help us all achieve strong, less damaging systems that will help to ease poverty worldwide. Nations in the global south have realized they can’t simply rely on Western science to solve their problems. Especially when that science is enforced with actions like applying strict patents to important drugs, putting them out of reach for most of the millions of people suffering from diseases like HIV and AIDS. In many Southern countries, you can find Northern technical infrastructures that they don’t have the resources to maintain. Not to mention a problem called biopiracy, when nonlocals patent treatments based on plants used by indigenous communities, taking away a huge potential for economic flow.
However, some of the most exciting breakthroughs are coming out of South-South collaborations. For example, Brazil teamed up with China to work on a series of satellites for monitoring agriculture, water pollution, and the environment. Countries are also combining research programs on AIDS, malaria, and other diseases whose impact is most heavily felt in the developing world. South-South science has also begun to create freely available technological innovations that fit the needs of the global south. If there becomes a widespread sense that science and technology are not superior, but that they are in many ways relevant to the daily lives of the most underserved people, it will accelerate a change in perception surrounding the importance of South-South science.
Rebecca Aguilar
ReplyDelete10/11/10
WC Response
Politics
This week in World Changing I read the section about Protest in the Politics chapter. What I focused on is how protesting has changed and how people who try to stand up for various right or causes are sometimes considered to be bad or extreme. When most people think about protesting, they look back to the 1950s-1960s protests for Civil Rights and against war. It seems to me that back in those days, the likely hood of getting arrested, beaten, or killed seemed more probable. These days, making signs and gathering in front of City Halls is more of the norm. I myself have been in a modern day anti-war protest and all we did was make signs, sing anti-war songs, and chant. It made me wonder if people are just less passionate about what they believe is right or if people have just developed the mind of “Oh, someone else will take care of the problem.”
In addition to the way protest has changed. One artist has changed the way of questioning what people think is normal. Banksy is a very famous and mysterious graffiti/political artist. Banksy is well known for his murals in Palestine/Israel that make each group think about what’s on the other side. He is really trying to make these two groups of people see that the wall is unnecessary and how it should be torn down. Some have called Banksy an “ art terrorist”(pg 454) cause they believe he is going to stir up trouble and make the citizens of each country turn their back on the Government.