Assignment #10

In the required reading The Great Transformation, author Polanyi discusses how in todays world there is now a gap between society and the economy. Social rules like being considerate of others, no taking advantage of others are no longer relevant inner economy. In result, our society and environment are being destroyed. Our behavior determines how our society will be which then determines how our economy will be. The markets play a vital roll in our economy. That being said, most people have a marketing metality consisting of selfishness and greed. Our society no longer recognizes the impact nature and human life has in our world and is creating a dog-eat dog world. In the past food and goods were not used to gain wealth but was used so that our population could survive. In a perfect world there would be no exploitation or care for social status. Community’s would come together to help one another without the need to accept something in return. Polanyi was not opposed to the market and believed that if society followed the rules the market would then be valuable. My intake about the market would be that it is all about greed and selfishness. The market is about taking advantage of others misfortune, over charging, and becoming as wealthy as possible to improve social status. It is degenerative and I cam curious to see how the world would be today if the market was never created.

In the ted talk A New Story of the People, Charles Eisenstein starts off by talking about an activist that would rather take care of his ninety-five year old mother in law than make a drastic change in the world. Eisenstein believes that most of us are starting to realize that the harm we do to the world is us really harming ourselves. Tiny actions can have a significant cause and effect on our universe. Our environment and life should be much more beautiful than what we are used too. A new story of the people is much over due. Humans are here to empower each other and eliminate any doubt we might have. Once we eliminate the doubt we can conquer anything. In order to find a new purpose in life humans will need to believe in something much larger than themselves. To make our world beautiful again will take people coming together sharing that same desire for a better life. Charles Eisenstein was very passionate during his speech and I enjoyed listening to him.

Assignment #9

After visiting 100resilientcities.org I familiarized myself with the city Juarez, Mexico. I recently drove through there over the summer and have always heard not so great things about the city and thought it would be a great article to read. Juarez is a city with a large population similar to LA and is facing issues in their city like poverty, high drug related crimes, poverty, unemployment, and extreme clime changes. 100 resilient cities foundation has helped Juarez with a regenerative way to save their storm water and collect it in their ground water wells to later then help for when they have a heat wave. Jaurez storing their water for later use is similar to what we discussed in class about greywater. Greywater is water we already used and making it reusable until our dams and aqueducts are full to prevent us from being in a drought. Groundwater and grey water are both regenerative ways to help prevent the people in southern California and Juarez away from a drought.

In the video The Commons, Enclosure, and Resistance starts with a young women from Venezuela giving a message to the youth of U.S. to keep fighting and a revolution will come. Peter Linebaugh who is a historian and author of “stop thief” then discusses how the leaders of the world today wants us to forget about the Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest in fear of a revolution. Linebaugh says “property is used as a capital resource for exploitation of others” and how people that are not active in a resolution need to then be taught how to be active. The video then interviews a group of millennials that are known as a the “Otra Beta” which consists of graffiti artists, rappers, and motorcyclists. Otra Beta are there to encourage the community through art and does not let others decide how the community will live their lives. My reaction to the video was that if Venezuela can stand up for their community, then so can people in the U.S.. We can learn from the past with why the Magna Carta was developed and we can learn from the people in Venezuela as well. There is room in our community for growth and it will take each and everyone one of us to be on the same page if we want things to change. To become sustainable we must all want it, not just some of us.

Assignment #8

In the Documentary “We the People 2.0” starts off by with an issue a community in Tamaqua, PA are having and how little the government are helping. The town is infested with chemicals and ash from companies burning coal. The towns water supply is also being contaminated from these chemicals and causing the community to become very ill and have cancer. Eventually the town took action against these companies hurting there community but was denied by the government and Tamaqua is still dealing with toxic living conditions. Tamaqua is the perfect example of where our country’s focus is on. Our country’s focus is not on keeping chemicals out of our environment but to give businesses the right to continue to destroy our environment. Politics is whats keeping the country from having a sustainable society. Regulations show just how little freedom the people have in our country. You can have a whole town begging for help the government will still choose businesses profit over a communities health. Laws like “Corporate Personhood” that favor corporations instead of working citizens shows how American Democracy really. This documentary suggest people to go outside of the law and live a more sustainable life because the government is in no rush to change until our environment is destroyed and its too late.

In the first news story that I read and listened to talked about five of the top world banks pleading guilty to manipulating people and the price of foreign currencies. This news story concentration was on power and how not one person was faced with criminal charges or settlements although they were caught bragging in chat rooms about manipulating people and the money they have. Along with chevron texaco whose company was caught illegally extracting oil from the amazon. These large companies that are widely known in the world are getting a slap on the wrist bamboozling innocent citizens. These two news stories show how the leaders of this world are resisting from sustainability to become wealthy and powerful. The last news story talks about Steven Salaita, a professor that had a contract to teach at the University of Illinois but was fired for posting on social media about the Israel assault on Gaza. Parents and students threaten to withdraw their financial support even though Salaita was doing nothing wrong besides practicing his first amendment in freedom of speech. Salaita went on and sued the university and won. No one on the board of the University was held responsible for the resignation of Salaita and is another prime example on how little the government holds people responsible for their actions. The world is resisting from sustainability and very few people are taking a stand.

Assignment #7

Video: Toxic Culture- How Materialistic Society Makes Us Stronger

Gabor Mate is a canadian physician that specializes on addiction, trauma, parenting, diseases and imbalances in humans. Mate starts his speech off with the rate of adults and children on psychotics because they themselves or society finds their behaviors to be problematic. Meanwhile drs know very little of the long time affect that some of these psychotics can have and still continue to prescribe their patients with them. He also talks about how society makes us ill starting with pregnancy and what can happen to a child if the mother is stressed or depressed while carrying them. Mate makes some great points that I could really relate. One of the things Mate mentioned is how depression is with the persons environment and not a personal issue. He also gives another example of children with obesity. Thirty percent of children in the US are obese. Society is constantly telling children and their parents to eat better and exercise more when society should really be looking at whats wrong with that childs environment. Mate gave a great speech and showed his systems thinking and also caused the viewers to system think as well. I enjoyed hearing his speech.

Reading: “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”

In this chapter, Gladwell the author starts off with a story about a man named Daughtry who was a successful lawyer. Daughtry though a man named Harding would make a great senate based on his appearance. Soon Harding would become president and be known as one of the worst presidents the country has ever had. Psychologists then studied why people jump to conclusions and came up with a tool called the Implication Association test (IAT). The test consisted of a list of words that takers would have to divide into categories. In example, Men and careers or women and family. The test proved that some people have preconceptions about race, gender, age, etc. It showed that us humans can be unconsciously biased. My first reaction after reading this chapter was that I could relate to some of the examples Gladwell had listed. I am guilty of being unconsciously biased based on past experience. In example, I don’t leave my purse or anything valuable on my seat based on what neighborhood I am in due to past experiences. Gladwell believes that it is possible to challenge our minds to prevent us from being unconsciously biased.

 

 

Assignment #6

In the article Michigan governor faces racketeering lawsuit over Flint water crisis, the governor decides to switch water sources in the city Flint of Michigan. Flint will now have their water resource from a local river instead of Lake Huton which has provided water for the city for over fifty years. The governor was obviously doing a little bit of linear thinking so that the city could save an estimated of 1-2 million dollars. When the city decided to switch its water source it allowed water from the river not to be treated with corrosion. Which then allowed lead to leach from the pipes and flow into households causing the community to get ill. For over two years the people of Flint were using toxic water and being charged one of the highest in the nation for that toxic water. The city now has thousands of law suits filed and take no responsibility when wanting to file for bankruptcy. What started out as a few bucks saved ended up costing the city and state of Michigan over fifty million dollars due to linear thinking. The leaders of our nation should be required to systems think as part of their profession.

Assignment #5

Video: Visualizing Ourselves With Crowd-Sourced Data

I watched the video “Visualizing ourselves with crowd-sourced data” where an artist named Aaron Koblin who specializes in digital data and technologies. My first reaction while watching this video was that Koblin was kind of boring and monotone. Koblin did have some interesting data collections and first talked about airline flights to different regions in the country using lines. He later then talks about another one of his projects called the Johnny Cash project where he uses crowd source data. People online help contribute to the video and add there thoughts about Johnny cash. Users then can customize the video to there preference and also see who contributed. Koblin believes that modern technology makes us more human. Technology continues to grow and become more advanced every day. I am not a fan of technology, I never know how work or fix technology items. Working in a classroom and wanting to be a teacher one day I know I will need to accept technology because it is if it isn’t already a big part of our world.

Video: What Humans Can Learn From Semi-Intellegent Slime

Heather Barnett gives her discussion about a slime mold that is not a mold and goes by the name Physarum Polycephalum. This slime mold is known for its intelligence in finding its own food and never repeating its track. Physarum Polycephalum is one cell and works together with other cells to become one super cell. The super cell was first found in the woods and is known to like oats and also dark and damp places. Another reason why researchers think this slime is intelligent is because their testing showed that the slime after a period of time would remember the time researchers would make their environment too cold and the slime would decrease its movement. The slime grows at exactly one centimeter an hour making it not possible to be physically viewed without technology. Studies showed a community acting as the intelligent slime on a mission for food. As a result researchers noticed the community working together efficiently when they all had the same goal in mind. My opinion of the intelligent slime is that it can be a great example to communities and show what can happen when everyone is on the same page. Nature once again is showing us how we should live and what the outcome can be if we work together.

Assignment 4: My Reaction to Janine Benyus videos

In the video “12 sustainable design ideas for nature”, Janine Benyus discusses how nature should be the example of how us humans live and how to treat the planet we live on. Benyus calls her examples the “12 Big Ideas from biology” and compares the natures biology and how us human can do the same thing nature does to survive without leaving our footmarks on earth. Some of the examples she gives is using CO2 as a feed stock and how we can use CO2 to make plastic, making plastic more sustainable. She also talks about time degradation and how plastic should be made as dissolvable. Benyus ends her discussion telling us how life creates conditions conductive to life. My reaction to the video was surprising. I thought Benyus makes some really strong points and how we should use our nature as an example on how life makes things. I agree that we do struggle with having the things we make disappear and how they end up hurting the earth we live in. I also feel the things she’s suggesting on how we build things are a lot harder than they seem. Our population is growing rapidly and it could be tough to keep up with the demand our society puts on each other causing us to make things that are not sustainable.

In the video “Biomimicry in Action” Biologist Janine Benyus talks about biomimicry is the sustainability innovation by nature. Benyus starts off by telling the audience about her neighbor and how he thought she built a wasp nest because of how good it looked. Benyus then tells us that us humans believe that if something is that good we automatically think humans were the cause when most of the time its nature. She explains that nature is living on our planet without destroying it and gives an example how nature sees CO2 as building blocks and how us humans can use CO2 in our cement to build things also. One example that I stood out to me was when Benyus explained how trees in our nature brings their water up from their roots into their branches to get to their leaves. She says that should be an example for how we should bring water up in our buildings instead of using pumps. My reaction after watching the video was that Benyus again made some excellent points to how us humans should look at nature as an example on how we live. Us humans are destroying our earth. Earth won’t last forever and its up to us to save it and start living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Assignment #3: Surviving Progress/Linear thinking

In the film “Surviving Progress” Ronald Wright talks about the history of progress that civilization has made. Wright tells us about “progress traps” that he believes is what us humans think is progress but is actually hurting our future and the existence of human beings. Wright gives us an example of our ancestors that made progress in their weapons that allowed them to hunt more and quicker. Instead of our ancestors killing mammals that they need to survive they would often kill more than what mammals could reproduce making certain mammals go extinct and in the long run end up hurting us humans. Another example of a “progress trap” would be the invention of cars. People consider the invention of cars progress in our society because they can get us to our destination more quickly but the carbon dioxide they put in our air is going to one day destroy our earth.

Linear thinking I feel is more common in the millennial generation because things have always come so easy for us. Most of us that were born in the 90’s don’t really know what it was like before cell phones became so advance. I grew up in a middle class family whose parents always made it seem easy to survive. I never knew the true cost of food or water and even till this day I feel that I still don’t. Water to me comes from a faucet that I have to pay every month to keep it coming. Up until recently (as in two weeks ago) I learned what it takes to have that water come out of my faucet and how the water system truly works. We often hear of decomposing our food but even that is considered degenerative because in order to compose the rest of our food were actually just covering up the food we wasted and did not eat. Linear thinking is degenerative and most of us are guilty of being a linear thinker because of the society we live in today.

Assignment #2: A quiet Revolution/Sustainable management of water

In the Video, “Premaculture: A Quiet revolution” Self sustainability was the key focus. Villagers main priority was building “zones” of different ways to replace harmful creations of food and medicine. The different processes used were great examples of what we as a class defined as regeneration. Villagers would use the irrigated water and mix it with animal waste to grow algae and different plants. The plants were then used to feed the animals again. That system allowed nothing to be wasted in the village and to use their resources at its fullest potential instead of letting things go to waste. The villages learned how to live a self sustainable lifestyle and should be an example to the rest of the world.

In class we discussed our water systems and how it is not sustainable. Our problem with the water systems is that is not a natural irrigation and how we are using too much water at a rapid rate. We as a society can manage a more sustainable water system by not only changing our water systems but also reducing the amount of water we use on a daily basis. Getting rid of the pesticides in our water to a more natural process and adding in a type of sanitation will keep the water reusable. Making our water reusable will keep our dams and aqueducts full and our state out of a drought. Urban developments can help our water systems by living their lives by the “3 R’s” Reduce, reuse, and recycle when it comes to our water usage.

Week 1:Missouri State take a step at becoming a more sustainable campus & key points made in recent class discussion

Hello my name is Kierstyn Cruz and I am a Liberal Studies major at Cal Poly Pomona. I became interested in taking sustainable communities course after I became a new home owner. I think it is important not only in our world but definitely in California where population is much higher than other areas to learn about sustainability and help in areas that we can.

Missouri state is a great example of a university that took a step to make there campus become more sustainable with their invention called the Zipgrow Tower. Missouri State is very similar to Cal Poly and is known for being one of the largest agricultural Schools in the country. The Zipgrow Tower allows the university to grow its own produce right on campus instead of the university purchasing its produce from hundreds of miles away.  The Zipgrow Tower is a great alternative for the traditional agricultural because it does not use as much resources such as water and fossil fuels. The tower has a vertical setting which not only takes up less space but also allows the process to carry nutrients along with water and oxygen to the produce being grown. Missouri State came up with a resolution to grow their produce in a more sustainable process eliminating its use of travel to gets produce while also eliminating its substantial use of water it would normally take to grow that produce.

One of our recent class discussions were about what we thought were some of the biggest issues with sustainability. Personally, I feel that Government has a lot do do with why sustainability is such a issue in our country. The Government has the power to control some of these large businesses that are using an insane amount of resources. Businesses have a one track mind on what could make them the most money and could care less about whats better for our world and the environment we all live in. The Government should make rules that would make all businesses be more sustainable and at the same time educate them on what they are doing with the resources they are using that are hurting our communities.