Comments on Presentation

According the dictionary, agrarianism is the movement for equitable distribution of land and for agrarian reform. With the environment in the condition it is in today, it is quickly continuing to go downhill and will continue in this route unless society decides to make a change. In the article "Ecojustice Education" by Paul Theobald and Hibajene Shandomo, they discuss the problems the environment is facing today and the importance of educating the society. The only way to fix the problems of the environment is through education. By educating the public about the relationship between environment and economics, the wealthy and the poor, and the community in a democracy, it will make people act. In the article, it included the works of authors or leaders from back in the day. Not only do they discuss the importance of minimizing the division of the poor and wealthy, the developments of society, etc, but they also shows the importance of being educated in these topics and subjects. Learning about problems, or as mentioned in the article for example mathematics, is immediately put into action to benefit the society. They believe that by having schools teach students about the crisis of the environment, it will start a reaction to benefit the environment and raise awareness to people in the communities. Also those students could start events and fresh markets that show the importance of being educated and taking action to help change the way we treat the environment.

In the article "Indigenous Resistance" by Michael Marker, he talks about the issue of Native Americans who were divided by the USA-Canada border. The Coast Salish people had to travel across the border often because of family and family events. Both the Americans and British refused that they be able to cross back in forth of the border and needed to remove them out of the way of development, in order to consolidate their empires. They also refused that they be able to learn about their natives past by going to schools that verbally abused them and forced them to forget about the history of their ancestors.  In Canada, the schools were very religious and forced religion on the Coast Salish. They were also physically abused. In the USA, the schools were very racist and the natives experienced psychological trauma. Since their native language was forbidden, they had to learn their language and dances in private. This was the only way the Coast Salish could maintain and keep their culture and traditions alive. When the natives integrated to public schools, the racism became so bad over fishing rights that eventually they went back to the boarding schools. The USA and Canada established boarding schools in order to get the Indians off their land. These experiences of being a student at boarding schools were known to be horrible and leaders often told the youth to avoid schooling. Eventually, Coast Salish parents saw boarding schools as a safe haven for their children who were experiencing racism and trauma. These boarding schools were intended for assimilation, but the Coast Salish made them into safe schools to avoid conditions they were facing at public schools. However, the schools starting allowing them to learn about their culture.
After reading this article, it is amazing how people think they can have so much control over others by the color on one's skin. By not allowing the Coast Salish to learn about their history and culture and instead forcing them to forget about it is crazy. I think it is important for both natives and non-natives to learn about the culture of others. Diversity is important and by allowing schools to talk about the culture of others is important because people need to learn about different values and beliefs people have. American and British schools forcing the Coast Salish to forget about their past and culture was killing the diverse cultures. People having different values and beliefs is what creates cultures and it is important for people to learn about others cultures to see life from a different perspective. 

After watching the Meatrix videos, it is scary thinking about what we are actually eating. Animals are no longer being grown and treated the same way they used to be. Today, they are given artificial hormones, too many antibiotic hormones, being treated cruelly, and causing pollution. Most of the animals are kept in closed in units that provide no sunlight and not much room to move around in. Also these animals are being produced by huge livestock facilities and no longer by small farms. Not only is this animal cruelty, but it is also dangerous to the health of humans. The meat we are eating is coming from animals that are feed from tubes and are given artificial hormones and antibiotics. By eating meat coming from these animals, it can cause diseases and cancers which can lead to death. Nothing about the processes of raising animals and producing food from animals that are treated this way is good. We need to change the way we are treating animals and the way we are raising and growing animals.
I cannot think of any factory farms near by, but I am sure there are that I am not aware of.

In the second half the twentieth century, the Green Revolution took place, becoming a beneficial technological success for the poor. In the twentieth century, over a billion people did not receive enough to eat. With the Green Revolution, it provided food to the poor by scientifically breeding and higher yielding rice, wheat, and corn. It not only provided benefits for the poor, but it also had benefits for the industrialized world. In todays society, over 800 million people do not have enough to eat. More children and women are malnourished and underweight, leading to many deaths per year. The food they eat lacks proper nutrients and vitamins that are essential to one's diet. Every year, the number of poor and hungry increases, and if we can't feed the poor right now, how can we feed double the amount in coming years. The issue, currently, is the safety of GM crops and foods. These foods are seen to be not very safe and potential risks to the environment. In order to help the poor and hungry, researchers need to find a way to be more productive with GM foods and find a way to be less harmful to the environment.

Hydraulic Fracturing

            Recent findings in Wyoming have the EPA believing that the contaminations of water are coming from hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is technological way that allows producers to recover natural gas and oil from deep shale formations. By recovering oil and gas from shale formations, it has the potential of poisoning drinking water, polluting air, and harming the health of Americans and animals.

Although the EPA is not positive that the contamination is definitely all coming from fracturing, they did believe it is most positively a factor. They have found many compounds in the water that are used in fracking. This issue is important because as America is trying to stop their reliance on foreign oil imports by fracturing oil in America, they are realizing it may have high risks involved. Fracturing is believed to poison water and air and damage the health of Americans, as there have been multiple reports of unclean water, after fracking events have taken place nearby. By contaminating the ground water, it is leaving families without clean drinking water. With water being scarce already in many places around the world, fracking has the potential to contaminate millions of gallons of water a day. Also it is can cause bad smog air problems, which is leaving people in the area with lung burning smog and cancer causing benzene.

Fracking has a good and bad side. It is helpful because it allows the United State to reduce the reliance of foreign oil, but it also has the potential to pollute water and air and damage the health of Americans living near the gas fields. Although I think hydraulic fracturing is important in recovering natural gas and oil, I think that we should stop doing it until technological advances make sure it is completely safe. We need to stop relying on foreign oil, but we should not risk lives and essential resources over it.

My thoughts on creating a powerpoint compared to writing a paper is I like creating a powerpoint a lot more. I think it is easier to state the key facts of what you are trying to talk about. In creating a powerpoint, you are given the chance to make the presentation yours. I can incorporate my writing with pictures, graphs, and links that relate to the topic. I can also correlate the the background of the slides with the topic. In writing a paper, one is limited to his writing only. One can express himself through writing, but in powerpoints, one can show a picture or graph and describe how it relates to the topic. Overall, powerpoints are a lot easier in expressing one's topic because it is not limiting. It is a nice way to incorporate more than just writing.