This blog post will most likely make me feel bad about my un-resourceful habits.
In a typical day, I:
1. Shower for 10 minutes: 5 gallons per minute
2. Eat a granola bar, 1 wrapper of trash
3. Drink two bottles (soda, vitamin water, milk)
4. Eat variety of snacks with plastic
5. Drink lotssss of coffee
6. Run the sink for dishes for 10 minutes a day
7. Wash my face, brush my teeth, another 5 minutes of water time.
8. I don't even want to imagine how much electricity is used
9. Throw away at least a couple papers
In a year, that is over 20,000 gallons of water, 365 wrappers of track, 700 gum wrappers, 700 plastic bottles, lots of electricity, 1000 pieces of paper trashed, and too much coffee to count (including plastic spoons, sugar packets, etc) that I would be using.
How much do I recycle?
None.
Granted, in college there are not many opportunities to recycle, but that could be potentially something we need to work on.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
The Value of Money
Why does money have value? That is such a good question, one that I have never really bothered to think about or answer. I believe that money only has value because people give it money. They know that money is just paper, unless value is assigned to it. People understand that more money means they can buy more products. Thats why people work so hard. They put in their services to makes more money. More money means they can exchange it for things that they want. Its as simple as that.
How much value does money have when you are freezing cold, with 1 million dollars, and in the tundra by yourself? Absolutely zero. None at all. Why? Because value only has money when people give it value. The only value that money in that situation would has is to burn it to stay warm. Thats it. Same goes for having american money in another country. It has no value unless you exchange it because the people there see no value in it. They can't do anything with it. So what is the value of value? The value of money is exactly what YOU give it.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Tasmania
History:
Tasmania, located off the south shore of Australia, use to be a part of Australia itself quite a while ago. Rising sea levels cut off this land mass and created the area known as Tasmania. There were roughly 5,000-10,000 indigenous Tasmanians when the British discovered the island in 1804. Just like Australia, the British were greedy for more land so they invaded this island. The tide of new settlers and conflict caused the destruction of the culture of the indigenous people and the population itself. In 1832 the last free groups of indigenous Tasmanians were basically sent to a concentration camp on Findlers Island, and in 1847 the survivors of that were returned to Oyster Cover near Hobart. By 1876, the last of them had died. In 1901, the island became a state in the New Commonwealth of Australia.
Why was it settled?
Well, the first reason was just pure greed for new land. Once the British started sending convicts to this island in 1822 (due to overpopulation), this island could be considered a penal colony. Later on, some of its purposes included being a very important whaling fleet homeport; and it was very rich in mining and agriculture.
Contributions now:
Agriculture-- potatoes, peas, beans, and carrots. Also, they produce among the finest and most expensive wool in the world.
Mining-- leading producers of zinc, and recently major mines of gold, silver, iron and tin have been discovered.
Forestry-- fueled by its fine state's plantation timber.
Tourism-- this a huge part of this countries economy due to its pristine environment and diverse attractions along with natural characteristics of the state (seafood)
Tasmania, located off the south shore of Australia, use to be a part of Australia itself quite a while ago. Rising sea levels cut off this land mass and created the area known as Tasmania. There were roughly 5,000-10,000 indigenous Tasmanians when the British discovered the island in 1804. Just like Australia, the British were greedy for more land so they invaded this island. The tide of new settlers and conflict caused the destruction of the culture of the indigenous people and the population itself. In 1832 the last free groups of indigenous Tasmanians were basically sent to a concentration camp on Findlers Island, and in 1847 the survivors of that were returned to Oyster Cover near Hobart. By 1876, the last of them had died. In 1901, the island became a state in the New Commonwealth of Australia.
Why was it settled?
Well, the first reason was just pure greed for new land. Once the British started sending convicts to this island in 1822 (due to overpopulation), this island could be considered a penal colony. Later on, some of its purposes included being a very important whaling fleet homeport; and it was very rich in mining and agriculture.
Contributions now:
Agriculture-- potatoes, peas, beans, and carrots. Also, they produce among the finest and most expensive wool in the world.
Mining-- leading producers of zinc, and recently major mines of gold, silver, iron and tin have been discovered.
Forestry-- fueled by its fine state's plantation timber.
Tourism-- this a huge part of this countries economy due to its pristine environment and diverse attractions along with natural characteristics of the state (seafood)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Capitalism vs. Marxism/Communism
Capitalism is this social system that is based on the principle of individual rights. This results in a free market. To sum up, it means that you do and get what you want. Marxism/Communism, on the other hand, is a classless, stateless, moneyless social order that is structured upon common ownership. Basically it means that everyone works together and shares together.
I believe that capitalism is much more realistic to forming a more sustainable future. Humans are dumb. We are selfish. We only work together and share together when we believe we can benefit from it (with few irregularities). Capitalism is just much more realistic because everyone is responsible for their own "stuff". If you have this type of ownership over your stuff, I guarantee you will work much harder on it because you are the only one responsible for failing. It's like being put in a group project for school. There are always those people that do absolutely nothing in the group and benefit from it. If there were no groups though, they would have to actually do the task or they would fail, and they themselves would be the only one responsible.
As much as I would want communism to work (common ownership by working and sharing together seems legit) , I just do not see if being very realistic.
I believe that capitalism is much more realistic to forming a more sustainable future. Humans are dumb. We are selfish. We only work together and share together when we believe we can benefit from it (with few irregularities). Capitalism is just much more realistic because everyone is responsible for their own "stuff". If you have this type of ownership over your stuff, I guarantee you will work much harder on it because you are the only one responsible for failing. It's like being put in a group project for school. There are always those people that do absolutely nothing in the group and benefit from it. If there were no groups though, they would have to actually do the task or they would fail, and they themselves would be the only one responsible.
As much as I would want communism to work (common ownership by working and sharing together seems legit) , I just do not see if being very realistic.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Second Blog Post: The Influence of John Muir
He is considered to be the country's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage.
John Muir's biography:
http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
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