Review of Film: The Future of Food

Hey everyone. So I'll be honest, for me, this movie was hard to pay attention to at times. Movies I like usually involve comedy or action, not farming. So bear with me while I try to summarize the film 'The Future of Food'.

Summary
Farming always used to be done the same way. Until the 20th century, when chemical fertilizers and insecticides became the new norm. Right away, this film shocked me with a quote. They said 'Nerve gas was modified to make insecticides. Sounds healthy right?

Then Round Up comes along. Round Up is basically just a weed killer. So Monsanto comes along and makes Round Up ready seeds, meaning they can't be killed by the weed killer. After becoming the first company to patent a seed, the trouble started there. While passing a farmers field, a Monsanto truck filled with seed let some seed fly out of the truck and into his field. The seed mixed some of the farmers crops, creating Round Up ready crops that were not technically the farmers, because Monsanto had their seed patented. Well the farmer didn't know this, Monsanto found out, and sued the farmer.

One other thing of note is labeling. There has been a strong public demand for GMO food to be labeled. Why? Because labeling makes companies liable if anything happens. For instance, someone could be allergic to something in the GMO food, but if it isn't on the label, the person doesn't know that they are about to eat something they are allergic to. This is something I too feel strongly about.

My thoughts
Like I just said, the labeling aspect is something I feel very strong about. I don't know if the law is still in place where companies don't have to put GMO's on labels, but I sure as heck hope so. Otherwise, the whole Monsanto thing is just as disturbing. The fact that you can get in trouble for not knowing that some random seeds flew into your yard is wrong. If you go out and steal patented seeds and put them in your crop, then yes, you are wrong. But if it is all by accident, then I really don't think that person should be held liable.

New Vocab
Germinate - is the process whereby growth emerges from a period of dormancy
GMO - is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques
Monoculture - is the agricultural practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area
Superweeds - Any wild plant that has become a hostile plant as a result of acquiring resistance to herbicides through pollination with a genetically modified plant
Transgenic - of, pertaining to, or containing a gene or genes transferred from another species

Reflection: Weeks 5 & 6

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- - -Hey again everybody. So Weeks 5 and 6 were a little bit different than normal, but it was still a nice change.

- - -We started out with the movie Diet for a New America, created by John Robbins. It went over a lot of ways of how our current diets are killing us. Whether it be Heart Disease or Diabetes.But they also went over our current methods of using animals for food. How we keep cattle in confined areas just so they taste a little bit better. One other big thing they mentioned was the size of American's food portions. How one of our meals would feed 5 people in another country. Crazy to think about it like that.

- - -Another thing we did in the first week was a CSPI eye opener. We could choose from three different quizzes and things like that, and most of us chose the Eating Green Calculator. It really opened everybody's eyes and showed us each of our impacts on the environment. With my current diet, I 'create' more than 10,000 lbs of manure, through cattle and pigs and such. Ugh. Don't like to think about that either.

- - -Moving on to week 6, we started out with having an assigned reading due, each person having a different reading. While mine wasn't the most interesting, it was still an important topic. Global warming isn't just affecting humans, it's also throwing the birds off of their normal habits. When it gets hotter earlier in the year, birds migrate earlier, moving to places that don't have their food just yet, meaning they could die off because they don't have the food they like. You can read more about it in my post below.

- - -Another week 6 topic was the movie The Future of Food. This was another movie that really made ya think. The main topic it talked about was a company by the name of Monsanto, that were farmers enemies. After making a 'Round Up ready' seed (one that can't be killed by the weed killer round up), Monsanto was involved in quite a bit of lawsuits. The one that stuck out to me was when some Monsanto seeds flew off of a Monsanto truck, into a farmers field. The Farmer didn't know this happened, so when he noticed that some of his foliage wasn't dieing when RoundUp was sprayed on it, Monsanto took notice and sued him for using their patented seeds. Pardon my french, but that really sucks for the farmer. He didn't do anything wrong, but because the seeds were patented, he gets screwed.

- - -So that is my reflection on the past couple weeks, and I see that we have a couple movies the next couple of weeks as well, so we'll see how they go!

Share and Voice: Green Shirts

~Hey again everyone! So as I sit around, watching me some hockey, I notice how much advertising is going on. Whether it be along the boards of the rink, or how every stat is sponsored by someone, or just the good ol' commercials. So I get to thinking about ways to advertise the thought of 'Going Green.' And one simple way to get the word out is to create a T-shirt. Thus, I decided to show everyone some different 'Go Green' t shirts that are out on the market.

~But I also have a miniature challenge for everyone. Create a 'Green' t-shirt slogan. Ya don't have to go and create one on the computer or draw one up or anything, just give an idea for a t-shirt. I have an idea that relates going green and an awesome childhood TV show. Don't know what the slogan would be, but it would have to do with going green and having Ninja Turtles on it, or perhaps Gumby, or Yoda, and they are planting a tree. I don't know, just a thought. Anywhoooo, here are some T-shirts that are out there, the photos are linked to the site that offers em. Have a good one everybody!

Eye Opener: Review of Reading 15: Silent Spring: A Sequel?

Summary
Hello everyone. First off, the above picture made me smile, so I decided it was worthy of being the main photo. Anyways, the chapter I read was about birds, and how global warming is making them migrate early, and the effects it is having. Here are some quick things to think about from the book.

• Most American bird species are migrating an average of 9 days earlier, and breeding 10 days earlier than they did 30 years ago.
  
• The huge down side of birds migrating early is that the breeding cycle of birds will be out of sync with it's food supply. As a result, 'Early birds may not get the worm.'
  
• State birds such as the Baltimore Oriole (Maryland), and the Black-Capped Chickadee (Massachusetts)will no longer even be in those states.
• In some ecosystems, if a bird that helps control insect population leaves, the results would be pretty bad. A bird called the Nesting Wood Warbler eat the Eastern Spruce Budworm. The Budworm defoliates millions of acres of forest each year as it is. The Warblers already eating 85% of the budworms, so you can imagine what would happen if 100% of the Budworm went uneaten. The millions of acres of forest defoliated would rise significantly.
  

But, climate change might not be a horrible thing for a few species. A bird called the Prothonotary Warbler of Virginia have been arriving from the Caribbean an average of one day earlier since 1987. It is predicted that they sson could become a year round resident of the U.S.A.

New Terms
Avifaunal - the birds of a given region, considered as a whole
Neotropical - belonging or pertaining to a geographical division comprising that part of the New World extending from the tropic of Cancer southward.

New Concepts
Well, this whole chapter was a new concept to me. When I think of global warming, birds and the effect is has on them is not the first thing that comes to mind.

The part that really stuck out to me though was where it talked about what would happen if some birds left, and the insect population got out of control. I had bugs. So I pray this doesn't happen.

Links
American Bird Conservancy - A website dedicated to preserving birds in every aspect

Eye Opener: CSPI

~Hey everyone! So I chose to do my eye opener on the Eating Green Calculator.

INITIAL RESULTS
~So after the initial results were calculated, it told me that my burden on the environment was 1.5 acres of grain and grass needed to feed the animals, .4 lbs of pesticide used to grow the animal feed, 53.1 lbs of fertilizer used to grow the animal feed, and finally, the one that made me giggle, 10525 lbs of manure created by the animals I eat and use.

~It then went on to give me my average daily intake from the animal products I use. 725 calories, which I think is alright, no Fiber which isn't good, 43 grams of fat which I would like to lower, 20 grams of saturated fat (AKA bad fat), and 237 mg of cholesterol, which is 79 % of my Daily Limit. The fat and cholesterol parts scare me.

IMPROVED RESULTS
~So then it gave me the option to see how I could improve my burden on the environment by making better food choices. After I did this, it told me that if I changed, I would use a total of 1.1 acres, 38 lbs of fertilizer, .3 lbs of pesticide, and 8000 lbs of manure. While a lot of it may not seem like a lot, an ongoing theme of this class is 'every little bit counts,' and it's just as true right now.

~It also went on to tell me how it would improve my health numbers. I dont understand how, but it told me it would give me 8 more grams of Fiber. Considering I had none to begin with, and I am eating less, this confuses me. But it would also take away 8 grams of Saturated fat, which would help a lot, and it would decrease my cholesterol intake by 30%. Considering my dad has had cholesterol problems, this is something that hit's close to home so to speak.

PLEDGE
The next question asks 'Did you take the pledge?' I did so. For those of you who did not complete this, the pledge goes as follows...

~~~~To protect my health and the environment, I will eat a more plant-based diet—more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts and fewer fatty meat and dairy products. When I do eat animal products, I will emphasize ones that are lower in fat and raised in humane ways that minimize harm to the environment.~~~~~

~The part of this that I will really attempt to follow is eating less fatty meat. I like Cheddarwurst. It's delicious. But I know it isn't good for me, so that is something I need to stop buying at my neighborhood grocery store.

SUMMARY
~So after looking at all of this, I plan to eat less fatty mean, which will of course lower my saturated fat intake, but also lower my cholesterol intake, which is something I should really stick to. Hope everyone's Eye Openers went well!

Share and Voice: Eternal Reefs

~Hello again everyone. Yet again, as I sat around on campus like I usually do, I was exploring the World Wide Web. One of my most frequently visited sites is CNN's. So as I was browsing, a title of an article caught my attention. It said "Green Burial' creates undersea home for fish." This intrigued me.

~First off, everyone should read the article. It starts out talking about a woman, Carole Dunham, who was diagnosed with cancer and didn't have long to live. Since she knew she was dieing, she wanted to have the last thing she did on earth a 'green' one.

~After that, you should all check out Eternal Reefs website. It's kind of a cool idea. Their theory is(if I'm understanding it right) that to prevent cemetery's from filling up and to prevent from using all of the materials necessary for caskets, etc., that they cremate you, then make you into a reef house to put in the sea or ocean, and then fish and starfish can use you as a home. Cool eh? I think this is something that is going to be a big hit, really soon. Here are a couple of pictures that their website has.

~Check out the steps to creating an Eternal Reef on their main website, on the left side of the site.

~Also, here are some numbers from the first article that show how much materials we use in terms of burials, per year.

• Reinforced concrete: 1.6 million tons
• Toxic embalming fluid: 827,060 tons
• Steel from caskets: 90,000 tons
• Hardwood from caskets: 30 million tons

~The number that really sticks out to me is the Hardwood from Caskets. 30 million tons. That is a ridiculously large amount of wood. Hope people find this informative!

Share and Voice: Coffee!!!!!!

~Hellllooooo again everybody! So as I sit at the Coffee Shop on campus, my mind began to wander(it happens quite often-imagine JD from Scrubs and his little daydreams, and that's what I do). After I thought about random things, I thought about how much coffee I drink....I'm addicted to the stuff, and I'm not afraid to say it(Hi, my name is Steve, and I'm a Coffee-holic). So as I think about it, I begin to think if there is an 'environment friendly' coffee, and coffee related products. I had never thought about it before, and I decided to investigate. Not to this extent, but just doing some investigating online. These are my findings.

~About.com has a great little site about ways to be more considerate of the environment when making the sweet java. It went over 5 main points...

1. Buy Organic Coffee - I have done this occasionally, but not on a regular basis. I'm happy with Dunkin' Donuts bags of French Vanilla coffee.....I smiled just thinking about it
   
2. Don't use paper filters - Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought about this. I use paper filters. They come in packs of like 200, for about 4-5 bucks. The site suggest using a reusable filter, which I am now going to look into.
   
3. Reuse old coffee grounds - It suggest using them in a garden for fertilizer or ant repellent. I don't have a garden, but in the summer we did have a huge ant problem. So this is now something I am going to look into.
4. Don't use bottled water - The point they are making is in relation to the plastic used for bottled water. Since I don't buy bottled water, this isn't an issue.
5. Brew your own - Here the point they are trying to make is if you go to your local coffee shop and get a paper cup each time, your not being smart. Now I'll admit, I do this a couple days a week. But on the other days, I brew at home. I've been trying to stop going to the coffee shop on campus for about 4 years now. It's just so darn accessible! And it's less than 2 bucks for plain old coffee, it's hard for me to say no. What I need to start doing more is brewing at home and bringing it in a mug to campus.
   

~Another helpful site was CoffeeReview.com. It has pretty much every type of coffee on there, and has a lot of helpful information. The advanced search tool was the best, because you can search for organic coffee and it will tell you available coffee that you may like.


So anywho, those are the sites that I found the most helpful. So if any of you out there are avid followers of the Bean like I am, I hope this information helped ya!

Reflection: Weeks 3 & 4

Helllllloooooooo Everybody. Sorry for chit-chatting, so onto the Reflection!



An Inconvenient Truth
This movie was definitely an eye opener. While I knew Al Gore was really into the whole Global Warming thing, I never realized how serious it was, and how serious he is about it.

Mr. Gore showed a lot of interesting facts and figures. Like what he showed with the Auto industry and how all the American manufacturers were going under, and the International manufacturers were on the rise. Another interesting thing he showed was if Greenland or Antarctica broke apart. How it showed how all the coasts around the world would rise up, creating entire cities to go under.

Its amazing to think that the U.S. is doing so little, even when these figures are brought to their attention. Maybe things will be a little bit different with President Obama in office. But who knows, maybe it's too late...

Ecological Footprint

This was another very useful eye opener. While yes I had some trouble with the websites, the one that I was able to complete was nice to look at. According to the Sustain Our Planet website, if everyone lived like I do, it would take 4 earths to be able to stay up and running. While I know I could be better, I still think I'm doing alright. I conserve, recycle, all that. But I'm sure there are still things that I don't even think about, which is something I need to look into.

That's it for me, and I'll talk to everyone later!

Share and Voice: What is UMD doing?

~~~Helllloooo everybody! So as I sit in the food court, looking at all of the paper products and such that we use (and thankfully recycle), I thought to myself, 'What is UMD doing to make sure we have a green campus?'

~~~I believe it was the great Kermit The Frog that said "It's not easy being green." Well said Kermit...well said. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a green lifestyle, and I often find companies that aren't doing enough to go green. So I looked into it a bit, and found UMD's Environmental Initiatives Website. I was surprised to find out that there are quite a bit of websites that show what UMD is doing to better the environment near us. Here's a few that caught my eye.

~~~ Adding Up To Zero I feel is the most student friendly site. It shows current efforts on how UMD's Office of Sustainability is currently trying to figure out how much carbon emissions are being tallied thanks to the campus, which will ultimately help us figure out ways to lower them. It also has a section where us students can suggest ideas in terms of what UMD can do better.


~~~The UMD Eco Blog is another good website for students here. While I wish it was updated a little more often (last post November 12, 2008), it still has some interesting tidbits. The part of it that I liked to look at was the Carbon Sequestration Presentation near the bottom of the page.

~~~One last website I wanted to point out was the Lake Superior Streams Program. Basically, it looks at the 'health' and cleanliness of any water near the north shore of Lake Superior. Pretty sure it has everything one would need to know about the water around here, including fishing stuff.

So everybody, hope this blog post answers, or atleast points you in the right direction, of any questions people have about what UMD is doing to go green. Have a good one everybody!

Share And Voice: ENVIRO-Cool Blog Award Goes To...

~~~Hey again everyone! Ok, so. Thanks Dr. V for the blog award! I have another kind of creative blog challenge that I have that I will throw on the blog at some point in the semester as well.

~~~Alright so my blog award does not go to an outstanding blog post, but it goes along with my challenge. So I decided to pass the award along to the person who I felt posted the best picture to my challenge. So without further ado....the award goes to.....(drumroll)......Ben@ Ben's Virtual Ecosystem for this cool photo! When I first looked at the photo, it kind of made me do a 'whoa' type reaction. So that was kind of the deciding factor in seeing who won. (Honorable Mention to Kaileigh@Kaileigh's Nature Log for her Photo, and Lauren@EnvironmentalEscapadesOfAStudent for her Photo too!) But also thank you to everyone who participated! It was a lot of fun looking at all the photo's everyone submitted!

~~~So Ben, here are the instruction's for how to pass along the award!

~~~Award Instructions

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.
   
2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).
3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger (use main blog URL) and the blog title (use the specific URL for that blog post).
4. Copy and paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.
5. Publish the post.
6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.
7. Continue the process...

~~~Have a good one everybody!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

~~~Hello all! Where to start, where to start? First off, thanks for everyone who participated in my photo contest!

~~~Now onto the Ecological Footprint. Now I already had done one of these before, and I believe it was for Foundations of Health, but I could be wrong. I has some problems with a couple of the websites, but I found one to be very helpful


~~The Earth Day Network's website I found to be the most helpful. This is actually the only one that could give me an answer! It said that by the way I live my life, if everybody lived it as I do we would need 4 Earth's to survive. At first, I thought that was really bad. But looking at my answers, and realizing I could do a lot worse, I feel OK with my lifestyle, but still know I can do better of course.

~~~Carbon Footprint Offsetter's calculation stuff confused me. I started it out, and didn't finish it because it was very confusing. I'll probably take another look at it later on in the semester.




~~~Sustain Our Planet's footprint calculator was a little bit easier to navigate through and complete, but when I finished, it wouldn't let me sign up and see my results. I don't know why it was doing that, but either way, I did not get my results.

~~~Overall, This activity did help me realize I could live a greener lifestyle, even with the problems I had completing some of the calculators. What can I do? I don't know yet. But it is definitely something I will look in to! Have a good one everybody!

Share And Voice: Favorite Photo

So I have a challenge for everybody. Find your favorite photo that has something to do with the environment, going green, recycling, whatever ya want as long as it has to do with the class so to speak. So leave a comment and include the photo somehow, either linking or copying it in, and we'll see how the challenge goes. I think once I get a certain amount of photos, ill put them on my blog as a post, and then have a vote for who had the bestest and most awesomest photo
-The photo I chose was in my last post, and it's going in again. I feel it kind of put's things in a different perspective.




Have a good one

Review of Reading 1: The Challenges We Face

-Hello again everybody. I just wanted to start off with a quote out of the book, that says ''The globe doesn't need to be saved by us, we couldn't kill it if we tried. What we do need to save, is the earth as we like it...'' I kind of took that as saying we can only do so much to 'save the earth', and we need to try and save the things we care about.
This reading went over different things we need to think about, in terms of the world and it's environment. The main topic they went over that caught my attention was water. 70% of the earth is water, and only 2.5% of that water is fresh, with only a small portion of that being accessible to people.
-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was quoted as saying "by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may be living in countries that face serious water shortages." The WASH program (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for All) is something that should hopefully be able to help out. It aims to get water and hygiene training to people who need them by 2015. Since it is already backed by a lot of the U.N., it looks like this will be a big topic of interest in the coming years.
-Another topic that caught my eye was how more than 11,000 species of plants and animals are already nearing extinction, and half of all species could become non-existent by the end of the century. While that is a long time away, it is something that could ultimately lead to our demise if ya think about it. Think about the animals we depend on to live our every day lives. What if cows became extinct, or pigs. We get a lot of our meat from those two alone. But I digress.
-The last topic is the one that made me think the most. I had never really thought about how many species could become obsolete, so to speak. And I had never thought about ways to stop them from becoming extinct. But there are programs like the Global Conservation Trust that wants to raise about $260 million to help hold on to some genetic material that will keep necessary plants around for a longer period of time.
-GoGreen has a great website about ways to cut carbon emission in our atmosphere, like carpooling suggestions, among other things. I checked it out and it has a lot of things that are very easy for people to do that we would never really think about.
When I first saw the word 'biodiversity', the first thing that came to mind (besides the classic Pauly Shore movie 'Biodome'...awesome) was thinking it meant the differences in the environment. Looking at the dictionary thought it gave me the definition 'the diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat.' I feel I was half right, because I wouldn't have guessed it would have had to do with the animal life as well.
-So, back to that first quote, "the globe doesn't need to be saved by us, and we couldn't kill it if we tried. What we do need to save, is the earth as we like it." I find that even more true after reading the chapter. I care about the animals and the plants and such. So I should do things that involve helping those aspects of the environment out. Looking at some sights, I found The World Society For The Protection Of Animals. It's a good website, I suggest ya check it out.
So that's it from me today people. Hope everybody has a good week.
PS: Whoever voted 'Yes' with me to eating the moon if it were made of ribs, thank you.