FI Assignment 3

In this assignment, all three sections have very different writing styles, and I responded to each of them differently. Joel Salatin, who wrote the section entitled, "Declare your Independence," wrote with a very angry, argumentative tone. I'm sure his intent was to make his readers, anyone educated enough to understand that there is a problem with food and anyone willing to do something about it, get angry with the food system and do something about it. However, I only got angry with him. I do not like when people tell me how things are and do not give me the option to believe something else. For example, when he refers to packages of food, he says, "These packages, by and large, having passed through the food inspection fraternity, the industrial food fraternity, and the lethargic cheap-food-purchasing consumer fraternity, represent and incredibly narrow choice," (page 184). He goes on to explain why he has made this assertion, and I believe he justifies it well. However, I do not like the words he uses to describe the industry, like fraternity and lethargic. He starts the section out as if he wants to introduce us to the topic, but he ends up throwing his opinion at us as if it is fact. I do not respond well to that kind of persuasion.

The other two sections are much more informative, thought I must say I found "Questions for a Farmer," to be extremely boring. And I find it hard to believe that any farmer out there would be happy to (honestly) answer all of these questions, so I'm not convinced that this plan would work, and I'm assuming the intended audience is anyone who has already taken an interest but is at a loss of where to start. The next section, however, I found extremely helpful. Instead of taking an environmental approach, Marion Nestle makes the reader think about themselves. And let's be honest, that's always more effective. I, like many of people, want to eat healthy, but I'm not sure what kind of diet (as in food intake, not weight loss plan) is best. I did feel better about myself when I read the part that says, "Nutritionists recommend eating no more than a heaping tablespoon (twenty grams) of saturated fatty acids a day. Beef eaters easily meet or exceed this limit. The smallest McDonald's cheeseburger contains six grams," (page 215). I don't think that statement was meant to make me feel better, but when I go to McDonald's, I always get the smallest cheeseburger and now I don't feel as bad about eating it. I'm sure that wasn't her intent, and I found the rest of the section to be very helpful towards fixing my diet.

Argument Essay Outline

I. Intro
a. Thesis - Nuclear power is bad for people and for the environment because it is extremely expensive, it releases greenhouse gases in secondary processes, it emits radioactivity, and it creates toxic waste.
II. Costs
a. Building plants
i. Nuclear power plants are expensive to build, and are not guaranteed to get
licensed to operate after construction.
b. Decommissioning plants
i. Plants must close when radioactive levels are too high, and plants are meant
to cover this cost, but taxpayers often carry that burden.
c. Waste Storage
i. Building an underground waste repository is expensive, and Yucca Mountain is
proving that.
III. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
a. Mining
i. Extracting uranium out of the ground requires energy that tends to release
significant levels of carbon dioxide.
b. Transport
i. Nuclear fuel and waste can travel across the country by way of trucks and
boats, emitting greenhouse gases in the process.
c. Enrichment
i. The uranium extracted from the ground goes through an enrichment process
that increases the concentration of uranium that can be used as fuel, and
this process releases greenhouse gases as well.
IV. Radioactivity
a. Mining
i. The mining process exposes workers and the surrounding area to
radioactivity.
b. Transport
i. Fuel and waste must be transported long distances, passing through areas
that are highly populated, and some that have chosen not to have nuclear
facilities.
c. Waste Storage
i. Storage of nuclear waste is presenting a problem, as most people strongly
oppose having a repository near them because of the risk of radioactive
exposure.
V. Waste Storage
a. Yucca Moutain
i. The proposed repository in Yucca Mountain is not moving forward, and as of
now, America does not know where to store the nuclear waste.
b. France - Recycling
i. France recycles nuclear waste in order to extract the leftover uranium to
use as fuel. This requires more facilities, more transport, and more
exposure.


Bibliography

Cleveland, Cutler J., Robert Costanza, Charles A. S. Hall, and Robert Kaufmann.
"Energy and the U.S. Economy: A Biophysical Perspective." Science 225.4665
(1984):Web. 12 Feb 2010.

Greenpeace. 2010. 12 Feb 2010..

Kaatsch, Dr. Peter, Claudia Spix, Irene Jung , and Maria Blettner. "Childhood
Leukemia in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants in Germany." Deutsches
Artzeblatt International (2008): n. pag. Web. 12 Feb 2010.

Rascoe, Ayesha. "Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump Cost Soars". Reuters. 2008. 12
Feb 2010..

Sierra Club. 2010. 12 Feb. 2010..

World Nuclear Association. 2010. 12 Feb. 2010..

Position Statement

After researching nuclear power, I feel I have learned enough to side against it. I am willing to keep my mind open to the idea, but until it's major problems are solved, I have to oppose the progression of this technology. The major appeal of nuclear power is a reduction in greenhouse gases, but I am not convinced that emissions are reduced at all due to processes that occur before and after nuclear fission. I am also not convinced that people living near plants or waste storage facilities are safe, nor is the environment. I will go into further detail in my paper about the negative aspects of nuclear power, but I will not ignore the benefits.

FI Assignment 2

This section of the book was littered with statistics and futuristic projections. While it was informative, it was extremely boring. One part I found interesting, though, was the small chapter called "Global Warming and Your Food," (page 119). This chapter gave very useful advice on how to shop in the supermarket in order to reduce your carbon footprint. For people who are not well informed on which foods have greater contributions to global warming, like me, this chapter gives a good outline of what to look for. I have been hearing for years that what I eat directly affects the planet, but I never understood how and I never took the initiative to find out.

Organic food is probably the most well-known option for reducing your carbon footprint when it comes to food consumption, but I never thought of the pesticides, growth hormones, and antibiotics as energy consuming. I only ever considered the idea that the factory farms themselves emit greenhouse gases. So I should eat organic to be good to the planet, but also to be good to my body. I knew that the more meat I ate, the larger my carbon footprint would be, so that section was nothing new. I have never thought about processed foods as being high in greenhouse gas emissions, but it makes sense that they are. The chapter even tells you how to look out for processed foods in order to distinguish them from other foods, which may seem like common sense, but it could be very helpful to explain those things to people who are really unfamiliar with the problems. Buying foods that have been transported from distant locations and foods that are heavily packaged are harmful to the environment for obvious reasons.

He displays this information as five questions you should ask yourself when you're buying food, and at the end of every description, he offers an alternative. These alternatives teach people how to shop in an environmentally friendly way, which will not solve the problem of global warming, but will motivate people to become more active in the prevention of this problem.

FI Assignment 1

The film Food, Inc. has changed the way I eat my meals. In fact, I have been craving a burger for days but I have restrained from ordering one at restaurants because of that movie. One part that stood out to me was the corn they were feeding the cows. The film explained that corn is a significant contributor to most foods we eat because it is so cheap to grow in mass quantities, and it has replaced the normal grass diet of cows.

The film showed cows eating the corn feed from troughs by sticking their head out of a hole in their tiny confinements. This alone was enough to make me feel terrible for the cows because they are denied their natural feeding habits of grazing in fields. There was one farmer who farmed the "traditional" way, and they showed him talking about how ludicrous it was that the cows couldn't graze. He stood in the field with his cows in the background, grazing the natural way, and he explained how they grazed on the grass, but fertilized it as well, and stayed healthier this way. The image of the cows in the background supported the farmer's stance because it looked natural, and the cows looked happier, cleaner, and healthier in general. On a few occasions, narrative voices would explain some of the effects the unnatural feeding habits had on the cows. They explain that, if fed grass for the last 5 days before slaughter, the risk of infection and the number of bacteria in the cow's systems decreases dramatically. I associated this statement with the image of a factory farmer reaching his hand into one of the stomachs of a cow through a hole in it's side, which drove the point home. The narration also explained that if the cows ate their normal grass diet, they would be less prone to infection, and therefore less dependent on antibiotics.

The film and the book explain both the negative health effects this has on the cows and the people, but the effects on the animals stood out more to me in the film while the effects on people stood out more to me in the book. On page 22, the book says, "cattle fed hay for the five days before slaughter had dramatically lower levels of acid-resistant E. coli bacteria in their feces than cattle fed corn or soybeans. E. coli live in cattle's intestinal tract, so feces that escape during slaughter can lead to bacteria contaminating the meat." This explains in more detail the dilemma of infection in corn-fed and pasture raised cattle. This also does not force me to consider the effects it has on the cow, but more how corn-fed cows will affect me. I do not think about the quality of life for the cattle when I read this, but I do think about what could happen to me when I eat beef. Another excerpt at the beginning of the next section on page 22 states that, "beef and milk produced from cattle raised entirely on pasture (where they ate only grass) have higher levels of beneificial fats, including omega-3 fatty acids, which may prevent heart disease and strengthen the immune system." Once again, I hardly picture the cows eating corn on factory farms, but I think about how I benefit from cows grazing naturally. For me, the way the film explains this problem is much more effective, but the book still gets the point across very well.

Paraphrase

Animals that live on factory farms consume the majority of the antibiotics used in America, according to The Union of Concerned Scientists. The animals need these antibiotics because they are prone to infection due to their small, unkempt living quarters where disease could thrive. The agricultural industry benefits from the antibiotics in another sense because they cause the animals to grow faster, but the primary reason for their usage is that without them, the current large scale farming practices would be wiped out by diseases (Pollan).

Intro and Bibliography

Nuclear power is an incredible advancement in alternative energy that takes advantage of the fission of the uranium-235 isotope. When the nucleus of this atom collides with slow neutrons, it divides by a process known as nuclear fission, that, once started, is self-propagating. The slow neutrons cause the nucleus to divide, releasing three neutrons and a significant amount of energy in the process. This energy is converted to heat in order to turn water into steam that turns a turbine, and the neutrons slow down with the use of control rods in the reactor so they may collide with more uranium atoms and start the process all over again. The products of nuclear fission continue to divide and release energy until they are no longer useful, and deemed nuclear waste.

The major appeal of nuclear energy is that nuclear fission provides a large energy output while emitting no greenhouse gases. In the past decade, efforts for alternative energies that do not emit harmful gases have increased dramatically, and nuclear power appears to be a solution to that problem. Looking at these facts alone, nuclear power is the most promising source of energy available at the moment, but its disadvantages cannot be ignored.

It is highly debated whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in nuclear technology. The uranium-235 isotope is a fairly limited resource that is not renewable with current technologies, and therefore nuclear power may not be an option for long. In this sense, the efforts to obtain energy from nuclear fission may not be worth the costs. Nuclear power plants are expensive to build and maintain, but do not operate long due to the dangerously high levels of radioactivity that build up in the reactor units. The radioactivity associated with nuclear energy provides the basis for the strongest argument against it. People are at risk from the beginning to the end of the process, which consists of mining uranium, converting it to energy, transporting the uranium and the nuclear waste, and storage of the nuclear waste. Nuclear energy can provide people with electricity while emitting no greenhouse gases, but the issue is whether or not that is a strong enough argument to ignore the potentially fatal effects it can have on people.

It is important to understand what nuclear energy can provide for people, and risks associated with it. In Poisoned Power, Senator Mike Gravel addresses his readers directly when he states:

You can challenge professional groups, like your state medical association, your state cancer, heart, and birth defects associations, university and high school biology professors, and your state and national representatives, to take public positions on the nuclear issue. If they plead too much ignorance, insist that they have a responsibility to learn, and help them do so (15).

What Senator Mike Gravel does not mention, though, is that nuclear energy affects everyone, whether they want it to or not. Anyone and everyone should get involved in the nuclear debate, and it is essential that they understand both sides and what is at stake.

Bibliography

Gofman, John W., and Arthur R. Tamplin. Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, Inc., 1971.

Golding, Dominic, Jeanne X. Kasperson, and Roger E. Kasperson. Preparing for Nuclear Power Plant Accidents. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc., 1995.

Green Peace. 2010. 20 Jan 2010. .

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 2010. 20 Jan 2010. .

Reinig, William C. Environmental Surveillance in the Vicinity of Nuclear Facilities: Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the Health Physics Society. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publisher, 1970.

Sierra Club. 2010. 20 Jan 2010. .

Wald, Matthew L. "Nuclear Power Gets Strong Push from White House." New York Times (2010). 29 Jan 2010. .

World Nuclear Association. 2010. 29 Jan 2010. .

A Forest Returns

The film A Forest Returns opened my eyes to a lot of information I feel like I should have already known. For instance, I did not know that the Wayne National Forest did not exist seventy years ago, or even worse, that there were hardly any trees where they now cover the land.

The narrator, I believe his name was Ora, brought an emotional aspect to the movie that made it more sincere and more interesting for me. Hearing the story told from the perspective of someone who has lived through the entire life of the Wayne National Forest made me feel like I was almost there, experiencing the creation of the forest for myself. Ora seemed to enjoy telling the story, and he seemed to enjoy remembering to good that came from the forest, and that instills a feeling in me that I need to try to protect the forest from the kinds of things David from Buckeye Forest Council talked about.

This film was also a nice break from the negative things we have been hearing about the things people, including the government, have been doing to the environment. The horrible things we have been doing to the environment are a real problem, but it's nice to think that we haven't lost all compassion with nature.

David - BFC

When David of the Buckeye Forest Council came to talk to our class, I became enlightened. I knew clear cutting had its pros and cons, but I didn't know what they were. If everything David said was true, its "pros" are only good for a select few. I remember being told that clear cutting and prescribed burning are good for the trees because it helps them dispense their seeds for germination, but apparently this is not true.

It is a shame to think about all of the homes lost for unsuspecting animals, and even worse to think about all of the animals that couldn't get away from the fires in time. David brought to light a lot of these issues and made me wonder what I could do to help.

Research Prostpectus

I have two ideas in mind and I am struggling to decide between them. I was originally thinking about nuclear power as an alternative energy source because we talked very briefly on how it works in my physics class. I was also thinking about focusing my research on hybrid cars.

Nuclear power interested me because it seems as though we would have to rely heavily on other nations, such as Australia, for sources of the Uranium-235 isotope. Producing this isotope in the lab is possible, but not in the mass quantities we would need it for if we decided to rely more heavily on nuclear power as a source of energy. I was also interested in the risks of working with radioactive materials, and how safe that is as of right now.

If I were to research hybrid cars, I would be interested to see if CO2 emissions from vehicles have been reduced since the cars were commercially introduced. I would also like to look into how they power themselves and what forms of energy most hybrid cars use to do that (this might be intuitive to some people, but I have no idea). From what I understand, hybrid cars are not perfect but they are good for the environment, and I would like to see how they compare with other cars.

Lost Mountain Assignment #3

A. Wendell Berry's idea of a "rational" mind is one that analyzes things from an objective point of view, with the main goal being profit. A "sympathetic" mind is one that values intuition and wilderness, with the main goal being wholeness. One example of Reece's sympathetic mind is on page 210, where he refers to the land as "a badly wounded organism." He is using the word "wounded" to describe the damage done to the mountains due to strip mining, and he refers to the land as an "organism." This is a good indication that Reece believes that the mountains have the ability to do things for themselves, as if all of the parts of the mountain (the land, the plants, the animals) add up to make a whole. He also shows his sympathetic mind when he concludes that same chapter on page 213 with, "It is time we stopped thinking like those who conquer mountains and started thinking like the mountain itself." Here, he continues with the idea that the mountain can sustain itself, but he puts us in the equation as well. We are hurting this organism, and until we start thinking like it, we will continue to do so.

B. There are several quotes from the conclusion chapter that stuck out to me, but one in particular was when he was talking about the poem, "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front," by Wendell Berry. The quote says:

One thing that doesn't compute within that logic is to 'invest in the millenium'- to think beyond short-term economic interests, to plant trees, as the Menominee Indians do, that someone else will harvest. The mad farmer instructs the reader to reject the linear, industrial model that beings with finite resources and ends with waste, but instead to embrace the forest's cyclical system where rotted leaves turn to natural fertilizer (236).

This is a very long quote, but there are two parts that really appeal to me. The first being the quote from the poem, "invest in the millenium," because it not only suggests that we put back what we take from the earth, but that we stop thinking about just ourselves and demonstrate altruism. This is difficult for most people, including myself, because we are so used to thinking in the "now" and only about our future. What that line suggests we do is set up future generations for success by replenishing the earth. The second part of that quote that I like is when Reece refers to the way we are living off of the planet now as "linear." We have learned about, and become accustomed to, cycles in our science classes, but we haven't applied that to the way we live. I have never thought of what we are doing as "linear," but that's just what it is. There is a beginning and an end, we put nothing back when we are finished.

Lost Mountain Assignment #2

I found the second assignment of Lost Mountain to be slightly less intriguing. I won't say it was not informative, but I did struggle to read it a little more this time and I think that is partly due to how depressing it is. Towards the end of the section, though, Reece has a chapter called "The Ecovillage" where he talks about just that: an environmentally friendly complex at Berea College. This chapter got me engaged in the book again, because it told me that there was hope and that some people are trying.

The Ecovillage was designed to take advantage of natural biological processes in order to filter and clean waste water. The same water that people flush down the toilet is being recycled as their drinking water, which sounds awful, but one man's waste is another's treasure. Of course I have no idea, but it seems like if we could make that filtering process the main process we use, we would save a lot of energy.

The heating and cooling system is interesting as well. A series of underground pipes take advantage of the fairly constant temperature of subsoil, around 57 degrees, to bring the temperature of the apartments down in the summer and up in the winter. The design of the building also contributes to this, by having most windows face south in order to utilize passive solar heat. Apparently a temperature guage can automatically open windows in the summer if it gets too warm, which seems unnecessary to me because most people could open windows on their own if they needed, but there could be a better reason that I just didn't pick up on when I was reading.

I'm sure there are disadvantages to living in such a place, but to me, it seems like an incredible advancement in "living green." If nothing else, the students will learn the importance of their actions on the environment, and getting people to understand is the first step in fixing the problem.

Lost Mountain Assignment #1

In Lost Mountain, Eric Reece stresses the importance of the diverse forests in the mountains of Northeast America. He gives examples of the diversity, such as the different kinds of trees and the wood rats, which are things that only live in those conditions. Although wildlife does come back to the areas after "reclamation," it's never fully restored because those trees and those creatures have history there that has been destroyed. The diversity is also greatly reduced in these areas, sometimes down from thousands of species to just a few animals like deer and elk. He also states that reclaiming those areas only fixes the problem for a short time, because the land is so loosely packed that it slides downhill during rain, so the trees and plants and, therefore, the habitats of many animals never last.

While those reasons are all great examples of the importance of those forests, I am most convinced by his reference to the streams. Reece refers to a statement made by Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association, saying a stream without fish is not a stream at all. I had to read that statement over again to really believe that anyone could say that. Reece's argument that liverworts, seemingly insignificant plants, reside in these streams and contribute to richer soil and better water downstream, is a great argument that can be applied to the broader category of any life form in the water. As a biology major, maybe I am biased, but I find it difficult to ignore the impact of every living thing in an environment. Mountaintop removal is destroying life in the forests it occurs in, but it is affecting life in areas miles away as well.

I don't consider myself to be any kind of activist, as I usually take on a laissez-faire attitude towards most major issues, but to ignore such blatant harmful effects on the historically rich and diverse forests of Appalachia is criminal.

Clean Coal

Upon entering the two main sites, I was more attracted to the "America's Power" website because it opens up with easy to navigate tabs and it seems to appeal to the everyday person. The "This is Reality" website was not difficult to navigate, but I found that, in order to find more information, I had to click several tabs before I could read what I was after. Though the intro to the "This is Reality" website was amusing, I did not like how they referred to the facts they were presenting as "realities," implying that we are all unaware of the facts.

Both sites are addressing the issue of clean coal technology, which is any technology that works toward minimizing or completely eliminating pollution due to the use of coal. They agree that the gases that are released need to be captured, but "America's Power" presents the information as if pollution has already been drastically reduced whereas "This is Reality" presents the information as if the coal industry has done nothing to solve the problem. "This is Reality" says there is no such thing as clean coal, and unless companies start capturing and storing the carbon dioxide they produce, America should start using other sources for energy. Basically, "This is Reality" implies that coal is not necessary to run our homes. This site appeals to a younger population, which can be seen through the appearance of the website, the blunt, straight forward way it addresses the public, and it's humorous but non factual advertisements. "America's Power" acknowledges other energy sources, but points out the disadvantages, such as the expensive price or the dependency on other nations to get those resources. This website's target audience - middle class working people - is a little more obvious, with pictures, videos, and statements from people on the home page.

The sites are both sponsored by companies who would be very interested in their message. For example, "America's Power" is sponsored by a company that is partnered with coal based industries. "This is Reality" is sponsored by companies that advocate conservation and preservation, such as The Alliance for Climate Protection and the National Wildlife Federation, so both sites are supported by groups that are exploiting their interests, which gives neither site credibility over the other.

"America's Power" appeals to the emotions of the middle class population by making it very clear that coal is the most affordable energy option and providing video testimonies from a few fellow middle class workers. This is effective because they are reaching a broad audience that most people can fit in. "This is Reality" appeals to activists and a seemingly younger crowd trying to "make a difference" and stop global warming. This is effective because, as of late, the number of people supporting cleaner air and less waste is ever increasing. "America's Power" uses simple visuals on their site, providing lots of graphs and pictures of everyday people doing their job. "This is Reality" uses more complex visuals, such as a canary that reminds people that the days of toxic gases from coal are not over, and it is a very straightforward way of saying coal is not safe.

I find "America's Power" to be more persuasive because it appeals to me as a person who is trying to save money while still living comfortably. It provides graphs and data from reputable sources that say coal is getting cleaner. "This is Reality" provides several redundant quotes, while attacking coal companies, but rarely backing up their information. I was more convinced by the "America's Power" website, but which site is right is another story.

Intro Blog

Hey, my name is Becca and I'm a junior studying biology. Um... I'm from Milford, which is just outside of Cincinnati. I have dog named Chubbs, and he is the best. My roommate, Shawna, is in this class as well. I used to snowboard, but I haven't done it in a while (I miss it) and I don't know if I still could. I like food, and I LOVE to bake (my roommates hate me for that.. they're all "trying" to go on diets!) Um... I'm taking French and I love it but I'm not very good at it. Okay, see you in class! Bye!