Friends of Science?

Okay...so we all know that alot of people are intimidated by 'science' or just write it off as something that they are 'not good at.' This being said (which is really untrue because honestly, if people would chill out and take time to understand science then we wouldn't be in half the problems we're in today - it's not that hard) Friends of Science is clearly trying to attract people who are intimidated by science and want information in a myth/fact form in order to make an 'educated' opinion about something. Websites of climate skeptics generally use this tactic - if you blind people with science, they'll take it at face value and start spewing off 'facts' from your website and agree with you. These 'facts' can be easily debunked. For example, for ANYONE who understands climate change, even to a tiny degree, they would know that climate change is REGIONAL and is not going to raise temperatures everywhere. I'm sure that you've all experienced people saying 'Ha, so much for global warming' when it's suddenly 40 degrees in September...but that's the point. In the northern hemisphere, temperatures have been projected to decrease. The word 'warming' is misleading and generally makes people confused and belligerent towards accepting 'global warming' as real as soon as their first snow day hits. Climate skeptics harp on this misleading word and lead people to agree with their skepticism.

I agree with Meghan's statement that it is irresponsible to ignore the problem and try to use technology to mitigate the worst effects of it. However, through my work with senior-level scientists at PNNL, it is clear that scientists are so fed up with the 'debate' on climate change, that they are trying to find ways to save our planet without having to deal with the freaks who CONTINUE to argue against it. The only way to do this is through technology, and it is a respectable decision (I mean, who honestly wants to work with belligerent people who continually sound dumb as they try to argue against science...) Therefore, I hold more stock with the Grist articles because they work towards exposing true science and the articles do not use outdated facts and figures in order to prove their point.

The problem with these sites are that both are very convincing. Give any website an official looking name and layout, and people will be curious and read it - it's human nature. I think that many problems now revolve around the inability of individuals to think for themselves. Take any news channel now, and it is undoubtedly biased to a certain extent, something that is recognizable if you are able to take a step back and evaluate what you just heard/read/saw. I don't think one site is more convincing over another, though websites like Grist go against many conservative viewpoints, and automatically put people on the defensive. The opening page of Friends of Science just attempts to break down facts and make them myths, but you don't really grasp the side of the website until you're partway through the first or second bullet point. Their message is more subtle at the beginning, which might make Friends of Science more convincing to an unbiased reader (as much as I hate to say it).

Friends of Science?

Skeptics and True Believers

Browsing these two websites reminded me of the research I did on the two sides of the ANWR drilling debate during my Freshman year. I remember how glaringly obvious the differences were - for example, websites of organizations supporting the drilling all included 'scientific evidence' indicating that there was 30 years (or some other extraordinary number) worth of fuel underneath the surface of the Arctic tundra (waiting to free us from our dependence on the Middle East, of course) while the websites against drilling advocated that science really couldn't be sure as reports were uncertain and conflicting but that many scientists thought there may only be as little for a year or two. The pro-drillers, trying to make a case, were taking whatever information they could find and twisting it to support their claims and then  presented it alone on their websites, even though other websites were clear that science was still unclear on the matter. This definitely seems to be what's happening on the 'Friends of Science' page - in their 'about us' section, it says that: "While FOS does not do any original scientific research, it does extensive literature research and draws on the worldwide body of work by scientists in all fields relating to global climate change." In other words, like those pro-drilling websites I had the displeasure of reading, they are picking and choosing the 'evidence' that supports their point of view to present.

 I understand this, it's only natural for each side to aim to win support for their side, and that's exactly what the purpose/goal of such websites. However, I thought the Grist one seemed more legit (and actually easier to navigate) simply because I thought it addressed both sides of the argument more fairly and more in depth. 'Friends of Science' reminded me of my cousins watching Fox News - you go to websites like it in order to read exactly what you want to hear and what you expect to hear - in other words, if you're searching for a biased news source. 

Climate deniers can build a spaceship and find another planet. Good riddance!

Sites and campaigns like "Friends of Science" drive me nuts because they're complete bullshit. I pride myself on always listening to both sides of an argument and trying to understand where other people are coming from. I also have no tolerance for attempts to swindle and lie to people who may not have the tools to tell the difference between truth and make-believe. There is absolutely no question that climate change is real and moving more quickly because of humans. NO QUESTION. Trying to claim differently is like trying to say that evolution never happened: sure, it's possible to contrive evidence to say that God put humans into the mix with the dinos, but all credible findings prove (as far as a science can prove) that that just isn't the case. So those wackos...no, worse...liars can take their site and made-up information and shove it.

That being said, there is a lot of room for debate once you accept that anthropogenicly motivated climate change is happening. While I personally think it's iresponsable, there is a valid argument that says that we should worry less about mitigating the problem and more about developing technologies to deal with the consequences. There's also a valid argument that human development and economies should come before environmental concerns (again, I don't agree). This debate is really valuble and really important, in that it forces different elements of the environmental and periphery movements to cooperate and or at least consider each other's positions.

Obviously I hold more stock with the Grist articles because it takes the lies of climate sceptics and attempts to disprove them. As always, it's necessary to regard these critiques critically, as many of them are written by environmental bloggers, who tend represet a "social greens" perspective. When looking at any opinions, scientific or activist in nature, the reader is bequeathed with the responsibility to think for themselves.

Friends of Science????

The purpose of these websites is definitely to inform, but I think both are trying to persuade people to join their sides. Each of them is not hiding their stance on climate change and give the information to support their positions. Making sense of these sites is without doubt very difficult because it is hard to tell their agendas. I do think the “How to talk to a Climate Skeptic” has a little more credibility because it does take into consideration the others sides thoughts and arguments but then gives evidence to discredit them. This website is also more user-friendly, I would actually use it when someone was doubting my opinion (especially because I share the same opinion as the website!) Even if I did support the “Friends of Science” website, it just seems they have more of purpose than just being informants. They also point out that they are running on a very low budget so they need as much help as they can get so that their word can be spread. While this is fine, they need funding, the other website does not ask for money anywhere, it is more of a blog just trying to spread the facts. I am definitely biased so it is hard to give a subjective review on each of the websites, but even just looking at them for the facts is very difficult for both. The fact that they contradict each other even with their so-called facts makes it really tough to know whether one is “right.” At this point in time, it is easy to find a fact for any type of claim you want to make. I think unless you are a scientist you must take all of these sorts of sites with a grain of salt.

As I said before, I think the “How to talk to a Climate Skeptic” is a bit more convincing. It is for me in particular because these are all questions that I have heard asked before, and it is hard to know the answers. The author, it seems, has also obviously seen these doubts before and takes into account all of the questions skeptics might have. I realize the “Friends of Science” site does have a fact and myth page, they state that the information they use is not original, they collect it from other sites, which almost makes me believe they just find information that fits what they think. The other website’s author is a man who does his own blogging and research, and although his word isn’t the be all end all to climate change, the reality that he is testing and researching these topics seems more legitimate to me.

Endangered speciesss

Hey guys! Not sure if you'll actually see this, but I was just on BBC and saw that one of the featured articles was a photo list of animals endangered by climate change...I thought it was funny that the majority of them were the 'charismatic' animals like we were discussing last class!

Link to cuteness...

Nature...

I love this question...at first I wanted to choose Switzerland (like Krissy and Christina!) or Alaska (because those are definitely two of the most beautiful places I've ever been fortunate enough to experience) but every time I think about this question it always comes back to the trip I took to the Grand Canyon in high school. The best part of the experience was that I didn't want to go in the first place -- it had always been my mom's dream to see it, so she and her fiancé and I went down at the beginning of summer vacation after my sophomore year. I was excited, but not overly so; since summer vacation had just begun I was all high school angst and had just wanted to stay home with my friends. However, now I know, nothing beats seeing the Grand Canyon in person and I'm so happy we went...you really never tire of looking at it and it's so amazing to think that one river crafted all of that! It was just incredible! My favorite moment though was when I had one of those really cliché (but real!) spiritual connection with nature as I watched the sun set. We were walking around the rim one evening and I walked a bit away from everyone, further down to a smaller outlook - one that was secluded from the other tourists. I sat down and  and just watched the sun slowly melt into the canyon. It was such an impressive sight that I actually teared up -  and what made it even better was that the outlook was empty - it just felt like such a personal experience. I know that I'll never forget it!

I definitely think nature should be preserved! The Grand Canyon is already a National Park, but there are plenty of other places that I haven't gotten to see and I'd like them to still be there when I go! But even more importantly, it should be saved because it's absolutely beautiful (there's really limited beauty in man made structures) and necessary to the planet. Nature is so intricate and impossible to replicate and we are still learning so much from it. Plus, this might sound juvenile, but I always think that nature was here first - its certainly not fair for us to destroy it.  When I was younger my mom and dad had a cabin up in the mountains that we went to every weekend in the summer and fall. It was such a great place to experience growing up and I can't imagine future generations not having the opportunity to have their own cabin in the woods if they wanted it. It's so sad to think our future planet as one giant metropolis like in a Star Wars movie...

Saving Nature!

I had a hard time figuring out what the most thrilling engagement I’ve had with the non-human world was, which I’m sure many other people experienced. I finally narrowed it down to hiking on Mount Rainier (it was a competition of that and the Swiss Alps, but Kristen already talked about that…). My friends and I woke up early since we were living in eastern Washington and drove from our perpetually sunny desert home near the Idaho border to Mount Rainier, which untrue to its form, was also sunny and about 80 degrees when we got there. As soon as we got off the beaten path (we had a Washington-state native tour guide) our cell phones lost reception, and we were completely disconnected from the rest of the world. It was incredible because there were eight science-nerds (we were all interning together) and nature, and we were all beyond excited. We first hiked a short 4-mile trail around the bend of a smaller mountain and found a beautiful lake to have lunch at, and then we rounded the corner through the heavy layer of pine trees into an opening where Mount Rainier was beautifully displayed right in front of us. It was larger than we had imagined – we were already at about 7,000 feet, and it seemed so close. We then headed up to Paradise (appropriately named), which is also at about 7,000 feet, but it is actually on Mount Rainier. We were kind of bummed because of the huge amount of tourists, but once we chose a challenging trail that had a steep slope gradient and was not paved (paved trails, honestly?) we lost most of the crowd. We hiked up a few miles, alternately stopping to catch our breath (it was unbelievable how hard it suddenly became to breathe once you got above 7,500 feet) and we finally found a clearing with Mount Rainier’s infamous wildflowers and waterfalls all around us on the mountain and Mirror Lake, which completely reflected the mountain above it. We camped out there and as the sun was setting, the clouds finally rolled in and there was light rain throughout the night. When we woke up to travel back down, it was misty and even more gorgeous than when it was sunny because the waterfalls materialized out of the air and we could only see the beginnings of the glaciers on the mountain. (I could reference Lord of the Rings like Meghan…but most people think of Twilight when they hear Washington state…shame). As we headed back to our perpetually 109 degree desert to go back to work, we all realized that Mount Rainier was a magical place and we got to experience something that was beyond the human world and its interactions.

Yes, “saving nature” is definitely something we should concern ourselves with. I think that the answer to a lot of problems people face, mainly mental ones of anxiety, stress, and being overworked, come from a lack of experience with nature. I know this sounds really far-fetched and weird, but I honestly feel that if people were more in tune with nature and spent more time outside and enjoying the natural beauty of our planet, then our mental states as a planet would become more relaxed and happy. I experienced this personally – all summer every weekend we would go camping/hiking in Glacier National Park, Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, the Olympic Peninsula, etc. and it would essentially clear our heads from the week and make us realize the insignificance of our problems compared to the beauty of nature. When I came back to DC I went through some weird withdrawal from ‘nature’ and found myself more down than I normally would have been. I also think that nature is inspiring, and a lot of books, songs, poems are based around nature. If this were to disappear, what would happen to this avenue of creative thought? Also, experiencing nature doesn’t have to be so extreme – you don’t have to go summit a mountain in order to be moved by nature. Just sitting on your front porch in summer while the sun is setting, or walking outside with a friend during the first snowfall of the year all make us recognize the importance and beauty of nature, and how necessary it is to preserve, if only (but hopefully not only) for the selfish reason of our own benefit from nature.

Experiences in Nature

The best encounter that I’ve ever had with nature is definitely when I travelled to the gorgeous mountains of Switzerland. It was a country that had the best of all weather patterns: snow on the mountain peaks in the distance but could still have gorgeous weather with green grass in the small towns within the mountains. I think it was such an awesome experience because the Swiss seemed very in tune with the nature and landscapes around them. The towns were tucked amongst the mountains and were very clean and did not seem to take over the environment around them. As opposed to many cities in the US, the cities in Switzerland seemed to be second to the grounds around them. For example, the people there love and want to keep their nature in tact, so they put in these cities that allow them to enjoy the beauty but not disturb it. I enjoyed it so much because although the cities were great places to be in, they really synced their living situations with the beautiful mountains and nature around them. They also made sure people could still enjoy the great scenery by making nature part of the main attractions. One of the most beautiful things you can do there is take a train ride up the mountains and simply enjoy the scenery.

After travelling to many places around Europe last year it gave me a new and (I think) better perspective about the way humans treat nature. Keeping nature preserved is not only an important way to add to saving of the environment, but it is also a great way to enjoy the little things in life. Forget building an amusement park or malls, just go outside and enjoy the gorgeous leaves when they change in fall. Go look at the first snowfall, or the great things that nature creates in different countries. The level of happiness is a topic we have talked about in class, especially concerning Americans. We tend to think that the only way to happiness is money, social status, and consumption. I think saving nature could also solve this misconception as well. Nature is such a serene being that isn’t exclusive and is probably the simplest way to be happy today, which is why I definitely think we should do our best to save it.

Nature

The coolest experience I've had in nature (thus far) was in the Czech Republic when I was camping and hiking through the forests near Hrad Kokorin (Kokorin Castle). My friend and I took a bus to the area where the castle was located and when the bus left we realized that we were in a utterly and completely rural area. We saw some HUGE storm clouds on the horizon and were a little nervous because the next bus didn't arrive until the next morning, but we decided to go on and find someplace sheltered to sleep. We walked for about two miles on a one land road in the middle of huge hills covered in traditional farmland (not huge factory farms) while these enormous storm clouds rolled in. The weather was warm still, even with the rain coming, so the walking was totally pleasant and wonderful. We finally reached the forest and walked down this tiny little path into the middle of what looked like the Lord of the Rings set (I guess the set was all of New Zealand, if I think about it...). All around me were huge rocky cliffs, fairytale trees with light filtering down from the sky and in the distance I could see the ruins of a castle. The atmosphere was so quiet and peaceful that I forgot all about the incoming rain. We hiked around for a few hours and finally stumbeled upon a resturant and some cabins to camp in. Perhaps the most impressive part of the night was the storm that night, which was truely a testament to the power of nature. For hours the rain poured down, with plenty of thunder and lightening to light up our powerless cabin. It was lucky that we found a cabin, because we would have been cold and miserable, but with the hiking and the storm and the fact that we were so far from the city, I felt really impressed by nature.


I definitely think its important to preserve natural spaces "for the sake of nature." That humans believe that they can conquor the entire earth and leave nothing untouched disgusts me. We are not the only inhabitants of this planet and the arrogance that humanity has thus far displayed has and will continue to wreak havok on the planet and eventually on the way that we live. Additionally, there are so many amazing experiences that would be lost if all the earth's natural spaces were destroyed: the world would be so much more boring without hiking in endless forests, swimming in hidden lakes and climbing sky-high mountains.

Eco-Tourism

First, I'm going to agree and say that the 'tropical' vacations people take often run parallel to those shown in the Life and Debt film - ignoring the extreme generalizations. It's obviously pretty hard to avoid if you're heading to a place in the Caribbean, which is where many Americans travel on vacation because of the proximity to our own country. I'm definitely guilty of it - in Aruba whenever we left the resort we drove around the island amid tiny shanty houses and goats. In Mexico, on the drive to our hotel we drove along a (long) stretch of road with a makeshift village - people literally living along the side of the road under tarp and other scraps. Obviously it made us feel incredibly guilty and more than a little uncomfortable. The other side is that the majority of those tropical vacation spots would be devastated if people stopped vacationing  there as the bulk of their economies are often tourism.  

  I'm not sure how I feel about eco-tourism. Obviously, it's a great concept - if you love to travel you'll want to help to preserve those beautiful places you love visiting. However, I'll also agree that currently eco-tourism may be less helpful to the environment and more helpful to the pocketbooks of bigwig companies. I watch the Travel Channel often (ok, all the time) and recently they've been covering this trend of eco-tourism. It looks awesome, the resorts are stunning and breathtakingly situated right in the heart of nature. However, I've noticed that these same resorts seem to be incredibly expensive and only a logical option for the wealthiest of travelers. I'm sure cheaper options exist, but it seems like currently, eco-tourism is cashing  in on the "Hollywood trend" of being green -  and acting here as the  chic  alternative to vacationing. 

While I know the economic costs of air travel are high,  I don't think they should be considered into part of our cost of travel. Rather, we should focus our energy into technologies to help reduce the impact of the airplane and make it universal to help preserve the tradition of travel. If anything, one could argue that travel can help the environmental movement by encouraging more people to care; people will be more inclined to help to save the planet if they've actually witnessed its beauty firsthand! 

EcoTourism

While I really enjoyed the film "Life and Debt" one of the aspects of it that really bothered me was the depiction of the obviously stupid, mindless tourists flooding the islands of honest, underprivileged Jamaicans. Okay, yeah, I'm sure a lot of those tourists really weren't consciously dissecting the social inequities of tourism in the developing world or the irony of watching crabs race by the pool while women demanded fair working conditions and pay. But applying a blanket characterization to one group of people (the stupid, ignorant tourists) is just as morally questionable as believing the stereotypes about another (the uneducated, lazy Jamaicans). Yeah, spending your vacation at a Sandals resort in a country on the verge of economic collapse with nary a second thought is wrong, but assuming that all of these people were ignorant of the issues they were surrounded by and parodying them for it was wrong, too.

That said, eco-tourism and tourism generally, when conducted in a sustainable and socially conscious manner, is really great. Experiencing different cultures is absolutely essential to expanding and reshaping the way you perceive the world you live in. I can absolutely say that studying and traveling in Central and Eastern Europe (more exotic than it initially sounds, formerly communist countries are fascinating and really, really different than the bastion of capitalism, the United States) completely transformed the way I see the world and how I approach problem solving. That said, air travel is completely ridiculous in terms of carbon emissions (I should know...my dad is a corporate pilot and I tried to buy him a carbon offset for Christmas last year...anyone have $9,000 lying around??). The solution to this problem, in my view, is not necessarily eliminating travel from ones life completely, but by supporting companies that are investigating clean fuel technologies. Beyond this, it is the responsibility of companies to actually do this research and governments to financially motivate such initiatives.

The issues brought up in the short webisode about greenwashing is well received and should definitely be taken into consideration. This requires real, substantive research into tourism packages, but if you're paying a lot to go on a great trip, research is sort of part of the ball game.

Environmental Costs of Traveling

The theme that many rich country tourists have little interest in the social and environmental impacts of their visits to nations in the global south is one that I have also seen occur frequently, but I think that this is a more generational trend, to a certain extent. Many people that I know who travel to the ‘global South’ for vacation are my grandmother’s friends, my parents friends and those who did not grow up in a world where environmental degradation and the threat of global warming from plane emissions were major themes. The majority of individuals in my generation that I know traveled to the global South were on AU AltBreak trips, where many of the themes are social justice, environmental issues and/or human rights issues. I do not think that traveling to the global South for vacation is necessarily a completely bad thing – in fact, I think it does help bolster some countries economies, but I also do not think it is going to change. Reading over the article about British citizens’ general refusal to fly less grasps this concept that traveling/vacationing is sort of a privilege, and while I don’t agree with it, I feel that many Americans are going to continue traveling wherever they want because they have the money and do not think about the environmental impacts.

I agree with Kristen about eco-tourism – it is a generally good concept, but it has become more of a corporation-focused initiative, which takes away from the original point. I think that traveling to environmentally fragile places is also not a good idea – I do not understand how increasing travel to these areas will have a low-impact on that environment. Humans inevitably destroy nature. The fact that this can harm the locals to these areas is even worse than the fact that corporations and foreign investors take much of the money from eco-tourism ventures. I think that the main ways that travel does more good than harm is in scenarios such as AltBreak trips, where you go to an area to learn about its culture, talk to its citizens and learn about the actual area, instead of seeing the inside of a resort that looks like any other resort you can find along the coasts of the United States during summer. This way, individuals become more aware of what they have, what others don’t have, and how their choices impacts others, even thousands of miles away.

As far as plane travel goes, I’m undecided on whether the environmental costs of traveling should be included in plane travel. As an individual who has a completely irrational and horrible fear of flying, and tries to avoid it at all costs, I still flew over 40 hours since March, mostly all of which was school-related and internship-related. I know that I had to fly back and forth to Washington State twice for my internship, and had the environmental costs of that been included, I’m not sure that I would have had the internship in the first place (ironically it was with the Dept. of Energy, and they paid for my travel). In a perfect world, there would be much more R&D into biofuels or other types of renewable fuel that could power planes, and we wouldn’t have to worry about this, but until this happens, there’s nothing we can do. Also in a perfect world, the environmental costs of flying would be included in airfare, but this would have negative impacts as well. Participation in programs such as AltBreaks, social justice trips or other related-trips that work to build schools, homes, etc. in developing areas would most likely not happen, leaving a lot of areas without help that they depend on. NGO’s are not financially strong institutions, but they do a lot of work in developing countries. If there was even more money put into travel for them, then it would be even harder for these NGOs to do their work. Then again, maybe I’m just being selfish and trying to justify why there should not be environmental costs of flying factored into airfare. I love to travel (not fly), and if the environmental costs of flying were added into airfare, I probably wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.

Eco-travel

First I would like to express my impressions on the film we watched in class about Jamaica. I believe that even though the movie was slightly outdated, it would be a fallacy to believe these types of things don’t still happen. People go on vacations all the time to locations that have gorgeous resorts, while the rest of the country suffers from environmental degradation and an unsanitary atmosphere. Jakarta, Indonesia is an example of a popular vacation spot that provides its tourists with gorgeous 5-star hotels and resorts, while there is a problem with open sewage in the water. I believe that many Westerners turn a blind eye when they visit places like this. I know that they aren’t on vacation necessarily to go and help out with problems in third world countries, and even that their tourism may be helping the economy of that country, but I also think doing nothing about it is a problem. As for the Jamaica movie, the problems in this country were not only on the outside, but internal as well. The IMF conditional loans were unfair to the people and causing more problems than helping.

A type of solution for the problem of tourists going to countries where you should stay on the resort and are considered crazy if you venture off is called ecotourism. It is defined as “travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and (often) small scale”. It is a program that could actually help the environment and tries to take the negative impacts out of commercial tourism like what was seen in the movie. It usually focuses on areas that provide nature as the sites. This sounds like a great alternative, but sometimes the eco-tourism goals backfire. One example of this is that the groups that promote eco-tourism are foreign investors or corporations that get some of the benefits of this practice, and of the little profit they bring in, the locals hardly get any of it. A huge problem in the world today is money and what goes with it, in this case, greed. It seems like this is a program with great intentions, but it got into the wrong hands, and now it has just turned into another industry where the proceeds do not go to the people that really need them.

I definitely am a proponent of trying to help the environment as much as I can, but travel is a big part of my life, and I honestly cannot think of a way to avoid flying as much as I do. I would say I take about 7-10 plane trips a year, mostly to visit my family, but I do minimal travel in the car. Even though there is a lot of room for improvement in my travel habits, I just don’t see how I could cut down the trip more than one or two flights. I think if the cost of flights were a lot more expensive because they included the actual pollutants you are putting into the air, then I would think twice about flying, but then I might turn to train travel, and then would I be doing more harm than good anyways? I think this answer is what most people say when they talk about helping the environment: if I can’t do one thing, I’ll think of another way.

Green Eating...

The main thoughts that go through my head when making food choices at a market or restaurant are price and quality. I generally shop at generic supermarkets, such as Superfresh or Safeway, mainly because it is what I can afford. I try to keep environmental considerations in mind when deciding what to eat, but the true nature of what I buy is based on price. I’m also pretty basic in what I buy – I have a meal plan, so I basically just buy bread, milk, cereal and lunchmeat every week for times when I don’t have a chance to grab lunch at the cafeteria. I try to make healthy decisions, but my habits of what I buy are so ingrained, that I hardly even think about what I’m buying anymore. The other day, I went with my boyfriend to Whole Foods to get dinner, because we thought it’d be quick and cheap to make a salad. My salad ended up costing my $9.99, which is outrageous for any type of small salad like the one I got, and it wasn’t even filling! I (kind of) admire people who are willing to put out this kind of money for food that’s ‘better’ for the environment, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to justify buying a salad for 10 dollars, even if I was super rich. (I also somewhat question people who are willing to put out that much money on food for themselves, when they can be putting their money towards way more important things). I do like to support local produce and farmer’s markets, but there’s also a downfall with this. Our campus farmer’s market produce not only is not organic, but it’s not local! The farm is in Pennsylvania, more than 100 miles from school. It leads me to question many farmer’s markets, and what I actually am supporting when buying ‘local.’

I’ve been sick all week so I actually haven’t eaten much in the last day or two, but I would most likely count the microwaveable soup that I’ve been eating as having the most environmental impact. Not only is there a TON of packaging, there is also the cost of producing the soup and shipping it around the country. The most appalling part however, is the packaging, because it contains metal and hard plastic and the whole contraption to microwave the soup in is not reusable once consumed. If everyone ate these as liberally as I have over the past few days, I feel that the amount of waste we create would significantly increase.

Food Musings.

When grocery shopping my first thought as a college student is definitely cost, not environmental impact. I guess I'm kind of a creature of habit - I know what I'm looking for and I mostly always buy the same staple foods - I've selected these items after checking things like the nutrition info, seeing if it's whole grain and of course, checking out the price. I would love to shop at Whole Foods all the time, but not because they are mostly organic but because they have a lot of more exotic type items that you won't find in the rest of the run of the mill chains I shop at like Giant. I only ever go to Whole Foods as a 'treat' - to buy plantain chips for example. As a college student without a car, I'm also constricted to distance - I have to shop at the nearest grocery store because I have to lug all of my purchases home with me by foot afterward. When dining out, I again, look at cost but I've been a vegetarian since the fifth grade, so I've sort of become an expert at scouring the menu for meat-free options. Lucky for me, those options tend to be cheaper than dishes with meat tend to be. 

I think the thing I've recently consumed that has the most impact was probably one of those frozen Amy's Indian dishes. I only occasionally buy meals off of that label, not because they are organic, but because a few of the varieties are so good! However, they are way too expensive and the whole organic thing was never really an important thing to me growing up - in reality I should really stop buying them all together. With the cardboard container and the plastic overlay, it definitely wasn't an eco-friendly meal. And while it is labeled as 'organic,' (which I guess is a bonus?) I'm pretty positive that the many ingredients found in the dish weren't purchased locally. Factor in the energy the plant used to manufacture the meal and add in the shipping to the grocery story and my meal probably added a sizable addition of carbon to the atmosphere. I can't say that I'll completely stop purchasing the Palak Paneer dish, but I may refrain from buying it as often in the future. If anything, this exercise has made me think twice about my personal impact. It really adds up!

Counting calories, counting carbon

When I'm shopping at the store for food, my first consideration is what I would like to eat. This is perhaps a more complicated procedure than for many people, as I'm possibly the most picky eater ever (not by choice, I try everything!). After I figure out what my unwilling taste buds will allow me to offer them, I usually think about trying to be healthy. This usually is merely a fleeting thought, probably because I still don't REALLY know what healthy is. That said, I usually try to get a few veggies, some fruits, and whole wheat. Unfortunately I love cheese which isn't really a great diet staple, but...meh. I can actually say that I really try my best to think about the environment while shopping; as a fairly laid back person, I can actually say that I got in a real fight with someone over the importance of carefully considering diet choices. I've tried to be a vegetarian since I was 13 but always succumbed to the temptations of chicken and cheeseburgers. Finally, five months ago I stopped eating meat, and can say now that I've done it, its not really that hard (still craving chicken a little...). That's an important aspect of an environmental diet, I think, in the contribution of factory farms to carbon emissions and toxic runoff (I've also been thinking about if I would eat meat from local, family farms. I'm fairly sure I would still abstain, just because I feel a little weird devouring the flesh of a formerly living animal. That said, I don't condemn others peoples choices on this matter as long as they've carefully considered the issue). In terms of other environmental considerations, I try to buy organic foods (although the organic label has really lost a lot of legitimacy these days) and buy fruit in season only. I don't have the money to shop exclusively at farmers markets or Whole Foods, but I try to support local markets as much as possible. The food tastes great! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of extra time to prepare complicated vegetable stews and stuff, so I'm often stuck with pasta.

In the last few days I've had a lot of really crappy food. Today I ate a candy bar, a bag of chips, a bagel and an enormous plate of pasta. Yesterday, I had leftover Chinese food, a bag of chips, and pasta. Hands down though, the biggest environmental crime I've committed is drinking Coke. I am, admittedly, addicted to that stuff and drink it pretty much every day all day. Coca Cola is a really disgusting company from their social justice issues in Africa and Latin America to their avowed commitment to dispensing bottled tap water around the world. Supporting them at all financially is something I really regret and am trying, actively, to change.