The topic of my research paper is how the food industry contributes to climate change. Through writing my paper and doing various research, I’ve challenged my own preconceived notions and gained a better understanding of the concept. Before writing this research paper, the only information I had to go off of regarding this topic were different environmental documentaries I’ve watched,… Read more »
While doing the contemplative practice for Lesson 8, I really got thinking more about water and the demand for it around the world. I never thought much about what it would be like to not have water because I grew up with a seemingly endless amount of it. It has been unnerving to me to think about how many people… Read more »
In the world that we live in, many science books state that 71 percent of the world is covered with water. The problem here is why is there scarcity? The reality of our water content in the world is that only a small portion of it can be readily accessed by people, and this is the problem that we must… Read more »
Writing my research paper helped me to discover even further how important plants are to the environment and to each individual ecosystem. I never really gave much thought on how plants function differently when they are in their natural habitat versus when they are not. When plants are put into ecosystems that they are not from, they will either fail… Read more »
Although we learn about the issues of food, energy, and the climate in different lessons, it’s clear they are all connected. The purpose of our study is to understand the political ecology of the global food systems and try to answer the seemingly simple question, how can we feed everyone? This is a problem that humans have struggled with since… Read more »
The earth is a living system with incredible power to self-correct. Through our collective extraction and consumption of oil, we are accelerating the demise of our culture, at the cost to our survival. The warming of the planet caused by greenhouse gasses are enough that we are beginning to witness the effects now. The earth is responding to the altered… Read more »
Western institutes employ thousands of people, allocating financial and agricultural resources in attempts to contain the problem of hunger in developing nations, but these efforts aren’t enough. An obvious solution to hunger is… send hungry people food! But the cost of transportation, in dollars as well as environmental pollutants, creates more problems than it solves (Robbins). Instead of providing consistent aid… Read more »
The industrial revolution brought with it numerous benefits for the modern age. Perhaps most significant is the technology that has made it possible to feed 7 billion people worldwide. The improvements in industrialized farming equipment made farming more efficient, producing higher yields while expending less energy for the farmers. However, less energy spent by people, cattle and horses to operate… Read more »
As a global issue with complex causality, hunger is a challenge that shapes our collective experience. From hunger we see a ripple of social, political, economic, and environmental implications for the world and our place in it. Systemic global hunger is indicative of broken systems, human and ecological – inequality, political instability, the social cost of international trade, climate change,… Read more »
Kloven, Leah. “Library Compost.” 2016. PNG file “Ultimately sustainability requires thinking in circles” (Litfin). LCA life cycle, systems theory and cradle to cradle analysis are all ways of looking at the full picture which is absolutely essential to addressing issues and progress. Today we operate largely through a process of linear systems, this is resource extraction, use, and waste. Our… Read more »