Deforestation

The article I found is about how the deforestation of the Amazon could mean droughts for the western United States. The article states that a group of scientists led by researchers from Princeton University say that "the total deforestation of the Amazon may significantly reduce rain and snowfall in the western United States, resulting in water and food shortages, and a greater risk of forest fires. If the deforestation of the Amazon continues it could produce a weather pattern where the dry air over the Amazon would move be transported by Rossby waves to the Pacific northwest. Rossby waves would also cause higher precipitation levels in the Pacific Ocean south of Mexico.
The dry air in the Pacific will affect the Sierra Nevada snowpack where we get a lot of our water supply from. This will lead to food and water supply shortages and also will leave the grass and trees more susceptible to fires because of the dry conditions. Even though the Amazon is in another part of the world it has far reaching implications that effect the entire planet. I am finding that everything has an impact whether direct or indirectly on each other.

Here is a link to the article: http://scienceblog.com/67706/amazon-deforestation-could-mean-droughts-for-western-u-s/

Chris Jordan Photography

The implications that Chris Jordan's photography has for us is that we need to make a change in our lifestyles. We are consuming items at incredibly fast levels that are harmful to the earth. If we do not do something about it now it will lead to the demise of our planet. Each person and every person needs to be aware of the decisions they make and how it impacts the world around them. It was mind boggling to see all the different pieces of art and what it represented. The scary thing is that a lot of the numbers that were shown were just our consumption of items here in the United States. That didn't even factor in the rest of the world's consumption. Another disturbing piece he had was the one with the bird's remains showing all the plastic that was in it's body. The remains of the bird had disintegrated back into the earth, but the plastic was still there. It will not be going anywhere as it's not biodegradable. It's good to see stores moving away from plastic bags. It's a start in trying to protect the environment. Recycling is also good too, but we need to make drastic changes to how we live our lives. The amount of garbage that we dispose of is only going to quicken with population growth around the world. The leaders of governments around the world need to meet and discuss ways in which we can cutback or come up with an alternative to the things we use that are creating problems for us on earth.

Story of Stuff

After watching The Story of Stuff it really opened my eyes to see how everything around you is affected when it comes to making products for us to consume. When you get a product you are not concerned about how it got to you. You don't realize how quickly we are burning through the earth resources. If we do not change our ways starting now, it's going to be to late to salvage the planet. It affects us in higher education because we need to start informing the public on a daily basis what is happening to the planet. It is the responsibility of the government and higher educational institutes to tell us of the dire situation we will find our selves in if we do not change. A lot of people do not care because they figure once the problem becomes to big they will be dead and gone. That is the wrong attitude to have. We should be concerned about the welfare of our home planet. There is only one. We should be concerned for future generations. What's going to happen to the earth once everything is used up?
In the video they show all the steps that lead to a product being made. Annie Leonard has done 10 years of extensive research on the subject. She says, "that we are living on a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. We are chopping down all of our trees, blowing up all our mountains and using up all of the water. Leonard says, "in the past three decades alone one third of the planets natural resource space has been consumed, gone." When we over extract from an area we destroy the environment and the animals and people living there. They need to find new places to live. Our factories are using hazardous chemicals that are harmful to the environment and us. After products are made and purchased by us, when we are done with them they need to be discarded somewhere. Leonard says, 99% of the stuff that we run through the system (material economies) is trashed within 6 months. Planned obsolescence is when companies make items for the purpose of being used and replaced quickly. Perceived Obsolesce is when companies change products that work perfectly fine, but become outdated quickly. The purpose for this is so we will keep consuming. This leads to a serious problem where we need to dispose of the unwanted problems. We are burning and putting these items into the ground and air. These items contain hazardous chemicals that are polluting our air.
Leonard says, "It is a system in crisis." I think her strategy of explaining things by analyzing systems is very informative and shows us the process in how things are made and the cause and effect this has on us as a society. It fills in the blanks of the material economies system.

Politics and Knowledge

When it comes to education one is usually judged by the job you hold and where you got your education from. Just because you have a degree or a diploma from a highly decorated school does not necessarily mean that someone who went to a less known school is not as smart or equipped to do the same job equally well. Mike Rose says, "My cousin likes to repeat an old saying, "It took a guy with a college degree to screw this up and a guy with a high school degree to fix it." Being well schooled in books does not mean that you are well schooled to life on the streets as an average individual. That was the argument that John McCain used when he tried to diminish Barack Obama's formal schooling. There can be a disconnect when someone is highly educated and not in tune with the average citizen in society. I see it in the work place as well. A lot of times management makes decisions that you do not understand and you think that there are better ways to go out resolving certain issues since you are the one interacting in the field on a daily basis. It's time that we merge book smarts with street or common sense knowledge. It boggles my mind that we have all these supposed smart officials in high positions and yet we still can not come to an understanding or resolution to a lot of issues that plague our country.

Business goes to school

It's a good thing that businesses have an interest in our educational system. The reason is they have a vested interest in the future of the America's youth They want to know that they will have a crop of talented individuals to work in their industries when they graduate from school. Businesses give money to schools so that they will be able to buy books and give better instruction. Some will argue that the reason they do this is because their donation is tax deductible. One problem we have is we do not pay our teachers enough money for the great responsibility that they have of getting our students ready to go out an contribute in the real world. Mike Rose says, "Teaching or running a school is characterized as just not being that hard." I think we have a shortage of good qualified teachers. There are a lot of teachers out there, but just because you have a degree saying you can teach does not mean that you are good at instructing students and getting them to understand what it is that you are presenting to them. A lot of times businesses are just focusing on the short term, instead of seeing the bigger picture. Rose adds, "So many of the commercially driven verbal and imagistic messages that surround our young people work against the development of the very qualities of mind the business community tells the schools it wants the schools to foster." Until businesses and schools get on the same page we will not get the most out of the relationship between the two needed to get the most bang for the buck when educating students.

The Experience of Education

You can not quantify all the good things that you experience in education. It is a rewarding feeling when you learn something new that you can use in your daily life. The experience education provides is one of hard work. It also helps you learn about responsibility and develop problem solving skills. Gaining knowledge can help improve one's self confidence. Mike Rose says, "Education gave me the competence and confidence to independently seek out information and make decisions, to advocate for myself, to assume that I could figure things out and act on what I learned." When you learn new things it helps to make sense of the world around you. Having knowledge allows you to operate independently. It also allows you to have a positive impact on society.

In search of a fresh language of schooling

When talking about education we need to focus on the reason we attend schools to get educated. Is it for economic readiness and competitiveness or is it for personal development and growth. I would argue that it's both reasons, but mostly for economic reasons. We try to educate ourselves so we can get good careers and support ourselves and our families comfortably. We do not have a uniformed curriculum when it comes to education. The only thing that is universal is mathematics. Our school system is broken when "The wealthiest public schools spend two to three times more on their students than the poorest." How are underprivileged students supposed to compete with kids who come from money. The answer is they're not supposed to compete. The system society has set up is designed for the wealthy to stay on top and for the poor to languish in obscurity. We need to reform our educational system so that everybody has as close as equal chance of succeeding as the next person. If we can ever get to this place society will be better off. Their would be less people living in poverty and the crime rate would go down. We would become more productive as a nation.