Reflection

    I have enjoyed this course and have learned many valuable things. Throughout this semester I have learned to analyze how and why I do things, along with consider if it is the efficient and most eco friendly way I can be doing things. I have learned that caring for the environment is much more than just  the physical aspects. It also means considering how we interact with each other and ensuring everyone has equal rights and opportunities. It is also about how we view ourselves in respect to the physical environment. This course has raised my interest in environmental studies and I look forward to taking more enviro courses.

Carl Honore: In praise of slowness summary

     Carl Honore discusses in his presentation the need for us to slow down in our daily lives. When we rush and try to speed things up we become careless and we forget about the impacts of what we are doing. In the west we view time as linear, once it is gone its gone. From this is born the idea that time is money and therefore we try to find ways to speed things up and do things faster, but when we do this we often forget to enjoy ourselves and don't give others the time they deserve. This results in poor or broken relationships and a lack of communication.
     A new "slow" movement is spreading across the world. It started with the whole slow food idea, that we need to get away from fast food and return to more traditional foods which are healthier. There are now "slow" cities being built where the infrastructure is focusing on slowing down and recreational leisure sites such as parks and walkways. There is a slow sex movement which is focusing on better quality sex as opposed to "quickies". Some European country's are reducing the hours worked in a day, they are finding the productivity actually increases along with quality of life. Not everything we do needs to have a timer on it. This is not saying that for somethings slow is best, there are situations where we need speed and to do things quickly. What we need to do is find the balance and be able to shift gears depending on the situation.

Life and Death of the Salt Marsh summary

     John Teal and Mildred Teal's article is about the ecological significance of salt marshes. Salt marshes vary depending on the region upon which it is found. In the north the marshes are covered in a dense grass. The roots bind the wet mud into a firm surface. In the south the marshes are covered by only one grass which is much more separated than in the north. The roots however are developed into an intricate mass holding the squishy mud together in a layer that floats above a more liquid layer. At low tide the salt marshes is a vast field of grasses, but at high tide it becomes a floating sea of grasses where much water is visible. This environment provides a refuge for marsh animals that cannot stand submersion in salt water.
    We are destroying these marshes by dredging, filling, and building. We also destroy them indirectly via pollution. We need to implement a method of preserving these marshes which includes safeguards against increased pressures for further development due to our ever increasing population.

Environmental Justice for All summary

    Robert D. Bullard's article is about environmental discrimination against racial minorities and the poor. In 1991 the idea of what "the environment" is was broadened to include where we live, work, play, worship, and go to school, along with the prior understanding of it to be the physical and natural world. Since the early 1920's through to 1978, over 80 percent of Houston's landfills and incinerators have been located in or close to Black neighbourhoods, thus exposing them to many harmful substances. Similar discrimination's against the Black community have been made all across the nation, weather it be dumping of oil laced with toxic PCBs along roadways, or hazardous waste landfills these are all predominantly located in or along Black communities, even though Blacks make up only 20 percent of the region's population. In 1996 after five years of organizing, the EPA was finally convinced to relocate 358 Pensacola, Florida. families dioxin dump, thus marking the first time a Black community was relocated under the federal government's giant Superfund program.