Last one! (Post #13)

When I think about the words “sustainable consumerism” I think that it might be somewhat of a contradicting pair of words. In this American society, and with globalization at the forefront of all continents shores, it is hard to think that any of us could really truly consume sustainably. Though I strongly agree that there are enormous benefits that accompany both capitalism and globalization, I feel more that they could be negative drivers for sustainable consumerism.

“Sustainable consumption asks us to consider issues that go beyond the individual when we shop. These include not only the ecological impacts of what we buy but also the equity, human rights and political dimensions of sustainability in the production and consumption process. These aspects of sustainable consumption provide guidelines on how to reduce the social and ecological impacts of what we consume.” (Definition of sustainable consumerism according to http://www.unesco.org.)

The term Greenwashing, after searching its definition up on google, hits home with me. I am a marketing major and this term “greenwashing” gives absolutely all the hard work of honest marketers and honest PR representatives, a negative image. I think about this term and how companies apply it to their food products, labling them as organic, local, or fair-trade. Local food tends to be cheaper (so yes I would be willing to buy it) but I would not really be willing to pay a premium for organic, money is everything to people these days and the cheaper the item the better.

Do I prefer mom and pop stores or the glorified chain stores in strip malls such as Gulf Coast Town Center I guess I would say I like a little of both! It’s nice to have choices. The ramifications? Well considering I did my final project on the difference between locally grown fruits and veggies as compared to conventionally grown (or internationally grown) I know that buying local produce from local farmers has some great benefits! When you buy directly from these markets, the farmers get to keep 80-90% of that dollar that you pay, you are also helping to support you local economy. You are also getting to know exactly where your food comes from and how it is grown.

"People who value local as their primary food criterion are sometimes referred to as locavores. The term "locavore" was coined by Jessica Prentice from the San Francisco Bay Area for World Environment Day 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100 mile radius. With such excitement and momentum building in the local food movement, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore as its word of the year in 2007." (sustainabletable.)

Little Old Josephine and Estero Island

My over all experience was a great one on our last field trip to Estero Island Cottage and Matanzas Pass. Quite possibly one of my favorite experiences of this whole course. What made it so enjoyable was getting to see a true insight of the history of Ft. Myers beach, through the eyes of a long time activist that has been there since the 1930s, Josephine Hughes. A truly passionate woman that seemingly will stop at nothing to protect her homeland, and make sure that its long history lives on through her. She was incredible about knowing details, and captivating with her personal stories and warm grandma smile. She was precious! I am jealous that when she was growing up, she could jump and play in the emerald green, crystal clear, 15-foot deep Ft. Myers water, untouched by the wrath of pollution.

The cottage itself was filled with wonders, I found all the artifacts inside to be quite intriguing and interesting…especially the seashells. As we headed out as a class onto Matanzas Pass, I very distinctly remember the smell of hot air, filled with moisture. The sun burned its way through the taller mangroves, that of which after today I can successfully identify; the red, white and black leaves of each mangrove tree plus some other defining characteristics to go along.
* Black Mangrove: expunges salt onto its leaves, root nodes stick up out of the ground
* Red Mangrove: drop down roots, pointed tip of leaf
* White Mangrove: most rounded leaf, found at higher elevations

One way that I feel the local quality of life in this area is enhanced is because of the quaint and homey nature of the neighborhood. The highlight of this “quaintness” is typified by the elementary school that has less than 200 students enrolled. Though the kids there might think it’s a pain to know every single kid that goes to their school, I feel that it gives them the advantage of being close to their home and super easy for them to be interconnected with nature. (After all, the Matanzas Pass is practically in their schoolyard.)

I think about the experiences Josephine had when she was growing up and I think about how she has seen so much change and development over her years on this little island. It makes me reminiscent of my hometown, and comparing just what changes and developments I have seen in my 20 years of living on this earth. I have definitely seen a lot of construction, building of more and more houses, more schools and more roads, dipping even farther it seems…into the everglades. (Basically my backyard!) But I am not so tied to this environment, as I am to my real childhood hometown in upstate Warwick, NY. It seems as though things have not changed a smidge back in that area. Everything is as crisp, sprawling and spacious and underdeveloped as ever, and I wouldn’t in a million year ever accept from a developer, 300% of Warwick’s market value. To me that place needs to stay the way it is, so I can go back there one day and live in nostalgia of the amazing childhood that I was blessed with growing up there.

Heel to Toe

Calculating my ecofootprint at www.footprintnetwork.org was kind of fun, and interesting too. Instead of doing the more general bar, I tried to be as specific as possible to make my results more accurate. Apparently, with the way I lead my life, it would take 4.4 planet earths’ to support my lifestyle. I find this a little hard to believe. I mean, I just don’t think that it would be that much. Because I am only one single person, on this planet of 4.6 billion and I know there are people out there with lifestyles more lavish than mine, so I am under the impression that if this were true, and other people are worse than me, then planet earth that we know and love, might have imploded already.

But that is just my reasoning and I am well aware that others probably disagree with me. Even so, I played around on the website a little bit and got familiar with it. I selected the “explore scenarios” button and I saw a few different choices that gave me the opportunity to reduce my personal ecofootprint. I thought they were a little bit too big of first steps to take! And I was trying to be as reasonable as possible, and only ended up selecting one choice. That once choice was to be a fully committed buyer of earth friendly packaging when I buy my products, ranging from recyclable to fully biodegradable.

This one check mark brought me from 4.4 earths down to 4.1 earths to sustain my lifestyle. Not too big of an improvement, but it’s something I suppose. The final question that this weeks prompt for the blog asks, is if the whole world population lived like me, then what is the maximum population that the world could hold…in accordance with this “ecofootprint” calculator. I could not find anything on this calculator, let alone the website, that gave me such an answer to this question. But since one earth cannot (hypothetically) support me, I don’t’ think if everyone else lived like me, that the world could hold them at all.

The term “ecofootprint” got me thinking. And I started to wonder the difference between that and a carbon footprint. I looked it up and here is what I came up with. The Ecological Footprint (or as I cal it here, ecofootprint) has emerged as the world’s premier measure of humanity’s demand on nature. It measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its carbon dioxide emissions, using prevailing technology. A bit differently, a carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc.

This breaks down even further into the primary footprint and the secondary footprint. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane). We have direct control of these. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown. To put it very simply – the more we buy the more emissions will be caused on our behalf.

R3N3WABL3 R3SOURC3S

To Jimmy Cardigan, I wouldn’t have much to say besides really just sharing a chuckle. I know that people don’t like being told what to do, and in such a brash maybe even sarcastic way, but the truth of the matter is, he is right! If you’re cold, put on a sweater. Stop complaining about how high your energy is, and maybe just change the way you dress a little bit. Like I said, his statement is more amusing and comical to me, than is it offensive or rude.

In regards to the question “Is energy too cheap?” I say, no! Of course not. NOTHING can ever be too cheap. And the fact that we can ultimately control how high or low our energy bills are, we definitely shouldn’t be complaining that they are too high.

Today in class we talked a lot about alternative energy sources, my favorite being geothermal. (Not really sure why, I just think it is the coolest out of the other options) Along with geothermal energy, we have seen developments in solar energy, wind energy, hydrothermal energy and even some possible ideas in bio-fuels, example—ethanol! Hence my cute little photo of the cartoon corn that says “I’m in everything.” All of the above, pretty interesting stuff to be sure.

When it comes to investing time and money into these renewable energy sources, I wouldn’t say I’m an all the way “free marketeer” nor would I say that I am all for complete government control. (My goodness that would never be good.) I would say I fall somewhere in the middle, thinking that yes it should be my right to motivate and create, but also a role of the government to help the process along and maybe create some incentives. That wouldn’t be so horrible. I also do not think that it is wise for the government to steer us away from investing time money and brains into looking into these other potential forms of energy.

Even though I tend to quite like the idea of geothermal energy, I have to think that solar energy probably has the most potential to be a big contender of the future. I think that as time goes on, we will be able to make it more efficient, more affordable, and even more aesthetically appealing to people along with incentives to install them and maintain them in their own home.

As I mentioned at the birth of this blog and at the beginning of this course, I feel that right now, and probably in my near future I can do small things to help reduce my energy footprint. I unplug my appliances when they are not in use, I turn off lights for as long as I can and let the sun be a natural illuminant, and I try try try try to take the shortest showers possible. In the future though, I might be willing to expand my efforts and do even more. Not to mention, one day encouraging my own children the importance of saving and conserving.

Let's Go DOWNTOWN!

High rises, hustle, bustle, lots of people, Starbucks on every corner, horns, honking, breaks, night life, opportunity for business…these are the sort of things that immediately come to my mind when hearing the word ‘downtown.’ However, in visiting Downtown Ft. Myers today, none of these really came to my mind. The city of Ft. Myers could be considered a city experiencing something of a renaissance. The streets were practically silent, and there were hardly any people, save for a few businessand law practicers. The buildings generally didn’t exceed 3 stories and I noticed a lot of greenery, including Banyan trees, Royal Palm trees and plenty of grass space to be sure and brick pavers instead of cold concrete and asphalt. Dr. Durham pointed out that the reason for these brick pavers, and perfectly fitted awnings were installed as elements in an equation for ‘new urbanism,” meaning people and pedestrian friendly…even though there weren’t many pedestrians to begin with! Another thing that I quite liked about this area was that from any point in the city, we weren’t more than a 10 minute walk from the Caloosahatchee River, meaning “the River of the Caloosa,” that of which I learned is one of the connecting bodies of water that bring boat traffic from West to East coast.

The Gulfà Caloosahatcheeà Okeechobeeà Atlantic

Another interesting tid bit learned on the trip to day, was that the Caloosahatchie was indeed tinkered with, by man, in order to fit the needs for being a proper water causeway. It was dredged and straightened, creating a nutrient deficient body of water and also one that unfortunately erodes quickly.

I imagine that cities all around back in the day were more like this small city of downtown Ft. Myers and have over time evolved into bigger and more bustling metropolises. Speaking of back in the day, I was very interested to learn about some of the history that comes along with Ft. Myers, the first being that it was once, during the time of the Seminole wars called Ft. Harvey and the name was later changed to Ft. Myers, the name we know it by today. Another bit of history that was my favorite to learn, and also most likely for the reason why Ft. Myers is the city that it is today is due to FDR’s New Deal. Right around the 1930’s when America was feeling the effects of one of the biggest stock market crashes in our history, and entering a deep and long depression, it was out with Hoover and in with FDR. The New Deal, as we know, was intended to create jobs, any and everywhere. And this is really how Ft. Myers came to be, with cattle moving and citrus growing as it’s big industries, offering people the opportunity to work.

All in all I would have to say that Ft. Myers, compared to most other cities in the wonderful land of U.S.A, is pretty sustainable. I feel that its retro build, pedestrian friendly model, quiet streets, and greenery sprawling are all elements to render it more sustainable than most other cities in America. Surely it has the potential to grow in the future, but overall I think it will be considered quiet and quaint for now.

Etamilc Egnahc--Climate Change

Climate change, has to be a combination of both man-made and natural causes. There is no may that it could just be one and not the other, because if you ask me…it take 2 to tango and if there is one side of the story there has to be another converse side to that story. I would consider not just one, or two, or three people/entities responsible for these contributions to climate change and increased carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. But rather I think that every single person that is alive and breathing on this earth right now has to have some sort of contributions to these changes that we see going on in the world today.

These days, the media has a pretty huge influence on America’s popular culture. The same would be true I imagine for other highly industrialized first world countries. But it seems as though we cannot really watch the news without hearing biased views or one sided arguments. It all depends to what channel you flip to and how long you decide to watch what is on the channel. Overall I feel that climate change is portrayed in the mainstream media as: “it’s all your (meaning man’s) fault.” When you hear something for long enough, you start to believe it which is why I really wish that the news and other media sources tried a little harder to express more of what is going on in the big picture!

I feel that it is less of the media that has influenced me personally, and more of my time spent here at FGCU getting my degree that has made me more want to change my lifestyle and fully live up to the motto: REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE!

Enough people are saying that we need to take steps towards protecting the environment and choosing nature first, so that we will have those things to pass along to our children. I do believe that it is time to sep up to the plate are really reduce our dependence on oil, and the fouling emitting cars that we use. And I do think it is time to find a way to waste less, and maybe not use so much plastic. When I grow up, I can’t wait to show my kids the joy of being out doors and the importance of protecting that joy and connection with the environment. After all, there is so much to learn! Not to mention being outside has been proven to reduce stress levels and calm the mind.

So I say, Sure! Let us step up now and start making changes. Even little ones can do us a world of difference in the future. Like protecting the environment for our children, making the air cleaner now and tomorrow, and really tapping into alternative energy sources. The earth has so much more to offer us than just oil! There is more out there, so lets use our smart, developed brains and stop being dependent on it. It is wanted. It is needed. It must happen. Not tomorrow, but today!

Moringa, Katuk and Prickly Pear Cactus are on the menu at ECHO

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Mei-Nung Bamboo >

My experience at ECHO this week was very interesting. I had no idea really what ECHO was before we arrived at the facilities and watched the introduction video. After watching the video and seeing the pictures on the wall, ECHO’s overall reaching goal hit close to home for me. This project started in Haiti, which shares an island with the Dominican Republic, a place to which is like a second home to me, as I have done service work there working with children. My experiences in the D.R. are without doubt the most fulfilling and amazing experiences I have ever had in my life. So when I saw the children in the video, my heart truly went out to them and I realized that what ECHO is doing is seriously brilliant. One distinction that Vic our tour guide made is that ECHO is not by any means giving away free aid, rather they are developing and teaching, and there I thought, was a real difference. Not to mention it is a constant on going effort which is so vital for these families in these countries and most importantly the children.

When we actually went out to see the “Global Farm” I really was not expecting what I saw. For some reason I had this notion in my head that I was going to see perfectly manicure crops and gardens, with lush green everywhere and neatness and order. Which is I suppose, my view of “American Agriculture.” And though this was definitely the case in some parts, I was surprised to see that everything was laid out in a way that was actually the opposite of what I was expecting. I saw a lot of brown and dried up plants mixed into where they were growing new green plants, not a mixture you usually see working together. It also seemed to me that plants just kind of grew wherever, mixed with other different types of plants. I was expecting to see…ok this is Moringa over here, that is Avocado over there and so on.

I absolutely think that the work ECHO is doing is totally relevant to the developing world because, like it says in their mission, we are helping by teaching and doing…not giving away and going away. They are teaching these people the skills they are going to need to feed generations and generations down the road. Which I think is so spectacular and really humbling. Appropriate technology is technology that can be adjusted to the specific needs depending on the region you are working in. Being able to bring the right forms of technology in at the right time, and also considering the factors in the environment that make that technology useful.

I think I would want to volunteer for ECHO if I could go and actually be in a country helping. I would want to really feel the effects of the work, not to mention how connected I am to people (esp. children) and I think I would find great pleasure in doing service abroad with ECHO. The only think that turns me off a little tiny bit is how religiously centered they seem. I don’t know why but for some reason hearing “the work of god” or doing “his” work by the means of science and technology, just freaks me out a little bit, and makes me uncomfortable. I am not very religious and I don’t know why but it just seems unnatural to me to be “all about god.”

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