Rethink The Cool

Watch this video on YouTube: (search for “Adbusters Logorrhea” if it doesn’t work)

Also view this online video: The Story of Stuff

This question will take you a few days to answer. I want you to consider your Mental Environment.

The overall question for this month is:

How are you influenced to buy certain products?

Other questions I want you to answer are (include as many as you can. You’ll probably need two paragraphs this month):

1. What part do you play in our consumer crazy culture?
2. At what cost are you willing to give up your own identity?
3. Are you aware of your mental environment and how companies target teenagers specifically because they are considered malleable and unable to think for themselves?
4. What are the problems in a consumer crazy culture?
5. How can you “fit in” without owning brand name materials?
6. How do you feel when you cannot buy something that everyone else has?
   

You need to do some basic research and observation before you answer these questions:

Look at your clothing, your electronics, the food you buy, and the material items you wish you had. How many of those things are brand names or are advertised regularly? If you own a lot of brand name materials, do you feel you add to our consumer crazy culture?

Take notice of all of the advertisements you see in a 3-4 day period. How many ads do you see? What are the predominant materials being sold? What percentage of the advertisements focused on food are selling unhealthy food?

What percentage of the ads are things you already own or want to buy?

One Earth, One Ozone

The politicians of this year's Federal Election should be most concerned about global warming: the depletion of our ozone layer. This matter is something that affects EVERYONE and EVERYTHING in the world, from humans all the way to plants and other small organisms. Winters are getting colder and summers hotter; animals are losing their homes, especially the struggling polar bears in the Arctic. Without ice for them to rest and walk on, they are forced to remain in the same place longer than they should - that's like us humans losing the land that we stand on! Speaking of that, the earth on which we place our feet may not be there in a few decades. As the ice in the Arctic/Antarctic melts, it adds more water into the oceans, encouraging floods. In time, water will swallow up many cities that borders water. I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but if the government doesn't start taking this subject seriously, who knows what will happen to our planet in the near future?
Even the simplest of contributions could dramatically decrease the depletion of the ozone, such as planting vegetation to eat up some of the carbon dioxide that gets released into the air through greenhouse gases. The harmful chemicals that get released into the air from car gas could lessen if people started taking the bus or carpooling more often; perhaps using natural gas will do some good as well.
Until life on Mars is established (if that ever happens), there will only be one planet that can support several species of life - Earth. One Earth, one ozone layer. Let's hope that whoever becomes (re)elected will get that message.

RESOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth

This Green World

A very important environmental factor that the government should be concerned about is the continual issue over global warming. People need to take a step back and realize just exactly what the world is coming to. I'm sure the human population is aware that global warming exists and is gradually becoming worse every minute of every day, but people need to be aware that global warming isn't just a problem that will disappear overnight. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased to 31% above pre-industrial levels. There is more CO2 now than there was at any time in the last 650,000 years. It is expected that due to the lack of effective greenhouse gas pollution reduction the global average temperature will increase 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. All the news that is heard about disasters around the world is a result of the actions we take to further create global warming; these actions include an insignificant amount of environmentally friendly decisions, such as walking more, saving electricity, recycling, and much more. So far, warmer global temperatures have resulted in heat waves and periods of unusually warm weather, ocean warming, sea-level rising and coastal flooding, glaciers melting, and warming of the Arctic and Antarctic. As global warming continues to worsen, the world will see more frequent occurrences of spreading disease, earlier spring arrival, plant and animal range shifts and population change, coral reef bleaching, downpours, heavy snowfalls, flooding, droughts, and fires. As a matter of fact, there will be approximately 200 million people around the world who could be displaced by more intense droughts, sea level rise and flooding by 2080. The United States alone needs 80% decrease of pollution before 2050 to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. Time is running out, but nevertheless, there are many people working to save the Earth. For instance, there are many landfills that specialize in landfill gas destruction by capturing and burning methane, then using it for electricity. While this may seem out of hand for everyday civilians like us, we can contribute by doing simple tasks. At home, we can switch to energy-saving lights, and use environmentally friendly appliances. If we make smart choices, we can cut more pollution than the entire emission of over 100 countries! Furthermore, we can use less gas with our current houses, invest in a hybrid of solar powered car, or simply get out and bike, or walk more. Not only is it helping the Earth go green, it is also good for our health. Of course, never forget to reduce, reuse, recycle, and renew. We still have a long way to go with a limited amount of time before the world can see drastic improvements in global warming. It is up to us to repair the damages that we have done, so we must all contribute to save what is left in order to see a beautiful green world again!

Resources:
http://www.climatehotmap.org/
http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=5816
http://fightglobalwarming.com/page.cfm?tagID=135

End the trend of cigarette and tobacco!!!!!!

The Canadian political leaders of 2008 should absolutely be focus and concerned on cigarette and tobacco and the effects in the community. Smoking cigarette and chewing tobacco is not only becoming a very popular trend among many Canadians but also it is becoming a major health issue in our modern society especially toward teenagers. The health issue is really important and everyone have already known the damages that tobacco and cigarette can do to our body. However,we still need to reconsider about the unhealthy pollution that smokers is creating in our environment when they are smoking. We should pay more attention on this than global warming because we all can actually make changes if we all start caring. Unlike global warming, waste consumption, etc. These environmental factors take a lot of time and researches to make a different. Indeed, smoking can make changes if the government start banning the production of tobacco. This issue should definitely be paid more attention on because many innocent people are risking their health issue and not realizing how dangerous it could be to live under the dirty pollution like this. And, we all have to stop the companies to produce cigarette so that our environment can be clean. Did you know that smoking can cause harmful diseases such as cancer? Therefore, our federal government should ban all the advertisements in the media. Tobacco has been proven that is it not a medicinal remedy, but as an addicting and extremely harmful stimulant. However, many people still smoke even if they know the possible consequences that can affect their health. We should not only be focusing on air pollution, gas prices, waste consumption, etc but should mainly focus on the health problem that teens face because of their addiction into cigarette and tobacco. Due to all these consequences, such as teens not getting good health and that human beings are not living in a clean and fresh pollution, and the government should instantly ban the companies and make changes to our country. We should start caring for our future generation! This will only happen, if individuals start thinking taking action.

resources: http://health.learninginfo.org/cigarette_smoking_facts.htm
http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/tobacco.html

TIM'S DIVINE, SUPREME, GODLY, ALL POWERFUL, AND AWE INSPIRING RESPONSE!!!

Currently, there are two very convincing sides arguing over an exceedingly controversial issue known as global warming; however, both parties need to take a step back and look at what is between the two of them: the solution. People and groups who support global warming claim that man-made CO2 emissions are going to cause the earth to slip into a disastrous state within a few hundred years. Scientists against the theory state that the earth is simply going through a natural phase and that temperatures were higher back then even when there was no pollution. Both parties present adequate scientific data to back themselves up but both of them should recognize the one great truth: pollution is bad. It is detrimental towards every single human being's health and affects not only the air, but also water supplies and the soil beneath our feet. Even critics of global warming should be trying to solve the problem of pollution, and if they do won't the global warming fanatics be satisfied as well?

The government's current tactics of dealing with pollution is extremely ineffective. Running ads on television to promote saving energy is not going to do anything and a carbon tax will simply slow down the industry and further the global economic crisis. What the government needs to do about the environment right now is to gradually increase the investments they are making on green technology. Notice how I used the word "gradually." It is an incorrect move to place a disputed environmental topic alongside very real top priorities such as Afghanistan and the global credit crunch. We should be putting a few billion dollars in it each year and extending bonuses (such as less taxes) to big factory corporations who do not pollute as much, therefore creating a competitive industry in which new, environmentally friendly sciences will develop. Also, an estimated 40000 jobs could be created in order to satisfy the demand for green energy which is a huge benefit. All this can and should be done at a pace which doesn't hurt other aspects of government spending, especially national defense. A few very promising technologies such as clean coal and nuclear power is ours for the taking and could become extremely reliable sources of clean energy if we figure out how to overcome a few difficulties. In 2003, George W. Bush implemented a program called FuturGen whose ultimate goal is to make clean coal a reality. Furthermore, the nuclear waste problem produced by nuclear plants could very possibly be solved with extra research on a special man-made bacteria designed to "eat" the nuclear waste. In conclusion, global warming cannot be confirmed nor disagreed with, but pollution is very real and if we solve it using my proposed "gradual investment" plan, both sides will be satisfied and the environment will be much cleaner than it is today.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology
National geographic documentary I saw a few weeks ago on tv.

Pollution caused by consumption

The most important environmental factor the government should be concerned about is pollution. I feel like this is the greatest concern because not only is pollution in the air and water, it's in the ground as well. Everyone is talking about how the big problem is global warming, but don't forget the real root of global warming is pollution. Landfills are an expensive and time consuming way of collecting trash, plus no matter how we get rid of our trash it puts the environment at risk. Recycling things like newspapers, cardboard, plastic, aluminum, steel, and glass isn't enough, it'll never be enough. We have to look at the root of the problem, which is buying things in the first place. Canada is one of the worlds biggest consumers and that is where our problem starts. The government wants us to be consumers and buy more stuff to strengthen our economy, but strengthening our economy weakens our environment. Companies know how to trick the consumer into buying more stuff. For example they convince us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful (perceived obsolescence). Advertisements and media brainwash us into thinking what we have is wrong, but it can all be made right if we just buy. The government needs to strengthen our environment by controlling the media. We see 3000 advertisements everyday telling us we need to shop, if the government sent a different message like 'RE-USE!' we would have a different country. It's the governments job is to watch out for us and take care of us. We need to stop consuming and start re-using; pollution isn't the solution.

Source: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Recycling

The most significant environmental factor that our government should be most concerned about is recycling. Recycling is something that we can do to make a positive impact on our society. The government should think of effective ways to improve our recycling system because the amount of waste we create is increasing every second. The amount of garbage we make is constantly adding up because of increased population, increased wealth, and new changed lifestyles. Increasing population means that there are more people on the planet creating waste. And also some people are not well-informed about the recycling system. Few of our population still litter along the sidewalk even the garbage can is near to them. Increase wealth means that people would be buying more insignificant things and ultimately create more waste. They would be buying expensive products that are not recyclable materials and would be force to be thrown as garbage. New lifestyles changes, such as eating more fastfood and take-outs, mean that we would be using more materials that are not biodegradable. Eating take-out dinners use plenty of plastic containers that are not recyclable. The government should consider these three factors in making new ideas to make recycling more of a daily habit for citizens. There should be blue boxes at every block so people could recycle their juice boxes or plastic/glass materials properly. Also, recycling reduce the consumption of raw materials, reduce energy usage, and reduce air pollution; things that are still a big part of our environmental problems. The government should be more focused on making everyone aware of recycling because it not only help control our waste, but also some of our environmental issues.

To all the Mindless-Sheep-Cattle-Zombies

Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and everyone keeps agreeing cause its easy. Until now.

This post is pretty much of regard to everyone on both blogs except Alisa and Katrina L (so far).

There is definitely one thing that the government shouldn't focus on for the upcomming election and it is Global Warming caused by CO2. The Earth's climate is always changing. there have been times like the Medieval Warm Period and the Holoscene Maximum where the temperature was higher than it is today. Now obviously there weren't cars, planes, and factories producing CO2 back then so why should the current warming trend be any different? The present warming trend began even before all of the CO2 emitting things were in mass and a 0.5°C rise in temperature of the total 0.7°C happened before the post war economic boom. The post war economic boom era, starting around1940, was a time when CO2 emissions increased exponentially. The temperature fell during this period, not just for a year, but for four decades. Then, paradoxically, the temperature began to rise again around the start of the depression of 1975. Several major ice core surveys all show the temperature and CO2 levels rising and falling together in the past 600,000 years. However, the temperature begins to fall and the CO2 continues to rise for another few hundred years. The same thing happens all the time, the temperature rises or falls and then the CO2 follows a couple hundred years later which leads us to believe that in fact the CO2 levels are caused by the temperature fluctuations, not the other way around. Convinced yet? In addition to everything above CO2 only makes up 0.054% of our atmosphere. The theory of Global Warming says that its man made CO2 that is causing the temperature rise. Animals make 150 gigatonnes of CO2 a year compared to the 6.5 gigatonnes created by all man made sources. A bigger still portion of CO2 comes from dying vegetation and the largest source of CO2 by far is the oceans. So humans make up only a sliver of the 0.054% of CO2 in the atmosphere. Not only is there a very little amount of CO2 but CO2 is a relatively minor greenhouse gas. In general, we should focus on stuff we know are problems that need to be dealt with not these extremely controversial topics such as Global Warming.

Don't believe everything you hear! Don't let people think for you! Don't be a mindless-sheep-cattle-zombie!

I got all the facts from The Great Global Warming Swindle.