Soap Box

https://www.wevideo.com/hub/#editor/897852528

Five Degrees

        Crazy flooding and massive droughts. Due to this war is a huge possibility, well more like a necessary thing for most. China will have to invade Russia and the United States will need to invade Canada to find habitable land. Everywhere, the soil will be bad in one way or another, the availability of fresh water will be scarce and humans will be compressed in the small places that are suitable, but many or most will die off.
         In a world where humanities existence is in question, no other species matters. If humans can find a way to survive that takes from another species, they will do it. Interesting enough, 55 million years ago a similar global warming event happened but this time it wasn't due to humans. There was a huge release of methane gas and other greenhouse gas emissions then, showcased by fossils of animals that only lived in warmer climates being in areas of tundra. It was a huge volcanic eruption that lasted a long time.

         This event was called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Many scientists are taking a very close look at this episode in time because it is so like what is happening today. What is different about today is we are adding carbon at a much quicker rate, in PETM there was 10,000 years from beginning to end. We have given our Earth only a few decades to adapt but that is impossible. Tsunamis can also be a result of such climate change that we must watch out for.
      It is very interesting because the book describes a reverse of globalization happening because we will have to localize to survive. When there is widespread famine and drought then civilizations in the lower regions will move up to the cooler regions and wars will begin if they haven't already begun, "conflicts that were once fought with spears and swords, however, will now be fought with guns, grenades, or nuclear weapons." This chapter ends very grimly, hinting at an even worse future in the sixth degree.
http://people.earth.yale.edu/paleoceneeocene-thermal-maximum This site gives you more information on PETM.

Native Son, Native Seeds

http://www.stthomas.edu/news/native-son-native-seeds/


Engebretson, Kelly. "Native Son, Native Seeds." St. Thomas Newsroom. N.p., 01 Apr. 2016. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.

       The Mesoamerican Institute of Permaculture, IMAP, is a place that I have actually visited, lived and volunteered. The man, Rony, in this article is someone I have worked closely with and I will actually be bringing him to Westerns campus with a grant from the Office for Sustainability so that he can give people information on his amazing ideas. This article focuses on permaculture from the lens of Mayan culture, a way of regenerative instead of just sustainable living.
      When I first visited Guatemala and IMAP in particular I fell in love with the design of the place. I had no idea what permaculture was but I wanted to be a part of it, this thing that had the answer to everything from human waste to CO2 emissions from cooking. I was blown away that they had all the solutions in the global south and in the United States we are still struggling with so many of these small things that could be so easily fixed. 
      Rony speaks on the fact that permaculture is not difficult because all you have to do is let nature do n and observe what it does naturally and then help foster that growth. He makes use of everything from abandoned tires to the pulpe left from coffee beans. We are just a part of nature, not excluded from it so we must act the part.
This is a photo of some fresh dragonfruit I had just pulled off of an overhang of one of the structures along with some sweet plums.

Environmental Documentaries

Cowspiracy and Forks over Knives
      Both of these documentaries and a lot of research I did this past weekend proved again and again that the biggest impact you can make as an individual against climate change is to go vegan and not put in a demand for any animal agriculture. One hamburger takes 2500 gallons of water. Here are all the sources that cowspiracy uses. They are all legit so that's exciting.
      http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
And here are some articles about this documentary. This one also talks a lot about the health of humans and how eating meat and animal products leads to cancers of all kinds and many other health risk factors.
https://www.forksoverknives.com/articles/

Integrated Permaculture
      This documentary was awesome, we watched it at the WeSustain internship. Permaculture is regenerative whereas agriculture takes from the soil and kills the microsystems within it. Your ability to exist is predicated on the Earths ability to exist so if you undermine the Earth then you are undermining yourself. This is a step further than sustainability because we aren't just sustaining what is already there, we are giving back to the Earth and adding good things to it.

Valuing Footsteps - towards a valuation model of indigenous knowledge and cultural expression

https://academic.oup.com/jiplp/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/jiplp/jpu043

Burfitt, B., and M. Heathcote. "Valuing footsteps--towards a valuation model of indigenous knowledge and cultural expression for the sustainability of indigenous people's culture." Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice 9.5 (2014): 383-88. Web.

     My topic is basically looking at different indigenous cultures around the world and understanding that they have been here much longer, as a group, so they know more about how the world works. This particular article is from Oxford Academic, written by Brian Burfett and Marion Heathcote, and it was found through searching in Westerns Library online. As I have been reading it a lot of things have stood out as interesting and surprising. First of all, this resource is from a Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice so it is a bit different than I am used to because I have never read something like this.
      It speaks on Indigenous Cultural Property and how we want to get the information from them on how to live but just taking pieces of what they know will not give us what we want. Everything works in a system and especially in an indigenous culture there is a certain holistic way that they work so in order for us to replicate that we need to look at every part of this system, if that is even possible. Another problem is that we can't just take from another culture and call it ours, as much as we have forced our own "culture" on indigenous people for years, it wouldn't be right to turn the tables. There are a lot of logistical problems that we must address in looking into indigenous knowledge.
    My sources sources are very reputable, it is a scholarly journal after all.

Ishmael 10-13

        The end of this book brings everything full circle, all things getting more and more interesting even though Ishmael dies. Again, so many parts stand out to me, especially as an anthropology major. In these last few chapters we learn about culture and where leaver and taker cultures split off. "Leaver peoples are always conscious of having a tradition that goes back to very ancient times. We have no such consciousness. For the most part, we're a very 'new' people. Every generation is somehow new, more thoroughly cut off from the past than the one that came before."
         Due to the ancient times reaching back so far there is some evolution in the culture that we do not have as a society. When I went to Guatemala and lived among the descendants of Maya I was baffled because they seemed to have everything figured out about how to live because they didn't just take from the Earth. "The Takers accumulate knowledge about what works well for things. The Leavers accumulate knowledge about what works well for people." This is so true.
         A lot of times I want to give everything up in our society but then I still have this irrational fear about living in the "wild." It is because Mother Culture tells us that the Leaver lifestyle is like a dream or nightmare, "a man is scrabbling along a ridge at twilight.. The man is short, thin, dark, and naked. He's running in a half crouch, looking for tracks. He's hunting, and he's desperate. Night is falling and he's got nothing to eat...[he is on a treadmill] because tomorrow at twilight he'll be there running still-or running again..." The book goes on explaining how frightful this life seems to us but in reality it is such a free life to live.
This is very interesting.

Ishmael Chapter 9

     When we spoke about Ishmael today it was brought up that this chapter was particularly uncomfortable and jarring because what we know is true is being tested. This brings up the topic of veganism. I have so many conversations on this topic and a lot of the time the other person is defensive or uncomfortable because what they know to be true is being tested, but that doesn't mean the new information is wrong in any way. Here is something I wrote yesterday that relates:

Who would be down to go shoot a dog?

Did that question strike you in any way? I hope so. How about this one: Who would be down to go shoot a deer?

Hmm, that one probably doesn't phase a lot of you, but why?

A deer and a dog are both animals with no real distinction apart from domestication, but cows(animals that we murder, rape and exploit) are also domesticated so that shouldn't hold much weight.

If it would bring you sorrow to see a dog shot but not a deer, what is the disconnect? Why does our society make it okay to murder some animals but not others?

Animals are animals, that is a simple truth. Loving animals is loving animals, that is a thing we say that discriminates against many and prioritizes few.

Doesn't this go against what so many of us seem to be fighting for, equality?

Think. Question. Research.
Don't do something just because it has been done before and don't justify your actions with meaningless claims that you know nothing about.