Open Blog #1

For Spring Break I went to the Dominican Republic. I went because some friends found a Groupon for an all-inclusive resort and I thought it sounded nice to go sit on the beach for a week. I didn’t really know anything about the Dominican Republic and I didn’t do any research before getting there. But when we got there I was shocked by how poor it was. We took a bus from Santo Domingo three hours north to Puerto Plata. During the bus ride I noticed that there was trash everywhere on the side of the road. And there were places where I saw people burning trash and where I could tell that trash had been burned. I also went on a boat to watch my friends go parasailing and one of the locals who was with us had a drink and he went to throw his cup into the ocean and I stopped him. He said that he loved the ocean but didn’t understand what was wrong with throwing his plastic cup into the water. The language barrier prevented me from fully explaining the issues of polluting the ocean, but I did what I could. It was so shocking to see so much trash on the ground when I know from school that it could be leeching terrible things into the soil and the groundwater. And to see people throw things into the ocean where I know it could kill marine creatures or wash up on the beach and cause problems there. While I am sure there are also people in the United States who do now know/care about littering and pollution, it just seems like there is such a disconnect between here and there. Maybe it’s because it is so poor so people have other things on the top of their minds to worry about besides littering, but if people were educated about the health of the environment, maybe they would realize that we are all part of one big cycle and polluting the land just comes back around to hurt you. 

Blog #13

Prompt: "What do you think of ecofemisnism before you read, and after? Did you have any strong reactions? What do forms of dominance do you see in the world around you?"

I am part of the ecofeminism presentation team, but reading the articles a few weeks ago was not my first experience with ecofeminism. Freshman year I was in a philosophy class that looked at humans and technology.  We had to do a group project at the end of the semester and I do not remember exactly what my project was all about but I do remember researching Vandana Shiva. She was my first look at ecofeminism. So my general understanding of ecofeminism was that men think they are better than women so they dominate them, and women are associated with nature so men dominate nature too. And that all comes together in a real world example when men running big businesses in the United States tell men and women in Indian (and elsewhere) how to interact with nature through agricultural practices. The land and the people are being degraded and dominated by western masculine ideals. I reacted strongly to the domination of anyone who cannot stand up for themselves, just because you have the power doesn’t mean you have to wield it in a harmful manner.

And there are forms of dominance all over the world, men over women, adults over children, developed countries over developing countries, people over nature, etc. 

Blog #12

Prompt: "Would you join the Green Party or not?  What aspects of green values do you believe should be ideally incorporated into a "green" party?  Do these align, do you think, with the Green Party? Also, are the Earth First! activists justified in their actions?"

I think that my view on what a Green Party should be has changed since I entered this class.  Before taking POLI 477 the word “green” to me really only had environmental implications. Therefore, a Green Party would be one whose main concern is the environment. I would expect a platform that included things such as sustainable agriculture subsidies and alternative energy subsidies as well as increase in acreage of protected lands. Now that I’ve been in POLI 477 for a couple months, “green” has a broader meaning.  “Green” now encompasses social aspects of equality and openness. So I would expect a Green Party platform to have social facets as well such as improved local participation and decision making and increased availability of resources and opportunities.

After reading through the Green Party’s 10 key values, I think that they line up well with my current view on the meaning of the word green. There were still concepts in there that would not have immediately come to my mind as being “green” (such as non-violence), but I think everything works together well on their values page. And I would join the Green Party!

First of all when it comes to Earth First! I love the term ecodefender. I would feel empowered being called something like that. But I also don’t support vandalism and destroying private property. I understand wanting to make a point and to monetarily hurt a company seems like a good way to do that, but I still don’t agree with it.