This is a short video, with beautiful photography, from a New York Times reporter about tin ore extraction, take a look.
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This blog has been created as a forum for students at the University of Michigan enrolled in a course titled "Technology and The Environment", designed by Professor Joe Trumpey for the School of Art and Design. This section is lead by graduate student instructor Ashley L. Lieber
5 comments:
Rachel Less
November 21, 2008
Section 5
Spring
In response to the chapter entitled “Spring,” I really did not take very much away from it. I found it irritating because I saw it mostly as one big chapter devoted to him promoting himself and adbusters. There were several times when he would unnecessarily throw in a direct self-promotion which I found to be extremely annoying, but ironic at the same time. For example, on page 132, he states “Anyone with a PC and a modem could go the Media Foundation’s Website (www.adbusters.org), download a….” which was clearly unnecessary, not to mention a shameless plug. That was the most annoying self-promotion, but there were also many others (feel free to look back and count the number of times he did something along those lines). The whole general theme of the chapter was also him promoting himself and his fellow “culture jammers” and how “awesomely amazing” they are because they’re basically rude individuals.
Also, another reason that chapter irked me was because he spent several occasions insulting Christianity. I am Catholic and I took a huge offense to that. I really don’t think religion has anything to do with corporations or anything like that and I don’t see any need for him to insult someone’s religion, especially when he only insulted Christianity. The comment that I found most offensive was the one where his friend stated that Jesus seemed like too much of a “loser” to be classified as a God. Firstly, I found no reason for him to have even included that statement in his book, and secondly, common sense should tell you to keep a comment like that to yourself. As of now, I have absolutely no respect for this man simply because he apparently has no respect for my religious views, which are in fact part of me.
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/murray/Courses/Religion/Overheads.and.projections/piegraph.religions.by.no.of.adherents.gif
While reading the article about biodiversity, I was actually reminded of my linguistics class. See, all year, I have been taught to think of languages as “resources,” and Eldredge urges us to think the same of wildlife. It is relatively easy to do this—both wildlife and language can be used to understand the world as a whole. They each include subcategories (language classifications and genera, for example). Also, both languages and species can face endangerment. It is easier to notice an endangered species than it is an endangered language; this is likely due to the instatement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.
The ESA was designed to protect species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth.” President Nixon pushed to have the act passed when he realized that the conservation efforts of his time had proven inadequate. The act also vowed to protect the native ecosystems of endangered species—I’m sure Eldredge would approve of this decision.
I’m sure several people believe that the ESA only aims to protect endangered animals, but it also tries to preserve endangered plants and invertebrates. Of course, the one unfortunate thing about this program is that it only pays attention to those species which are creeping toward extinction. It’s too bad that we can’t help preserve certain groups of plants and animals before they become “endangered” or “threatened.”
An “endangered species,” by definition, is a “population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters.” Most (if not all) of these parameters are being changed by humans, as Eldredge suggests in Life in the Balance.
As time goes on, less and less endangered species are being reported, thanks largely to human involvement. Things might be starting to look up, in terms of ecosystem preservation.
Here are some endangered species from the marine area of Cambodia:
http://www.unepscs.org/images/posters/Marine_Endangered_Species_in_Cambodia.jpg
—Eleanor Schmitt
Maggie Baczewski
Section 05
In lecture last week Professor Trumpey talked about the Industrial Revolution and the sudden spike in mechanical innovation. Before we talked about the Industrial Revolution, or the beginning of machines, we watched Ed Burtynsky’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes. A clip of a Chinese woman assembling a circuit board really stuck with me after class (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7aJoiVg8Ig). Her hands were moving so fast that she looked like a machine. When the factory workers sit assembling and performing the same actions all day, they go into a trance. It’s like their minds completely shut down. When we create more machines and depend on them for ‘happiness’ we lose our humanity to the point where we’re willing to take it away from other people. These people are treated as machines that are there to give us things to buy. The planet is 4.5 billion years old. The Industrial Revolution began with the steam engine in 1765. In the 24 hour timeline of the planet’s lifetime Professor Trumpey showed us, we have managed to create the world we know today in less than the blink of an eye. The human population has expanded and consumed to point where we’ve destroyed the planet and it only took us milliseconds.
After watching the short video and narration on tin ore extraction happening in Congo, I was once again confronted with several thoughts about the comparison between our economy and society and the third world nations in Africa. These happenings in Congo are a perfect example of how much these people have to go through on a daily basis just to make a very small amount of money. They are either unaware or do not care that where they are working is incredibly hazardous to their health. The narrator discussed that there is an open-air slaughter house extremely close to the tin mines, and that the individuals that work there bathe in the body of water that receives much of the waste that comes out of these slaughter houses. There are also authorities of the government that watch their every move, and receive compensations for doing close to nothing compared to what the tin workers do on a daily basis. Something as horrible as this is so hidden from what our society learns from the various forms of literature and television that cover current events. We here so much about certain topics, sometimes becoming incredibly redundant, but news about events like this one happening in Congo are rarely talked about unless it is a topic of special coverage. I think that news like this impacts individuals like myself very strongly and will inspire them to make moves in their own society to help awareness of tragedies like this become lifted up to a much higher level.
Erica Mouns
Blog Post
“Summer”:
For discussion on December 2nd I have read the last section of Kalle Lasn’s Culture Jam; Summer. The entire book has brought up questions of how I live my life as well as how the people around me are living theirs. Our society is slowly (or as time goes on more quickly) killing our planet.
Lasn’s discussion of “rage” made me think about how ‘jammers’ in the past accomplished their goals in comparison to today. Maybe people have just become too lazy to take action. People could feel a new sense of power in choosing to do nothing. But it is important that the power is instead felt by pushing companies back into their ‘rightful’ place. “Eco-rage” and “psycho-rage” seem to describe what is happening in our society very accurately. I found it really interesting that Lasn’s pointed out the “Lying is the major form of human stress” (143). I totally agree with this. People lie to avoid other people or to avoid more work. People even lie to themselves. Every lie creates more complication and more stress in the world.
One section of Summer that interested me was talking about student athletes who refused to wear Nike uniforms. This is a place where students do have the power to speak their voices and have the power to create change. But all I could think about while I was reading this were my friends who are on varsity sports teams. They get anything they want. And they get it all for free. Even if the athletes can create change by not using Nike, they still are supporting the massive amounts of money that go towards their equipment. What other things could be done with that money? How many third world civilizations could be fed? I don’t think this is what Lasn was going for, but I couldn’t get that out of my head.
A bit about the ore extraction video:
This mine is illegal, but still the guards and military people get paid huge amounts. It surprised me that it is so expensive to live in the village next to the mine. How do they expect workers to live there? How much money do the mineworkers make? I also wonder if there is any other work available for these people, or is working in an ore mine the only option in order to feed their families?
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