Image from Star Shadow Remote Observatory, New Mexico, USA
Horsehead Nebula, Orion's Belt
"Look deep into nature, then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein
Dear Artists,
You are creative problems solvers by design.
The reason you have been required to take this course is because you are attending one of the top 10 public Universities in the Nation. The environmental issues that have been presented to you will grow with intensity and this is no time to sit back and let others solve the problems for us, especially given our place in the world.
You are a part of an essential dialogue of the 21st Century.
You know the data- you have read the books (I hope), listened to the lectures, shared your ideas, and will hopefully continue to develop your own.
The "Green Movement" is the fastest growing and most essential movement in our history.
Innovative solutions combined with new modes of thinking, of reconstructing culture, will be the savior of our planetary crisis.
Let this be an open space for the imaginative-
Reflect on the change the education of this course has offered you.
8 comments:
Before I took this course I admit that I was very much just like most people in this country - mildly aware of the environmental issues, but not informed enough (or generally too lazy) to make any alterations in my life in order to address the severe environmental issues that are surrounding us in almost every aspect of our daily lives. Like most Americans, I was generally aware that there are pressing environmental issues, but because I wasn’t recognizing these issues in my own daily routine, I didn’t pay much attention to the long term effect my careless actions will have. I didn’t think about how much food I threw away out of each batch of groceries I bought, and I didn’t think about how much water I wasted when doing dishes and brushing my teeth. I didn’t think about where the meat I buy comes from and how its processed and how that effects my health. I didn’t think about how many miles food traveled to get to my plate and how much unnecessary fuel is burned if I don’t buy local. I didn’t think about how much electricity it takes just to leave the microwave plugged in and how simple it is to save money just by simply switching to energy efficient light bulbs. I didn’t let these issues become a part of my life simply because I thought I had more important things to worry about. I didn’t think that anything I did personally could make any kind of difference. I didn’t think there was much hope. I went into this class extremely apathetic towards environmental issues, but now that I’ve learned how urgent it really is for each one of us to become environmentally conscious, I’ve started to make some changes in my everyday habits.
The first thing that really impacted me from ADP III: Technology and the Environment was the article “This Steer’s Life”. Before reading the article, I honestly had no idea the process in which my meat went through to get to the grocery store, and I really didn’t think it was very important until I learned the truth. Now, I’m rather terrified to eat beef or chicken that I don’t know the origins of. Since reading the article and becoming aware of all the harmful hormones and antibiotics being fed to cows and chicken, I’ve been doing my best to buy local, organic, and/or grass fed beef and free range chicken. It’s been an expensive switch, but a sacrifice I’ve been willing to make in order to make sure I’m supporting or voting for the best possible way to process meat in the most humane way. I’ve also re-learned how to go grocery shopping in general. My grocery list has been shrinking week by week to the essentials in order to make sure I eat everything I buy and don’t waste perfectly good food. This means more trips to the grocery store or farmer’s market, but this is also a sacrifice I’m willing to make to avoid throwing away food and becoming better at only buying what I with actually eat.
Beyond becoming conscious of what I’m eating and where it comes from, I’ve also made other simple changes in my life now that I’ve become more environmentally concerned. I changed all the light bulbs to energy efficient ones, I don’t let the water run when I’m not using it, take shorter showers, and make sure to turn all the lights off that aren’t necessary. My roommates and I minimized our energy use and we’ve been buying organic and local when possible. Although I don’t have a hybrid vehicle, I try to limit my use of cars when possible, and use public transportation, biking, and walking. Though these changes are simple, its a start to lessening my ecological footprint, and I plan on continuing to do so in as many ways that I can manage. Overall, this class has definitely made me realize the importance and urgency of becoming environmentally conscious. I’ve become aware, informed, concerned, and mentally altered. I’ve been shocked, scared, excited, frustrated, terrified, encouraged, disgusted, worried, and motivated all at once. In the state of environmental crisis that our world is in currently, we need all the help we can get to encourage others to follow suit in order to keep the planet up and running. It cannot support 6 billion people that do not care enough to support it, and this needs to change. This class has changed my perspective on the world as we know it, and I hope to do the same for others in order to make this earth last as long as possible.
From a one semester long class, I have become extremely interested and active in the green movement. In how strongly this class has made me feel about environmental issues and how our choices every day do affect other people and our environment as a whole, it makes me want to share the information I’ve learned with everyone I know. If it has caught my interest with such a tight grasp, I am sure it will have the same affect on others. Others, however, do not share the same requirements (of taking this class), as I do, and therefore are not provided with this information. Learning about these things is extremely different than many other classes, for it is relevant in every aspect of our daily lives. We see the effects, we can understand the information because we are the topic of study.
I find every class so interesting, and have spent hours upon hours doing my own research. While providing family and friends with small pieces of information here and there, I have noticed change in their attitudes, as well. By changing the stores and coffee shops I visit and buy from, I have forced my friends into making (what I view as) “better” decisions, as well, for this new location is now where they visit and consume what would otherwise be another starbucks coffee. I pay close attention to the packaging of materials when I purchase anything. I watch where that packaging ends up, and I do my best to restrict my waste. I am extremely conscious of energy, turning lights off, heat down, unplugging power cords and phone chargers, etc. I have become extremely interested in the food issues talked about at the beginning of class, and have made significant changes to my diet. These are all changes I have made as a result of this class, and I feel that increasing awareness of environmental issues (especially ones where our daily decisions play a large scale role), is critical, for it is the kind of information taught in class that is impossible to ignore. I feel upon learning, the majority will change at least a few small habits. If everyone changed a few small habits, while a few out of these people grew increasing interested and made drastic changes, the world would see significant change.
A problem I have noticed, with all of this information and changes I have made in my personal life is my increased frustration and annoyance with others. I see the water running while someone brushes his or her teeth, I see the lights left on in vacant rooms, I hear the words, “oh gas is cheap, we can drive”, the list goes on. This frustration is something for me to explore. Explore how I can use my skills and knowledge to increase awareness among others.
A problem for many, I feel, is that the negative result of one’s decision seems removed form him or her. It will cause global warming… but that will be out of your lifetime so who cares? (kind of mentality). This is changing, however, of many problems will arise in our lifetime and the lives of our children. If that alone is not enough to make people change, than it may be a lost cause, but I am hopeful.
The more I reflect upon this course and my experiences with it throughout first semester, I am really bewildered about how much information I have taken in. I was obviously aware of the increased media attention the green movement had been catching recently, but the details of what has led up to this change in perspective for many were not comprehended by myself and a lot of my fellow peers. It becomes really frustrating when I try to put my new knowledge of ways to preserve the environment to use and encourage friends and family to participate and they just really do not seem to care at all. Part of me believes that this is because they have not been exposed to all that I have been exposed to in this class. Some of the statistics and images that I have seen are so shocking and disgusting to the point that I don't know how anyone who also saw them could not change their ways. The eating out of season lesson was the first that I really began to see in real life. I found myself forbidding my boyfriend to buy corn and peaches at Meijer towards the end of October. Buying those products that are out of season is something he and others can definitely live without. Realizing these connections between making small adjustments throughout our daily lives and the big impact it has on the environment are the steps more people need to start taking.
I think a big part of seeing more numbers of population making strides in the right directions is education, and it starts with college students like us. As our generation becomes older, we are the ones who in some ways "grew up" learning about these concept and technologies. We are the people who can start demanding to implement healthy ways of existing in our work environments and other endeavors. We as artists and visual people are the ones who can create work for the public to view and become impacted by. We can use our own educational experiences and work to create extensive environmental education programs throughout as many public institutions, at as many age levels as possible. The farther and wider these concepts and ways of thinking are stretched, the more people will realize and become motivated to start changing their own lives and others for the better. I also feel that one of the reasons these topics have become to hot recently is because people are starting to realize that the state and health of our earth is becoming extremely bad and some levels are the lowest they have ever been. Humans are beginning to comprehend how much their actions have affected the earth in a negative way. The only way to reverse these effects is to reverse our way of thinking, the way we live, especially the way we consume our resources. What I am taking away from this course is a higher understanding of the natural processes that occur daily throughout the world. I also now understand how much of mine and others creative work can impact others and the way they look at the world around them. Some of my favorite lectures this semester were those when we were introduced to artists who implement these concepts in their artwork and thus create amazingly visually pleasing pieces that also have a significant amount of meaning behind them. I know that the things I've learned this semester will always stay with me, and I will continue to consider them and make changes as time goes on, as well as encouraging others around me to get a clue and do the same.
Jayme Rosenstock
Taking this class has made me learn, comprehend and focus my thoughts and energies on ways to improve our environment. The current catch phrase everyone hears is how we need to put our energies into going green. But is everyone putting forth their best effort? I feel so many people are rather apathetic about this very important cause. We need to reuse, recycle and educate everyone on ways to save our planet.
The best way to reach everyone in this world-wide campaign to make our planet environmentally friendly is by education. It is a great idea to make environmental classes mandatory at all schools since I believe education is the best way to spread the message effectively. There are so many ways everyone can help on this process, but so many communities aren't as progressive as others. The neighborhood I grew up was the first recycling leaders in the state of Wisconsin to start enforcing that all residents use recycling bins. For us, this is a given. We were taught to do this and it isn't even something we need to think about any more. But then when I visit my grandparents in Ohio, their city of over 100,000 people had never joined in on the recycling efforts. I do think just recently they might have separating their newspapers, but they didn't separate the can, from the plastics from the glass. This program is so easy and all cities in the entire world should easily be able to implement this project. Everyone goes to the grocery store, but do they realize the life expectancy of a plastic bag versus a paper bag versus bringing your own cloth bags? Just educating the world on these differences would be an eye opening experience for everyone.
I am particularly happy about what this course has offered me: a chance to throw a benefit concert for a local environmental organization. I don’t know that I would have been motivated enough to do this by myself, but the group project really gave me a chance to go for it. Now, Alyssa Chambo and I are throwing this big CD release party, in hopes of attracting a large crowd (and, therefore, lots of money). The organization, For Generations to Come, is extremely excited about being a benefactor for the event. In turn, I am really glad that we could aid them in this way.
I’d like to formally invite everyone to this event. Here are the details:
What:
MePlusYou Saves the World:
A Benefit Concert and CD Release Party
When:
January 9, 2009 at 7:00 P.M.
Where:
The B-Side at the Neutral Zone
310 E. Washington
Ann Arbor, MI
Who:
MePlusYou (of Livonia)
Search the City (of Detroit)
The Sleep of Reason (of Ypsilanti)
For Generations to Come is a new organization based in Manchester, Michigan. Here is a link to their website: http://www.fgtcsanctuary.org/
We thought that a CD release party would bring in the largest crowd, as release shows are usually better-attended than run-of-the-mill concerts.
Aside from the group project, this class has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I was aware of most of it before taking the course, but now I have a lot of solid details. I'm very happy that I was required to take the course.
—Eleanor Schmitt
Oh, I don't know.
I don't feel as though I've learned much. My dad's always been kind of a big old environmentalist. And people I associate with tend to get into things like that. I constantly felt in lecture like "I've heard this before. Kevin was blathering on about this like a month or two ago". The things we learned in class and through the readings...well, I feel like those have always been in the back of my mind. I consider myself a common-sensical person, and I think a lot of what we covered was....common sense brought to the forefront. Buy local, it uses less fuel. Resources aren't necessarily endless. Childern in sweatshops have the short end of the stick, etc. Things of that nature.
Never, though, have I so considered oil to be such an evil thing. I remarked on this in my long essay for the midterm. It's black, it comes from the ground, it's the source of so much waste and pollution and political unrest. Surely it must be the work of some great evil. Sure, the devil, whoever. It's like rancid pus from deep in the earth. Before we started widely using it for basically everything, gosh, wasn't the world so clean, happy, even? Then, boom. Oil, progress, cars, computers, iphones, depression, war, the earth choking on it's own farts.
If you believe in God, or some divine creator...I hope you know that they're pissed. Look at the grand scheme: earth is a fucking oasis. We have everything we could ever want for on this planet. We are so goddamn lucky to have been evolved, placed, created, what have you, on this particular rock, spinning around this particular star. And look at what we did with it. Damn, we done fucked up. That's the thing I don't understand about right-wing christians. Not to make grand assumptions about any group of people, but they're kind of not interested in things like...halting global warming. Or recycling, so much. Things like that. People who are participating in the green revolution are typically left-wing, not so religious. Hey religious people, what's up with that? Isn't earth the greatest gift your God has ever given you? Why you fuckin' it up so bad? Don't that reserve a spot in hell for you?
Even though I didn't necessarily learn any grand, new topics, this class has certainly pushed me towards leading a greener lifestyle. There are a lot of reasons here. I think Trumpey is a fabulous guy, and I have loads of respect for him. I'd like to go ahead and emulate some of his qualities. Also, somehow, having a required class on this subject has made me think it's a lot more dire a situation than I had previously thought.
Also, and I said this in class, Jared Diamond is awesome.
Carolyn Nowak
This course was a whirlwind of information about every aspect of life, and that has an upside and a downside. Throughout the coarse I really felt rushed through just about everything we studied while at the same time the class opened me up to a lot of ideas that I maybe hadn't thought of before or even known anything about. This class really has made me much more aware of the world around me and what I can do to make it a better place. As an artist I have begun to learn what I can do to use my visual skills to help make others aware of the same problems that I was unaware of before this course.
It does seem like there is a lot of stuff that is fucked up in this world, but by learning you can begin to come to this realization and begin to work to fix the problems. At the beginning of the course I was depressed whenever I left the lecture hall, but through this depression I have begun to understand how i can work to change these things rather than just sulk about them.
Tae Hyung Kim
12/12/08
ADP 3: Section 5
Taking a class ADP3: Environment & Technology was a great experience. I was not sure how this class can be related to arts, but now I can clearly see the relationship between environment, technology and arts. And I am beginning to notice more pieces about environment and technology. Moreover, I get to be more aware of the global crisis that we are currently facing: global warming, oil shortage, deforestation and decreasing biodiversity, etc. All these topics are relevant to what we learned previously in ADP2: Society, and how the society is responsible for the actions we have taken.
Moreover, it was shocking to know how meat is processed as Joe Trumpey explained in lecture and in This Steer's Life. Contaminated with hormones and antibiotics, we have been eating meat not much knowing about its origins. Now, I am trying to be more cautious when choosing meat and prefer to buy local and organic beef. It was also shocking for me to know that salmon is dyed to make it look fresh. No wonder there is a market like Whole Foods Market, which is a natural and organic grocery. In fact, people are becoming more aware of local and organic products.
In addition, I learned about how technology is responding to global energy crisis by developing alternative energy sources: solar, wind, hydrogen and ethanol etc. It is expected that the current Carbon Dioxide emission will increase exponentially and lead to environmental damages that will take a long time to be recovered.
In sum, it was a great experience for me to take ADP3 and learn to talk about environment and technology and how they are relevant to arts.
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