You and Sustainability

Monday was a fabulous day on the calendar: EARTH DAY. And as it turns out, some cities have events throughout this entire week to celebrate Earth week, which is cool and all, but honestly, shouldn’t we be “green” every day? The other day, a friend of mine asked me some questions on sustainability, so of course I felt a need to discuss some ideas here.

Some people, upon hearing “be green” and “Earth-friendly” may sigh. Some even mutter. Earth day has been extended to Earth week. Oh, great. Now there are going to be more tree-huggers parading around, preaching on about the ever shrinking rain forests that are continents away. For some, the whole be green is just a waste of time, a phase. What can one person possibly do that could improve the overall state of the planet? Call me overly optimistic, but as it turns out, a lot. Small changes do not ever affect any one person; small changes snowball into big change. We just have to mold change to be for the better.

Now what on earth (oh that was clever) can we do? We can take it upon ourselves to look at our daily routine and see not what we do, but what we use. If you live in a place like the United States, you know how easy it is to get what you need. Fill up the tank? Just drive down the street. Thirty minute shower? No problem. Burger King? Pick up a Whopper after filling the tank. Most people have warm water coming out of a wall, an abundance of food, and fuel when needed. We are generally under the impression of having an endless wealth of resources. All you need is the money to pay for it all.

I wonder how many Whoppers I can buy with Ulysses

Because we think like this, as if money equals sources and as long as money is available, sources are available. So then we keep using, keep abusing, and have driven ourselves into a bit of predicament. I’m not one of those “HUMANS ARE TO BLAME” kinds of people, but we really could think through our actions further. Perhaps we shouldn’t fall asleep in the shower whilst we are still trying to stay awake on three hours of sleep. Do you really need to stand for half an hour under warm water? Wouldn’t you be warmer if you were dried off and in a big sweatshirt? Or maybe you can think about your meat intake and the effect the meat industry has on the planet. Maybe that Whopper can wait until a cross country road trip.

As for the use of fuel, if you live in a city, walk. The problem is that the States were never built like Europe. Europe is made up of clusters of cities. The States pretty much have people everywhere. So if you don’t live in a city, there is really no place to walk to except your friend’s house. And then public transportation? Don’t bother unless you’re willing to spend most of your time waiting, and then be uncomfortably squished with other humans in a bus (which is simply a metal box on wheels). For more on public transportation, here is an article I wrote for a college student newspaper: http://ltifiles.blogspot.com/2013/04/public-transportation-ripta.html.

So really, it is entirely up to the individual to make a change. Sure, there are big organizations out there trying to reduce human impact on the Earth, but guess what? Those organizations are run by individuals, each doing small things that will cause big change.

Oh existential crisis

Going through school, whether elementary or college, we are always in this constant mid-life crisis. Or maybe that’s just me. But everyone goes through some form of a crisis. They become overwhelmed with the vastness of the world that they do not know what to do with themselves besides curl up in a ball and hide in their basement. There is always the ever consistent questioning of what we are going to with our futures. An entire life lays ahead, paths waiting to be worn by new feet. Obviously, not every single path can be traveled. But what if you miss out on something? You will go through life and miss out on some of the most incredible experiences all because for the rest of your breathing days, you get to do one thing. All because you found a ring named Precious and there is simply no getting away from it without falling into a pit of lava. In some way, your entire life will spiral into nothingness.

Wrong.

Number one: you will not end up sitting in an office building for your entire career. That part time job where you bagged groceries in high school? You probably had that job for the money, not long term.  This is the kind of perspective you have to have. The job you have in school is not likely to be the same one you have in twenty years’ time. Sure, you will specialize in something, writing, cooking, or maybe being a scientist. But that does not limit a person from experiencing fields besides their own. Take writing for example (my favorite thing to do). There are writers literally everywhere. EVERYWHERE. They find their niche in magazines, newspaper, novels, and blogging. The list goes on. Perhaps you would start off at a small newspaper near you, start to build up a fabulous portfolio. Then you climb the ladder from there. You won’t experience just journalism, though. You’ll find yourself in any kind of writing medium, maybe traveling around the world. Maybe you like biology, and find yourself writing up articles for the Scientific American. Opportunities are endless.

Martin L. King Jr. once said, "If you can't be the sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."  If you find yourself in a job with a low pay, and it looks to be no way of getting out, do not drop everything. There is nothing wrong with being thirty and washing cars for a living. Guess what? You have a living. Do that job as best as you can. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up running that car wash or inventing a new foamy wash that makes cars fly. Maybe I’m overly optimistic. Perhaps this is what I tell myself when I find my life spiraling down. Either way, King has a great way of putting the future into perspective. Do the best you can offer with anything you do. More importantly, know that whatever you end up doing with your life, it is not limited. 

SHMEAT!

For the past couple years, tissue engineering has been taken to a whole new level. It has been brought to the level of…edible. This is known as in vitro meat, or lab grown meat. It is also known to some as Shmeat, a name I particularly like. Scientists have successfully grown an edible hamburger. Okay, so not an entire burger, just a one by three centimeter chunk of muscle tissue. BUT if a burger were to be made by continuing to grow that little piece of meat, a burger would cost about $250,000.

 Now why would scientists even bother? It’s expensive. We have cows, chickens, even the shrinking population of fish. All that can be bought at the Stop and Shop down the street for less than twenty bucks. An even better question: what is the point of lab grown meat? There are many reasons besides ‘oh let’s experiment with tissue engineering since we have some money to do so!’

First off, the really bad effects harvesting meat has on the environment. In order to raise a farm animal, such as a cow, you need land. This cow needs to be fed properly to achieve the perfect scrumptious, deliciousness of meat Americans have come to love so dearly. To have an eight ounce piece of steak, you need approximately 1.6 kilograms of feed. That adds up to about 18 years of growing corn. Plus the land needed just for the animals themselves. That’s a ton of farmland just for a package of meat.

Next we have water. Still looking at this eight ounce steak, it takes 3,515 liters of water to produce this meat. That’s five years’ worth of water for a single human being. WHAT? That is far more than I had expected. With the amount of fresh water decreasing, this is a bit of a statistic against the wonderful world of meat.  Then the amount of greenhouse gases released to produce regular meat is equal to the amount of released when driving 25 kilometers.

Not what in vitro meat actually looks like

In vitro meat (terrible name, they need a better one when the product makes it to the market) has many pros when it comes to the environmentally and animal rights conscious. In vitro meat would not require feed, and needs only lab space and storage. There you decrease the amount of farmland needed greatly. You definitely save on the water bill as well. What is really interesting about in vitro meat is that you get to eat an animal without harming one. I know some vegetarian friends who love bacon, but love the living piglets more. Lab grown bacon? Not a problem, and not one little piggy shall be harmed for you juicy bacon.

This then blows up into the whole argument over natural versus artificial. I think it is pretty cool that science has come the way it has. However, I think I’d rather just cut off on the meat than eat something from a test tube. There’s the alternative for people who prefer slaughter on animals: vegetarianism or just eat less meat (which is not all that hard). But meat eating is going to become a real problem with the growing population. All our land is being consumed to harvest a product that we really don’t need to eat as much of as we do. The demand for meat will only increase as developing countries become developed. Shmeat will not be in stores for a while yet, but it looks to be a very plausible part in our future.

Marriage

What is marriage? For every person, it is something completely different. For some, it’s an event that is to be taken very seriously. Others call it love being taken to a whole new level. In history, marriage joined kingdoms and provided families with new wealth. Most traditionally, marriage has been designated as between a man and a woman. Over the past decade or so, it has come to the average person’s eye that perhaps gender has nothing to do with marriage.

We all know gay marriage will be legal one day. But what are we fighting against exactly? We have DOMA, for example, an act signed by Clinton in ’96 saying marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. I’d like to think of that as a starting point to what’s going down in D.C. and across the country. Was that act even constitutional? To my knowledge, there is no mention of anything about marriage in the constitution. So why are there even laws considering marriage?

There’s the whole “don’t get married until you’re 18” law, WHICH OF COURSE makes complete sense. That is the age you are considered an adult under the law. Logic. There is common law marriage, where there was no witness, but both parties have taken each other as husband and wife. Some states still recognize common law marriages. Then there is civil marriage, which is recognized by the state, et cetera, et cetera. Names that go on a marriage certificate really aren’t, or shouldn’t, be of too much concern to the state. This means that those names on a marriage certificate are only really needed for identification.

To be honest, why does the government even care who we marry? I’m not out there fighting for gay marriage rights, but I have nothing against it. Go on, live your life. It is your life right? We’re talking about a marriage, not some sort of felony. Who you marry and what gender, race, religious affiliation two people happen to be, why is the government going to worry about that? There are more pressing matters to deal with. How about this: the only intervention the state needs to make with marriage is having the documents filled out. Other than that, people should be free to live their married lives as they wish. 

Ah, Standardized Testing...

SATs, ACTs, and a variety of state or regional testing are students’ most nightmarish annoyance. You spend three to six hours meticulously filling in the dreaded bubble sheets. Answering questions everyone else is answering, robotically filling in essay sections, and mentally cursing the person who designed this boring torture device. Why is this test so important anyway? It’s a test deciding what standards you should meet and when. High schools in Rhode Island have passing this fiend of a state test compulsory to graduate and be on your way to college.

Recently, fifty adults from Rhode Island took the NECAP, the state test for the northeastern region. Sixty percent failed, earning a score within the range of “substantially below proficient”. Rhode Island has begun to implement a new policy requiring high school students to pass the NECAP in order to graduate high school as of this year. The purpose of a state test is simply to see where students are at in their education, not to deem an individual as able to graduate or not. If the NECAP is so important that you have to pass it in order to get out of high school, why can’t an adult pass it?

The thing about standardized tests as a general is they are merely standard. They do measure a student’s expanse of factual information, and allow the state to gauge a school as a whole. That in itself can be expanded into a whole argument over whether the government can decide what a student can learn and when. However, using these tests to declare a student able to move on to their future endeavors is a bit silly. Out in the “real world” you need so much more than facts moseying around your brain. You need to be able to think, be creative, be innovative, be individual. There is no test for that, nor does our system have the goal of teaching those things.

There’s another concept; standardized tests force teachers to base their curriculum solely on preparing a student for the content on the test rather than allowing the students to soak up and learn as much as possible. The rest of your life shouldn’t be balancing on whether you pass or fail a state mandated test. School is made for learning right? Not for taking a test. It is superfluous to use a state test to decide whether you graduate or not.

I understand the use of standardized testing as a means for the state to see how schools are doing. That is completely understandable since public education is in the hands of the government. But please, don’t abuse the system.

There's an app for that

I was browsing the App Store on my iPhone when I came across a new app. Intrigued, I clicked on the little blue cube with the white Q. It was then that I finally was introduced to Quizlet.

Quizlet was originally launched in 2007. Andrew Sutherland, a high school student, needed a new way to memorize vocabulary from his French class, and thus, Quizlet was born. Sutherland was fifteen when he wrote the code making personalized electronic flashcards. Quizlet has grown to include various games and a wide variety of topics students are able to study. They have gone from being used solely on a computer to being available on many mobile devices.

You don’t need an account to start using Quizlet. You can get the app for free on either Apple or Android. For ten to fifteen dollars (per year) you can acquire Quizlet Plus, which allows the user to customize flashcards with images. I've just started using Quizlet for SAT words, with the game Scatter (much like the game of Memory). And yes, it is helping me learn my words and keep them in my head. The game times you and every time you play it, you want to beat your previous time. Or maybe that’s just me.

Something you are doing, anything really can make a huge impact. Maybe you teach an after school art class that could be the very reason one of your students still has hope for the future. Another of those students could grow up and have his art displayed in Milan. By releasing Quizlet to the public, Sutherland has indirectly aided many a student who are at a loss when it comes to studying. Don’t underestimate what a great impact a small, maybe personal, accomplishment can have on others. 

Freedom and Traveling

Recently (two months ago now, but the feeling is still new) I acquired a most valuable piece of identification: my driver’s license! I no longer was on a permit requiring an adult in the car. Even better, my parents provided me with a nice little Bug, along with some Harry Potter stickers to put on the windows.

One of the best things about getting your license is indeed the sense of freedom and responsibility that goes with it. You are no longer bound to need a ride to hang out with your friends or head to wherever it is you cause mischief. This little three inch card with a picture of you on it grants you a new frontier to explore. Having been a military brat the first twelve years of my life, having gained a means of independent travel is amazing. I spent years going from state to state, and even getting to live in Europe twice. Getting behind the wheel, merging onto the highway, seeing the open road in front of me. Every single time, I’m imagining the countless adventures that lie ahead.

I love traveling. I mean, so do most of the world’s population it seems, but still. I came home from studying in Spain for four months. Barely a month after I’m home and I have my license, ready to go on another adventure. It’s an addiction. When most people are going hard on Reddit, I’m on Google Maps or cheaptickets.com. I plan routes, check out flights, find hotels. I know that most of my adventures won’t happen for a while, but I love just sitting in front of a map, finding yet another place I want to visit or live in.

Another thing I have grown to love: learning languages. I was raised with English and Spanish. For three years, I lived in Italy, and had to learn Italian. I’m currently trying to learn Mandarin Chinese. I still have a list of languages I want to have a basic understanding in. And then there is all the culture that comes with language and traveling. I won’t even get started on that.

It’s really incredible everything there is out there to learn. I’ve been lucky to have experienced all that I have so far. Now that I can drive, I'm already planning a great many road trips. As I like to say, adventure awaits!