How much do I really need that?

I like to think of myself as a frugal person when it comes to purchasing items. Being a "poor college student," I try to buy food when I run down to nearly nothing, limit my shopping to when I need an item of clothing for a specific reason, and limit my impulse buying. It has helped a lot to not spend as much money, but even doing those simple tasks do not cut my consumption down a significant amount.

After reading Durning's essay, It made me think a lot more about how much I actually consume. It' not just the items I buy and use, but it goes even farther back in the process. Just thinking about everything that goes into making a cup of coffee I would buy at the Front Room makes me want to cringe a little. The coffee starts off as a bean which must be sorted through a machine that uses a lot of energy. From there it is packaged (using more energy). Packages are shipped to its destination (using lots of fuel and creating air pollution). The coffee beans are processed into the coffee purchased (using more energy from its machines). The coffee is purchased in disposable containers that most toss in the trash (creating waste). The trash is transported to the landfills (using more fuel and creating more air pollution).... and the process continues even further.

So I guess what I am thinking, is everything that is purchased or used has a lot more impact on the environment than we realize at first. We are a consuming population that will continue its consuming no matter what. We like our new products and like multiple forms of them. There is no way to eliminate consumption in our society, but we can try to cut back on it. Purchasing local products can help cut down on transportation and energy use. Keeping clothes longer and not having to buy the newest best technology is another idea, which also saves you money. What you really need to ask yourself before purchasing what you want is "how much do I really need that?"

OU's Sustainability Efforts

Everyday we are bombarded with messages about being more environmentally friendly. When I see this, I stop and think about how much work that takes to do that. But in reality the littlest changes in your day to day tasks can help.

After doing the research for this sustainability essay, I soon realized that helping the environment is quite simple. You don't have to go to the extent of planting 1000 trees, or trading your car in for a bike, just pay attention to which trash can to throw your waste into. In Baker, Grover cafe, the library, and about any other building on campus, there are different bins for disposals. You chose to toss it in the trash, compost or plastic bins. Don't know which one to chose? Just look at the pretty pictures about that inform you of the correct receptacle.

These separations help by keeping the environment and campus more sustainable. The plastic gets recycled and the compost gets sent to the compost machine which is turned into reusable soil. With both of these items being deducted, it reduces the amount of trash sent to the land fill. If all that is being done just by choosing which bin to toss my trash into, then I don't think it's a hard choice for me to make to help keep our campus sustainable.

The Trouble with Wilderness

To be completely honest, this reading confused me a whole lot. Well, maybe not confused, but made me think. Cronan started off talking about how early years wilderness was viewed as a wasteland and a "sublime" place. I didn't understand why the wilderness was a place you didn't want to go. Reading through the rest of the section by my self did not make me think one way or another. Discussing the reading in class, and hearing others' points of view, helped me see where Cronan's ideas came from.

I always viewed the wilderness as most of the class members did. A secluded foresty area with bears and other fuzzy animals. Maybe that idea was set in all of our heads from the exposures to movies and media when we were younger. It reminds me of the movie Bambi with all the creatures in the forest. A type of mystical and natural location away from big cities. This was not exactly reflected in Cronan's words of wilderness history.

I do agree at the end when he ties everything together, that nature is all one thing. A tree in the wilderness is natural, just like a tree in a city park is natural. They are both living plants sprouted from the ground, but in our minds we see them as separate objects. To me, the city, forests, oceans and every other part of this world is just that, a part. These parts all make up the single entity of nature.

I may not understand Cronan's thoughts on early people and their idea of wilderness, but that does not change mine. It is interesting to see how people back then viewed it as compared to our thoughts now. It was like being afraid, but we are all so interested and wanting to preserve the land.

And so it begins...

Well, the blog is up. Lets see where this adventure takes us.