Paul Hunter Zaid #4

*Silence*

Silence in our classroom

Silence in our reviews

 Translates to silence in our voices.

Fear of voicing ourselves

Fear of criticism

All leads to silent protection for our environment.

All have an opinion and belief

There is no wrong nor right-only silence

We leave it to others to fight and to voice.

Nature is our focus, money is our delight

Yet, without a voice we have no right.

So be bold and daring-read, write, and critique-it's in our nature and our right.

Simply learn to use your voice and to fight.

Laura Mulhearn #3

www.indiegogo.com/projects/heating-the-rez

I wanted to share this with all of you.I learned about the dene when I went to Utah. The dene means the people. England came to America and named the natives that lived here Native Americans. The French came to America and named them Indians. The land that belongs to the Indian Reservations has very natural springs. The fracking and climate change has harmed us all. We must continue to strive for creating a better environment. I guess each one of us can start with recycling. As humans we can improve our environments if we can work together and help each other.

Laura Mulhearn #2

Laura Mulhearn #2
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 I believe that peer workshopping and whole class workshopping are vital activities to improving myself as a writer. I learn about different perspectives about things. I have realized that others may see things I don't. We are all very inciteful people and the experience of making myself a better writer is evident in these activites. I highly recommend doing this on any kind of writing projects.

Narmada Gobin, #3

Sometimes I sit back and think about how amazing the weather can really be. Like we had so much snow for the past few weeks and tons of snow just piled up on every street corners, sidewalks, and even the roads. I mean cars were even parked on top of the snow because the parking spots have not been fully cleaned out yet. I guess the city is trying it's best with cleaning up but it is so much you can do when mother nature just keeps bringing snow. We had really great weather this weekend. Finally felt good to be outside with your jacket a little opened. I hope we are not going to have any more huge storms to come. The reason that I mention earlier why the weather is so amazing is because, we get all this snow and then out of the blue we get such nice weather to melt it all away. It's as if everything is planned and it is like the environment knows exactly what it is doing. When we have a problem we fix it in our own ways and that is kind of how the weather works. When it rains, we get a beautiful sunshine right away and sometimes even a rainbow. I think the weather is really cool in the way that we have all these different seasons. Some countries don't have the opportunity to experience winter. The winter can be really dreadful but you need a break from the heat sometimes. We need the type of weather for our tans to go away :)

Ximena Esparza, 3

Last week as I was falling asleep to Radiolab, the podcast, and I was listening to a story about a woman who was biking cross country and she met a guy who changed her life forever.

She was an only child and so she had a rather lonely childhood. She carried along stones of all shapes and sizes. These, oddly enough, became her best friends. She would talk to them, wash them, carry them everywhere. Seventh grade came along and sitting in her geology class she felt her world fall apart. Her teacher drew a vertical line on the board, wrote rocks on one side and everything else on the other.

Her life companions were left alone on one side and across the boarder was everything else that is alive. She eventually made peace with the cruel reality but in the back of her mind she always wished it was somehow a lie.

The man she met during that trip stopped on the side of the road to look at some stones and she was unbelievably intrigued because only she would do such a thing. He explained that those rocks were special because they were from the bottom of the sea. When the shells of plankton fall down to the ocean floor they collect and turn into hard sediment rocks. It was then and there when those ends were tied. She asked for the explanation a few more times and just rejoiced in these news.

She knows rocks are not alive and she is not crazy, but she feels better about her lonely childhood and her lifeless friends.

Abdul Moontarin Entry # 3

These past few days the weather in New York city was just wonderful. This beautiful weather literally lightened up my mood. It was nice to see the sun out for the whole day. I spent one of those days at central park. My friends and I went to just hang out and have fun. It really felt good. Honestly, central park looked beautiful as well. Yea the snow haven't fully melted but still it looked great. It just felt as if it was spring again. I love how nature looks during the spring. Yea we all might be sneezing during the spring time but at the end of the day the image it has is just flawless. I can't wait for it to be officially spring again so i can spend my breaks in hunter at central park and just relax.

KayJoon Post #3

All of this reading and discussion in class lately about animal’s rights to life got me thinking about other life. Every life. Who’s to say the tree outside the window isn’t more alive than the lousy Starbucks barista who just served me? Like was mentioned in someone’s close reading, as long as humans are calling the shots on other beings rights, nothing will actually be “fair” or solved. The universe is made up of an incredible amount of energy, and I feel as though it’s going to waste. I would one day like to see all the universes energy used to it’s fullest potential in the best way possible without some silly human sucking the power out of all that everything/one can do.

Jacek 3

Continuing from post 2, it seems that to avoid the aforementioned problem we should proceed in the opposite direction. First, formulate a position on the environment and  its crisis, and then use it as a test of political and other beliefs. If these beliefs accord with the said position, we keep them, otherwise, throw them away. This way is logical, and does not raise serious problems. To formulate a position on the environment and its crisis, we can look to science to provide us with the core facts for its foundation.
Any position has to have this structure if it is to meet the test of reality. Thus, we can use this as a minimum standard for any such position. If a position meets this standard we can deem it acceptable, otherwise, discard it. What other standards can we come up with?...

Paul Hunter Zaid #3

   As I was riding the subway home today after class I started to think about possible blog entry ideas. I stared out into the black abyss of the subway tunnel going past me and I thought about nature and what we had covered in class today-constructive criticism. I began to ask myself how these two can relate to each other in any capacity. Upon arriving at home and beginning to think about it in front of a blank screen what came to mind is how we as humans have all these thoughts, feelings, and opinions regarding anything and everything on our planet, yet what would nature/environment have to say to us about our actions? It may sound rather "hippie" and as a form of extreme "green" thinking, but I really began to wonder how I as an individual would be criticized by the environment for my impact and my footprint left on our planet? Would animals and creatures tear me to pieces and devour my flesh as I have done so to them? Would the Earth rattle and shake to rid the planet of the evil parasite of the human race? Or would I be surprised by the compassion and humility of all the creatures and natural wonders of this planet towards humanity? I will never know the answer, yet, this thought has me thinking more and more of my view and my impact to this planet. This posting may be viewed as totally random and irrelevant, however, our class discussions and focus on nature and the environment has me more conscious of my environmental actions-Thank you! It's my hope that the oysters don't eat me in my dreams tonight...

Ximena Esparza, 2

While catching up with the Radiolab episodes I had missed, I was very intrigued by the episode titled "The Bitter End." A group of doctors were surveyed on various medical procedures and their answers were rather surprising. They said they would not want CPR, dialysis, ventilation, chemotherapy, surgery, invasive te sting, feeding tube, nor antibiotics, among others. Regular people were given the same survey and the majority said they would want all the procedures done to be kept alive.
All the doctors agreed on the same thing, using any of those procedures is the most unnatural and inhumane thing to do to anyone. It is going against the natural processes of the body; making it painful and simply wrong. This made me think about W. S. Merwin's poem Thanks and how it creates a space in which we become aware of our lives and how thankful we should be. Our bodies are constantly working fine and it is only when something goes wrong that we can truly appreciate being healthy.

Radiolab - The Bitter End

KayJoon, 2

I’m really into TED talks and the other day this one really jumped out at me and I had to watch. If you don’t have the time to watch, allow me to summarize. In this talk Juan Enriquez goes back in time to briefly describe human evolution and the paces in which transformation has occurred and how we’re still evolving today. I somehow left this talk with more questions than answer such as, what IF our kids and grandkids are a different species?! Until I watched this talk I had no idea that there was more than one species of human beings roaming the earth at a time, and how people that we may see as “mutated” are actually the future of our species. It also brings to question how much of this never ending evolution is from the way our planet stands, environmentally, and the effect it has on us based on the way we treat it.  It’s evident that there is probably no capacity limit or “full” potential to be reached because the possibilities for our species have been endless so far; which feels good because then everything really is possible, but of course change is scary especially when you don’t know when it’s going to happen and even more importantly, WHY?

Jacek 2

We have discussed the Gerard text, which presents us with a number of positions on the environment and environmental crisis. So the natural question is to ask: on what basis do we choose our position? One move we can certainly make is to select our position based on its agreement, or apparent agreement, with our other views, say political ones: I choose position x because it is in agreement with my political beliefs. But this would be question-begging, for how is agreement with my political beliefs, or any others for that matter, a basis for a position on the environment? It seems that what we need is a way of evaluating the given positions, and this could help up make our choice. How to proceed?...

Abdul Moontarin Entry # 2

 We didn't have any readings this week to discuss. However what we did was go over our drafts of the first essay. Going over our drafts helped me understand what to write. I was having a problem in how to write my essay and how to flow with it, but after the class where we had peer editing, it really helped me organize my thoughts. I'm writing about the article "Animal Rights and Beyond" By David Quammen. My article talks about explaining what Quammen's article was about and also explaining who I felt had a stronger point when it came down to the two people Quammen mentioned who were Singer and Regan. I go on explaining that I feel Singer's point is stronger than Regan's point because of how realistic it is. Honestly, after thinking awhile I strongly believe that we shouldn't harm or have animals suffer that can feel and understand pain. Just think about it. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to be tortured and harmed by people who don't care about how you feel? If no, then what gives you the right to harm these animals that can understand pain. Recently i read this article where this lady volunteered herself to go through the same testing as animals do. She goes through the testing for about 8 hours in a store window where anyone in the public can see what she is doing and what is happening to her.  She was yelling because of all the pain she was going through. At the end of the experiment she felt weak and she still felt the pain that she experienced during those 8 hours. As you can see, she showed everyone how much pain animal testing can cause. So if she went through all of this and feels hurt, just imagine how much pain animals go through

Narmada Gobin, Entry #2

We haven't had an assigned reading for a while since we have been working on our essays. I thought the readings that we had to do a close analyis on were pretty cool. For starters I choose the piece on David Quammen about Animal Rights. It made me do a lot of thinking about whether or not it was actually okay to kill these animal for the purpose of eating. I mean the animals are being put into these horrific places to be killed and eventually distributed for sale. I feel like if I stop eating mean, I am one person and what difference will it make to the meat industry. It would be even harder to stop those around us that are eating it too. Another thing that comes to my mind is whether or not there animals have a specific purpose  and is there lives even worth it. It's so hard to think about because we want to do something but it really does seem impossible. At the end of the day though, I feel as though they do have feelings and they can feel death so why should they have such horrific fates. For the essay I feel like I tried my best to fight my cause that animals should have rights. It's a more serious matter that what my paper says and hopefully we will have a better way for people to find protein that takes the place of animal meat. Animal cruelty should be stopped and pepople should really realize that animals do have feelings and may even serve a purpose for us. Killing them everyday by the thousands and millions just seems so wrong.

Paul Hunter Zaid #2

     As there were no new readings presented or discussed in class this past week due to the weather I had decided to delve deeper into my interest of the Galapagos Islands and its relationship to modern day Environmentalism. Of course the biggest threat to the islands are that of human beings, with the increase of tourism and immigration to the islands to support this industry. Not only are humans impacting the islands with their strain on the natural resources of the islands, but so are many of the animals, insects, and plants that they have brought with them either deliberately or unintentionally. The islands have been under constant threat from goats, cats, dogs, fish, plants, and insects that are introduced to the islands fragile and isolated ecosystem. Major efforts in the past decade have removed these foreign inhabitants by eradicating them from the islands. Many people view environmentalism as dealing with the preservation and saving of a species, not the killing and removal of a species to stop the harm they are causing an environment in which they are not native to. The main point that I'm driving at is environmentalism takes many different forms of initiatives to preservation. Not only do we need to keep an open mind to solving problems, we also need to be creative with ideas to preserving all ecosystems on our planet that are threatened.

Yevgeniy Kotlovskiy #1

I was pondering over the Gerard text again looking for something that may show residual illumination about the positions that are taken up regarding the manipulation of nature. The saddest of the notions to explore here is that humans have(not necessarily) forgotten that they are so small. The cornucopias approach of mass process of resources, the ecologists synergy in maintaining nature under a salutary neglect of the natural epoch of nature.

The foundation of groups like this illustrates faction formation in response to moral condemnation around the same time that a popular opinion starts to form regarding the subject. What this essentially means is that people have thought about the issue while it was an issue and have had opinions to temper their own. This displays that people are turned towards subjective thoughts before objective facts are considered. I find this interesting because it seems very human to put beliefs and opinion as the height of the human condition. Question is; how far will people go to not reach a conclusion? After all, how long can you hold on to a word.

Ximena Esparza, 1

In one of the latest Radiolab podcast episodes, the hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich explored different kinds of black boxes. Those peculiar spaces where… we know what’s coming out, but what happens in-between is a mystery. One of the black boxes they talked about was the chrysalis. Journalist Molly Webster sits down with a butterfly expert to try to tackle this mystery.

They slice open a cocoon and what’s inside shocks not only Webster but also the hosts and all the listeners. A goo-snot-like substance is in place of the caterpillar; no legs, no antennae, nothing. The expert merely puts his finger on it and it just bursts.  

The first assumption is that the caterpillar simply dies, decomposes, and from that goo the butterfly emerges. Then, it comes into question how much of the caterpillar remains in the butterfly. They talk about an experiment in which they expose a caterpillar to a bad smell for a specific amount of time and then it’s zapped. They do this repeatedly, until the caterpillar knows what comes after perceiving the bad odor. The caterpillar is allowed to go under its metamorphosis and when this new butterfly is exposed to the bad odor it flies away from it. This experiment brings to the table the notion that “memories carry through the transformation.” In Quammen’s article he states that Regan’s way of judging what animals deserve rights include “[being] able to perceive and to remember.” Wouldn’t that qualify a caterpillar/butterfly? Also, if we use man as “the measure of all things” it can be argued that humans are as fragile as a developing caterpillar.

The uncertainty of the topic leaves me wanting to rescue every creature that crosses my path.

Radiolab Espisode - Black Box

Melissa Leggard # 1

Who made us?

Could It Be Man Or A Higher Power

Were all looking for someone to blame

Christianity points the finger at God

While Scientists blame evolution

 

God Has The Power To Do All Things (They Say)

To paint the perfect canvas

To Make The Perfect Song

To create and destroy as he chooses

 

Scientists believe mother nature is to blame

Why is the most powerful thing deemed as a woman

Were we not raised to believe Men will and forever rule.

So why is she in control

Of how cold

How hot

The rain

The snow

The wind

 

 Who Rules who?

Or Do they share our heavy burden

 

Who's idea was it to make the mountains and skies?

Such beautiful things to gaze into

I bet that was her part

 

And who's idea was it to make the rough edges of a desert?.

Bet that was his

 

Just like a man needs a woman

They need each other

To shape the world they raise just as a child

 

 

 

 

Laura Mulhearn #1

The Environment
  by Laura Mulhearn

From the winter in the spring time to
the summer in the winter
I breathe in the clean air of dust
I stand there and all I see is fog

Reaching through the calamity
I touch upon a subtle quagmire
Where the birds once flew
and there was such a thing as morning dew

MIHI CURA FUTURI
The care of the future is mine
MIHI CURI FUTURI
My concern is for the future

May the winds cease tearing
apart the towns
May the water be water
and not fire
May the deceased become well
May the weak become strong

Farewell  to the country mouse
Live in good health and wealth
I exhale the cold crisp winter air of calm
I have sit on one's hands no more

This poem is dedicated to my best friend Aesop

KayJoon Quispe, #1

Generally, when people think of the word “environment” their mind jumps to nature, the rain forest, waterfalls or maybe even The Inconvenient Truth. But today, as I took a drive through the city I noticed the reality of my current environment. And since “reality” usually means the ugly truth I wanted to take note of what makes this city one of the greatest on earth. The hand planted trees that didn’t sprout out of nowhere but was intentionally placed and cared for, the millions of square feet covered in dynamic architectural designs, and the blanket of concrete that has been the foundation for our lives and has shaped our strong-New York image. Our lives here, are ironically eco-centric and we don’t even know it.

Jacek 1

Who are the good people Merwin has in mind? It is us; we all like to think of ourselves as good people. But does our belief meet the test of reality? Near the end of his poem Merwin says that suffering "escapes their attention." He does not mean this literally, since suffering is not the kind of thing that can escape. In fact, suffering usually grabs our attention, but somehow we aren't seeing it. Why? We all know it exists--but maybe we prefer to look away and pretend it doesn't. Merwin then says in the next line that "there may be reasons for it." But what reasons could these be? What reason would allow good people to not act to stop suffering? The "victims under the blankets the meat counters the maimed children the animals." Can we be justified in not acting? Under normal conditions perhaps we can't--don't good people we have certain obligations? It seems to me that Merwin is pointing out the failure of our moral perception. But what happens to our moral universe when we become blind? I think Merwin wants us to make a choice.

Narmada Gobin, Entry 1

We read some interesting passages this week. I enjoyed the class discussions as well because I never thought that I would be thinking about our environment so much. Especially the excerpt from David Quammen about animal rights. I didn't think about animals having rights ever in my life. I feel like just because they can't communicate with us, that doesn't mean we should be slaughtering them left and right. It doesn't seem fair to me but like I wrote in my essay I am only one person for them and, it will make no difference if my choice is to stop eating meat. I wish people could see the big picture and at least a little can be done about the position. Sometimes you sit back and think how many people are fighting for a good cause yet nothing gets done for it. I can imagine just how frustrating that is for them.   I knew about Charles Darwin through high school when we learned about Evolution. I never knew that he went around the world and traveled for so long. He actually took his time to understand different creatures of the world and then he came to his conclusion of human beings or organisms evolving over time. I have a very Christain background and it is very hard for me to believe the theory of evolution but it is always in the back of my mind because it can be true. I take it into consideration even though I have my own faith. It's a theory that hasn't been proven so I feel at the end of the day people can believe in what they want.

Gabriella Grimes, Entry #1

I've never really thought of animal rights in depth before. I've been aware of the cruelty to animals, but I have never really gone as far as to say, "Leave animals alone!" I also never tried to understand the distinction between animals which people deem acceptable to eat and animals of the opposite. But of course it has to do with who we are and where we come from: there are ethical and religious standards, but regional standards as well. In the United States, if you eat a cat, most people are going to think you're a disgusting and barbaric human who should probably seek mental help in some way. However in another part of the world, cats may be a normal part of the society's diet. Likewise, in some regions due to religious affiliation, pigs are considered an unacceptable meat source, but here in Christian-centric United States, seeing someone order some bacon with their pancakes isn't abnormal. There is no solid or concrete standard for what animals should be consumed in the entire world, therefore judging another society for food choices is a Barbaric action enough. Our diet may seem as taboo to them as their diet is to us. But is the action of eating animals itself a good enough reason to label us as Barbarians with a horrible blood lust? Or is meat such an ingrained part of our society that we have come to the conclusion that eating a cow is what sets us apart from that cow? Deep down, do humans eat animals merely for sustenance or to prove our superiority? That's just some food for thought. (Haha see what I did there?)

Abdul Moontarin Entry #1

        After reading the article "Animal Rights and Beyond" by David Quammen, made me really think about the situation. I never really paid attention to what I ate or ever thought that animals had rights. After reading the article i was able to get a better understanding of the situation. When I first started reading the article it asked a few questions. The questions were, "Do non-human animals have rights?", "Should we humans feel morally bound to exercise considerations for the lives and well being of individual members of other animal species?", "Is it permissible to torture and kill?" and "Is it possible to kill cleanly without prolong pain?". I feel from my own perspectives and opinions i can answer these questions. I personally believe that yes animals do have rights. They are living creatures and there are many animals out there that can feel and understand pain. The fact that they can understand pain and people still hurt them, is just cruel. Just because we are humans and are superior to the animals does not mean that we shouldn't give animals rights. They were born and live on the same planet at us, therefore they deserve a certain amount of rights. I also feel humans being superior to animals does not give them permission to torture and kill animals. As Singer stated if an animal can feel the pain and suffer from it then they deserve to have rights to protect themselves. The moral thing to do is to not harm living creatures who can endure the same amount of pain as we humans do. So, yes I do believe Animals should get rights and we shouldn't harm every single living animal on our planet just because they are not human.

Paul Hunter Zaid #1

     Reading of Charles Darwin and his voyage to South America, and in particular to the Galapagos Islands has me thirsty for excitement and warmth during these present weeks and months of hibernation. Reading Darwin's experiences and observations while mapping the South American coastline has me thinking deeply of spring and the pleasantries of the blooming springtime vegetation. The dive into the environment and nature during our class discussions has me asking myself "Do I belong in the concrete jungle of NYC? Or do I actually belong in an actual green jungle? I'm lost daydreaming of sandy beaches, palm trees, and seeing the beauty of nature surrounding me...

"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man"
 -Charles Darwin