Survey Update

 I have had 56 people complete my survey.  I have e-mailed it and put it on Facebook for college students to take.  I can see trends with most of my questions.  The majority of people agree that is easy to recycle on campus, they always recycle, and that they see recycling propaganda daily.  77% of people say they still recycle even while they're alone.90% of people agree that the environment is somewhat to extremely important.  Results are even between people being neutral or agreeing that they would recycle more if they knew more about it.  40% of people think it is a hassle to recycle which is why they do not as much as they should.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M37PFKG

Survey

My survey attempts to find out about student's recycling behaviors.  The survey consists of ten multiple choice questions that ask about a person's recycling habits, how they may change in different environments, or how they could be impacted.  So far, no trends are showing since only a few people have taken the survey.

If you'd like to take it I'd appreciate it!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M37PFKG

Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival

Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival by Michael Marker is about the real life struggle the Coast Salish people experience while trying to maintain their heritage and culture while resisting assimilation.  The Coast Salish people have lived in the same area, Washington and British Columbia, before the US and Canadian borders were drawn.  Therefore, they do not understand why it is wrong to travel across the border regularly because they are just going to visit a friend or relative all on their tribes land in their minds.  However, it is illegal to cross the border.  The Coast Salish children were placed into public schools that were trying to strip them of their native heritage.  However, the racism was so great they left and started attending boarding schools which also tried to assimilate them.  The children kept up with their native language and heritage through elders who would teach them.  The US and Canada should set aside land for the Coast Salish people to live their natural heritage out and have their own schools.  This land should also include some if not all of their old fishing holes.

Farming and the Piedmont

The Piedmont region is home to large plots of agriculture and farming.  However, much of this farming is industrialized.  There are classes and organizations to help others learn about the farming community.  Urban sprawl has increased the land prices for small farms.  Thus, small farmers are losing their farms due to rising taxes, equipment costs, and smaller markets for traditional crops.  Markets are shrinking because people would prefer to pay the cheapest price for a product even if it came from an industrialized farm instead of a small, family operated one.  There are dozens of groups that promote healthy alternatives and sustainability news all across the Piedmont.

http://www.elon.edu/e-web/bft/sustainability/res-lrGroups.xhtml

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics appeared as a subfield of philosophy in the early 1970s.  During the sixties environmental awareness and social movements were on the rise.  Humans’ moral relationship with nature was a hot topic for the public in the 1960s.  One of the biggest motivators for environmental ethics was the desire to create ethical theories that made humans accountable for their work in the natural world.

One main issue that was debated in the early years of environmental ethics discussions was what entities were morally significant and how significant.  Individualists thought that humans, animals, and plants were giving automatic value unlike the larger wholes.  Species, biospheres, and ecosystems were comprised from the smaller, already valuable, entities which made them significant because of the individuals in them.  On the contrary, the holism perspective believes that the whole biospheres, ecosystems, and species are of a higher value.  Individualist believe that each animal holds the same value whether they are endangered, domesticates, a destructive invasive species, or wild.  Holist believe different animals carry various weight dependent on their contribution to processes in the ecosystem.

McShane, K. (2009), Environmental Ethics: An Overview. Philosophy Compass, 4: 407–420. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00206.x

Fracking Fury

            “Fracking Fury” by Janna Palliser is an in depth look at the risks and benefits value of fracking.  There are several pros to fracking.  First, hydraulic fracturing is a rapidly growing industry that promotes expansion and jobs.  Natural gas is also cleaner than its alternatives coal or oil.   Furthermore, if the US is more dependent upon our own fracking they will be less likely to purchase natural gas from foreign markets.  The largest con of fracking is the risks involved.  Regulations are not keeping up with production rates and the dangers are not as well-known with fracking as other fossil fuels.  Thus, there is growing concerns of the damage fracking is doing to humans, ecosystems, animals, and the drinking water. 

            The greatest concern for many is the question of what fracking does to drinking water.  Fracking can indirectly affect water sources through “surface discharge of wastewaters, depletion of drinking-water supplies, and methane migration” (21).  Fluid leakoff is caused by injecting fluids flowing to other areas.  Fluid leakoff can reach 70% of the injected volume which makes it possible to reach drinking water aquifers. 

            Pavillion, Wyoming has been extensively drilled for the past 20 years.  Recently the EPA found high levels of benzene, toluene, naphthalene, traces of diesel fuel, and at least one 2-Butoxyethanol in wells drilled deep into a water aquifer.  Waste waters from hydraulic fracking are not designed to remove fracking contaminants in the drinking water before it is into the rivers.

Palliser, Janna. "Fracking Fury." Science Scope 35.7 (2012): 20. Science Reference Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination Synthesis

            The article “EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination” discusses whether or not fracking is linked to the contaminants being found in Wyoming’s water.  The Environmental Protection Agency recently conducted a study that found “at least 10 compounds known to be used in frack fluids” in the water around Pavillion, Wyoming.  Glycol ethers were found in the water which are a direct product of ground water and hydraulic fracturing fluids.  Reports of foul smelling water arose in the mid-1990s and continued to progressively get worse until 2004.  By 2004 there were also complaints of brown water after gas wells were fracked.  In 2008, the EPA found traces of contaminants in the drinking water and the suspicions were confirmed in 2010.  Due to the contaminants recently found health officials warned residents to drink their water and to ventilate their homes while bathing.  There was methane found in the water samples which could cause explosions.  The EPA drilled two water wells to 1,000 feet to substantiate their finds.  In the wells the EPA found benzene and 2 Butoxyethanol which are both used in fracking.  No specific conclusions have been made because the EPA is considering all the possible causes for the contamination such as agriculture, drilling, and old pollution from waste pits.  The EPA confirmed that the 33 abandoned oil and gas waste pits were the source of contamination for at least 42 private wells in Pavillion, Wyoming.  Only one 2 Butoxyethanol contaminant was found in one sample in one out of three labs.  Therefore, EnCana does not agree that it should be constructed as fact that the 2 BE found was caused by fracking since the result was not replicated.  Some of the findings in the report challenge longstanding arguments by the drilling industry of how fracking is safe.  Some arguments are that the hydrologic pressure would naturally force fluids down and not up, that deep geologic layers provide a watertight barrier that prevents the movement of chemicals towards the surface, and that the problems with the cement and steel barriers around gas wells are not connected to fracking.  Investigators found that the cement barriers had been weakened and separated from the well above the area that fracking took place.  They also found that hydrologic pressure had pushed fluids from deep geologic layers towards the surface.  The EPA’s findings are currently under peer and public review and are hoped to be finalized by the Spring.  Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, finds the EPA’s report “offensive.”  Last year, he challenged the EPA’s findings saying they were bias.