Food, Inc.

Yes, I know it's a liberal film that doesn't quite tell the whole story. 

But still.  I saw the movie today for the second time in my Human Geography class.  And something occurred to me.  The first time I saw it, I don't really think it sunk in (which might've had something to do with who I was watching it with....). ;)  But in all seriousness, now that I've decided to be vegan (at least for a short while), my decision is being reinforced by things like that.

If you've never seen the movie, you should.  Even if you're not a proponent of animal rights, you still should know what you're eating and where it comes from.  Let's be honest - we ought to know what we're putting in our bodies, but we don't anymore.  It's a well-done movie that, although slightly biased, says a lot of important things.  And after watching it again today, I wouldn't be surprised if I just stayed Vegan.  I've recently become incredibly convicted about being a responsible consumer - environmentally, personally, geographically, socially... in every way possible.  In the food I buy, in the companies I actively or passively support, in the clothes I wear, in the things I say and do... I think it's so important to understand the consequences of our actions.

But what, you ask, can one individual possibly do about issues like global child labor?!  Yes, it's daunting.  I'll be the first to admit that.  I'm often overwhelmed by it, actually.  It's a constant struggle for me to remember that I am not God and that I can only do so much.  But I recently read an article for my Moral Philosophy class that suggested that cruelty persists because people still believe that individuals cannot make a difference.  And so I will, as an individual, stand up and do my part.  It will be small.  But you say, if I don't buy it/eat it/do it, certainly someone else will, right?!  Wrong!  What if 1 million of the 300 million people we have living in the United States decided to stop buying clothes that were made in sweatshops?  That could mean that those 1,000,000 people live in 1,000,000 different communities around the country, who have never met one another and who will never meet one another, and maybe they are even the ONLY people in their communities to do such a thing.  Does that mean that those 1,000,000 people aren't making a difference just because they FEEL isolated?  No!  Being alone in something should not prevent you from standing up for something you know is right - in fact, it should invigorate you!  This is what I seek to do - not just with this, but with every aspect of my life. 

So don't be surprised if I stay vegan.  Because right now, to me, it looks like there are a lot of good reasons for being vegan, and only 3 good reasons for not being vegan:  meat tastes good, laziness, and ignorance. (Ask me again in a month, I might have changed my tune... ;))

Fun!

I would just like to share with you all how much I love my ridiculous 5-fingers shoes.  They are genuinely the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.  I will probably own a pair of these for the rest of my life... and wear them every day.

Ok, if I'm being completely honest, I probably won't - it'll depend a lot on what country I'm in, and given the fact that these shoes are currently super-expensive, and I'll be poor, it really won't turn out that way.  But... I just wanted to share how much fun I am having in these shoes!!!  Random people have asked me about them, I can feel the earth (or concrete, as the case may be) beneath my feet, I can wiggle my toes, I can stand up all day and not get tired or uncomfortable... They're brilliant!  And everyone should own a pair. 

I would also like to point out (Mom, are you paying attention??)  that my feet, knees, ankles, hips, shins, and back haven't hurt even for one little micro-second while wearing these shoes.  They actually hurt MORE when I'm in my $150 tennis shoes!  Granted, I haven't tried running in them yet (that's on the agenda for this week), but so far, my feet actually feel healthy and not crazily deformed or stressed in these shoes.  :)  And therefore I love them even more than I already do. 

Go neo-hippies.  :) 

Energy - The Solution

This one is going to be short. Not because I believe the answer to our energy woes is simple, but because I don't have very many of them. Actually, I don't have any of them. These are more proposals than anything. And by no means are they complete or comprehensive.

1. Don't Drill Offshore. That's not going to do anything, and will only be a waste of money and resources, and perpetuate the problem.

2. Stop Subsidizing Oil. (Maybe using a phased out program, or a new law with a sunset clause). The problem is not just economic, nor is it just political, the root of it is cultural. And the only way the American people are going to cut down on their oil consumption is if it gets too expensive. Europe does it.

3. Develop alternate energy sources - immediately. Retrain people to repair wind turbines instead of a coal power plant. A variety of sources are needed, and that's not a bad thing. That's called security. If we can do it now and do it well, we can even sell the technology to other countries, and make a profit. Wind, Solar, Geothermal (on a small scale - I'm not advocating turbines over Old Faithful), even some Biofuels, and even (for a short time, as a transition) natural gas and coal. They are still exhaustible and polluting resources, but better as a transition fuel than petrolium.

Bottom Line - Get off oil. Get off now.

Energy - Offshore Drilling

Ok, so this is energy, part 2. Offshore drilling is such a big topic that it gets its own section. : )

Offshore drilling involves drilling into deepsea and/or continental shelf wells of oil reserves to extract and refine the oil for the consumer. Some people seem to think it's going to be a magic and quick fix to the oil problem. It's not. Here's the deal with offshore drilling:

1. It's incredibly expensive to remove the oil. The deeper it is, the more difficult (and hence more expensive) it is to get at. Even offshore drilling on the continental shelf is significantly more expensive than land drilling. Because it costs more to find it, produce and put in place the technology to remove it, remove it, and get it refined and to the consumer, the net energy is drastically reduced, and therefore becomes an incredibly inefficient way to produce energy.

2. It will take a while to get the oil out, and even when we do, it may not go into the American market. Just because it's "domestic" drilling (technically anything further than 12 miles offshore is international) doesn't mean that it's going to go directly into our market. The independent companies are going to sell the oil to the highest bidder - and that is most likely going to be China. We have some of the cheapest gas in the world right now (Europe pays between 6 and 9 dollars a gallon in many places, Canada about 5, and China about 6), and the government subsidies are growing because of the rapidly increasing demand and decreasing supply. Other countries are paying much higher prices than we are, and the gas will go to them first.

Now, there is a valid point that adding oil to the market, regardless of where it goes, will increase the overall supply and therefore lower prices, but the amount of oil we are going to get from our shores (and even our land), compared to the amount the world produces, is not going to lower the prices by much, esepcially with government subsidies.

3. Only about 35-70% of available oil is actually removed from the drilling site. This leaves us with open wells and unprofitable drilling riggs offshore. Often, the projected costs and net energy are calculated using the highest of these rates (anywhere from 60 - 100% extraction), and when less is removed, prices skyrocket, and net energy plummets.

4. Fish don't particularly like to swim around drilling rigs. The environmental impacts, the costs to restore lost fish populations, coral structures, and other damages match or often exceed the amount of profit made from offshore drilling rigs. And the impact can be deadly for some species. The highly concentrated human activity, particularly when setting up a rig, interferes with the natural cycle of fish reproduction, and since tropical fish and coral reefs are already sensitive to change, the damages outweigh the benefits. The risk of spillage, seepage, and other environmental damages have drastic and irrevocable consequences.

5. The net energy of oil from offshore drilling is much lower than that of other resources. The cost of setting up a rig, drilling into the continental shelf, protecting against environmental damages (which is often overlooked to increase profits), transporting the crude oil to a refinery, refining the oil into usable petrolium, transporting the petrolium around the country to be either put into cars and released, or further refined into other products such as plastics and rubbers, then, when the life of that product is up, appropriately disassembling it for degration, is enormous. Often, what we find is that the environmental protection and proper disassembling factors are largely ignored to increase profit.

Ultimately, it's a short term fix for a long term problem (which nobody can really deny), and we are eventually going to have to move on. Why should we waste resources and time and precious environmental land to fix soemthing that we wouldn't be fixing? See a problem yet?

Energy - The Problem

So, I was initially going to do this in one post, but the issue is so big and there is so much to discuss, that I think I'm going to do it in multiple sections.

The problem is as follows (at least as far as I am concerned)

1. The Culture of the United States is too oil-dependent. Everything from rubber to plastic is made from oil or oil derivatives. Many people don't consider how much oil they are really using. Even when buying a car, one must take into consideration the amount of oil that it takes not only to run the car, but to produce the materials, to transport them, assemble the car, to transport it, and to disassemble it.

2. Most of the oil the US uses is imported. Economics is driving foreign policy right now, and the ability of nations to withold their oil, or to impose taxes, etc. gives them a disproprtionate amount of power on the world stage. Although some of our oil comes from friendly countries, such as Canada and Mexico, others come from unfriendly countries such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Middle eastern countries.

3. The US Government subsidizes oil usage in the United States. Because of the subsidies in the form (mostly) of tax breaks, the government is inadvertently perpetuating the use of oil over other technologies. When actual cost (including extraction, transportation, technology costs, and environmental impact costs without government subsidies) are compared, wind power is the cheapest to produce, transport, develop, and has the lowest environmental impact, relative to its net energy.

But, because the government reduces the cost of gasoline to the consumer, people don't bother to look at actual cost, and it becomes the cheapest and most effficient to the consumer. Because people have failed to use other types of energy, most companies who attemt to develop and use alternate energies fail or abandon their attempts in favor of petrol-based products.

4. Producing and burning oil and oil-derivative products damages the environment. Extracting it is incredibly hard on the environment. Although technology has gotten better, and many regulations have become laws, the technology still impacts the environments and many restoration laws are ignored. Burning oil adds carbon dioxide to the air, and in turn, compounds the warming of the globe. Although many other factors contribute to global warming, burning oil is (in my mind) undeniably contributing to the problem.

5. Oil is a non-renewable resource. And the US only holds 3% of it (as a generally accepted statistic).

Although there are many other factors that play into the development of an oil-based economy, and problems surrounding such a dependence, I would argue that these are the main ones. The problem manifested