Survey Update

My survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2CRJPDX

Several people have responded to my survey, and the results have been interesting. The responses tend to be upholding the rational choice theory, since they indicate that people commit crimes if doing so is in their best interest.

Survey

My survey is up and awaiting responses: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2CRJPDX

My survey focuses on the social science of criminology, and the rational choice theory of criminology, which states that people will commit crimes when they weigh the options and decide that it is in their best interest to commit a crime. The survey is designed in such a way to test peoples' thought process when it comes to committing crimes, and to see if they would commit a crime if the benefits outweighed the risks.

Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival. Synthesis Response.

            In his essay Indigenous resistance and racist schooling on the borders of empires: Coast Salish cultural survival, Michael Marker writes of how the creation of the border between the United States and Canada split and separated the Coast Salish people. The Coast Salish people are Native Americans that have lived in what is know today as Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia for thousands of years before the creations of the United States and Canada. The Expansion of the Empires of the US and Canada split the culture in two, and made it hard for the Coast Salish peoples to maintain there cultures. As seen through the struggles of the Coast Salish people, when empires expand, they harm the cultures and lives of people they take over.

            When the border was established, an artificial divide was put on the Coast Salish people, who had been visiting with each other, exchanging rituals and ceremonies, for thousands of years. After the border was emplaced, trips to preform rituals became complicated border crossings. In this way the empires impeded the Coast Salish Culture.

            While crossing the border is an added complicated process for the Coast Salish people, the real damage to their culture came when the new nations of the United States and Canada decided to put down the Indigenous culture and impose Western ideals. The main way this was done was through education. The countries created schools meant to eliminate the indigenous cultures and ways of thinking. The schools tried to eliminate their religion and place based way of thinking, by imposing a racist environment on them. This clearly proves the point that when an empire takes over land, the indigenous culture is put down and harmed by those taking over.

Food Sustainability

One major issue facing food production and the environment in North Carolina is the unsustainable way in which food is farmed and grown. Instead of small local farms that produce food for people in the immediate area, North Carolina uses gigantic factory farms. These farms produce food on a massive scale, but in a way that is very harmful to the environment. Pesticides and fertilizers run off from farms into bodies of water, while waste and gasses from animal farms pollutes the ground and air. These farms also chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones to increase their production, at the expense of the people who will eat the food. These methods of farming in North Carolina clearly hurt the state, and they need to be changed.

Environmental History Artifact

The artifact that I chose to discuss for environmental history is a timeline of "The Modern Environmental Movement" published by PBS. It starts off in the post World War II period, when modern environmentalism first got its start. The very first actual piece of legislation in the United States created for the means of environmentalism was the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. It was followed closely by tighter regulations on air and other types of pollution. Conservation organizations begin to then be founded in the 60's as people become more aware of the damage that is happening to the environment. After this point, environmental action and activism begins to really pick up at a remarkable pace, as people begin to realize how important the environment is and the damage that people humans are doing to it. More and more findings are published about environmental destruction, and while some progress is made in reversing the damage, the failures, unfortunately, often outweigh the victories. People need to realize that the environment is the most important thing on Earth for life, and the current historic path of ignoring its problems will eventually come back to negatively impact the Earth and everyone living on it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/earthdays/

Richard Khan Analysis

            In his paper Towards Ecopedagogy: Weaving a Broad-based Pedagogy of Liberation for Animals, Nature, and the Oppressed People of the Earth, Richard Khan, a professor at the University of North Dakota, writes that people must be taught in such a way that their current mindsets and views. The main way people need to switch their thinking is that they have to change from a capitalist, dominating mindset, to a more socialist mindset in which animals, nature, and people are not dominated and oppressed by a rich few that happen to be at the top of the pecking order. Khan writes about how today’s social system is based on class, but he also compares how people destroy and oppress the environment to social classes: “the exploitation of species, of the environment, and of the poor by the rich, have a single underlying cause… the globalization of technocapitalsm.” Not only are rich people putting down the poor to get ahead in today’s “globalized technocapitalist” system, but also people are putting down the environment to get ahead and outcompete it. If the lower class and the environment are to be saved, this system must end, and a new, more cooperative system must be adopted. If a socialist system such as the one Khan writes about is implemented, the rich, the poor, and the environment can live together harmoniously, without the need to violently outcompete each other.

Visual Rhetoric

http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/

This is an image created by the environmental action organization Greenpeace. It depicts a silhouetted group of people hoisting up a windmill generator with the rising sun shining through the clouds in the background. This is a very good example of visual rhetoric that employs pathos and is quite affective, since people respond the strongest to emotional appeals. The image is reminiscent of a similar, highly recognized image of American soldiers raising a flag atop Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, after winning the Battle of Iwo Jima:

http://www.iwojima.com/raising/lflaga2.gif

The goal of the famous Iwo Jima flag raising picture was to raise the spirits of the people of America and give them a reason to believe in a cause that many were losing faith in. In the same way that the Iwo Jima picture lifted people's spirits and inspired them to fight on, the Greenpeace picture gives people hope that the battle to save the environment is not lost, and small victories, even something as small as raising a windmill, symbolize that the fight is heading in the right direction. The fact that a large group of people is working together to lift the windmill also suggests the need for everyone to play their part in helping the environment, and the rising sun symbolizes a new era in the way we handle ourselves as far as responsibility with the environment is concerned.

The Greenpeace images and images like it can be used to cause an emotional reaction in people, and inspire them to act in a certain way.