Friday, November 5, 2010

Reflection: Weeks 5-8

The past few weeks have informed me of a lot of issues I wasn't really aware of. Specifically, how terrible water bottles are for our environment. I'm not a big bottled water drinker, but I do however drink plenty of bottled sodas and juices. It makes me want to never buy anything bottled in plastic again! Knowing that these bottles aren't all being recycled and are killing animals due to the pollution is very disheartening. Also, I've heard about dangerous chemicals are leaching into our water from these plastics and can cause harmful effects.

In addition, reflecting from the movie "Green", seeing how much the refineries affect the famillies that have no choice in living there, made me feel really selfish. We all complain how high gas is getting and how we want all other products as low as we can get them, but all this comes at a cost. A cost were not paying for. The ones paying for it are the low income families that are developing cancer, asthma and other medical ailments because of these dangerous petrochemicals in the air they breathe. We need to find a way to get past this and fix it, human life is not worth cheap gas or any product for that matter.

On another note, I also found learning how to use Picnik not only fun but quite useful. I've used this program one or twice before a few years ago but I had kind of forgotten about it. Making our own headers for our blogs is just another way to personalize them and make them a little more interesting for other readers. 

From the cosmetic eye opener we did it really opened my eyes to looking into the ingredients in the products I am using. I found that my shampoo and face wash have been correlated with cancer and other diseases.Knowing products I apply directing to my skin, and seeps into my pores, can be so harmful for me makes me want to run home and throw them straight in the trash. I liked how the website gave examples of healthier alternatives.

7 comments:

  1. I agree. The movie "Green" made me feel really bad about the things I am buying. In ways I feel like I am contributing to people getting cancer or health problems near those areas. It definitly makes you take a look at your life!

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  2. the documentary "Green" was very eye-opening. I could not believe what some families are stuck facing and no one will help; what really makes me angry is how the companies blatantly deny causing the unusual rates of cancer or birth defects. But you know they have an idea they have something to do with it because they try a skew the data!

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  3. I never want to buy water bottles again either. It's ridiculous how they skewed the data, too, so it doesn't show any signs of a cancerous zone. The plastic clump in the ocean was unbelievable too.

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  4. Picnik is a fun website that I'm glad we got to explore and use. The videos are all eye opening because like you said we don't see the cost we are making by wanting cheap things. That website on cosmetics also surprised me because our products are made of chemicals. We tend to forget that and just use it because we think they work. It's scary seeing that it can cause cancer in the long run.

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  5. It's horrible that the refineries are contributing to such harmful effects on people, and actually try to DENY it! They shouldn't be allowed to just take over the lower income towns and give the citizens no choice but to deal with it, or move away. It makes me feel bad that we are buying all of this gas and really don't think about how its affecting other people.

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  6. "Green" made me feel so guilty and sorry for the people who live around these big companies too. It does not make sense to me that our government would let all the skewing of the data go on. Shouldn't everyone have equal rights? Why do companies have a choice to move wherever they want despite how the people who ALREADY lived there think? It makes me sick that everything is about money. People's lives should come first.

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  7. Pertaining to what you learned from "Green," do you have any suggestions as to how we could begin to make a change? What do you think the most fundamental change would be to begin with?

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