Research thoughts

Ok when I started thinking about what to base my research paper on I remembered what we talked about in class one day about the contamination in other countries because of the United States. And then I also remembered that I saw a documentary on the Argentinean channel one day about the contamination of different provinces and neighborhoods in Argentina because of the mining done in those different places of the country. The mines are owned by American and Canadian companies and by which many kids and all the people in this communities have been getting sick.

At the same time in this documentary they show how not only the mines are getting communities sick but also the tremendous amount of waste in different places that are to be use for water supplies. However Argentina is not the only country being affected but also other countries like Chile, Guatemala and Peru are being affected by mining.

Now knowing all this I just want to let other people know that the United States is not only destroying their own country but also others. Therefore I think that the best way for me to do this is to use several articles and organizations that have been working to solve this problem. However I still have a lot of research to do so far I only have some research done in the problem in Argentina, Peru and Chile …..so this are a couple of the websites that I have found to get some information on the problem and what is being done to solve it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/may/03/businesscomment.chile

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/740/

http://www.miningwatch.ca/updir/Chile_case_study.pdf

Reflection

When I read all the blogs that I have written the only thing that came to mind is…..WOW!!!! To be honest I have always done something, even if it was something really small, for the environment. Things like recycling or trying not to liter, is one of the reasons why I don’t like to drive I rather use a bike or walk besides the fact that is good for you. However now that I think about it….this is kind of funny……consider this …..we, or at least most of us, think that walking, running, riding a bike is good for your health. Yea precise really healthy but what about the fact that we are polluting the air that we are breathing when we are doing all this “healthy exercises” or even when we are not. The amazing thing is that before this class I didn’t see this. I knew that we are killing ourselves softly by destroying our environment but I didn’t think that many of the simple things that we do everyday without thinking are the problem. At the same time now it bothers me even more than before the fact that most people say there is nothing we can do, or know that something is wrong and that something needs to be done but don’t do anything. For this reason I really enjoy blogger, because even though I thought at first that I wasn’t going to like it, I found a lot of people that are showing the world (the rest of us) that something can be done and that is not really necessary, even though it would be better, to work together. One person can actually change the world and that is what many of us need to hear.

**** Watch this video......

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DYnn56y5XX0&feature=related

Responses

1. Sustainable Cities Blog
Well to make it nice and short let me just say that in this blog is amazing the amount of events that are going on right now to protect the environment. The reason why is so amazing to me is because many of us think nobody is doing anything however we can see the percentage of people that is worry.


2. Gristmill
To be honest I don’t understand it and I can read it. I don’t know too many links. I don’t really find it interesting to read so I just skip it


3. Green as a Thistle
I totally love this one…I can’t believe everything she has done is totally amazing and open minded. It shows to all of us that if we want to make a change we just have to put our minds into it. We have so much power and we don’t even know it. However I think that for many of us it would be too hard to change so many things of our life style but we should always remember that is not impossible.


4. No Impact Man
I don’t like or dislike this blog I like the fact that he is doing something or trying to do something in New York. Hey I just think that is really hard to change something in New York and trying is good enough for me….


5. Eco Geeek
This is really not much I can say about this one. The only thing that I can say is that it gives a lot but a lot of information and that is really good.


Ok I wrote a comment to Vanessa http://greenasathistle.com/

**http://greenoptions.com/

Don't Lie to Yourself.....

“In the Parable of the Unfaithful Servant, the servant is warned by the master that he must defend the house against thieves and vandals no matter what. Therefore, humans have the duty to protect the Earth from those that would rob and damage it.”

I don’t really agree or disagree with this position since we are not really defending our house in anyway. I just think that we have to save the Earth from ourselves. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not it doesn’t even matter if you have a religion or not. This is our home and we have become the servants who are unfaithful to our master (if there is one) and at the same time we are the thieves and the vandals that our master warned us about. I believe that we are responsible for most of the damages done to the environment. What really bothers me is the fact that many of us try to cover the truth and pretend that nothing is happening.

Sometimes I believe that most of the time we try to find somebody to blame and covered the fact that we are the problem. There is nobody else but us that are causing the crucial changes in the environment. I truly believe that there is absolutely a way to save the environment and save our home. The only problem is that we don’t think that we have that much power. This is the reason, I believe; that many of us think that only one person can’t change anything. However we are wrong we have more power than what we think we have. We could change so many things and save our environment for this and future generations. So who are we really saving the Earth from?...Think about it!!!!

My Passion....My Journey!!!!

To be honest for me is simple to answer the question of what is my passion. Everything that I do is part of my passion. I do everything with passion. Does that make sense? I love helping others and I try to do it as much as I can. I am usually the one that many of my friends choose to come to for an advice or a shoulder to cry, but do not get me wrong I am not complaining….trust me I love it…and I enjoy it. Well after all everything that I do in regular daily basis leads to my most important passion…which is the reason why I am in college my chosen career….psychology.


When I was around eight or nine my aunt who is a children psychologist took me to her office. I spend the whole day with her and this day; it took only one day, to change my idea of what I wanted to be when I grow up. That day I decided to become a psychologist. Everything that I did in Junior High School, in High School, and now in College is to become a psychologist. All the classes that I have taken for over five years or so are related to psychology.



Going back to that particular day that change my mind, when I was in that office I saw so many children that came with sadness, frustration, depression. However when they left the office after talking to my aunt they looked, to me, better and a little more happy then when they came in. At that moment, I said to myself I want to give happiness to people. From that day forward I followed my aunt everywhere she went, since she use to work as a social worker at the same time, even though I was young she asked permission to take me to see different children that she was helping. We went to different houses, and seriously, I never thought a child could suffer so much. Therefore after seeing so much suffer on those kids I started appreciating more what I had and established a goal for myself….help children and families in need. This is how I decided to become a family and children psychologists.



I know that I am only one person but to be honest I think that I could make the world a better place maybe not environmentally but I could help many children in need. To be honest it makes me sad to know that many parents, now a day, do not have time for their children or do not even care about them. It hurts me to see a person abusing an innocent child and I want to do everything I can to change this. However, this does not mean that I do not care for the environment, is obvious that if I want a better world for children, I want to protect the environment they will be living in.


I know that many people think that one person cannot make a difference but this are a couple of sites that will help:

**This site shows that there is people that care and do something or at least try....

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/how-do-we-prote.html

**This site is just a way to show that one person can make a difference

http://www.saveourbeach.org/pages/OneStep.html

**Ways in which we can help the environment

http://worldwideorganizations.com/articles/Ways-that-you-can-help-protect-the-environment.html

Life is too short......enjoy it as much as possible.....

The following blog is based on the third question which is the one related to leisure time. Well to be honest I don’t really have that much time left to enjoy myself. This is because I work full time and study full time at the same time. This means that right after I get out of school, whatever time that is, I go to work. I don’t even have that much time to eat since I am always on the run.
However when I do have time to waste I watch a lot of movies, I lost count of how many movies I have seen. You can say I am a movie fanatic and I am really proud about it. I think I have to thank my mom for that since she is also a movie fan. When I am not watching movies I am watching, believe or not, discovery channel and documentaries. At the same time when it comes to comedy I love and I am serious about this I love Futurama and the Simpsons I have follow those shows since the beginning. I know I mentioned a lot of things that I could only see with the help of a TV. But I don’t spend that much time in front of it. If I see a movie is only once or twice, maximum, a week and with the other shows for me an hour or two watching them is more than enough.

I have to admit that what I do the most is take long walks either by myself or with company. I love to go to the park, and walk around, or read a book sitting under a tree. I also like to spend time with my friends. Well I hate the routine that is impossible to avoid during the week so I try my best to hand out with friends and laugh as much as I can. I also like to read either in Spanish or English, which is the reason why I have a nice collection of them. On summer I love to ride my bike to the beach or anywhere near the sea, or in the park.

I think and I know that is really hard to make time during the day with all the responsibilities and all to schedule healthy activities to spend our leisure time. However I know that is not possible, even though I don’t even have time sometimes to enjoy my leisure time. I think that the best thing to do and that many people should try is to enjoy the little free time that you have the best way possible. But not sitting in the couch and eating potato chips while watching TV, believe me that is not going to help you release the stress of the week.

Me and the Environment

Did you know that many of the simple things that we do every day without even thinking about it affect our environment? If you answer is NO let me tell you that mostly everything that we due in daily basis influence the crucial changes in our environment. For example in the morning I woke up, brush my teeth, let the water running for a while until it got warm and then took a shower, had coffee which I cannot live without, check the weather on TV, got dress according to the weather, took out the garbage (Wednesday garbage day) and started my beautiful one hour and a half of being pushed and stressed out on the train, went to the pharmacy got a book (but not of recycled paper), went to the bathroom and washed my hands (try to kill the germs collected on the train) and walk to the LIB 200 class.
I am sure that the things that I listed above are similar to the things that you do in the morning, well I hope that you don’t have to go through the same wonderful train ride everyday but if you do believe me I understand you. As you may see or may not see I did a couple of things in the morning that harm the environment. Do you know which ones? Well let me tell you, two minutes before I took a shower I let the water running. I am not sure the amount of water wasted in that two minutes but I know that is more than enough for somebody to drink. Even though I did something wrong by letting the water running I tried to correct my action by taking out the garbage which in my house means recycling. Although I did one good thing in the morning the rest of the day was full of things that affect our environment for example I wash my hands so many times a day that I don’t even bother counting and of course for this reason I use a lot but a lot but a lot of paper. Therefore in order for me to get the amount of paper that I need to dry my hands and also, of course let’s not forget, about the amount of paper needed to make my non-recycle notebook by which many but many trees need to be cut down. I know that many things that I do are wrong and harmful to the environment but since this concerns me I have try to do my best to buy paper towels that are made from recycle paper. I do this because I know the smallest things affect the environment and what worries me is how much harm is already done to it by all the people in the world? What do you think? I know I am doing my small contribution to help…..but are you doing something?????????