Kira+Peterman

3/21 In our class discussion today I couldn't help but think how closely intertwined personal opinions on city and state are with our opinions on the natural world. It seems like a lot of the time people try and view development and politics separately from the world we all inhabit, but it's just not possible. The forestry movement is a great example of this: people tried to look at the commodity (trees) as very much distinct from nature, and this was not possible in the long term, as is shown by the results of this project.

3/8/12

In deciding on my research project, I thought of the difficulties of buying local/organic produce, and whether to buy such items or buy non-organic, non-local items because of cost or obtainability (I think I made that word up). This particular memory came to mind. Recently, I was at a Farmer's Market to buy local produce, and while I was there was looking for citrus. I found that most of the booths were selling oranges from California, not Florida, and I only found one that was actually selling FL citrus. I was not successful at finding a single lemon grown in Florida. What amazed me was that I was trying to buy local citrus, in citrus season, in a state known as "The Citrus State," and was unsuccessful. It shocked me that it was cheaper for markets to ship in fruit from across the country rather than growing it locally.

3/2/12 Here is one photo I thought represented what nature means to me. It was taken at the Philmont Scout Reservation is New Mexico, and I liked it because it shows both humankind and the natural world, and how "nature" is necessarily the absence of humans.

A second picture that I really like of nature is #39 in [|this collection] because it shows how complex and beautiful even the simplest aspects of nature can be.

2/20/12

Today's discussion in class made me realize how disconnected we as a society are from our environment, something that likely began when we started to industrialize nature. We in the past chopped down trees with no thought to sustainability, or how clearing such a large area may promote wildfires and erosion. In the same way, our North American ancestors overfished the breeding populations of the rivers, never giving a thought to how killing the breeding fish would decimate their populations. We tend to view the natural world as a commodity rather than something that deserves respect.

Even now, while we look at photographs of mutilated woodlands, we tend to see it as something that has ceased to occur, as now we surely must realize the environmental consequences of our actions. While it has not stopped in our own country, for the most part it seems we have just moved it where we can't see it anymore. Such as the rainforest devastation in South America that we talked about a few weeks ago in class. We have moved the havoc we wreak on the land to other countries, making them bear the brunt of the damage while we continue to desire more and more goods. [|This video] on the nature of our consumer society is informative, and hopefully will make everyone think.