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Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Large, black background | Full size, full screen
The Monumental Arch and adjoining ruins of Palmyra (Tadmor) in Syria. In the background, the old temple of the supreme sky-god Ba'al Shamin---a precursor to Jupiter (or if you want, Beelzebub)---can be seen.
I am traveling with Kristian's wife and her sister around the country this week, and Palmyra is the first stop. This caravan city on the silk road became a Roman province, and under the shrewd Queen Zenobia, they briefly rebelled and established an (albeit short-lived) empire in the late third century. The city declined under the Byzantine Empire and gradually disappeared from history under the Ottomans before being rediscovered in the 1920s.
The ruins are conveniently lit at night, so although my two strobes crashed on me (lousy batteries), the twilight minutes were put to good use. Thankfully, my two travelmates are most accommodating to me using the blue hours to run around and play.
Quite a high keep ratio today - I would say as many as 5 postable photos from a mere 150 shots, and it will hopefully stay that way as we go castle hunting tomorrow.
EF17-40mm f/4L USM | 20,0 sec | 23 mm | f/11 | ISO 100 | Aperture priority mode | 0 EV
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Following in the footsteps of Morgan Spurlock of Supersize me, Jeb Berrier takes on the mantle of Everyman as he investigates the dark side of plastics. Beginning with the humble plastic bag, thus the name Bag It, he follows the trail of ecocidal impact in terms of petroleum used to produce them, trash generated, hazards of melting down the plastic for recycling in far off countries, havoc to marine life and finally chemical impact on the human body.
Indeed plastic is nasty stuff and such a careless part of our life that watching the movie is maddening. Yet it is somehow satisfying to see the footage that goes with the facts. Because here is a chance to show this maddening dark side to others in a very accessible even beautiful way through the eyes of a concerned, soon to be father, questioning our consumer use of disposables. The ubiquitous plastic bag soon leads to the even more ubiquitous disposable bottle of drinking water and to the Biosphenol A filled lining of a tin can and the chemical ridden body care products filled with endocrine interrupters.
We see what plastic looks like as it goes through the process of being manufactured, how ugly it is as it is melted down for recycling in an outdoor workshop in the developing world while runoff pollutes local watersheds. We see the plastic swirling in the ocean and bits of the stuff all over the beautiful beaches and plant life of Maui. There's the study of the albatrosses who die filled with the stuff and the whale whose innards was clogged with plastic. All this I knew from studying this very topic over the last decade.
What was new to me was the more detailed look at what endocrine interrupters actually do. The DVD has two versions of the movie. Only the longer one includes this part about the impact on the human body. Low levels of exposure in the very young to Biosphenol A is apt to lead to hyperactivity and learning disability, hello ADHD, while phthalates causes low sperm count and smaller penis size. You would think that would get the attention of the public, but of course there is an organization looking out for the chemical companies right to prosper at our expense and rarely does this information get out.
This is not your conspiracy type movie, though, because rather than invoke more menacing motivations, escalating to a bid for absolute power on the part of the corporations and relegating the audience to impotent overwhelm, the movie compares us to Europe where citizen advocates have regulated the chemical industry based on the precaution principle. In Europe a chemical is guilty until proven innocent where the reverse is true in the US.
The audience is encouraged to follow Europe in regulating chemicals, avoiding plastic in our lives and participate in campaigns to ban bags altogether from town to town as is happening across the US.
As a final coup de grace, Jeb ingests as much as possible of ordinary foods and products that use plastic, either as an ingredient (such as in fragrances) or as a packaging. Then he has himself tested for chemical load. The results are telling, but he gets no response from the chemical industry. Apparently no studies have actually been publicized correlating chemical use in consumer products with ADHD, autism and other neurological disorders, but the data of huge increases of all these disorders since the '70s is very disturbing. It just makes me more angry at all those "cure" focused cancer campaigns that never mention the connection between industry pollution and cancer occurrence. Many of them have big donors who are the grossest polluters.
Repurposed Connect 4 game - showing side 1 of 4 messages, paint, diamond glaze, vinyl lettering, zipper,10" x 11" x 6", 2009
If one day collective transport could replace most of individual transport ways (like cars), and freight could be made by boats or high speed trains, and when petroleum will have disappeared from the face of hearth ... what will we do with abandoned motorways? ;)
Students are getting to work on their Human Ecology Class projects. This semester we have a wide variety of projects going on such as film advocacy, star charting, soap making, trailblazing, dive platform construction, up-cycling, and more.
Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner Jennifer Payne and the team of Sandia ecologists help Sandia uphold its commitment to protect land leased from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, and land withdrawn from the U.S. Forest Service. After construction projects, the team stabilizes the soil and re-establish the natural habitat, which benefits wildlife who use the area for cover, forage and breeding.
“I think people would be surprised and impressed to know the lengths we go to protect the environment,” said stormwater program lead John Kay.
Learn more about Sandia’s ecological restoration work at share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/ecologic...
Photo by Randy Montoya.
A visualization of a media ecology and the dynamic of economics, personal learning environments, virtual worlds and web 2.0.
Design ©Liza Cowan
Quote ©Lierre Keith
Mandrake Root illustration from the Neapolitanus Dioscurides manuscript, Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, early seventh century.
On January 5th Xtreme Xhibits made its first haul of recyclables, included plastics, paper, aluminum and glass, to Ecology Action of Texas' Downtown Austin facility.
Over 500 pounds of recyclable material was diverted from area landfills on this trip.