Earth in the Balance

Five things that made me obligated to other human beings today are:

1. I was braiding a customer hair and she asked me what was I going to school to study and after I told her, she told me encouraging words such as you doing great just keep up the hard work and you will finished before you know it. This made me feel good that someone other then my family encourages me to do well.
2. Another one will be when I spoke to my dad. He and me do not talk much to each other anymore because every time I call he is very busy. But today when I spoke to him, as usual he always tells me that anytime I need something I call always because he is my dad. This made my day because I now realize that not even the distance can change my love or my father’s love for me.
3. During the evening my sister went out and I had to babysat my niece. While my sister was out, I felt responsible for her.
4. I also had to make dinner for the people at my house.
5. When I took the bus to go home I interacted with people because we were all in the same bus.

I believe that the reason why we instead “enshrine the self as the unit of ethical account” (basically, what “I” consider “right” or “wrong” originates with what “I” want only), and forget all the people to whom we owe our lives is because live in a society that only sees things from the self conception. Everything we do evolves around the “I” perspective for example as Prof. X gave the example the last time is class about the sweater a person wear, we don’t even think about who made, or how was it, or where was it made, and how much did. And I have do agree with Gore when he said, “ We do this not because we don’t care but because we don’t really live in our lives.” Because we are kept ignorant from what is really happen around us.

My paasions and values

I believe that you can follow your passion by fighting to do everything to protect it. Your passion most of the time connects with tour values, and anything you value, you will do anything to show people that my values are very important even if you have to stand alone. And considering the world today, education is the only way we will make this world a better place for everyone. Let’s take Al Gore for example he used his education to work around the issues he is passionate about. Although he was into politics, he did not stop fighting for the environment, something that he is passionate about from his years in college. Since I personally is interested in Human Right, I’m more passionate about the social environment. The only way I can make this world a better place is by using my education to influence and fight for others in need or that are been affected. I want to use my education to help kids in Africa, in the Middle East, India etc for them to be able to get access to education as well. I’m also passionate about young girls and women to be able to have right, to be free from abuse; which gives me the passion to work for the UN, and to study International Law. However, I started to worry about the environment, because now I’m more up dated which gives me more things to be concern about the issue.

http://climatechallenge.org/
Campus climate challenge is basically college students standing up in helping protect our environment. One reason why I chose this site is that it is organized by student like me using their other talent to make the world a better place. And one thing that I love about their website is that they used music to update people about global warming. And many of do listen to music, so putting it in music is a very good idea.

http://www.greenguerillas.org/
The green guerilla is another web site that caught my eyes while I was reading through it. I believe that it caught my attention because the helping the community cultivates gardens etc. When I was in high school, we also did something similar to it; we help cleanup parks, went to senior citizens center and plant flowers for them, help paint some recreation center. But I never that it was related to the environment, I just thought of it as helping the community and the elders.

The story of stuff

My blog is answering the second question which is asking about the relationship of the story of stuff around the world with another country where I’ve lived before. Well I’ve lived thirteen years of my life in another country, Guinea to be precise. Well the difference between the story of stuff and what is happening in Guinea is that I believe that the pollution is cause by people themselves; and the reason for this is that we do not have a sanitation ( as far as knew) organization to go around and pick up the garbage. Therefore people throw their garbage on the street. What my family use to do is: we use to throw our trashes at a corner outside my backyard, and when the garbage becomes too much, we’ll burn them. Growing up in Guinea, I only saw once in the blue moon those sanitary trucks coming to pick up the garbage people accumulate outside their houses. And even when those trucks pick the garbage up, they went and threw them around an area that was empty, however people lived there, and I know this because my aunt live around that area. I did notice differences role of consumption. And I would not say cultural, because I rather say that it is an economical difference, because I do believe that economy affects a lot the way people live, and the way people live is part of the definition of culture. The difference of between prevalence of advertisement will be that in NYC you will commercial on different channels, on buses, trains, and many other places, while in Guinea it’s only the Guinean channel that shows it.
There is definitely a difference of re-use and waste management, remember when I say that economy affects the way people live, here is an example, in Guinea because things are hard for many people, even plastic bags, people keep them to re-use them when they’re going to buy something, because if not, when you buy something, you also have to buy a plastic bag. The waste of water is also another issue; people try a lot not to waste water, because of the water bill.
Well leisure time in Guinea usually is spent either with family or with neighbors going to each other’s house and have a chat. Not many people like here use their free time to go shopping, because the big market place is not always close everyone and transportation can be really expansive so most of the time they might take a walk around the neighborhood
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My Environment

10-15 things I did today are:
Wake Up
Brush me teeth
Open the water and let it run for a couple minutes then took a shower
Dress
Drink a cup of tea
Watch weather
Walk to the subway, take the train
Went to the store
Meet up with a friend
Then arrives in school, went to the library to print schedule
Went to the first class (LIB200)


Two things from my brainstorming list that affected the environment is: the fact that I opened that I opened the water and let it run for a couple minute for it to get warm, affect the environment because the water was wasting on it own for a awhile. Another thing that I did that might affect the environment will be that when I went to the store, I bought a note book that doesn’t say recycle.
I haven’t really done much to help the environment. However I feel that I do contribute to not pollute the environment, and I do so by not throwing the garbage nowhere else but in the trash. I also try to help the environment in the social context, when it reaches to racial issues, I can’t make people what they do not want to see however, I try to myself to be more open minded about the reason why people do what they do ( keeping in mind that the environment do affect the way we live).
My concerns about the environment is global warming, because of the weather unexpectedly is not so secure. Having a 60degrees in December (winter) is not so fun or having a 17degrees cold in March id also not fun. Another thing that I’m concern about is deforestation, we need rain, but we will not have it if we do not have anymore trees. Air pollution is another that I’m very concern about, because in New York City people live too close to each that it would not be safe is one person is sick. The worst of it all is that I have all these concern and is pretty sure that many also have them but yet not doing anything or not much to prevent or reduce it.