Peer Reviewed Fracking

After reading the peer reviewed article "freacking fury" I quickly realized that the article was not going to change my opinion on the topic.  Fracking is harmful to our society.  It pollutes drinking water, and by doing this it easily affects human and animal health. Fracking is said to pollute chemicals such as chloride and barium which can be very detrimental. Also in youngstown, Ohio 2011 reports of earthquakes caused by fracking mechanisms were suspected. Injections are forced back int the earth during the fracking process.  These injections hit directly on top of a strike-slip fault.  Obviously this relatively new technology has not been fully assessed yet.  In the near future the EPA will most likely come up with rules and regulation to help decrease the amount of pollution and affects put out on the environment.

            Hydraulic fracturing is used as a way to extract petroleum, water, or natural gases from out of the ground.  It seems harmless right?  Well the EPA greatly disagrees with it.  The EPA has been conducting experiments regarding contaminated drinking water in Pavillion, Wyoming.  The EPA has definitely found numerous pollutants such as Butoxyethanol and Benzene.  These were a few of the exact chemicals found in the contaminated drinking water.

            This is a huge problem because, although EPA officials were not yet able to prove that this was caused by fracking, they are very close to doing so.  Fracking is a very important part in our economy.  We use it to obtain petroleum and other natural gases.  If the EPA shuts that down then we will have to find other ways to safely extract these materials.  This cost enormous amounts of time and money and this planet already has enough things to worry about.

            The fracking companies are going to have to innovate ways to safely do their job.  They can’t keep contaminating civilians water that could turn into yet another major catastrophe.  There has already been notices put out in the past to not drink the drinking water because of contamination and now the EPA might have found the source.

            It seems like everyday people are finding more and more environmental damages to the earth.  Something has to be done soon before we completely screw our planet up and ruin our chances for survival. 

public Education

            Richard Kahn’s article really speaks a lot about the conspiracy of public schools only teaching students to be average, or not giving students the ability to move up in life.  Public schools teach only what the “state” wants them to teach.  What if the state only produces a curriculum that teaches enough for the students to learn new things but does not teach them to be great and to really raise their intellectual level.

            If this is true, which Richard Kahn is pretty well convinced it is, then what can be done to rise up against this problem?  Should the teachers take partial blame for this?  Maybe it is the teacher’s fault.  Nobody really knows what goes on in the classrooms besides the teacher and the students.  If the teacher was actually teaching the “hard stuff” then who would know?        

            If I was in their position I think I would be able to pull off accelerating the students minds instead of keeping them in one place. I would teach the students how to actually think instead of just memorize.  Memorization is vital in the learning process but that’s not all that needs to be taught.  These days and even my own generation, kids are taught to just go through the motions instead of learning how to be independent.  How is our world ever going to get out of an economic or environmental crisis if nobody can develop an innovative mind to think outside the box and come up with solutions to the most disastrous problems?

            This is the problem but what is the solution?  You can easily say just teach the students upper level curriculum but the state issues certain tests to see if the teachers are teaching the right standards, and if they fail the teacher is fired.  This is another major problem.  Whatever the solution is it needs to be done fast.  Maybe it’s actually standing up against the man and taking charge! 

The last time I read out of Turtle Island, which was on the 14th of September 2012, I found it pretty hard to relate to bioregionalism.  Maybe I'm just not getting the concept but from what I read, to me, was not relating to bioregionalism at all.

Turtle island, second reading.

I found all of the poems that i just read to be mostly about mother nature and drugs.  Either way they both directed back to the main point of place, or environmentalism, or bioregionalism.  He really speaks a lot about saving the earth, or what humans can do to prevent/stop the total end to this earth.

Anasazi

This poem is very interesting. The Anasazi poem explains a good bit of the anasazi culture in such a short period of time.  Agricultural themes are mentioned, a sense of their home is mentioned, reproduction, and also religion. This is a great example of our class theme of "place".