I lived in a third world country the first 17 years of my life, and while I was blessed enough not to live in the conditions people from third world countries usually live in, the fact that I live around them made me really conscious about how I use everything in my everyday life. I went to Haiti over Easter, and I decided to control my waste consumption there versus my waste consumption here in the States.
I spent three days in Haiti, and while I was there, I used:
1 plastic cup for water (Which I used during the entire time I was there)
3 Paper plates during the 3 days
3 bottle of waters
5 Minutes showers
And everything else I used where "everyday" items such as forks which I washed and so on.
When I came back to the states, I drove 90 miles from the airport back to campus
Bought McDonald (1Big Mac, 1Fish, 1 Dr. Pepper, 1Large Fries)
The next day I showered 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night which I usually do every day.
Ordered one large pizza and one Dr. Pepper from papa John's
Turned on the dishwasher
Did three loads of laundry
While none of the data I collected are representative of my day to day consumption, I wanted to take a different approach and take another perspective. Your daily consumption varies a lot depending on your surrounding. The reasons most Americans consume so much on a daily basis is because everyone around them is doing the same, therefore they don't see it as a problem, whereas if you live in a third world country such as Haiti, you're going to cut back on your consumption. I think that if in America we were less focus on us and paying attention to our surrounding, a few things could change, including how much we're wasting materials in a given day.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
Money
The paper that we use as our currency and that we call money only has the value that is assigned to it by whomever is in charge. In the future, the value of money might fluctuate to the point that we might have to print $1000 bills or it could go the other direction where a $5 dollar bill might be worth $100 dollar bill today.
Personally, I think that it would be beneficial to everyone to go back to the trade system, where you exchange a good or service you want with someone else in exchange of whatever they have to offer. This is of course impossible since we have fallen so deeply in the current economic system that we are in. The cost of implementing that system might be too high and offset the advantages.
So to answer the question what is the value of money? My answer to that is the following. The value of money is what we let the ones with money decide it to be.
Personally, I think that it would be beneficial to everyone to go back to the trade system, where you exchange a good or service you want with someone else in exchange of whatever they have to offer. This is of course impossible since we have fallen so deeply in the current economic system that we are in. The cost of implementing that system might be too high and offset the advantages.
So to answer the question what is the value of money? My answer to that is the following. The value of money is what we let the ones with money decide it to be.
Friday, March 14, 2014
When given the opportunity to write about a country, I had no hesitation when choosing Haiti because that is where I am from. I lived there for 17 years, until I had to move to the United States after the earthquake. Although Haiti is now a third world country, it used to be called "La perle des Antilles" , which means Pearl of the Caribbean. Both the French and the Spanish invaded and fought for Haiti because of all it had to offer. The following picture is a picture of Hispaniola which is how it was called in the past
During the 1500's Haiti had a lot of Gold. When the French and Spanish discovered that, they started to move there to enrich themselves. At first, they used the Indians as slaves to do the dirty work for them, but when their race was starting to disappear, they brought in slaves from Africa. The tropical climate is also a reason why they liked here so much as opposed to the cold weather they had in Europe. Nowadays, people still have expeditions to find gold from the pirate ships which sinked in Haiti's water. Until this day, none of them has been found yet, probably due to the high cost of those expeditions, but there is hope that if it is to be found, Haiti might become "La perle des Antilles" as she use to be.
During the 1500's Haiti had a lot of Gold. When the French and Spanish discovered that, they started to move there to enrich themselves. At first, they used the Indians as slaves to do the dirty work for them, but when their race was starting to disappear, they brought in slaves from Africa. The tropical climate is also a reason why they liked here so much as opposed to the cold weather they had in Europe. Nowadays, people still have expeditions to find gold from the pirate ships which sinked in Haiti's water. Until this day, none of them has been found yet, probably due to the high cost of those expeditions, but there is hope that if it is to be found, Haiti might become "La perle des Antilles" as she use to be.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Capitalism Vs. Socialism regarding sustainability
The debate between capitalism and socialism is as old as it gets. For centuries, people have been debating which one is better. Some wonder how those great "ism" influence the sustainability of the economy. Before getting into this, it is important to know what socialism and capitalism are.
According to Google's definition, Capitalism is " an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
According to that same source, socialism is "a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
According to the article The Misconceptions of Capitalism vs Socialism| Building a Sustainable Economy neither Capitalism nor socialism does a good job at providing us with a sustainable economy. In the author's own words " It's all about ensuring we live as species, culture and individuals in a manner which can be sustained financially, ecologically and socially. Whether that is implemented using capitalist or socialist principles is almost beside the point..."
This seems to disagree with William Godwin's point of view who had proposed a Utopian anarchist society where property and self-interest had disappeared. He added that people would instead act rationally in the interests of the whole. Marx had a similar idea to Godwin when he said that a communist society would be one that institutionalizes conscious human control over its own fate.
A link to the article mentioned in this article can be found bellow
http://ecopreneurist.com/2012/12/19/the-misconceptions-of-capitalism-vs-socialism/
According to Google's definition, Capitalism is " an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
According to that same source, socialism is "a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
According to the article The Misconceptions of Capitalism vs Socialism| Building a Sustainable Economy neither Capitalism nor socialism does a good job at providing us with a sustainable economy. In the author's own words " It's all about ensuring we live as species, culture and individuals in a manner which can be sustained financially, ecologically and socially. Whether that is implemented using capitalist or socialist principles is almost beside the point..."
This seems to disagree with William Godwin's point of view who had proposed a Utopian anarchist society where property and self-interest had disappeared. He added that people would instead act rationally in the interests of the whole. Marx had a similar idea to Godwin when he said that a communist society would be one that institutionalizes conscious human control over its own fate.
A link to the article mentioned in this article can be found bellow
http://ecopreneurist.com/2012/12/19/the-misconceptions-of-capitalism-vs-socialism/
Monday, January 27, 2014
Today's blog is about Gifford Pinchot who lived from 1865 to 1946. If you are expecting to read about Gifford Pinchot's life, this is not the place. I am rather going to focus on the significant roles he played in the Environmental movement during this time on this earth.
He was encouraged by his dad to study the profession of forestry, and since that did not yet exist in the United States, after graduating from Yale, he went to study in Nancy, France at L'Ecole Nationale Forestiere, which he dropped out after a year. His accomplishments in the environmental movement started when he came back. He was able to raise forestry and conservation of natural resources in the United States from an unknown experiment to a nationwide movement. After being named Chief Forester of the redefined U.S. Forest Service, the number of national forests increased from 32 in 1898 to 149 in 1910 for a total of193 million acres under Pinchot's management. In 1908, the Governor'a Conference on Conservation which was largely financed from his personal income brought conservation fully into public view. It was the first of its kind. Based on that alone, we can say that Pinchot educated the public, hence what his one of his roles in the environmental movement.
Gifford Pinchot was heavily involved in politics, and that's actually how he accomplished many of his achievements. He turned down to work with the family business and the fortune that came with it to defend a cause he believed in, which made him one of the biggest names in the environmental movement world. Here's a picture of Mr. Gifford Pinchot.
He was encouraged by his dad to study the profession of forestry, and since that did not yet exist in the United States, after graduating from Yale, he went to study in Nancy, France at L'Ecole Nationale Forestiere, which he dropped out after a year. His accomplishments in the environmental movement started when he came back. He was able to raise forestry and conservation of natural resources in the United States from an unknown experiment to a nationwide movement. After being named Chief Forester of the redefined U.S. Forest Service, the number of national forests increased from 32 in 1898 to 149 in 1910 for a total of193 million acres under Pinchot's management. In 1908, the Governor'a Conference on Conservation which was largely financed from his personal income brought conservation fully into public view. It was the first of its kind. Based on that alone, we can say that Pinchot educated the public, hence what his one of his roles in the environmental movement.
Gifford Pinchot was heavily involved in politics, and that's actually how he accomplished many of his achievements. He turned down to work with the family business and the fortune that came with it to defend a cause he believed in, which made him one of the biggest names in the environmental movement world. Here's a picture of Mr. Gifford Pinchot.
Following is a link if you would like to know more about Gifford Pinchot:
Monday, January 20, 2014
The place that I am interested in is not necessarily a place that I want to learn more about, as I am from there. That place in question, is Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Since the UN came to Haiti, they brought us more harm than good. One of the terrible things the United Nations did to our already troubled country is the fact that they brought cholera to the country (That's what has been said. I have no information to confirm, nor deny this information). Before the government was able to slow down the disease, cholera killed thousands of people. It may not seem a lot, but Haiti is a little country with a population of roughly 10 million of inhabitants. It is my goal to go back one day, and help the country take a step in the right direction and leave our current mentality behind, so that we can become a united country like we use to be. The country our ancestors fought for to give us our independence from the French.The image shown in today's blog is called Moulin Sur Mer. This is one of the best places to go to when you go to Haiti.
If you'd like to know more about Haiti, here's a link that shows you what the media does not.
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