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Intro ENST Midterm Exam

Ashley Morales

Sustainable Resource Use: Problems and Potential Solutions

Blog post: 9/1/20

This week’s readings showed that humans are overusing the earth's resources, and that our way of life is not sustainable in the long run. Currently, we deplete resources with no concern for the future, and engage in practices such as deforestation and overfishing. And that use is not distributed equally across the population. As mentioned in the textbook, the highest percentage of resources are used by the small fraction of people who live in developed countries, due to extravagant lifestyles and increased consumption (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). Additional causes of environmental problems are population, poverty, the omission of environmental costs in the prices of goods and services, and increasing isolation from nature. If we continue on this way, we are essentially digging our own graves. Protecting the environment and limiting our consumption of resources is integral to the preservation of humanity, because Earth does not need us as much as we need it.

According to the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity we were experiencing ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, and an overuse of water resources in 1992 (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992). These issues are backed up by tireless scientific research, and unfortunately, many of these issues have been intensified in the years since the warning was issued. In terms of population growth, we were straining the limits of what the earth can sustain at 5 billion. We are approaching 8 billion people, which puts a massive strain on natural resources. This is important because it shows that the problems that we now face were outlined years ago, and little was resolved. However, the scientific community proposed solutions to the aforementioned issues, and the most important solution is to limit ourselves. We must put a limit on our consumption and our waste in order to allow nature to sustain us.

Social issues also contribute to the environmental crisis we face. Poverty is a source of environmental stress, because when a group or society lives in poverty, they cannot afford to make sweeping lifestyle changes to care for the environment because they are worried about immediate survival. The warning to humanity also cited the insurance of sexual equality and reproductive rights as a potential solution to environmental issues. Access to family planning resources and birth control can vastly slow population growth, as can education.

The warning mentions the necessity for society to adopt a “new ethic” (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992). In order to address environmental issues, we need to create change on a large scale, and address and change common perceptions. According to the textbook, there are six principles that will allow us to live more sustainably: Switching our main energy resource to solar power, encouraging and maintaining biodiversity, allowing chemical cycling to occur, implementing full cost pricing, implementing policies that allow us to help the most people while still keeping the environment in mind (“win-win”), and staying responsible for future generations. Keeping these in mind, especially during the formation of policy, will improve our relationship with the environment. Especially recognizing our responsibility to future generations. We have gotten to this point by making short-sighted decisions and not thinking critically about the future ramifications of processes such as deforestation, but thinking towards the future will help change the view that instant gain is not as important as long-term success. Having a lot of wood products now is not as important as having a supply of wood that lasts forever if we allow it time to regenerate between uses.

These environmental issues are often caused by competing worldviews, especially among figures in government and influential heads of business. Not only have policy makers not planned for the future, but some also hold a human-centric worldview, and believe that the purpose of nature is to support humans, creating a hierarchy of importance at which humans are the peak. This view also claims that we are the managers of nature, and if there is an issue, our advanced technology can save the day. However, a different worldview is the earth-centered worldview. The idea behind this is that we as humans are part of the ecosystem, rather than above it, and that we are dependent on nature. This view also claims that natural capital exists for all species, and that we do not automatically have more of a right to it than any other plant or animal. Adoption of the earth-centric worldview would help us redirect our ways of thinking as a society to be more mindful of the ways in which we interact with the world around us.

We all have work to do to reduce our resource consumption, on a country-wide scale as well as on an individual scale. I recently took the ecological footprint quiz, and my results stated that if everyone lived like me, we would need 3.2 Earths to sustain us all. My personal Earth Overshoot Day was April 21st, meaning I used my equal share of yearly resources almost four months ago. My ecological footprint is 5.5 global hectares. I was a little disappointed to receive these results, because I previously thought I lived sensibly and used my resources wisely. However, it is important to consider that there are factors out of the control of some individuals, such as the type of house one’s family lives in, or the type of food they have access to. Even so, I was proud that my ecological footprint was less than my country’s average, although I was also scared that my country’s average was so high. The average ecological footprint per person in the United States is 8.1 global hectares. Meanwhile, the biocapacity per person is 3.6 global hectares. This means that the majority of people are 4.5 global hectares over their biocapacity. I myself am 1.9 global hectares over my biocapacity.

The warning mentioned that sustainable resource use is “enlightened self interest”, because it allows us to think about what is best now, and what will also help us improve in the future. Similarly the book mentioned that the Earth is not the one that needs saving. Environmental movements usually market themselves as “saving the Earth”, but in reality, we are just helping it. We need to be more sustainable and implement changes to our behavior in order to save ourselves. This point reminded me of a documentary that my fifth grade teacher showed my class, which was called Aftermath: Population Zero. It asked the question: what if all humans just disappeared right now? The film showed that the immediate aftermath would be apocalyptic, but eventually, the planet would stabilize. Trees would grow on the land where homes once stood, and environmental biodiversity would increase, because we are not there to destroy habitats. It was honestly a jarring movie to watch as a 10 year old, because in watching it, I had to acknowledge that Earth does not need us. Earth’s purpose is not to provide for humanity. The earth has been around for billions of years, and will continue on after humans as a species have died. The changes are so we can acknowledge our dependence on the environment and do the least harm to it while we’re here, hopefully prolonging our existence in doing so.

Word count: 1203

Question: How can we incentivize a large scale reduction of resource consumption?

Bibliography:

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Union of Concerned Scientists. 1992. 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.

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Science: Our Knowledge of the World

Ashley Morales

9/9/20

This week’s textbook chapters broke down science as a whole, from the practice of it to the basic aspects that we understand about our world. Science is the basis for our understanding of the physical world around us. Science as a field of study assumes that measurable patterns exist in nature, and they can be understood through observation, measurement, and experimentation (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). This understanding is gained through the scientific method, which is the testing of a hypothesis and the gathering of data. All scientific experimentation must undergo review by peer scientists before it can become reliable. This is relevant because it solidifies our knowledge about natural processes of the world, and when it is deemed reliable, we can build on the knowledge from there. It is important for people to have an understanding of basic chemistry and biology so that they can understand the delicate balance in which the world works. However, even with this knowledge that we have amassed about the world, we continue to act in ways that directly contradict that knowledge in terms of environmental damage.

Flow chart depicting the scientific method. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Starting at the beginning, we have deduced that the world is made up of matter, which is anything that has mass and takes up space, and is controlled by energy, which is the ability to do work. These interactions occur within systems, or sets of components that regularly function and interact. Matter, energy, and information flow through the systems from the environment and then back into the environment. Systems can be affected by feedback loops, or changes that cause other effects on the environment. A positive feedback loop causes further change in the same direction, while a negative feedback loop cancels itself out. An example of a positive feedback loop is northern ice ice: as the white ice melts, more dark land or water is exposed underneath. The ice has a high albedo, which would normally reflect the radiation energy and keep the temperature relatively stable. However, since the ice has started to melt, the land or water underneath absorbs the radiation energy rather than reflecting it, making it even warmer and melting even more ice. This is a positive feedback loop because the system keeps intensifying the initial effect.

The natural world lives in a delicate balance and relies on a few key factors to keep life going. The three factors that sustain life on earth are sunlight, nutrient cycling, and gravity. All of life is reliant on energy from the sun because the sun supports plant growth, which is integral to food chains, as well as the production of oxygen and the absorption of carbon dioxide. Sunlight also keeps us warm by working with the particles in the air through the greenhouse effect. Life relies on nutrient cycling because there are limited materials on this planet, so elements like phosphorus and nitrogen move through ecosystems so that it does not run out. All processes are also reliant on gravity because the basic principle allows the processes of nutrient cycling and the atmosphere itself to exist.

Ecosystems on the earth rely on the above factors, and ecosystems themselves are systems of living and nonliving components. They are home to different plant and animal species depending on where they are in the world. An ecosystem relies on biodiversity, which is essentially the variety of life on earth, and can be present in a few different ways. Species diversity can mean species richness, which is the number of different species, or species evenness, which is the abundance or ratios of species. Genetic diversity is the variety of genes within a species that can affect the outcome or even induce evolution. Ecosystem diversity is the variety of the Earth��s ecosystems themselves such as deserts, grasslands, forests, and more. Finally, functional diversity is the variety of natural processes such as the flow of energy and the cycling of matter that occur within ecosystems. The diversity in an ecosystem works together to create complex webs of interspecies relationships and dependencies on each other and the surrounding environment.

Some of the species within these ecosystems are native, and some are nonnative and invasive. A native species is one that normally lives and thrives in the area, whereas a nonnative species was introduced to an area either purposefully or by accident. Most of the time nonnative species don’t do much harm, but sometimes they can overthrow an ecosystem and fill the niches, or purposes, of native species. An example of an invasive nonnative species is the cane toad in Australia. The cane toad was introduced as a natural way to keep the cane beetle in check and prevent them from destroying crops. However, the cane toad did not do its intended job, and fed on the crops as well as other species in the ecosystem, and due to their ability to quickly breed they became a menace to the ecosystem. By the 1980s, Australia had a cane toad problem (Lewis, 1988).

Some species are indicator species, which will show early on if there is an issue within the ecosystem. Birds tend to be indicator species, so when there is a large scale environmental issue there will sometimes be a mass bird die-off. Even now there are much fewer birds than there were 100 years ago. Some species are keystone species, which have large scale effects on the ecosystems, sometimes even helping their existence and survival. An example of a keystone species is the wolf, because when it disappears, the ecosystem falls into chaos.

In the Yellowstone National Park, wolves were removed from the ecosystem. During that time, deer overpopulated because their predators were gone. Unchecked, the deer began to deplete the vegetation, which contributed to erosion, fewer small consumers, and a more meandering river due to the instability of the land. However, when the wolves were reintroduced, the ecosystem re-stabilized. The wolves ate excess deer, but even without being eaten, the deer began to avoid certain areas where the wolves would hunt, allowing vegetation to return. When the plants returned, the land stabilized and the river wandered less and remained more consistent. The increased plant life allowed smaller animals to return, which then allowed their predators to return as well. The return of the wolf as a keystone species brought genetic diversity to the ecosystem, and changed the physical landscape of the area for the better as well (Sustainable Human, 2014). This case study demonstrates the interconnectedness of ecosystems, and how changing one factor can throw everything out of balance, even abiotic factors such as river formation and erosion.

We have amassed all this knowledge about our natural world through scientific discovery, and yet humans have only been on this earth for a miniscule portion of Earth’s existence. If the history of the world was condensed into a 24 hour day, humans only exist for two minutes, and all of recorded history only spans a few seconds (AsapSCIENCE, 2012). And yet we have had such a profound impact on the world in such a short time. With all of this knowledge, we continue to contradict it in our actions. We continue to stress ecosystems and destroy habitats and diminish biodiversity, even though we know that all of these factors are integral. Science can help us understand but we need other incentives to change.

Word count: 1228

Blog Question: Knowing all that we know about earth’s natural balance, ecosystems, and important processes, why do we as humans continue to interrupt ecosystems, destroy habitats and overstep our niche, affecting most aspects of earth’s function?

Bibliography:

AsapSCIENCE. “The Evolution of Live on Earth.” Youtube Video, 2:19. November 28, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_6cqa2cP4

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. “Flow chart depicting the scientific method.” Photo. 2012.

Lewis, Mark, dir. Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. 1988; Australia: 2015. Youtube.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Sustainable Human. “How Wolves Change Rivers.” Youtube Video, 4:33. February 13, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

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Environmental History

Ashley Morales

9/16/20

This week’s readings examined environmental preservation from a global scale, and examined history from a geologic time scale from the big bang. Big history is a way to observe time from the big bang, and functions as an overview. It is not as human-centric as traditional history, and instead of separating humanity by civilizations, it observes society’s overall scope. Big history studies large trends over time, such as periods of extinction or periods of prosperity for life. It is an interdisciplinary approach to history, including some life science (“Big History”). However, it does still spend quite a bit of time studying humanity due to our profound effect on the earth in such little time. Part of the cause of our environmental impact is modernization, and from the industrial revolution to the present, environmental preservation has been an uphill battle. And if our modern lifestyles don’t keep the planet in mind, is it really a “progress”?

The anthropocene is a proposed epoch of geologic time that would mark the impact of humanity on the earth and would include anthropogenic climate change. Geologic epochs are a way to divide such large spans of time, such as the Paleocene epoch, whose beginning was marked by the asteroid impact that killed off seventy-five percent of Earth’s species. We are currently undergoing a large extinction event, which typically marks geologic periods of time. Scientists and historians debate over when to start this anthropocene, because some believe it should start at the beginning of human manipulation of the earth when we began farming as opposed to hunting and gathering. Others feel that it should start when we detonated the first nuclear bombs, because that shows a profound shift in our impact and a shift in the environment, with ecosystems still reeling from the event. It will take nature years to recover from the levels of radiation released from the detonations (“Anthropocene”).

I believe the anthropocene should begin around the industrial revolution, because that shows a marked shift in our use of resources, advances in technology, and societal changes in environmental views. The industrial revolution was when we started to severely alter the environment by mining for coal on a large scale, building railroads across huge stretches of land, and manufacturing products in factories. It is the beginning of the modern lifestyle of overconsumption and destruction, which has defined our epoch.

Additionally, this time period in America was also when people started to worry about our resource use and our effect on our surrounding environment. Early conservationists from the mid-1800s such as Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh. Thoreau noticed native species around him dwindling, so he moved to a cabin in the woods and wrote about his experience through an environmental lens. Marsh raised the question if natural resources truly were inexhaustible, so with studies he showed that the rise and fall of civilizations of the past had been determined by their resource use, and that many past societies fell due to reckless consumption of natural resources or inefficient resource use. However, conservation of the environment became more popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, the foundation of the Sierra Club, and the environmental protection policies of Theodore Roosevelt.

The aforementioned policies just outline the early stages of American environmentalism. Modern environmentalism took off with Rachel Carson’s A Silent Spring. The book outlined the effect that the pesticide DDT had on the soil, air, and water, and was a milestone in the protection of the quality of our natural resources.This also influenced a number of environmental laws and policies in the 1960s-1970s. Congress banned the use of DDT in 1972, and environmentalists hoped that the government would continue to fight for environmental rights. During the Nixon presidency, America saw an unprecedented rise in the number of environmental protection laws. The Clean Air Act of 1970, The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency were all championed by President Nixon during a high point in American environmental advocacy. (Miller and Spoolman, 2007)

“Trends in total DDT concentrations in whole fish sampled by the National Contaminant Biomonitoring Program from 1969 to 1986. Data are from U.S. Geological Survey, 1992. For the 90th (or 50th) percentile concentration, 90 (or 50) percent of samples were below the concentration shown.”

In recent years, fossil fuel corporations and organizations have taken a stance against environmental protection that has been heavily supported financially, and has created a problem for the environmentalism movement by blocking and rolling back environmental protection policies. The corporate stance has been supported by many politicians. In fact, we have not had a president since Richard Nixon who prioritized environmentalism in their campaign or time in office. Our rapid growth and consumption is going mostly unchecked in the US, and seeing as the US is a major contributor to worldwide pollution and a major consumer of world resources, the consequences of this could be disastrous. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is a book by Jared Diamond detailing the collapses of past civilizations, as well as the factors that we face that could lead to ours. Some modem problems discussed include deforestation, overpopulation, and anthropogenic climate change, with the root of our issues being overpopulation relative to carrying capacity. It is reasonable to worry that without change, these issues will doom modern society. We tend to value progress or growth as arbitrary measures of societal success, but these are the ugly side effects to our lack of restraint in our quest for so-called progress (“Collapse: How Societies…”).

Humanity has not always lived beyond its environmental means. During the “tribal” era of environmental history, humans lived sustainably on the land with minimal environmental impact. However, European settlement changed that, clearing forests for settlement and displacing those who had lived there and cared for the land for so long. European settlement was the beginning of an incredibly damaging time for the North American environment. Settlers/colonies had little idea of the impact of their actions, and just saw land as something to own and conquer rather than an environment that we as humans exist within and rely on. (Miller and Spoolman, 2007)

In the view of geologic historical timelines, humans have not been around for long at all. Yet in courses on big history, the study of humanity still takes up around a third of the material. This is due to our profound impact and innovation. However, was it “better” during the tribal era? Modernity has solved a lot of problems in terms of humanity’s quality of life, but the complications that come with modern societies also seem to impede efforts to protect the planet we call home. Capitalist interest has seeped into every part of life, to the point where the Environmental Protection Agency is barely even protecting the environment anymore, and instead allowing drilling in nature preserves for example. It is clear that the sentiment of the seventies was wrong, and the government will not put policies in place to help environmental problems without extreme public pressure.

Word count: 1129

Blog Question: Is the increasing separation from nature in modern life affecting our view of the environment? Is “modernity” really working in our favor? Is it possible to care for the environment and live sustainably without completely uprooting society, or is the uprooting of society necessary?

Bibliography:

Miller, G. T., & Spoolman, S. (2007). Living in the environment. Cengage Learning.

Pesticides in Stream Sediment and Aquatic Biota. USGS. https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/pubs/fs09200/.

Wikipedia contributors, "Anthropocene," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthropocene&oldid=983363396 (accessed September 16, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Big History," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_History&oldid=982722857 (accessed September 16, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed&oldid=981990777 (accessed September 16, 2020).

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Environmental Ethics

Ashley Morales

9/23/20

This week’s readings focused on environmental ethics, justice, and our relationships with nature. The textbook chapter discusses environmental worldviews, education, and sustainability. Environmental worldviews diverge into two major branches: human centered and earth centered. Human centered focuses on humans as either dominant creatures that can exact our will, or as dominant protectors of the environment. Either way, according to this view, our needs come first, and the environment serves us. The earth centered worldviews (or life centered worldviews as they are sometimes called) claim that all forms of life have value, even if that value is not particularly useful to humans, and that they deserve to exist just as much as we do. How we view ourselves in relation to the environment is important in determining our actions to either benefit or harm it. The overlap between environmental worldviews, environmental justice and our relationship with nature begs the question: how can we improve? Education and exposure to nature could help reduce environmental impact and injustice.

Another major tenet of our readings was the idea of environmental justice. Environmental justice is the intersection between social justice and environmentalism. It realizes that there is inequality in environmental quality and environmental benefits/burdens between communities, and that those inequalities are influenced by race and socioeconomic status. For example, toxic waste sites and landfills tend to be placed in lower income and/or minority neighborhoods and can have harmful effects on residents. Once the issue is identified, if local government even listens to community concerns at all, response time is embarrassingly poor: there are “dramatic differences between white communities and people of color communities in the time it took to mitigate hazardous sites; there were also marked disparities in compensation measures, the penal-ties against polluters and violators of pollution-law, and the stringency of cleanup solutions” (Figueroa, 2009). There is little sense of urgency for the wellbeing of these communities based on response time to hazard, as if these people are seen as disposable. Additionally, these neighborhoods have less representation in decision making processes and less total political power than richer whiter neighborhoods, and thus have to receive the consequences of decisions they had no say in. Education and awareness of these issues are integral to resolving them, as many people outside the problem, as well as even those experiencing it are not educated on what is happening to them, and how they are victims of environmental injustice. Education could potentially lead to activism and reform.

As a society, we can barely acknowledge and protect the rights of our fellow citizens now. But an interesting philosophical/ethical dilemma is our responsibility to future generations. This idea interrogates one main question: does the present generation have an obligation to forfeit some convenience now for the security of generations in the future? This brings up a few issues. First, if these theoretical people do not exist yet, how can we negotiate what is best for them and us. They also cannot reward or punish us for our actions because when they are around and feel the effects of our actions, we will be gone. But it would have been very helpful for our current environmental situation if our parents’ and grandparents’ generations had taken us into account when making decisions about energy, pollution, and resource use. Additionally, sustainable consumption would be better for our immediate wellbeing as well as establishing better-functioning systems for the future. In terms of systematic change, it is good to frame these issues in person-person terms, even if it slightly devalues nature. This is because it sells reform and change better, especially in politics.

It seems to be easy to devalue and reject nature, especially since we are moving more towards urban living and distancing ourselves from the natural environment. We could take an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. However, we do rely on nature, not only for resources, but for our own happiness due to our evolutionary relationship with nature. Biophilia is an “innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms” and has two main components. The innate aspect means that this is part of human genes and evolution, while the emotional aspect means that it can be pleasing and/or motivate action driven by an emotional response. We also physically benefit from time outside: “In addition to the emotional and physiological benefits from nature contact, there is some evidence of a linkage to cognitive functioning” (Heerwagen, 2009). It really makes very little sense that we continue to pollute and devalue nature, even though it has been proven to be a lifeline for us, not only in its usefulness for our lifestyles, but in its benefits for us internally. A lack of contact with nature is referred to as “nature-deficit disorder” and can point to a variety of issues such as anxiety or attention-deficit disorders (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). This is why urban areas are desperately in need of greenspace such as parks and trees and gardens. Not only would it benefit us physically, but it would help us feel more empathy for the environment because we’d be surrounded by it, and maybe would help some disparities in environmental quality between communities.

Being around nature and being educated both about it and by it can help solve a lot of our current environmental issues. We actively threaten our own species existence with our action, and part of it stems from the fact that not enough people are educated about the environment, or how it works. Those who make policy allowing oil drilling for example would benefit from formal environmental education in order to see the issues with that decision. Additionally, many people could benefit from the aforementioned contact with the environment. A lack of intimate connection with the environment can reduce our perceived responsibility to the environment and to others (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). The best way to approach and solve issues is with education. This can be seen within the current Black Lives Matter movement, where many non-black allies are educating themselves in order to better address and combat racism within themselves and their own communities. Being open to learning, especially in the issues of racism and the environment, where the facts seem to be clear, is the first step towards change. Issues of racism and ignorance can stem from bigotry, and it is possible to change. Environmental injustices towards people of color does not need to be part of our reality. It exists because of systemic injustices based on prejudices that can be unlearned. What is harder to change is self interest. After learning about racial discrimination in environmental hazards, will people who are unaffected by these issues be willing to take on some of the burden to soften the blow for the oppressed? After learning about the benefits of nature, or even experiencing them, will fossil fuel companies change their tactics and values for the common good of society?

Word count: 1154

Blog Question:

Why is it so hard for humans to give up convenience for the wellbeing of others? We see this now during coronavirus with mask-wearing, and with the arguments against intergenerational responsibility and even just in the presence of environmental injustice. It’s a very “why should I care about them mentality”. How can we evolve from that, especially on a large scale?

Bibliography:

Courtney Cameron, “5 Health Benefits of Spending Time in Nature,” Natural Wellness Academy, October 7, 2019,

https://www.naturalwellnessacademy.org/2019/10/07/5-health-benefits-of-spending-time-in-nature/

Figueroa, Robert Melchior. 2009. “Environmental Justice.” In Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott, 341-348.

Heerwagen, Judith. 2009. “Biophilia.” In Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott, 109-113.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

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Environmental Economics and Capitalism

Ashley Morales

9/30/20

This week’s readings interrogated the value of ecosystem services, sustainable business, our place as consumers and citizens, and the role of environmental law and policy. Ecosystem services are the benefits that we reap from the environmental functions, such as nutrient cycling or pollination. We greatly undervalue them economically, not including the price of harming them in the total price of the good or service we use them for. We also undervalue our natural capital itself, such as our forests or lakes and rivers. If we actually used the full-cost pricing of goods and services, which would include the externalities of the ecosystem services and natural capital often left out, we could actually use our resources more sustainably because we as producers and consumers would understand the true cost (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). “If ecosystem services were actually paid for, in terms of their value contribution to the global economy, the global price system would be very different from what it is today. The price of commodities using ecosystem services directly or indirectly would be much greater” (Costanza, et al., 1997), and knowing that producers try to make everything as low cost to produce and consumers try to buy the lowest cost option, we would produce and buy less as a direct result.

Diagram of ecosystem services.

The textbook chapter twenty three also explained subsidies, and this shows that the government has more control over the economy than a lot of people think. The government can intervene to prevent market failure, and the only reason fossil fuels are the price that they are is because the government subsidizes coal and oil companies. These are “perverse subsidies, [which] lead to environmental damage and harmful health effects. Examples include depletion subsidies and tax breaks for extracting minerals and fossil fuels, cutting timber on public lands, and irrigating with low-cost water. These subsidies and tax breaks distort the economic playing field and create a huge economic incentive for unsustainable resource waste, depletion, and environmental degradation” (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). They could very easily subsidize renewable energy companies instead, but they choose not to. Glorification of coal and oil by the government has leached into society and has become an example of how salesmanship has permeated culture and forced us into the role of willing consumer. Coal and oil were sold as agents of progress and economic growth, and so we buy cars and complain when gasoline prices rise, even though gas is not nearly as expensive as it would be if it was not subsidized by the government.

Capitalism does not only compel us to use up resources, but it preaches productivity and consumerism as a way to add meaning to your life. Within our capitalist society, people themselves are seen as numbers and only valued by our productivity. We are even sold political candidates through capitalist methods. This is the main argument of the article “Consumer or Citizen” on The Online Gadfly. According to the article, “the distinction between the consumer and the citizen is crucial to an understanding of the causes of the degradation of our political institutions. That distinction might also point the way toward a restoration of our democracy” (Partridge, 2002). This is an important issue, because if a small group of salespeople can advertise their candidate to us well enough, that can affect our culture and our future. The article claims that we are sold candidates through a series of images and buzzwords, and that because of this we have begun to care more about a candidate's image, air, and “likeability” as opposed to actual arguments and stances on important issues. An example is the Al Gore vs Bush election, because during the debates Gore clearly showed masterful command of language, argument, and fact, but Bush won the election because his team pushed him as more “likeable”. Politics now uses the same advertisement tools as corporations, and we are just cogs in the machine. Politics is sold to us through entertainment as a distraction from real issues, similarly to the “bread and circuses” of ancient Rome, when the Roman government made sure to feed and entertain the population to keep them calm and ignorant of real issues.

We are evolving into consumers in our everyday lives because we are being treated as consumers at every turn with ads and media telling us we need things. Even our emotional responses are commodified as tools for political campaigns, that then try and sell our feelings back to us in exchange for a vote. We are used as focus groups, with our emotions recorded and manipulated. This can be applied to environmental issues because people still seem to ignore obvious facts, both in electoral debate and environmental discourse. This is because climate change deniers sell their side well, playing to people's innate emotional desire for comfort and stability, so they say that nothing is wrong and people believe it.

Reading this article honestly felt like the plot description of a Black Mirror episode, especially when the author discussed the oligarchical structure of the government, and that the ideal citizen is an efficient worker who consumes and wastes without a second thought, and is well trained but not too educated in order to avoid uprising, and instead is obedient while the oligarchs control their life. “Success” is really just a social construct based on how much you can afford to consume and waste, and without knowing, we are just pawns of these larger systems of power. This reminds me of the song “The Fine Print'' by The Stupendium, which satirizes American capitalism by setting it on a space colony.

However, there is still opportunity and room for change. We can break the cycle of thoughtless consumption and waste, and we can evolve into more than what the aforementioned “oligarchs” want us to be. New visions of law, policy, and business are popping up and developing to be more environmentally friendly. Sustainable businesses, sometimes also referred to as green businesses, abide by certain practices that reduce waste and environmental impact, and actually try to have a positive effect on the surrounding environment or community (“Sustainable business”). They also attempt to incorporate “progressive environmental and human rights policies” (“Sustainable business”). If more businesses abided by these ideals, we would consume and waste less. Additionally beneficial to our society would be a lean towards environmental law and policy that protects nature and incorporates principles of environmental justice, protecting those who are unjust victims of environmental hazards. It is evident that change needs to happen soon, and we need to restructure business to reduce waste, restructure laws to increase sustainability and address issues such as environmental racism, and restructure our economy to take into account the external environmental costs of goods and services. It is an intimidating task, but the government holds a lot of power in this matter, and if they subsidized and sold sustainability to us like they do fossil fuel companies and political candidates, we might stand a chance.

Blog Question: Is there ethical consumption under capitalism? Does capitalism even make sense as a modern economic system? Is “green capitalism” a viable option for the future?

Word Count: 1192

Bibliography:

Costanza, Robert, Ralph d’Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farberk, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shahid Naeem, Robert V. O’Neill, Jose Paruelo, Robert G. Raskin, Paul Suttonkk & Marjan van den Belt. “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” May, 1977.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RRERLVGVvV2dZSWM/view

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

Partridge, Earnest. “Consumer or Citizen.” The Online Gadfly. April, 2002. http://gadfly.igc.org/politics/left/consumer.htm

“What are Ecosystem Services?”. CEEWeb for Biodiversity.

http://www.ceeweb.org/work-areas/priority-areas/ecosystem-services/what-are-ecosystem-services/ (accessed September 29, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Sustainable business," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sustainable_business&oldid=970836002 (accessed September 29, 2020).

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Population Growth and Employment

Ashley Morales

10/7/20

This week’s materials have to do with population growth and its relationship to ecological damage and quality of life. To start, there are almost 8 billion people on this planet according to the world population clock, and the number is growing steadily (“Current World Population”). According to the US population clock, there is a birth about every 8 seconds and a death about every 12 seconds. That coupled with a new international migrant every 47 seconds leads to a net gain of one person every 18 seconds. Even though the US population numbers are not growing quite as fast as the world population clock, whose numbers are flying, the US population is still growing quite steadily, and a gain of one person every 18 seconds is important for the third most populated country in the world (“US and World Population Clock”).

Is Earth able to support all of these people? The world’s carrying capacity, or the number of people it can support is a hotly debated topic among scientists and scholars, with some questioning if it even exists, and arguing that the technological progress we have made so far and further innovation will nullify the idea that there is a limit to the amount of people that the earth’s resources can sustain. We bypassed this limit through the genetic engineering of food, so technically we could further bypass it as technology evolves.

Population growth in more and less developed countries

Source: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, medium variant (2011).

Is population growth a problem? Currently yes, because of the way that we are growing. Most of the population growth occurs in the world’s less developed countries, with only 4% of the new population being added to more developed countries in 2018. So the real question to consider is the quality of life of those being born. This refers to cultural carrying capacity, or “the maximum number of people who could live in reasonable freedom and comfort indefinitely, without decreasing the ability of the earth to sustain future generations” (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). The current issues are that most babies are born into extreme poverty, and, as those countries develop, their resource use will increase intensely. While the Earth may not have a distinct limit in terms of the resources that can sustain us, it does have a limit as to how many people can live here comfortably and happily in the long term.

How can it be fixed? Many of the issues that stem from overpopulation have relatively simple solutions. The issue is implementation. For example, fertility rate could be lowered through an increase in educational and employment opportunities for women. Additionally, access to family planning resources and birth control would further reduce population growth, and lessen strain on families and the environment. But for those solutions to be implemented, one would have to contend with the religious societal values of the countries that need it most. Many of the countries with the most rapidly growing populations have cultural values to prevent the education of women or the use of birth control (Miller and Spoolman, 2021). Therefore, this relatively simple solution becomes more complex, because a solution that would be accepted by the country would be one that does not conflict with societal values, even though those values are sexist.

To reduce consumption, especially in more developed countries, we could employ more people per position and have every individual employee work fewer hours. People having more free time would encourage creativity and do-it-yourself projects, and actually reduce the mindless consumption of products that we are taught is beneficial for the economy, but is actually incredibly harmful to the environment (New Dream, 2011). However, in order to implement these changes we would have to subvert the American expectation of working at 100% all the time, and the ideas that having more money or stuff is a measure of success and happiness. And as is evident by the fact that we still deal with these issues even though we know how to solve them, changing the culture of a society, even for the benefit of its own residents, is very difficult.

However, aspects of these solutions are already being implemented. The New York sustainability plan, also known as PlaNYC, was a plan proposed by mayor Bloomberg in 2007 to help reduce resource consumption and prepare for new residents sustainably (“PlaNYC”). Transition towns have also been attempted and community funded to combat the effects of climate change and economic instability through increased self-sufficiency (“Transition town”).

What are some other benefits of this reformed society? Other benefits of this reformed society would be an overall higher quality of life. Working less would not only reduce consumption, it would reduce unemployment and therefore lessen poverty rates. Additionally, it would reduce stress on the individual employees. People would be able to pick up hobbies or cook healthier food or just relax. The parable of the businessman and the fisherman really sticks with me when I consider this potential future. Basically, a businessman goes on vacation and sees a fisherman, and asks about his life. The fisherman goes out in the morning to catch fish, plays with his children, then in the afternoon he teaches children how to fish and in the evening he goes into town with his wife and friends. The businessman then gives him (unsolicited) advice as to how he can increase his productivity, wealth, and potentially grow an empire. When the fisherman asks what he would do with the wealth, the businessman replies that he would pack up and settle down somewhere, fish in the morning, play with his children… and essentially live the life he already has (Koehler, 2008). Why do we as a society over complicate life so much? Why do so many people work jobs they don’t like day in and day out just to hopefully someday retire, relax, and get to enjoy their time? If jobs just employed more people for fewer hours each, there would be less unemployment, and more people would have both greater financial stability and greater free time. People would get to enjoy life while they are living it instead of spending all their time slaving away for corporate America just to get maybe two days off at the end of the week.

What's stopping us from creating this utopia? Mainly that it does not benefit the heads of large corporations who essentially own the government. If companies hire more workers, that means they have to pay more salaries, slightly decreasing their profit. If people have more time off, consume less, and create more, then they are not the mindless consuming employees that corporations want. Corporations benefit off of the culture of working yourself to the bone until that magical age when you can retire. A more stable economy and less resource consumption are sold as stagnation because it does not represent constant growth. But is constant growth really beneficial? If the majority of the people contributing to the economy can’t enjoy their lives due to stress or unemployment, who is said “economic growth” truly benefitting?

Blog Question: Why don’t more people realize that we can in fact change society? Society can be restructured, the current system is not the only way of doing things. So why are people so complicit in the lackluster quality of their lives instead of actively looking for ways to restructure?

Word Count: 1236

Bibliography:

Berrett Koehler, “More Than Money - What Is "The Good Life" Parable,” YouTube video, 3:05, August 8, 208, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7JlI959slY

“Current World Population.” Worldometer. Accessed October 6, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. 2021. Living in the Environment.

New Dream, “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy,” YouTube video, 4:51, September 15, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HR-YrD_KB0M

United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision, medium variant (2011).

“U.S. and World Population Clock.” Population Clock. United States Census Bureau. Accessed October 6, 2020. https://www.census.gov/popclock/.

Wikipedia contributors, "PlaNYC," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PlaNYC&oldid=952681772 (accessed October 6, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, "Transition town," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transition_town&oldid=980641800 (accessed October 6, 2020).

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everydayecoist · 6 years ago

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Sustainable fashion - Is it doable?

One of my new years resolutions was to buy no new clothes for 2019 (within reason of course). However, for the past weeks I’ve been thinking of buying a new pair of pants (seeing as a somehow I only own jeans) and so yesterday I went into the Icelandic shopping mall Kringlan. My goal was to find a pair of pants for as cheap as possible seeing as I am on a broke student budget.

Because of that my first instinct was to go into all the cheapest store’s in the mall. For ex. Vera Moda, Vila, New Yorker, Lindex and H&M. After walking into all of these stores I almost immediately walked out again disappointed. Why? Firstly I just didn’t find was I was looking for and secondly when I looked at the clothes I found them all to be cheaply made and was certain that they wouldn’t last me through the year. After being in all of these stores I also realised that I just couldn’t support these fast fashion companies anymore. Knowing that they are treating their workers unfairly and contributing largely to climate change.

This has been a very complex topic for me in regards to living sustainably as I want to buy clothes from more sustainable companies but they are often out of my price range and very hard to find in Iceland. I just find it infuriating that in all of Kringlan and Smáralind (the 2 biggest shopping malls in Iceland) there are hardly any sustainable options when it comes to buying clothes, or most products for that matter. Yes I know that there are second hand stores around but seeing as I am a plus size girl it is very hard for me to find second hand clothes that fit me, as much as I would love to support those stores.

So what is my solution?? I have to admit I don’t know yet. I’m gonna do my research and most likely I will have to end up buying something online (which also sucks because then It has to be shipped to Iceland). This is something that will hopefully be better in the future and I think it will just take some time to change.

I am very happy to see that a lot of people are starting to wake up and see the harm in these fast fashion companies. However they are still growing and selling more clothes than ever that just end up in our landfill. I know this isn’t exactly the most educational blog post but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there and raise awareness to this issue. Having said that I encourage all of you reading this post to be more conscious buyers in the future and try to boycott these terrible companies as much you can. I know it’s convenient to pop in there to buy that cheap pair of socks or a sweater but think of everything that happened so that you could get those pieces so cheap and what will happen after you stop wearing them. I could make a whole blog post on the environmental harm of these clothes (maybe that will come in the future) but to be honest you probably know that already and if not I encourage you to do your research and watch the documentary “The true cost” on Netflix.

Lastly, if you know of any good sustainable brands that have sizes for +sized girls please let me know. Let’s all tackle this together and help each other to live more sustainably.

Please follow this blog if you are interested in reading more of my rubbish thoughts!

Much love, Salka.

#clothes #fastfashion #sustainable #sustainability #climate change #climateaction #h&m #lindex #vila #newyorker #veramoda

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paidrestperiod · 7 years ago

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The Degradation We Wear on our Sleeves

I stress about my clothes, greatly. Not so much what they say, or people’s perception of them, I dress pretty conservatively for the most part. I stress about their quality, not only the strength of their fibers but the strength of their morals. I have a huge and real moral dilemma when it comes to buying new clothes, and often this means wearing through the few thrift store finds, watching them age from acceptable to tattered rags. In this essay I wrote for my environmental literature class, I explore the clothing industry through the lens of the concept of “Slow Violence” (See Rob Nixon) (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021909613495648?journalCode=jasa) and will hopefully give some context as to why I feel the way I do about clothing.

Bare with me for a moment.

Take a look at the shirt you’re wearing. Inspect it. Look at the stitchings and feel the material between your fingers. What does it feel like? Solid? Bargain? Now ask yourself, where did that shirt come from? No, not the Macey’s or other store where you bought it, but where did it originate? Where did it take shape? In what country did the maker do as you just did and feel the fabric between their fingers as they stitched the lines that hold your garment? A simple turn of the tag may reveal to you probably one of a host of familiarly distant names. But the story that isn’t told through the tag, one even more ingrained in the fabric, is that of the environmental and working conditions that person who created your fancy threads is subjected to as a result of careless consumerism; a mindset that perpetuated in the garment you now wear. This mindset, made acceptable by years of rich consumers demanding more for less, has resulted in these countries that produce our clothing bearing the burden of our demand for cheaper costs. Forced labor, environmental destabilizing, as well as other atrocities are side effects of this floor driving mindset, but one of the worst atrocities of them all is that for the most part, these clearly unethical business practices that we stimulate, go unnoticed or unreported by the mainstream conscious. The fact remains that outside of a handful of interested activists and documentary filmmakers, the issues surrounding our clothing consumption aren’t immediate to our lives and don’t generate enough sensationalist news to create any real long lasting efforts to change our consumer habits, ones that cause the degradation of the environments and lives of garment workers. This distancing of ourselves from the destruction we perpetuate every time we buy bargain clothing, whether intentional or not, puts the effects of our mindless consumer habits in line with Rob Nixon’s theories presented in his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. The long lasting environmental degradation being done by continually lowering the floor on our clothing prices as seen through practices such as “fast fashion”, the way that so quickly massively destructive instances like the Rana Plaza building collapse disappear from the public consciousness, the unflinching resolve in our mindless consumer habits, these are all examples of how we cognitively disconnect ourselves from the atrocities that make our clothing, and turn any of the issues that result from the practices into issues of “slow violence”.

What is perhaps the most measurable indicator of the “violence” in the “slow violence” of our consumer habits, is the environmental degradation of these industrial countries being funded by our shopping sprees and insatiable need for weekly wardrobe changes. The countries supplying the world with many of it’s clothes, China, India, and Bangladesh, have earned their spots as clothing producing capitals as a result of their extremely low environmental and working standards, allowing them to conduct business with low interference from regulators. This is not news, it’s a well acknowledged fact by most of the public consciousness. But with that information in mind, most consumers still don’t give a second thought as to how their actions could be perpetuating these poor working and environmental standards. People often wax on about the environmental issues facing their local states, in California brown lawns have become a sign of environmental consciousness, while shorter showers and intentionally dirty cars are becoming a popular “statement”. But yet, fewer consider the fact that some 2,700 gallons of water is used in producing an average cotton shirt, as estimated by studies collected from the World Wildlife Fund, and even fewer will take into account that more than 20 percent of the world's clothing is produced in areas deemed “water scarce” by the environmental collaboration Growing Blue. Even more striking is the International Food Policy Research Institute study which Growing Blue cites, stating that due to continued overuse of freshwater, that some “4.8 billion people – more than half the world’s population – and approximately half of global grain production” as well as “45% of total GDP ($63 trillion)” will be at risk of collapsing due to instability caused by water stress by 2050. This means that not only will wasteful practices as a result of our clothing addiction affect our own economy in the future, but by forcing the burden of production on these water scarce countries, we are contributing to an impending catastrophic collapse of these countries economies, all for the luxury of a wardrobe change.

Elizabeth Cline delves into the mindset that perpetuates careless consumerism in her book Overdressed : The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, in which she focuses on the subject of “Fast Fashion”. Fast Fashion she describes as an industry move where retailers put out exorbitants fashionable clothing “constantly throughout the year” as opposed to the traditional seasonal fashions, at a bottom line price “much lower than its competitors” that succeeds only by “selling an unprecedented amount of clothing” and can “only give us low prices if consumers continue to buy new clothes as soon as they’re on the floor.” She points to stores like H&M and Zara as some of the biggest culprits, contributing to our 20 billion a year garment addiction in America alone. These stores that supply us with our clothing fix, not surprisingly, base nearly all of their operations in developing countries like ones mentioned above, who provide clothing at the lower and lower prices that are perpetuated by our fast fashion consumer habits, at the expense of worker and environmental regulations.

This creates a horrible cycle, where a garment manufacturer produces an exorbitant amount of clothing at rock bottom pricing, to be bought up a these fast fashion retailer, only for them to turn around demand a lower price on the already low garments in order for them to undercut their competition, forcing the manufacturer to cut costs again, to produce an even cheaper product, on the back of their “employees” and the the neighboring environment. All the while, we are the ones perpetuating this business practice, funding it, demanding it, without acknowledging the downward spiral which we are sliding. This sort of cognitive dissonance allows for us as a population to turn blind eyes to terrible tragedies such as the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013, where a Bangladeshi garment manufacturing building, due to negligence by the owners, collapsed and took with it some 1,100 people, more than a third of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. And as if it were any surprise, of the retailers who were being supplied by this particular building? H&M and Zara were some of the biggest buyers. And yet, only some three years removed from this incident, one doubts whether any of the people lined up outside these stores on a daily basis are aware of this, as the story of this tragedy faded from our public attention in a matter of weeks.

This distancing oneself from the clear connection of their clothing and the destruction that it causes, or “willful ignorance” was studied by a group of researchers in a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology that asked if “less ethical consumers denigrate more ethical consumers” as a means of justifying their own consumer habits. What they found was that “consumers who willfully ignore ethical product attributes denigrate other, more ethical consumers who seek out and use this information” because of a perceived “self-threat inherent in negative social comparison with others who acted ethically”. This perceived “self-threat” felt by the “denigrators” was also shown to have further consequences in “undermining the denigrator's commitment to ethical values, as evidenced by reduced anger toward firms who violate the ethical principle”, meaning they reacted with ambivalence toward companies who acted unethically in their business model. This unconscious reaction contributes directly to the problem at hand with the unacknowledged ethical travesties being committed in the garment industry. This shows that not only has our clothing consumption and culture come to accept unethical practices as the norm, but also stigmatizes people who choose to shop in an ethical fashion, further hindering efforts to bring to light the problems we create and perpetuate by our mindless spending.

As a consumer culture, it’s imperative that we engage in open discourse about our consumer habits, and the wide ranging effects of our actions in perpetuating environmentally unstable and atrocious living conditions for the people who are forced to work in the factories that make our weekly deals. We need to recognize that we are teetering on the brink is an impending crash, and we are the ones fueling it. We need to see the wastefulness in our mindless consumer culture, and shift our perception of clothing back to where it was 50 years ago, in a time where we bought less and cared more. It is time for us to stand up hold ourselves accountable for our the slow violence we are subjecting these countries to.

*The Hidden Costs of Water” World Wildlife Fund, http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/rivers_and_lakes/the_hidden_cost_of_water.cfm

*Water in 2050” Growing Blue, http://growingblue.com/water-in-2050/ .

*Elizabeth, Cline, Overdressed the Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, New York : Penguin Group, 2013, 85-88.

Julfikar Ali Manik,Nida Najar, “Bangladesh Police Charge 41 With Murder Over Rana Plaza Collapse”, “New York Times” June 1, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/asia/bangladesh-rana-plaza-murder-charges.html

Daniel M. Zane, Julie R. Irwin, Rebecca Walker Reckzek, “Do less ethical consumers denigrate more ethical consumers? The effect of willful ignorance on judgments of others”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21, October, 2015. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740815001011

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lettheriverflow · 4 years ago

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An Interview with Tristan Spinski

Jaime Molina: Please introduce yourself.

Tristan Spinski: I grew up and have lived all over the place, both here in the US and a little time abroad in SE Asia, so wherever I've lived, I've always been from "somewhere else". For the last 8 years, I've lived along the Maine coast in the northeast corner of the United States.

I had an undisciplined, passive interest in photography growing up and through college. In my mid 20s I went off to graduate school at Berkeley to work on my writing with the goal of becoming a journalist. The program encouraged students to explore other forms of storytelling, and I opted to take a documentary photography course taught by Ken Light and Mimi Chakarova. That was in 2004, and was my entry point to photography and what was to be my career and a life fully immersed in photography and visual storytelling. You never end up where you expect to, at least not in my experience. Over the years I've migrated from news-driven priorities into conversations about land use and the intersections of culture, economy and the landscape. I recently wrapped up a project on gas drilling in Pennsylvania, where I partnered with a sociologist for his ethnography about a community that has a long history of tethering its economy and cultural identity to natural resource extraction. As that chapter closes, I'm embarking on two new series — one involving endangered birds, and another being a close examination of a landscape near my home.

JM: Why is it important for you to work with conservation publications/organizations?

TS: I believe in the work they do and feel a responsibility to contribute. Once I had a foundational understanding of photography and, through assignment work, had experienced a spectrum of issues and stories, I began to unpack my motivations and inspirations. I found/find it difficult to be honest with myself and to distill what I truly want to stand for with my life and work from the pressures, distractions and seductions of the media cacophony. And there are so many realities that influence my practice and path — privilege, family, where I was raised, what I read, my friends, I could go on forever.

JM: Is there a writer or book that influence your current practice? and why?

TS: I think every author I read influences my practice. It's a mixture of elation, that I'm absorbing a book or article and actively applying it to whatever I'm working on, and also a bit of insecurity, as I assume that I don't have a strong enough constitution of self to resist being swayed. What's that cliche about bending so you don't break?

A standout that I consider a creative "North Star" would include J.A. Baker's "The Peregrine". I've been thinking about how to describe this book to you and what it means to me for more than a day now, and everything I try to convey feels blunted and clumsy. The humility of Baker traversing the English countryside to observe and understand the falcon elevates to a synthesis of science, classical literature and meditation that makes my heart ache.

Gay Talese is also a foundational influence in my own practice. It was required reading during college, and I'm grateful for it. "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" sets a standard for a fly-on-the-wall perspective, patience and character insight, as Talese was never granted an interview but rather was able to spend time in proximity to Sinatra as he went about his business and socialized. There's a great collection of Talese's writings, "Fame and Obscurity", that I would recommend.

Ryszard Kapuscinski has become enormously influential to me in the last few years — ground level observations and personal experiences in the field working as a reporter that glide seamlessly into the stratosphere of geo-political forces. I was on assignment in Madagascar a few years ago and brought a copy of "Travels With Herodotus" with me. The writer I was working with borrowed it while I was laid flat in my tent with a boiling rash and a debilitating stomach bug. He finished it, acknowledged how it made him reconsider our own situation and project, and then I read it as I began to recover and I share my gratitude for Kapuscinski's mastery of craft. I think it might have saved the project! "Another Day of Life" is also a mind blowing, in the worst, most necessary way. I think that whatever Kapuscinski book I read most recently would be my favorite of his and would say is the most personally influential.

And to further my point about how everything influences me, I read "The Overstory" by Richard Powers last spring, as COVID shut the world down. That set me on a course with my work to think critically about trees and consciousness beyond what we (humans) are capable of seeing. And when I say it influenced me, I don't say that lightly. After I finished "The Overstory", I started researching mushroom suit burial options for when I die (someday, hopefully not soon), so that I somehow become part of a tree as my own biomass is recycled back into the earth. I feel a bit self conscious as I write this. But it's true. I told my wife my wish/intention with this, which was jarring and probably something I could have led into a bit more gracefully. I told her to read the book, and then she'd understand. On my current landscape project, I'm thinking about this book every time I'm on site.

And now I'm reading "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I don't want the book to end. It's like eating a dish and getting upset that with every bite you're closer to finishing it. To your earlier question on why it's important to me to work with conservation organizations, I'll quote Kimmerer, out of context, here: "What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself?"

JM: How have you been producing work during COVID times, and how do you think it will affect your practice in the future?

TS: COVID has been both enormously disruptive, as well as clarifying. Save two or three projects, almost all of my assignment work has been COVID-related in the past year. Only one has put me in an vulnerable situation, which was early in the pandemic and wasn't intentional. I live in a sparsely-populated, rural pocket of the United States and have stayed close to home. Most assignment work has me documenting the social and economic impacts of COVID on a regional scale. And all of this has been at the request of editors at various publications, so I have no personal attachment, other than I live here and feel a commitment to my family, my neighbors, my community and my state, so I do the best job I can under the circumstances. It's necessary to communicate what's happening and I participate because it's my job, as I consider something like this to be an "all hands on deck" responsibility and it's no time to demand to be hired for passion projects.

My personal work has stalled. Completely. I just sent a year's worth of film into the lab, none of which amounts to more than random entries to my imaginary journal. This pause has made me reset, forced me to read, think, talk out ideas, and generally reconsider what I'm doing and why. I just started an examination of a nearby landscape. I wish I had found a path forward with this project earlier in the pandemic, as it's accessible and nobody is around, but I couldn't (and still can't), which is frustrating and keeps me up at night. So now I'm attempting to work my way through it. We'll see.

JM: Could you tell us why did you decide to submit that photo to LTRF?

TS: While a lot of my work is rooted in landscape, a conversation I'm interested in having revolves around the fraying relationships and growing distance between people and most other living things. In that context, this image felt appropriate.

JM: What is your favourite bird?

TS: Ha! My favorite bird seems to change daily. I have friends who are ornithologists, and they will casually mention an insanely interesting fact about a bird that catapults that particular species to the top of my list. Or I'll read some jaw-dropping statistics and lose my mind. For instance, last autumn I got to work alongside Scott Weidensaul along the northern coast of Maine, close to where I live, as he studied migrating saw-whet owls. They are tiny and ferocious predators that fit in the palm of your hand. So I became a bit obsessed with them, and then got to reading Weidensaul's book, "Living on the Wind", about bird migrations. Early in the book he talks about Blackpoll Warblers, which use air currents to aid their transcontinental migrations from western Alaska, east across northern Canada to the Atlantic and then south to Venezuela — "an overwater trip of 2,000 miles — a passage with no rest, no refuelling, no water, during which each will have flapped its wings nearly 3 million times. 'If a Blackpoll Warbler were burning gasoline instead of its reserves of body fat, it could boast getting 720,000 miles to the gallon,' note two researchers." I had to look up images of the bird, and realize that I've seen these and never gave them a second thought. But think about how truly magnificent these little creatures are. And it's not just the spectacular that makes me love a bird. I was out walking my dogs last spring and I heard a bird chirping that sounded, to me, just like R2-D2, from Star Wars. Turned out to be a Bobolink, which also sounds like a Star Wars character. But they look like disheveled little Franciscan monks — dark bodies with a circular yellow patch of plumage on the back of their heads resembling the bald patches, which is devotional practice of tonsure. I then learned that where I walk my dogs is designated as a Bobolink breeding habitat, so it became a daily symphony of R2-D2s. And when they fly, they appear a bit slow and clumsy, almost like they've had a few beers before taking off. So maybe that's my favorite bird. I'm sure I'll read something or see something soon that turns my attention elsewhere.

JM: If you could give yourself any piece of advice right now what would it be?

TS: I'd reiterate the advice my late father, who I admire more than I can express here, gave me: Simplify.

Thank you Tristan!

___________

Tristan Spinski

Let The River Flow on Instagram

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sunshinekarliekloss · 7 years ago

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Karlie Kloss On Her New Cole Haan Campaign, Back-To-School Fashion, And Why She Still Feels Insecure "All the Time"

It’s no surprise for a model to say she’s having a “busy week” at the end of August, when New York Fashion Week castings are happening and the rest of Fashion Month is fast approaching, but on a recent afternoon that found her curled up in a corner of a WeWork in New York City, Karlie Kloss was having a particularly busy end of summer: She’d just wrapped week one as a camp counselor, coaching the 40 girls enrolled in just one of the 15 free summer programs happening around the country that she organized this summer as part of Kode with Klossy—the coding scholarship program for girls that the supermodel runs in her little to no free time.

It’s spearheading this extracurricular—a descriptor that may seem like an understatement but is in fact literally what it is, given that Kloss is not only a model currently gearing up for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, but also a student currently enrolled at New York University—that makes what one might call Kloss an extraordinary woman—which is exactly what the luxury leather brand Cole Haan anointed her when it put her at the center of its Extraordinary Women, Extraordinary Stories fall 2017 campaign, out today.

Most importantly to Kloss, though, she's not alone in the ads: She’s costarring with none other than Christy Turlington, her supermodel predecessor whom at this point she’s been idolizing for at least a decade—and whom, just like the campaign’s photographer, aka the “force” that is Cass Bird, has brought Kloss plenty of laughter and tears along the way of their working (and definitely not working-related) relationship. With the fall semester—and of course Fashion Week—fast approaching, Kloss took a break to talk how she got so close with another extraordinary woman in her life, Jourdan Dunn; how Turlington ended up going from her idol to the one writing her letter of recommendation for N.Y.U.; and how she, like any other human, feels insecure and intimidated “all the time”—and yet still gets it all done.

You have a relationship with Christy Turlington outside of modeling, but had you ever actually gotten in front of the camera with her before this campaign?

It’s funny, I don’t think we’ve ever done a photo shoot before—definitely not a campaign—so it was really special when I first heard about this. I was so excited about Cole Haan’s idea as a whole about extraordinary women and immediately wanted to be involved—but I also wanted any excuse to hang out with Christy. [Laughs.] Obviously in her career and in fashion, she’s a living icon, but being on set with her, I definitely understand why she’s the definition of a supermodel—even though I feel like we chatted and caught up the entire day, so it definitely did not feel like work. She’s flawless and beyond beautiful, but she just has this grace and this presence and this strength that she brings to set. And off-set, she’s obviously an extraordinary human being, a mother, a friend, a philanthropist—really just extraordinary in every facet of her life.

How did you end up getting close with one of your idols?

Christy Turlington is, you know, one of the defining supermodels of our time, and I really just admired her from a distance, long before I even was a model myself. And then when I started my career and got into the industry, I really wanted to learn about the careers of the women who had come before me, and I found in my research Christy’s images were just so elegant and so timeless—and as I learned more and more about her as a person, beyond just her as a supermodel, I grew this tremendous respect and admiration for what she used her voice and career and platform to do—really meaningful work she was really passionate about, and that defied the rules every step of the way. It was around the time she’d produced and directed No Woman No Cry, her documentary [about pregnant women who die to improper healthcare], and it made me realize that Wow, this job as a supermodel—it doesn't just stop there. Long before she started Every Mother Counts [her nonprofit that provides mothers around the world access to maternity care], she also went to school. I’ve really taken so much note from her journey and the way that she’s lived her life—and all that was long before I met her.

And then, I think I was probably around 16 when Donna Karan invited me over one day. I’d probably been working with Donna for two years, and somehow she found out how obsessed I was with Christy, and she invited me to come to Urban Zen on a day when Christy was doing a photo shoot there. I walked in and didn’t know I was going to meet her, and I was totally—I had this out of body experience that’s never happened before and it’s never happened since, but I basically just burst into tears, out of shock of meeting this woman I’d really admired so much from a distance and knew so much about. In person, her elegance and her grace were just so striking—I think that’s why I burst into tears. [Laughs.] I think she thought I was a little crazy.

How did she react?

She just laughed at me. She found it amusing. Hopefully she doesn’t hold it against me, but I really did have a major fan girl moment.

I don’t think you have too much to worry about, given that she still wrote your college letter of recommendation—and told the New York Times it was all about her "crush" on you. How did that end up happening? So—hopefully—eventually she realized I wasn’t a crazy stalker, and that I was someone who really admired her and had aspirations to continue my modeling career but also it with my balance my education—that I had ambitions to go against the grain and against the rules in the same way that she did, and kind of march to the beat of my own drum. So she told me about N.Y.U. and Gallatin [School of Individualized Study] and the program that she was a part of, and basically she was the one that proved that you could go back to school and that it could be done—that you could have it all. She balanced her career and education, and has gone on to continue to do extraordinary things and has paved the way.

I know bursting into tears was a one-time occasion, but in one of the videos for this campaign, you touch briefly on how you feel intimidated “all the time.” How have you been able to balance those feelings with such a successful career? What I meant by saying that is that I am human, and I am a 6’2” or 6’-something human who has insecurities and flaws and fears and anxiety just like everybody else. It’s funny, I think people forget—including, you know, even probably myself, when I had my fangirl moment for Christy: I had idolized her so much from a distance and found her so beautiful and extraordinary just by learning about her story that I put her up on this pedestal. And the more that I got to know her as a woman, as a human, as a mother, as a friend, I did find her to be more and more beautiful, but in a realer and rawer way. For me, that’s what I mean by saying I feel insecure all the time: I’m lucky to have a day job where I get to be a super confident supermodel and put a face on for the world, but at the same time, I’m a 25-year-old girl figuring out life like everybody else. But I think the important thing to learn—and this is something that I feel lucky to have strong women like Christy to learn from—is that you can’t be paralyzed by those insecurities. You have to recognize them, and it’s important to feel them—they can be humbling and keep you grounded and keep you human—but you can’t be paralyzed by those fears and insecurities and feeling inadequate.

Who are some women you consider extraordinary, whether that you know personally or admire from afar? Well, in my personal life, my gram, who’s no longer alive—she was my mom’s mom and truly extraordinary; she lived through World War I and World War II and some of the most tumultuous times in the last 100 years, but she was so strong and so gentle and so kind. And I have lots of friends I’ve gotten really close to over the last 10 years [while modeling], like Jourdan Dunn—we met backstage at Prada six months into both of our careers, and we’ve been very close friends and in each other’s support system through a lot of these experiences ever since. Those strong relationships with women in your life, whether you’re related to them by blood or not—the family you’re born into or the family that you make—shape the person that you become, or at least they have for me. Christy’s definitely one of them, too.

Empowering women is of course a large part of Kode with Klossy, but as a public figure, do you feel compelled to do so in other ways, too, especially in today’s political climate? Yeah—I think in the world today, now more than ever, it’s important to be educated and informed on what’s happening and how you can play a role and how you can contribute and stand up for what you believe in. And no voice is too small; no act is too small. I think for me, why I care so much about investing in girls’s and women’s education is that the girls in our coding camps are the future leaders of tomorrow, of whatever industry they choose to go into. Education, for me at least, has been one of the most empowering things—to continue my education, to keep learning and challenging myself, whether in a traditional environment or not. It makes me feel more fulfilled and stronger as an individual, and it’s now more important than ever to be informed and educated and empowered.

Are you going back to school this fall? Yeah, I’m getting ready. But I’m still in denial that summer’s over. I loved your Cindy Crawford sweatshirt on your first day of freshman year. Do you have any other back-to-school looks up your sleeve? She's another extraordinary woman. I definitely need to do my back to school shopping, but I love sweater weather, I love cozy jumpers and great jeans and boots—and accessories. But usually I’m running from class to the airport—because class is the only constant variable in my schedule—so I’m usually racing to a photo shoot afterwards or to a show if it’s during fashion week, or to an airport. I’m a bag lady.

This is kind of the perfect collection for you, then—it's all about clutches and crossbodies, and I see even managed to snag a backpack in the campaign. What other items have you been eyeing from this collection? I’m really excited about a couple of things—there’s this pair of shoes that are leopard print and so chic. They can kind of be worn any season, but they’ll definitely be a key staple in my fall wardrobe. Getting back to Cindy, her daughter Kaia Gerber, who just turned 16, also just said she “really looks up to” you for pretty much the same reasons you said you look up to Christy. What does it feel like to have things come full circle? It’s really surreal, especially because I feel like I definitely have a lot to learn myself, and though I have experienced a lot, by no means am I an expert on fashion or life. Still, I’m excited to see the next generation—which is so funny to be saying at 25—and Kaia is very special. I think she’s a really smart young woman who’s going to have a spectacular career in modeling—really, in whatever she wants to do. And I’m excited to share any wisdom or things I’ve learned from my experience with her, because that’s just part of the privilege I get to have, being surrounded by strong women helping other strong women. Kaia’s definitely a future strong lady herself. (x)

#karlie kloss #christy turlington burns #cole haan #w magazine #interview #article #2017 #september 2017

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bloghealthinterventions · 5 years ago

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Episode #11 The Plant Based Diet "Prescription"

Hello again! This is the podcast show notes section of Health Interventions For Your Practice! The topic at hand is the plant-based diet.

I truly do not believe that the answer to everything is pharmaceutical based. I also believe that we have gotten so far off track that it’s going to take extreme measures to turn things back around. Just look at our patient population. They are getting sicker and sicker. The comorbidity rates are climbing, as are the obesity rates. The inflammation that is brewing inside of us from our poor choices and environmental exposures is contributing to our current state of health or lack thereof.

One of the ways that you can reduce inflammation, lower blood pressure, treat diabetes and hyperlipidemia without medications is by adopting a plant-based diet. It is actually becoming more mainstream to adopt a plant-based diet. Which is making it easier to find more plant-based options at restaurants and grocery stores. Which makes it easier to have this conversation with patients.

The plant-based diet is not one that everyone is going to want to participate in. I am completely aware of that. I am also aware that you were going to get objections about giving up meat and animal-based products in the beginning. I have been able to have patients agreeable to trying this for a few days per week or having only one meat-based meal per day. There are many ways to help implement a more plant focused diet into your patients’ lives.

There are many views on plant-based and many objections to plant-based nutrition. And there are misconceptions about a plant-based diet. Almost anything can be taken from good to bad, depending on one’s interpretation. Some of the misinterpretation that takes the plant-based diet from good to bad is actually what is perceived plant-based in the lay community. Some have adopted the view that just not eating meat or meat byproducts constitutes as a healthy plant-based diet. Not really so. Often, they are still consuming high amounts of sugar, saturated fats and other processed by- products from processed foods.

So here we go... into the plant-based world.

I’m going to start with the benefits of a plant-based diet, how to do this healthfully, some of the things to be aware of in a plant-based diet and how to start the conversation with your patients.

Just like most everyone else, I once upon a time scoffed at the thought of not eating meat or animal-based products. How can I go without dairy? How could I ever live without cheese? How could I possibly get enough protein?

After doing some research on plant-based diet, I decided to get on board. I have a very strong family history of diabetes, hyperlipidemia and heart disease. I do not want any of those diagnoses for myself. I also like to practice what I preach as you know. I cannot ask my patients to do some thing that I have not tried myself. I like to be able to experiment with myself or very close family members to monitor outcomes and safety. And also, to be able to give real life tips. What did I have to lose anyway? If it didn’t work out, if I felt terrible, if my labs didn’t show any improvement, it was only me that had to suffer.

Well......, guess what happened?

I have lost 25 pounds without even trying! I am never hungry; I do not crave anything. I do not feel deprived. I feel better, I sleep better, I have more energy. My skin is clearer, and I recently drew a lipid panel on myself. My total cholesterol was 194, my HDL 95, triglycerides 33 and my LDL 67. I wasn’t sure that those numbers were actually possible! My previous cholesterol was 194, triglycerides 115, HDL 80 and LDL 91. My glucose from 99 to 87. TPO antibodies from 15 to 0.

For full disclosure, I will also admit that I have not been participating much in exercise lately, as I’ve been a bit busy with this new adventure in podcasting and online training program production. Which, I Feel has been a wonderful trade-off for a short period of time. I tell you this so that you know my numbers were not skewed by my exercise or some crazy relaxing, stress-free lifestyle. I AM a practicing provider you know. And we are currently in the midst of the Covid pandemic, which makes any practicing provider’s life a bit more insane trying to keep up with the guidelines and adjustments in everyday practice.

I am sure that many of you have seen the Netflix shows and documentaries on the plant-based diet by now. Many of them are pretty good at getting the general population to stop for a moment and think about what they might be eating, but shortly after they watch the show they go back to a normal regimen. And that is where, once you have learned some of the benefits, hopefully you will be able to give it a try yourself and encourage your patients to continue on a plant-based diet and support them.

Dr. Dean Ornish is one of the Pioneers in developing protocols for using a plant-based diet and other lifestyle modifications to reverse heart disease. The evidence is very clear of all of the benefits associated with reducing the intake of meat and animal-based products. Heart disease CAN be reversed with a plant-based diet! I will save the soapbox of some of these things for future episodes, specifically one on dairy products. I don’t want to get on too much of a tangent with you. I want to introduce this to you slowly, so that you may consider doing the plant-based life yourself and having that discussion with your clients with a little bit of knowledge of what to be mindful of.

A plant-based diet is one that consists primarily of food from whole plants. This includes vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains. There are many variants of the plant-based diet out there, including vegan, vegetarian, lactovegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, Mediterranean, and I’m sure many more.

I am not trying to label specifically or get into those details, I am purely interested in giving you the overview of a solid plant-based nutritional program for your patients, that focuses on the vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains.

The Benefits:

High fiber intake is inevitable if done right. This will show benefits by decreasing inflammation, increasing bowel regularity, clearing a fatty liver and stifling insulin surges. The outcomes from this include lower glucose levels, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and weight loss. Fiber is also great for increasing satiety.

A well-rounded plant-based diet will increase general health and wellness with the increased intake of phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are best gotten from our food, rather than from supplemental forms. Phytonutrients are known to be powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents to help fight and prevent cancer, chronic illness and to boost the immune system. And I think we could all use a little immune boost right now.

Wait! Did I mention weight loss? Did I mention that was one of the major benefits of adopting a plant-based diet?

A Few Considerations…

When one is doing a plant-based diet, they must still be very aware of what they are eating. You have to be sure to include certain nutrients that you may not get in abundance from all plant-based foods. Iron and B12 are two of the most commonly depleted nutrients on a plant-based diet. If you are aware of this, you can adjust your diet accordingly. Vitamin B 12 can be easily gotten with nutritional yeast, which has a distinct taste, referred to as cheesy. It can be sprinkled onto foods. I like to put it on my spaghetti squash, topped with tomato sauce and then nutritional yeast. A few other sources of iron include cashews, kidney beans and black beans, as well as spinach. So again, a well-rounded plant-based lifestyle can still include these nutrients you need. One of the modules in the wellness and weight management course that I offer is dedicated to phytonutrients, micronutrients and essential elements we require for optimal functioning.

Now let’s talk about the interpretation of, or some misconceptions of, a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet is high in nutrients. It is high in a variety of food sources that come from plants. A true plant-based diet DOES NOT include French fries, pastries, pasta and other chemically processed foods or food like substances. I have seen many say that they are plant-based that still inhale everything but meat without regard and are still perplexed at how they could be gaining weight and not getting control over their chronic diseases and still feeling extremely fatigued. That is not the intention of a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet is meant to be filled with good wholesome vegetables, legumes, grains, fruits and unprocessed food sources. It Does not include cheese, which is very high in saturated fat and comes from animals. There are vegan cheeses that are made from cashews and nutritional yeast. I have tried some of those. Some better than others, but I just choose not to even go that route. I save the calories.

How to start the discussion with your patients…

When you start a discussion with your patients, you may get a lot of kickback. Especially if you’re in a place like me, where we were raised on Home cooking, with meat and potatoes required at every dinner. And with grandmas trying to make you fatten up a little bit.

As a side note, I’m not sure how many of you have a grandmother like this, but when I was growing up, mine kept a can of lard under the kitchen sink that she cooked with! Looking back, I am not sure how I live through that experience. I ate fried eggs in it every morning that I stayed with her, and it was used for gravy making and soup making to add flavor. I have to laugh about it now or I would probably vomit. I’m not sure how she lived to be 83, but she did. My theory is that she was a hard-working woman that never sat down to rest much and had eight children to chase after. I can also still see her using a sickle to knock down weeds on an embankment in front of her house every summer. That would definitely burn off a few extra calories, decrease stress and maybe ward off ill effects from that can of lard.

Ok, back to discussing the plant-based life with your patients.

The plant-based discussion is one worth having with patients. If you start by asking what they typically eat in a day, to see where they are on the scale of carnivore, you’ll have a pretty good idea how much work will be involved with this discussion. Review the benefits of going plant based. If they have multiple comorbidities, or is they are chronically fatigued or trying to lose weight, they may be willing to implement the strategy.

If they have IBS symptoms or chronic constipation and you discuss with them that increasing their fiber through a plant-based diet May help to regulate their bowels, they may be more willing to implement the strategy.

If they have chronic pain or fibromyalgia, that cannot be attributed to anything diagnostically, they may be more willing to implement the strategy.

If you’re about to add another medication to them to better control their diabetes, cholesterol or blood pressure, they might be willing to implement the strategy.

If all else fails, have a discussion with them about sexual dysfunction. It is well documented that sexual dysfunction, most commonly erectile dysfunction, may be attributed to early cardiovascular disease. The arteries in our body are not selective to the effects of atherosclerosis and buildup of lipid Plaques. All of the arteries are being clogged up with saturated fats that come from meat and animals-based products. Dr. Ornish has shown that this could be reversed with a plant-based diet. There have also been studies to show that there will be a significant improvement in erections and sexual function with the adoption of a plant-based diet. After this discussion, they may definitely be willing to implement the strategy.

I have many ways to get my point across to patients. Or, maybe I should say to help them get what they need and want in a persuasive and effective manner. Remember, when you speak to someone from THEIR viewpoint of health, you’ll get a whole lot further in your conversations. If you are speaking with a gentleman that is suffering from erectile dysfunction, whether that dysfunction be from medication side effects or from physiologic disease processes, they are willing to listen to you about how to restore and improve function.

So how do we start the implementation process?

I start with, “can you decrease your red meat to once per week?” then, I move into “can you decrease all animal-based consumption to three days per week?” And then I asked them to pay attention to how they feel on the days that they didn’t eat meat.

On the days that they are not eating meat, I have to prepare them for what to eat and how to modify their usual intake so that they aren’t hungry, and they feel like they aren’t being deprived.

There is a lot of flavor in a plant-based diet. There’s food to eat. You’re not being deprived to be on a plant-based diet. You can substitute many things for meat.

I find it best to give examples, so they know they are not going to struggle. I have already mentioned to you that I use spaghetti squash instead of pasta, nutritional yeast instead of Parmesan cheese. How about black bean tacos? Instead of hamburger chop up black beans or don’t chop them up, depending on preference, season them with taco seasoning, as you would hamburger, heat them up and top them with your usuals, minus the sour cream and cheese of course! But you can use salsa and jalapeños. Maybe spinach instead of iceberg lettuce to add to the nutritional value. I have done the same with burgers. Using black beans or kidney beans, chopped up, adding in seasoning, some ground flax for additional fiber and omega fatty acids, pat them into a burger shape, put them on the grill or fry them in olive oil or avocado oil. There are many many ways to make substitutions!

I do offer a patient-based health interventions program that includes an online weight program loss for them. I do weekly videos of how to prepare meals for weight loss, from a plant-based standpoint, that are posted on the health interventions Facebook page. Feel free to utilize this for yourself or for your patients.

If you have been listening to the podcast or follow me on social media or my website, you know that I do offer a weight management program that you can implement into your practice right away that focuses on nutrition, lifestyle and modifiable factors. And that course covers a wide range of topics the attribute to overall health and wellness. It isn’t only about nutrition and what medication you can prescribe to make someone lose weight.

I believe you need a full program and that we need to re-educate our population to bring ourselves back to a healthier place. This weight management program can very easily be 100% plant based and you will learn further how to modify the plant-based diet into a keto form to get them to lose weight rather quickly. This is followed by a transition into a maintenance form of the plant-based diet that still allows for adequate amount of protein, healthy fats and high fiber carbohydrates without gaining back any weight. Once you are able to learn and perfect this, you will see energy levels sore The Inflammatory state their body is constantly in When on a diet high in animal-based products Will drop significantly with a plant based diet, as will the fatigue. The program does include a downloadable recipe guide with recipes that you can give to your patients, including a plant-based meal plan to get them started. If you’re not interested in doing the whole program, but maybe have been intrigued by some of the phytonutrient discussion today, I will make that course available for you as an individual module. Just go to the notes from this episode on the website nphealthinterventions.com for access. you can also go to healthinterventions.com/phytonutrients for details on how to get that.

I hope that I have been able to help you understand a bit more about the benefits of a plant-based diet and how to start the discussion of that with your patients.

Have a great week! May it be filled with many Health Interventions!

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turninginasignments · 5 years ago

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Final Draft

Lochlan Dean

Fish

English 2020

March 30th, 2020

Research Conducted on Altruism

Throughout human society’s history, there have always been questions about science and philosophy with the biggest names being Aristotle and Socrates for their philosophical ideas or Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin for their advancements throughout history. We receive new answers to questions and new questions every day that need to be answered. One notion that we researchers have looked into is the idea of altruism. Altruism is the concept of selfless actions or thoughts towards another individual. The term altruism was first thought up by a sociologist and philosopher of science named Auguste Comte. Ever since then altruism has been a major topic for evolutionary psychology researchers, psychology researchers, evolutionary biologists, and others to look into. The concept of altruism is a debated one today as there are few concrete facts about it. There are many hypotheses, theories, and ideas on the subject done by many different researchers throughout the decades. One of the biggest questions that is still unanswered is “where does altruism come from?” There may be some debates on the concept of altruism but one thing that is generally agreed upon is the idea that humans are altruistic and have empathy. One thing that is not known is where that human altruism comes from - is it biological in our genes or psychological? For this paper, I have decided to look into different sources to get an understanding of altruism and to be able to add my own voice to the discourse. I have looked at a variety of different sources ranging from public speeches, mini-documentaries, and of course, a number of peer-reviewed scholarly articles. As there are new studies being conducted frequently and new information being collected by them I have limited my sources to those conducted within the last 15 years. The discourse for altruism is vast and there are different ideas on where altruism has its origination in humans.

One of the biggest questions that researchers want to answer about altruism is if it is biological or psychological. I am sure we are all familiar with Charles Darwin’s contributions to our understanding of nature and biology in his book On the Origin of Species. Darwin argues that all life in this world evolved through a brutal competition of existence. It is Darwin who is responsible for the idea of natural selection, which he thought is how life evolved. He also used the term survival of the fittest to describe natural selection. Natural selection is accepted by evolutionists to be a process that species evolve. Self-preservation is also thought to be a major drive factor on what dictates humans actions. There is the idea according to neoclassical economics that rational beings do whatever they need to in order to maximize their own wealth. The traditional views of both evolutionary biology and psychology have left little room for altruism. Darwin himself was unable to give a reason for biological altruism in his book. In his book, Darwin said “Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect which… inevitably causes the death of the insect” (Darwin Ch. 6) Altruism is not only a human concept, but it is also found all throughout the animal kingdom in nature.

Altruism is an umbrella term that can cover a vast number of other terms. There may not be one set type of altruism but there are different terms that are generally agreed upon. Two big main ones are biological altruism and psychological altruism. Biological altruism is tied to the biological fitness of the organism. When an organism does a biological altruistic act it is an act that helps the survival of another at the cost of its own physical health. As stated earlier altruism is not just found in humans but is also found in various animals in the animal kingdom. Some prime examples are vampire bats regurgitating blood to feed other bats from other families if they failed to hunt that night, or when an animal does a warning cry when they spot a predator, thus drawing attention to themself but warning others. Psychological altruism is when the actor just wants good for others with no reward. Psychological altruism relies heavily on the psychological state of the actor at the time. Another type of altruism that is similar to psychological altruism is helping altruism, which covers the acts that do not fall into either of the previously mentioned categories. Helping altruism is the concept that humans help other humans just for the sake of doing the action of helping someone, instead of it focusing on an individual’s mental state. This type of altruism focuses on all of humankind as a whole. Any act can fall into an individual type or multiple types. With the debate and non-unified ideas, there are many other types that fall under those three categories. There are some subcategories that are generally agreed upon. The first one is kin selection. Kin selection is an altruistic act for one’s relatives or possibly another organism in their small grouping. A second is reciprocal altruism. Reciprocal altruism is the idea of doing an altruistic act for another organism with the expectation that you will receive an altruistic act back; the term “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” describes this one well. The third idea is indirect reciprocity, which is the idea that acts are given on the concept of reputation and wanting to avoid getting a bad reputation. Signaling is an idea that is not as commonly accepted as the other three, since it is similar to indirect reciprocity. The difference is that instead of performing an altruistic act to avoid getting a bad reputation, you do an altruistic act to signal that you are a good person. There is another idea of altruism called egotistical altruism. The idea of egotistical altruism is being altruistic towards others so that it will better the world which in turn will make your own life better. Egotistical altruism argues that the reason people will potentially do altruistic acts towards total strangers that they will never see again can be because of this idea. An example of egotistical altruism is someone donating money to help better conditions in some small groups in a third world country so that the inhabitants can have a better life and therefore make the world a better place. Education is a good example of egotistical altruism: if you help someone with financial issues and they are able to get an education, they can further contribute towards certain fields. Altruism can be thought of as a family tree chart, with the word altruism at the top as the head of the family with other terms going down getting more into specifics but they can all be traced back up to altruism. Having a general concept of the different ideas of altruism can help give a better understanding of altruism itself and hopefully help at looking at the origins of altruism, and solving the puzzle that is “why are humans altruistic?”

There are many different ideas on altruism and different fields of study hope to be able to explain it. One of these fields of study is genetics. Genetics is the study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics. Genetics is a relatively new science that started in 1905 but did not take off in popularity until technology had advanced enough for a scientist to be able to accurately look into it. One such event was when the first picture of DNA was taken. The picture was taken by Watson and Crick using a technique called X-ray crystallography that was invented by Rosalind Franklin. All living things have DNA makeup inside of them making them who they are. Despite humans being separated throughout the world, we are still generally all alike and that is due to the fact that we are all 99.9% genetically alike with each other. Genetics is one way that evolutionary biologists have tried to explain altruism.

Richard Dawkins is a well-known scientist around the world who presents one explanation on why humans are altruistic. Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author who has been contributing to the field of science since the 1960s. Richard Dawkins came up with the idea of the “selfish gene” on altruism and published it in 1976. Dawkins argued that humans are all just genetic survival machines. Survival of the fittest really only means the survival of the genes - a gene that doesn’t look after itself doesn’t survive. Richard Dawkins tries to use the science of genetics to crack the code of altruism. Dawkins makes the argument that the main objective of genes is to survive, which they do by organisms reproducing and passing the genes onto the offspring, essentially making genes “immortal.” He argues that the way our genes can achieve their goal of being passed down to future generations is by the typical self-preservation mentality. The way altruism comes into the picture is Dawkins claims that there are instances where the gene can achieve its selfish goals by doing a form of altruism. This theory best supports the idea of kin selection. Kin selection is when an individual organism acts in the best interests of other members of their family and/or small group, even at a cost to itself. The argument is that due to the selfish desires of our genes they produce unselfish actions to those around us. If our genes help related organisms reproduce, by helping ensure their survival, a gene then succeeds in helping copies of itself be reproduced and passed on. Dawkins’s theory is that altruism came from the selfish desires of our genes and we are just the vessel that carries our genes and DNA.

There are some counter-arguments to Dawkins’s selfish gene theory. Richard Dawkins’s theory on the selfish gene is only backed by biological altruism and not by psychological altruism. One criticism is on Dawkins’s gene-centered view. Dawkins assumes the struggle for survival takes place on the genetic level and focuses on the survival of the genes instead of the organism as a whole. While that argument can be valid, many scientists have considered it too fluid of an argument without enough scientific backing for it. The main criticism is that this theory is too narrow-focused. It relies on genetic survivability and uses kin selection as a major backing up point, but there are many other types of altruism that this theory does not help back up. This theory only applies to populations in which sexual reproduction causes complete allelic mixing, panmictic organisms. There are organisms that are not panmictic so this theory would not apply to them.

There is another idea on what the origins of altruism are that follows evolutionary genetics and genes. All the ideas of altruism that have been previously explained in this research paper have all been ideas that give back to the actor. There was one group of scientists, who called themselves the collective, that came up with the idea that the reason why humans are altruistic has to do with none of those ideas. They operate under the assumption that behavioral mechanisms are not perfect goal-seeking devices, like what Richard Dawkins claimed the genes were. The collective thinks that behavior mechanisms are context-specific physiological systems that respond to different environmental cues in order to engage what is the best course of action, based on evolutionary history. The collective think that altruism is backed more by psychological reasons and not biological ones. Some evidence to help support this idea is a study done on people helping other people. It was found that people were more likely to perform an altruistic act while having outside environmental forces paying a part. In particular, this study found that altruistic acts were performed always but that there was a stark increase when people were being watched by robots with human-looking eyes. The argument is that humans have strong reciprocity towards other humans, but that the reason for it is not due to any of the reasons previously mentioned (such as kin selection or reciprocal altruism). The collective argues that there is a biological and evolutionary logic to human cooperation. The idea is that the reason humans are altruistic is due to genes misfiring. The common human social environment, society, has only been around for 0.1% of all of human history; or in metaphorical terms has advanced in a gene’s eyeblink. The idea is, our social environment advancing so quickly has left some strange tendencies left over from past eras. It is thought that due to kin selection or reciprocal altruism or other forms of altruism, it helped humankind survive and advance in past eras when we lived in smaller groups. Now that we live in the world today things are different. A perfect example to liken it to is sexual reproduction. Humans feel a desire to reproduce and generate offspring. There are biological and evolutionary triggers to make us feel desire even though in today’s time humans engage in sexual intercourse without the purpose of having offspring. Contraceptives have been invented to thwart the outcome of having offspring, and yet we still have the biological urges and desires to engage in sexual intercourse. The idea is that being altruistic is much the same. In the past, there was the biological and genetic push to be altruistic to better help our species survive, and that is the reason people feel the desire to be nice today. It is a leftover evolutionary push. The difference between this argument for the origin of altruism and the selfish gene theory is this argument pushes the idea that it is a gene misfire - something from the past that is still in us - and it focuses on the organism as a whole. The selfish gene theory focuses on the individual genetic view and claims that the selfish gene is still within us.

There are of course problems with this argument as well. This argument states that humans are naturally and biologically altruistic and caring. Perhaps the biggest reason why this argument might be hard to accept is because it goes against decades of biological research that states humans are inherently selfish. This argument is relatively new to the discourse compared to the many other ideas that have been researched about human nature. The economics standpoint is perhaps the most effective counter-argument to this idea. Another argument for this idea is the fact that there have to be social, political, or environmental restrictions upon people or else negative interactions can occur between people. Some examples of that are the pirate rule in the Caribbean in the 18th century, warlords, and other anarchistic situations. The argument is that we can not simply rely on humans being naturally altruistic or empathetic towards the good of the group. Instead, we require social, environmental, political, and economic restrictions to ensure the cooperation of individuals and have them avoid temptation.

There are other voices in the existing work as the body of work on altruism is quite vast. The main reason I have conducted the research for this paper is to develop my own understanding of the issue so that I can add my own voice and arguments to the discourse. Throughout my experience of gathering knowledge on this subject, I noticed a severe lack of study about certain issues or actions that can be considered altruistic. One of the areas where I found the least study was regarding actions that were done after death or actions that resulted in the death of the altruist. A prime example of what I am bringing up is organ donation. Being an organ donor is something someone can decide when they receive their driver’s license but it can be changed whenever the individual wants. There are a huge number of scholarly and opinion articles about organ donation, but that particular topic is not central to my argument. Another example of what I was talking about are instances where the individual sacrifices him- or herself for the sake of others. Roy Benavidez was an American soldier who fought in the Vietnam war. He received the medal of honor for an instance called “six hours in hell.” He fought off thousands of Vietnamese soldiers while defending a position where other American troops were getting evacuated by helicopter. He also carried multiple bodies to the helicopter, all while receiving multiple wounds. He waited until he was the last soldier to get on. These are of course some extreme examples of what I want to focus on. I propose that in future research projects a new category of altruism needs to be considered, since it doesn’t seem that organ donation and self-sacrifice fit in any of the previously-discussed categories. Organ donation and sacrificing yourself for the sake of others are cases of extreme empathy and altruism that I do not believe fall under the current umbrella terms. Perhaps by looking into these extreme situations, researchers can define a new type of altruism and get a better understanding of what the driving force behind actions such as these are.

Some counter-arguments for my idea can be found. Arguments could be made that even though those situations are extreme they can still be classified by other terms. Organ donation, for example, could be viewed as signaling: trying to show that you are a good person by being an organ donor. My response to this is that most of the time being an organ donor is a small mark on the individuals’ license and is not a thing that is often brought up in social situations. Further research would have to be conducted solely on the topic of organ donation to better understand where it fits in the puzzle of human altruism. An individual who does a drastic action to better the chance of survival for others at the cost of their own physical well-being could also be misclassified. Some counter-arguers could claim that even though those actions are extreme they still fall under kin selection. Kin selection could be a good umbrella for these types of self-sacrificing action. The idea of sacrificing yourself for the better biological health of others does fall under the definition of kin selection, but I still propose that there is more to it. Kin selection normally contains things such as grooming in primates, sacrificing some food for bats, or some kind of warning cry to alert the group. Hardly ever are instances observed in other animals of individuals sacrificing themselves for others, except of course parental units defending their offspring. Egotistical altruism could be claimed for both of them as by doing either act it would directly positively affect other people’s lives and indirectly make the world a better place. My response to that argument is this: true, the world would be a better place, but it comes at the cost of the life of the altruist so therefore the betterment does not affect them. Perhaps if you combine egotistical and kin selection it could make sense as you want to make the world a better place for your offspring or other close friends or family. I still believe that further research needs to be conducted on these issues as they have not been researched as they should be. I propose the research can be conducted by investing time, personal, and perhaps some resources into conducting a wide mass study on the mindset of those who are organ donors or those who have performed extreme actions of sacrifice. Better understanding the mindset of those individuals and what their reasoning was in those instances would give us a better understanding of the reason for those actions: whether biological or psychological. Better understanding the reason humans perform altruistic acts is the first step to better understand the origin and reason why humans are altruistic.

Throughout this research paper I have taken a look into the discourse of altruism. I have looked at the various different terms and types of altruism, resulting in the words having a trickle effect of coverage. The literature on altruism is quite large, with many different ideas and hypotheses on the reason why humans have altruistic tendencies and what the origin of it is - if it is biological or psychological. Richard Dawkins has a theory that its origin sits upon the selfish gene concept. The selfish gene concept is the idea that the reason humans are altruistic is due to selfish gene desires. Our genes desire to reproduce and survive so with that desire they produce altruism to better help the survivability of the gene. The other argument was the reason humans are altruistic is due to the logical evolutionary development of humans. An opposing argument claimed that being altruistic was the best course of action for survivability. Human society has advanced in an extremely short time, genetically speaking, so some tendencies that don’t fit modern society have remained in our species. One biological tendency we still have in our current social environment is the desire to engage in sexual intercourse. With contraceptives we have thwarted the purpose of sexual intercourse (to reproduce offspring) and yet humans still have the desire and biological push. It is proposed that altruism is much like that: that we had to have the biological push to be altruistic to better enhance our species survivability and that is a leftover genetic misfire today.

My own argument for this paper was to invest further research into different ideas of altruism as there are actions that I do not believe fall under any current idea of altruism. It is my thought that if further research is conducted on altruism it will lead to a better understanding of the reasons we feel altruistic tendencies, possibly helping to crack the biological puzzle of why are we altruistic.

Sources

Andy80o, “Richard Dawkins on Altruism and The Selfish Gene”. Youtube, September 1st, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8C-ntwUpzM&feature=youtu.be.

Burnham, Terence C., and Dominic D. P. Johnson. “The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation.” Analyse & Kritik, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2005. OneSearch, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2005-0107

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 1 ed., 1859

Hoffman, Edward, et al. “The Psychological Benefits of Receiving Real-Life Altruism.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 60, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 187–204. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1177/0022167817690280.

Joan B. Silk, and Bailey R. House. “The Evolution of Altruistic Social Preferences in Human Groups.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, vol. 371, no. 1687, 2016, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.24768660&site=eds-live.

Kurzgesagt. “A selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place - Egoistic Altruism.” Youtube, March 18th, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ&feature=youtu.be.

Marsh, Abigail A. “Neural, Cognitive, and Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism.” WIREs: Cognitive Science, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 2016, p. 59. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=112128886&site=eds-live.

Ramsey, Grant. “Can Altruism Be Unified?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sci, vol. 56, Apr. 2016, pp. 32–38. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.007.

Singer, Peter. TED. “Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism.” Youtube, May 20th, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diuv3XZQXyc&feature=youtu.be

TEDx Talks. “The Science of Altruism | Dustin Daniels | TEDxFSU” Youtube, June 29th, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqg4HA3mUI&feature=youtu.be.

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kadobeclothing · 5 years ago

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16 Small Brands That Made It Big

When you think of viral marketing, your mind probably wanders to that Oreos “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet, which garnered an enviable 40,000 retweets and Facebook likes during 2013’s Super Bowl power outage. Or perhaps you think of the Dove “Real Beauty Sketches,” a video with more than 67 million views to date. When these global brands go viral, it’s not a huge surprise. Global brands have agencies and well-staffed marketing teams standing by to handle the good, the bad, and the ugly that can result when they go viral. But what happens to the little guys? What happens to small brands that hit on marketing gold, kind of by accident?

Below, we’re taking a look at how small brands have handled their 15 minutes of viral fame. Some struggled, some succeeded, but all of them earned a spot on this elusive roster. Here’s what they did, and what you can learn from their stories. 16 Small Brands That Went Viral 1. Dominique Ansel Bakery (The Cronut) Image Credit: CNN Traveler Pastry chef Dominique Ansel was not a doughnut devotee. The French-born, New York-based bakery owner had tasted a few, but he was far more familiar with the croissants he had grown up eating. When someone pointed out that he didn’t have a donut on the menu of his New York bakery, Ansel decided to head back to his roots and invent a new kind of pastry. Enter: the Cronut. Ansel’s new confection really gained steam after a food blogger from Grub Street tried a Cronut and documented the experience. Traffic to the bakery website rose by more than 300 percent, and hundreds would line up every day to get their hands on the trendiest pastry around. Viral best practice: Focus on quality, not quantity Each batch of Cronuts took Ansel’s team three days to prepare. They could make about 350 Cronuts every day in their bakery, which meant the numbers were limited. By managing the output of his pastries and avoiding the draw of producing more than his team and facility could manage, Ansel created controlled demand that he could meet without sacrificing the quality of his product. Four years later, you’ll still find a line outside of Ansel’s bakery before their 8:00 A.M. opening. But the true secret to his success? Ansel claims that he’s had one Cronut every day since their invention. I’m really hoping that’s the key to my next promotion as well. 2. Eva Kor and Candles When my colleague, Kayla, was in college, she went to a nearby Holocaust memorial museum run by Auschwitz survivor Eva Kor. Hearing Kor tell her story at Candles during the tour touched so many hearts in the community, including Kayla’s. Kor’s story is why a visit to Candles is essential to anyone visiting the area. In 2017, BuzzFeed did a profile on Kor and the impact of Candles. At the time of this post, the profile video has 15 million views on YouTube alone, and over 100 million views on Facebook.

BuzzFeed’s profile gave Kor a global platform to share a story of bravery and remembrance. A visit to the cherished local museum became a viral topic that captured the hearts of millions, just like it had in Terre Haute, Indiana. Viral best practice: Local stories can capture the hearts of millions A large number of people in Terre Haute will enthusiastically tell you about their first time at Candles. Now, millions of people know about Candles and get to spread that message. Additionally, to keep Kor’s legacy remembered for future generations, in April 2019, two Indiana natives teamed up with PBS to release a documentary about Kor. Everyone has a story to tell. Candles’ story is one of bravery, passion, and perseverance, feelings to which everyone can relate. By telling your story, you could capture the hearts and attention of the masses, as well. 3. ALSA (The Ice Bucket Challenge) Image Credit: Iconosquare Blog In 2014, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association launched one of the most successful viral campaigns of all time. Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates were a handful of the celebrities who took the challenge and dumped buckets of ice over their heads to raise funds and awareness for ALSresearch. By the time the videos had stopped filling newsfeeds around the world, the campaign had raised more than $220 million for ALSorganizations worldwide. Awareness of the disease rose and it reached the fifth most popular Google search for all of 2014. In 2015, a year after the the ice bucket challenge went viral, money from the campaign was said to fund research that identified a new gene, NEK1, that contributes to the disease. Viral best practice: They looked outside their target audience True, most of those who made a donation during the video craze have never made a second. But overall A.L.S. contributions have stayed about 25 percent higher than the year before the challenge, and the average donor age has dropped from above 50 to 35. By shooting outside of their target demographic and trying alternative marketing tactics (video) that might normally take a backseat to more traditional fundraising efforts (galas, email marketing, etc … ) A.L.S.A. was able to bring in millions in one-time donations, raise brand awareness, and gain an overall contribution baseline of 25 percent. I’d say that’s enough incentive to shake things up in your next campaign. 4. Roman Originals (The Dress) Source What happens when your company isn’t even the one behind a viral sensation? “We woke up one morning and had the world and media coming down upon us,” says Peter Christodoulou, the co-founder of Roman Originals. It started with a wedding photo posted online. A young woman was pictured standing next to a bride, and no one could agree on what color her dress was. What followed was an international debate dubbed #DressGate. Christodoulou explained that his company had hoped to sell 200 of the lace-detailed dresses per week, but the UK-based retailer sold 3,000 in just 10 days. Celebrities, global brands, and just about everyone else was tweeting, sharing, and talking about “The Dress.” At its height, the controversy sparked 10,000 tweets per minute. Viral best practice: Other brands can and will capitalize on your success Brands around the world capitalized on the craze and amplified the popularity of “The Dress.” Dunkin’ Donuts, Legos, and Tide were just a few of the brands that came out with clever dress-themed ads of their own. A few months later, Christodoulou said his company “won the social media lottery. We’ve had a brilliant year … Hopefully our spring/summer 2016 range will be well-received.” While the line might not have sparked the global frenzy the original $74 dress had, Roman Originals showed the marketing world that virality can happen to anyone. And retailers everywhere showed that jumping on trending topics can do as much for you as it does for the company that originated the trend. 5. Blendtec In the early days of YouTube, there was some interesting content floating around — cat videos, sketch videos, and, of course, a guy in a white lab coat blending a whole chicken and can of soda.

Tom Dickson, CEO of blender company Blendtec, saw early on that YouTube could be a great marketing tool. With the platform’s emphasis on funny and quick content, the infomercial series “Will It Blend?” was the result of a minimal marketing budget and an experiment. The series was built around Blendtec’s flagship high-speed blender. To show the blender’s power, the CEO decided to advertise that users could even blend household items. So, he put on a white lab coat, found a box of matches, and turned on a camera. Dickson puts everything from golf balls, Amazon Echos, and my personal childhood favorite, Thanksgiving Dinner, to the test while cheesy game show music loftily plays in the background. (Spoiler alert: It always blends). Gaining billions of views and great interest in the high-speed capabilities of a Blendtec blender, the company has now flourished into one of the most reputable brands in its industry. Popularity of the series led to the company’s CEO appearing on an episode of NBC’s “How I Made My Millions” , a show about startups that quickly found great success. Viral best practice: Leveraging YouTube to create content that connects to the platform’s audience Having little resources as a startup, Dickson stumbled upon a hidden gold mine. His story shows how adoption of YouTube as a digital marketing platform can skyrocket a company, even without a high budget or television ad slots. Eventually, themed content, such as holiday episodes (Christmas Dinner smoothie, anyone?) began rolling out to expand its reach among YouTube’s audience. Today, you can still go back and watch the “Will It Blend?” series on their YouTube channel. And of course, you can still purchase the blender and produce a few videos of your own (something else that became popular in light of the show’s success). 6. Metro Trains Melbourne (Dumb Ways to Die) Source Are you already humming that catchy little song in your head? You’re welcome for that all day. Melbourne’s metro system didn’t have a safety campaign in market before “Dumb Ways to Die” (DWTD). They had information at stations, but nothing that was really influencing safe behavior or showing that the company cared, so they brought agency McCann Melbourne on to help. Metro Trains’ Chloe Alsop explained, “We kept coming back to the same thing: it’s really hard to get hit by a train. A wrong or careless behaviour is required.” Without a serious tone or tugging at heartstrings, an impactful, memorable, and shareable campaign was built. By April 2014, the campaign had been viewed 77 million times on YouTube. The accompanying game became the No. 1 free app in 101 countries, and in six weeks, DWTD had garnered an estimated $60 million in earned media. The most important stat that came out of the campaign? A 21% reduction in railway accidents and near misses following the campaign. Viral best practice: Launch outside your target market to build buzz McCann created the original campaign using North American voices and characters because “the video had to go viral first, later it would catch the attention of the real target audience.” Today, the campaign has become a franchise used by metro transit around the world. The takeaway for us? As McCann spokesperson John Mescall says, “It used to be ‘Think global, act local.’ That’s no longer true; we need to think and act global.” The next time you launch a campaign, try thinking about where you might launch outside of your target market to build buzz. 7. Invisible Children (Kony 2012) Source Invisible Children was around for eight years before Kony 2012 turned them into a household name. They got their start by showing a short film called “The Rough Cut” at high schools and community centers around the United States. The goal was to raise awareness of Joseph Kony, a war criminal responsible for a decades-long civil war in Uganda and surrounding countries, and most maligned for his kidnapping and use of children as sex slaves and soldiers. The group flipped Kony 2012, a 30-minute YouTube video, to public on March 5, 2012. It was not their first or their last video but it was their loudest. In six days, it garnered more than 100 million views becoming (for the moment) the fastest growing viral video of all time. As the days passed, however, criticism of the video, the organization, and its founders grew. The San Diego-based company wasn’t ready for the deluge of attention, traffic, or critique the video brought upon them. Invisible Children’s co-founder and star of Kony 2012 received the brunt of the criticism, culminating in a public mental health breakdown a few days after the video’s infamous launch. Viral best practice: Have a PR plan in place In 2015, three years after Kony 2012 ignited the internet’s attention, the company shuttered most of its US operations. Joseph Kony is still at large, and Invisible Children’s downsized African programs have honed their focus to early warning systems and defection messaging. Kony 2012 is still a divisive subject, but it’s also a cautionary tale for organizations whose aims to go viral may not match their infrastructure or readiness. Site traffic, man-power, and the lack of a PR agency/strategy all contributed to the chaos in the days following Kony 2012’s launch. 8. Netflix’s Bird Box During the winter of 2018, it was pretty much impossible to access a Netflix account that didn’t have an ad for a thriller starring Sandra Bullock plastered across the home page. We’ll touch more on that a little later. First, some background history. When Netflix released its original movie “Bird Box,” the movie was watched by 45 million viewers in seven days. In tandem, viewers took to social media with memes and reactions. While the social media attention could be a huge culprit of some of the movie’s widespread attention, it also could be something else. Netflix’s marketing team has an effective strategy outside of traditional marketing channels: the platform’s own user interface (UI). Netflix decision-makers have complete control over what viewers see when they log in, so when “Bird Box” released, they made sure viewers knew about it, pushing the ad in the homepage slot. To illustrate, this is how much space a homepage ad takes up. Users see this every time they want to watch or search for something. Someone who watches Netflix after work everyday sees this ad — at least the movie title — at least 5X a week. Mix an ad that’s virtually impossible to ignore with automatic playback, and viewers with more time to stream content due to the holiday season, and the result is a perfect viral storm. Viral best practice: Leveraging UI to be advantageous in a campaign Netflix recommendations are tailored to what viewers want to see, but everything else about homepage design is decided by the company’s team and gives great potential for their original content to go viral. For a streaming service with over 100 million subscribers, it’s excellent exposure. Sometimes, the perfect aid to a campaign starts with what you can do in your own wheelhouse. Marketing for “Bird Box” created interest for viewers with an auto-play ad on the site homepage. Maybe you can leverage one of your popular webpages, e-books, or social channels to similarly shine light on an upcoming product or service launch. 9. Sphero (Makers of BB-8) Source How did a small, Boulder, Colorado-based robotics company become the creator of spherical droid BB-8? Sphero was part of the inaugural class of Disney’s Accelerator tech-development program, which helps companies expand creatively using Disney’s impressive resources. They happened to be in a meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger as he was scrolling through offerings for Force Friday, a September 2015 toy and merchandising event held in anticipation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Iger asked the crew if they could make the rolling droid, BB-8, and they spent the next 10 months working on the product in time for a Force Friday launch. They sold more than a million robots in 2015 alone, more than doubling their all-time selling record. Viral best practice: Use social media in new ways (and it doesn’t hurt to have Disney on your side) Sphero hit the jackpot with their Snapchat marketing campaign for Force Friday. The droid’s creators waited in lines with throngs of Force Friday patrons, snapping the hype and excitement of fellow fans. They leveraged the cast of The Force Awakens, along with Snapchat influencers at five flagship Disney stores around the world to build buzz about the movie and their robot. It’s been labeled the first global product launch using Snapchat, and the results were impressive with 10.3 million views, 4.76 thousand screenshots, 69.1 million seconds watched, and 411 thousand social engagements. Sphero also handled media requests and newfound attention with Brandfolder, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform that kept their product photos, company information, and tech specs easily accessible and accurate. For your next product launch, how could you leverage social media in unexpected or nontraditional ways? 10. Niantic Inc. (Pokemon Go) Source Are you still recovering? Is it still too fresh to talk about? Niantic Inc. was as surprised as you likely were when Pokemon Go became a global obsession. The company had prepared their server load for game launch with a ‘worst case’ estimate of five times the normal volume. What they got was an astounding 50 times the expected traffic —within 24 hours of the game’s launch. But frustrated players and downed servers eventually gave way to 2016’s hottest trend. Viral best practice: Focus on quality and innovation After launch, the creators of Pokemon Go ironed out those kinks and continued to innovate on their product. They still release special, limited-time offerings like their ghost-themed Halloween event which saw a 1.3 billion increase in Pokemon caught by players, and a user spike of 13.2 percent globally. Niantic also resisted the urge to monetize things too soon on a large scale. Instead, they focused on “core game mechanics, learning things on the technical side, the ops and customer support side, the community and marketing side.” A more natural way for them to monetize early on? Quigley says, “We’re encouraging people to get out and about in their neighborhoods, their cities, their communities —what more natural way to integrate someone into the game than to have these paid sponsor locations that are interleaved among their other locations?” Pokemon Go is a success story of a company that wasn’t expecting success but, by focusing on creating a quality product and resisting the urge to monetize too soon, was able to create not only a global sensation but a lasting one. 11. Popeyes’ Chicken Sandwich So much has been said about the Popeyes chicken sandwich storm that exploded on social media in 2019. According to the CEO, because of taste and word-of-mouth, they just got lucky. After a well-performing tweet, it seemed as if overnight, everyone had to get their hands on this sandwich. Craze over the chicken sandwich grew to be so large that Popeyes ran out of chicken, drove sales up 16%, rose profits 13%, and caught the eye of their competition. Additionally, the response was so great that competitor Chick-fil-A got involved.

… y’all good? https://t.co/lPaTFXfnyP — Popeyes Chicken (@PopeyesChicken) August 19, 2019

Needless to say, Chick-fil-A’s response to Popeyes’s turn in the chicken sandwich spotlight backfired. Viral best practices: Use social media user-generated content to spearhead a campaign. In essence, the CEO was right: they were just lucky. One viral tweet about the chicken sandwich inspired others to post their reactions, participation from competitors only helped, and online tutorials were popping up everywhere. Now, the team at Popeyes knows their audience behavior, and they’ve learned that posting on social media, where their audience is active, is the way to drive sales. Take the creation of their clothing line, for instance. Announced on Twitter as a thinly veiled response to Beyonce’s athleisure brand Ivy Park, That Look From Popeyes was a real launch, and every item sold out. Social media is at the forefront of their campaigns, mixing pop culture into their brand to be more relatable to audiences. The chicken sandwich wars showed that knowing your audience and connecting to them can yield great results. Though every tweet might not go viral, you’ll build a loyal customer base that feels understood by your brand with consistency and relatability. 12. Cards Against Humanity Source You know it, you love it, and you’re embarrassed by it when your mom asks what it is. Your answer is invariably, “It’s like Apples to Apples … but different.” This self-proclaimed “party game for horrible people” did not come from some hip Silicon Valley incubator. Instead, it was the brainchild of eight friends who’d known each other since grade school in their hometown of Chicago. They had no major outside investment, unless you count their one small crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, and it took them a while to even have a business address. “Our main priority is to be funny — and to have people like us,” says game co-creator Max Temkin. Viral best practice: Know your brand voice (and stand by it) Cards Against Humanity has always taken an unorthodox approach to marketing. You can download the full game for free on their website (something more than 1.5 million people have done). They once ran an anti-sale for Black Friday where they priced the game, normally $25, at $30 a box. With a tagline of “Today only! Cards Against Humanity products are $5 more. Consume!” the company inexplicably sold more cards. Their marketing strategy (or anti-strategy) would make most marketers cringe, but it works for them. 2016’s Black Friday campaign featured live video of the company “digging a holiday hole” and asking people to donate to its “cause.” They raised close to $30,000 with the stunt. Most recently, they launched their first-ever Super Bowl ad featuring nothing but a potato and a clever article about why the ad “failed.” Cards Against Humanity is one of the clearest cases of knowing your brand voice and sticking with it. Their copy, creative, and campaigns are uniquely their own, and uniquely unapologetic about it, just like their game. 13. Chubbies Source Love ’em, hate ’em, or loathe ’em, Chubbies is here to stay. The founders were four Stanford buddies who bonded over their mutual love of short shorts. Says co-founder Tom Montgomery, we noticed that “If you had a really cool pair of shorts, people would talk about it.” They decided to test their idea for Chubbies out at a Fourth of July beach party before going all in. They donned their “Chubbies,” headed to Lake Tahoe, and quickly found “the shorts struck the same emotional chord with other people that it struck with us.” Their website launched in September 2011, just a few months before winter, giving them time to prepare for the busy spring months. Chubbies’ team spent that time building up inventory and marketing to their target audience: fraternities. Witty emails, unapologetic copy, and bro-friendly photography set them apart, and their guerilla-style email tactics spread their name and their product through college towns everywhere. Viral best practice: Build a strong narrative before you go viral In 2014 they raised a $4.4 million round of funding and a steady growth curve followed. They’ve expanded beyond their signature shorts but continue to build the brand around what made them successful in the first place — the weekend. “We’re constantly building this brand around the weekend and the feeling you get around Friday at 5 p.m. When a guy throws them on, the stress and rigors of the work week can be put on hold for a bit.” That connection to their brand identity creates a strong narrative in their marketing efforts across channels. They speak to their audience unwaveringly, and their audience responds. 14. James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) Source Author James Frey had an explosive product launch in 2005. His book, A Million Little Pieces originally marketed as his memoir, was catapulted to overnight success after being named on Oprah’s television book club. Two million copies were sold, making it the fastest-selling book in the club’s 10-year history. It topped the New York Times Best Seller list for 15 straight weeks and was published in 28 languages by 30 different publishers all over the world. Unfortunately, months after Oprah lauded his bravery as well as his book, it was revealed that his memoir was more fiction than fact. Winfrey publicly chastised Frey on her show, famously asking “Why would you lie?” Frey was dropped from his publishing house and he was hit with lawsuits from many readers. Viral best practice: It’s never too late to refresh your brand Frey continues to write books, with successes like I Am Number Four being made into movies. Even Oprah apologized for how she turned on him so suddenly. While he enjoys renewed success, Frey maintains a life decidedly out of the spotlight. The lesson here? Well, make sure your marketing isn’t full of lies, and be prepared to stand by your content if Oprah ever picks it up. But it’s also never too late to reinvent yourself and still have a successful career, even after a bad viral moment. 15. Dollar Shave Club Source At this point, Dollar Shave Club’s (DSC) inaugural video is legendary. My first reaction to a shaving subscription service was, “huh?” But with a single video, DSC flawlessly spoke to shaver pain points, poked fun at themselves, and announced to the world that they were ready to shake up a previously forgettable industry Co-founder Michael Dubin wrote the video, starred in it, and had a friend shoot it in a single day for less than $4,500. It crashed the company’s servers 90 minutes after it went live and catapulted the company to become the second-largest men’s razor seller in America. Viral best practice: Don’t be afraid to poke fun at yourself That video has been viewed over 22 million times, and DSC has 1.1 million subscribers and growing. They earned a $615 million valuation in 2015, and in 2016 they were acquired by Unilever for $1 billion dollars cash. They continue with successful marketing, expertly branded packaging, and a unique presence in an industry that has finally been woken up. All thanks (in part) to a video that poked fun at the company while educating their consumer. 16. Chatbooks Source A four-minute viral video? It goes against every 15-, 30-, and 45-second best practice in the book, but boy did it pay off for Utah-based subscription photo service Chatbooks. The video educates its viewer on how to use a relatively new app that turns your photos into albums so you don’t have to. Why was it so successful? They nail their buyer persona. The video features a busy, realistic mom. She speaks to the audience with all the advice, sarcasm, and “I get it, I’ve been there” relatability that you’d look for from a fellow cool mom. It closes with a catchy tagline: “done is better than perfect.” Chatbooks sold 1 million subscriptions in its first 18 months. It’s racked up over 1 million views on YouTube and the company is pushing 200,000 “likes” on Facebook. They continue to put out honest, pain-point driven videos featuring the same now-recognizable mom. Viral best practice: Get detailed and personal with your personas It’s easy to phone in your user personas. Instead of just targeting “moms,” Chatbooks clearly thought through how that mom thinks, what she worries about during the day, how she’s spending her time, and how photos figure into her hectic schedule. The result? A video their target audience couldn’t help but share. The Next Time Your Boss Asks for a Viral Campaign … It’s nearly impossible to know what will go viral, and trying for that elusive result will usually come across as forced and futile. Instead, research your target audience, decide if you can expand that audience, and create campaigns that are thoughtful, actionable, and relevant. But before you launch, make sure you’re prepared for the maelstrom that could follow. It’s always smart to have a PR plan in place should the worst (or the best) happen. Check out the webinar below by HubSpot Academy featuring a member of BuzzFeed’s video team, and how she’s managed to amass more than half abillion views from her content (with the right defenses for potential backlash).

As a final send-off, keep in mind that you shouldn’t expect every piece of content you release thereafter to be equally successful. Continue to create content that resonates with your audience and you’ll do just fine.

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