Chinese mining industry

This is the most gloomy industrial system in the world.
In china, Shanxi Province is the center of Chinese coal mining system, and thousands of coal mining companies, both legal and illegal, are operated there. Little children and women are hired, with crude security insurance. The landscape in Shanxi Province were more than worse, especially in 1990-2000. The air was hardly to spare near the mining cave and there were holes everywhere on the land, which usually cause some earthquakes, not disastrous but scary. Any people died everyday because of mining accident, and usually because of corruption, the number of people died or missing was not published. Here is a link for the disaster just in July, 2011.
http://www.usmra.com/chinatable.htm. Mining people are trampled in China, really. Money is the only thing they care about.
Oh, here is a article for Centralia Pa.
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm

My Former Idea On Hunting

Before reading the articles on hunting and learning about Livre De Chase, I always assumed hunting was more like this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlkD-D20OI.

Native American

In the video that we watched during class on July 5, 2011 of Native American going through the waters of the cities that were urbanilized, he found displeasure in what the people had done to the society. What caught to my attention was the tear that he shed because of his love of nature being turned into cities and people not taking care of it as much as they should. The tear showed a symbolism because a man should be strong and when they do cry it shows something that is really important. This implies the importance of nature to him and many others who feel the same way about the harm of nature in order to make cities.

Relevant article to Nature's Metropolis

Here's an article that discusses drainage issues in Chicago. I thought that this relates to Professor Tantillo's comment in class today that the entire city of Chicago was raised by five feet in the 19th century to manage runoff. In more recent history, "the city is [again] rethinking the way it paves things."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/us/26chicago.html?scp=1&sq=Chicago%20environmental&st=cse

Chinese Traditional Medicine & its effects on the environment

from http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jvPG9a4rTLoauac5FQb6LgcDvvVw

For many years, the Chinese have used rare species and plants for curing medicine. Why not use our everyday synthetic medicine, which is scientifically proven to work? Who knows, but the Chinese have it their own way. They have exploited the environment for thousands of years and continue to this day, killing thousands of animals to create medicines that are not even known to have significant biological effects. While researching my topic, I was horrified to find that the Chinese law enforcement agencies had found 173 bear paws transported in a van. Even more horrific is the fact that these findings are actually quite common. Despite the fact that stricted laws and penalties have been put into place to prevent the poaching of animals, it continues and this is quite an alarming thing to find out and must be addressed immediatly.

Alexander Torbov

Enlightenment philosophy

Enlightenment era emphasize the power of human and science. Any supernatural power was denied and people believe that science could resolve the basic questions of all the fields. More interestingly, they believed that under certain level of education, people could improve their live endlessly. Here is a link to the article about philosophy and background of enlightenment.

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/enlightenment_age.html

By the way, I wonder in which aspects Enlightenment has relation to Romanticism.

Albrecht Dürer and St Eustace

A suitable legend for Albrecht Durer to portray to advocate animal rights and promote the status of wildlife, at the stance where the animal becomes the ethereal force over men.

Dürer's portrayal of the story of St Eustace, a Roman general who converted to Christianity upon seeing a vision of Christ between the antlers of the Stag he was hunting. Perhaps an example of the "nobly antlered stag" in the "Sacred chase," where the hunter is drawn by the quarry that leads him to his encounter with a divinity and ultimately to his conversion.

The picture shows St. Eustace kneeling in front of his horse and the mighty stag with a cross between his antlers while his five hunting dogs stay still in the foreground.

Humans in Relation to Nature

In the recent lectures in class, there have been many different views on the distinction between Mankind and Nature. I would just like to put out my opinion, and do not mean to criticize anyone else's. I personally believe that there should not be a seperation between humans and nature in any sense. Humans are a part of nature and although they might destructive, they still follow the same characteristics that all animals feature. Humans strive to live the most comfortable lives, which includes eating the best food, and living in the most untroubled shelter. They will try to gain and maintian power, and will make great ceremonious shows of it. They might go to great lenghts to rid themselves of the extensives and various problems that present themselves. At the basic core, a young man trying to charm a lady at a party is not that different than a ladybug releasing periforomes to attract females. The only thing that creates the illusion of a speration is our intellect. We use out intellect to create enormous scales compared to other animals, and in this way we are considered malacious and foul creatures. However, few think consider that the lion does not care about the amount of zebras that exist, it goes out and kills whatever he can.

This does not mean that humans should not be reponsible for the effect they have on the envirnoment. Just as they are using their intellect to destroy it, they should also make equal or greater efforts to maintain or even limit the negative effects they have on the envirnoment. I only voice my opinion to criticize the notion that Mankind and Nature are two seperate entities, not to advocate the actions of humans.

Hey Guys,

Here's an interesting article from the Economist Magazine about the possibility of harnessing solar power from space. Apparently, this would provide more power than waiting for the sun's rays to reach earth: "The advantage of intercepting sunlight in space, instead of letting it find its own way through the atmosphere, is that so much gets absorbed by the air. By converting it to the right frequency first (one of the so-called windows in the atmosphere, in which little energy is absorbed) a space-based collector could, enthusiasts claim, yield on average five times as much power as one located on the ground."

Jason E.

Here's the link:http://www.economist.com/node/18864324

Mark Lynas regrets throwing that pie in Lomborg's face

Writing in today's Mail, Lynas confesses to switching his views on nuclear power:

It has taken me a long time to reach this conclusion. I used to passionately oppose not only nuclear power but GM crops. I once even threw a pie in the face of a Danish scientist who dared to question the orthodox environmental line. So what changed?

Through research, I found that much of what I believed about environmental issues had little, if any, basis in science. Put simply, though my concerns were right, my solutions were wrong.

The rest of the article is absolutely fascinating. "One of the reasons the Green movement is failing to attract support is that it has too much cultural baggage and is too ideologically rigid," he comments. "Any reconsideration of the orthodox position — even for the sake of the environment — is seen as a betrayal."

Sounds like a call for some loyal opposition.

The Poacher

Hello everyone!
I thought the lecture on Bruegel today was interesting, so I looked up more of his works and I came across this one called "The Poacher". The way I look at the picture, it seems to me that Bruegel is poking fun at the poachers. The whimsical expression of the poacher in the center as well as the comedy from the man in the tree make the scene humourous. This seems to contrast the sternness of the Gaston pictures.

What do you guys think? Any other opinions about this piece?

Reaction to 6.28 Afternoon Lecture / Film

While I appreciate the intent to tell the "True Story of the Roman Arena," this documentary leaves me disgruntled. I do not fault the use of storytelling elements like analogy, symbolism, and effects, but I do find this film, made by the BBC, disingenuous.

The use of music to heighten a mood or enhance the narrative is critiqued both in ancient Roman arena combat as well as more modern Spanish bullfighting. An astute audience would note the use of low strings and other musical ploys during scenes of gore and violence during the film as the same use of music to supplement visual narrative. Am I supposed to feel horrified and unsettled watching specific scenes of "The True Story of the Roman Arena?" It would seem so... Perhaps in telling the true story of the past the motivation of modern animal rights supporters is an evident, and ultimately undermining force.

If the creators of this documentary feel at liberty to employ the same techniques that they question, at least they could employ the same kind of truth they hope to expose. The truth about bullfighting is that while the art and spectacle of violence are paramount to the experience, the slaughtered animal is slaughtered to be eaten. In fact scenes of the butchering of the bulls into cuts of beef appear during the course of the film, without any explanation that those same bulls were killed in front of an audience hours earlier. It is currently law in Spain to make sure the animal is dead and butchered efficiently (as in, within a certain amount of time). It is certainly a departure from the types of massacres of animals in ancient Rome. I see the parallels of public violence, but I do not get to learn about what happens afterward. But wait, the documentary does tell us about how efficiently the masses of animals (and humans) are carted away from the scene, and it does try to parallel with the loading of the dead bull using draft horses. Why stop the narrative there?

I would close by saying that while I appreciate the use of modern analogues to tell a story of history, I wonder if my classmates were at least confused by the use of these parallels and maybe even opinionated enough to write something about it. Any ideas on the boxing? Thanks, and good evening,

Evan

Population

Hi everybody!
I remember coming across this when it was published as a National Geographic article. I think it's an interesting comparison as compared to Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" idea, as well as to the various population predictions made by scientists throughout the years.
The article dicusses in further depth the demographic transitions occuring around the world, and is an interesting read for anyone intersted in human population dynamics.
Here's the link if you're intersted:
http://http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text
And if you're short on time, there's a video summary here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc4HxPxNrZ0

-Crystal Uminski

Artemis

Hughes mentions the Greek goddess Artemis (Diana in Rome) a lot in Pan's Travail. On page 50, Hughes talks about an alternate image of Artemis. Where she is typically portrayed as the virgin huntress, she is also occasionally depicted differently to show fertility and closeness with animals. Here's a picture of her alternative form:

The statue is in the Vatican Museum.