This weeks featured discussion is on sustainability: what are some ideas that could be implemented in order to promote sustainability within the modern global economy? Thought: When dealing with different cultures how do we move forward in a positive way toward social responsibility and equality within a myriad of different belief systems?
We will also be highlighting one organization every two weeks that has made an impact in social change around the world. If you would like to nominate a group feel free to post a comment including their website address. Check our blogroll for a quick link.
This weeks organizational spotlight is: Sierra Club
Just for fun: Every week we will also be uploading a portrait of a famous philosopher, social scientist, political scientist or psychologist in the author’s avatar section. See if you can be the first one to identify the picture. Please post your response in the comments section
Mystery Man?
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! Bethany you are correct. The mystery man is pervez musharraf the resigned president of pakistan.
Freedom is Universal 
This weeks featured discussion is on sustainability: what are some ideas that could be implemented in order to promote sustainability within the modern global economy? Thought: When dealing with different cultures how do we move forward in a positive way toward social responsibility and equality within a myriad of different belief systems?
The mystery man is Pervez Musharraf! The resigned President of Pakistan.
the mystery man is pervez musharraf! the resigned president of pakistan.
Saving on energy and developing renewable energy source. This is because of the gas prices or high cost of energy and increasing demand on energy and its use. people households and should save on energy while government should encourage and support research and development on renewable energy sources such as sunlight, wind, oceans, and etc.
Environment protection and involving the community in waste management. Abuse and misuse of natural resources will lead to depletion of natural resources and other negative effects of the environment such as pollution and global warming. One effective measure is to involve the community to effectively manage waste such as recycling, no dumping of waste on water bodies, use of environment friendly and energy source.
The growing shift to the more eco-friendly lifestyle will have a large impact on our future global economy. This blog (http://blogs.earthsky.org/dankulpinski/2008/01/12/state-of-the-world-shifting-to-sustainability/) referred to a January press conference on the effects the environment has on the economy. Consumers and businesses are looking more and more for eco-friendly products to use.
Renewable forms of energy (i.e. bio fuels, wind energy, solar energy, etc.) will also be important. Oil is a finite resource, and we can’t depend on it forever.
In order to deal with the other cultures/belief systems around the world, I think we need to start out by educating ourselves on the various cultures/lifestyles to a gain a better understanding of them, and see what affects them and their economy. It will also be important to have open discussions with other countries on how they plan to move foward into the future.
It’s simple. The only way one could get everyone to recycle would be to make it easy for them. No more of this retarded pay seven cents, get five back stuff the State is doing; and oh, didn’t we mention that you have to pay for your own gas, and can only come at these specific times when you’re probably at work?
I’ve always followed a policy of “put back what you take out”. To promote sustainability, Discovery Channel has a program called “Discovery: Project Earth”. I’ve always thought that planting a tree whenever one is sacrificed to the math gods, was a good idea.
Project Earth showed me something I had never thought of before! Using computer graphics (commonly known as CG), they showed the potential of combining the Air Force’s cluster bombing technology, but instead of explosives, we could place a tree seed within high-nitrogen soil. Using that, we could plant an entire forest in just one sweep!
I agree with Victoria. Just like in any strategy game, you must first understand what the goals and motivations of your opponents are. The sad truth is, peace is much more complex than war. When we study and understand what drives our fellow human beings, the realization that their goal actually conflicts, and maybe even attacks, your own, can really make you think twice about walking alongside them.
I don’t have any suggestion on getting along with other people. Taught from birth that our destruction would be for the good of all, how are we–strangers, foreigners–to tell them what they knew to be true for 30 years, is wrong? Missionaries say it on a daily basis, and there really must be some higher force in play for someone to take an action that seems so illogical.
Well, to sustain the modern global economy we need to sit and think about what we as people need to focus on in order to preserve it. Gas is a very important issue we need to fix because the prices are rising at a very high rate. As it continues to rise people will be greatly effected. If the prices increase some people will not be able to go and do things they need to do( jobs,school,ect.) therefore making our economy decline.
Also, we need to cut down on our use of energy. Daily, one person can use so much and not even realize it. For example, using the computer,playing video games ,watching television, and many other everyday activities we indulge in. If everyone just spent a little less time on those types of things we could save a LOT of energy everyday:)! So instead of people trying to come out with new technology and games , focusing on more important issues like how to preserve and sustain our economy is what we should be doing.
Even though we are all from different backgrounds and have different beliefs,religions, and systems we are all people. We are all living on earth and that should bring us together to help keep our world alive.:D
Congratz Bethany. You Win!!!
drum roll please………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5 BONUS POINTS!!!!!!
Great comments so far keep up the good work!!!
Chris, Victoria, Matt, Ellisssssssse good job!
Little known fact: Scientists have only identified about 4% of matter in the universe. The other 96% is Dark Matter.
Imagine the possibilities God has given us, and we don’t even know it yet! Gravity is just a theory, yet we know it exists. No one completely understands electricity, but we use it everyday. While everything else contracts with heat loss, water actually expands!
Cold fusion, Limb and Organ regeneration, fuel that never is “used up”. What if they’re all attainable, but we just don’t know how? Just some things to think about.
Sustainability in a Eco-friendly environment will never happen as long as man is on the earth. Man is Wicked they will just be trying to make a profit “money is the root of all evil” nothing will ever get done for the benefit of the less fortunate.
Keawe, you make a bold statement. Please explain in detail the philosophy behind your ideas and why you feel the outlook is so hopeless.
Sustainability in a Eco-friendly enviroment is something most people hope for, like we want to replace gas with a different source of fuel. Even though its what we want, its probably not gonna happen for a loooooooooong time. because gas companies make their money off of selling gas, they are not gonna bring down their own companies by selling a different source of fuel. like Keawe said people would rather make for themselves first than helping out the economy.
I have to agree/disagree with you Keawe. Man is wicked and they will always try to make a profit off of something. With that just imagine if you found a cheap way to produce a renewable source of energy and you patent it. You could make millions or even billions just by selling that right to use the method.
Yes, humanity does need to find a renewable source of energy with the oil crisis or else we’ll have a “Frontlines: Fuels of War” situation. (btw, Frontlines is a video game) People could choose to live more eco-friendly but of course not everyone is going to opt to do that so it probably wouldnt make too much of a difference unless 75% of the world chooses to recycle all of its materials and save the rainforest.
In this article, http://www.pcdf.org/1995/bretton.htm , the author says that the biggest barrier to sustainbility is “the limited extent of the public discussion of the subject.” People are far more interested in celebrity gossip than a sustainable economy. We live in a world where the most important, most valued things are fame & fortune.
So I sort of agree with Keawe. Sustainbility in an eco-friendly environment seems unattainable because people are too caught up with thinking about their own personal success and happiness to help out the economy.
Thus, possibly the most important step toward making our economy more sustainable would be to get people interested. If the majority of people don’t care, then our economy will never make any progress towards becoming sustainable.
I suppose that if one had to think of ideas to promote the global economy through sustainability I would start with how people can make money by trying to sustain our resources. Because in my opinion I don’t think that the vast majority of people will do something that they don’t benefit from; Tax breaks, making energy efficient things more appealing to the regular person economically. But Frankly, I don’t think any of that matters. Because the truth is that the world is so greatly diverse in our cultures, that you can’t apply the same rules to everyone. Can you really make someone pay for solar energy when the less earth-friendly alternatives are less expensive? Are you seriously going to make the people of a small village in Africa stop using gasoline because it’s not good for the environment?
Even if you manage to get legislation for restrictions on energy use you can’t make everyone else in the world do the same.
So sad I’m about to give up and lose all hope Keawe, Bethany, and Annie have given us a bleak outlook on humanity.. Just joking..So far the comments have been excellent, but don’t we have some sort of personal responsibility to do our part no matter what others may do or think. And maybe we can lead the way internationally and help third world countries obtain better modes of energy consumption. Technologically we are too lead the world in new systems and implementation so we definitely have to start at home first. What do you guys think?
The thing about personal responsibility is that not everyone is going to responsible and do what they should. Kinda like everyone is responsible for doing their homework but not everyone does it. Third world countries are behind us technology wise so if we were to come up with a new energy production method they still wouldnt be able to keep up with us.
to the asnwer on saving on energy and developing renewable energy source. like saving gas, water, and electricity. Is a gas-less car in the future…Are gas fueled cars the result of oil interests? what about water do people actually save water? for example washing car,brushing your teeth,or washing dishes? think about how much water we wasted and we didnt even know? and to your other question coach how can we join diffrent ethnicity and diffrent religious join together?
Glenn: Is it the third world’s responsibility to keep up, or our responsibility to bring them along. We have to remember we live on the same planet and the consequences in the third world directly or indirectly affect us and our future standard of living.
Armando: Yes, and to my other question your answer is?
It would be nice to bring them along but the way the world is right now, we can’t even take full care of everyone in our nation so how would we be able to do it on a grander scale?
Don’t worry about it seeming impossible. Many inventions we use today were unimaginable by our ancestors.
Did the Ancient Hawaiians ever imagine the possibility of harnessing the power of the sun to generate electricity? Did the Tokugawa Shogunate even believe possible, a hunk of plastic and wires could transmit signals to another hunk of plastic thousands of miles away?
Again, Scientists have only identified 4% of matter in the universe. That means there are still 24 times as many inventions to be made, not counting the fact we still don’t understand even the most everyday things we use.
There are two key ways to get the majority involved:
1. Let them know their life is in immediate danger
2. Make it easy for them
Those are the two ways we can get the world involved in saving the environment. Threaten them with imminent death, or make it so easy, they won’t have to leave their home. I choose the latter.
Aperture Science. Take a lesson from “Still Alive”. That song holds more truth than you’d think.
In order to promote sustainability in the modern global economy, We need to acknowledge the diffrences of other people and cultures around the world. We must realize that some people are older and have diffrent perspective on things, because they have seen diffrent things happening in the world that some of us haven’t seen. We also have to determine common goals we have. And lastly we need to respect other peoples ideas, and understand that our backrounds give us diffrent perspectives. We need to be willing to compromise for the good of the group.
To end my last post ^. Essentially I belive that we can get along better with the global community if we use deplomacy instead of bullying tactics. We cant just be going into other countries and telling them they cant be doing certain things, we need to negotiate and “ask” them why they are doing certain and try and fix problems this way.
“Also, we need to cut down………sustain our economy is what we should be doing..” – Ellie
No can do. Right now with the newer generations, theres less and less kids that can cook without a microwave, less kids that can take time to mail an actual letter, less kids that can “study” without the computer, less kids that can walk to a nearby store…geeze the list goes on. Anyways, not many people are willing to be optimistic about eco-friendly ways to save. Thats basically asking someone to go live under a tree or something. I for one dont want to catch (catch a cold, then contract pneumonia)pneumonia if it happens to be raining.
“1. Let them know their life is in immediate danger” -The Honmaster
Even when they hear the warning sirens, people won’t start running until they see the tsunami-wave towering hundreds of feet over them. In fact, they’d probably even stick around to take close up pictures.
…Okay…sustainability….
Honestly, a global attempt at political peace seems pretty impossible considering the different systems there are throughout the world. Like Victoria said, educating ourselves about their culture would help towards cultural unity, but I can’t see “getting along” without economic reasons behind it.
Oh…yah….HI GUYS 😀
Glenn always with the videogames lol jk.
matt you said that we’re trying to get the whole WORLD involved with each other. idt that we can get every country in the world to be on the same page. we can barely get the U.S. on one page. Say if we got every country to create something great, then sooner or later one country is gonna say something like well it was my idea i think my country should get more credit than your country. then after that other countries are gonna start bickering than boom no more great invention because no country wants to work together anymore, then there we go back to square one all over again. someone correct me if im wrong or if i dont make sense, but this why i think that global sustainability wont work out. okay thats all i got for now, shooooo k byee CHRISTIAN OUT!
also another thing is COACH YOUR TEST ARE TO LONG!! lol jk coach no but really its to long lol
Adjusting to a more eco-friendly lifestyle will definitely have a large impact. When we look to our future global economy, we realize that we are in great need of renewable forms energy and oil. Personally, I think that regardless of what we plan to do on a large scale, it begins with us. It should still be our responsibility to do what we can, like recycling, using less water, etc. We need to be aware of how much energy & water we’re using, too. We don’t even realize how much we waste and how we take things for granted. We need to start small then work our way out. We can’t try to do something global when we can’t even do it in our own country. And in order for this even to work people have to be interested in it; otherwise, we’ll be going nowhere. People need an incentive; just the fact that something may be good for the environment isn’t enough. Of course, our human nature makes us extremely selfish, so we jus think of what’s convenient for ourselves, while we just push global matters to the side. I hate to sound like a pessimist, but chances of the world becoming eco-friendly is highly unlikely, but you never know until you try I guess.
I agree with Christian thinking that we cant get everyone on the same page. We could probably get most countries to work together but then one superpower country such as China may think that it is unfair that they cant do such and such because they have so many people and it would be inefficent for them to do what the other nations want them to do.
well sorry for posting my comment so late i kinda forgot…anyways, i agree with what Christian said i mean people are all basically the same, greedy, selfish people everwhere, so if we were to try to work together in the end someone is gonna get greedy and try to take all the credit for whatever has been accomplished. Or worse yet, some one takes advantage of us sharing tech with them and uses it to harm us.
The only way i could see the whole world working together is if there was some kind of global threat occuring that was imminent and undeniable. Like an asteroid or something of epic scale, that threatened the whole world simultaneously, there would be no way anyone would ignore it and we would all band together. I mean its like a family, say there are two brothers who cant stand eachother, if one of them gets beat up the other is gonna step up and back him. I know its not the best analogy ever but it was the best i had, anyway yeah if we wanted the world to work together that is one of the only ways i see.
It would be very hard for all the nations to work as one. Evert nation would have their own salution to this problem and what would only benifit their nation. Maybe one day we will unite as one and could save planet earth,but probably it would be too late. My family help planet earth by recycleing plastic bottles, aluminum cans, copper, and news paper. They should pass a law were you have to recycle all your rubish. Also they should give a limit on how much electricity and water each household should have, that would make the world just a little better.
SHOOOOOOTIEZZZZZZZZ!
I agree, reaching global sustainability will be very difficult, and probably won’t happen anytime soon. Gaining economic sustainability within our own country would first be necessary; however, it won’t be easy. Big companies like Exxon Mobil, who have made $11.68 billion of profit in the second quarter this year alone, are not going to want to find ways of making cheaper energy sources but rather find ways of increasing their profits. People will always look for ways that benefit themselves first rather than others.
Lol, China a “superpower”?
No, I don’t mean the whole world, just the majority. We don’t need them to work with us, just as long as they’re not working against us. We could scare everyone into caring, or we can make it so easy you don’t have to care. Don’t you think the latter is easier?
From Chelsey’s post:
“People need an incentive; just the fact that something may be good for the environment isn’t enough”
From my previous post:
“There are two key ways to get the majority involved:
1. Let them know their life is in immediate danger
2. Make it easy for them”
A friend of mine has informed me of a third option, though:
3. “Hit them where it hurts. Their wallets! Tax the *beep* for not recycling. It has to be severe, however. So severe that it would actually infringe on our constitutional right of free enterprise. So harsh that people wouldn’t buy any disposable plastics bottles or aluminum cans. Instead they would use just one bottle for their drinks, one they could wash when necessary. No more bottles in vending machines either. One would have to put their bottle under the nozzle and their drink would pour into it. Harsh, but it would work. Of course, then we’d have to do something about the Garbage Disposal Workers’ Riots of 20XX caused from the lack of garbage to dispose.”
He’s crazy, lol, but it sounds like something that could work (after the rioters are neutralized).
Haha, ironic. While I was typing the previous entry, Lauren had the same idea Jet did!
creating an eco-friendly envionment?
well, i think that the government or political parties should think about using their money wisely and invest it in technology that could save energy.
the democratic party are saying that they would like to help the poor and creat a national health care plan. well i think instead of wasting millions of dollars on conventions they should use it to fulfill their goals.
idk just a thought 😛
okay. i agree with what chelsey and victoria said. they both practically said that if we wanted to help other countries,then we would have to make shure that our own country is reliable and taken care of first. then if our economy somehow gets better then we could help other countries with all their economical problems. i know that ppl have already said this but ohh well. we could help our economy by building more power plants or it could be something simple as saving water. all these little things could probably make a big difference in our economy. and i basically think that major gas companies are ripping us off. i think it was glenn who said that men are baddd and just want all the money. if i’m wrong then im sorry. ohh thats probably another thing we could all do- save money.
Excellent, A lot of these arguments have very valid points. For instance, If we can’t come to common consensus within our own class, then it does make world wide consensus unlikely. Another very interesting topic posed by Bea Clare is the fact that most of our endeavors are economically motivated, so at some point someone is bound to take advantage of someone else, or some country is bound to oppress or subject another country purely for economic or strategic gain….But does this mean we through global sustainability out the window or do we start domestically like Bliselda said, and focus on the United States first, get our act together and then help out the rest of the world?
Coach is right, Christian is the best
why arent my posts showing up??
second time commenting:
Keawes statement is sad but true as long as their is man on this earth the world will not prosper. Humans are way into personal gain to be concerned about other people let alone the world. Its just human nature.
What ive noticed is that if people are inconvienienced in any way shape or form they will usually not do it. But, in order to keep global sustainability we all need to be inconvienienced somehow in order to save our natural resources and such. For example recycling, which is easier just throwing away all your plastic bottles and cans after your done drinking from them or recycling them? Ok now let me ask you this, which do you think people do more? In my opinion most people would just throw it away because human beings are lazy and want everything to be convienient and thats just the way it is.
hi. i just thought id comment this one, since i havent yet.
I was looking through everyone’s comments and i agree with most of them. I think that someone needs to find a way to lower gas prices, because that is a huge problem with our economy. Also, i think that we need to try and conserve our energy.
Also, as many people said, we need to recycle. Its just one more thing that will keep global sustainability, its not that hard. there may be more things to do, but just to start off. remember- recycle and save..