Month: April 2019

Matthew Sides

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I must ask “what do you love?” or more specifically “what do you hold dear?” and “why do you love it?” If your first response is anywhere near “anything but reading a blog” and “because blogs are boring,” then you probably share the sentiment of most people reading blogs on Valentine’s day, but you are also missing the point. If you answered the questions with some thought and honesty, I would say you probably focused on domestic things. I doubt you share the same answer as “I love roads because of their dependability and reliability.” This is understandable, as not many people ever actually seem to place roads on their “I love” lists. Our answers to these questions most likely differed entirely, but I would like you to put the thing you love into the forefront of the discussion and ask yourself “What would I do without this thing that I love?” and “could I live happily without this thing that I love?”.  By putting the ‘thing that you love’ in the forefront of the discussion, you may discover that you need to reassess or reaffirm your love of that specific thing.

In the case of the United States roadway system, I would suggest following three major aspects of the ‘topic of roads’ by answering “what?”, “why?”, and “how?” so that I can elaborate on the many things I love. I would also use these three questions to find and analyze some major modern flaws with our roads and then to come up with possible solutions to the problematic aspects of the roads.

What:

To ask why, one must first as what? What is a road? According to the dictionary, a road is defined as “a long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for travelling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points; street or highway.” Using this definition may not give one a reason to appreciate the road. But placing it in the context of a highway is very relatable. We use the highway almost every day. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), the highway system as we know it began in 1956, when then president Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This act kickstarted the expansion of highway infrastructure. It allowed the federal government to pay for 90% of the total cost of construction of interstate highways. The interstate highway expands across 42,795 miles of the united states according to the FHA. The construction of roads is not simple. They need planning, pavement and concrete according to www.michigan.gov/mdot. This material is extracted as raw material and processed into the final product and then is laid onto of forests and expanded. The forests, ecosystems and overall climate change drastically. The benefits of expansion are easy access and direction which leads to better efficiency and economic growth and then birth rate growth. The cost of highways is high as it is a juxtaposition of the natural world being destroyed and the unnatural industrial world being expanded. As one dies slowly, the other rises.

Why:

Why is the expansion of the thoroughfare so relevant? The roads and their expansions are based on balance. They must balance space and effect. According to a www.ran.org article, there are approximately a total of 7 billion trees cut down each year globally, and around 12% or 840 million of those trees are taken down in part because of road construction. This is a massive problem. It is also a massive benefit depending on how you look at it; the roads’ benefits may outweigh what the policy makers deem to be the cons of the deforestation. The two sides of the why are “why do we need roads?” and “why do we need to cut down so many trees for a luxury?” This is where I question the love of roads, I am deciding whether the death of trees is worth it. I would say no, because there are so many other things going into highway maintenance that the depreciation doesn’t seem worth the cost to keep it up.

How:

The final question we must ask is how this is all going to play into an argument for still loving roads. I personally have a love for the road’s ability to guide and give access and efficiency, but it tears down some of the greatest aspects of earth that make the world worth living on. It takes away the natural diversity, simplicity, and personality of the earth. The love for roads is like a toxic love where the one being loved erases all other enjoyable things out of one’s life. At least roads could be seen like this. I still think that the roads of America are massively flawed but also that they can be reduced and replaced. I believe we will find way to remedy to the problem and even reverse it.

Conclusion:

The reevaluated look at the roads of our country shows that roads are very complicated. Like stated before, they enable us to grow massively, but at the cost of natural resources and deforestation. Roads are not doing a disservice; they are beneficial to the everyday citizen, but to the generations in the future, there will become problems with scarcity of resources.  I believe the roads will die out and be covered by a new system. Or at least if this happens then there might be hope that the world does not end.

 

 

Citations:

Definition of Roads: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/road

The Origin: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.cfm

Cutting Down: https://www.ran.org/the-understory/how_many_trees_are_cut_down_every_year/

 

The Process: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9615-129011–,00.html

Makenna Christensen

For this piece, I chose to mix traditional acrylic painting with a collage of recycled materials turned into flowers and a 3-D paper snail. In today’s environment and ecosystems, we sadly cannot see the beauty of nature without (usually) also seeing some form of human pollution. Therefore, in Snailed it, I had this idea to have a snail moving across the canvas leaving behind a trail of recycled materials that otherwise would have stayed in the trash cans around my campus. In painting them green, I wanted to depict how many ways our products can be reused, and in the case of my collage painting, I’ve turned it into grass and pebbles. Surrounding the snail I also chose to do a mixed media piece of sustainable art gathering more materials like bottle caps, repurposed cans, unused sheets of paper and can tabs, which all could have been recycled but weren’t. I decided on the rainbow background as if to depict all of the colors of nature reimagined as the colors of today’s consumer culture. The piece essentially asks us what is at stake for our environment if we continue to mass consume materials as we do. Everything collected came from two days of recyclable materials found in trash cans across campus. If we don’t change our ways or realize our part in the ecosystem, we will remain anthropocentric beings claiming to be moral agents, but never giving the proper moral consideration to our living beings or our ecosystem.

Kendall Perez

Currently there are many places that push fast fashion, which promotes low quality clothing for a cheaper price that follows trends. The brands that are most known for their fast fashion are Forever 21 and Zara. Both companies promote fast and cheaply made products that are in style but are also harming the planet. In theory, this is a great idea because a person can change their wardrobe as the trends change without breaking the bank. When looking at the environmental effects of fast fashion, the toll it takes on our planet does not seem worth the slightly smaller price tag.

Fast fashion can be defined as inexpensive clothes that are mass-produced and stay up with the latest trends. In order to produce the massive amounts of clothing, places that produce fast fashion need large factories, which are terrible for the environment. The factories that fast fashion companies use are not the only environmental drawbacks to this issue. Aside from factories, fast fashion has caused an increase in textile waste, an increase in water pollution, and an increase in the use of toxic chemicals to produce the clothing. According to an article found on independent.co.uk, polyester is one of the most popular fabrics that is used in fast fashion. While this does not seem like it has much relevance, when washing polyester in washing machines, they shed plastic microfibers. These fibers are so small that they can pass through the sewage and end up in the water. While fast fashion seems like a seemingly un-harmful way to stay current with trends and save a few bucks, the impact it has on the environment could make it .

An eco-friendlier way to shop is at places that promote slow fashion. Slow fashion is a way to buy high quality clothing that is also good for the environment. Slow fashion is defined as clothing that is produced in a clean environment and is made with good quality fabrics and supplies. Some fabrics that are used a lot in slow fashion are linen, organic cotton and hemp fibers (Sustainable Fabrics). Slow fashion is a part of the “slow movement” which advocates for cleaner and better quality items. Not only does slow fashion promote ethical working conditions, it also promotes and encourages more sustainable practices to produce fashion items (Slow Fashion). While the price for some of the clothing may seem higher in brands that are slow fashion, the clothing lasts longer and is also much better for the environment. The fabric that companies use is high quality and sustainable as opposed to the more inexpensive fabrics and textiles used in fast fashion. Some slow fashion brands that are well known are Levi’s and Madewell. Both of these brands participate in making higher quality and more environmentally friendly clothing options. While the price of the clothing might be higher, the quality and the smaller environmental toll make them a better investment. Most fast fashion brand’s clothing usually lasts for a couple of months if they are not worn on a regular basis, but when a person buys items of clothing that are higher quality, the clothing lasts longer and they are able to wear the clothing more frequently. On top of this, they do not have to constantly buy new clothes. While there might seem to be nothing wrong with fast fashion to the blind eye, if you were to look into the actual effects and cost of producing these items you would see that it is not worth it.