Grant Noble

Food Inc. Reflection

When watching this movie I experienced two things, disgust and
knowledge. I was discussed at the way they treat animals, and how they
are only seen as food. The animals in this movie were bred to be
killed, and were treated very poorly.
In the chicken scene i was horrified by the way they treated the
animals, and the handlers of the animals. The people who looked after
the chickens were a slave to the system. They were paid very little,
and had to pay these companies huge loans for there chicken coops,
some up to $500,000. The chicken handlers only were paid 18,000 a year
and they had to do the work of the owner of the chicken farms. They
also had to do what ever the company asked of them, like upgrading
their coops for threat of being fired. The chickens were kept in very
cramp spaces, and could not see they’re surrounding. This is no life
for a chicken, many of these chickens died from dieses and had to be
pumped full of antibiotics to survive. Even the handlers were affected
by the dirtiness of the chicken. One of the handlers became allergic
to almost all antibiotics because of becoming a chicken farmer. Even
the way they handled the chicken was cruel, kicking them and throwing
them into trucks to be killed, some of those chickens could not even
stand to run away because of the way they were grown. I found it
disgusting that chickens a sprayed with chlorine, after they are
dead.. I don’t want to eat that.
I also found it interesting how or beef is made. These cows like the
chickens are kept in very cramp spaces, and contract many dieses, like
ecoli. These cows are fed corn threw feedlots to maximize growing
capacity. The reason they are fed corn is because corn is so cheap,
corn can be sold for less than it cost to make it. This is because of
government stimulus on corn, and soy. The government pays the farmers
more money if they grow these cash crops, and more and more framers
are moving to corn. The reason why they use corn is because it is
easy to store for a long time, when corn prices go down, they hold the
corn for a while, and the prices go back up again. Farming now a days
is all about science, farmers do not tend the land, they just drive
trackers and spray fertilizer.
I also learned about a company called Monsanto, which is dominating
the corn and soy industry. They are growing genetically modified
vegetables, and are contaminating all the surrounding farms that are
organic. When the Monsanto crops pollinates, its pollen spread to
other farms and turns their plant into a Monsanto plant. Recently
Monsanto has been able to patent there gene of plant and is able to
sue anyone who has there plant gene inside of it, purposely or not.
They are monopolizing the industry and need to be stopped.
After watching this video, I have not eaten at a fast food
restaurant, and am always nagging my mom to buy organically.

"In the last 35 years the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes have almost doubled along with an increase in wind speed and size."

Grant Noble

April, 14,2010

Final Draft

Global Warming and Hurricanes.

Just image if your house is underwater, everything you have ever known is lost, and you have to restart your life, all because of a hurricane. Now what if you could change all that by turning off a light bulb, or walking to work. I argue that global warming causes a rise in water temperature, which affects the strength of hurricanes. As global temperatures rise, so do SST’s, “sea surface temperatures”, which increase the strength and intensity of storms, which damage the economy and wildlife forever.

The main thing I want people to understand is that global warming is a dangerous thing. When most people think of global warming they think of melting ice, or warmer days, not hurricanes. The fact is that global warming does a lot more then melt ice, global warming bleaches coral reefs, and causes larger storms. These storms damage property, and the lives of people and wildlife, and are only getting worse with time. The reason for this is the rise in Co2 in our atmosphere. The Co2 is acting like a shield and is not letting the sun’s ray’s escape as much. The rays are being trapped on earth for a longer period of time, and are overheating the earth.

The main way green house gasses are produced is through combustion. Everything on earth contains carbon, and when it is burned carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Some of the main contributors to carbon dioxide are your cars, and your electricity, through the burning of coal, and petroleum.

When you drive your car, you are burning a chemical called petroleum. This chemical contains long strains of carbons, which when burned turn in to carbon dioxide, which leads to global warming. There are many ways to limit the amount of carbon you put in the air, many of which include physical labor. Activities such as running or biking to work, can drastically decrease your carbon emissions, and may also get you in shape. Reducing you electricity bill will help you and the planet. 50% of all your electricity comes from the burning of coal. These coal run power plants, are one of the worst contributors to global warming. After the coal is burned, and run threw a generator, the gasses sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide are introduced into the atmosphere, furthering along global warming. The easiest way to do this is to turn off all the light when you are not in the room. You will notice the difference and so will the planet.

Grant Noble

Questions

1a) The main thing I learned from writing this paper is that global warming affects hurricanes. Global warming increases the intensity of hurricanes, and causes devastation to both human and animal life.

1b) I want people to understand that global warming not only melts ice, but also has a much larger and more catastrophic effect on humans. To me when someone thinks of global warming they think of something that can’t directly hurt them, but I wanted to show them the more drastic effects of global warming, and why there should be a need for change.

2) I am still having troubles finding information relating to job loss. When a hurricane hits the amount of jobs losses is pretty vague because so many people leave the town. I am also having troubles elaborating and going into details about the statistics because they are hard to understand, and normally only need to be said once.

3) Everything in my senior project is relating to my essay and the essays of my partners. In our senior project we talk about how a rise in CO2 levels is raising the earths temperatures, how this is linked to storm intensities, and how this is melting the polar ice caps. We also talk about the bleaching of coral reefs, and how this negatively affects our marine organisms. Everything in our video is based off facts, and is very informative, and engaging.

4) I definitely need the most help with he essay, but it’s just a matter of me setting aside a few hours and doing a lot of research. I have the information, its just hard elaborating when a lot of the information is redundant.