Response to Bottled Water Speech

After watching my speech on bottled water, I do not think I would change my topic. The topic was of adequate depth and had I paid attention to time a little better, my speech length would have been just right. I also think that the topic was quite relevant to the times we are currently in. The world seems to be really changing and moving towards a new green way of living more so than it has ever in the past. It also is a good group to bring the topic up to, especially in a life sciences course. I thought that I did a good job of presenting the material and used good tone and expression. I could have done a little bit better job of transitioning from slide to slide however. I also could have used a few more counter-arguments, no matter how sparse they may be. Also my length was a problem. One minute over is actually quite a bit and I know that I would have received a better grade had I paid more attention to my time. I thought that my power point was very effective and it aided my presentation very well. Overall I thought I did a great job of persuading the class why they should not buy bottled water and why they should advocate that no one else does. Hopefully people enjoyed listening to my speech; I was rather entertained.

Respnse to Athavi's blog post

I read Athavi’s blog post about organic food and decided to write a response to it. I really like the topic she picked since this year I have been reading an enormously large amount of material relating to the organic food industry and local farming. Essentially the arguments made against organic farming in my opinion are shortsighted and biased by greed. While organic farming takes more time, effort and money to grow food without the typical industrial food pesticides used today, the real cost of non-organic methods must be assessed from a health and sustainability standpoint. The second article states that there is no link between diseases and non-organic food. This year in my environmental studies class I listened to a presentation about a study conducted on campus dealing with the study of pesticides. The study found that even amounts of less than .05 ppm could cause diseases such as cancer and gene deterioration. These are the same pesticides that are used on non-organic food today. While organic farm practices are much better than the non-organic farms’, organic farms can still become industrial and relatively bad. I believe that the real piece of mind comes from locally supplied produce in which the buyer holds a relationship with the farmer. This scenario can be best exemplified by the farmer’s market on the square. Overall I don’t disagree that organic farming regulations are beneficial to our health, but I think that just because it is organic, doesn’t mean it is sustainable. And that is what I see as the most important question; is the practice sustainable?

Legalizing Marijuana

The debate about the legalization of marijuana has been heating up in recent times, as most people are aware of. I decided to read articles from both viewpoints to gain better insight on the topic. One article I found was on time.com. It discussed the economic benefits of legalizing marijuana. The article made several good points about the benefits of decriminalizing the product.
“We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We also spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related. Joe Klein Makes an awful good point that it is an awful lot of money that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public. He also highlights the ability to tax the product and possibly bring in millions of currently wasted dollars. He fails however, to discuss the health hazards of marijuana. Maybe he is assuming that most people know smoke and carcinogens are not good for people.
The next article I read was against the legalization of marijuana. The article listed many reasons why the drug should not be legal in the states. Reasons like the gateway theory, increased crime rates, moral issues, increases in child use, physical damage and increased second hand smoke issues. After reading both articles and using my prior knowledge of the subject I still agree mainly with the article for the legalization. Studies have shown results that debunk most of the negative myths. The biggest question I see at hand is the economic impact. Some questions have been brought forth about changing such a huge economic system and its effect on the world. Right now the world seems to co-exist with the drug world and almost depends on it. And while there is no doubt that we are wasting money prosecuting people for this non-violent crime, the system currently operates and co-exists with the underground trade of the drug. Making the production and sale of such a highly profitable illegal business legal makes the current operation susceptible to the corporate and industrial world that seems to be ruining this nation currently. The best argument that could be surmounted against the legalization besides the possible negative economic impacts would be from a health standpoint. But if we look at cigarettes and alcohol comparatively to marijuana, the argument is ludicrous. Hell, even the food industry through cancer and diabetes could be held accountable for more deaths that marijuana has ever been proved to cause.