Debreifing Colloquium

The personal meaning that I acquired from this colloquium class would have to be the realization that I am always inside. I never really get to experience the nature right outside my window. To think of it, I never even open the blinds to my windows nor do I even open the window itself to smell the outside air. I constantly keep myself busy indoors to the point where I spend about, on average, only an hour outside out of twenty-four hours in a day.

The academic meaning that I related from this class was a little bit harder to connect to from colloquium. I did however; learn a few ways to improve certain habits in the medical field in which directly relate to nursing. I learned through colloquium that hospitals could increase their sustainability by purchasing items that are reusable rather than those items that have to be disposed after one use.

The highpoint of this class was most definitely the field trips in which I really got to connect somewhat with my environment. Although it was extremely hot and humid, it was nice to see the wildlife and the nature that flourishes around me.

NY Times: Denmark with A Greener Menu

In the New York Times an article titled Serving Denmark with a Greener Menu caught my attention. A new program called Climate+ is helping local business to reduce their carbon footprints. This program aims to make the Danish Capital carbon neutral by the year of 2025. Carbon neutral! This program implements many small changes that actually help significantly reduce carbon emissions and save the company money. Little changes that are suggested are things like: avoiding beef and processed foods, and using more fish and locally made products when possible, using organic foods, and concentrating on fruits and vegetables that are in season. It is unbelievable that just these few changes can help reduce carbon emissions and even, in doing so, save the business money and help bring the Danish capital down to a carbon neutral area by the year of 2025. This is phenomenal!! It really is the little things that sometimes count in a big way!

Corporate Ethics

Business ethics or corporate ethics is the study and evaluation of decision making by businesses according to moral concepts and judgments. With global warming being a crucial issue at this time businesses have to make adjustments to their way of business to do what is right for their consumers and their environment. Monsanto, a company that deals with farming directly and their livelihood has put into motion its efforts to help improve the lives of farmers. Their goal for environmental sustainability in regards to farmers is to help them produce more and conserve more. They do this in a plethora of ways such as improving the development of seeds and Monsanto is reaching out to help the poor farmers as well. Exxon has stepped up and has started to work on better oil recovery in order to get more out of the limited amount of oil. This will allow for an extended amount of use out of the same amount of oil. Nestle has made it their policy “to utilize sound environmental, pollution prevention and control, energy conservation and recycling/solid waste management practices internally, and to develop and utilize packaging that reduces the amount of materials used, contains already recycled materials, and/or can be recycled or disposed of in environmentally sensitive ways. Our approach is practical, cost-effective and results-based.” It is crucial that more companies must adjust to the environmental issues at hand. These improvements are a step in the right direction.

What five important things have you learned about China and India and the developing countries?

1) Their participation is harder to convince to stop environmental pollution because we, as an already very developed country, have already done what they are trying to do, which is to grow and develop.

2) The rate of growth is extremely rapid

3) With the Kyoto Protocol some more developed countries are helping the developing countries develop but in more sustainable ways.

4) Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

5) In developing countries some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on biomass—fuelwood, charcoal and animal dung—to meet their energy needs for cooking. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of the population depends on traditional biomass for cooking, as do over half of the populations of India and China.

Einstein Bagels: Conserving Napkins Rant

I apologize for this paranoid outbreak but I have to let it out. I work out Einstein Bros. Bagels at Florida Gulf Coast University. Florida Gulf Coast University is a university that is well-known for its sustainability practices and its class that is required by students in order to graduate solely based on sustainability. With all of above said, students continue to waste napkins in an outrageous way. These students will literally grab a handful of napkins use maybe one or two and then leave the rest on the table. The students may think they are being sustainable by leaving the napkins behind on the table instead of throwing them away but I am assuming they do not know that no one else, more than likely including themselves will use napkins left on a table by a previous owner. Most customers will avoid this table all together, thinking it is unclean. All of this napkins end up thrown away because we cannot put them back in the dispenser. Not only do they leave the napkins on the table, they also lay them all over the coffee bar in which they receive doses of coffee and sugar sprinkled all over them, making a huge mess. People just do not think. To bring knowledge to this issue and educate the students we had to put a sign on top of the napkin dispensers encouraging them to conserve the napkins. Now the students just put the napkins on top of that sign. Why are they so wasteful?

Downtown Fort Myers

Downtown Fort Myers was a field trip that I did not expect to see much preservation of. I expected it to be huge shopping malls, parking lots, and other typical city endeavors. When walking through downtown Fort Myers, it was nice seeing that many of the buildings have been preserved and just remodeled instead of tour down. It was also neat to see very few tall buildings and all this little shops open for business. The only thing I really connected with big, city life was the Starbucks and even that felt like a nice, subtle touch with the atmosphere. I also enjoyed the pier, it was very calming and really made you aware of noise pollution. Since the pier was pretty much quiet it was sort of a little shock, making you see that from day to day we constantly are used to cars driving by and people shouting and yelling and being close around that we tune it out. We do not notice all this noise pollution until we actually hear silence.