Eco-Tourism

I watched the webisode posted on the class' blog. I thought it was really great and I appreciated Professor Nicholson's cameo appearance. I'm really interested in eco-tourism and I thought it was insightful how the video addressed how not all companies that promote eco-toursim are really practicing it. They are just on the green band wagon for profit.

I love traveling and next semester I hope to study eco-tourism in Australia and just how feasible it is. Is it really good for the environment to travel half way across the world? How close can you interact with endangered animals without disturbing their natural habitat? Does eco-tourism boosts struggling economies? Does it protect forests that would have otherwise been torn down, if they hadn't attracted so many tourists? All of these questions I find really interesting. Part of the reason is probably because I want to justify my own desires to travel and not having to feel guilty.

I read something freshman year about how endangered species who were before being hunted were now being left alone because the local economy had been benefiting from the tourists who were coming to see them. I know it can be that simple though. However, I think it is a better way to preserve the environment than telling developing nations what they can and can not do with their resources, when Western countries have been destroying their own environments for centuries.

To be completely honest, I wasn't familiar with the term "ecotourism" before this discussion question was assigned. I could figure out the general gist through context clues, but just to make sure I fully understood the idea, I checked out the always-reliable Wikipedia article. Within a few paragraphs, a glaring error become extremely apparent; ecotourism emphasizes the importance of staying at a pristine, untouched location, still in perfect environmental and ecological conditions. This may be preferable to staying in a suburban sprawl-like area, or an overbuilt tourist spot, but there will be, inherently, some environmental impact from the development of ecotourism facilities, no matter how much they claim to promote low-impact traveling. Would it not be better to never inhabit the untouched piece of nature in the first place? It seemed like a contradiction.

I have never been on an ecotourism trip, so perhaps someone with experience could convince me of its merits. However, any sort of travel appears to have environmental impact, despite one's good intentions. As mentioned in the prompt, air travel alone is a huge polluter; any good done through volunteer work or learning on the trip is surely undone in six hours on a plane. Also, as we have discussed in class, globalization, and the "flattening" of the world is partly to blame for today's environmental crisis. Is bringing Western tourists, and thus ideas, values, and cultures, to remote areas of the world really the best way to improve ecological crises? Admittedly a cynic, I'm having a hard time seeing the value in ecotourism, and how exactly ecotourism benefits local communities more than other travel ventures, which pump money into that country's economy, albeit at the expense of much local flavor. It seems inevitable, though, that ecotourism, despite its origins, will bring an amount of destruction to the destination's environment and culture.

Living like a Tourist

Coming from a big traveling family, I definitely support the effort to increase environmental responsibility in the tourism industry. Whenever I travel abroad, one of my favorite aspects is the ability to live differently for a while, and appreciate the lifestyle of another culture. It is impossible to do this if one stays in a resort and only eats food prepared for them in the fancy Western-style restaurants. Immersing yourself into a culture is usually much less environmentally harmful than contributing to the consumer-driven tourism industry that the resorts have to offer. One of my favorite travel experiences was when I visited a few different European countries a couple summers ago, and stayed in hostels the entire time. We traveled by train, ate in small local restaurants and markets, and slept in low energy rooms with communal bathrooms. I felt like my personal impact on the countries, as well as my view of their cultures, was greatly improved.
As for the air travel, I find this issue to be much more difficult. I fully appreciate the devastating toll that jet airplanes have on the environment, and it seems completely ludicrous that they remain so popular and prevalent. However, I fly 2-3 times per year, because of where my home is in relation to my school, and whenever I travel abroad I obviously have to fly as well. I would not be able to live the way I do without air travel, plain and simple. Therefore, it is much harder to compromise on this issue. In addition, our global economy relies on the ability of multinational businessmen to travel all over the world every week. I cant honestly think of a solution to this problem. I can only hope that (using a more market liberal approach) we come up with more efficient aviation technologies in the future. Perhaps we can begin to limit our use of planes to overseas trips, and rely more heavily on fixed rail transit within land masses. The incredible train network in Europe can be duplicated elsewhere, and perhaps decrease our collective carbon footprint when we travel.

I Love Food.... and Farmers Markets

Last summer while working at a church camp, I decided to become a vegetarian. It was something I had wanted to do for quite some time and had even tried once before, with not much success. This time, however, I was ready to work at it. The camp's theme for the summer was about being good stewards of creation, and although the curriculum didn't teach me about living meat free, some of the other members of the staff did. Throughout the summer and ever since, I have become even more passionate about living meat-free and learning about all of the environmental and health benefits of vegetarianism.

This summer, I stayed here in DC to work. I got in the habit of taking a weekly trip to a farmers market after seeing the wide variety of locally grown food that I could get right in my own neighborhood. Occasionally I would venture down to Eastern Market with their many various vendors, but most of the time I would stick around the Bethesda area where I was living. Although not all of my food came from farmers markets, I tried to at least stock up on all my fresh fruits and veggies for the week on each weekend. I knew that even though it may not have been a huge step, it was still cutting down on the environmental impact from all of the processed foods that most Americans eat, as well as cutting down on transportation pollution from foods that must be shipped from far away.

Now that school is back in session and fall is settling in, however, it is much more difficult to eat environmentally sustainable foods. I often only have a few minutes to grab food before running to another class or another meeting. It is much easier to grab a packaged, processed meal than it is to cook something from fresh ingredients. Finances also are brought back to the forefront of my considerations now that classes are back in session. Over the summer, I was working in a paid office position, so I was able to buy fresher food, which was also usually more expensive. Now, I am an unpaid intern in the non-profit work in addition to taking classes. Since I'm simply living off my savings from the summer, I need to make choices that are the best for my wallet before really considering the environmental impact.

The worst food that I have eaten in the past few days was probably my lunch at my internship yesterday. To avoid paying nearly $10 for lunch at one of the grab and go type of places near my office, I decided to walk the 5 blocks to Safeway to grab something cheaper. I left with a $4 lunch of a salad and a microwavable 3 Cheese Ziti Marinara meal. While the salad was probably environmentally better, there were still probably many pesticides used in the production of all of the toppings I added as well as the production costs to get it to Arlington, VA. The microwavable meal was by far the worst. In order to make the nice plastic wrapped package I popped in the microwave, the wheat had to be grown and processed into pasta, the tomatoes and other ingredients made into sauce, and the cows grown and milked for the cheese. All of these production factors come from various places across the country and then are sent to one factory to make the package I purchased. When counting in all of the processing and the transportation between each step of the production, the environmental impact significantly increases.

My Favorite Subject: Food

I went vegetarian when I was 15 for animal-humanitarian reasons but the reason I've probably stayed vegetarian for so long is because I've learned about all the other effects the meat industry has. It has a huge impact on the environment. I learned that the methane gas cows produce is more hazardous to climate change than the carbon emissions created by transportation. For that reason and many others I don't eat meat, poultry, fish or any other products in which an animal was killed for. Every once in a while I will try to cut down on dairy but it is just so hard! 

When I do make choices they are usually focused on three main things. Will it fill me up? Is it quick? And is it cheap? I usually go for foods packed with carbohydrates and dairy. I'm probably one of the only vegetable hating vegetarians you'll ever meet. I eat a lot of pasta. I don't have time to make things from scratch. Most of my foods from the store come in boxes or other packages. I do try and stay away from fast food restaurants for the most part and I don't usually buy very elaborate drinks. I usually just drink water from the tap and if I do buy drinks they're usually organic. 

I kind of use being a vegetarian as a free pass. My logic is since I'm already vegetarian I shouldn't kill myself over not eating enough locally grown organic foods. I do shop at Whole Foods and buy organic when I can. However my friend brought up to me that a lot of Whole Foods' foods are imported from other countries as well so I don't think I'm doing much good by shopping there. 

In the past few days I've eaten a lot of Annie's Organic Pasta. I also had Near East Couscous tonight. I don't think those two items are that bad for the environment. I don't usually eat breakfast either. The worse thing I've eaten in the past few days is probably the crescent roles I just made with my roommates. Considering I can't pronounce most of the ingredients, they probably weren't made anywhere near hear. The ingredients were probably shipped from all over and then the final product had to be shipped here. Also the packaging doesn't look to environmentally friendly. 

I'm looking forward to learning more about the effects of food on the environment. 

Food for Thought

When I choose to eat something, there are usually three requirements for possible food options:

1) Vegetarian

2) Meal swipes and/or Eaglebucks are acceptable forms of payment

3) Delicious

As you can see, environmental issues don't directly my food choices, but I feel that they make an indirect, subconscious impact on my decision. For instance, I've been a vegetarian since 5th grade due to moral and ethical qualms with using once-living creatures for my own enjoyment. I am now aware of the environmental benefits of a meat-free diet, but that is not the primary reason behind my gastronomical decisions; it doesn't matter my intentions though, it is still more sustainable than a non-vegetarian diet, no matter my reason for it.

Eating environmentally ethical foods is difficult, as Colin mentioned, with the funds of a college student. My budget breaks down into two categories: "fun" and "food," and the latter most definitely suffers because of the former. Bon Appetit does make efforts to create a more sustainable menu, but it still is not as ideal as buying all of one's foods from a farmer's market, or from all organic sources. While it physically pains me to go to TDR when the "dishwasher is broken" and they're only using plastic and styrofoam utensils and plates, there are few other viable options.

The best effort, besides committing to a vegetarian diet and avoiding foods that are packaged in styrofoam or plastic, I found I can make to a more environmentally friendly diet is to avoid the consumerist, capitalist structure by using TDR as a grocery store. For instance, this morning I had Reeses' Puffs with soy milk and a banana for breakfast in my room, all courtesy of AU's fine dining establishment. I'm not sure how much of a difference is may be making, but even if it doesn't affect any environmental or sustainability principle, but it saves me money, and it can't hurt. If anyone has any insight into how this means of sustenance contributes to environmental impact, I would love to hear it!

A National Eating Disorder

Americans have an eating disorder. I dont mean this in the sense of eating too much or too little in terms of nutrition, although many people do suffer from this affliction. I am referring to our national (and increasingly global) obsession with quick, easy, and processed foods. As a member of the affluent US middle class, I am well aware of my participation in this phenomenon. My life is always busy, and my budget is always tight enough to lead me to the cheaper, faster option. Rather than making lunch from organic bread and vegetables from the on campus farmers market, for example, I opt for the prepackeged ease of the Eagle's Nest, and even the consumer icon of McDonalds itself. My student's budget and lack of dispensable free time, however, are not the real source of my eating habits. I have been conditioned as an American citizen; I have been taught that our economic growth and the people that fought for our country have allowed me the luxury of having people prepare my food far away, and ship it to me in convenient packages. It is my god given right to eat processed food from the grocery store instead of reaping the benefits of local agriculture.
Because of this social phenomenon, I admit that my mind rarely takes environmental costs into account when purchasing food. True, I enjoy the satisfaction of a food labelled 'organic', and I take great pride in myself when I make the time to cook my own food, but all too often these are outweighed by my cost decisions. One thing I am conscious of is my consumption of beverages. I do my best to never purchase bottled water unless I have to, and rely instead on drinking fountains or bottles I bring from home. I have been conditioned well in the last few years to understand the mind boggling consumption and immediate disposal of plastic bottles, and it has definitely affected the way that I look at the refrigerator section of the cafe or grocery store.
In the past couple of days, I have purchased a variety of prepackaged goods. Potato chips, cans of soda, and a variety of other foods have been in my diet this week. I believe these types of goods to be the most harmful, because they involve a long line of production and transportation to reach my mouth, and have little to do with sustainable, local, or organic agriculture. If Americans want to dramatically decrease the strain they put on the environment, a good place to start would be prepackaged foods.