Michael Specter's "Big Foot"

Michael Specter defines food miles as the distance a product travels from the farm to your home. It is a hefty concept weighing how much fuel is being used to transport food to different places. Specter and the researchers behind such a concept are trying to communicate that food may be fresh, organic, and manufactured by low-fuel standards, but the distance the food travels can make or break whether or not the food is actually good for the environment. I agree with Wilkington's statement about this era being one of creative destruction. I think the world's lack of creativity goes along with too much technology and overall laziness. If people opened up their minds to more than just technology as the safe-bet solution, I think our society could benefit in environmental, social, and economic ways. Americans have this idea that every solution requires lots of machines, lots of money, and lots of fuel. This is not always necessarily the case, and it is a philosophy that has been ingrained in the mind of individuals. Therefore, it will be very difficult for it to change. Creativity must be resurrected in the minds and solutions of individuals because seeing such a quality disappear in the American culture would be an extreme disappointment. What would the country then pride itself in?

I do feel personally responsible for global warming. I find that when I came to school, I got very lazy in terms of trying to be as eco-friendly as possible. In high school, I brought my coffee into school every morning in a thermos. Here, I go through two to three cups a day buying coffee because coffeemakers are not allowed in the dorms. I'm not trying to blame the school for what can also be deemed my laziness, but Hofstra does not only make it impossible for avid coffee-drinkers to reduce waste, but they charge you an arm and a leg to get your daily dose of caffeine. On the other hand, I find myself walking everywhere and reducing my carbon footprint in those regards. For a simple trip to the mall or the train station, my house jam as many kids as possible into the same car and make one trip. This is cheap and environmentally friendly. I cannot wait to live on my own to be in control of my food, laundry, electricity, and transportation. These are the most influential systems that can make or break whether or not an individual is being wasteful or not. I helped make my family's household an environmentally aware threshold, and I can't wait to do so when I end up purchasing my own place.