When stuff moves from the systems it goes through extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal which is called the materials economy. There’s a problem with this, it’s a linear system while we live on a finite planet and we can not run a linear system on a finite planet. This system is missing the people who make it run. With extraction we are cutting down trees, mining through mountains to get metals, we use the water and are taking animals' habitats. In the past three decades one-third of our natural resources have been consumed. The video goes on to talk about how us as people are causing problems with our environment.

"The Story of Bottled Water" https://www.storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-bottled-water/

The city of Cleveland didn’t like how Fiji made a joke about the water, so they decided to do a test. They found out that a bottle of water from Fiji has a lower quality, loses a taste test with Cleveland tap water and it costs thousands of dollars to make. Sometimes bottled water is less balanced than tap water. Bottled water costs 2,000 times more than tap water. The reason why people keep buying bottled water is because of “manufactured demand”. Reason being is because if companies want to keep making money, they have to keep selling more stuff. The video goes on to talk about the effect of bottled water and how to solve the problem.

A.)Consumption related to my role as a global citizen is to give in and help it increase. Everyone understands what their role is as a global citizen and what it includes. We try our best to not use a lot of bad goods to hurt our environment. But, there's always people who still will. By consuming goods, we are “helping” our economy. We see a lot of consumption in our everyday lives. Some examples are buying a new pair of shoes, getting fast food, and getting your house cleaned. We have been taught to partake in consumption at a young age. Consumption can either help our planet/environment or harm us.

B.) The changes that inspire me to make after watching the Story of Stuff videos is how I consume and do with my things. For example, with bottled waters, I will try to use more reusable cups. I know that plastic is harmful to the environment. I want to make sure that our environment is as clean as it can be so the generations after me can see all the amazing things that it has. Reason being is because I feel like we as humans are not doing our job to make sure that we still have resources that we can use in the future. If we use them all up now, we won’t have any when we really need to use it.

The topic I selected to research is "Overdevelopment and poor city planning". From my nineteen years of living in Souht Florida, I have seen how over populated it has become. And with that comes the poor city planning and overdevelopment with it. Many people come to Florida, mainly Miami, for the beach, clubs, healthcare, and many more. With that comes more houses, building, the need to build more highways, and etc. And to make things worse, Florida is below sea levels, Florida can be underwater as early as the year 2050. Miami is not built for the amount of people that move here. People look as Miami as a place to vaction but are looking over the fact that many people are homeless, the streets are full of potholes, houses are rundown or not up to par, and so much more.

Work Citied:

- Personal Experience

- Joshua Partlow, Darryl Fears, Jim Morrison, Jon Swaine, and Caroline Anders, June 25, 2021, The Washington Post "Before condo collapse, rising seas long pressured Miami coastal properties" https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/06/25/rising-sea-levels-condo-collapse/

Article 1 "This truck is making sure the homeless have clean clothes"

In Denver, Colorado, there are about two laundry trucks in 7-8 locations to offer somewhere where homeless people can clean their clothes. Clean clothes are an important part of someone’s confidence. Homeless people already don’t have a place to stay, money, and much more. So for them to have access to a place for them to wash their clothes means so much to them. Having clean clothes helps people to keep their appointments, have confidence for job interviews, and to fight the huge stigma of homelessness. This will leave such a huge impact on these people's lives knowing that there are people to help them out and that they are not alone.

Article 2 "How dance imrpves the lives of those with Parkinson's disease"

There is a collaboration between a support group and a dance company in New York. The support group is about Parkinson disease. They work together to create a program for people dealing with parkinson. This can help improve physical movement. When people participate, it can give people an increase in self-esteem and cognitive function.

Reflection

My thoughts about the subject is how people can come together and help out. I think it's important for people to come together as a community and help those in need. What I learned from those stories is that not everyone is selfish and there are caring people out there. The subject that was portrayed uniquely through solutions journalism compared to other media is how they stated more facts and actually bring up how this will help them in the long run.

Work Citied:

- Kumasi Aaron, April 24, 2019, Solutions U, “This truck is making sure the homeless have clean clothes” https://solutionsu.solutionsjournalism.org/stories/this-truck-is-making-sure-the-homeless-have-clean-clothes

- Michael Hill, April 17, 2018, Solutions U, “How dance improves the lives of those with Parkinson’s disease” https://solutionsu.solutionsjournalism.org/stories/how-dance-improves-the-lives-of-those-with-parkinson-s-disease-video-njtv-news

My first source is from SunSentinel. It mentions how Florida has become overdeveloped. In this article, it takes place in Boca Raton. But then they stated how there is overdevelopment in South Florida. There is always construction and fixing up something in Florida. When they are doing construction on the roads, the traffic is always backed up.

Mario Alejandro Ariza, Yale Environment 360, “As Miami Keeps Building, Rising Seas Deepen Its Social Divide”, September 29,2020, https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-miami-keeps-building-rising-seas-deepen-its-social-divide

My second article is from Yale Environment. In this article, it talks about how Florida is falling below sea level. The sea level has risen a foot since the 1900s, and almost 5 inches since 1993. At the rate that the sea level has risen, roughly about 800,000 residents in Miami-Dade County would be out of a home or place to live. 

In this ted talk, the speaker was focusing on how climate change is being a threat to human rights. The speaker was talking about how when she was president of Ireland she did not have to buy land on the mainland of Europe because her citizens could go there since their island was below sea level. When it came to the topic of climate change she didn’t look at it in a scientist or environmental lawyer but as how it was affecting the people. When she saw images of the polar bears and the melting glaciers, she could only imagine how it would affect our human rights. Such as our food, safe water, health, education, and shelter.

Citation: 

Mary Robinson, May 2015, Ted Talk, “Why climate change is a threat to human rights?” https://www.ted.com/talks/mary_robinson_why_climate_change_is_a_threat_to_human_rights?referrer=playlist-why_climate_change_is_a_human&autoplay=true

Video 2:

In this ted talk, the speaker is talking about our country will be underwater soon, but we can stop that by working together. The speaker talks about how climate change has been going on for a while. When he went into office in 2003, when he would talk about climate change at the United Nations General Assembly, he wasn’t talking with passion. Since he wasn’t sure if scientists are saying it is being caused by humans or if it was real or not. But when scientist confirmed that it is real, and it is getting worse because of human actions, he knew that we have to try to stop it from getting worse than it is now. He predicted by 2100 the sea levels are going to be three feet.

Citiation: 

Anote Tong, October 2015, Ted Talk, “My country will be underwater soon– unless we work together.” https://www.ted.com/talks/anote_tong_my_country_will_be_underwater_soon_unless_we_work_together?referrer=playlist-why_climate_change_is_a_human&autoplay=true

Reflection:

So what I learned from watching these two ted talk videos is how we humans don’t understand what our actions are doing to our environment. We have been making climate change worse and worse throughout the years. I understand that there are people who don’t think it is real and it is all fake. But then complain about how our world is getting worse. We continue to destroy wild animals' habits to make more houses, buildings, and etc. We are creating pollution with gasses and making our water worse by spilling chemicals into the water and throwing plastic into the water and killing animals. We need to come together to stop making it worse. If we work together we can lessen the damage that we cause and future generations can see how beautiful it is. But if we continue to be arrogant and take advantage of what we have now, we can never appreciate what we have. 

So my experience with the activity CAS2 was a bit personal. One of my family members has Parkinson’s disease. And when I saw that we had the chance to choose stories from “The Whole health Story, In Under 3 Minutes” I took the opportunity to read about it and learn more. What I felt about it was that some patients that have Parkinson disease may be able to dance but some people are not able to get up or move around due to having it. It can not help every patient who has it, only those who are still able to actually do more.

Completing the activity changed how I think or feel about the concept or action for CAS3 is how much we have affected climate change. I already have a strong belief and stand by how we as people have affected climate change. Although yes many people do not believe that it is real, it is very much real. What I learned from the experience is how there are a lot more people who are trying to stop or limit how much we are affecting it but they are not getting recognised. Instead they are not being talked about enough. It changed me as a person by trying to make a difference in how and what I do that will affect the environment.