Green Chemistry: So Close yet so Far

So I've been thinking over ways that I can apply my major of chemistry to what we have been learning in class this semester. At first I was sad and confused but then I remembered that there was an entire branch of chemistry dedicated to this sort of thing called green chemistry. Basically green chemists try to take an industrial reaction, like the synthesis of rubber, and find a way to do the reaction that produces less toxic waste and uses up less resources. They do this by finding new catalysts or create new compounds. This type of chemistry is doing a lot to reduce our impact on the world and our environment and is an area that I would be very excited to get involved in.

There's only one problem. Green Chemistry research takes a lot more than one semester. It can take years or even decades of dedicated research and thousands if not millions in grant money. So this is definitely outside the scope of this class for next semester.

Fortunately I am a man of many talents, a jack-of-all trades if you will (or maybe a true Renaissance man). Hopefully I can find a place in need of some free construction labor or perhaps someone who needs some audio equipment run. I'll have to keep my options open but probably wont be able to make it apply to my specific major quite yet.

Grapes + Thousand Acres (A Thousand Acres of Grapes of Wrath)

This week the Grapes of Wrath and A Thousand Acres groups gave their presentations. I was surprised to find out that the Grapes of Wrath was criticized for portraying both Californians and the migrant workers; but was later criticized for being “too sentimental.” It seems odd to me that there would be such a shift in how this novel is seen by readers. When it first came out the book was seen as too pessimistic but is now seen as too sentimental and optimistic which seems strange to me. From a previous reading of this book I can see how it is possible to not like the way that the migrant workers are romanticized or how the Californians are universally demonized. It can seem overly simplistic but I believe it was probably necessary to show people what these migrants went through. This simplicity allowed the complicated labor conflicts of the time to be easily understood but probably oversimplified the Californians side of the conflict. The Californians were probably afraid of the migrant workers taking their jobs because they were willing to take far lower wages. This would have led to their families to become just as poor as the migrant workers were at the time; perhaps this fear was unfounded but it might not be that difficult to sympathize with them.

            In A Thousand Acres we see the Cook family taking on more than they can handle with their farm. The father wanted to create a large scale farm without changing their farming practices to match the size which led to the farm’s downfall. They wanted to have a foot in both worlds rather than stand firmly in the traditional farming world or the new industrial farming world. They found out the hard way that you cannot have both. The father’s greed and simultaneous refusal to advance in technology led the rest of the family to have to deal with the bad situation he created. The family couldn’t sustain the farm the way their father wanted them to which created a lot of tension between them. This shows how greed can easily destroy the family and how industrial farms can help that process along. I would not say that industrial farming or large farms are inherently good or bad or that it wasn’t the father’s greed that was to blame; simply that large farms was the problem in this particular situation. I also believe that it could be possible to have the best of both traditional farming and industrial farming. Many in our class didn’t like Fair Oaks Farm because of their focus on profit; however to many other people Fair Oaks shows that organic, traditional farming can be applied to a large, industrial scale. Whether you believe that they have taken too far to the industrial side or that they have reached the perfect balance it proves that it IS possible. Isn’t that what we want? For large scale farms to care for their fields and animals? To be more ecologically sound? Shouldn’t we be more supportive of their efforts? We should try and remember that their visitor center is meant for young kids who live in the city to get a taste of what the country life is like. Yes it’s a romanticized idealistic portrayal, but most of our readings have been that way just on the traditional side. Take that however you wish I’m simply pointing it out.

            To bring it back to the novels; both novels showed how easily greed can cloud one’s judgement. In A Thousand Acres the theme of “original place” or loyalty to your hometown is lauded as a good thing to have because people want to take care of their home and place. On the flip side I believe that in the Grapes of Wrath we see this same concept being used to justify the mistreatment of the migrant workers. To the Californians the migrants were taking over THEIR town and trying to take THEIR land. Why should they share with people trying to take their original place? As with most of the concepts we have discussed in this class the idea of original place can be applied in a good or bad way depending on the character of the person. 

Week...Whatever Week it Is. a.k.a Presentations.

This week in class we heard from the first two presentations from the groups that read the Wendell Berry books Hannah Coulter and The Memory of Old Jack. Based on the presentations I noticed some themes that are mirrored in both novels. Both novels talked about the inevitability of change and the consequences that arise. Both novels seem to (at least somewhat) acknowledge that change and technology aren’t all bad and that there are legitimate pros as well as cons. The character Old Jack represents the old ways attempting to hold on in an ever changing world and the bitterness that comes with it. Old Jack failed to adapt to new farming technology and methods and his farm failed when he tried to overstep his bounds because of it. He tried to have a foot in both worlds, he wanted to use the traditional farming methods but wanted to do so on too large a scale, he wanted to grow without changing his ways. That lead to his ultimate downfall and has been the downfall of many people, you can’t take on too much without losing something. Jack stood to lose his old ways of farming but couldn’t accept that which led to his ultimate downfall. While he clung to the old ways his family moved on without him and he blamed change. Hannah Coulter appeared to be more reflective on change and isn’t necessarily fighting or accepting it. Hannah simply reflects on how change and technology has affected her personal life and her family. She blamed education for taking her children away and technology for her lack of an heir. She saw that tractors helped farmers have to work less and have larger farms but noticed that the Beechers (I think) had a much larger family because they used the old ways. She saw that change brought problems to town but also brought positive changes, it was great that individual farmers could make a better living more easily but the family suffered. She saw that families weren’t as close and that their children didn’t appreciate nature nearly as much as she had.

I think that both characters see legitimate problems but have misplaced the blame, education isn’t to blame for Hannah Coulter’s son never calling his mother it’s his poor character. There are plenty of uneducated people who never call their moms and plenty of educated people who do. Technology and change isn’t inherently bad or good but is wholly dependent on how it used. Nuclear fusion can be used to decimate an entire city or used to provide cheap and plentiful energy. It depends on who is wielding the technology. It seems to me that these characters are too apt to blame technology itself than the people who are using it. Maybe Hannah doesn’t want to admit that her son might not be a very good person and would rather say education stole him. Maybe Jack doesn’t want to admit that the people adapting new technologies aren’t necessarily wrong and that change is something that is just going to happen. These characters saw something negative in their world and blamed the method rather than the perpetrator.

The War is Won in the Trenches

Ryan Beutin talked briefly about the ‘sexy missions’ vs the more attainable missions e.g. going to Africa to save all the children from trafficking (think Machine Gun Preacher) vs taking care of poor children in your own neighborhood (think Salvation Army). He talked about how most Christians are not really called to go out and do the glamorous work that will get them the Nobel Peace Prize but rather doing the grunt work that will positively affect the people around you. The grunt work, working in the soup kitchen, serving at the church charity drive, or volunteering on a graffiti clean-up crew, isn’t going to win you any awards but it will positively impact the community you live in. I believe that helping your own community grow and flourish in the long is more important than worrying about people thousands of miles away for the short term. Very few people have the wealth, time, or ability to be long term missionaries and make a long lasting impact on a foreign community. It is difficult to be an outsider and come into make significant change. In fact, Ryan talked about how most of the time the people we are helping are actually making fun of us behind our backs because we don’t know exactly what the needs of that community or the best way to deal with them are. When we help our own community we are automatically more invested because it is in our own back yards. Most Christians would do better in an environment where we are helping our own neighbors because we would already know the people and know how they can best be helped.

This ideal ties into what Berry and co. have been talking about when discussing their views on agrarian farming. Small, local farms would be better suited to fulfilling the specific needs of the community they live in because they would know what the people want exactly. This would then lead to better use of the community’s land and preserve their resources. Which leads to a healthier community overall. Rather than trying to take down a global company by campaigning on TV or organizing a massive boycott most people should try to change their own community. If more and more people help their own community then more communities across the nation will grow and flourish and the better off our entire nation will be. This would be much simpler than trying to make huge sweeping changes to our entire nation’s food system right off the bat and most people would not be able to take that on. So more people are able to participate and the community becomes stronger as a whole. When we take on challenges that are incredibly huge and far away from home the harder it is to stay invested and to make significant change. When we keep things small the problem become more manageable and we tend to be able to do more meaningful work. Christians should also keep their goals smaller and more local so they can achieve them more easily. This would lead to stronger local communities with less problems which would then, in turn, lead to less problems nationwide and then all across the world. Few people has what it takes to be the great ‘sexy’ leaders doing all the glamorous things in life. The rest of us should do the ‘grunt’ work that doesn’t get noticed but is critical to the success of our mission in life. Remember the war is won in the trenches.

Virtue and Capitalism

This week we read about virtue in the context of ecology aka the Ecological Virtues and heard about capitalism and our specific economic system. According to Bouma-Prediger there is a specific system of virtues exclusive, or at least specific, to the ecological way of thinking. These virtues don't seem to differ much from what is the accepted in the mainstream today (remember this was written in 2001 when we were like six). When this was written these virtues probably weren't very accepted as many people did not exactly agree with environmentalism or the ecological movement (even though it had started in the 1960s it was just beginning to come into its own in the late 90s). Nowadays these virtues are much more accepted by most in the mainstream; companies are finding that becoming sustainable is the way of the future and people want to buy things that are, perceived as at the very least, made with "green tech". Hybrids are no longer made fun of but are rather the norm for many people and even trucks are getting in on the sustainability with mpg mattering more now than ever. For the most part people are on board with at least part of this ideal, you might have trouble getting people to go to the extreme that Berry and Bouma-Prediger would like them to but a moderate is better than an enemy right? The green tech industry has become incredibly large with 83 wind farms in Iowa alone as of March 31st 2010, http://www.iawind.org/news-events/iowa-wind-farms.pdf, many of which are built in the middle of prime farmland. Back in the 90s there would have been very few farmers who would have been willing to give up even a few acres of their farmland for any reason. But now that Berry and Bouma-Prediger are becoming more popular and more people are getting on board with BP's ecological virtues, knowingly or not, these things are becoming more commonplace. Industrial farms are now trying harder and harder to protect their land from erosion and to protect the quality of their land. However, many who support Berry and Bouma-Prediger may criticize these types of people for their motives behind these actions.

One year I asked one of my friends was planting before it was time to plant corn. They told me they were planting a cover crop of hay or alfalfa (it was 2013 I can't remember me. Sue me.). I asked them why and they told me it was to protect the field from erosion and to protect the soil quality so the corn yield would be better next year. I was told that almost every large farm did this because it was good farming practice to maximize profits.

I contend that this is exactly what Berry and BP would want, to give the field a rest with plants that require no fertilizer and very little care. However, when presented with this fact, some of the people I have discussed this with would get caught up over their motive. They would say that its not that good because these farmers planted these cover crops to increase profits and not because they cared about the land like small organic farmers do. So what? How much should motives affect how we view a positive change? Should it matter that most of those wind farms are built by electric companies who want to find a cheaper source of electricity and not save the world? No. We don't need to look for ways to make it sound like we are giving up so much to be sustainable. That's not going to attract a lot of people. Rather we need to say "hey look we believe in the same things you do we believe that protecting the environment is good but making a living is important too here's how". Completely changing how people live isn't going to attract the moderates (which make up the majority of people) to your cause. We need to present this lifestyle as an alternative that isn't really that different from they way people are already living. Millions of people making small changes is better than a couple hundred thousand living completely off the grid.