Evironmentalism Essays - Energy Development, Energy Economics

Evironmentalism Essays - Energy Development, Energy Economics Evironmentalism Evironmentalism: The Next Step Broad Social Change Through Personal Commitment Introduction In the last thirty years, America has witnessed an environmental revolution. New laws like the 1963 Clean Air Act and the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act forged new ground in political environmentalism. Social phenomena like Earth Day, organized by Dennis Hayes in 1970, and the beginning of large-scale recycling, marked by Oregon's 1972 Bottle Bill, have help change the way Americans think about the environment. As we approach the third millennium, however, we must reconsider our place on the planet and reflect on our efforts and progress towards a sustainable society. As global warming becomes a scientific reality, natural disasters make monthly appearances in the headlines, and communities continue to find their ground-water contaminated by industrial and nuclear waste, we must ask ourselves: are we doing enough? The environmental movement in the past has largely been a social and political phe nomenon. While many of us recycle (yet still only 35 percent of us) and take dead batteries to our town's Hazardous Waste Day, most Americans have not made the environment a personal issue. Very few of us have taken the kind of personal life-changing steps that are necessary to create an environmentally sustainable society. It is simply naive to believe that America's present rates of consumption, waste production, and environmental contamination are sustainable. The kind of social change required can only happen when we as individuals embrace the effort in our everyday lives. Only then will corporate America and the government realize that they too must change to maintain their customer base and public support. This kind of personal commitment to change would also create a new social ethic based on the environment under which people and companies who do not care for the earth would be held socially and financially responsible. In six parts, this article will re-examine our place in the environmental movement and investigate exactly what changes we can make in our personal lives to bring about positive change. These areas are transportation, energy, recycling and waste management, toxins and pollution, food, and water. Some of the changes discussed will require sacrifice. But, more important, these changes will often simplify our lives, bring our families and communities closer together, and help us to better understand, revere, and coexist with the world upon which each of us is directly dependent. Transportation The invention of the automobile is one of history's greatest environmental disasters. The automobile decentralized our society. People with cars moved out of the city and drove to work from their suburban homes. Before the automobile, agriculture was local. Food was grown by farmers living in what was soon to be the suburbs, and delivered fresh to markets in the cities. Because of the short distance food had to travel, farmers didn't need to add pres ervatives or other additives to maintain freshness. Clearly, the automobile, like other harmful inventions, makes our lives easier in many ways, but how often do we consider the environment when weighing these benefits? Fossil fuels account for the automobile's most significant effect on the environment. Not only are the emissions from cars and trucks toxic to every air-breathing organism, but every step of the fossil fuel process, from extraction to disposal, is bad for the environment. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), millions of gallons of untreated water contaminated by the drilling processes are dumped into waterways and oceans annually. Once extracted, fossil fuels are frequently refined on site, burying 179 million tons of toxic waste annually. During transport, an average of 1 million gallons of oil is spilled into the ocean each month. Upon arrival, fossil fuels are usually burned in automobiles or power plants. The average coal-burning power pla nt burns about 10,000 tons of coal in a single day. With even a low estimate of five per cent waste, that leaves 500 tons of toxic waste produced each day by a single power plant. If used in cars, oil must be refined further, wasting more energy and creating more toxic waste before drivers purchase it. The combustion engines used in cars and trucks emit toxic gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect and acid rain, deplete the ozone

Rock Island Union Prison

Rock Island Union Prison In August 1863, United States Army began construction of the Rock Island Prison. Located on an Island between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois, the prison was designed to house captured Confederate Army soldiers. The plan was to build 84 barracks with each one housing 120 prisoners along with their own kitchen.  The stockade fence was 12 feet high. There was a sentry placed every one hundred feet with only two openings to get inside. The prison was to be built on 12 acres of the 946 acres that encompassed the island. The First Prisoners In December 1863, the yet unfinished Rock Island Prison received its first prisoners who had been captured by General Ulysses S. Grant troops during  the Battle of Lookout Mountain,  in Chattanooga, Tennessee. While the first group numbered 468, by the end of the month the prison population would exceed 5000 captured Confederate soldiers, some of them also having been captured at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, Tennessee. Temperatures were below zero degrees Fahrenheit in December 1963 when those first prisoners arrived. The temperature would be reported as low as thirty-two degrees below zero at times during for the rest of that first winter.   Disease and Malnutrition at Rock Island Since the construction of the prison was not completed when the first Confederate prisoner’s arrived, sanitation and disease, especially a smallpox outbreak, were issues at that time.  As a response,  in the spring of 1864, the Union Army built a hospital and installed a sewer system which helped improve conditions inside the prison walls immediately, as well as ending the smallpox epidemic. In June 1864, Rock Island Prison severely changed the amount of rations that prisoners received due to how Andersonville Prison was treating Union Army soldiers who were prisoners. This change in rations resulted in both malnutrition and scurvy which led to the death of Confederate prisoners at the Rock Island Prison facility. During the time  that Rock Island was in operation, it housed over 12,000 Confederate soldiers of which nearly 2000 died, but although many claim that  Rock Island was comparable to the Confederate’s Andersonville Prison from an inhumane standpoint only seventeen percent of their prisoners died compared to twenty-seven percent of Andersonville’s total population. In addition, Rock Island had enclosed barracks versus the man-made tents or totally being in the elements as was the case in Andersonville. Prison Escapes A total of forty-one prisoners escaped and were not recaptured. One of the largest escapes occurred in June 1864 when several prisoners tunneled their way out. The last two were caught as they came out of the tunnel and another three were caught while still on the island. One escapee drowned while swimming across the Mississippi River, but another six successfully made it across. Within a couple of days, four of those were re-captured by Union forces but two were able to completely elude capture. Rock Island Closes The Rock Island Prison closed in July 1865 and the prison was totally destroyed shortly thereafter.  In 1862, the United States Congress established an arsenal on Rock Island and today it is our country’s largest government operated arsenal that encompasses almost the entire island. It is now called Arsenal Island. The only remaining evidence that there was a prison that held Confederate soldiers during the Civil War is the Confederate Cemetery where approximately 1950 prisoners are buried. Additionally, the Rock Island National Cemetery is also located on the island, where the remains of at least 150 Union guards are interred, as well as over 18,000 Union soldiers.