Green Gal

In the early twentieth century, American anthropologists and photographers were scrambling to document the “vanishing race” of Native Americans who had endured centuries of struggle against European imperialists and settlers and whose culture was already imbued with the culture of white, European America. Those photographing Native Americans at this time presented idealized, romantic, static images of a people who in reality were experiencing a complex social, political and economic transition. Native American culture at this time was not the same as Native American culture before European contact, but nevertheless, anthropologists attempted to capture the romantic ideal of the “noble savage” and preserve the very culture that society at the same time was attempting to eradicate through assimilation. Thus, Native Americans at this time were not depicted as real, individual beings facing these complex factors, but were depicted as either representative of a culture that was believed to ...

Today is Blog Action Day , as you probably have heard. The theme for this year is climate change, which isn’t a stretch for me to write about at all—which you would obviously know if you’ve read my blog. But today I’ve decided to write about something that is beyond my breadth of knowledge: Denmark, and a bit about the economy. I have a friend named Emil who is from Denmark, and he and I were talking recently about climate change. He started talking about all the great things Denmark does that makes it sustainable and it was so interesting! I asked him if he would give me some information for my blog and he did. He mentioned that wind energy supplies one fifth of all energy used there, adding that “a large part of the coasts and green fields” are covered with wind turbines. I’m not a huge supporter of covering every windy space with wind turbines, but I also don’t have another solution, other than that we reduce the demand for energy and live simpler. That can’t solve the use of energy...

Imagine living in a completely sustainable society where the waste is reused, where energy and necessities come from within without exploitation of the land or natural resources. A 21st century society with the cars and airplanes and infrastructure we are used to, only greener. Gasoline becomes an antiquity, like candlestick holders are to us now, and clean fuel from plants, not fossil fuels, dominates. Imagine that in this society which could be taking place years from now, global warming is considered a scare we came through because of innovation, open-mindedness, and compassion for future generations. Don’t you want your children and grandchildren to live in this society? Or would you rather they live with catastrophic storms, a hotter climate that kills scores each time summer rolls around, world wars over the remaining natural resources used to fuel society, and a deep-set hatred for us, the generation of man that did nothing to stop global warming while we still had the chance? I...