“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, a make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped keep it open. The surface of the Earth is so soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take the cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now” (Thoreau 351).

This passage stood out to me as he is recommending we avoid the beaten track and avoid falling into the same old rut, but is admitting this too happens to him even during his time at Walden.

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise” (Thoreau 356).

This passage stood out to me as I found the words to be encouraging. So often I think we do take our lives for granted; we find faults where we could not if we would embrace our lives as they are by “meeting it” and “living it”.

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” (Walden, 351-352)

This passage resonates with the themes of many modern day motivational speeches. Nonetheless, I think that this thought is pretty inspiring and exemplifies the emotions that I would expect Thoreau to have after spending so long at Walden Pond. This passage ties back to the concept of getting of the beaten path. Thoreau went to Walden pond to live differently then the commoner. He went to find the meaning of his own life and learned that his solitude wasn’t actually solitude. He developed new values and learned that life should be experienced from moment to moment, savoring some story from every second. In the conclusion, Thoreau sounds like a new man with a refreshed sense of life, a sense that he wishes to share with the rest of the world.

As a kid, I was always afraid of the dark. I would ask my parents to leave the hallway lights on at night and I would shy away from stargazing that required walking 50 yards through the dark New Hampshire woods from my house to the lake. However, as I grew up, I learned to love the night sky and the stars. Living in the suburbs of Boston, I rarely see that many stars. I long for trips to the Lake or to Martha’s Vineyard, where light pollution is minimal and the stars shine bright. Looking at the stars gives me a sense of freedom and relaxation. Bogard talks about how the sky above Times Square is an empty blackness that shows few signs of life. In contrast, the rural night sky reminds us of how small we are. It dominates all of human life in a completely natural and awe inspiring way.

A shaky image that I took of the night sky over Martha’s Vineyard, MA.

Vegas from space.

I thought it was interesting that these images happened to pop up in my Facebook timeline after our discussions on bears and hunting. I see the portrayal of fuzzy, cuddly bears in the form of the sleeping bag, and I feel like the first image could have been an advertisement on display in Cabela’s. I was wondering what your thoughts might be on these images after the discussions we have had in class?

Uber and Lyft have become popular methods of transport. Due to the popularity of these services there are claims they have led to a decrease in personal car ownership, but there are also claims these services are being used instead of walking, biking, or transit. In order to explore these claims an environmental impact assessment of these services is being done by The Natural Resources Defense Council and the University of California-Berkeley. This study will be done over the course of a year and will evaluate these services across the nation to determine whether there are environmental benefits or consequences to the growing popularity of these services.

I have attached the article discussing this below:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/13/9730458/uber-lyft-environment-impact-cost-NRDC-Berkeley-study

I am curious to hear what are you guys think about the environmental impact of Uber and Lyft. Beneficial? Detrimental?

I don’t precisely recall how I stumbled upon this site but I imagine it was a video I found somewhere linked on Facebook. I have had this page open as a tab on my computer for about a week and I decided today to see what it was about. I was immediately dramatically surprised and dismayed to find that “www.environmentalpolicyalliance.org” is not an environmentally friendly website at all. It leads off with aggressive statements like, “If you think environmentalists are overzealous today when they (falsely) link fracking to serious health and environmental problems, take a look at their long track record of silly doomsday predictions,” and continues to correlate decreased fossil fuel use with increased environmental well-being.

I find it discouraging that this site clearly masquerades as a positive source of policy news and environmental awareness when it is clearly propaganda for the fossil fuel industry.

This is why we can’t have nice things. UGH.

http://environmentalpolicyalliance.org/the-environment-is-improving/

Before today’s Eagles football game, the NFL brought in a special guest to fly around the stadium. Turns out that Challenger the eagle is actually a pretty big celebrity in the sports world. Here is an article about him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/sports/football/star-of-world-series-final-four-pro-bowls-and-olympics-a-bald-eagle.html?_r=0

A little while ago I got lunchables as a late night snack. I didn’t realize it when I was purchasing the Lunchables, but when I sat down to eat I realized there was a platypus on the front of the box. I didn’t think too much of it until I opened the box and realized there was a little cartoon on the inside of a platypus and a rabbit sharing a pun. Seeing this reminded me of Sterba’s book, Nature Wars.

In the bear chapter, as well as a few other chapters, Sterba warns against this type of anthropomorphism. He explains how it causes a false relationship with animals which can be dangerous. Sterba states, “Children grow up surrounded by images of wild animals presented as furry or feathery little people like them. We learn from our pets how some animals live and then mistakenly project that knowledge onto wild creatures living a much different reality . . . Today’s denatured adults often continue to see bears and other wilds animals the way they did as children without the corrective lens of different experience” (Sterba 184-185). Although I do not believe a rabbit or platypus will cause any true harm to a child or adult, the idea still holds. A food intended for children has images of animals acting like humans. These images will, most likely, stick with children throughout their life without an experience teaching them otherwise.

Wednesday, when the Simpson’s clip was being showed, I was reminded of a clip from an episode of That 70’s Show. In the episode a group of guys go hunting. Towards the end of the episode Eric ends up in a blind alone with his father, Red, and is given the opportunity to shoot a “ten point” buck. Eric balks at the opportunity and misses the shot, and for the remainder of the time in the blind Red is giving Eric a hard time.

This clip is pretty long, and bad quality but it is all I could find of the episode. If you skip to 14:25 and watch until approximately 15:00 you’ll see Red’s reaction to finding out that Eric missed the shot on purpose. The reason I thought of this clip was because, and attached it even though the quality is kind of shitty, is because I thought it was an interesting balance to the clip from the Simpson’s. Although there is an underlying message that relates being able to fire a gun to masculinity, it shows Red respecting his sons desire to not want to kill the buck. For those unfamiliar with the show, Red’s character is considered more of a manly man. This fact, coupled with him accepting his son’s lack of desire to hunt, shows a different idea on hunting than Homer Simpson. Red is more concerned with his son being a good shot than hunting making him a man.