Fourth Post

                I recently found out that I have a mutual friend with Jeff Orlowski, the director of the documentary "Chasing Ice." I asked her to contact him and connect us  After a few weeks, he finally got back to her and said he did not have enough time in his schedule to have a twenty minute interview. But if I had any quick questions, he would be willing to answer a few of them. I also tried to reach out to one of the heads of Conservation International through my connections. But she, too, had been hard to reach. One week she was in Ecuador, the next in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, and then in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So currently, I do not have someone to interview. At this point, I'm a little lost and do not know who to contact. I want to contact someone high up in a well known non-profit, specifically someone in the communications area, to ask them what strategies they used for outreach, to convince people to care.

                The information from Jim about LinkedIn was helpful, but more in how to use LinkedIn then how to approach people. The LinkedIn groups information was probably the most helpful, because I probably would never have been able to find them without Jim. It was really nice to have a breakdown of all the parts of LinkedIn, but I wished we went more into talking to strangers and how to ask for an interview.

                I think the most problematic waste is plastic waste. They don't degrade, are not compostable, and when exposed to heat, they release harmful chemicals, such as PCB and DDT. This is especially problematic to ocean pollution. Some scientists estimated that by 2050, the weight of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the combined weight of all the fish in the ocean. Boyan Slat and the Ocean Cleanup Project, a non-profit, had a great strategy to rid the ocean of millions of tons of plastic. At the young age of 19, he developed a feasible plan to trap and funnel the plastic towards a floating damn, where they can remove and recycle the plastic. Although this is a reactive response and not a preventative one, I think it is a great way to start. If I was trying to convince a group of students to reduce waste, I would show documentaries and video clips of what waste does to the environment, animal health, and human health. I probably would also include some graphic images such as a dissected seagull with its stomach full of plastic. This strategy would probably work with most middle to upper class students, but might have a less of an impact on lower class students, as they may have other priorities that us privileged kids take for granted. 

Third Post

Since this week has been really busy, I'm going to keep this post short. For my class, Sustainability in Action, I plan on volunteering twelve hours hopefully with Groundwork Somerville, and possibly spend a few hours with Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative. For Groundwork Somerville, I'll check the website to see which events correspond well with my schedule, and email Chris Mancini for more information. For this, I'm hoping to get a group of people from this class to volunteer together. I'm also in contact with Lucy Zwigard from Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative and plan to sign up for a few shifts working on packaging in the dining halls. Additionally, I am in a club called Public Harmony which is a club for musicians who are interested in community service. We have about five events this semester, and I plan to perform at some of them. 

I am not that familiar with Linkedin. I have an account, and a few connections, but that's about it. It's great that someone from the Tufts Career Center will come in next week to show us how to use it, as I plan to find internships, volunteering opportunities at non-profits, or research positions during my year off next semester. 

Second Post

     So last class, the instructors invited a Tufts's alumna to give us some insight into what she does. Laur Fisher currently works as the Project Manager for the Climate CoLab, a project started by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. She briefly talked about her struggles with creating her self-designed major and finding the necessary resources related to sustainability, something that I could really identify with, especially the first year of my college career. But luckily, as I progress through my journey at Tufts, I'm meeting more people, and finding more resources, something she probably had a harder time with a decade earlier.

      After watching her TEDx talk, I was shocked to find out that Wikipedia, a website most professors deem unreliable, is almost as accurate as an encyclopedia. On the other hand, Wikipedia covers hundreds of times more topics than a set of encyclopedias. The collective knowledge of the world, collaborating with each other, building upon each other's knowledge, through millions of edits, was able to come together and create something wonderful. This was amazing. Astounding. Almost magical. The Climate CoLab is based on this principle. It connects people all around the world, all trying to make a difference, protecting our world, and solving the greatest problem of this generation.

      I think one of the reasons it is so inspiring is because you can see the results, the results of human collaboration. One reason why we humans don't often take action to mitigate the global problem of climate change is because many of the actions we accomplish today, take effect decades from now. We might not even see a notable positive difference in this lifetime. Most people don't think about the time after our life ends, except maybe in the spiritual sense. It's hard to not think about ourselves. It's hard to picture this world without us in it. The Climate CoLab doesn't necessarily show us the results, per se, but it does show the global effort of changing our ways, of making this world better. It shows that there are solutions. And some of them, you could even see the immediate change.

      Laur Fisher's talk has definitely made me think more about approaching the climate issue from different angles. Extending from the above thought, I started brainstorming more about donations, and how there should be a more visual, or definitive proof that their money, is directly helping "blank". There are a few organizations out there trying to do that, like sending postcards of endangered species to supporters, but I wonder if I could expand on this. Psychologically speaking, humans respond greatly to the reward sensation. It's how we evolved. Sugar used to be scarce, so that's why it taste sweet, sending pleasure signals to our brains, telling us to get more, and more. I want to be able to combine these aspect to environmental issues.

       I think this is something I could talk to Thomas French about, the Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and Director of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. He is coming to one of Tufts's Environmental Lunch and Learns to discuss the difficulties about preserving unpopular species, specifically snakes. If we could build a type of reward system, it might make the efforts of protecting unpopular wildlife a little easier. 

First Post

     Hey, so this is my first ever blog post. I am a Tufts University student passionate about social justice, nerdy/geeky things, and the environment, among other things. Wednesday, September 7th, 2016, marked the first day of one of my classes, Sustainability in Action. For those at Tufts reading this, you should totally sign up for this course. The professors are amazing and really passionate about what they do (totally not doing this for extra credit, I swear!). You learn about how to apply sustainability in your jobs, career, and daily life. For environmental studies students, this course is especially helpful because a lot of us don't know what direction to go after graduating, and this course helps prepare you for the real world. Some highlights we will be expecting are guest speakers coming in to talk about their profession in an environmental field, doing mini research projects about how the environment intersects with other disciplines (they're really not that bad for those interested in this course!), and job shadowing or volunteering at an environmental profession or organization. Another cool aspect of this course is the numerous fun facts we learn in class. For example, the first class, we learned that narwhals (the unicorns of the sea) can help climate scientists measure the temperature at different water depths, due to their ability to dive 6000 feet (!) and their friendly nature with humans.

     So less about this course, and more about me. As I said before, I am interested in many things, and especially in combining more than one of my passions. All I want to do with my life is make the world a better place, and I don't really care if I'm recognized for my efforts a hundred years from now (although one of my passions is to become an author, so it would be cool if my book is recognized a century later).  Currently, I am really interested in documentary making, because it unites a lot of different elements. For example, the documentary "Chasing Ice", had great music, great cinematography, lots of beautiful pictures, great script, and I can go on. But the most notable aspect of this film was the story it told, and the connection it made with the audience. It didn't bombard us with statistics and scientific arguments, but rather told a story. It made us feel like we were hiking the Solheimajokull Glacier and feeling the frustrations of the technology failing. Most of all, we were in awed by the tragic, horrifying beauty of the melting glaciers. How could such beauty prophecy the demise of this world?