Our group decided to go with a blog called The Lazy Environmentalist. It not only follows the course theme of activism, but it goes along with the Buckeye Book Club and No Impact Man. The blog delves into the topic of environmentalism and ways to correct climate change. Also, the author discusses ways to protect the planet. We highly suggest that you first look at the author's credentials and then look at how she presents the information.
Link:http://thelazyenvironmentalist.blogspot.com/
The word "ecocide" is repeated at least three times in the blog. It is not a common word, but one can infer its meaning: "killing of earth." It adds weight to this word with similar strands like "crimes against the planet," "destruction of the planet," "expropriation of the planet," and "extinguish life." These words and phrases sound very serious, so they grab the reader's attention. These things are bad, so the reader wants to know how to stop them, and learns that reading this book is a good way to do so. Therefore, this blog effectively conveys its message in a way that the reader will understand, as well as find interesting.
ReplyDeleteOn the blogging site, The Lazy Environmentalist I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at the author of the blogging site. There is a lady by the name of Polly Higgins that looks like the organizer of this interaction. The other sites that she manages involve the environment and also social women issues such as Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights,
ReplyDeleteTrees Have Rights Too and WISE Women. In this way Polly uses ethos to show her credibility on the issue. By her having so many other sites that she manages/utilizes it makes her seem very knowledgeable on the subject of the environment. By being a contributor to the blogging site I would feel more confident on the issues presented because Polly has so much information of the issue.
Reading through the blog, "The Lazy Environmentalist" I found one particular blog post, "Planetary slavery Alive and Well in Copenhagen" that stood out. It uses two pictures to help convey its message to the audience. The first describes how a couple centuries ago, companies traded and exploited slaves. It lists the excuses that the companies created to justify the use of slaves. In the second picture further down the post, the words "traded in slaves" is replaced by "trade the planet" with the rest of the text remaining the same. These two pictures link the concepts of exploiting people and the planet for economic gain. Slavery has a very negative connotation and the practice of slavery is seen as so immoral in contemporary society; the juxtaposition of the images shows that the exploitation of the planet for its resources for profit of big corporations is also immoral.
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ReplyDeleteThe overall theme that I took away from "The Lazy Environmentalist" was one of obviously environmentalism but also one of fear. The contributors to this website are using pathos by making the readers of the blog fear inaction by showing images of preventable natural disasters and writing about how the practices done by governments and corporations are ruining the world we live in. And as you read more of the blog you see that the title of the blog is truly ironic because for being the lazy environmentalist they are very active in researching environmental atrocities and supporting environmental protesters.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading through multiple blogs on The Lazy Environmentalist, I decided to analyze whether this blog actually has any effect on people. I found that most of the blogs were about what the author was doing in his own time to push for the environmental movement as well as events in his life related to environmentalism. An example of this is in the blog “Create An Elegant Fold-Up Bicycle Design That’s Functional and Sexy,” where the author, Josh Dorfman, explains how him riding a bicycle to work, instead of commuting, led to him getting a woman’s phone number. Other blogs contained information about what is going on in the world of environmentalism and who is doing what to promote the movement (such as Timberland creating eco-friendly clothing).
ReplyDeleteBecause of these blogs, I have come to the conclusion that The Lazy Environmentalist has a very slight impact on the environmentalist in every person. All of the blogs that I read held a very similar structure. The author would introduce a new product or activity that was promoting an eco-friendly environment, and then he would relate it to an experience in his own lifetime. Do I think that people who read the blogs are enlightened to what is going on the environmental movement? Slightly, but the blogs seem to be just blobs of information, rather than thought-provoking material. I did not see a single blog with a comment on it which I think either means there is no traffic on this blog, or it further proves the fact that this blog merely skims the surface of the environmentalist movement.
Davis, yes it only does skim the surface of the environmentalist movement, but isn't that the right way to go about things? Our school required us to read a book about a borderline extremist who changed his life in one instant. There are very few people who will be that radical when it comes to issues like this. The way to make a change is not the instant change in lifestyle of the radicals who already support the cause, but to ease on the majority that have a stance on the issue but are not willing to do much about it. How many people have changed their entire life style because of No Impact Man? I can assure you many more have made an impact just by buying fluorescent LED lightbulbs for their home.
ReplyDeleteIn the blog "The Lazy Environmentalist" the post "The Canadian Tar Sands Oil-lympics" really caught my eye. The author, Polly Higgins, compares two major world events taking place in the same country; The 2010 Winter Olympics and the mining of "unconventional" oil from the Canadian countryside. She goes on to say that unconventional oil is the worst type of oil mining concerning the surrounding ecosystem, and that the oil companies planning on extracting the oil are not taking a second thought to the environmental and social issues such mining would cause. This post brings something to light that most people knew nothing about before reading. I believe this post is well organized and compelling to the reader, especially an avid environmentalist.
ReplyDeleteAs the blogs name indicates it contains many enviro-friendly blogs. They are used to show different people/groups ideas on how to prevent and reduce ecocide, the destruction of the Earth. Some of the groups, such as Climate 9, do go further than necessary in their campaign on airport expansion. They even go as to say that their peaceful protesting, charged as vandalism, is not the real crime but that it is the airports ecocide that showed by a crime. Another article for the defense of the environment was in Eradicating Ecocide by saying it would be best to fine for long term severe damage to the environment, the only problem I see with that is that that would include most coal mining operations and so on that would end up crippling the economy.
ReplyDeleteAlso on a side note whoever designed the site was definitely not an expert…
I agree with Davis in his idea that when someone reads the blog, "The Lazy Environmentalist", a little bit of environmentalist is awakened in them. At the same time, I think Chris is also correct when he says that when someone reads this particular blog or No Impact Man, they will not go out and radically change their lives in order to have no impact on the environment. Now I believe that reading this blog, which features ways to help the environment as well as news about the environment, can have a very different effect on one person to the next depending how vulnerable they are to the ethos and pathos presented to them. Personally, reading through this blog with a combination of reading No Impact Man has changed my lifestyle a little more than just buying LED light bulbs. I am now more conscience of my environment and try to pick up trash on the ground any time I can along with some other things. Another person might read through the blog and think it is stupid. The reaction will range from one person to another but as long as the word gets out about this growing issue, the blog is doing it's job.
ReplyDeleteI was particularly interested in the article about the Canadian Tar Sands Oil-lympics, in which various oil companies are competing for the oil enriched sands in Canada. I think the lengths oil companies are taking to obtain more oil are getting out of hand. If oil companies keep pushing the limits of obtaining oil, we may have more incidents like the BP oil spill in the near future.
After reading through the blog "The Lazy Environmentalist", one thing that stood out was the use of the word ecocide. Ecocide relates to the large-scale decimation of the planet and its resources. This word is repeated numerous times, and in one blog it even discussed expanding the use of the word to the point where it has the same popularity and power as the word genocide. I also stumbled upon another blog that somewhat preaches the same values as No Impact Man. It discussed how we as humans need to protect Earth and the environment, not exploit it. It also describes how we need to take it upon ourselves to take care of the environment, and once we do that, we can all live without the fear of global destruction. It never mentions taking away any rights, just simply taking care and respecting our planet.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing I noticed this blog doing is forcefully and aggressively pushing its opinion as fact, while employing scare tactics to frighten you into thinking that you must drop everything and save the planet.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the worst ways to draw attention to your cause. Vandalizing an airport, and then using your subsequent arrest as proof that the airline industry is evil and wants anyone who doesn't disagrees with them imprisoned is a logical fallacy in at least two ways at the same time.
It's like yelling at a dog that you think will do bad, then punishing it because you scared it enough to urinate on the floor, and finally using that as proof that you should have yelled in the first place.
Their claim that airlines are concentrated, willful evil is only eclipsed in its ridiculous by the subsequent claim that the airlines need to stop scare tactics.
I for one have never once encountered an airline that wanted to scare me, and I don't think I ever will.
This blog however, seems to throw them around left and right. A prime example is their made up word, ecocide. They cut straight through the political niceties and jump straight to implying a connection to homicide and asking the reader the question, "Are YOU a murderer?"
This is a horrible way to sway people to your cause, and I firmly believe it is people like this that are setting the environmentalist campaign back the most- not oil companies, or airlines.
Visually i thought the environmentalist was kind of boring. There wasn't much going on, just black, white, and gray. The Blog clearly states the sites name, upcoming events, and about the blogs author. This blog actually took me a little bit to actually figure out which side of the environment this blog was on, because of the misleading title.
ReplyDeleteI think that this blog is more law based, in the argument of the environment and the negative direction it's moving, for example the article about Climate 9.
Comments on this blog were scarce but the comments I did find had positive feedback. Like from the article of the word "ecoside" i found 2 comments and both agreed with the article, and both agreed to take the word on.
I did, however, find a comment that disagreed with the article. It wasn't actually disagreeing with the articles message but a segment of its information about the Crown Courts of Scotland. But, other than that the feedback coming from this blog was mostly positive!
I think this blog was on the boring side, but showcased its beliefs and its information very well.
On the blog site "The lazy environmentalist," I chose to comment on a picture called 2 divergent approaches. The most apparent aspect of the picture is the depiction of a scorched Earth and represents the worst fear of the creators of this blog. It then has a call for action by placing everyone in one of two categories; those looking to preserve the Earth and those looking two destroy it. Loaded words such as imposed value and commodity are then used to describe those who stand against their environmentalist view as "money grabbers." Finally the words old paradigm and new paradigm are used to show a distinct contrast. Paradigm is defined as a concept, so what the end is basically comparing is an old view on the world and a new view on the world. This draws on a younger audience who is always looking to the future and new concepts, while trying to stay away from old and band concepts.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting blog with a very important message. We all know that today humans are creating a lot of pollution and we are harming the planet earth in many ways. This blog is trying to get our attention at some of the problems that we are causing the environment. The creator of the blog Polly Higgins apparently is a very involved environmentalist. She has created a few websites with very mind-opening information on the environment which create the use of ethos in her blog The Lazy Environmentalist. Although it is very informative, the author of the blog is using a very aggressive pathos by using photos and information that could cause fear, or sadness. In my opinion, inflicting fear or sadness is not such a good way to get people to follow a cause, instead should appeal the reader with less aggressive information that way the reader can become sympathetic about the planet earth and maybe make him act to help the planet rather than making him petrified with fear of what is to come because of our current actions.
ReplyDeleteLove all the comments, guys! I wanna talk more about these in class today.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Lazy Environmentalist written by Polly Higgins I was rather shocked. In the blog, she writes about her personal believes and her personal believes are strong. Throughout the blog she equates the environment to many violent things. One comparison she makes is between slavery and the way the environment is being destroyed. This comparison is strong,especially in America, because it is a sensitive subject that explains the deliberate controlling of another human being. So, to parallel that to the environment shows how passionate she is about the environment. She feels like the environment is being enslaved by the people of the world because people are not trying to change the way he/she is hurting the environment.Therefore, she played on people's emotion so that they would become more passionate of the environment.
ReplyDeleteAnother piece I found interesting was the term Ecocide. The prefix eco- means environment and the suffix -cide means to kill. The terms put together means killing the environment. Well that seems like a regular term, but when she first explained what genocide was, it gives ecocide a little more emphasis. The author appeals to people's emotons by making connections with powerful violent things, which may or may not help her.
Considering Mrs. Higgins very strong convictions and vehement arguments in this blog, I’m rather surprised that the name of the blog is “The Lazy Environmentalist”. There seems to be nothing lazy about the entire blog. She has very strong opinions about what should and should not be in this world. The language and rhetoric she uses are both pointed and provocative. Her comparison of the way humans use the earth and its resources to the institution of slavery is a good example of the provocative rhetoric used throughout the blog. And her continued use of the word ecocide is another indicator of her aggressive stance on the state of this earth. Why not use a term like eco-abuse? Because she wants to bring the seriousness of her arguments to everyone’s attention. Even if you don’t agree with her, you can’t help but remember her and her opinion because of the way in which they are stated.
ReplyDeleteWhen first viewing the blog, I saw that the layout is a basic default layout. I see that they were in this case, too "lazy" to try to make it more interesting. I went back to her very first post on the blog (dated: October 1, 2006) and found that Polly Higgins created the blog to tell everyone about what's happening with the environment and what the world is trying to do about it. She says nothing about why she named it, "The Lazy Environmentalist". Perhaps its for people who just want to read about the environmental happenings in the world in the comfort of their computer chair.
ReplyDeleteIt is also interesting to see many graphs of what she is talking about in her posts. They are more simplified and convincing. Typically, on the web, the more clean and straight forward a post or picture is, the bigger the audience. So it's good to see these graphs amongst her posts for those who don't want to read too much and want to get the same idea.
Looking at the title of the site before entering. I expected ways normal everyday people can adjust to support our planet like maybe recycling? But, after seeing "The Lazy Environmentalist", then reading some of Polly Higgins articles it should be the site of "Activists for the Environment". Her opinionated views and persistent urgency to conserve our ecosystems is all but lazy. She uses her ethos as a lawyer to persuade her audience that the way we are treating our planet should be a crime. In her latest article she shows this by blasting the government and big business for their persistent abuse of our planet. Her activist views definitely make this blog a fun read.
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