Agriculture in Society

            When you are walking through the aisles of fresh food at your local grocery store, do you ever stop to think about where it comes from? How this endless supply of food keeps up with our continuously growing population? It's a mystery right? Well this is because the modern food industry is trying to hide the fact that they're destroying our earth by using industrial agriculture to produce massive amounts of the food that we enjoy everyday. Obviously industrial agriculture does have it's benefits, but is it really worth all the harm we are causing to not only our earth, but also our health, and the biodiversity o our society.

Industrial agriculture is a modern form of farming in which machinery is a substitution for the labor of people and animals. Industrial agriculture aims to increase the amount of food it produces, while decreasing the costs of production. Industrial agriculture tends to work against nature. In industrial agriculture humans are superior to nature instead of being apart of it, but in reality we need nature to survive so we should be more careful not to harm it. Industrial agriculture is also bad for our health in more ways than one. For example the pesticides they use in the food, have been suspected to cause cancer, also the meat is often made in a slaughterhouse, where the food can easily be contaminated. In fact, industrial agriculture is responsible for getting about 76 million people sick, and killing about 5000 each year. Industrial farmers put their needs before those of their consumers, they care more about getting paid than they care about the quality of their food, and how they are affecting their society (i.e.: the environment, and the health of their consumers).

Some of the benefits of industrial agriculture are that it is a good contribution to our economy, it produces inexpensive food with good variety and greater availability, and it allows longer shelf life of food. Industrial agriculture can be beneficial to our society but it also does a great deal of harm to our environment with increased ozone pollution and global warming, it increases health risks, and there are a lot of unnecessary environmental and social costs due to industrial agriculture. A healthy alternative to industrial agriculture would be sustainable agriculture, which combines three main goals, environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equality. Sustainable agriculture farms food, that is healthy for both the consumer and the animals, it is eco friendly, humane and it supports it’s rural community.

While industrial agriculture also has its cons, I think that the benefits far out weigh the negatives. Sustainable agriculture works in harmony with nature and it's primary focus' are based on permanence, quality and beauty of the product, while Industrial agriculture focuses on the speed, quantity, and profit of making the product. In fact, industrial agriculture is currently the greatest single threat to our earth’s biodiversity. Overall I think that our society would seriously benefit from the use of sustainable agriculture over industrial agriculture. If we completely switched over to sustainable agriculture, our environment, our health, and our rural communities would really benefit.  Think about it, do you really want to be eating foods that are injected with pesticides, or do you want the healthy alternative?

Sources
Advantages of Industrial Agriculture 
Industrial Agriculture 
What is Sustainable Agriculture?
Sustainable Agriculture

Comments
Rachael's Blog
Megan's Blog

Are we taking it too far?

          What would you say if someone told you, that you could design your very own baby. If they told you that you could choose everything from its hair to its eye color. It sounds crazy right? Well believe it or not designer babies are now a reality, but it has yet to be determined whether they are good or bad.

What are designer babies?
          The term designer baby refers to a baby whose genetic make-up has been selected through Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis in order to eradicate a particular defect, or to ensure that a particular gene is present. PGD, is a huge breakthrough in the scientific world, and I respect the use of science in saving lives, but personally I think this might be taking it a bit to far.

          With this new technology, its possible to handpick the genes of your future baby in order to reduce they're chance of genetic illnesses( down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, etc..). As ideal as this sounds, I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and since this is a new technology we still don't know its long term effects. For all we know, this could cause even greater damage throughout the babies life. We are just people, some might say that using PGD is like playing God, and it is not our responsibility to design our babies.

          Another reason why I don't necessarily agree with the idea of designer babies is there cost. It costs a minimum of around $18 000, to design a baby, and because of this high cost, if PGD progresses, then it will cause an even greater barrier in society between the rich and the poor. Not only will the rich have nice clothes and nice cars, they will also have perfect genes, and not only that but PGD will eliminate the diversity in our world. If everyone can guarantee that they're kids have the "perfect" genes, than sooner or later everyone will look the same.
          This new technology enables you to screen for diseases, such as down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and many more. As much as you want your kids to be happy and healthy, ask any parent of a child with down syndrome , and im sure they would not have aborted their child if they had known that they were going to be sick. Personally I think that every life is worth living, whether you have a physical or mental disability or you are 100% healthy.

          In conclusion, I respect that PGD is a big breakthrough in the world of science, but personally I think that people are taking it too far. It should not be in our hands to design our own babies. Marilyn Monroe once said that, "Imperfection is beauty". If everyone was "perfect " than nobody would really be beautiful because we would all be the same. The only time I would agree with designing your baby's genes would be if both parents had a genetic disease that they wanted t prevent. But even then, I still believe that everything happens for a reason, so I don't agree with changing what's meant to be. It's is a great discovery but there are still more important things that need to be uncovered.

Sources
 Pros and Cons of designer Babies
Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations 
What is a designer baby? 
Designer Babies: A right to choose? 

Blogs I commented on
http://melissasbioblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/designer-babies-are-we-taking-science.html 
http://vungaro.blogspot.com/2011/01/designer-babies.html

Save our Tigers!

     The last time I heard about a tiger on the news, it was the latest scandal with Tiger Woods. Fortunately he doesn't need our help, but the tigers in Asia do. According to World Wildlife Fund, tigers are amongst the 10 most endangered species in the world, in fact they're third on the list! Today there are as little as 3,200 tigers left living in the wild. That's nothing compared to the 100, 000 that there was in the early 1900's.In the last century 3 of the 8 different species have gone extinct. We have to do everything we can to protect the tigers we have left.

What's Killing our Tigers?

     Some of the main reasons that tigers are going extinct include, poaching, hunting, and habitat destruction. It has been illegal to hunt tigers since the late 1970's but that hasn't stopped people from killing them for their own financial benefit. People continue to hunt tigers and sell not only their fur, but almost all of their body parts, and they're making a lot of money too. Another large part in the decline of tigers, has to do with the destruction of their habitats. The forests all over Asia that  are being cleared, and the growing population are destroying the habitats of our tigers.

What are we doing to help?

     There are countless organizations dedicated to protecting endangered species, but the one I'm going to focus on is the Tiger Foundation. They're an organization dedicated to, you guessed it, saving tigers.Their mission is to- help prevent the extinction of wild tigers through cost effective, pragmatic and hands-on field programs. The main project that is being run by the Tiger Foundation is the Adopt a Tiger program, which gives you the opportunity to sponsor a tiger while knowing that 100% of your money is going towards protecting that tiger. Their are are also many smaller programs like the Caspian Tiger Investigation, and the Madhaya Pradesh Tiger project which are working to raise awareness of poaching and protect some of the last great tiger forests. 

   It's hard to imagine a world where tiger's don't exist, they're an animal I've known all my life, it's weird to think that soon they will all be gone. It's time for everyone to step up and do what they can to help protect the few tigers we have left. If you're interested in helping, you can donate money to organizations fighting to save tigers, boycott items that are made of tiger parts, buy forest friendly items and most importantly raise awareness. I didn't know how few tigers were left in the world, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, so now that  you know do your part in protecting the tigers and let others know.

Tigers may be powerful and intimidating animals, but they are not strong enough to win this fight alone, they need our help. If we don't do anything, tigers will become extinct within the next 10 years. So do your part, and help save the tigers.

Sources

http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/tiger/consertiger.html

http://www.tigers.ca/natlgeo/madhya/madyaproject.html

http://www.tigers.ca/Foundation%20overview/W2A7.html

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/save-tigers-from-extinction.html

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/tigers/save_the_tiger/

Blogs I commented on

http://natashasbioblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/worlds-fastest-cats-are-disappearing.html

http://vungaro.blogspot.com/2010/09/tee-canada-trees-do-their-part-lets-do.html