Alex+G's+Page



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We face numerous amounts of crises today and one that seems to be overlooked is protecting our environment. Whatever we do to protect the environment, we are doing to protect ourselves. We cannot continue to exhaust the land and poison our oceans while simultaneously polluting our atmosphere. Evidence has shown that with the ever increasing demands and expectations of humans, our world will continue to sicken. Despite the negative impacts we have created, I believe that we can protect our environment through developing technologies and advances in social media to further educate and allow peoples mindsets to change to the point where we will be able to save what is left of our world.

The evidence is out there, every time I have gone scuba diving back home in California or on vacation even in the clearest oceans there are examples of human destruction whether it be damage to the coral, our trash floating or stuck to the reefs, our industrialization has caused almost unfaltering amounts of damage. There even exists a patch of human garbage (mainly plastic) larger than the size of Texas accumulating on the pacific ocean through underwater currents. And already there is another forming on the Atlantic as well. However, the oceans are not the only problem. If you could look down from space one can see just how much the human footprint on earth has created irreparable damage. Through the clearing of entire forest populations for agricultural and urban development, to holding some responsibility for the worlds icecaps melting, all while leaving our deserts plenty of room for expanding. I believe that human exploitation has reached its breaking point but there is still time to stop inflicting damage to the world in which we live.

Now, these are not technical issues nearly as much as they are leadership issues. Our political and corporate leaders have continuously disregarded the overwhelming scientific evidence that the environment is suffering and changing for the worse, mainly because of humans. There are too many of us using too many resources to fast. However, everybody making a change adds up to something significant. With peoples help and today’s technologies we have the possibility to reduce the human footprint on earth by 90%. I believe this generation has the opportunity to completely change this world by preserving the environments we live in.

Not only is this a physical problem it seems to be a thinking one as well. The way people are thinking about the environment in most cases is the root of the problem. It is just as much an environmental problem as it is a cultural one. Although it is fundamentally a cultural issue it can be changed. I believe that if everyone does something or has the mindset to change the negative impacts we have already done to earth we can start to reverse those effects. For example, new leadership pathways that develop possibilities for a more environmentally conscious way of industrialization and thinking could be a start to the solution. Also I believe that with these kinds of simple solutions, the political agenda would be more susceptible to change. And with that change people could start to think differently and become more aware of how poorly the environment is treated to ultimately begin to make a difference for the good.

__--Production Notes --__

Credits for the picture and song- -Picture chosen- a documentary movie poster (The 11th Hour) -Songs used in the audio file- Breath and Life by Audiomachine, Interstellar by Groove Addicts, Akkadian Empire by Audiomachine, I Still Have A Soul- Patrick Doyle.

As far as the production of my audio file go, I had to cut pieces from 4 different songs and try to make them flow with my piece. An issue I had with that was the volume of the music is really overpowering when headphones are on but sounds fine when they are not so I couldn't really fix that problem. I found that the documentary movie poster I used fit well with my piece because my "this I believe" was about protecting the environment and reducing the human footprint on earth. Also I do not have a mac so instead of garage band I utilized Audacity audio editing and wavepad. I used audacity to record my voice and choose songs. For the songs I would have to find the exact time and cut the rest off and also convert that into mp3. Then I would use wavepad to mix the files. I had my voice as the main background on wavepad and chose mix file to select when and where to mix the songs I had already condensed down. The musical audio seems a bit too loud, but there is no middle ground with the volume of uploading them, it was either too loud or too soft, so I tried to go in between. It still sounds louder than it should be, oh well. A big issue I had while recording myself was trying to sound not mono-toned but it is a hard task to sound enthused or whatever while speaking into a microphone alone. Also I am sure you are wondering why this doesn't have flashy fonts or a cooler backgrounds, well, I made the wiki page a plain and simple colored page to coincide with my topic. You still get the same effect even without over exhausting the resources available to you...