Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Last Exploration: Morgan DeWitt

While reading Wendell Berry's essay, In the Presence of Fear, I found myself taken aback by a lot of points he made. What really made me think the most was a point he made in the very start of the essay, "People will think that they have made a sufficient change if they have altered their "values" or had a "change in heart" or experienced a "spiritual awakening" and that such a change in passive consumers will cause appropriate changes in the public experts, politicians, and corporate executives to whom they have granted their political and economic proxies." This made me think for awhile because it so true. People all the time complain about problems they see in the world and read articles and watch videos that make them feel differently but they never do anything about the change inside of them. The problem is that a feeling is not going to change anything. People need to start acting when they have a change of heart. When someone sees something they don't like, they should change it, not just think about it.
To focus on the environmental issues Wendell Berry discusses, I read Eli's exploration and his focus on a local economy. I think seeing more local food industry pop up around us would be a beautiful thing. It would be healthy for our environment, healthy for our economy, and healthy for us. So why aren't we acting upon this?


My major is Pre-Law with a focus of Environmental Policy and Decision Making. I did a lot of research this year on the dying bat population which is something I'm very passionate about. The bat population has decreased by 80%  in America and hardly any Americans knows about it. I think this a huge cultural issue. The dying bats have created a huge problem in the agriculture industry because of the fact that bats are responsible for eating thousands of tons of insects every night and a recent study showed that losing the bat population could result in billions of dollars in increased pesticide costs and agricultural damages each year. Farmers have nick named bats their "pest control crew" and the bats are worth $74 per acre. The pesticides farmers use in places of bats in turn make our food unhealthy. So it really is a problem for us for people that are ignoring the fact these beautiful creatures are dying. Below is an info graph from the white nose syndrome explaining the disease that is killing the bats. As of right now, there is no cure for white nose syndrome but you can read more about it on whitenosesyndrome.org.

8 comments:

  1. Morgan: thanks to you and Eli for getting our conversation started! I love your quote from Berry, as that one really made me stop and think that it's so easy to judge other people and corporations, but what am I doing? It starts with us. I also really like your bat information and the research you shared, as I had no idea, but now I do. Thank you for making us more literate on this subject!

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  2. I knew bats played a large role in controlling the insect population but I really like the statistics that you used and the picture used to emphasize the importance of those statistics. It showed me that this really is an issue that people need to start considering especially since it affects our food sources as well as our health in the long run.

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  3. I think it is interesting that you talked about a topic that I have not heard about personally. I not only learned from your post, but I got to see the affects that the decreased bat population is causing. I agree with Jessica that this is a subject we need to focus more on.

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  5. Wow. I had no idea the bat population was dying or that they were so important. I also wonder why the death of certain species is more widely known than others. For example, almost everyone knows that the bee population has been on a decline, but i'd never heard about the decline in bat population until now. Your infographic was very informative as well.

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  6. I think the topic that you had picked was very interesting. I never knew that you were researching about the dying bat population. It is something that people normally don't think about and they should think about. I love the visual aid that you had incorporated into your blog post. I think it was very informative and I learned a lot by taking the time to read it. What is interesting as well as unsettling is the fact that people don't realize the purpose that bats serve in this world. This allows people to really understand how important bats really are when it comes to Mother Nature's way of doing things.

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  7. I have personally experienced the white nosed bat syndrome in the sense of I have tended to a bat that was dying from it. Back in Boy Scouts, at summer camp many of the bats in the area were contracting the disease and they wanted to teach us how to help the bats and what the disease does. So I really can relate to this topic.

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  8. I found your part two to be very interesting and informational. I had no clue that the bat population was decreasing which I'm sure not many others know that either. I am also very interested about maintaining or increasing wildlife but I have never really thought to do any thing about it. I believe this isn't heard of that much is because people are more worried about issues that could harm them. A lot of people wouldn't care unless they were in danger somehow.

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