Tag Archives: local scale

Module 7: It Just Is?

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1.Birmingham, Alabama is but one city I consider home (complicated family to say the least…). The region was formally a bustling steel industry with several major mills and plants spread throughout. Located almost somewhat in the center of Alabama, Birmingham infrastructure layout is like most other American cities. The most used transportation around the city and in the suburbs are cars as space isn’t as compacted as in heavily urbanized metropolis. Though there are sidewalks downtown, due to the large distances between different city building end uses it is more convenient to drive a car. The surrounding suburb likewise is an automobile centered with local city buses having a route on the major roads rather than through the suburbs themselves. With around a quarter of a million people, most people commute from the suburbs to work downtown than live and work in the same reasonable location. Due to several factors, one of them being socioeconomic, the downtown area has sections dominated by abandoned buildings, homeless people and crime. The city however, is slowly going through re-gentrification.

2.A city similar to Birmingham, Alabama in the module was Rochester, NY. Both populaces heavily rely on “commutes” for work, recreation and basic needs. Also both cities usually have supermarkets and etc. near or outside the suburbs rather than in them (high economic areas have suburbs and “needs” intertwined). Such layouts discourage pedestrian travel, as it would be neither practical nor convenient to travel on foot for several hours to and forth with groceries. With this social norm of driving everywhere, resident’s health may not be as well as it could be due to habitual stationary sitting, take-out foods and lack of movement among other things. Though Birmingham would surely benefit from having different housing designs to better meet contemporary needs, I think people would be better impacted if the social norm of eating unbalanced, breaded or fried food was revised.

3.More akin to Birmingham than any other city in this module, Detroit will be my other comparison. Though the urban landscape of Detroit and Birmingham aren’t different, as with other American cities, Detroit appears to be doing a better job of promoting urban farming than Birmingham. Though not on the scale of Michigan, Birmingham is more similar as a city due to current socioeconomic roles, predominant black community and a slow yet progressing rebuild. Both cities have numerous abandoned ravaged properties throughout counties inflicted with crime that discourages pedestrian transportation (due to safety) as well as a sense of community. Birmingham’s ineptitude of a local farmers community can be reflected in that Detroit “had to have” food deserts in order for people to begin growing food for themselves initially and then the community. Birmingham should follow Detroit’s example of designating a specific location at a specified time as a communal marketplace where local citizen can get produce from their growers rather than the only source being one-stop big brand supermarkets.

Ethics Views – Sebastian Hollabaugh

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1) Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)?

In order to answer this question, the use of the word “important” needs to be defined. In general, being a good person is more important, because the good acts should come from a naturally good person based on their desire to want to be good. Thus being a good person covers both aspects. However, a bad person may choose to perform good acts based on societal values, while still not being a good person at heart. In this case it may be seen that performing good acts is more important in order to maintain social normativity, or advance the society in general. This bad person may not enjoy doing good acts, and may in fact do them for selfish reasons, such as to give off the appearance of being a good person. Regardless of the reason, the act of bad people performing good deeds, alongside all of the good people who inherently perform good deeds eventually helps maintain and advance society. There are obviously many counter arguments that could be applied here, but in general this is a universal idea that would hold true regardless of time period or place.

2) Do the ends justify the means (ends ethics vs. means ethics)?

For this question I would like to respond with another question. Would going back in time to kill Hitler as a innocent child be okay? You already know that he will start a genocide in the future, but at the time he hasn’t committed any crime. Would killing an innocent child for his future actions, just because you have a time machine (the means) be worth preventing the holocaust (the ends?). What if you were sent back with no knowledge of who he was, and were told that killing this child would help mankind? This question epitomizes the question of “does the ends justify the means.” There are many options to consider with it. Maybe someone else would rise up, and be worse than Hitler, and the ends you aimed for were actually worse than expected. There is no way to definitely know, but you just have to hope that the moral idea of preventing the holocaust is enough of an end to justify killing an innocent child. I personally believe that one must act ethically at all times, including in the means. There are always other options, and most would agree that killing a child is a very unethical action, which means a different way of achieving the end would need to be considered. Throughout history, there have been many arguments where people have made an unethical decision in order to provide an ethical outcome, but I truly believe there is always a right way to handle something, without compromising morals. This of course would differ from culture and time period, because humans develop different morals in different places and times, but for the most part I believe that the ends do not justify unethical means.

6) Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness vs. altruism)?

Life is completely about the meaning you bestow upon it. Logically that would mean my life is more important than others, because I work hard to give my life meaning to myself. The same goes for the meaning that my friends have to me. Thus based on this tiny scale, yes, my life means more than the life of others to me. On a larger scale, my life probably won’t have a significant affect the advancement of humanity, the same as most of the other 7 billion people currently living, as well as the majority of people who came before or will come after us. At this scale we are comparatively all the same. Thus, life’s individual worth falls to a matter of scale, and does not change relative to time period or place. Due to these aspects, I believe that all lives are actually equal, and to an extent one should be altruistic in order to improve the lives of everyone, but not at any great expense to themselves.

Getting to know you

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Hello! My name is Maura. I am originally from the South Hills of Pittsburgh. I enjoy riding horses, skiing, hiking, cooking, and traveling. I graduated from Penn State in May 2014 with a degree in forensic science (chemistry option) and minors in chemistry and psychology. I began doing research my junior year and following graduation I accepted a full-time position in the research laboratory.   I am a research assistant in an analytical chemistry lab that focuses on environmental and forensic applications. I live and work full-time at University Park. I am currently applying and interviewing for pharmacy school. My career goals are to become a pharmacist. I am currently taking courses to meet the prerequisites for pharmacy school. I have laboratory experience investigating environmental chemistry impacts on human health. I am excited for this class to display other perspectives on the environment. I hope to have a well-rounded understanding of the environment and how humans effect the environment after completing this course.

 

The United States of America has been experiencing an energy crisis.   The coal supply is rapidly decreasing and the USA is becoming increasingly dependent on the Middle East for oil. With the diminishing amount of fossil fuels in the USA and the government’s reluctances to rely on the Middle East, the USA has displayed governance. Foreign policy and natural resource constraints have resulted in unconventional shale gas drilling in America. People have expressed great concern about the sustainability of fracking. Many people are worried about the potentially detrimental impacts fracking could have on the environment. A fracking incidence could result in dangerous chemicals leaching into drinking water. This would affect a local scale in which small towns or counties could experience health effects if fracking sites were to contaminate drinking water supplies. Maps of the shale rock basins in the USA visualize the various shale basins present in the bedrock of America. The shale rock stretching across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio is the Marcellus formation.

Tenaya Mulvey : Getting to know you

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      Hello everyone, my name is Tenaya Mulvey. I currently live in Fort Worth, Texas but I was born and raised in a small town in southern Illinois. I moved to Texas about 11 years ago. My current career is project manager at an oil and gas services company. I have worked with this company for 7 ½ years and really enjoy my job and the flexibility. I would like to move out of the state when I graduate and pursue a new career but I am not sure what that will be. My interest in this course is to learn and understand the core concepts of Geography. I have not taken a Geography course since I was in high school and I am looking forward to learning a more sophisticated approach to Geography. A couple facts about me are that I have an 8 year old daughter. My sister, mother, my daughter and I all spent the Christmas holiday in The Netherlands. We traveled to Cologne, Germany to visit all the Christmas markets in town and we were introduced to their popular holiday drink, Glühwein. It’s a warm wine infused with spices and if you’re not a wine lover its one drink that is hard to finish.

     After reading Geographic Perspectives-Module 1, I got a better idea of the issues it could help solve. One issue that came to mind while I was reading about scale, specifically deforestation, was urbanization. With urbanization comes the loss of vegetation and trees to create these cities. There is also an increase in pollution in and around the city which affects both the people in the city and those on the outskirts of town. On a local scale, has mixed emotions depending on where you live. If you were a farmer that had acres of farmland and were forced to sell your land due to an expanding city or the need for more highways then it has a negative effect. However, on a regional scale, urbanization will help influence the economy.