One of my favorite things about going to a large university is the numerous lectures and special events that come into town. Last week I attended a presentation called STAND which is a campaign to promote active participation in protecting the environment. The presentations hip theme was catchy, and most importantly there was freebies. Sadly, I didn’t get a t-shirt, but I came away with some stickers, key chain, mouse pad, and a load of knowledge about sustainable energy. You can visit the STAND website and check out the video clips for yourself, but this event got me thinking about West Virginia and it’s role in protecting the environment. While West Virginia University does an excellent job of making it easy to recycle, the PRT which provides pollution free transportation, and they have turned many of their older buildings into “green” buildings such as pictured Colson and Oglebay Halls (photos taken by me in the summer, and remember the name Ogebay for a previous blog?)
My favorite is the grass roof on Brooks Hall. But, I fear that the rest of West Virginia lags behind dramatically in the effort to turn “green.”
While driving back to Morgantown this week for classes I was provided with an extra bonus, the leaves were turning, and just about the perfect shades of oranges, reds, browns, and greens were present in the hills. Actually I spend most of my commute in south western Pennsylvania on Interstate 79, so kudos to Pennsylvania too. I snapped the fall pictures at my house, maybe a tad early, it’s hard to judge exactly when the leaves will reach their peak. Anyway, the scenic views that West Virginia provides to it’s residents and travelers is amazing. What’s disturbing is the mountain top mining that occurs in southern West Virginia. This just as it sounds, a hill disappears so coal companies can extract the coal at a cheaper cost, and I have a sneaking suspicion it’s safer and the main argument that coal corporations use.
Then we have those disgusting, overloaded coal trucks. Today I was behind one in traffic while puttering along Patterson Ave. in Morgantown. Every time it moved forward an enormous cloud of black smoke popped out of it’s stacks. Then theres the lawsuit against Dupont that has been dominating the W.V. headlines. It’s seems Dupont dumped lead, arsenic, and who knows what else in Harrison County, the one time location of their Zinc plant. Residents want money and medical care. This is also a prime example of the type of industry that W.V. has, those that know they can probably escape environmental laws. Harrison County won, but of course Dupont is appealing. Look at my hometown of Wheeling, acid rain at one time dominated the smokey skies and it was virtually a miniature Pittsburgh when it came to pollution during its industrial days. In 1979 Wheeling became site of the lowest rain pH ever measured (that’s a bad thing). In Weirton, W.V. high school football games where played in a mist of red smog during the 1950’s and 60’s. Gentlemen were expected to cover their dates with their jackets to prevent the red dust from soiling their dates clothes. This pollution from steel production is now most likely in China or South America.
Now it’s time for me to confess that I drive a… a… well, it’s sort of a gas hog. So this left me with the question, how will we ever get to a point where society is doing all that it can to protect the environment, and is this even possible? Of course I think it starts with education and some decent legislation which means money. The STAND campaign is visiting 50 college campuses throughout the year and awarding money to the groups on campus that research sustainable energy, a great start. West Virginia has been lagging behind in just about everything, and most of this has to do with its geography and isolation which makes education difficult. Many put up with West Virginia’s polluting enterprises because they need jobs, and still many have been lost to oversees country’s where environmental laws are non existent. When China has to close down it’s factories during the Olympics so they can hide their pollution problem, somethings wrong. It’s one thing to have interest in protecting your own state, or country, but lets not forget this should be a global cause. So whenever I finally get my classroom you’ll find trash cans for paper, plastic, aluminum, and discussions about the history of our environment and its future.
Archive for October, 2007
This semester one of my many projects includes planning a 5-6 day unit on whatever I like for my Social Studies Methods class. After a few weeks of brainstorming and reading, I decided to choose what is called the Progressive Era in American history. If you’re wondering, my other choice was doing something about “The Hundred Years War” because I’ve become fascinated by English long bow archers. What made me choose the Progressive Era was a novel written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, The Jungle. The story is about a family of immigrants who travel from Lithuania to Chicago, Illinois to work in the meat packing industry. Not being able to speak the English language, they immediately become a target for those that wish to take advantage of their innocence. Although they eventually settle among people they can communicate with, they spend most of their time at work in horrible conditions. Whether it was the canning factories or the slaughter houses, the pay was little, the hours were long, and death seemed to be the only thing that would relieve them of this misery. The family was even forced to put their children to work who didn’t even understand why they were forced to work (and for less pay), they just did it. I can not even begin to describe how horrible the working conditions were, SinClair does a brilliant job of it himself. Before the book was published, the United States government got a hold of it and was so alarmed, they checked into the conditions, and were quite surprised to find out Sinclair’s descriptions were accurate. Sinclair stated that he wanted to write a workers version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’ve never read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and many say that it doesn’t compare; either way Sinclair’s work is moving.
What I find particularly interesting is Sinclair’s analogy “The Jungle” to describe the conditions. I think it’s clever. This reminds me of the popular Guns N’ Roses song “Welcome to the Jungle,” which also describes the underside of a city and it’s cruelty. The song was first born when Axl Rose was hitchhiking with a friend in New York City and a homeless black man informed them that they where in the Jungle, and they were gonna die. So Rose got the idea for a song. In Seattle Axl and Slash wrote the song, but instead New York or Seattle, they describe the city of Los Angeles. Axl Rose himself explains: “I wrote the words in Seattle. It’s a big city, but at the same time it’s still a small city compared to L.A. and the things that you’re gonna learn. It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want.” I couldn’t not find a quote from Slash on the subject that did not include excessive profanity… haha….. ok.. actually I didn’t look, but most of his quotes end up that way. 
The best scene from the music video is when Slash is drinking from a paper bag in front of a television store, then at the end of the video they return to the scene, but he’s gone. That happens a lot in cities, people disappearing, but who seems to care? Guns N’ Roses reminds me of Sinclair because they both make efforts to talk about the negative things that exist in society (which GN’R often promoted unconsciously). Behind the excessive hairspray, leather, and cigarette smoke Guns N’ Roses was a pretty liberal band that spoke their mind about the world’s problems. The song “Civil War” is a prime example, among many others. The music video for Welcome to the Jungle shows violent clips from the news of the era, not for the violence, but to make a point, it’s a jungle out there. Another occurrence comes to mind when they band played at Freddy Mercury’s tribute concert. Freddy Mercury, lead singer of Queen was homosexual and died of aids. Many criticized Guns N’ Roses for playing at the show because it meant they supported gay rights, and they did. Security was a major issue; the bands biggest fear was getting shot. Considering the bands name, Guns N’ Roses was also quite contradictive (guns). Now that I’ve completely rambled about Guns N’ Roses (I can’t help it!) lets get back to Sinclair. Other than being labeled a socialist, Sinclair was an average guy looking to make the world better. While teaching about the Progressive Era I doubt that I will have enough time to allow students to read the book, plus the school probably wouldn’t buy copies. But should a teacher give up? Never! I’ll of course have my own copy of the book and will plan on reading excerpts from the book. The goal is to make students feel like they’re living through the time period. What was is like to walk to work in a blizzard to work? You had to go, or you lost your job. What was it like to get injured? What did that mean for your family? The message that Sinclair provides for his readers is powerful and that’s why I plan on using it. I also hope that students will become interested and read the book for themselves. HA! And No Child Left Behind cuts Social Studies funding because they claim reading is more important. There’s reading in Social Studies too! I would also ask students to think of other analogies other than the “jungle.” Now finding the video for Welcome to the Jungle may not be easy, but checking out The Jungle from you local library is easy, so check it out.
