Earth Day

Part 1:

The beginning focuses on the conservation movement of the ‘60s, the Sierra Club, David Brower and the battle to halt dams in the Grand Canyon. Part 2 looks at ‘70s environmentalism around pollution, focusing on the battle led by Lois Gibbs over Love Canal. Act 3 is about alternative ecology strands. We begin with going back to the land, building ecological alternatives and exploring renewable energy. Part 4 tells of the rise of global issues in the ‘80s. It focuses on the struggle to save the Amazon and the rubbertappers. They campaign for extractive reserves. The last part concerns climate change. First we look at its scientific origins. Then comes more than 20 years of frustration from Rio to Kyoto to Copenhagen.

Part 2:

Since I love animals I decided to go more in-depth about saving the whales. The whale population depends on the health of the ecosystem in which it exists, and the many forms of pollution extend to all the world's oceans threatening all species. Contamination of the smaller prey species becomes concentrated in the tissue of larger marine predators and marine mammals. They carry pesticides, heavy metals, and disease causing organisms to all sea areas. Contamination levels in toothed whales and dolphins are high. In addition to chemical pollution, oil slicks are commonplace in the oceans. Some whales and dolphins in the Western North Atlantic have been surfacing repeatedly through oil-slicked areas. In contrast, gray whales studies off of the Southern California coast changed their migratory path and their swimming and diving behavior when coming into contact with oil patches from seepage. Gill nets and fish traps kill thousands of marine mammals annually. Whaling hunting is practiced today by Norway, the Faroe Islands and Japan. To help always make sure to never release balloons outside as they can travel hundreds of miles and land in rivers, creeks, and oceans.

Sources:
- http://www.savethewhales.org
- http://www.change.org/organizations/savethewhales
- "Watch Film: A Fierce Green Fire." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

Woodstock 1969

The Woodstock Festival was a three-day concert that involved lots of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll - plus a lot of mud. The Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 has become an icon of the 1960s hippie counterculture. The organizers of the Woodstock Festival were four young men: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Mike Lang. The oldest of the four was only 27 years old at the time of the Woodstock Festival. in mid-July, before too many people began demanding refunds for their pre-purchased tickets, Max Yasgur offered up his 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York to be the location for the Woodstock Festival. The late change in venue did not give the festival organizers enough time to prepare. At a meeting three days before the event, organizers felt they had two choices: One option was to improve the fencing and security, which might have resulted in violence; the other involved putting all their resources into completing the stage, which would cause Woodstock Ventures to take a financial hit. The crowd, which was arriving in greater numbers and earlier than anticipated, made the decision for them: The fence was cut the night before the concert. Although it featured memorable performances by Crosby, Stills and Nash (performing together in public for only the second time), Santana (whose fame at that point had not spread far beyond the San Francisco Bay area), Joe Cocker (then new to American audiences), and Hendrix, the festival left its promoters virtually bankrupt. They had, however, held onto the film and recording rights and more than made their money back when Michael Wadleigh’s documentary film Woodstock (1970) became a smash hit. The legend of Woodstock’s “Three Days of Peace and Music,” as its advertising promised, became enshrined in American history, at least partly because few of the festivals that followed were as star-studded or enjoyable. For those who passed through it, Woodstock was less a music festival than a total experience, a phenomenon, a happening, high adventure, a near disaster and, in s a small way, a struggle for survival. Friday afternoon, a festival official announced, “There are a hell of a lot of us here. If we are going to make it, you had better remember that the guy next to you is your brother.” Everybody remembered. Woodstock made it.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/647675/The-Woodstock-Music-and-Art-Fair

http://life.time.com/culture/woodstock-photos-from-the-legendary-1969-rock-festival/#1

http://www.woodstockstory.com/woodstock1969.html

9/11 Book Report

 
For my book report I read “New York, September 11^th” which describes the events that happened on 9/11. 9/11 was a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks launched by the group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York and Washington D.C. on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people and caused at least 10 billion dollars in property and infrastructure damage. In Boston’s Logan Airport, American Airlines flight 11 left at 7:59 A.M. flying to Los Angeles with a crew of 11 and 81 passengers aboard the plane including the five hijackers. Less than an hour into the flight the hijackers turned the plane around and flew it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 A.M.  “America is under attack. These were the words spoken by White House chief of staff, Andrew Card to President George W. Bush as he sat in a Florida elementary classroom. Even with the terrorist attacks, he remained seated and read out loud with the kids for at least 8 more minutes. He did nothing to show his fear." After the students were done reading he put his plans into action. Shortly after flight 11 left Boston, United Airlines Flight 175 left Logan Airport at 8:14 a.m. heading to Los Angeles with 65 people aboard the plane including five hijackers. After entering New Jersey the plane was turned around and heading towards New York. The hijackers flew the plane into the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. The North American Aerospace Defense Command would normally order escort aircraft to approach and follow an aircraft that was confirmed to be hijacked, but on 9/11 they weren’t notified in time to reach the hijacked planes, instead they were not in the air until after flight 11 had hit the North Tower.  "As terrorists seized control of four airplanes on Sept. 11th, 2001, Ben Sliney, chief of air-traffic-control operations at the FAA's command center gave the order to ground 4,000-plus planes across the nation to efficiently find the hijacked planes, while also  redirecting any planes in the sky to the nearest airport." An estimated 200 people jumped to their deaths after choosing to escape the suffocating smoke, dust, the flames and the steel-bending heat in the highest floors of the World Trade Center. The fall was said to take about 10 seconds, plummeting at around 125 miles per hour. They were instantly killed on impact. The collapse of the twin towers destroyed the rest of the complex, and debris from the collapsing towers severely damaged or destroyed more than a dozen other adjacent and nearby structures. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am, and at 10:28 am the North Tower collapsed. The days after the attacks millions of vigils and memorials were held around the world. One of the first major memorials was the Tribute in Light, an installation of 88 searchlights outlining the Twin Towers. Many others memorials have been held throughout the past years - the pentagon memorial, a plaque of all the people who died during the attacks, and a museum under where the twin towers once were.