Political Cartoons

     For my new class, Reading and Literacy in the Content Area, we've been asked to find political cartoons related to topic within our content area.  Since I will be teaching Environmental Science, Biology, and Marine Biology, I found this cartoon that is applicable to all of them:

This cartoon is great because it shows how strong the human influence is on nature.  We are, for better or for worse, an integral part of the biosphere.  We have thus far failed miserably at trying to live within it.  From deforestation, fossil fuel pollution, overfishing, and countless other actions, we are actively destroying our planet.  We often fail to realize that with the destruction of the planet comes the destruction of us.  It is akin to periodically destroying bits and pieces of your house.  I think that the Western world fails to realize the destruction because we rarely see it.  If we saw the New England-sized mass of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean, the sweat shops, the polluted rivers people drink from in Ecuador, or the barren Gulf of Mexico, we might stop to think twice about our actions.  I am just as guilty as anyone in contributing to the destruction.  However, I will say at least I know that, and when I become more independent I will live in a way that mitigates the destruction.  Relaying this idea to my students will hopefully lead to a better world, where everyone lives within the biosphere as a positively contributing member.  The USA is the gold standard of living for the world, so hopefully our actions inspire changes across the globe.

*This blog was written on a MacBook Pro made of precious rare metals harvested by poorly paid workers and assembled with dangerous toxins by poorly compensated Chinese workers, and shipped on a gas-guzzling plane to the USA and sold for 30 times the cost of assembly.