For some reason, everywhere I went this Christmas break, something we have studied in apes came up. It all started when my sister insisted we see “Happy Feet” the day after Christmas. I heard there was dancing in it so I agreed to go. Little did I know there were environmental issues involved!
THe movie brings up all kids of environmental issues in tiny ways. First of all, the head penquin announces that there is a food shortage (overfishing..) and blames it on poor little Mumble, a penquin who can’t sing but can dance. Mumble finds out from a bird that tries to eat him (disruption of the food chain) who has a yellow band around his ankle that “aliens” are taking their fish (that’s us!) and they’re the ones that put the yellow band around his ankle. Next, we meet a penquin who has physic powers with one of those pieces of plastic that hold together pop cans around his neck (trashing our oceans) that eventually starts to choke him. Mumble goes on a mission to find out who is taking their fish and ends up following a ship all the way from Antartica to some continent. He ends up very unhappy in a zoo, until he starts to tap dance and they take him back to Antarctica (?? this part I didn’t understand.) Humans observe the colony of penquins dancing and after much debate, humans stopped fishing in Antarctica. My dad left the movie hating it, my sister thought it was so-so, my brother loved it, and my comment was, “I need to go home so I can blog on this.” The movie brings up pretty complex environmental issues but I probably wouldn’t have caught them if I wasn’t thinking about my blog the whole time.
In two other situations during break I got to show off what I know. On CHristmas Eve, my Uncle Joe cooked Chilian Seabass. At the dinner table, someone happened to bring up the issue of seafood and how it could dissappear in a couple of years. Of course, I jumped right in and set the record straight from what I’ve learned by blogging. Then, on CHristmas day, my little brother George was talking about how he did a speech on Chernobyl in his oral communications class. My dad, sister LIzzy and I got into long discussion about nuclear power plants. It felt great that I knew what I was talking about. 
Another time during break, my sister Patricia and I decided to go out for sushi. Since
I normally don’t eat fish that much at all, I started thinking about if eating sushi dramatically adds to the loss of seafood. I found an article by Umbra on why we should not feel guilty eating seafood. (http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2006/11/29/sushi)
Umbra suggests this:
- Read all about the aquatic life you like to eat. Educate yourself about the species. Learn how they are produced or harvested, which types to avoid, which to eat.
- Through this process, your “personal revulsion meter” will decide which fish are OK and which you will want to avoid.
Umbra basically says that the solution to overfishing is to learn about the fish you are eating, become disgusted by some of it, and order new things. Later, she said “If one truly cares for all the fishes of the world, one should stop eating all the fishes of the world.”
Lastly, over break I had to finish my Northwestern application to submit online by January 1. Keeping with my break full of apes, my big essay was on our communication with the Palestinian students in Bethlehem. (!!) I owe a lot to this class.
pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
