The Blame Game: Who is Responsible for the Environmental Crisis?

The podcast discusses various environmental issues such as lithium mining, chemical runoff, deforestation, water access, and waste islands in oceans. The focus is on identifying who is to blame for these problems and who is not taking responsibility. Each group member shares their research findings on specific topics like air and water pollution in India, deforestation in Argentina and its impact on greenhouse emissions, water access issues in West Africa, and garbage patches in major oceans. The group also discusses how farming practices contribute to environmental problems and the blame game surrounding these issues. The podcast invites listeners to share their thoughts and perspectives on these pressing environmental concerns. In this podcast, you will be listening in on segments of our discussion about a wide array of environmental issues, including lithium mining, chemical runoff, deforestation, water access, and waste islands forming in our oceans. Our central focus is on who is being blamed for these detrimental problems, as well as who is failing to take responsibility. This is an ongoing question brought up by our group members as we continue to research and learn about our topics. Listen to what we have to say about these concerns. I'm going to see how my paper kind of ties everything in. Mine is similar to air pollution, water pollution. It's more about India's environmental issues. The thing that sparked my interest at first was I found a video of one of the lakes that were actually on fire, which is very interesting. There are these chemicals and all these things that the factories are putting into the water that is making this really cool. It's kind of cool, but it's not good. It looks like a foam type of thing. They also have a very high increase in temperature because of climate change. The increase in temperature and also, honestly, if you just threw a cigarette into the water, it just catches on fire. Mine was about deforestation in Argentina, specifically the Gran Chaco, of course. They're cutting down trees for mainly cattle, ranching, farming, and stuff like that. After more research, I realized it impacts the environment way more than just they're cutting down trees. Cows are the top producer of methane, which is 6%. Cows solely are 6% of greenhouse emissions, which is a crazy number when you think of all the contributors that come from greenhouse emissions. They do, right? Yeah. Related to that, yeah. It's an insane amount. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah. Also, whenever they're cutting down trees, somehow it affected their water supply, so they get intense drought seasons or flood seasons. In India, they also have deforestation issues because there's people that are arguing that it seems like the government is focusing more on the economic growth instead of carrying about citizens and people living there. Mine is water access in West Africa, so countries like Nigeria, Togo, there's a couple others within the west part of Africa. The reason why I was interested in it is I feel like there's lots of dominant narratives or stereotypes about children in Africa not having water and stuff like that, so I just wanted to learn more about the truth behind it. What I found interesting looking at a lot of these resources, it's also unfortunate, is I feel like a lot of it blames the Africans. They talk about the issue of them not having water access or the idea that because there's droughts, the climate change, that they don't really have water, but they don't really go into the specifics of why that's a problem. One article I recently read was talking about open defecation, the practice of using outdoor areas as the toilet. The way they were talking about it, it was like they were blaming the West Africans for doing this practice, but they never talk about how it's an issue. That's something that's been, I don't know if it's similar to your own resources, the idea of them blaming the people that live there, but there's not much control over it. There's not much... I'll put a blame. No one's taking... Initiative? Not initiative. Kind of, yeah. No one's owning up to other countries that they're the reason why it's an issue right now. It's just more so, I just keep finding sources, this is an issue, this is an issue, this is an issue, but no one's talking about how it became an issue. I wasn't sure if it was similar to, like I said, you guys' articles of the people being blamed, or if it's the government actually owning up to it. Mine is about the garbage patches and sustainability, and it's not... I'm not talking about a specific area, because there's one in every single major ocean, and it's just, I talked a lot about sustainability and a lot about water, and I feel like that ties into talking about farming and how much water actually goes into farming, and how much pollution is in the water. This last segment of our discussion connects to farming, which is a common occupation in the Midwest, especially in the rural communities surrounding Champaign-Urbana. Several of our group members made connections about how agricultural practices are a major component in environmental topics. I like that, I don't know why. You talked about farming too, but when you said farming, I don't know, it just clicked in my head, that the sub-Saharan region of Africa, that's related to West Africa, but some of the resources I just couldn't narrow down to West Africa. You talked about how in that region, a lot of them do rely on agriculture, and the fact that there's inaccessible water, it affects their way of making money. Also, with farming, that's definitely an issue that we can connect to this area. Even in the past 20 years, where I live, if you just drive by an area that used to be a forest, they've completely demolished that, changed it into farmland. Even the farmland that's been there for forever, they don't crop change. They keep corn in one area. Remember, you're supposed to be like, okay, corn this year, soybeans this year, wheat this year. It keeps a good natural fertilizer. Whenever they don't do that, they have to have more man-made fertilizer, which not fertilizer but pesticides and stuff like that. This particular segment focuses on how forest area is cleared for farmland, which in turn introduces new opportunities for harmful chemicals to be released into the environment, both through air and water pollution. This is a common practice amongst agriculture workers, as anhydrous and pesticides have become so normalized. Farmers are often blamed for using toxic chemicals, but larger farm corporations are pushing these practices to keep up with global demand. Again, this brings up the question, who is being blamed and who is pointing fingers, failing to take on responsibility? We look forward to hearing your thoughts and new perspectives about these pressing environmental issues.