For this journal entry, I interviewed my grandmother who was born in 1948 and has lived in both Europe and the United States and has been a witness to the many positive and negative changes the world has been through. I have mentioned to her this colloquium course I am currently part of and she is aware of the sustainable things FGCU is doing to make our planet our better place one day at a time. For the most part she believes that everyone should work together and be more sustainable in order to reverse all of the damage we have done to our planet. She currently resides in New York City and wishes people can be more sustainable and think of the environment rather than go the easy way out. She recycles and does not like to waste anything. I think that her viewpoints originated from her upbringing more so than this whole green revolution that is going on now.
Growing up my grandmother did not have a lot and whatever she did was shared amongst five people. Her attitude and outlook on food and water is different than it is today as we are spoiled today with all of our resources that are provided to us and growing up for her in the former USSR, they were lucky when they had food on the table and if they did, a piece of bread was shared by each family member. She made her own clothes for school; she did not waste food or water, walked to anywhere she needed to be and lived a very sustainable lifestyle. When cell-phones were introduced many years ago, she laughed when my dad offered to buy one for her and said she will never have any use for it (today she uses it all the time). She says that will all of the technology in the world, people have gotten lazy and their viewpoints and goals have dramatically changed. When I was talking to my grandmother it brought me back to the discussion we had in our class discussion about religion and sustainability. In my opinion, there is a direct correlation between people who are religious have a different viewpoint of the world and see it more as a beautiful creation that should be cherished, so those people I think are more inclined to protecting it. We both have hope for the future and we need to seek ways to become a better sustainable environment and make a better place for everybody.
Her perspective on what I have been learning this semester is that courses like this should be offered and required for all college students as this is something that should be taught to us from an early age in order to avoid our bad habits that have been developed over time. She feels our education system is very weak and it is in comparison with European schools as children in elementary and junior high schools are unaware of living a sustainable lifestyle. After sharing with her my experiences thus far in the University colloquium course, she was very happy that I have been provided with this opportunity and should take complete advantage of the information I have gained over the previous two months.
Note: Photo's were taken from the following sources:
http://frontiers.ucdavis.edu/images/photos/9b/sustainability_metaphor_320.jpg
http://www.eaststaffsbc.gov.uk/SiteCollectionImages/Environment%20Image.jpg
http://www.fgcu.edu/EHS/Images/QEP.jpg
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