Amanda Wageman's e-portfolio

Castle Ink Paperless Scholarship 2012

Growing up in Salt Lake City Utah, I have some pretty great advantages to making a lasting impact in my immediate and surrounding environment. The biggest impact I've made so far is when I decided 2 years ago to sell my car and buy a bike. This is one of the best choices I've ever made, as I feel healthier and know that my carbon footprint has drastically lowered.

I have also made the decision to buy my own reusable grocery bags, and have implemented a plan in grocery stores called B.Y.O.B (Bring Your Own Bag) to help create awareness to people living in my community of the impacts of plastic in our wasteland and the senselessness of cutting down trees to make paper bags.

I shop 90% of the time at thrift stores and when I'm grocery shopping I try to buy locally produced goods only. I am also vegan as It has almost no negative impact on our environment, and on top of all of this I make sure to separate and recycle all of my incoming plastics, glasses and other materials.

While I feel like telling you about all of this is tooting my own horn, I assure you I am not the tooting of horns sort of person. I simply want to illustrate that it is a possible and an even more viable way to live. When I'm asked about my lifestyle and if it's hard to live this way, the answer is yes and no. It definitely is a change from how I used to live, but human beings are adaptable and I feel that if more of us changed our lifestyles slowly but surely and do what we can a little more each day than we could save our planet and ensure it will be around for our posterity.

As human beings we are imperfect, and when it comes to Capitol Punishment we are severely flawed. Whichever way you slice it, killing another person to show that killing is wrong makes us walking contradictions and sends an incredibly ignorant message. It makes it so that no one in the end can escape the vicious cycle of dealing the death card, and the advancement of the human species is catastrophically off. Some may plea that killing the convicted individual will send a message that murdering and rape is not permitted and that actions of the most severe will be followed through, but the fact remains that regardless of this so-called “message” being sent, people will still kill and rape. Another point to consider is that the Death Penalty costs far more than life in prison, billions of dollars more, and that’s because of the legal actions taken to prevent execution of the innocent. In the state of California alone, over $1 billion could be saved over the course of 5 years, if Life in Prison were to replace the Death Penalty. (cited from https://death.rdsecure.org/article.php?id=42)

One of the more relevant points however, is that the death penalty isn’t even in place for the most insidious crimes, it’s in place for the defendants who have committed a crime and cannot afford a good lawyer. You will rarely, if ever, see a wealthy person on death row. Pat Brown, the former Governor from California stated the following in regards to the Death Penalty; "The most glaring weakness is that no matter how efficient and fair the Death Penalty may seem in theory, in actual practice it is primarily inflicted upon the weak, the poor, the ignorant and minorities." (Quote taken from http://www.antideathpenalty.org/quotes.html)

The suitable alternative to Capitol Punishment is Life Without Parole. Otherwise known as Death in Prison; it costs far less, and allows time to make discoveries of the wrongly accused while minimizing the long drawn out legal process for the victim's family. It is a sure and in-stone punishment. I think it’s time for enlightenment, and it’s time for us to be able to choose what our tax dollars are supporting, and I most certainly do not support Capitol Punishment.

This blog post is an official entry for the <a href="http://www.joshuapondlaw.com/scholarship">Law Blogger’s Scholarship</a>, sponsored by The Law Office of Joshua Pond, <a href="http://www.joshuapondlaw.com/">http://www.joshuapondlaw.com</a>.

This blog post is an official entry for the Law Blogger’s Scholarship, sponsored by The Law Office of Joshua Pond, http://www.joshuapondlaw.com.

What is the root cause of air pollution in Salt Lake City?

Salt Lake City, beautifully but not always so fortunately, is surrounded by mountains on all sides, creating a bowl-like affect. Mix that with a city full of people driving cars and other modes of transportation and you've got yourself a perfect mixture for a substantial amount of pollution. It has been said that the streets of Salt Lake City have always been designed around the automobile, versus making the streets more bike or walk friendly. Within the past few years however there have been numerous courses of actions taken to implement a more up-to-date transit system in which everyone can partake of.

Where is the air pollution occurring?

Mostly in the city where all of the cars are most dense.

Why is this occurring?

Because too many people drive cars, there aren't enough people taking advantage of Salt Lake City's diverse transit system; the city bus, or the TRAX, or just simply walking/biking to there destination.

What is being done about air pollution in Salt Lake City?

The number one thing that is being done about Salt Lake City's air pollution is the Public Transit System. The UTA is completely supportive and catalytically abling us to have better, more quality air, so now it really is up to the people to decide how much they like the air they breath to be clean or not. If you simply put 25 people onto a bus, and you have busses all over the city...you're taking literally hundreds of cars off the streets everyday. The difference it makes is profound and necessary. There are a few websites that I found which have set up a set course of outlined ideas and plans to start taking action to eradicate air pollution. The air quality of Utah's website has the following mission statement and vision;

Mission

The mission of the Department of Environmental Quality is to safeguard human health and quality of life by protecting and enhancing the environment.

Vision

A quality environment will be achieved through:

Careful, open, and fair consideration of the concern of all Utahns
Excellence in science, communications, and operations
Timely, effective, and consistent response to all customers
Actively promoting pollution prevention

http://www.airquality.utah.gov/

Air Now has an AQI (Air Quality Index), which is updated daily to tell people how bad the air quality is for that day.

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&cityid=186

And individuals need to take personal responsibility to do what they can to change the air quality in Utah, by not driving as much or investing in a bike.

A PSA from Clear The Air Utah:

Reflection

I was not born and raised in Salt Lake City. In fact I haven't even lived here that long, just going on 4 years now. And as much as I love living here, I do miss the quality of the air in Alaska and California bay side. I miss the freshness, and the crispness. Coming here has been quite a change, and often times I find myself getting sick from not being used to all of the pollution. I think it's imperative as a community that something be done right away to change what's happening. I have consciously made a decision to not own a car, which keeps me active and saves me lots of money. I ride a bike or walk to my destination. I also use the transit system; riding the busses or hopping on TRAX. There are many benefits to not owning a car, and one of them being one less person adding to the destruction of the planet in larger terms, but in smaller terms the destruction of Salt Lake. I think that people will only start taking this seriously when we can barely go outside and breath...which is already happening if you see the RED warnings on the news. One of my favorite bloggers Leo Babauta, has a site called Zen Habits. He illustrates how he and his family went from owning 2 cars and being highly dependent on there vehicles to get them from point A to point B, to going completely car-less. They walk or ride the bus now. This is having a huge impact-positively-on the environment. You can read that post here: http://zenhabits.net/car-free/

Let's each of us take individual responsibility now, and be the change we want to see in the world, and the place we live, Salt Lake City.