Evan Lebakken

This week was a challenging one to focus on sustainability for me personally, as the semester is wrapping up and I am a graduating senior. I was able to make time to watch "Supersize Me 2" with my house one night though, which was an interesting synopsis on the changes that the fast food industry has undergone since Supersize Me came out. This documentary also featured an in-depth look into the chicken farming industry, something I found very interesting given my attendance at the Wilcox farm field trip. There was a stark contrast between what we were shown at Wilcox and what was shown in the documentary, which makes sense given the differing conditions the chickens in each place were raised in. I found this interesting especially given the popularity of chicken as a healthy meat, because the health of the actual chickens varied wildly from wilcox to the documentary. The meat industry is struggling under the conditions of the current pandemic, and I wonder how the chicken industry is being effected, along with how this upcoming meat shortage will shift the dietary culture of the US.

I was able to take the time out of my busy academic week to watch a documentary with my housemates on minimalism. This documentary was one of the highest rated environmental documentaries on netflix, and despite my best efforts I could not get access to the recommended documentaries from EcoChallenge. I found it ironic that I was not able to load the resources even with my extremely fast internet and easy access to a variety of technologies, because this highlighted to me the vast usability problems inherent in our applications of technology today. I can only imagine the additional barriers that could be in place to gaining this information in other places in the world, as even in WA it only takes one webpage not responding to stop the access to information on the web.
 
Minimalism: A Film about the Important Things was the documentary I watched, which tied in nicely with the readings from this week. I initially picked this documentary because of the obvious synergy between minimalism and reducing resource use, but there were many more parallels between minimalism and environmentalism than I had thought initially. Minimalism was described in the documentary not only as a physical reduction of things in ones life but also a conscious mindset shift surrounding an individual's relationship with things. One person they interviewed meditated to minimize the outside influences on his decision making and stress levels, which I found to be an interesting spin on minimalism that mirrored Buddhism and mindful living practices more than minimalism in my mind. This focus on critical analysis of our material relationships was interesting given how much people intentionally focus on having healthy interpersonal relationships, because I feel that at least in my personal experience I have never thought as critically about my material relationships as I have about my interpersonal ones. 

This week I was swamped with schoolwork, which meant was cruel given how nice out it was in Tacoma. It is difficult to balance work and outside time most of the time, but since I have been cooped up in my house because of covid-19 I have had more time to appreciate the outdoor spaces within my own house. I have lived here for almost 2 years, but never have taken the time to appreciate how much life exists in our yard until now. It helps that I have to garden for a gardening class I am in, which means I have to grow something in our yard as well, which makes me take a different outlook on my yard that I normally take. 

Today I planned out my meals for the rest of my self-isolation period, which ends in about a week. This has been a good opportunity to plan vegetarian meals for myself, as well as planning on reducing waste whenever possible since I am having to order my groceries online, and do not want to waste money/resources during this time. I have also challenged myself to watch a couple documentaries in this isolated time, but realized I have already seen most animal rights based documentaries on Netflix. Does anyone have any good Cowspiracy-esque reccomendations?