This is my first blog, and as I'm certain not many people will be reading it (I don't know if I want anyone reading it.. yet), I'm going to skip over all the preliminaries and just get to what I want to blog about. So sorry if you enjoy that stuff.
Last summer at orientation I registered myself for a class called "Sustaining a Planet," of which I had no idea at the time was a class centered upon the causes, effects, and possible solutions for global warming. Having been raised in the good ol' West Texas, where everything is oil and nothing is "environmental," I was heavily under the influence that global warming is a bunch of garbage that hippies and liberals are throwing out there for, well, who knows what.
After taking this class (and being exposed to perspectives much more open-minded), I've sort of opened my eyes to issues going on around the world. The topic that most caught my interest is the dwindling and lack of water resources, not only in the far-off third-world countries, but here in Texas, even. And the scary part is that scientists are projecting droughts to become more severe and frequent in the very near future-- within decades we could be seeing a serious shortage of water.
This, and the recent disaster in Haiti, have incited my interest in the millions of people around the world everyday who go without basic needs. I read an article in the New York Times today that talked about how aid for food was growing scarce, and many Haitians are living on a few beans or pieces of bread a day. And, again, it is expected that natural disasters such as earthquakes, and especially severe floods and tsunamis, are expected only to grow in intensity and frequency. We have yet to make serious preparations for such predictions in the U.S.; foreign countries with even less knowledge and forewarning are even further behind.
I feel like these things are constantly at the back of my mind, but I've yet to do anything but read news stories and blog about them. I figured maybe I'd feel better if I got it down in writing.
Again, sorry for the depressing and unconventional first blog. Others will be happier, I promise.
