Field Journal 8

Isabella Romo

Key Points:
Paragraph 1:
Both water and oil play a huge part in our lives.
Water is seen as a positive thing and oil is seen as a negative thing. Water has influenced our literature and
can be seen in many examples in our everyday lives while oil no effect on our language or our knowledge.
Paragraph 2:
We have a somatic relationship with water. We play in it, bathe in it, and drink it
Paragraph 3:
Water had helped shaped our language and our technologies, truest indicator of our intelligence.
Made important evolvements with the use of water: water clocks, sailing ships, and waterwheels.
most intelligent thing we could have done with oil was left in the ground
Humans were not ready to handle the responsibility that came with oil.
Paragraph 4:
Oil became so important that it took over our lives essentially. It was now a competition to see who had the
best oil, or the most.
Our use is now the main focus of our politics and its growing dependency has corrupted our sense of
proportion and scale. We have become so dependent on it that we cannot live without it and it now a
competition.
Eroded our ability to think intelligently about the community
Paragraph 5:
Because of oil we have completely ignored the natural beauties of this world. Example from the book:
instead of going on a trip and see the natural landscape we move in the car and listen to human made
noises.
Paragraph 6:
Makes us dumber because we made the world more complicated but less complex
Example: a farm vs. a forest
o Farm made complicated because of the laws and procedures but a forest is complex because there
are ecosystems and energy going through it
Complicatedness destroys our cultural information and results in a society and economy that no one
comprehends. Has unforeseen consequences
As the possibility of foresight declines, the idea of responsibility also declines.
Paragraph 7:
Oil has made think that ugly is okay.
Arent looking at the bigger picture. We are happy with what we have but we fail to see that we are
destroying the earth. Only seeing half of the color spectrum
We are destroying our earth but we cannot see it
Paragraph 8:
Now that we have oil, we no longer do thing on our own. We dont have to do things by hand because have
this substance that can produce energy for us.
o moving people from craft professions into factories
It is a problem of human intelligence.
Celebration of technology replaces manual skills.
Paragraph 9:
Undermined our intelligence because it requires technologies that we are smart enough to build but not
smart enough to use safely.
Valdez oil spill is a result of a system that operates on a scale that can only produce catastrophe
o We asked for this to happen, we said we needed it and now it endangering other ecosystems.
Less adept to thinking at thinking and acting ethically and far more adept at rationalizing
Paragraph 10:
Looking at water as a solution
We need to take a step back and realize that it is not a source that we have a lot of. At some point it will run
out
We treat it like its a permanent thing that we will always have
High school isnt doing a good enough job at teaching us about resources and in fact have encouraged the
use of oil
Water should be a part of every school curriculum. It should be woven into our curriculum
Paragraph 11:
We need to manage how much we use oil, come up with an appropriate scale and design
Paragraph 12:
Learn what it means to have water purification and being able to sustain clean water.
o This includes having clean water streams
Paragraph 13:
We need to take it upon ourselves to clean up these streams so that we have more to rely on
Opportunity for education to actually be applied outdoors
o from theory to application and from indifference to healing
We should be paying more attention to rebuilding these streams and rivers that are torn down then things
that arent vital to us like athletic facilities
Paragraph 14
o Water is life

The reoccurring theme throughout this chapter was how see how irresponsibly we were using oil
and how it has affected our culture. The point of this chapter was to get us to look at the whole
spectrum, like it mentioned in the reading, and see beyond our selfish needs. We are so concerned
about our own needs and having the best technology that we are failing to see the needs of our earth,
we are failing to see that we are destroying it each and every day as we go along doing the things that
we normally do. While we are satisfied with having the best car and the newest iPhone, our earth,
rivers, and streams is in desperate need of our help. The article mentions that we have become so
comfortable using this resource that will not always be there and we arent thinking about the
consequences that it could have. We have become so used to having this material available to us that
we are forgetting that it comes at a greater expense and it is also destroying our beautiful landscapes.
With more oil, comes more technology that is most likely, in some way, harmful for this earth. In the
article is suggested that we use water, the complete opposite of oil, to try to balance things out. In some
ways I agree with this and some ways I dont. Although I do believe that we should find other resources
as energy and not depend so much on oil, I do not think that we should use water as our main source.
Although it is an abundant resource that we have, we dont just want to turn our attention this one
resource because then we would right back to square one.

Reflecting back on my own use of water and oil, I would say that I could definitely make some
changes to my lifestyle. I would say that like most people, I depend on oil for a lot of my daily activities.
Some of these activities include driving my car from place to place, using a lot of plastics, and also
heating. Before reading this piece I didnt really know that I was actually using that much oil. I do agree
with what David is saying, we have let this source take over our lives and we have become so dependent
on it that we dont realize how much we are hurting ourselves. We are killing ourselves and our planet
and we are making ourselves accustomed to a resource that may not always be available to us.
Essentially, we got a hold of this new material and starting using it for different purposes without really
knowing much about it. Our society did not have enough knowledge at the time to know what oil could
do to us. We need to make regulations on ourselves and on our cultures so that we can have a more
idealistic scale of the resources we are using each day, and also so that we dont run out of this resource
just yet. An interesting point that came up in the article was the fact that because oil can produce
energy, we have become less dependent on our own labor and instead rely on oil to do all the hard work
for us. I think this is something that our society as a whole needs to work on.