Eco-Journal: Louisville part 2

For my Environmental Ethics class I am keeping an Eco-journal about 5 main topics: cars, food, animals, energy use, and the Louisville environment. This is the final entry.

1. Step back and look at the kinds of things that you've noticed. What can you discover about your attentiveness to environmental problems- mostly things that affect you directly? Matters of environmental justice? Animals? Air quality? Transportation? Personal things? Mostly structural?

Looking back on my last entry, I realize that the problems I perceived in my local environment were all things that directly affect me. For example, until last year, I never had any problem with allergies. I think this is because growing up, I lived in the east end of Louisville were the population density and carbon emissions are less concentrated.

I recently found a study conducted by the University of Louisville about the different risk areas for asthma development (which is a disease commonly enhanced by breathing carbon dioxide, similar to allergies) in Jefferson County. It shows that children living in downtown and west Louisville areas were disproportionately affected by asthma than those who live in other parts of town. This is definitely a environmental justice issue because the study showed that the children living in poor areas of town were more likely to develop asthma. This situation perpetuates itself because asthma is a costly condition.

Flower burglary is not a very serious issue, but I would like my neighborhood to appear as lovely and inviting as possible so that more drug-free people will move to the area. I think that people need to start moving back to the center city where everything is more closely located. This will also help reduce the crime rate in Old Louisville simply because people don't want to commit crimes when they have a higher chance of being caught. When my boyfriend, Jeff, moved into this building 5 years ago, he said drug dealers and prostitutes hung out on every corner. Now there are a lot more young families that care about improving their quality of life.


This afternoon I conducted my first Tap Water Challenge on UofL's Belknap Campus. During a tap water challenge, students are asked to identify different types of water; Aquafina, Kroger Bottled Water, and Louisville Tap. Then they are asked to pick their favorite.

Of the 51 students we challenged from 12:30-3pm:
25 preferred Tap
14 preferred Kroger Bottled Water
12 preferred Aquafina (which cost twice as much as the Kroger Bottled Water).
We also got 70 signatures asking President Ramsey to implement more conveniently located water fountains.
Yay for being proactive!