Paideia Text and Issues Lecture

Mark London, the guest speaker at the lecture talked primarily about the Amazon Rainforest, how it has changed over the last 25 years and what needs to be done. The Amazon Rainforest is a huge part of our world, and every human being has depended on it somehow or in some way in their lifetime. In this lecture, London says that the Amazon in depleting rapidly every year, and we as humans, really need to do something and do it quickly. He also talks about the number of people who call the Amazon home. This is not a small number, over 20 million! When taken into consideration you can't just say "we need to save the forest, find somewhere else to live" 20 million people will fight that, and probably win. During this lecture I realized that the Amazon Rainforest is so important to the world, not only to the people and animals that live there but it also helps regulate the climate.

To help this situation, incentives are being offered to not deforest. In exchange people will get incentives if they do certain tasks, such as fish-farming, nut gathering, etc. The goal of this is to give these people better rewards and opportunities if they don’t deforest. And the only protection the forest has now is the people that live there who go for these incentives.

I found this lecture very informative and valuable. It's not too often I listen to people talk about the Amazon and how it effects the whole world. This is something that is important for me as a teacher to consider because teachers need to help students see the bigger picture. Even though it's not always a huge issue like "going green" but sometimes students lose focus on what the ultimate goal of the lesson or year is and we need to help keep them informed and determined.