Values, Ethics & Issues in Technology and Society

8/12/2019 Values, Ethics & Issues in Technology and Society

1/20

Civil Engineering Technology Group Project

Prepared for:

Dr. P. Denton

Values, Ethics, Issues in Technology and Society

Prepared by:

Danny Frost

Mark Dacquel

Melissa McMillan

Vip Sandhu


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Summary

Dr. Peter Denton, Red River College Instructor of the Values, Ethics and Issues inTechnology and Society Course, assigned our Intermediate Environmental

Technology class an individual/group project. Groups were selected randomly and

our group consists of Danny Frost, Mark Dacquel, Melissa McMillan and Vip

Sandhu. We have chosen Food as our option of analysis.

Individually, we are to watch one of the movies/documentaries and provide analysis

on the main problems identified in each. As a group we have discussed and

identified ways in which one or more of the problems we have viewed in the

movies/documentaries are reflected in what is happening in Lake Winnipeg.

We recommend taking a proactive approach at the consumer level as a means ofreflecting our values, resulting in a change of an unsustainable system that is

destroying Lake Winnipeg.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary...................................................................................................................................... iIntroduction ....................... ...................... ......................... ......................... ...................... ........... 1

Part A .......................................................................................................................................... 2

Food, Inc. by Vip Sandhu......................................................................................................... 3

A River of Waste by Danny Frost......................... ...................... ......................... ......................

!raps"oot: #"e $amb%e &it" our Wastes by Melissa McMillan................................... ............. '

(dib%e !ity: $ro& t"e Revo%ution by Mark Dacquel.......................................... ...................... .. )

Part * .......................................................................................................................................... +

a-e Winnipe ........................ ....................... ......................... ......................... ...................... .. /

(dib%e !ity: $ro& t"e Revo%ution ........................ ...................... ......................... ...................... 0

!raps"oot: #"e $amb%e &it" our Wastes ....................... ......................... ...................... ......... 1

A River of Waste ........................ ......................... ...................... ......................... .................... 11

Food, Inc. .............................................................................................................................. 12

!onc%usion ............................................................................................................................ 13

Recommendations ................................................................................................................ 13

Wor-s !ited .............................................................................................................................. 1

Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 1)

Appendi A: #reatment Process Sc"ematic .................... ......................... ....................... ........ 1+


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Introduction

As per Part A, we have written individual reports of the main problem identified ineach of the movies/documentaries of the food topic cluster: Edible City: Grow the

Revolution, Crapshoot, A River of Waste and Food Inc. and what arguments are

made about it in each of them.

As per Part B we have conducted group discussions and are reporting ways in which

one or more of the problems addressed in each of the movies/ documentaries reflect

on the current state of Lake Winnipeg.

Lake Winnipeg has been named the worlds most threatened lake by the Global

Nature Fund because of its vulnerability from agricultural run-off and sewage

discharge. Water quality in Lake Winnipeg has deteriorated over time, as evidencedby the increasing frequency and intensity of algal blooms in the lake in recent years.

(Environment Canada, 2011)

We will go into detail about the use of specific technologies used in the four

movies/documentaries and expand on how it reflects on Lake Winnipeg and develop

a practical plan of how to respond to the Lake Winnipeg crisis including our reasons

for taking these steps.


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Part A


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Food, Inc. by Vip Sandhu

This documentary observes corporate farming in the United States, thisdocumentary concludes that agricultural business produces food that is unhealthy, in

a way that is environmentally unsafe and abusive of both animals and workers. The

film's different segments show the industrial production of different kinds of meat,

calling it economically and environmentally unsustainable. Other segments look at

the industrial production of grains and vegetables, again labeling this economically

and environmentally unsustainable. The last section of this documentary is about the

trade and industry and legal power, such as food labelling rules of the major food

companies, the profits of which are based on supplying cheap but contaminated

food, the heavy use of petroleum-based, and the promotion of unhealthy food

consumption habits by the American public. The food industry doesnt want you toknow the truth about what the food; we are eating because if we did we might not

want to eat it again.

The documentary follows the food-buying routines of families with low-income. It is

more expensive to buy a few fruits or vegetables, than buying a fast food burger or

many snack options at the supermarket, including chips, cookies and soft drink

beverages. As a result, the most significant cause of obesity depends on the income

level of a family, while the industries make it out to be an issue of personal

responsibility. The actual issue is the policies by government. The government farm

policy makes the least healthy foods the most affordable for low-income families, so

people with lower income, become the victims of type-2 diabetes. This documentary

is a real wake-up call on the food industry. It provides a better understanding why

some of our family or friends die at early age from heart diseases and diabetes.

I think the main purpose of this documentary is: Make consumers attentive about the

food they buy, where their food comes from and how they can do their part to make

proper choices about what they eat daily. The government policies would have to

change to improve the quality of food production in this country so that we can all

afford to consume a healthy diet. The unhealthy food might be cheaper but in the

long run it can cost us more. Fortunately it's not too late for us to make change in our

eating habits.


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A River of Waste by Danny Frost

Areas had lakes and rivers in pristine condition before the factory farming startedgetting so big for the sewage system to handle, and it just seems to be getting biggerand most water ways are already too far from saving. Urbanizing large populationswithout adequate sewage treatment would result in health risk on a massive scale.

Different animal waste and chemicals being dumped into waterways has so manydifferent types of problems such as fish having diseases which harm humans whoare eating them, people cannot go swimming in certain areas because the water Iscausing rashes and other illnesses, and pretty soon the water treatment plants eventhough do a great job wont be able to keep up with the amount of animal waste thatfactory farms are producing.

Some chemicals that are being produced from the animal waste such as ammoniadont just stay in the water, they can become airborne pollution, which causes otherhealth problems like damage to the lungs and other organs in the body. Arsenicwhich is a very lethal chemical which is proven to cause cancer and other medicalproblems is also used by farmers who seem to think it is more important to help thechickens grow a little bigger so they can make a little more money at other peoplesexpense.

The amounts of antibiotics that are being used on the animals that we eat everydayare causing so many problems. The growth hormones and other drugs that aregiven to these animals ends up going into us, which is making more money for thefarmers and saving us a little bit of money as well, but at what cost. Doctors are

starting to notice that humans are not being able to fight off infections and otherviruses as easy as it used to be because of the amount of different drugs that aregiven to the animals that we are eating. With business doing well, it only makes itworse because the drug companies in the future will have a hard time trying to keepup with the demand of these antibiotics, especially with over 70% going to farmers togive to their animals, which in time will cause big problems to the population in thefuture.

What a lot of people dont understand is what happens on land effects the water.The Poultry and meat industry should have to be held accountable and find better ordifferent ways of disposing their dangerous waste such as arsenic, antibiotics andgrowth hormones into our fragile waterways. Large scale corporations are becoming

one of the leading causes of environmental damage along with a huge impact to ourpublic health, and if major changes dont happen soon we will all be in trouble. Amessage from the Cree Indian prophecy states that only after the last tree is cutdown, the last or the water is poisoned, the last animal destroyed, only then will yourealize you cannot eat money.


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Crapshoot: The Gamble with our Wastes by Melissa McMillan

The film Crapshoot gets the message across that nothing flushed down the toilet isever just gone. The Roman Cloaca Maxima was the largest sewer in the world,

dated back to 616 B.C. We have been using water as the main source of moving our

waste ever since. Sewers have proven to be an effective method of moving our

waste, but this is if it is only human waste that we are flushing down our toilets, and

today that is not that case. With the rapidly growing population of the world, our

sewers are being worked harder than ever before.

Sometimes we dont even think about how the things we put down the toilet could

affect our lives and health. People flush anything from wet wipes, tampons and

condoms down their toilets without considering the consequences of their actions.

These materials can end up in our rivers and lakes, affecting the lives of marine

organisms. If all the fish became extinct due to the mismanagement of our

wastewater system, it would drastically change the worlds ecosystem. The waste in

our sewers systems that end up in our rivers and lakes are not going to be the main

reason why all the fish could die, but it is would be a major contributor to the

problem. The film explained a scenario in St. Johns, Newfoundland how raw

sewage is dumped straight into open water without any treatment.

The way we manage our wastewater does not only affect our lakes and rivers.

Crapshoot explains how farmers in North America and Western Europe use sewage

sludge as a fertilizer because of the abundance of nutrients, namely nitrogen andphosphorus without proper treatment prior to use. Sewage sludge regularly tests

positive for a host of heavy metals, flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic

hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, dioxins, and a host of other chemicals

and organisms. (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/10/sewage-sludge-as-

fertilizer-safe/). It is disturbing to think that a few people out there actually claim that

sewage sludge is good for you without a proper investigation of the practice and

government legislation.

The main point of the film is how the current wastewater systems play a role in our

everyday lives. The film suggests the idea of moving away from the traditional

method of using fresh water to move our waste, without an alternative solution that is

both effective and sustainable. The thought of wasting perfectly good drinking water

to flush our waste does not make sense to me, but with further education into our

current system I have faith in mankind to develop technologies to introduce a better

system and individuals to be conscious about the impacts of what they flush down

their toilets. Ideally we could go back to the wastewater system that was sustainable

by design in 616 B.C. using modern technology to improve it.


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Edible City: Grow the Revolution by Mark Dacquel

The film Edible City: Grow the Revolution identifies the main problem of the worldscurrent food system as being unsustainable. The film stresses the food industrys

negative impact on the well-being of humans, wildlife, environment and economy as

a whole.

The film defines the term monocropping, which is an industrial agriculture process

where large areas of land are used to grow a single crop. The film argues that

monocrops as a technology are reliant on new technologies to offset the chain

reaction of adverse effects the current technologies cause. Examples of monocrops

and their technological relationships are:

Depletion of nutrients in soilFertilizers PestsPesticides

Larger areasHeavy machinery

Poor yieldsGenetic modification

High cost of operation Tax breaks (subsidies)

Monocrops are unnatural by design, and its intent is not to produce crops for the

safe consumption of humans, but to mass produce crops at a lower monetary cost at

the expense of ethical values. The barely legal system of monocrops is

unsustainable.

The unsustainability of the worlds current food system is further argued by the idea

that we are losing touch with traditionally methods of farming, more so the organic

method of farming. Edible City gives us insight about becoming too reliant on the

technologies that promote a food system where eating healthy is a privilege and not

a human right. Examples of the current food model and negative implications are:

Lower price of a 2L bottle of popHigher price of 2L carton of milk.

Poor nutritionHigher disease and mortality rates

Higher price of oilHigher price of food

Lack of local groceries with fresh produce

More expensive processedfoods

Edible City: Grow the Revolution promotes awareness towards a sustainable way of

feeding ourselves because our inability to be self-sufficient in growing our own crops

and raising our own livestock leaves us vulnerable to the problems of dependency

on our food system.


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Part B


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Lake Winnipeg

Lake Winnipeg is the tenth largest freshwater lake in the world and serves as amajor watershed in Canada. A watershed is the area of land where all of the water

that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place. (United States

Environmental Protection Agency, 2014)

The Lake Winnipeg Watershed is the second largest watershed in the world and

spans from the Rocky Mountains to Lake Superior and from the northern most part

of Lake Winnipeg to South Dakota. The watershed is dominated by agricultural land

use with the Saskatchewan, Red (including the Assiniboine) and Winnipeg Rivers

feeding Lake Winnipeg. The watershed is populated by over 7 million people, with

the majority residing in major Canadian cities including Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina,

and Winnipeg (see Figure 1 Lake Winnipeg Watershed).

Lake Winnipeg is a prime example of an unsustainable system, in which the end

result is the eutrophication of the lake, also known as nutrient enrichment. Nutrients,

particularly nitrogen and phosphorus are essential for plant and algal growth. The

acceleration of rapid algal growth can be attributed to the technological practices

discussed from the movies/documentaries.

Figure 1 - Lake Winnipeg Watershed (Environment Canada, 2011)


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Edible City: Grow the Revolution

The film Edible City: Grow the Revolutionidentifies monocropping as an industrialagriculture process being a major contributor to soil and water pollution. Monocrops

are excessively large farms producing a single crop over long periods of time. These

conditions make replenishment of soil nutrients unsustainable so fertilizers

consisting of mainly nitrogen and phosphorus are used to supplement nutrients to

the crops.

Monocropping promotes an influx of agricultural pests such as weeds, insects,

bacteria and fungus. To prevent agricultural pests from destroying the crop, a variety

of pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, microbicides and fungicides) are sprayed over

crops. The commercial use of pesticides and fertilizers in monocrops enter the Lake

Winnipeg Watershed via industrial runoff.

Figure 2 - Commercial use of pesticides and fertilizers on monocrops. (Richie, 2012)


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Crapshoot: The Gamble with our Wastes

The film Crapshoot: The Gamble with our Wastesidentifies the modern ways wemanage wastewater and how it affects our rivers and lakes. The film addresses

wastewater treatment as a technology that does not solve our sewage problems,

only temporarily relieves it. The film implicates wastewater treatment such as the

process done by the City of Winnipeg as not being perfect and that the treatment is

reliant on multiple phases of different chemical processes before it is discharged as

effluent -liquid waste or sewage discharged into a river or the sea, which will always

contain contaminants despite the great lengths to treat it (see Appendix A

Treatment Process Schematic).

Crapshoot also discusses the use of sewer sludge as fertilizer because of the

abundance of nutrients, namely nitrogen and phosphorus. Sewage sludge is derived

from the treatment of domestic wastewater in a specialized treatment facility. The

City of Winnipeg currently deals with 13,000 tons of solid biowaste. Biosolids, or

what is commonly known as sewage sludge, is whats left over when the sewage

treatment process is over. For years, the city would spread the nutrient rich biosolids

on fields. (CBC News, 2013) Sewage sludge regularly tests positive for a host of

heavy metals, flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals,

phthalates, dioxins, and a host of other chemicals and organisms. (Richardson,

2010)

The wastewater treatment and sewage sludge processes only displace thewastewater and sewage runoff for a temporary period of time as Lake Winnipeg is

the final destination.


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A River of Waste

The film A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth of Factory Farmsidentifies theunregulated practices of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) of the meat

and poultry industry.

On unregulated factory farms, animals are confined within a smaller area than

traditional operations. This causes an increase in the concentration of waste which

then increases the potential impact on our health and lakes. The manure and urine

from these animals are moved into massive waste lagoons. One leak or an overflow

of these lagoons can cause pollutants (arsenic, antibiotics and growth hormones) to

get into our water supply, not to mention the hazardous gases these factories emit.

The poultry and meat industry have found loopholes in the regulation of pollution.

Large scale corporations are becoming one of the leading causes of environmental

damage along with a huge impact to our public health, and if major changes dont

happen soon we will all be in trouble

Manitobas so-called hog boom, meanwhile, has seen the number of hogs on the

watershed swell to 8.2 million, dumping an annual excrement load equivalent to at

least 30 million humans. Alberta, the western limit of the lakes catchment area, has

another eight million head of hogs and cattle. (Macdonald, 2009)


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Food, Inc.

The film Food, Inc.identifies the food industry as being controlled by a corporateentity with major political pull preventing thorough regulatory provisions of industrial

practices. The monopolizing of the food industry allows for total control of the way

our food is produced and marketed.

Food, Inc. gives a general summation of the technological practices discussed from

the previous movies/documentaries in this report having an adverse effect on Lake

Winnipeg. A recap on the technologies promoting the destruction of Lake Winnipeg

includes:

Monocroppings excessive use of fertilizers

Wastewater management CAFOs and the excessive amount of manure production

Money as the ultimate excuse to oversee ethical responsibilities

The implications suggested in Food, Inc. provide a clear reflection of the waste in the

Lake Winnipeg Watershed as being driven by the prime objective of profitability.


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Conclusion

Agriculture, wastewater and ignorance have a synergistic effect toward theeutrophication of Lake Winnipeg. Agricultural technologies, resulting in excess

livestock manure and excess fertilizers are the leading sources of nitrogen and

phosphorus. The current wastewater management plan is not 100% efficient for

treating large quantities of waste and these systems cannot be overlooked with the

excuse something is better than nothing. The technological practices discussed

from each movie/documentary are all unsustainable practices in which dependency

on the implementing of new technologies to fix problems caused by todays

technology is a vicious cycle without ever nipping the bud at the source.

Recommendations

Technology is a product of the choices we make, our choices reflect our values. If

we want change, it must come from within. The information age allows us access to

networks and information to educate ourselves with any issue currently affecting our

communities and health. The movies/documentaries provide insight to what is

happening in the commercial food industry and with our wastewater management

systems.

We recommend taking a proactive approach at an individual level that will reflect our

values. Sitting around talking about what should be done is not a proactive

approach. We must do what we can at a consumer level as the food industrydelivers what the marketplace demands, so we have to create a demand for good

wholesome food that reflects our values by:

Being aware of the methods used to produce what you eat

Being self-sufficient in growing your own crops or raising livestock

Buying locally grown produce not monocrop produce

Buying ethically raised meat and poultry not CAFO meat and poultry

Change will not occur unless the government gets involved. The tobacco industry

had huge control over public policy and it is the perfect model on how an industrys

irresponsible behavior was changed. We need tougher regulations and enforcement

for how farms treat animals and dispose of their waste, and the quality of their waste

lagoons. Things can change in this country; it changed against the big tobacco

companies. We have to influence the government and readjust these scales back

into the interest of the consumer. We did it before, and we can do it again. (Food,

Inc., 2010)


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Works Cited

CBC News. (2013, September 3). City Seeks Solution to Winnipeg's "Sewage

Sludge" Problem. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from CBC News:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/city-seeks-solution-to-winnipeg-

s-sewage-sludge-problem-1.1415177

City of Winnipeg. (2013, October 14). Water and Waste Department. Retrieved

February 19, 2014, from City of Winnipeg:

http://www.winnipeg.ca/waterandwaste/

Environment Canada. (2011, May 30). State of Lake Winnipeg: 1999 to 2007 -

Highlights. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from Environment Canada:

www.ec.gc.ca/doc/publications/eau-water/COM1167/intro_e.htm

Macdonald, N. (2009, August 20). Canada's Sickest Lake. Retrieved February

20, 2014, from Maclean's: Environment, Science & Technology:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/20/canada%E2%80%99s-sickest-lake/

Richardson, J. (2010, October 4). Sewage Sludge as Ferilizer: Safe?Retrieved

February 16, 2014, from Food Safety News:

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/10/sewage-sludge-as-fertilizer-

safe/#.UwVQm_ldUeg

Richie, M. (2012, March 16). The Dangers of Monocrops: Lessons from the Irish

Potatoe Famine. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from EcoCentric:

http://gracelinks.org/blog/1150/the-danger-of-monocrops-lessons-from-

the-irish-potato-famin


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United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2014, March 6). Water:

Watershed. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from EPA:

http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/whatis.cfm


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Appendices


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Values, Ethics & Issues in Technology and Society

Documents

Transcript of Values, Ethics & Issues in Technology and Society