In recent class periods, I feel like I have contributed a bit to the conversations in the sense that I have brought up quite a bit of pointers that helped us as a group branch into a deeper conversation. The collapse of Easter Island was no joke and it was something today’s society can learn from. They used up their nonrenewable resources incredibly quick and did not even try to conserve anything. This week, I brought up that what I believed was to have really hurt them was the deforestation of their trees. Without trees, they had no wood which left the completely deserted on the island. Another thing that was mentioned among the group was the extinction of most of their animals. I brought forward the idea that because there were no animals to secrete feces, there was no manure to fertilize the soil, which led to the erosion of the soil, in regard to the lack of nutrients in the soil. Because of the extinction of their animals and the inability to plant crops, they began to starve and resorted to cannibalism. I am a conversationalist so I love communicating ideas and listening to others, but I feel like I could have done better at letting other people talk. I feel like I had a one-sided conversation with one person, but the others remained mostly silent. I always want people to feel open to communicate their ideas and I never want someone to feel like their ideas are silly or not correct, so I always like to be encouraging of others to say something that is on their mind. During the next group discussion that I am included in, I will try to pause and allow others to speak. It is hard to stop talking for me though, because once I am interested or passionate in a topic, I just run my mouth! Last week when we talked about sustainability, I have really been reflecting on what that really means. Based on what I saw in The 11^th Hour and what I know about today’s issues in the world, I can see the since that movie was released, the world’s wicked problems have only gotten worse. Product waste, climate change, and deforestation have slowly gotten worse and it is severely affecting our ecosystem. I know this is all due to human interaction and people don’t realize that our world is dying. When I reflect on this it makes me super emotional considering most people do not care about the planet, because “most of us will be gone before the world ends”. If we continue to live the way we do, we may meet that demise beforehand. I could definitely pay attention better with how sustainable I am living my life. There is always another way to do something more ecofriendly. It always starts with the little things, like picking up an empty can off the sidewalk and recycling it or walking to the park instead of driving. These little things add up into making our environment cleaner and safer and I believe that if all of us were on the same page and worked together, the world would function much better.