Sugar. Ah, honey, honey.

Who knew that sugar had so much history?  Most people in the world eat sugar everyday and probably do not even think twice about where it came from or its background.  When I was little (and most kids are probably this way) I always wanted candy and sweet things that had a lot of sugar in them but who knew that there is actually a process that goes into making sugar crystals.  The process of making the actual sugar crystals starts from the actual plant, sugar cane, which is a grass.  After the sugar cane grows and matures, it is cut and drained of its juices by chopping, grounding, pressing or pounding the sugar cane grass.  After all of the juices are collected, heat is added to the liquid that contains sucrose.  Evaporation occurs, leaving behind very concentrated sucrose.  Finally, after the concentrated sucrose cools, it leaves behind how we are use to seeing sugar, in its crystallized form.

Aside from the process of making sugar, the actual sugar cane grass is thought to have been around since 8000 B.C and was first domesticated in New Guinea.  It is fascinating to think this agricultural staple has been around that long.  Even though sugar cane has been around for a long time, it is very difficult to grow and climate conditions have to be near perfect.  For example, in the Mediterranean region, sugar cane was being grown in the northern areas as well as the southern areas and also being grown in the summer.  It was difficult to grow sugar cane in the northern parts of the Mediterranean because the growing season was so short and sugar cane needs quite a while to grow and mature. Sugar cane also requires a lot of water, tropical to subtropical climate and very little temperature fluctuations.  In the southern parts of the Mediterranean long and hot summers made it difficult to water the sugar cane and keep it growing.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and sugar is everywhere.  There are probably very few things in the grocery store you can buy that do not contain some sort of sugar.  In a political ecology sense, sugar is the cause of many controversial topics and can be related back to our discussion about capitalism, social justice and equity.  In Brazil, sugar cane is a leading crop and can be tied in with big companies exporting the sugar from the area and paying the farmers and workers who cut and maintain the sugar cane plantations very little money.  It is very much a capitalist market in which the main goal is to maximize profits, with very little cost to the companies, no matter how bad the working wages and conditions are.   Sugar cane is also grown in very few places around the world and since the demand is high, suppliers can charge as much as they want for their sugar, knowing there are few markets to choose from.

Sugar cane farm on the island of Negros in the Philippines.

http://www.reap-canada.com/international_dev_4_3_3.htm  (where I got my picture)

Capitalism, Equality and Social Justice.

Personally, I do not think capitalism, equality and social justice are compatible.

 For one, the main goal of companies is to maximize profits.  If equality was compatible with capitalism, there would be no price differences and companies would not care about maximizing their profits.

On the social justice side, capitalism definitely is not compatible with social justice because companies will pay the lowest wages possible, and have the worst working environments in order to make the most profit on the product they are selling.  Take Apple for example (nothing against Apple, I am actually writing this blog on a MacBook and have an iPhone…).  The working conditions of this company is no secret, it can be read all over the news.  Yet their computers start at $1,000 and their phones at $600 (rough estimate on both).  But yet the people working to assemble these phones and computers are barely making a living wage and are working awful 18+ hour days, with no vacation, benefits, breaks and half the time they don't even go home at night to see their families.  At the end of the day it is all about the profit for the company and if they can pay low labor wages and use outside resources to get these lower costs which increase profits then they will.

Get to know me.

This is the first time I have ever tried a blog and let me tell you… it's a little strange.  I do not find myself to be very website or Internet savvy so it may take me awhile to figure out this whole blogger thing.  Anyway, I'll just go ahead and introduce myself and that can be my first ever blog post.

I was born and raised in Tucson, AZ and that is also where I currently reside.  I am a first semester junior and my major is Public Management and Policy with two minors in Environmental Studies and Marine Science.  I am not a traditional student by any means.  I graduated high school in 2008 and even though I attended college right after, it has take me a while (and a couple semesters off here and there) to really figure out what I want to do.  Sometimes I still think I have no idea what I want to do and that can be frusturating.  However, I am very interested in environmental policy and would like to go to grad school one day and pursue a career in marine affairs and policy.

…. Basically, I want to save the whales and other marine animals, as well as protect their environments and spread awareness about conservation and sustainability.  Other than that my hobbies include cleaning up after my three crazy dogs.  I have two cocker spaniels and a hound mix.  I also like to hang out with my cat, she's pretty much the light of my life and also spending as much time as I can with my husband of almost three years.

Happy blogging everyone.