Building a Better World

By Nate Feldman Six years ago, in June 2017, I went to the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, North Carolina.  People take care of lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center.  Most of the world's lemurs live in Madagascar.  However, the largest collection of lemurs outside of Madagascar are in North Carolina.   I went to the Duke Lemur Center on a Sunday morning.  They gave us a tour of the lemurs.  There was a woman there.  She explained different information about the lemurs.  We saw the lemurs inside of their cages.  There were many types of lemurs.  After that, we saw a video about the Duke Lemur Center.  Finally, we went to the gift shop.  We bought different things.  I bought a hoodie with a lemur on it.  It said, "The Duke Lemur Center," on it.   The Duke Lemur Center is very important.  It takes care of lemurs and makes sure they are doing well.  I appreciate their work.  

  By Nate Feldman Currently, in the Sociology class I am teaching at ELS, we are listening to lectures about how to start Social Movement Organizations, or SMOs as the lecture refers to them.   People often begin social movements when they feel deprived of something or feel something in their society is unjust.  They find like-minded individuals who share these grievances and often form an organization to address them.  When these organizations begin actions, such as protests or speeches dealing with the issue at hand, a movement has begun.   I can't say there's an exact movement I am planning to start at the moment.  For a long time, I've been interested in interacting with people from different backgrounds, and I definitely like the idea of getting people from different backgrounds to get to know one another and understand each other's cultures and traditions in a respectful way.   One thing I'd be interested in doing is starting a sum...

  By Nate Feldman Yesterday in class we read about Sea Turtles.  They are a very old species.  Some lived over 200 million years ago, long before humans were around.  However, sea turtles are now in danger, and their numbers are falling because of human activity.   The ocean waters are rising because of warmer temperatures.  Sea turtles place their eggs in the sand in beaches, but the rising waters flood the area now.  This destroys their nests.   Also, the temperatures affect the gender of the turtles.  There are more female turtles because it is warmer.  This is because of global warming.  Male turtles are born with cooler temperatures.  There are less males, now.   Some people want the turtles to be safe.  Mariana Fuentes is a conservationist and a professor at Florida State University.  She wants to protect the turtle nesting sites, so she created an organization to do this. They protect the ne...