Selection 10 - Life and Death of the Salt Marsh

The Marshes are such a beautiful thing, they are a ribbon of green, and dancing river of water. It creeps as far inland as the tides can go and as far as the eye can see. It has wonderful, clean, fresh smells of Spartina which is a fairly strong odor mixed from the elements of the sea and the grasses.  But as the truth comes out the marshes have been bothered, dug up, poisoned and polluted, and can have a smell of hydrogen sulfide which smells like rotten egg odor. 
The dangerous ways of marshes are from human activity not the natural processes, we destroy the wetlands and shallow waters by interrupting it.  We build things on it, dig it up, and we indirectly pollute it.  We need to do alot of planning and working to keep these wetlands healthy and clean. We do not need more pollution and destroying of the ecosystems than we already have done.

Selection 34 - Environmental Justice for All

People all over for years now have watched their neighboring communties as well as their own become dumping grounds for the waste we do not have room for.  Citizens were quiet for a little while but not for long, it states that there were local activists that had been organizing something under the mantle of environmental justice since 1968.  In the early 90's there was a new better group of activists that brought attention to pollution problems threatening the low-income and minority communties.
Birth of a Movement:  around 3 decade ago environmental justice didn't quite reach the radar for many environmental or civil rights groups, but shortly did after.
It's about Winning, Not Whining: environmental justice groups are making their voices heard very loud, there are alot of laws passed for cleaner environments.  There is a Clean Air Act that focuses on helping the poorer people and everyone around them.
I hope this keeps up, and I hope things get better, and environmental justice is served!

Selection 32 - Our Stolen Future

Alot of damage we see in lab animals and in wildlife has been unfortunately forewarning us of the symptoms that have been increasing in human population. Humans and animals share alot in common, sometimes we forget but most things we have, first came from the natural resources we have. We use animals for testing and alot of people argue with that but the scientists do know what they are doing, and if the hurt the animals, they are obviously going to hurt us.  In 1991, in Wisconsin, scientists explored hormone distrupters that lead to harmful chemicals being exposed to the population.  They had to let everyone know that these distrupters were out in the open and to be very careful of their use.  Although people again disagree with animal testing, the animal studies provide us with knowledge of what is harmful or not, and we should always take that into consideration. We need to start really looking at what is harmful for both animals and humans and maybe start trying to figure out a better way than animal testing. We want a bright future, not a stolen one.

Selection 31 - Living Downstream : An Ecologist looks at Cancer and the Environment

An interesting fact is that "Deaths of adoptive parents from cancer before the age of 50 increased the rate of mortality from cancer fivefold among the adoptees. . . Deaths of biological parents from cancer had no detectable effect on the rate of mortality from cancer among the adoptees" (Sandra Steingraber). There was on article called "Scientists identify Gene Responsible for Human Bladder Cancer" the article tells us about how they "located the segment of DNA responsible for the transformation. And by comparing this segment to its unmutated form in noncancerous human cells, they were able to pinpoint the exact alteration that had caused a respectable gene to go bad" (Sandra Steingraber).  But they also found this segment in other cancers as well.  The rate of bladder cancer increased 10% between 1973 and 1991.  It was attributed among women who smoked cigarrettes.  On the other hand, we need to start imagining our alternative future and so we begin with a retrospective view for two reasons.  First, we carry many carcinogens in our that are not being used but kept domestically, and second we need to find out what pesticides were sprayed in neighbourhoods and what sorts of chemicals they contain.  Overall, cancer is in peoples genes and cannot as of right now be fully cured, we need to look into our future and see what we can do to help stop the spread of it and do our best to find a way to help ourselves to be more prepared.

Selection 12 - Ecosystems and Human Well-being

People all over depend on earth's ecosystems. They provide food, water, disease mangement, climate, and much more. Over the past 50 years humans have changed these ecosystems not always for the better.  There are 3 major problems with out ecosystems.  First, approximately 60% of ecosystem services examined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment group were being degraded or used in an unstainable way. Second, there was evidence that changes to the ecosystem were not for the well being of humans, and third, the degradation of the ecosystem are being layed on the poor and its not fair. There is no simple fix for these problems. The most significant changes have been due to our needs for food and water, these changes have helped for the better and reduced malnourished people and ahve improved human health. There are some aspects of the ecosystem that we are trying to organize so they are better looked after, for example agriculture, fisheries aquaculture and also water and forestry.
Overall the ecosystems have alot of problems we are trying to fix, but also alot of those problems come in handy sometimes, and help us feed the hungry. We are trying to figure out how to make plans and keep things growing and safe, and hopefully we accomplish that.

Activity - Jeremy Jackson

Jeremy Jackson is a coral reef ecologist, in his lecture he talked about how we wrecked our oceans.  There is overfishing, pollution and overheating.  Overfishing is a very big problem in the world, he talked about how in the 50's they did the same thing we do now, they paid good money to go fishing and catch the biggest fish and the difference between than and now for the size of fish is tremendous.  He also showed a picture of coral reef, and there was no fish around, quite odd, when fish are supposed to be swimming all over the place. The reefs are the fishes homes. Pollution and overheating are also very big issues. With pollution he talked about two biological pollutants, they are introduced species and things that come from nutrients. An example for the introduced species would be the killer algae, and an example for what comes from the nutrients would be nitrogen fertilizers. There is also climate change with overheated and climate change isn't always the best thing for environments like the coral reefs and the ocean.  I feel we need to actually do something about how we treat our ocean, its very sad to hear all these horrible things that are happening. Put some more research in to it, and actually come up with a plan to minimize the pollutants going into the ocean, the overfishing we do, and somehow figure out our climate change.

Reflection # 4 - Core Values

My core values would have to be honesty, caring for things/people, being loyal, and always stick up for things you believe in.  I've always been taught to always tell the truth, and I feel that this is a good core value because people want to hear the truth, not lies.  I follow this core value very closely.  Also caring for the things around you is also a good core value to have, if you do not care for the things around you, it means you most likely do not care overall.  Being loyal and always sticking up for the things you believe and the people you believe in come hand in hand I think.  They are also very good things to live by. These are the 4 core values I feel I live up to already and there is always room for improvement, and I tend to keep pushing myself more towards these values as a person.

Selection 41 - Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation

In this selection gender and diversity are linked in alot of ways.  Women being the 'second sex' in shared as the same inability to deal with the differences as it is to the displacement and extinction of the environment and things around us. Women like nature are not treated with the same respect and diginity as men most of the time and this is unfair. The marginalization of women and the destruction of diversity give off on one another.  Agricultural 'development' is continuing to work towards erasing diversity, but in the third world country they are trying to keep it going.  In most cultures women are usually the custtodians of the biodiversity, what they do is seen but never eknowledge by the public, it is invisible, or someone else may claim it for themselves.  Women farmers are the essense of farming, and want the seed always be there and to be continuous, never running out of anything, where as the man is all for the monoculture profits. Therefore, we should be aware of what the women do with farming and make sure they get as much benefit as the male farmers.  Genetic engineering is wrong, and can cause many health issues along with environmental issues, the women see that, and men are only in it for the dollar.

Selection 29 - Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems

The new pesticides and herbicides we are using are sustainable and are not helping us grow more in the future. They are causing major health issues and environmental problems. The manure we are using is causing larger fisheries to have 'dead zones'.  Modern farming is also a problem nowadays, it can also contribute to the erosion of soil.  The estimated cost of the year for public and environmental health losses exceed $45 billion.  Integrated pest and nutrient management systems and certified organic agriculture can help reduce damage on agrochemical inputs. The organic farming  has made a change in the movement of organic farming where its doubled in a matter of 5 years. There was a Rodale institute farming systems trail. The Rodale insitute farming system created three systems of cropping: conventional, animal manure and legume-based organic and legume based organic systems. The conventional farming was done using fertilizers, herbicides and reflected the commercial convential demand for crops. Animal based crops were put as if grown for animal livesock and not for cash sale. The legume systems just didnt use herbicides were much like convectional farming.
The convectional farming has more fossil fuel burning into the the atmosphere which brings carbon dioxide up, and carbon dioxide as we all know is not good for the environment. Overall, making strong evidence that this organic process will be better for our environment is a good idea and should be kept up and made a priority.

Selection 19-The Current State of biological Diversity

In this selection Wilson explains how there are three circumstances to treat diversity more seriously as a global resource. First one is exploding human populations, second, science is discovering new uses for biological diversity that can relieve human suffering and environmental destruction, and third is alot of diversity is being lost and cannot be brought back caused by the destruction of natural habitats and so on. Are diversity is plumating downward, humans are altering the land, and our fishing availablities. We are harming the fisheries by overexploiting them and we need to stop it fast and soon.  Humans are using alot of carbon, water, nitrogen, synthetic organic chemicals, and fossil fuels. By releasing these chemicals in the ecosystem we are complicating cycles, therefore easier to mess up.  Although all these chemicals have some positive effect on our diversity, we need to modify the amount we are using, and how help to prevent future damage to our environment and the civilization on it.

Activity- Carl Safina

I watched the very touching video from Carl Safina, and I think he has alot of good points.  First he told us a story about how his friend called him and told him he had been fishing for almost his whole life and in all his life he had never seen a dolphin come up the boat before.  Dolphins scare the fish away so he was trying to get away from the dolphin, but the dolphin kept coming by the boat, and when it was by the boat is blew water and oil out of its blow whole, it was like the dolphin was coming to ask for help.  I feel this video among many have really taught me about oil spills and how they aren't really accidents more so negligance per say. I feel people could have avoided this crisis if they had maybe thought to prepare a back up plan if something did go wrong, but the government and companies did not, and it is not that surprising.  They try and make it seem like they are getting everything back to normal when everyone knows nothing will go back to normal or it will be a very long time until it does so. As Carl said, there are bird habitats in the middle of the oil spill and they are bringing the birds to clean and then bringing them back to the bad environment, just so that in a couple more months they are going to have to clean them all again. "It's like treating a person that was just in the burining building for heart and lungs problems and than sending them back into the fire". (Carl Safina) its not a very smart thing to do.  I agree 100% with all of Carl's explanations and theories and hope someday eventually all the oil will disappear from the ocean.

Reflection # 2- Zoo

Before this class I thought zoos were a good idea, and they were lots of fun for a day trip. I used to go to the zoo all the time when I was little and still do now,  but now that i have actually heard, and learnt about what happens in zoos im quickly changing my mind.  Animals should not be locked up in small cages, we as humans get locked up in small cages called prison because we have done nothing wrong, and sometimes hurtful.  The majority of these animals haven't done anything wrong but yet they are still being locked up to be shown off.  In class we discussed what has been happening in the Calgary zoo, alot of animals have been dying and have become sick, I don't agree with animals being locked up in small cages, and after actually learning about how zoos aren't a great place for animals I feel if we can't make zoos bigger for the animals we shouldn't have them.  A better idea would be having tours where there are animals, we could go into their habitat and explore where they actually live rather than having them locked up.  Animals are not supposed to be locked up in tiny cages to be shown off, they don't learn as well as they would in the wilderness with the rest of its clan or family.  Therefore i feel if we don't change the ways of zoos we shouldn't have any, or the animals will keep becoming more sick and more deaths will occur. 

Reflection #1 - Food Systems

Considering my food system, I could be eating slightly healthier, and less expensive but expensive junk food is great. My family and I just started buying organic foods, although they are more expensive, I think they taste much better than the genetically modified food.  The organic food taste alot more fresh, and I enjoy eating something knowing it has been handled carefully and right. I am not the healthiest eater out there, but I try to get all my vegetables and fruits in for my daily serving.  Chips are cookies also fall very close behind my fruits and vegetables.  Overall, food system isn't the most expensive but is not cheap either, and isn't the healthiest for me, but I try and get all the good things i need for my daily intake in, with a side of junk food.

Blog 3

Taming the Wild, and Modern Issues

Selection 28 - Food Scarcity: An Environmental Wakeup Call

The scarcity of our food is frightening alot of people, if people over fish there won't be fish to catch, if we over hunt there wont be anything to hunt.  People take advantage of alot of things, and food is a major one. Not all people can afford the food we eat in a week, let alone the food we eat in a day, and we throw half of ours away because we made to much or because we are just too full. 
Along the same lines, is water, alot of people do not have clean fresh water.  They usually get it from the dirty rivers or puddles that have occured from rainfall.  Our society is lucky to have what we have, but eventually if we keep doing what we are doing, we are going to run out of all our food and water as well.

Selection 16 - Reinventing the Energy System

Today, we use alot of energy and we are also trying to save it as well. The whole point in trying to save our energy is not using it as much.  We tend to use our energy much more than needed.
For example, people leave their televisions on when they run to the store or when they fall alseep, that is energy not needed to be wasted.
We are trying to use solar energy as a way of renewed modern technology. "The solar photovoltaic cell, a semiconductor device that turns the sun's radiation directly into electric current, is widely used in off grid applications....." (Thomas Easton)
Alot of people can't afford energy, and use what they can, and make the best of it.  Unlike some people who take energy for advantage and let it go to waste. I think people should stop wasting the energy given to them and start using it wisely.

Reflection # 3 - What Future would you like to see for the Alberta Tar Sands?

I think the production of Tar Sands should be stopped completely until the industry has figured out that they can't be doing this, and until our environment heals itself. If we keep going the way we are than nothing is going to get better, only worse.  When everything heals itself we can start working on a new plan to use less of the Tar Sands and be more environmentally friendly.
We had a discussion in class on Tar Sands, and alot of people disagree with shutting it down completely.  If we dont shut it down for a little bit atleast everything will keep building up and eventually will progress to something in the future that we can't fix. 
The movies we watched in class and the book Tar Sands showed me the horrible things it has been doing to our environment, the animals that are living there and even the problems it is causes for mankind.  We need to stop Tar Sands until we can heal everything we have hurt.

Selection 15 - More Profit with less Carbon

The experts of the economy and environment both say that protecting climate will make a trade-off between both the two. Thomas states "the worlds abounds with proven ways to use energy more productively, and smart businesses are leaping to exploit them."
Transportation takes up 70 % of U.S. oil and generates 1/3 carbon emissions. People are trying to reduce the amount of time they are in their vehicles but that doesnt matter when on average the we are making the same amount of oil.
Wind power has been the greatest success, takes away from using oil and it has been proven to work quite well, and make mass production and and improved engineering.

Activity - Lisa Morgonelli - The political chemistry of Oil

I watched the Lisa Morgonelli video on political chemistry of oil, it was very interesting. She talked about how the oil consumption is destroying the environment, and how we use 25% more oil than usual.
When the oil enters the water it doesnt sink, it spreads out like thin layers at the top of the water, than the toxic chemicals in the oil float into water killing fish eggs and smaller aquatic life, for example shrimp, lobster and clams. The ashfaultines than get wiped around by waves into frothy substances like mayonnaise which than triples the mess of the oil.
She goes on to say that when the oil industry just started it was a filthy one and people made alot of money for doing nothing, which i agree with her now still. People are making money while ruining our environment and they are okay with it. I think her video was very interesting, and it filled me in on alot of things that I didnt already know.
 

Reflection # 2 - Protection and Access of Parks

I don't think parks will be able to meet its dual mandates of access and protection. Mankind wants more land, and we have domolished so many of our parks and freeland to build towns and cities, that in a couple years we are going to get bored of what we have now, and start buiding on land that should be left for our wildlife and our plants.  The protection of parks so far is doing an alright job, but I don't think they realise that people that go into these parks are destroying it.
I live close to Birds Hill Park, and I see alot of people going for picnics than leaving their garbage on the ground. Protecting the parks doesn't mean just making sure they dont get cut down, it also requires everyone to look out for their environment. Parks are one of the last freeland places in the world, and if they are covered with garbage it doesn't do much for the environment.
I feel that if everyone just picked up their garbage put it in the garbage bin, things would clear up alot, its all the litter we see everyday, and we don't do anything about it.  In Wapusk, we need to make sure that all the animals, and green space stay like it is. We have to keep a good watch on the park and make sure nothing happens, we cant force anything upon anyone, but we can make sure it stays the same for a while.

Selection 26 - Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis

Since 1750, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased and now exceed pre-industrial values. 
The most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, the global atmospheric concentration of carbon has increased from 2005, and if 2005 it exceeded the natural amount.
Methane, also had increased in the 1990s. Growth rates have declined same time methane had increased, it is consistent with the total emissions. Nitrous oxide has also increased as well in 2005.
The water level has increased as well, mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined in both hemispheres because of water levels rising. 
It is said to be likely that the greenhouse gas concentration would have increased more warming and that could have lead to this rising of water levels.
"Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere". (Thomas Easton)

Reflection # 1 - Where do your environmental ethics lie?

My environmental ethics lie close to biocentric, everything has a meaning to be on earth and in our biodiversity. Some people think its okay to treat the environment like garbage because they dont think anything of it.  Everytime someone litters something that isn't decomposable our environment gets a little more sick.  People do not know how bad our environment actually is or the point its getting to. 
For example, I was on a trip in Toronto, taking a bus downtown and I saw a lady dump a whole bag of undecomposable garbage on the side of the street, and no one said anything to her, like it was normal to litter a whole a bag of garbage on the street. I don't think that is acceptable at all, nor is it right to think you can just do that.
If it werent for the plants, animal, insects, or trees we wouldn't be here today, and i don't think people realise that.  The sad part is, is that they treat the thing that brought the world together like garbage.   

Selection 6 - The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis

This blog explains to us the treatment we give to the nature and the sad outcome we get back from it.  Aldous Huxley went back to a little valley in England where he spent when he was a little child.  It used to be full of beautiful scenery, delightful green grass.  Now it has overgrown bush, and isn't that pleasant anymore.  The rabbits that usually ran around in the valley had caught diseases from the local farmers tried to reduce the amount of rabbits.
Our history tells us of how much wild life, and fresh soils they had, but coming close to the end of the 20th century we have lost alot of that wild life and fresh soils, and should try as hard as we can, and make things better, fix our environment. The technology we have used has been collected from all over the world, our science is the best so far out of all the sciences, and it will only continue to become more and more knowledgeable.

Selection 4 - A Sand Country Alamanac

In our world today everyone looks for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness.  We all look for the same thing, because that is what we know. 
Ethics is a process in ecological evolution. "Its sequences may be described in ecological as well as in philosophical terms. An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation freedom of action in the struggle for existance.  An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct." (Thomas Easton)
So overall your ethics are your personal conduct and belief, is what you do wrong or right?
As Thomas says "Ethics are possibly a kind of community instinct in-the-making".

Activity

David Suzuki's Nature Challenge:
For the activity I read about dish on dishsoap.  In the 60s and 70s laundry detergent was a great way to make clothes white but a horrible thing for our lakes and rivers.  For the lakes and rivers the detergent which has phosphate in it turned them green. There than was a limit on how much phosphate concentrations could be in the laundry detergents. Canada was one of the first countries to ban phosphate in laundry detergent, just last year they banned it from being used in dishwasher soup. 
I think this is a good idea, because it is helping out the environment and clearing out of water systems.  It would have been better if they had figured this in the 60s and 70s, but hopefully now things will get better, and we wont have so much phosphate in our water systems.   

Selection 42 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Over the past while alot of societies have disappeared or collapsed, this is due to popuation size, political, economic and social complexity. Alot of the past societies that have gone through this had eight categories that were damaging the to environment, but these days there are more to be aware of. Global warming and climate are big issues as well that we need to be aware of. In Indonesia's Mt. Tambora there was a volcanic eruption that put so much dust in the atmosphere that it left little sunlight for the area, this eruption caused mass famines there and including places North America and Europe.  Another issue that causes societies to collapse or dissapear is people from neighboring societies. The societies can fight off the enemies only for a certain amount of time before they start to decrease and the environment becomes damaged and at that point the military would have to get involved.  Alot of societies on the other hand work together and make bigger and stronger societies but not all have that resource. 

Selection 38 Human Carrying Capacity

Easter Island is one of the most isolated islands on Earth.  Southwest, 3,474 km away from this isolated island is the closest continental place, Chile. The first people to live on Easter Island were the Polynesians around A.D 690.  Tree space was dominant on the island, but around A.D 1400 the "forest pollen" was at its lowest. With this came deforestation and it brought about soil erosion that were noticeable in the soil profiles of the area.  The human population increased around 0.4% per year for about 13 centuries. The human carrying capacity is what the used to estimate how many people were on the island. They used a model to figure this out, which included the people who used it to specify what they were concerned about. Some examples would include technology, domestic and international political insituations. It is more difficult to find human carrying capacity on the island of Easter Island because not all people were well educated back than.

Selection 7 The Tragedy of the Commons

In the beginning of the selection there is a technical solution saying "one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of mortality" (Garrett Hardin). For example they use the game tic-tac-toe and say there is no technical solution on winning or losing. Which means you don't really know if your going to win or lose, its a game of chance.  With that said, there is a positive and a negitive effect on the Tragedy of the Commons.  The positive effect would be the addition of one animal, and the negative effect would be the increase of overgrazing done by more than 1 animal.  We also find it easier to pollute our environment than take the extra 2 minutes to pick up the garbage around us.  The last thing I would like to point out, is that eventually if we dont all work together to help the environment the earth could become a diseaster and each family would have to fend for themselves only. We should always be aware of what is going on in the environment so none of this happens.

Reflections

Reflection # 1:
The media has alot of false information, but in end I think what the media writes about is worthy to be written. If it werent important it wouldnt be shared. We should always be up to date with it.  I think the media uses the seven things we talked about quite well minus a few. The few I think they could work on is Accuracy and Relevance.  Sometimes things in the media aren't always true or don't have alot of relevance to the subject they are discussing. Alot of people I know think alot of things in the media are false nonsense, but there is always truth to every story, sometimes you just have to dig deeper to get the full truth.

Reflection # 2:
I think there is a great danger to the disconnect from nature, we need nature to keep the Earth going, if we disconnect from it we could easily put ourselves and all living things in danger.  We need plants and animals to eat, good agriculture, and fresh water to survive. If we disconnect from that we could easily all perish from lack of food and not having enough nutrients. We always need to know what is going on in the environment so we can help ourselves and the other living things on Earth.