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".