Selection 24

Selection 24 Restoring Rivers, Margaret A. Palmer and J. David Allen

With the miss use of water, the bodies of water in the U.S are now heading back to 1970’s levels of pollution. Draining of water ways has also caused some rivers to diminish, and not make it to the ocean causing problems for areas surrounding these water ways.

With the destruction of the wetlands in the bottom half of the states, flood protection is at an all time low. It is also killing species living in these marine ecosystems, as they are polluted to the point where nothing can survive, called dead zones.

Restoration is vital to protecting both human and natural ecosystems along these water ways. Already underway are things like protecting land, river banks and waterways.

Human activity is at blame for the deterioration of the water ways in the U.S. In the past they were used to “Carry the waste away,”[1] and used to produce electricity by erecting massive dams. But this led to the loss of diversity downstream, and added pollution to the water.

Rivers continue to get more polluted today as regulation of the waterways is minimal. Even with rules like the Clean Water Act of 1972, polluting still occurs.

By altering the natural landscape with buildings and streets, rain water no longer has a chance of replenishing the ground water. Some places are seeing increases in floods and droughts as a result.

The U.S has put in regulations around pollution in water ways that reduce agriculture practices surrounding them. They also manage riparian zones; these zones clean runoff water before entering the river or water way, and help protect against flooding.

The fact is restoration projects in the U.S for cleaner water ways are well over 1 billion annually and is not preventing enough destruction. With little to no policy in these restoration projects the lack of knowledge prevents them from succeeding.

To do list for the U.S and other damaged water way restoration projects.

· Governments coordination, to promote the right type of restoration.

· Make national standards as guidelines.

· Tracking progress among projects

Basically we have to start thinking about the health of the river before doing business on or near the river. To promote a set of guidelines that protects and measures improvements in the river.

There are no such records today of past efforts made for or against the health of the river, so we cannot really learn from the past.

More government, districts, and companies are turning to restoring the health of the river, because it will benefit their areas, yet they have a hard time of cataloguing the actions and results. Things like GIS are needed to make restoring river banks more easily accessible when it comes to what works where.

Scientific certainty should be taken into account when looking at whether or not these restoration actions are actually helping the environment and doing what they’re suppose to do.

More efficient use of the resources going into river restoration, more accurate documentation, and more areas coming together in the effort to clean the rivers will be what is needed if our water ways are to be healthy again.

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[1] Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (selection 24, Palmer &Allen)

Carl Honore praises slowness.

after watching it i pulled a few key things i think are important.

Humanity is moving to fast today, where even simple things like yoga, meant to be slow and relaxing, is now hurried along. Even sex is faster today, the term "quickie" that even something meant to be passionate and relaxing, is now spread up to fit our busy schedule. We think that faster is better, but others oppose that. The slow movement is one, where they believe you need to slow down, and sort of connect with nature, family and peace.

I find myself in the same situation, finding myself always doing something, either homework, studying for tests, work....it just seems to keep piling up, with no end in sight. I have now started to relax when i can, go outside more often....just to have some time for familly, friends, and myself.

Here is the video if you would like to learn more about it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/carl_honore_praises_slowness.html

selection 23

Selection 23, Controversy at Love Canal by Beverly Paigen

This reading takes a scientist, Beverly Paigen as she looks to investigate the conditions of the Love Canal; the love canal was a man made dike that was suppose to connect with the Niagara river, but instead was a dumping ground for chemicals and waste. The controversy expands, because a community was built upon the site, resulting in miscarriages and harmful side effects.

Paigen was studying at the time, and was intrigued to find out the differences in the metabolisms of those living over Love Canal, and those elsewhere.

She assessed that the underlying geography of the past, below the area may be causing the Love canal’s chemicals to migrate, using old stream beds as they’re path of destruction.

She found more miscarriages from those living over these old bodies of flow. An increase in both birth defects and long term side effects were seen as well, such as new bourns with two sets of teeth, or higher rates of asthma.

She found herself in a tough spot, as her findings differed from the proposed ruled at the time, that the chemicals would not breach the wall.

She passed her findings along to the NY Health Department, several months later they were put in place. Women and children under the age of 2 were evacuated.

Soon a controversy was under way between the community of Love Canal and the NY Health Department, over the way the department let the chemicals go unnoticed, and did not warn the residents.

Several issues arose;

· The sate being hesitant on its action; too soon and action would cost a lot of money, not soon enough, would endanger lives and they could lose their jobs.

· The studies the health department made were only looking for pregnancy irregularities, instead of the whole community. So only pregnant women were evacuated.

· Reliability of the information; Outside findings were done with very little money, and were not part of the department of health, leading to controversy over findings.

· People were being treated poorly, transferred to different departments, or just denied funding for simply not agreeing with the departments findings.

· Paigen and several other scientists were denied access to databases of information, which was publically promised but never followed through.

Finally she looks ahead at how other scientists should look at not only Love Canal, but other sites. Stating that “an openness of data, funding and community selection of scientist”[1] is needed.

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[1] Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (Selection 23, Beverly Paigen)

Selection 39

Sustainable development means providing the basic needs, such as food, water and shelter, as well as going a step beyond the basics.

We use too many resources in developed nations, and if everyone are to have the same level of living standards, some sort of cut back for developed and increase in developing nations needs to take place.

In order to sustain development, economic growth needs to take place in less developed places.

So both meeting human needs means creating equal opportunities and economic growth.

Economic growth can increase population while putting strains on resources. Resources are grouped in a clustered distribution, and need to be distributed evenly for the entire population.

Society is not thinking about future generations, and is using too many resources, leaving less for the future, but with technology advances it may solve or slow resources depletions.

Human impact on the landscape and environment has been relatively small in scale in the past, but has taken on a much larger effect now with things like agriculture and forestry1. Sustainable development needs to be a middle ground, meeting the needs of society, yet not damaging the environment in which we get these resources.

Resources are finite, but the need for them is growing with an increasing population. Sustainability will be maintaining the source of the resource, using resources wisely, so that we will not run into shortages, and increasing prices for those resources.

As we use more resources, renewable resources need to be managed in a way that protects them, so that they may continue to flourish, while producing the greatest amount of goods. So that we can harvest more, while protecting the ability of the source to continue output.

Non renewable should not be used to their max, but sustained for future generations to exploit. We must look at how we use it, look at better ways of using them, and look for alternatives to using the resource.

Biodiversity should also be maintained sustainably, because when a species is extinct, it is no longer an option for future generations.

Water, air, and ecosystems should not be seen as a dumping ground, so we can preserve these things for future uses, or sustainably.

Sustainable development means “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”1

Now that we know what Sustainable development is we must make people aware of how to apply it to their lives. We must teach, develop and enforce these acts.1 Who controls this? The people with the most power do, be it governments or corporations. Because of this people solely affected by the problems that arise from not extracting of the resource non sustainably, often have a hard time being heard, with what little power they have. Boundaries are another problem; what happens up stream affects people downstream. Some places have enforcement while others do not, so in sustainability, all individuals must think about the consequences of their own actions. This is not the case however, since no one believes the next person will do the same.¹ So more enforcement, with more educated people, who come together for the whole system, is needed.

International regulations need to be in effect as well, as one area regulations may be different from another, but both areas are affected.

Strategic Imperatives.

First we must bring new technologies to developing nations, and then we must make all “new” technologies more efficient and sustainable. We also need technologies designed with specific locations in mind, as one technology may work in one place, but not in the next.

Countries should not just look at improving technologies from a “productive market” value, but instead technoliges that also improve air quality and living standards.¹ Rewards are needed for organizations who choose to improve these technologies in their companies.

Environmentally friendly technoliges have their own set of risks, as they are usually on separate grids or on a much smaller scale, such as nuclear and wind. Risk analysis is needed for these new technologies to reduce the possibility of failure.

Integration of both economic and ecological thinking is what sustainable development comes down too. The economy quite often goes well with the environment, like in the conservation of forestry.¹ These provide long term expansion. Often though, economic and environmental factors have disregard for each other. What they do not see is that there are linkages that connect them to each other.

In conclusion sustainable development involves all of these objectives; decision making, rules and regulations, and enforcement. We must work to achieve a harmony between humans and nature.

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1Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (Selection 39, World Commission on Environment and Development)

1Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (Selection 39, World Commission on Environment and Development)

1Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (Selection 39, World Commission on Environment and Development)

Selection 41

The following is my take on a selection from Environmental Studies, by Thomas Easton. This is it in a nutshell, tried to get the just of what the author was saying. Please leave a comment of your take on these issues.

Women’s Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation

In places like 3^rd world countries, the likelihood of the village depends on the surrounding resources. So the likelihood of the village goes hand in hand with the town sustaining the resource.

Biodiversity can be just as productive if not more than a monoculture area. This misconception is brought on by the commercial thought, but in reality biodiversity is productive in so many more ways than monoculture systems.

In these areas that depend on biodiversity (resources) the switch from biodiversity to monoculture actually causes job loss, as it takes fewer people to cultivate these monoculture crops. So in places with few job openings like 3^rd world countries, this job loss might be the difference between the survival or failure of the village. So biodiversity conservation will be linked to the livelihood of the villages.

Womens work has not been seen as productive work because their work is in various fields, and in large quantities. This includes the type of work that isn’t paid for, like taking care of families.

When looking at growing foods from seeds, women have large amounts of education on the right conditions to grow seeds; humidity, weather, etc.[1]Women also use this great knowledge in places like India, to produce, breed and nurture farm animals that would otherwise been imported.

With the eco-movement women have now increased food supplies by practices that focus on biodiversity, and multiple crops. Their knowledge should be given for future improvements in agriculture. Women have such a big role in the development and sustainability of biodiversity, yet it is not appreciated or counted as “real work,” in these 3^rd world countries¹.

Lately we’ve been seeing the destruction of diversity in agriculture and farming. The introduction of vast networks of monoculture agriculture has been the killing off of native species in plants. This goes against traditional Indian farming¹, where diversity is celebrated and put into practice.

Farming nowadays sees the traditional “seed saving” farmers dying, and the multinational corporations that design seeds so they no longer regenerate, so farmers are forced to keep coming back and buying seeds. After all you can’t make money (as a corporation) if your customer only needs to buy once, and then grow their own seeds the following years.

This has caused an uprising in local farmers, because they no longer can save seeds. Corporations have the rights to their seed and make it illegal for farmers to save seed. These patents on seed have two disadvantages; they stop third world producers from biodiversity and steal the right for customers to buy safe, healthy foods¹.

Genetically altered food has a number of risks; toxins, nutritional decrease, allergies, lack of antibiotics, etc¹. So trust issues with major companies like Monsanto arise. Is it safe to trust companies that introduced pesticides in food?

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[1] Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton ( Selection 41, Vandana Shiva)

selection 27

The Agricultural Crisis as a crisis of culture; Wendell Berry

The following is my take on a selection from Environmental Studies, by Thomas Easton. This is it in a nutshell, tried to get the just of what the author was saying. Please leave a comment of your take on these issues.

The author tells about his childhood home of Henry County, Kentucky. He tells of a farming county where farmers grew the necessities for life themselves. They raise cattle, grew vegetables and had fields of grain. Back then there was a way not only to provide for his or her, own family, but also to sell excess goods to other, for profits.

Today those very same farms are still run, but in a more 21st century style; less diversity, fewer owners, and on a much larger scale. Smaller farms are becoming fewer, as there isn’t enough money, labour or interest to keep them afloat. Even family members of farm owners are becoming less interested in taking over the family farm, lured to urban areas nowadays.

Sanitation is another reason small farmers can’t survive. The only equipment designed right now is for larger farms, because it is so expensive. Small farms would never see profit with the same equipment in place today, as they would only be paying off the equipment required to be sanitary.

Farmers who did stay in the business have had to expand, to stay big enough to generate profit. Shifting away from "quality to quantity".[1]

Farming has turned into a productivity race, who can make the most the fastest. We have lost our connection with nature, lost the appreciation for healthy, fertile soil. In doing so we are destroying the very thing we depend on, our soil.

As this new transition takes farmers into the city to a more easy life, they are giving up on certain traits. Farmers are well trained bosses, having knowledge of how to run a good farm, what to do during bad seasons, and how to grow. When this farmer moves to the city he loses his authority, his expertise. He now answers to someone, he can no longer go on his gut, his past experiences, and he goes by what someone else tells him, or does it by the book.

This knowledge of years of practice is lost and replaced by a job that is written in a manual, a simple task that can be replaced in an instance.

This farmers knowledge on the reverse, cannot just be taken over by some corporate giant, who has a to do list, manual for farming. This practice and the knowledge to make it successful are passed down for generations, from living and depending on the success of that farm.

Farmers also depend on keeping the land sustainable, which cannot be said about larger, commercialized farms. These farms are in it for capital, paying off their large farm bills, and trying to make a bigger profit, instead of the sustainment of the land it exploits.

This type of agriculture is unsustainable. After all what you do too one thing, affects other things¹. So if a culture destroys the land on which it grows its food, it will simply have no food, and die. We must work together with the land, instead of against it.

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[1] Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton ( Selection 27, Wendell Berry)

Reflection

Consider the evidence of Affluenza that you see around you.

Do you see it in yourself? Can you take action to combat Affluenza?

I think its hard to miss. Its all around us, we are bombarded with this stuff at home, in the car, on the way to work, etc. The message is simple and clear "you need bigger, better and more of it."

I try to lead a simplistic life. if it doesnt have a purpose in my life at the time i see it, i dont need it. Sure I am not perfect and have fallen for a better computer, the phone with more features, but I think because they offer me the services I have, its justified.

Sure you can take action against Affluenza. you just need to be aware of it. When looking at the things you see and wonder if you should buy them, ask yourself ; will this product help my life? Do I already have products like this that do the same thing, that are just a bit outdated? How long will this product last? From a green living perspective, you can ask yourself, where sis this product come from, and where will it go when i no longer want it.

Selection 28

The following is my take on a selection from Environmental Studies, by Thomas Easton. This is it in a nutshell, tried to get the just of what the author was saying. Please leave a comment of your take on these issues.

Selection 28.

Food Scarcity: An Environmental Wakeup Call

Humans are having a severe impact on mother Earth, be it over fishing, deforestation, soil mismanagement, we are continuing to deplete resources that are vital to earths ecosystem. It is now that we are seeing the impacts of a few “misbehaviours” here or there, on a larger scale, adding up all of these acts, we are starting to see the thousand small impacts we are committing on the landscape.

Agriculture: The missing Link

The food system has been a main player in causing the collapse of civilizations, and should not be over looked today. The fact is that if an economy or civilization cannot meet its own food needs, it will not be at it healthiest. So when the food sector starts to go, if it already hasn’t started to, we will start to see our economic decline¹.

We will start to see a rise in food stocks as land is deteriorated to the point that it can’t produce the numbers it once did, causing a smaller supply of food, with a smaller supply, we will see the price to go up. Since people can only pay so much for a loaf of bread, it won’t be long after that that we will see a greater amount of people questioning why the prices are so high, why there is such a limited amount, and what practices we are using that is causing such an event. With the people involved we will start to see politicians trying to answer these questions, or at least start to point fingers.

People who live in third world countries, or live dollar by dollar, will be the first to notice these small increases in food cost, as it will mean whether or not they will eat or not. Furthermore we might see unhappy citizens start to find other ways to get food, such as rioting, steeling, even killing, as prices increase dramatically as world food stocks diminish. These people would turn to the government to try and lower the inflation.

As our population continues to grow by millions more per year, it is becoming harder and harder to feed the world. We are seeing more people dying of hunger as they lack the resources to gain this food, and if the price continues to grow, we will see these “disease” grow in numbers as more people die of starvation.

In Search Of Land

We face a dwindling amount of fertile land as well as a lower amount of water per person. Even with advances in agriculture, that have created new ways of farming, such as terracing mountains to farm steep slopes, or turning the low wetland areas into productive fields, we are still facing a declining per person area of agricultural land. So basically as our population grows, the amount of room to grow food for each new person shrinks. We are now at a record low 0.12 hectares per person¹.

In Search Of Water

Lack of land is not the only factor farmers are facing, water is another hard commodity to come by these days. As new technologies have led farmers to farm arid lands by use of irrigation, it has meant lowering river levels to the point where they no longer reach the seas, and left some urban cities choosing supplying the city with water and cutting off rural irrigation. Since water is usually given to the city, grains are now left to be imported from elsewhere as there is no water left to irrigate. Importing grains in essence is like importing water, because they no longer have grow their own, and no longer need the water for the growing. Aquifer depletion is now growing in areas such as the US and China¹, where they grow about half the worlds grain.

The Onset Of Food Scarcity

We now face the lowest levels in a long time of foods like fish and grain, as resources diminish and population increases. This has all lead to a lower amount of reserved food, falling from a safe 70 days of food to a mere 59 days[1]. The lack of foods and growing problems we face both in sickness and in rioting will finally bring to the attention of the people and the governments that environmental degradation is not something to let go unnoticed.

An Unprecedented Challenge

Supplying food for future generations is now a problem farmers must help partake in. Making sure there is enough food and the right amount of people is key to the survival of future generations. We must change our impacts on the land, as well as our own reproductive guidelines. We are starting to see some countries limit the number of children born, lower than the replacement rate. Others are starting to deal with carbon emissions. We are starting to see an effort to save crucial farm land from turning into urban areas, and even further more protecting it from erosion. Water use is starting to be used more efficient, and not just for crop land. All of these acts have helped, but not solved our problem. We will need to continue and adapt more of these practices if we are to meet the needs of future generations.

Feeding the Future

The world used to have three backup supplies of food in the case of global emergencies. Cropland idled under farmlands, grains in storage, and the grains used to feed livestock. In the late 1990s, the first two were used up, leaving only one backup supply at hand in the face of emergency. If we do have another emergency, we will start to see the switch from animals like cows that eat a lot of grain to smaller grain dependant animals. A tax, that would be put on these animals, like cows, would increase their cost, offsetting the cost of grain, by lowering the amount used on these animals. Being environmentally sustainable is key to the future of food for future generations.

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[1] Environmental Studies, Thomas Easton (Selection 28, Lester Brown)