#// and also compared to the moral alignment quiz i took - this one has a much nicer and much more vivid description than 'yeah ur mean' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sandovalenst1000 · 4 years

Text

Final Submission

Blog 1/27: The phone’s ringing...it’s Earth!

The beauty of environmental studies is the ability to explore various subject matters while still focusing on one of the most widely debated areas: our Earth. The environmental studies program at Fordham is not only interdisciplinary, but allows students to have a concentration in one of various fields of study, from sustainable business to food security and organic farming. The major and its minor options are built from the pressing changes to our earth and the need to address the environmental problems that society has caused. Environmental studies allows students to understand the causes and effects of current and developing environmental problems through studying the humanities and physical & social sciences, in addition to exploring solutions for societal and physical impacts on the Earth through the lens of various disciplines.. While scientists have been trying to make society more aware of our environmental impacts, it has not proved to be enough to motivate most people, creating a need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies program to educate the current generation and aligning with the current surge in environmental activism. As environmental activism grows, so does the need for humans to be educated in environmental issues and the impacts they have on an individual’s life.

Without scientific fields of study such as biology and chemistry, we would not even begin to understand the environment, allowing environmental science to be the foundation for environmental studies. Environmental science is the study of “how the earth works…, how humans interact with the environment, and how we can live more sustainably” (Miller, 2018, p. 5), allowing individuals to answer the call to understand environmental problems. The physical science aspect of environmental studies provides the background to understand sustainability, “the capacity of the earth’s natural systems...to survive or adapt to changing environmental conditions” (Miller, 2018, p. 4). The six main principles of sustainability applying to the environment, which allow humans to understand and attempt to create a more sustainable future, include the following: dependence on solar energy, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, full cost pricing, win-win solutions, and responsibility to future generations.

All energy comes from the sun and provides continuous energy to cycle nutrients throughout an ecosystem. The sun additionally provides the energy for biodiversity, which is “the variety of genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes” (Miller, 2018, p. 5). Full-cost pricing, rooted in economic principles, is encouraged by environmentally-conscious economists, who propose to include the health and environmental costs of production and usage of products in the market pricing of services and goods rather than companies taking advantage of the environment for larger profit margins. Win-win solutions, rooted in political science, incorporate compromise and collaboration to find the greatest benefit for both the environment and people. Lastly, the responsibility to future generations to preserve the environment incorporates ethics to provide morality towards what humans do to affect the Earth. A comprehensive assessment on the environmental cost of animal source foods by the Ecological Society of America notes unbalanced regulation when comparing marine and terrestrial sources and suggests policy action to avoid high-impact farming, aquaculture, and fisheries (Banobi, 2018), exhibiting the interdisciplinary suggestions necessary to help the environment and limit society’s impacts.

With various facets of the environment suffering due to exploitation of nature, such as ozone depletion and toxic coastal soil from farming, scientists continue to reach out to society to strike the feeling of responsibility to future generations and the Earth, using the ethical approach. In the 1992 Warning to Humanity letter by the Union of Concerned Scientists, it cites irreversible damage to the Earth as of almost three decades ago, which is considerably worse in 2020 with little change to policy. The letter recommends collaboration, policy change for better management of resources, and population stabilization to help halt the degradation of resources and the overall health of the Earth. Most recently in the 2017 Warning of Climate Emergency from the Alliance of World Scientists, scientists still use the ethical and moral approach to try and motivate others to help save the Earth. Both the 1992 and 2017 letters from scientists have similar messages, with each urging people to contribute to helping the environment. The Alliance of World Scientists urges leaders to adapt approaches to governing and policy making in relation to environmental management, and the materials used to manufacture products. Both letters identify developed nations, such as the United States, as the largest contributors to environmental decline and also as the most influential in saving the environment.

With many calls from the United Nations to help motivate nations to contribute to saving the environment, one of the most comprehensive calls is the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, collecting data from 2001 to 2005 to analyze the consequences of ecosystem changes on the Earth and on human beings and focuses on various ecosystem services. Ecosystem services include provisioning, regulating, habitat and support, and cultural services that benefit human beings and maintain the environment to a certain extent. Provisioning services include “material outputs from ecosystems” (2005), such as food and water, raw materials, and medicinal benefits. Regulating services regulate the quality of air and soil, in addition to providing flood and disease control in ecosystems. Habitat and supporting services include providing habitats for species and maintaining genetic diversity among breeds of organisms. Lastly, cultural services include the non-material benefits humans receive from nature, such as tourism and recreational experiences. With about 60% of the ecosystem services that were studied being degraded or used unsustainably, usage shifts the consequences further into the future for future generations (2005). While usage of ecosystem services benefit humans now, in the future they will not as shifts in regional climates continue, affecting not only production of goods but humans as well due to loss of assets. While developed countries continue to impact the environment the most, degradation of ecosystem services affect impoverished populations the most (2005), due to large centralized impoverished populations being in third-world countries. The Ecosystem Assessment highlights that changes require influential policy changes and without it, impacts will become permanent and compounded, such as projected future species loss to increase ten-fold to approximately 80 to 110 extinctions per 1000 species (2005).

Reflecting on the larger impacts of society on the environment, I took the Ecological Footprint quiz to see what my individual environmental impact is, considering that I live in dorm housing on campus in New York City. Unsurprisingly, the largest consumption result is my housing, considering that I live in a dorm with approximately 800 other students. Despite some of my less environmentally friendly habits, I still have about half of the ecological footprint of the average American. As an individual who lives in a 4 person household in Chicago, IL when I am not at Fordham, I consume about double what I use at Fordham, with my carbon footprint being approximately 55% of my total ecological footprint because I use my car to travel to and from work, fly for athletics, and fly to and from Chicago. Additionally, my food sources are second to my mobility footprint, from my diet of primarily animal-based protein.

Overall solutions proposed by the Ecological Footprint results include green urban planning, considering 70-80% of the world’s population is projected to live in cities by 2050, renewable energy sources, reduced food waste, controlled population size, and actively protecting ecosystems. Solutions proposed by almost all materials read, specifically the Ecosystem Assessments and Warning letters, include interdisciplinary approaches to responding to environmental disarray, stemming from environmental science and environmental studies.

Word Count: 1244/1100 words

Bibliography

“1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.” July 16, 1992. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/1992-world-scientists-warning-humanity.

“Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis.” Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005.

“Environmental Studies.” Fordham University. Accessed January 27, 2020. https://www.fordham.edu/es.

Hilborn, Ray, Jeannette Banobi, Stephen J Hall, Teresa Pucylowski, and Timothy E Walsworth. “The Environmental Cost of Animal Source Foods.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, June 12, 2018. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1822.

Ripple, William J, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, and William R Moomaw. “World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency.” Alliance of World Scientists, November 5, 2019. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806.

Blog 2/3: Awareness of our Ecosystems comes first, human beings second.

Individual species are necessary to sustain proper order in ecosystems, as shown by the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Following the reintroduction of the species, the ecosystem found equilibrium and revived much of the flora and fauna, in addition to other species that had a minimal presence in the system relative to the overwhelming initial presence of the deer. The case study on the reintroduction of species leads to the impact of differential variation and population growth for minimal presence populations, including the stabilization of the ecosystem, such as the decreased erosion of the river banks.

With our Earth’s ecosystems teetering on the verge of depreciation due to the strain the human race put on its resources, it is important to learn the role of human beings on Earth and understand the other species that we coexist and share our resources with. Using science, we try to understand how nature works and use the knowledge to assume the future of the Earth, due to likely cause and effect patterns. Through experimentation and reliable science, expert scientists in their respective fields understand various aspects of nature, from the geological makeup to how the human race’s presence affects the Earth. While scientists can determine that there is a very high probability that certain hypotheses are correct, experiments can consist of statistical error and human error, in addition to natural variables.

For the basic understanding of how our Earth is made, scientists have discovered everything from the smallest unit of matter, the atom, to the biosphere, which is made up of the atmosphere, troposphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere. In addition to understanding the makeup of the earth, scientists have established the following necessary scientific theories: the Law of Conservation of Matter, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Conservation of Matter is that no atoms are created or destroyed during physical or chemical changes. Similarly, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Conservation of Energy, states that no energy is created or destroyed when energy is converted between physical to chemical forms or vice versa. Lastly, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that, when energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, the result is lower quality energy than previously. Energy quality is determined by the capacity to do useful work, with high-quality energy having the ability to do useful work and low-quality energy having little ability to do useful work. Energy is present in the Earth’s natural system, flowing through the system through a feedback loop, which “occurs when an output of matter, energy, or information is fed back into the system as an input and changes the system” (Miller, 2018, p. 43). The importance of high-quality energy is emphasized through all the wasted energy humans use, which is approximately 84% of the energy used in the United States (Miller, 2018, p. 42).

The flow of high-quality energy in a system from the sun is just as important as nutrient cycling through the biosphere, which are two of the three factors that sustain life, in addition to gravity keeping the atmosphere together and enabling nutrient cycling. Due to the flow of energy and nutrients, autotrophs, producers that make their own nutrients from sunlight, and heterotrophs, organisms that consume other organisms, can thrive in an ecosystem and result in a food web (Miller, 2018, p. 52-53). With the existence of heterotrophs and autotrophs, predator-prey relationships emerge in ecosystems, eventually evolving into intraspecific and interspecific competition with and between species. Due to predator-prey relationships, both the predator and prey species evolve, called coevolution, where both species benefit from natural selection (Miller, 2018, p. 104). In addition to species adaptations, ecosystems adjust to changes as well through ecological succession, a gradual change in a given terrestrial or aquatic area (Miller, 2018, p. 106), which includes facilitation, inhibition, and tolerance as factors for the rate of ecological succession. Facilitation is the process where one set of species makes a habitat suitable for certain species with niche and specific environment requirements. Inhibition is the process where some species inhibit the growth of other species. Lastly, tolerance is when plants in late stages of succession in the ecosystem succeed due to lack of direct competition with other plants for nutrients. In real life application, limitations on an ecosystem apply to the strain on resources for the growing human population, which is pushing the carrying capacity for the Earth, or the “maximum population of a given species that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely” (Miller, 2018, p. 111).

An important factor determining the carrying capacity for species on Earth is the weather, with atmospheric temperature and precipitation being the most important factors within the topic of weather. A climate is “the general pattern of atmospheric conditions in a given area over time” (Miller, 2018, p, 145), which varies due to global jet streams and ocean currents that distribute heat and precipitation. In addition to jet streams and ocean currents regulating global temperature, greenhouse gases absorb some solar energy and release it as heat for the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, called the greenhouse effect (Miller, 2018, p. 147-148). While climates divide the surface, biomes are further characterizations of climate and plant life for terrestrial regions. Biomes are broken up into deserts, grasslands, chaparrals, and forests, which each have various subdivisions within the biomes with specific characteristics for climate and plant life in the subdivision.

Human population growth has slowed since 1965 to 1.2% (Miller, 2018, p. 121), but population growth is still present and the most growth is in less-developed countries due to lack of economic development, education for women, and family planning resources for those populations, as proposed by the textbook (Miller, 2018, p. 130-131). Birth rates are lower in more-developed countries due to a decreased importance for children as part of the labor force, a higher cost of raising and educating children, access to birth control, a higher average age for marriage, and a higher availability in pension systems (Miller, 2018, p. 126). Additionally, with infant mortality at a lower level than in the past, families can have less children and children have higher life expectancies (Miller, 2018, p. 127). The human population reproduces less compared to other species, due to an older age for reproductive maturity from longer life spans and larger offspring that develop inside of mothers. While the human population is significant in the present day, human beings have only existed on Earth for a very small and insignificant portion of time relative to the 4.5 billion year lifetime of the Earth.

Word Count: 1107/1100

Bibliography

The Evolution of Life on Earth. AsapSCIENCE, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_6cqa2cP4.

How Wolves Change Rivers. Sustainable Human, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ysa5OBhXz-Q.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Blog Post 2/10: Human Beings: A pixel in the bigger picture

While human beings have only existed for such a small period of time relative to the overall existence of the Earth and the universe, we have made a massive impact in the way our Earth functions, creating a need for environmentalism all over the globe. Environmentalism is a political and philosophical movement, which focuses on industrial production and the resulting patterns of human consumption that has created increasing ecological instability (Stoll, 2007, p. 2). Specifically, environmentalism asserts that natural landscapes in the world inherently have value not based on economic value, industrialism does not coexist well with natural landscapes, and humans have the right to a clean and healthy Earth, which we have the duty to care for.

Within North American and the United States, many policy changes have been made to help counteract the consequences of industrial development and human greed from approximately the past 500 years. Beginning from the Age of Discovery and European colonization in North America, the rapid change from Native Americans’ traditional method of hunter-gatherers to mass industrialization and usage of natural resources has negatively impacted the environment from the transition from a low-impact culture to a high-impact culture. Following European colonization, the Frontier Era in the United States provides some of the best examples for taking the Earth’s wonders for granted, such as settlers moving west clearing forests for crops and land for settlements and the United States government transferring public land to private interests (Cengage, 2007, p. 1). For example, prior to western expansion in the United States, American bison were a comfortable population size, despite being hunted by Native Americans. Native Americans, known for their low-impact hunter-gatherer lifestyle, only killed the amount of bison necessary and used almost all the parts of the slaughtered animal, leaving no waste. Following westward expansion, Native American tribes were displaced from their homelands and settlers drastically decreased the American bison population from overhunting, killed for various unjustified reasons (Cengage, 2007, p. 2). While the American bison population has bounced back from the Frontier Era due to federal protection, the initial lack of government regulation has greatly contributed to early settlers’ negative impacts on the natural resources of North America.

Within the past century, the United States government has actively taken a role in caring for our environment that it should have started when new settlements contributed to the expansion of the country. With the term of President Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 to 1909, conservationist and preservationist views of the environment came to the forefront of American policy, with Roosevelt being a major proponent of the conservationist school, containing the idea that public lands should be cared for and managed to provide necessary resources (Cengage, 2007, p. 4). During Theodore Roosevelt’s term as president, federal refuges were established and government regulation agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, were created to begin to care for the environment. Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency led the government-initiative to begin to care for the environmental issues that human beings had created within the United States, which fortunately carried on through later presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

Settlers moving into the western United States for the first time maintained a “frontier environmental world-view” (Cengage, 2007, p.1), which was the idea that the Earth and its natural resources were to be conquered and managed for human use. Human beings, even today, contain a narrow-minded view that the Earth was created for human use and exploitation, leading to a large number of people not “believing” in climate change or global warming, despite scientific evidence and research. Within the timeline of the Earth’s existence, human beings are an extremely small portion of that, but we as a whole have made significant impacts on the health of our Earth. Outside of our history as humankind, there is Big History, the examination of history of the Earth from the big bang to the present day. Similar to human history, Big History focuses on patterns and trends over long periods of time, and, through multidisciplinary research, analyzes the role of human existence. Themes of Big History include: large time scales of history, cosmic evolution, energy flow, complexity, and thresholds of the environment. A key component of Big History includes the Goldilocks Principle, the idea that circumstances must be correct for any type of complexity to exist or form, which is governed by the optimum usage of energy (Spier, 2008). The Earth has existed for approximately 4.6 billion years, with homo sapiens only emerging for approximately 150,000 years out of 4.6 billion. However within an even smaller period of time than homo sapiens’ existence, the Earth’s population has increased about 8 times its amount in 1850 A.D. (1 billion humans) to 7.7 billion people as of February 2020, over the course of only 170 years (U.S. Census Bureau 2020), which leads me to wonder: how long until society collapses from overpopulation?

In Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, the author explores the historical instances of societal failures or decrease in complexity for large periods of time and connects them to five main factors contributing to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of trade partners, environmental problems, and the societal response to the previous factors (Diamond, 2005, p. 18). Through research, Diamond highlights many environmental problems that align with past and future societal collapses, such as environmental toxins and overpopulation. Not only does Diamond do the research to pinpoint where societies have gone wrong, but proposes ways to begin to fix the future collapse of societies: long-term planning and the reconsideration of core values, such as production. In addition to Diamond’s book, the geological timescale of the Anthropocene also highlights indications of human change and how it has affected nature within its time frame, such as animals turning nocturnal to avoid human contact and stratigraphy changes on Earth. The Anthropocene time frame additionally highlights the increasing lack of biodiversity developing within the Earth’s ecosystems, leading to increasing extinction rates and diminished ecosystems. The most widely known human impact from the Industrial Revolution has been global warming, occurring from excess greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trapping solar energy in the atmosphere, increasing the atmospheric temperature of the Earth, and thus causing additional problems due to temperature-sensitive ecosystems.

Without the historical disciplines of the Earth, human beings would not know where to begin to try and solve the problems we caused. Studying geological epochs, such as the Anthropocene, or larger historical views, such as Big History, has increased understanding of various themes throughout the creation of and existence of the Earth that benefits personal action and policy creation to counteract actions of our ancestors throughout history

Word count: 1119/1100

Bibliography

“Anthropocene.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 6, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene.

“Big History.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, December 20, 2019.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History#cite_note-tws2M41-20.

“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 19, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed#cite_ref-2.

Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.Toronto: Penguin Books, 2005.

Living in the Environment. Cengage Learning, Inc., 2007.

Spier, Fred. “Big History: The Emergence of an Interdisciplinary Science?” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 33, no. 2 (2008). https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/6.3/spier.html.

Stoll, Steven. U.S. Environmentalism since 1945. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.

“U.S. and World Population Clock.” Population Clock. United States Census Bureau. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://www.census.gov/popclock/.

Blog Post 2/18: The Role of Education and Collaboration in the Approach to Climate Change

With the development and wealth divides between countries and individuals in the global community, the understanding of various environmental worldviews is more important than ever considering today’s environmental issues. The understanding of various environmental worldviews should be highlighted in education to sustain a comprehensive understanding of others’ ethical worldview and to provide a more collaborative approach to environmental policy. An environmental worldview is the beliefs and assumptions that an individual has about how the natural world functions and how an individual thinks humans should interact with the environment (Miller, 2018, p. 683). An individual's environmental worldview stems from one’s environmental ethics, an individual's beliefs of what is right and wrong concerning human behavior and interactions with the environment (Miller, 2018, p. 683), which vary between anthropocentric, life-centered, and earth-centered.

Anthropocentric, or human-centered, worldviews encompass what most human beings believe in our relationship to the environment, which focuses on the desires and necessities of human beings. Overall, the anthropocentric worldview is encompassed in the planetary management worldview, in which humans should manage the earth for their benefit. Additionally, the value of other species and natural resources is based on how useful they are to human beings, stemming from the idea that human beings are the most important and dominant species on earth. Within the planetary worldview, the following schools of thought are believed in: the no-problem school, the free-market school, the spaceship-earth school, and the stewardship school. The no-problem school focuses on the idea that any problem can be solved with more economic and technological growth & development and better management, which disregards limited economic growth, natural resources, and human wisdom. The free-market school highlights the idea that the plant should be managed through a free-market global economy with minimal government interference and mostly private property regulated through the global marketplace, which is based on unlimited economic growth and unlimited natural resources. The spaceship-earth school of thought is the idea that the earth is essentially a machine that can be managed without overwhelming natural systems, which does not consider overpopulation and overconsumption. Lastly, the stewardship school is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to be stewards of the earth and should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and development (Miller, 2018, p. 683). Additionally, the anthropocentric worldviews bring into question the idea of the collapse of human civilizations if humans are the dominant species, which Miller highlights two early signs of the collapse of civilizations: gridlock and the substitution of beliefs for empirical evidence. Gridlock is when civilizations are unable to resolve complex problems, which eventually lead to their downfall (Miller, 2018, p. 683). The substitution of beliefs for empirical evidence is when human beings rely on unknown factors, such as future technology, to avoid addressing threats of collapse.

In contrast, the life-centered worldview is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to preserve other species that would become extinct through careless human activity. The earth-centered worldview is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to preserve biodiversity, life-support systems, and ecosystem services (Miller, 2018, p. 685), which is highlighted in the environmental wisdom worldview, in which humans should learn how to live sustainably and how to coexist with nature. The earth-centered worldview aligns with environmental citizenship, which is the idea that human beings are an “integral part of a larger ecosystem” (Hargrove, p. 323) and should act responsibly & positively towards the environment. The belief of environmental citizenship is religiously neutral and can apply to all human beings. Similar ideas to environmental citizenship include environmental stewardship, which is more religiously centered, and ecological citizenship, which focuses on the responsibilities of citizens in developed nations.

Due to the various worldviews and schools of thought among human beings, educators have tried to integrate environmentalism concepts into education to specifically highlight understanding of sustainability, natural capital, exponential growth, carrying capacity, food webs, nutrient cycling, biodiversity, and ecological succession. Within environmental education, another argument in favor of its integration is the development of nature-deficit disorder, a range of problems, such as attention deficit disorders and obesity, that can result from or be intensified by a lack of nature. Nature-deficit disorder reveals “the necessity of contact with nature for healthy child and adult development” (Louv). Stemming from the development of research into nature-deficit disorder, the No Child Left Behind movement has followed suit, which encourages and provides funding for environmental education, specifically environmental literacy and to develop understanding of environmental problems. On the global scale, Nigeria is one of the developing world countries to integrate environmental education in school’s curriculums to highlight the country’s degradation, but most developed countries have somewhat integrated environmental education into science programs at schools. Further, many institutions, such as not-for-profits and museums, have integrated environmental education exhibits that are available to the public. The No Child Left Behind movement originated from the hypothesis of biophilia, which is the ‘‘innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms’’ (Wilson, 1993, p. 31).

Biophilia stems from the historical role of human beings as hunter-gatherers and their root genetic heritage as animals. Human beings contain a genetic heritage rooted in response to natural stimuli, which have been historically reinforced by contact with nature despite culturally adapting to advanced practices beyond our origins as hunter-gatherers. Historically, human practices have reinforced natural reasoning and information-gathering through “ancestral habitat responses” (Heerwagen, p. 110), such as discerning between toxic and edible foods and avoiding predators. Through various studies, humans respond very positively to natural stimuli, whether it is true or simulated. Human beings display a strong affinity towards water, which correlates with historical pressures and difficulties to find fresh water, shown through individuals responding “very positively to sparkle, reflections, and surface movements of water” (Heerwagen, p. 110). In addition to positive physical responses to nature, studies indicate an increase in cognitive function, emotions, natural problem solving, social tendencies, and psychological benefits with exposure to nature. However for human beings to reap the non-material benefits of the environment, environmental justice is necessary for the preservation of the earth.

The Environmental Justice Movement is interdisciplinary, specifically combining social justice and environmentalism, and highlights the environment as, not only nature, but a “set of socially and politically conditioned relationships” (Figueroa, p. 341) and incorporates primarily distributive justice. Distributive fairness and justice focus on the disproportionate burden of negative environmental impacts on non-whites, the working class, and the poor (Figueroa, p. 342), which is in response to saturated impacts against people of color and the poor within specific distribution that is isolated in zip codes. Additionally, the ideas of intergenerational justice, the “set of obligations the members of one generation may owe to people of other generations” (Wolf, p. 518), and intragenerational justice, the “obligations that members of one generation owe to one another” (Wolf, p. 518), provide theories of justice to add to human morality and ethics towards the earth, allowing human beings to relate to one another. Within the relationship between developed and developing nations, developed nations are the most active in pro-environmental measures, which hinder industrial development in developing nations due to concerns for climate change, natural resource preservation, and biodiversity. However, developed nations only currently have pro-environmental responses as a result of their past industrial development, overconsumption, and overall contributions to environmental issues. Due to increasing environmental education initiatives and various worldviews, human beings must learn to collaborate to explore policy change to initiate action to help the earth combat our own past actions.

Word Count: 1240/1100

Bibliography

Figueroa, Robert Melchior. “Environmental Justice.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 341–48.

Hargrove, Eugene C. “Environmental Citizenship.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 323–25.

Heerwagen, Judith. “Biophilia.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 109–13.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia and the Conservation Ethic. Edited by Stephen R Kellert. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993.

Wolf, Clark. “Intergenerational Justice.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 518–25.

Blog Post 2/24: Economic Connections between both of the Amazons

With the necessity for green energy being recognized by many, most notably Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has recognized the need to develop green technology to help promote sustainability. Bezos, the richest man in the world, has set aside approximately 10% of his net worth, $10 billion USD, into the “Bezos Earth Fund” (Forbes, 2020), to help promote innovation for green technology. In addition to Amazon Inc. also committing to contribute net zero carbon emissions by 2040, many countries and businesses have also decided to make big steps towards sustainability through legislation and economic development. In the S&P stock market, the Global Clean Energy Index has massively surpassed the Global Natural Resources Index within the past year (Forbes, 2020), indicating a larger trend in economics toward renewable energy and sustainability. From countries, China is the largest investor in the global green technology sector, with “approximately $127 billion invested in 2017” (Investopedia, 2019), contributing to socially responsible investing that has been shown in recent years by not only large global powers, but also powerful individuals such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Many businesses currently seek out to create sustainable business initiatives within their missions, with Amazon Inc. being one of many, with past corporate pioneers such as Ford Motor Company, Subaru, and Nature’s Path. Corporate sustainability strategies include innovation, collaboration, continuous improvement, sustainability research & reporting, and sustainably acquiring resources. Characteristics of sustainable business include biomimicry-based, biodegradable or recyclable products, green energy usage, locally owned and managed organizations, options for continuous improvement, and being financially, socially, and environmentally beneficial, also known as the triple bottom line. While Amazon Inc. is a multibillion dollar and globally influential corporation, its newfound commitment to “The Climate Pledge” shows the possibility of all larger corporations switching over to more environmentally friendly and sustainable methods of production and more to continue to sustain the Earth’s lifetime and resources.

Economics, a “social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to satisfy people’s needs and wants” (Miller, 2018, p. 631) is separated into varying types from centrally planned, which is run by a national government, to a truly free market economy, which in practice is governed by economic interactions, and most modern economies fall somewhere between centrally planned and a free market, ending up being a mixed economy. Government intervention is necessary for market failures, which is the lack of public services offered due to private goods and services offered, such as the inability to prevent the degradation of open-access resources, which is then spearheaded by government intervention. Most modern economies aim for a high-throughput economy, which “[increases] the flow of matter and energy resources through the economic system to produce more goods and services” (Miller, 2018, p. 632), but also tends to be environmentally unsustainable due to increased waste and pollution absorbed into natural resources from high production rates and resource use, which in turn degrades the quality of natural resources. However, environmentally sustainable economic development is the “use of political and economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of economic improvement” (Miller, 2018, pp. 632-633), which allows solutions for the environment that benefit both the environment and society.

Varying views of the economy influence the perceived role of the environment in the economy. In Neoclassical economics, natural capital is part of the economy, but is assumed to have the potential to be substituted when depleted, and that economic growth is unlimited. In opposition, ecological economists are that there are no substitutes for natural resources or ecosystem services, which are necessary for an economy to function and can cause unsustainable economic growth. The ideal sustainable approach to ecological economics is the steady-state economy, where “all resources are recycled or reused continually… [with] no wastes or inputs of new resources” (Miller, 2018, p. 634), but this hypothetical model limits the accumulation of wealth by an individual entity and is rejected by capitalist-driven economic entities. To combat the rapid usage of natural capital, economists propose valuing natural resources at their benefit, but also their nonuse value, such as existence and aesthetic values, and implementing full-cost pricing , which has been proven to be increasingly difficult from varying estimates of resource value. Full-cost pricing is a model where “external costs [are included] in the market prices of goods” (Miller, 2018, p. 637), with external costs being “harm to the environment and human health” (Miller, 2018, p. 637). To promote environmentally sustainable economic practices, environmental indicators, such as the genuine progress indicator (GPI), help to measure actual economic growth post-environmental factors, with processes such as green taxes, product eco-labeling & certification, and environmental regulation implemented to encourage an environmentally friendly economy.

Within the implementation of environmentally friendly economic practices, environmental policy is typically involved, which are the “environmental laws, regulations, and programs that are designed, implemented, funded, and enforced by [various] government agencies” (Miller, 2018, p. 657), which requires problem recognition and policy formation, with subsequent evaluation and adjustment after it is implemented. Before implementing environmental policy, long-term solutions must be analyzed to avoid potentially environmentally harmful action, in addition to exploring ways to “stimulate the development of innovative ways to reduce and prevent pollution and wastes” (Miller, 2018, p. 659). Through integration, a hypothetical triple bottom line is theorized, in which economic, environmental, and social needs are balanced in policy decisions. From a legal standpoint, environmental law is a “body of laws and treaties that broadly define what acceptable environmental behavior is for individuals, groups, businesses, and nations” (Miller, 2018, p. 664), but has limited effect due to the drawn out nature of lawsuits and the use of lawsuits as an intimidation tactic from corporation against activists. Environmental laws include requiring environmental evaluation impact studies, setting pollution standards, protecting certain resources, requiring environmental screening for new products, and encouraging resource conservation (Miller, 2018, pp. 665-667). To shift to a more environmentally friendly society, researched suggestions include preventing or minimizing environmental problems before reaching crisis levels, using marketplace solutions to reduce environmental impacts, finding win-win solutions or tradeoffs to problems, and objectivity when evaluating problems and solutions (Miller, 2018, p. 675).

While humans tend to underestimate the contributions of the Earth’s natural capital, they integrate themselves within everyday life, such as regulating global temperature or regulating the concentration of the air humans breathe. Without valuing natural capital and resources, humans will continue to use resources at the same rate as in the past, which is unsustainable. Resources should be at least temporarily valued until a stable number can be agreed upon by researchers to discourage rapid resource depletion.

Word count: 1094/1100

Bibliography

Amazon. “Amazon Co-Founds The Climate Pledge, Setting Goal to Meet the Paris Agreement 10 Years Early.” Sustainability. Amazon, February 6, 2020. https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/sustainable-operations/amazon-co-founds-the-climate-pledge-setting-goal-to-meet-the-paris-agreement-10-years-early?tag=theverge02-20.

Costanza, Robert, Ralph d'Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, et al. “The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” Nature 387 (May 15, 1997): 253–60.

Kenton, Will. “Green Tech.” Investopedia. Investopedia, February 5, 2020. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/green_tech.asp.

Klebnikov, Sergei. “Bezos Pledges $10 Billion—Nearly 10% Of Net Worth—Toward Solving Climate Change.” Forbes. Forbes Media LLC, February 17, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/02/17/jeff-bezos-pledges-to-fight-climate-change-with-10-billion-earth-fund/#1c8e718c523b.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Blog Post 3/2: Reduction in typical population increase: good or bad?

With the population in the World growing by approximately 80 million people every year, the rapid growth of the human population and the population’s impact on the earth’s natural capital has become an increasingly pressing issue, especially dealing with sustainability. In today’s current population trends, the growth rate has decreased overall since to 1965 to 1.2% (Miller, 2018, p. 121), following the generation of what is known in the United States as the post-World War II baby boom (1946-1964) or the Baby Boomer Generation. Most notable within modern-day population growth is the uneven distribution of growth between developed and less developed countries, with 98% of born humans in less developed countries in 2015 (Miller, 2018, p. 121). Additionally, increasing numbers of people are moving to urban areas, which include cities and their surrounding suburbs, from rural areas, with a majority of urban residents in less-developed countries with limited infrastructure and resources to promote or sustain increasing urbanization. As a result of the increasing population growth, we as human beings need to become more responsible for our increasing ecological footprint and require estimating earth’s cultural carrying capacity, and addressing ways to contain our population relative to the capacity. The earth’s cultural carrying capacity is the maximum number of people who can live with freedom, comfort, and the ability of production of new generations of human beings (Miller, 2018, p. 123). Factors influencing the cultural carrying capacity include overconsumption, disproportionate birth rates between developed and less developed countries, and future technological sustainability.

In response to overdevelopment and overconsumption, ecological economics proposes the degrowth movement, which advocates for contracting economies and maximizing human well-being through non-consumption based means (2020, “Degrowth”). The degrowth movement and various other economic approaches propose solutions to human beings pushing the earth’s carrying capacity and to correct our ecological footprint, but the average citizen would most likely be unwilling to make drastic changes.

Population change in a specific area, such as a country, takes into account births, deaths, and migration, and determines the amount of people leaving a population (deaths and emigration) and subtracts it from people entering a population (births and immigration) (Miller, 2018, p. 123). Births in a population, otherwise known as the fertility rate, are tracked in two types: replacement-level fertility rate and total fertility rate. Replacement-level fertility rate is the “average number of children that couples in a population must bear to replace themselves” (Miller, 2018, p. 123), which is slightly higher than two children born per couple at 2.1 children, due to infant fatalities, which are higher in less developed countries. High infant mortality rates in a population can indicate malnutrition, high rates of infectious disease, and usually causes an increase in a population’s total fertility rate.

Total fertility rate is the “average number of children born to the women of childbearing age in a population” (Miller, 2018, p. 123), which is affected by the age structure in a population, which gives the percentages of males to females in pre-reproductive (infant to 14), reproductive (25 to 44), and post-reproductive age (45+) groups in a population. Additional factors affecting the average birth rate and total fertility rate in a population include the importance of children in the labor force, the cost of raising and educating children, the availability of pension system and ability to support relatives of older age, urbanization, access to family planning and clinical services, education, opportunities for women, the societal average age for marriage or a first childbirth, access to reliable birth control methods, and personal and societal structures, such as religious beliefs, traditions, and cultural norms (Miller, 2018, p. 126). In the United States, the total fertility rate has recently decreased 15% since 2007 and has recently reflected women putting off childbearing until their later years, with groups of women in late 30s and early 40s increasing in childbirths in 2018 and moving away from traditional age-fertility patterns from United States history (Tavernise, 2019). Declines in U.S. total fertility raises overall concerns for present problems, such as increasing debt or economic instability, and future implications, such as potential workforce and the federal social security program. Within the industrial and post-industrial eras of demographic transition, population growth slows, levels off, and eventually has a slight decline following the improvement in food, production, health, and education. However while the total fertility rate can be viewed as a negative, women and families in the United States could also view the current state of the world as difficult to bring a child into or believe that their country is not providing the support necessary for more children.

With current urban and population growth, more than two-thirds of the earth’s population is projected to be living in urban areas by the next generation (Kirabo Kacyira). Urbanization is the “creation and growth of urban and suburban areas” (Miller, 2018, p. 605), which is increasingly indicated by urban growth, which is the “rate of increase of urban populations” (Miller, 2018, p. 605). Trends in modern population growth include sharp increases of urban populations, increasing sizes and numbers of urban areas, and urbanized poverty. Between 1850 and 2015, the world’s urban population has increased from 2% to 53%, with more than 1 billion people globally estimated to be living in poverty in major cities, which is projected to triple by 2050 (Miller, 2018, pp. 605-606). Urban city development has resulted in urban sprawl, “the growth of low-density development of the edges of cities and towns” (Miller, 2018, p. 608), leading to the development of suburbs and exurbs, which eliminates wild lands that can have cultural value.

Satirical cartoon on urban sprawl by Signe Wilkinson (Wilkinson, 2006).

In central cities, urban residents have better access to medical care, education, social services, and family planning relative to rural residents, in addition to cities being centers for development, such as technological advancement and employment opportunities (Miller, 2018, p. 609). However, central cities have large ecological footprints, with urban populations consuming about 75% of the earth’s resources and produce about 75% of the earth’s pollution (Miller, 2018, p. 610), in addition to contributing heavily to excessive noise, local climate effects from pollution, light pollution, and poverty. In comparison to central cities, suburbs and exurbs offer lower-density living spaces, typically larger lots with single-family homes, and usually newer education facilities and lower crime rates (Miller, 2018, p. 608). However, urban sprawl has additionally caused loss of cropland, fragmentation of forests and other natural habitats, increased pollution, lack of high-efficiency energy, and more unemployment in central cities (Miller, 2018, p. 609). To address more sustainable options for urban development or existing central cities, approaches include reduction of personal automobile use and movement towards transport systems or ride-sharing, land-use planning, emphasis on energy efficiency, and zoning diversity between residential and commercial use. As a step towards the future, countries like the United Kingdom have started looking into more cost effective and carbon reducing transportation methods to provide a better option for individuals who choose to travel by car.

Word Count: 1165/1100

Bibliography

“Current World Population.” Worldometer. Accessed March 2, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#table-historical.

“Degrowth.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 17, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth.

Harrabin, Roger. “Climate Change: 'Gob-Smacking' Vision for Future UK Transport.” BBC News. BBC, March 27, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52064509?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftopics%2Fc4y3wxdx24nt%2Four-planet-matters.

Kirabo Kacyira, Aisa. “Addressing the Sustainable Urbanization Challenge.” United Nations.

United Nations. Accessed March 2, 2020. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/addressing-sustainable-urbanization-challenge.

“PlaNYC.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 1, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlaNYC.

Tavernise, Sabrina. “Fertility Rate in U.S. Hit a Record Low in 2018.” The New York Times.

The New York Times, November 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/us/us-birth-fertility-rate.html.

Wilkinson, Signe. “Cartoonist Group.” Cartoon. Cartoonist Group, July 12, 2006. https://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=14082.

Wong, Alia. “The Misplaced Fears About the United States' Declining Fertility Rate.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, May 17, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/real-lessons-americas-declining-fertility-rate/589651/.

Blog Post 3/9: Time to take care of local biodiversity.

With recent species extinctions starting to come to the mass media to increase public awareness, little is still being done due to lack of public concern for decreasing biodiversity. Recently, populations, such as the Northern White Rhinoceros and the Pyrenean Ibex, have gone completely extinct due to actions of our ancestors due to lack of care for sustaining animal populations, specifically through over-hunting and habitat loss primarily for the economic and personal benefit of humans. Biological extinction is defined as “when [a species] cannot adapt and successfully reproduce under new environmental conditions or a catastrophic environmental event may wipe out its members” (Miller, 2018, p. 193) and is a natural process. However, currently human actions contribute to most of the recent extinction of species. Naturally, most extinct species have low reproductive rates, a specialized niche in the environment, a small population, few prey options, fixed migratory patterns, are commercially valuable, and require large territories for their habitat (Miller, 2018, p. 195). Within these specific parameters, many small populations with very specific survival necessities are highly affected by human actions, such as deforestation and pollution, leading to rapidly increasing annual extinction rates. Humans accelerate species extinction by initiating and contributing to habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation, introducing invasive species directly or indirectly, population growth, increasing usage of resources, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of resources (Miller, 2018, p. 198), which all make individual species increasingly vulnerable. For example, introducing invasive species, directly by humans purposefully bringing them into a non-native habitat or indirectly by species traveling through commercial cargo, gives more resource competition and can outcompete a native species, can disrupt environmental services, introduce new disease, and additionally can lead to economic losses. In the United States alone, there are more than 7,100 invasive species (Miller, 2018, p. 200), with 42% of endangered species in the United States primarily threatened from non-native species (Miller, 2018, p. 200).

In the United States, one of the most famous cases of an invasive species includes the Zebra Mussel, originally native to eastern Europe/western Asia and invading primarily the Midwest’s Great Lakes region and other freshwater inland bodies of water. Zebra mussels cost the economy approximately $1 billion USD annually by clogging water intake, decreasing property values, and causing harm to human beings during recreational use of water (Minnesota Sea Grant). Since zebra mussels are filter feeders in their native ecosystem, each adult zebra mussel filters about 1 liter of water per day (Minnesota Sea Grant), currently benefiting freshwater by increasing its clarity and increasing aquatic biodiversity in shallower waters, but consume smaller prey that are required for the survival of smaller fish and aquatic life and creates pseudofeces, creating unhealthy environments (Minnesota Sea Grant). A substantial part of sustaining biodiversity, not only in the United States but the entire Earth, includes the careful study of invasive species, their effects on native species, and what humans can do to decrease as much impact as possible on native species and their habitats. Most states have invasive species laws and guidelines for citizens to follow to avoid transporting non-native species through commercial and recreational activities.

Collaboration between nations is a step towards sustaining our environment and starting to preserve our earth’s biodiversity, with agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Agreements such as these commit governments to taking action to help protect our environment. Within the United States, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 has improved the conditions of approximately more than half of the original endangered species through recovery programs and land sanctuaries on a small budget (Miller, 2018, p. 211), which is beneficial in keeping the program running without any federal budget cuts.

Ecosystem services of forests include supporting energy flow and chemical cycling, purifying water and air, reducing soil erosion, absorbing and releasing water, influencing local and regional climates, storing atmospheric carbon, and providing many wildlife habitats (Miller, 2018, p. 223), in addition to providing crucial economic services to human beings such as for biofuel and industrial uses. For the purposes of sustaining our earth’s biodiversity, old growth forests remain uncut and have been for over 200 years (Miller, 2018, p. 223). Second growth forests are forests that develop following tree removal for human activities, which are limited in cutting down. To protect both old growth and second growth forests, commercial forests have developed, which are managed to contain only one or two species of a tree that are all the same age and are periodically harvested when they are economically viable (Miller, 2018, p. 224). In addition to tree farms, harvesting practices such as selective strip cutting are used to harvest trees on a sustainable basis rather than clear cutting, which clears out whole plots of forests for lumber and is the least sustainable way to harvest wood. To sustain healthy forests, fires occur naturally, but pose a threat to human settlements. As an alternative, occasional and controlled surface fires clear away flammable material, initiate decomposition, release seeds in conifer trees, and control the longevity and destructiveness of naturally occurring fires (Miller, 2018, p. 233).

Smoke from Australian bush fires in 2020, resulting from 2019 being the hottest year on record for Australia (BBC, 2020).

Since July of 2019, the Australian bushfire season has taken the mass media by storm, ranging from reports on stories of firefighters in the line of duty to human beings trying to feed koalas. With fires between July 2019 and February 2020, at least 28 people have died and almost 3,000 homes destroyed (Guy, 2020), with the peak of the fires creating thick black smoke in New South Wales in December 2019 and January 2020. In addition to the death of humans, more than 1 billion animals have died in Australia’s recent bushfire season, with Australia already having one of the highest species extinction rates in the world and brings into question decreasing biodiversity, specifically what humans can do to preserve the earth’s biodiversity. With human settlements nearby koala habitats, humans dislocate koalas from their native forests and decrease their chances of survival during bushfire season. In one case, a family has converted their home into a koala rehabilitation center, providing care for the injured animals and nursing them back to health. Due to lack of information surrounding the rehabilitation of koalas in the media, many tourists and locals feed water directly to koalas in water bottles, which led to pneumonia in many cases and occasionally death of the koala. While the effort of humans is appreciated in trying to preserve biodiversity, especially in hotspots such as Australia, we are not educated in how to help maintain our environment properly in some cases, which results in the miscare of some plants and animals. There is a desire to help our environment and animals when in need, but the effort should be matched with proper education on issues and what individuals can do to help.

Word count: 1164/1100

Bibliography

Albeck-ripka, Livia. “Saving the Fire Victims Who Cannot Flee: Australia's Koalas.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/world/australia/australia-koalas-fire.html.

“Australia Fires: A Visual Guide to the Bushfire Crisis.” BBC News. BBC, January 31, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043.

Gorman, Mollie, and ABC Riverina. “Busting the Myths: How to Help Wildlife in Bushfire and Drought-Affected Areas.” ABC News, January 17, 2020. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-17/social-media-myths-on-caring-for-fire-affected-koalas-and-bees/11874058.

Guy, Jack. “After More than 240 Days, Australia's New South Wales Is Finally Free from Bushfires.” CNN. Cable News Network, March 3, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/australia/new-south-wales-fires-extinguished-scli-intl/index.html.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

“Zebra Mussels Threaten Inland Waters: Minnesota Sea Grant.” Zebra Mussels Threaten Inland Waters | Minnesota Sea Grant. University of Minnesota. Accessed March 10, 2020. http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/ais/zebramussels_threaten.

Blog Post 3/23: Food and the Realities Behind How We Use Our Oceans

Stemming from the world’s seemingly ever growing population, analysts also trace increased stress on the world’s food supply and production in comparison to today to be even greater, with the demand for food projected to increase by 60% by 2050 to feed a world population of 9 billion people (Breene, 2016). However due to decreasing biodiversity and struggling sustainable agriculture alongside other valuable food markets, today’s processes for feeding our world are no longer able to be continued for long term success as a society. Currently, projections display that, for the same food yield markets produce today, only half of the world’s population in 2050 can be fed (Breene, 2016), leading many to be living in hunger, or chronic undernutrition. Chronic undernutrition is defined as when an individual is living in a state where they “cannot grow or buy enough food to meet their basic energy needs” (Miller, 2018, p. 285), despite most people living in low income situations only having access to high-carbohydrate vegetarian foods or cheap sugary processed foods, like wheat or corn, and living in chronic malnutrition. Chronic malnutrition leads to many developmental problems for children that last into a lifetime, such as blindness from vitamin A deficiency (Miller, 2018, p. 286), and a total of at least 27 million children affected by deficiencies in the core nutrients of vitamin A, zinc, iron, and iodine. Poverty is ultimately the root of undernutrition and malnutrition, which does not allow human beings the ability to afford nutritious food to sustain basic needs, and leads to lack of food security.

With agriculture accounting for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater withdrawals (Breene, 2016), energy and resource use must be taken into account, leading to a larger shift from industrialized agriculture to organic agriculture. Organic agriculture reduces the use of synthetic materials in farming, prevents soil erosion, uses crop rotation, utilizes biological means to sustain crops, does not use genetically modified seeds, increases renewable energy usage, reduces fossil fuel use, produces less air & water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, supports local economics, and uses no growth hormones for livestock (Miller, 2018, p. 289). In the United States, 13,000 farms are USDA-certified organic and, while these products tend to cost more from the utilization of more labor, consumers have shown an increase in buying organic products. Due to an increased consumption in meat and fish products, factory farms and fish farming are used to meet the consumer demand, leading to usage of growth hormones and unnatural feeding habits. In response, increased support of organic products and farming has emerged from consumers as they find out about how their food is being produced to meet mass demand. However, organic production can cause surface and groundwater pollution and increased erosion from practices necessary for organic farming. Despite some of the potential downsides of organic farming, the positives outweigh the negatives. Benefits of organic farming include building organic matter (fungi) in soil, reducing water pollution, reducing erosion, using less energy, being more tolerant to weeds, more likely to survive in drought, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, being more profitable, and being able to match conventional yields (Miller, 2018, p. 313).

When thinking of biodiversity loss, many only think about the earth’s natural biodiversity, but due to consumer demand, the genetic variety of agriculture has decreased, which is referred to as agrobiodiversity (Miller, 2018, p. 298). In the United States agricultural market, 97% of the food plant varieties available in the 1940s do not exist anymore (Miller, 2018, p. 298), with many foods projected to produce from only one or two varieties in the near future.

In regards to biodiversity, aquatic biodiversity is found most in coral reefs, estuaries, and near coastal regions, in addition to ocean bottoms, due a variety of producers, habitats, and food sources. Aquatic biodiversity gives our earth the economic ability of fishing & tourism, protein and seafood for human nutrition, provides natural barriers to natural disasters, and oceans generate oxygen & absorb excess heat & carbon dioxide. Aquatic biodiversity is suffering from habitat disruption, invasive species, and pollution from human actions. Specifically, shallow, warm-water coral reefs are the home to about 25% of the world’s fish species (Miller, 2018, p. 255), but are under great threat from warming and the acidification of oceans from greenhouse gas emissions through coral bleaching, which is a process caused by rapidly warming ocean waters that strips colorful algae from shallow tropical corals and leaves white coral, weakening or killing corals (Miller, 2018, p. 255). Ocean acidification additionally is killing off the base of marine food webs, the phytoplankton, which will begin to have a greater effect on the larger ecosystem as well. In terms of invasive species, species such as the lionfish or Asian carp put extra pressure on native species for competition in territory and food, usually not faring well for native species, due to invasive species having limited or no predators in their new ecosystem. Human pollution has caused oxygen-depleted zones in coastal regions worldwide, increasing algal blooms and reducing oxygen access for organisms (Miller, 2018, pp. 258-259), in addition to microplastics, partially decomposed plastic, and toxic chemicals harming animals.

Timeline and scale of pressures on marine life: 1860 to Present (Duarte, et al., 2020).

In recent years, the mass media has started to cover the coral bleaching taking place in the Great Barrier Reef, with warmer temperatures in February 2020 causing the third mass bleaching event in the past 5 years. In 2019, Australia switched the 5 year outlook of the Great Barrier Reef from “poor” to “very poor”, with climate change making mass coral bleaching events more severe and more frequent (BBC, 2020). In a high carbon emissions future, the United Nations advises that 90% of the world’s corals will be extinct if temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius, in addition to some island states becoming inhabitable and many of the world’s urban centers threatened by rising sea levels (McGrath, 2019). However if we increase the effectiveness and scale of existing conservation efforts, scientists argue that ocean biodiversity and species can still be saved, using evidence from recent decreases in the amount of marine species threatened with extinction (Duarte, et al., 2020; McGrath, 2020).

Fishing, while considered a natural and historically-significant way of using our ocean, is now harming the earth’s aquatic ecosystem through overfishing and fishing practices, such as purse-seine fishing and drift-net fishing. For example, drift-catch fishing utilizes large nets up to 50 feet deep and 40 miles long that kill bycatch, or unwanted fish, but additionally kill other marine mammals and sea turtles and stresses organisms that rely on decomposing bycatch for nutrients (Miller, 2018, p. 261). Human activities frequently kill marine animals that were not intended, such as sharks or sea turtles, while some markets find those animals appealing. Through regulations and laws, fishing as a commercial practice is more regulated and is turning towards supporting sustainably produced seafood, in addition to sustainably farmed seafood from aquaculture. In the United States, fisheries are held up to National Standard guidelines from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was passed to prevent overfishing, replenish overfished species, provide sustainable seafood, and promote benefits associated with sustainable fishing practices (NOAA Fisheries).

Additionally, wetlands are being protected, typically by zoning laws in the United States and by requiring federal permits to fill wetlands more than 3 acres (Miller, 2018, p. 273). Currently, mitigation banking is practiced, which is a policy that allows destruction of existing wetlands as long as an equal or greater area of the same type of wetland is created, enhanced, or restored (Miller, 2018, p. 273). However, created wetlands are proven to not provide the ecological services required of them to be functional; thus, future endeavors that utilize wetlands should create a better alternative to man made wetlands to provide ecological benefit. Protecting areas such as wetlands and oceans are difficult due to many actions having an unknown effect on biodiversity, in addition to most ocean areas being outside of any federal jurisdiction and known as open-waters. Federally implemented actions have historically typically shown improvement on protecting targeted biodiversity and ecosystems, such as recent commercial whaling bans allowing the population of humpback whales to resurge (McGrath, 2020).

Word Count: 1378/1100

Bibliography

Breene, Keith. “Food Security and Why It Matters.” World Economic Forum, January 18, 2016. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/food-security-and-why-it-matters/.

Duarte, Carlos M., Susana Agusti, Edward Barbier, Gregory L. Britten, Juan Carlos Castilla, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Robinson W. Fulweiler, et al. “Rebuilding Marine Life.” Nature 580, no. 7801 (April 2, 2020): 39–51. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2146-7.

“Great Barrier Reef Suffers Third Mass Bleaching in Five Years.” BBC News. BBC, March 26, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-52043554?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftopics%2Fc4y3wxdx24nt%2Four-planet-matters.

McGrath, Matt. “Climate Change: UN Panel Signals Red Alert on 'Blue Planet'.” BBC News. BBC, September 25, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49817804.

McGrath, Matt. “Oceans Can Be Successfully Restored by 2050, Say Scientists.” BBC News. BBC, April 1, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52122447?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Ftopics%2Fc4y3wxdx24nt%2Four-planet-matters.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Laws & Policies.” NOAA. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed March 23, 2020. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/topic/laws-policies.

Blog Post 3/30: Consumer demand and the food production system

With fast food providers such as McDonalds being the majority of the market share when purchasing and using food, large fast food companies control the market demand for certain products, allowing them to shape how the food is being produced. Every day, McDonald’s serves about 1% of the global population, with operations selling at least 75 hamburgers every second (Khandelwal, 2019). Because of their mass market sales, McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of American beef and buys about 1 billion pounds of beef per year (Fister Gale, 2006), in addition to being the largest purchaser of potatoes in the United States and one of the largest purchasers of apples, chicken, and other produce (Food, Inc.). In this case, the largest purchaser, McDonald’s, controls the safety standards in the way beef is raised, processed, and distributed, which overall affects the way companies raise their cattle and other food due to large demand from major companies. Companies controlling safety standards for certain products as large or the largest consumer of the food gives the company immense control on producing farms in the way they operate or they will not be able to sell their product.

With corporate and consumer demand, there are no longer agrarian seasons that control the food available in grocery stores, because while seasonal fruit and vegetables still do exist, various growing seasons across the globe and indoor farming allows for demand to be met even if natural and local sources cannot. For example, due to the mass demand for poultry from increased population and fast food production, chickens have grown to be killed for more white meat than historically possible before, with chickens being engineered for bigger breasts that have limited support from their muscular structure in addition to chickens reaching maturity in half the amount of time as they were historically grown in (Food, Inc.). Corporations have utilized science to increase their yields to sustain market demand, which stems from the fast food market and consumer habits. As demand has increased, companies have created genetically modified crops to produce more yield, fight off weeds and pests. Historically, farmers have naturally crossbred plants to produce desirable traits in future generations. However in recent years, genetic engineering has grown in prevalence to quickly achieve the same goal as crossbreeding, but they can pose food safety and health risks and possible ecological effects.

Past market shares of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans, including the rapid growth of the product between 1996 and 2002 (Elmore/SEC, 2003).

Most famously, Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company, first engineered Roundup, which is an herbicide. Following the invention of the Roundup herbicide, Monsanto genetically engineered soybean seeds to become Roundup Ready crops that are resistant to the Roundup herbicide. Most of the soybean seeds planted in the United States, with Monsanto being the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds in the world and accounts for over 90% of the genetically engineered seeds planted worldwide as of 2003 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Additionally, newer seeds such as Xtend, which is a newer soybean seed variation similar to the RoundUp seeds that is resistant to an herbicide called dicamba, are subject to antitrust lawsuits. In the case of Xtend, the soybean variation has “taken over 60 to 75 percent of the American soybean market” (Charles, 2019) and some farmers have no choice but to use the dicamba-resistant seeds due to neighbors using dicamba that carries over into neighboring fields. With genetically-engineered seeds, they not only leave some farmers no choice but to use them and give an extreme amount of power to companies over farmers, but in using genetically engineered seeds and more consumer education, habits and customer preferences have changed in recent years and leave a larger market share for organic foods.

Since the 1990s, organic food sales “have shown double digit growth” (Greene, 2017) almost every single year, showing the increased consumer demand for organic foods and changes over time in consumer preferences. As consumer preferences shift from highly processed foods to organic options, producers can match consumer demand and possibly change their products and processes and restaurants can utilize organic options to appeal to the organic-oriented market of consumers. However, one of the hindrances to more consumers purchasing organic products includes high cost prices relative to non-organic options, both in conventional grocery stores and restaurants. Additionally, there is only strong demand for organic products in urban areas, with low or no demand in rural areas and therefore few to no organic options sold in rural conventional grocery stores. The positive effect of increased consumer demand of organic products is the transition of organic products from what used to be a lifestyle choice to mainstream consumer purchasing, with a majority of Americans identifying that they consume organic products at least occasionally (USDA ERS, 2019), even despite more expensive pricing for most organic products than their non-organic counterparts. With government aid, the organic products market can grow in the United States and globally, such as the 2008 Farm Act that provides financial support for American farmers converting to organic production (USDA ERS 2009).

While the organic food market has exhibited growth in recent years, fast food is still a problem in the United States, due to its low costs and high fat content. Fast food’s low costs are a result of a skewed food production system that benefits commodity crop growing, including wheat, corn, and soybeans, and fast food subsidizing. The low costs of fast food make it appealing to low income groups, making a few meals as affordable as purchasing one vegetable at a grocery store. While the fast food industry provides cheap food options, it provides extremely unhealthy meals to ignore the wealth gap in developed countries. Lower income groups cannot access healthier or organic options, which is only met with the growth of the fast food industry in the United States and in other developed countries. With the rapid growth of the fast food industry in recent years, obesity has increased in the United States. Additionally, “1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset type 2 diabetes” (Food, Inc.).

If more consumers are to consume organic foods both in the United States and globally, consumers should understand the way the earth’s soil functions as an ecosystem of its own with various layers and different types of layers depending on the land type.

Soil functions as a mineral layer, with the top portion containing biological material and deeper soil having “fewer interactions with terrestrial roots” (Symphony of Soil), such as roots and water, but is primarily a space for living organisms to exist and for nutrients to exchange with living organisms. In relation to farming, good produce yield requires nitrogen rich soil and farmers typically use nitrogen fertilizer that requires high levels of water input. Naturally, oxidation in the soil is driven by microorganisms and has historically been able to keep up with crop yields through crop rotation on farms. With high demand and population growth, most farmers no longer use crop rotation. By understanding our earth and its soil, solutions can be created to provide better alternatives to farming with chemically-based ways.

Word Count: 1193/1100

Bibliography

Boerop, Lisa. “We Visited a Meat-Processing Factory to Find out Exactly How McDonald's Hamburgers Are Made.” Business Insider. Business Insider, March 7, 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/i-went-to-a-mcdonalds-factory-and-saw-how-the-burgers-are-really-made-2018-10.

Charles, Dan. “Is Fear Driving Sales Of Monsanto's Dicamba-Proof Soybeans?” NPR. NPR, February 7, 2019. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/02/07/691979417/is-fear-driving-sales-of-dicamba-proof-soybeans.

“Dicamba and the Roundup Ready® Xtend Crop System.” Monsanto. Monsanto Company, July 10, 2018. https://monsanto.com/company/media/articles/dicamba-roundup-ready-xtend-crops/.

Elmore, Greg. “Roundup Ready Soybean Benefits.” Lecture. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2003. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1110783/000103570403000400/c77652exv99w6.htm.

Food, Inc. Magnolia Pictures, 2008.

Gale, Sarah Fister. “McDonald's USA: A Golden Arch of Supply Chain Food Safety.” Food Safety Magazine. Food Safety Magazine, 2006. https://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/magazine-archive1/februarymarch-2006/mcdonalds-usa-a-golden-arch-of-supply-chain-food-safety/.

“Genetically Modified Crops.” Case Studies in Agricultural Biosecurity. Federation of American Scientists, 2011. https://fas.org/biosecurity/education/dualuse-agriculture/2.-agricultural-biotechnology/genetically-engineered-crops.html.

Greene, Catherine, Carolyn Dimitri, Biing-Hwan Lin, William D McBride, Lydia Oberholtzer, and Travis A. Smith. “Emerging Issues in the U.S. Organic Industry.” USDA ERS. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, June 2009. https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=44416.

Greene, Catherine, Bertrand Charron, Carl Salamone, and Ben Weaver. “Consumer Demand Bolstering Organic Production and Markets in the U.S.” USDA. U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 21, 2017. https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/02/16/consumer-demand-bolstering-organic-production-and-markets-us.

Gossman, William. “Escherichia Coli (E Coli 0157 H7).” U.S. National Library of Medicine. StatPearls Publishing LLC, July 11, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507845/.

Khandelwal, Rekha. “McDonald's Supply Chain: A Must-Know for Investors.” Market Realist. Market Realist, November 14, 2019. https://marketrealist.com/2019/11/must-know-mcdonalds-supply-chain-2/#adnrb=900000.

“Organic Market Overview.” USDA ERS - Organic Market Overview. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, October 9, 2019. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/natural-resources-environment/organic-agriculture/organic-market-overview/.

“Roundup Ready Crops.” The Roundup Ready Controversy. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. https://web.mit.edu/demoscience/Monsanto/players.html.

Symphony of the Soil, 2012.

Blog Post 4/6: Risks, hazards, and where we fall in decision-making

Before any decision is made, an assessment of the risk posed is usually conducted, especially in environmentally changing decisions that affect the lives of many individuals. Risk is defined as “the probability of suffering harm from a hazard that can cause injury, disease, death, economic loss, or damage” (Miller, 2018, p. 443), with the main types of hazards looked at when assessing risk are biological, chemical, natural, cultural, and lifestyle choices. When evaluating chemical hazards, scientists measure their toxicity, which is “a measure of the ability of a substance to cause injury, illness, or death to a living organism” (Miller, 2018, p. 456), and highlight that any substance is toxic in large amounts; scientists particularly focus on dosage of a substance, which is the amount of a chemical that is in a body at one time. Other variables determining toxicity include genetics, sensitivity to a chemical, solubility of a toxin, biomagnification from a food web, or the chemical’s resistance to being broken down. For prevention, the textbook highlights the precautionary principle to minimize risk, which is if there is evidence that an activity/technology/chemical can harm an organism or the environment, lawmakers should take measures to reduce any harm (Miller, 2018, p. 460). To take any preventative measures, accurate risk analysis is required, which includes risk assessment, comparative analysis, management, and communication of the risk (Miller, 2018, p. 462); however, most people tend to lack risk analysis skills when encountering hazards. When individuals encounter hazards, factors, such as fear, optimism, instant gratification, and degree of control, affect how someone analyzes the hazard and how they react to it, typically leading to poor risk management. Typically, biological and chemical hazards are not completely under an individual’s control and an individual mostly relies on governing bodies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, to evaluate risk on their behalf.

Biological hazards include infectious disease, bacteria, viruses, parasites, and non-transmissible disease. To combat biological hazards, modern medicine and progressive urban development has lowered the rate of mortality related to infectious disease, in addition to providing better healthcare. However, health care in the United States is a luxury and not a right, unlike some nations who provide universal healthcare for their citizens. Insurance can subsidize vaccines and antibiotics for infectious diseases, but, without healthcare, basic medical necessities can come at a financial burden for some individuals. One of the most common medical burdens includes insulin for diabetes, which cost about $5,000 USD annually in 2016 for a Type 1 diabetic (NATAP) and 10.5% of Americans have diabetes as of 2018 (CDC, 2020). While healthcare is expensive in the United States, other solutions to preventing infectious disease include reducing poverty & malnutrition, improve drinking water quality, reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics in humans & livestock, immunize children against major viruses, provide proper rehydration of patients, and conduct global campaigns to reduce HIV/AIDS.

On the other hand, chemical hazards include chemicals in the air, on earth, and in man-made products. Harmful chemicals are known as toxic chemicals, which is defined as “an element or compound that can cause temporary or permanent harm or death to humans” (Miller, 2018, p. 452) and the textbook primarily highlights carcinogens, which are chemicals that cause or promote cancer, such as ultraviolet radiation and arsenic. Additionally, natural and synthetic chemicals can harm our immune system, which is made up of specialized cells & tissues that protect the body, in addition to some chemicals targeting the nervous system, which cause behavioral & mental changes, paralysis, and death. Lastly, synthetic chemicals can target the endocrine system, which releases hormones in the human body and regulate the body’s systems, through attaching to natural hormones and disrupting systems and act as hormonally active agents. To avoid synthetic chemicals, studies show to use natural products and to eat organic foods when possible.

One of the most prevalent health issues today is the disposal of waste, which is magnified by poverty in some areas of the world. The types of waste human beings produce include industrial solid waste, municipal solid waste (garbage), and hazardous waste. Focusing on municipal solid waste, garbage typically ends up as litter in earth’s natural landscapes and most of our garbage is not recycled. On the other hand, hazardous waste requires proper handling to avoid pollution and is defined as “any discarded material or substance that threatens human health or the environment because it is toxic, is corrosive, is flammable, can undergo violent or explosive chemical reactions, or can cause disease” (Miller, 2018, p. 577), such as medical waste or pesticide products. Hazardous waste can include chemical hazards, such as organic compounds and toxic heavy metals like arsenic. Currently, waste management is inefficient due to the mass production of unnecessary waste from our consumer culture; both waste management and reduction are necessary to reduce hazards for human beings and any harm towards nature, which is called for in integrated waste management, which is “a variety of coordinated strategies for both waste management and waste reduction” (Miller, 2018, p. 578). Solid waste management currently consists of incineration, open dumps, and sanitary landfills, which layer waste on soil with clay or foam barriers between layers. Incineration and sanitary landfills release air pollutants and greenhouse gases, with incineration promoting waste production due to increased profit correlating with increased trash intake.

Sanitary landfill in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (AFD, 2013).

Waste reduction primarily highlights refusing any unnecessary waste, reducing intake of products, reusing products to minimize disposal, and recycling products. Organic produce can be recycled through composting, which uses natural processes with decomposers that can be used as soil fertilizer (Miller, 2018, p. 579). Additionally, cradle-to-cradle is an alternative product design where companies retrieve their products from consumers when they no longer are useful, which allows the company to reuse their products and minimize waste rather than consumers throwing out the product when no longer useful. The cradle-to-cradle approach is used typically with larger and more reusable products such as computers and electronics. More approaches to waste management include government intervention by restricting disposal and banning certain disposable items, such as single use plastic bags or plastic straws.

Many large cities across the United States ban plastic bags or have a tax on plastic bags to promote reusable bag usage, with Hawaii, California, and New York completely banning single use plastic bags. Most recently, China has passed legislation to ban single-use plastic bags countrywide by 2025, which comes from studies that its largest landfill in the Shaanxi province of China is 25 years ahead of schedule due to it receiving 10,000 tons of waste per day which is 4 times more than its designed daily intake (Nace, 2020). While the Chinese government’s actions are impactful as one of the largest waste producers in the world, actions should be taken by countries like Canada, which is the largest producer of waste in the world, and the United States, which produces more waste per person than China. To shift to a low waste economy and minimize hazards both for human beings and our earth, governments and consumers should embrace more sustainable methods such as reusing and recycling; however, consumers must take the brunt of the push towards sustainability as producers of waste by making informed choices and should minimize consumption where possible, in addition to pushing for safe and more sustainable methods of waste disposal and waste reduction.

Word Count: 1228/1100

Bibliography

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Nace, Trevor. “China To Ban All Single-Use Plastics.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, January 20, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/01/20/china-to-ban-all-single-use-plastics/#66069a717293.

“New Sanitary Landfill in Addis Ababa.” AFD. Agence Francaise de Developpement , December 19, 2013. https://www.afd.fr/en/carte-des-projets/new-sanitary-landfill-addis-ababa.

"The absurdly high cost of insulin" - as high as $350 a bottle, often 2 bottles per month needed by diabetics. National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project. Accessed April 24, 2020. http://www.natap.org/2019/HIV/052819_02.htm.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf.

Blog Post 4/20: Water is not just for us!

Contrary to popular belief, water is not and will not always be a constant for the human race to use and abuse for its own benefit. While society operates under the impression that water is a constant resource, most people ignore the realities that come from inadequate access to water, such as waterborne infectious disease in contaminated sources. Despite our earth’s surface being 71% water, very little of our earth’s surface is freshwater, which is extremely limited through groundwater and surface water sources. Groundwater makes up most of our freshwater, primarily coming from aquifers, which are “caverns and porous layers of sand, gravel or rock through which groundwater flows” (Miller, 2018, p. 326). All aquifers are naturally replenished, with fossil aquifers, which are filled with water from melted glaciers, replenished on a larger timescale with at least thousands of years needed to replace its water. Most fossil aquifers are located under coastal seabeds. On the other hand, surface water is “freshwater from rain and melted snow that flows or is stored in lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, streams, and rivers” (Miller, 2018, p. 326) and is from surface runoff that drains into a watershed that stores the water (lakes, streams, etc.). However, only one-third of all surface runoff can be depended on as a reliable water source (Miller, 2018, p. 327). Regarding pollution, groundwater cannot cleanse itself well, so any pollution into groundwater sources leaves the source unusable. Little research is done on whether groundwater is polluted, so most groundwater pollution goes unnoticed for a significant period of time.

To evaluate our water usage, individuals should evaluate their own water footprint, which is a “measure of the volume of freshwater that we use or pollute, directly and indirectly, to stay alive and to support our lifestyles” (Miller, 2018, p. 327). In my family’s 4 person household in Chicago, we use about 6,200 gallons of water per day, including our virtual water intake. We are pretty average for an American family’s water footprint, but it still seems like a lot of water that we don’t even recognize we are using. Additionally, the average American uses about 1,800 gallons of water per day, including their virtual water footprint (Water Footprint Calculator). Most of an individual’s water footprint is in their virtual water usage, which is “freshwater that is not directly consumed but is used to produce food and other products” (Miller, 2018, p. 328), which makes the amount of water we think we use to be a lot less than it actually is and therefore we belittle the importance of water sources in our lives.

In Chapter 13, the textbook focuses on the Colorado River system and the strain that human use puts it through. The case study of the Colorado River system focuses on freshwater scarcity stress, which is “a measure based on the amount of freshwater available compared to the amount used for human purposes” (Miller, 2018, p. 330). Larger river systems, such as the Colorado, Nile, Jordan, and Yangtze rivers face higher stress than other systems, with some locations in their systems having almost no water flow. In the future, the United Nations estimates that water scarcity will be more prevalent in rapidly developing urban areas, which will “amplify the already complex relationship between world development and water demand” and estimates that 1 in 4 children will be living in high water scarcity regions by 2040 (UN Water). With groundwater systems like the Colorado River facing high stress today, the increase of population in already dense cities like Phoenix leaves city planners and engineers to question if it is worth continuing to advance the engineering to maximize water usage from sources. Additionally in the case of the Colorado River system, marine productivity has decreased 95% in the Gulf of California (Robbins, 2019), where the delta of the Colorado River is. While we should be concerned for how our own water consumption will affect our future, the future of our earth’s biodiversity should also be taken into consideration. A significant problem that hides our water usage is government subsidies that encourage the growth of thirsty crops, which not only accelerates the depletion of our water sources, but also increases the competition for water sources between farmers.

Utah’s Lake Powell (Colorado River System) and its 70+ foot deep bathtub ring from water source stress (Zielinski, 2010)

Recently with the help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers have started using technology to aid water preservation efforts when watering their crops. Using drone technology and sensory equipment, farmers can determine their land’s soil moisture and water with only what is necessary, using a process called deficit irrigation (Associated Press, 2019). Additional solutions to water scarcity include desalination, microfiltration of salt & pollution, water transfers using irrigation, and reservoirs created by dams to increase accessibility to surface runoff. However, the primary focus, instead of finding solutions to utilize more water out of our earth’s sources, should be on how to use our water sources more sustainably, particularly with more efficiency in established processes and minimizing usage where possible in water footprints. Recommendations for reducing water usage include drip irrigation for yards, water saving appliances, and reusing/recycling water where possible.

As water usage intensifies, the chances for water pollution increases as well. Water pollution is “any change in water quality that can harm living organisms or make the water unfit for human uses such as drinking, irrigation, and recreation” (Miller, 2018, p. 543), with agriculture being the leading cause for water pollution with sediments, fertilizers, livestock bacteria, and/or pesticides. Additional sources for pollution include industrial facilities, mining, and wastewater with sewage and other unsafe waste. In water sources, breaking down biodegradable wastes with bacteria uses up oxygen, which reduces or completely eliminates populations of organisms and can create dead zones where pollution is dumped. Other water pollution includes raw sewage in water sources, which the textbook estimates that 80 to 90 percent of sewage in less developed countries is deposited into water sources. As water sources become polluted, eutrophication can occur in increased amounts, which is the “natural nutrient enrichment...caused mostly by runoff of plant nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates from land bordering these bodies of water” (Miller, 2018, p. 549). To improve our water sources and combat increased eutrophication, the sustainable recommendation is to apply natural chemical cycling and return nutrients to soil rather than polluting water sources, but additionally these polluted water sources can be controlled by removing unnecessary plant growth. While not a consumable water source, ocean pollution should also be cared about and acted upon, as the ocean provides a home for a large food source in the human diet. Today, the media has started covering ocean pollution created by human industries, such as the Pacific Garbage Patch and oil spills, which provides humans with visual evidence of what our choices and treatment of water sources causes and forces us to realize that water is not just for us. It is for everyone, both humans and other living organisms.

Word count: 1179/1100

Bibliography

Associated Press. “Farms Turn to Tech amid Water Stress Warnings in Southwest.” New York Post. New York Post, August 13, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/farms-turn-to-tech-amid-water-stress-warnings-in-southwest/.

“GRACE's Water Footprint Calculator.” Water Footprint Calculator. GRACE Communications Foundation, 2020. https://www.watercalculator.org/wfc2/complete/.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

UN-Water. “Scarcity: UN-Water.” UN. Accessed April 27, 2020. https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/scarcity/.

Wood, Ted, Jim Robbins, Jonathan Mingle, and Gabriel Popkin. “Restoring the Colorado: Bringing New Life to a Stressed River.” Yale E360. Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, February 14, 2019. https://e360.yale.edu/features/restoring-the-colorado-bringing-new-life-to-a-stressed-river.

Zielinski, Sarah. “The Colorado River Runs Dry.” Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution, October 1, 2010. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-colorado-river-runs-dry-61427169/.

Blog Post: 4/27: What should be considered when we think of the future?

While the future of our earth seems largely uncertain, one thing is for sure: we need to help save our planet now. If we do not take action soon, any and all damage to our earth that we have caused can become irreversible, which will only harm our future as a human race. In Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene, they focus on the human race’s role in the current time period, the anthropocene, which is “the epoch where the human component of the Earth system is large enough to affect how it functions” (Lewis & Maslin, p. 399). Lewis and Maslin look to the future and lay out the possibilities, including business as normal, a societal collapse akin to the Mayan and Roman Empires, or a transition to a completely new society with a different living style compared to present day society. In order for business to continue as normal and for society to maintain its current outputs and consumption habits, consumerism must tackle the most pressing issue of the environment and the harm that humans have caused to avoid societal collapse or switching to a different way of living, which is possible considering new governmental reforms, increased health and lifespans, improved nutrition, and more.

If collapse was to occur, it requires a drastic decline in societal complexity, which is unlikely, but will most likely “take the form of private property and a free labor based capitalist mode of living” (Lewis & Maslin, p. 370) in the event of its occurrence. However, the authors estimate that it is more likely that, as humans, we will have to address the harm we have caused to the environment and transition to a different way of life that will highlight sustainability and efficiency. The authors particularly contribute to the future switch to a more efficient and sustainable society to the current process of a positive feedback look in our capitalist society, which tends to move towards new standards for stability. As capitalism currently develops, it utilizes the scientific method to improve current technologies and depends on the constant cycle of investing profits into products. Our current society will eventually transform society into something more elevated than what we have now if we address our earth’s environmental issues. In order to preserve our earth, we must recognize its issues, adapt, and collaborate as human beings with an interconnected web of ideas. Currently, we utilize our developing technology to manufacture and advance renewable energy as an attempt to minimize carbon emissions and our fossil fuel usage. Minimizing fossil fuel usage allows the human race to begin its journey towards more sustainable living.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill by BP in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011 (Broder, 2011)

However, minimizing fossil fuel usage is more complicated than we would think. Lewis and Maslin identify geopolitics as a barrier to fully eliminative fossil fuel usage, which is subsidized at about $5 trillion USD per year and most of the oil and gas companies worldwide are “partly or fully nationalized” (Lewis & Maslin, p. 383). Usage of fossil fuels not only has carbon emissions, but also causes land degradation, water pollution from leaks or spills, and wastewater from fracking. A widely recommended idea on minimizing fossil fuel usage that is more attainable than fully eliminating it is to invest in renewable energy and/or to create a carbon tax, which is backed by energy economists like MIT Sloan School of Management’s Christopher Knittel (Dizikes, 2016). Despite all the negatives on fossil fuel usage, we are making progress, with prices of renewable energy technology decreasing over the past decade and making it more accessible. Lewis and Maslin additionally highlight the negative feedback cycles on earth, which affect human supplies like crops. Negative feedback cycles work to stabilize climates, but overcorrect and leave weather patterns to become more unpredictable. Negative feedback cycles also increase the frequency of large climate events like drought, increase extreme weather events like tsunamis, which can disrupt the global food supply, cause rise in food prices, and result in civil unrest and refugee flows between countries to avoid conflict (Lewis & Maslin, p. 385).

To benefit our earth, Lewis and Maslin identify the issue: the Anthropocene conundrum. The Anthropocene conundrum is how to equalize resource consumption across the world within sustainable environmental limits, which the authors believe the solution is primarily with globally coordinated action towards equality between more developed and less developed nations; specifically, more developed nations (high-carbon emitting countries) should be doing more than others to reduce emissions and providing support to less developed nations to transition to renewable energy.

While Lewis and Maslin identify various possibilities surrounding our earth’s and society’s future, they do not propose a definite plan but just suggestions with its possible positive and negative results. E.O Wilson, a biologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University, proposes to devote half of the earth’s surface to nature to avoid mass extinction of species; specifically, Wilson proposes that we devote biological hotspots to protect those species of animals and elaborates on his Half Earth idea in his book, Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. Lewis and Maslin discuss E.O. Wilson’s Half Earth proposal, but determined that it is too large of a step for society and, while it would be effective, it would be more complicated to integrate than how Wilson proposes it.

Andrew Yang in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park during a presidential campaign rally in 2019. (Stevens & Grullon Paz, 2020)

Lastly, Lewis and Maslin discuss implementing a universal basic income to decrease interdependence in society, which would decrease the likelihood of massive societal collapse. Most recently, universal basic income has become a hot topic with former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang making it a central point for his campaign. Yang’s focal point was a universal basic income of $1,000 per month, but Yang pressed for this because he argued that soon there would be increased automation in lieu of jobs and Americans would find themselves out of work. While in the current situation people are not losing their jobs for automation, but they are losing their jobs due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. With the CARES Act passed in March 2020, there has been an increased push for a universal basic income into legislation with unemployment being projected up to 16% later in 2020 (Solender, 2020). The benefits of a universal basic income include bringing many out of extreme poverty and providing a better alternative than the United States’ current unemployment program. I am not personally an Andrew Yang supporter, but he raises an interesting idea that should be considered. Despite not knowing what the future holds for our earth, we can reduce our own created inequality by implementing a universal basic income and allowing some individuals the luxury to begin to worry about something else other than where they will get their next meal from. We can heal our earth, but only by healing the divides between one another first.

Word Count: 1171/1100

Bibliography

Broder, John M. “BP Shortcuts Led to Gulf Oil Spill, Report Says.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 14, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/science/earth/15spill.html.

Denchak, Melissa. “Fossil Fuels: The Dirty Facts.” NRDC, July 16, 2019. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fossil-fuels-dirty-facts.

Dizikes, Peter. “Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?” MIT News. MIT News Office, February 24, 2016. http://news.mit.edu/2016/carbon-tax-stop-using-fossil-fuels-0224.

“Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life.” EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. Accessed April 27, 2020. https://eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-our-planet-s-fight-for-life/.

Lewis, Simon, and Mark Maslin. The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene: a Pelican Book. Pelican, 2018.

Solender, Andrew. “Pushing Universal Basic Income, Andrew Yang Supporters Get #CongressPassUBI Trending.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, April 24, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/04/24/pushing-universal-basic-income-andrew-yang-supporters-get-congresspassubi-trending/#a6984925d30c.

Stevens, Matt, and Isabella Grullón Paz. “Andrew Yang's $1,000-a-Month Idea May Have Seemed Absurd Before. Not Now.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 18, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/universal-basic-income-andrew-yang.html.

Final Evaluation

I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to take this class. I have learned concepts that I would not have learned and probably would not have ever learned without this course. The blog posts have allowed me to see where I tend to focus on when talking about environmental issues and has given me a platform to see where I stand on these pressing issues. I have succeeded in finding my voice and thoughts on climate change and environmental issues. However, I have failed in this course primarily during the discussions; I struggle to verbalize my thoughts into arguments during our discussions. I hope to improve my critical thinking on environmental issues in the future, which I hope is a skill that will only improve with time. I think I bring a strong voice in my blog posts, but lack in discussions.

What I think I deserve: B

0 notes