Carson/Pollution

"Carbon dioxide is essentially for keeping Earth's temperature warm enough for life, but when it builds up faster than the earth system can accommodate, climate regulation is disrupted." (Robertson 2017)

This is the problem that we are seeing now. Due to many reasons, we have produced to much carbon dioxide that has built up in the environment and it has disrupted the natural climate. Its only February but it feels like summer in Florida and other parts of the country. This weather change disrupts plant growth, animal habitats, and many other things critical to our lives. We need to find a way to scale back the amount of carbon dioxide that we are producing and maybe even work to reduce the amount built up in the atmosphere. If we don’t do this we will continue down the same path that we are on and it may become the end of our existence. 

Global warming posted on Insurance Journal by Alex Morales

"Since DDT was released for civilian use, a process of escalation has been going on in which ever more toxic materials must be found." (Carson 2011)

When DDT came out everyone thought it was the cure all for all our crop problems. People would spray it everywhere. This even included spraying it in the presence of humans, even kids. If we did that today we would probably be arrested because we know what it could potential do to people. DDT has opened the door for other companies to produce other chemicals that kill more insects or that kill insects more efficiently. We again spray this on our crops without knowledge to what it does to the ecosystem when it is presented to it. It seems that we are repeating the mistakes of the past and Im sure that we will be talking about these chemicals the same way we talk about DDT today.  I know Counting Crows wrote the song “Big Yellow Taxi” that mentions DDT. They talk about not wanting someone to spray DDT on apples they would rather save the birds and the bees that it affects. I wander if another band will sing a song about the chemicals we put on our plants today.

DDT spraying posted on Sustainable Pulse

"We train ecologists in our universities and even employ them in our governmental agencies but we seldom take their advice." (Carson 2011)

This seems to be the biggest problem that we have when it comes to effective change in the way we produce crops. The people that are in position to enact change don’t do it because they are in the pockets of the companies that produce the chemicals. They are making a bunch of money with the way we are producing crops now so why would they want change. It doesn’t matter how many ecologists or experts say what we are doing is wrong if these people are always in power. It all comes down to money and the people in power don’t want to lose the money that they make in order to change the way we do things

Bribe posted on SEC Whistleblower

Carson, R. (2011). A Fable for Tomorrow. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp.151-160). Acton, MA: Copley Custom textbooks

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

The Biosphere/The Human Sphere

"A terrestrial ecosystem is never static and lives in a state of dynamic equilibrium, periodically undergoing some kind of disturbance to remain healthy." (Robertson 2014)

I remember learning about this when I was in middle school. An ecosystem will periodically go through something like a fire that will destroy it and then it will slowing grow back to what it was before the fire. Its allows the ecosystem to refresh the plant life that is there and to allow new plant species to grow. If this didn’t happen, the ecosystem would recycle the elements that are in the plants and it would become stagnant. I remember on our wet walk we talked about two different areas; one where a controlled chemical burn happened and one where nothing has happened to it. The area where the chemical burn happened had begun to regrow the plants that where present before while the other area looked over crowded and some of it was dead. Sometimes the environment needs to hit the reset button and these disturbances allow it to do that.

Forest regrowth after a fire posted on http://envirosci.net/111/succession/fire_ecology.htm

"The replacement fertility rate is the number of births per woman that will keep the population constant at zero population growth. for humans, the replacement fertility rate is 2.1, slightly above 2.0 to compensate for infant and child mortality." (Robertson 2014)

When you think of the stereotypical American family they have two children to each mother. However, this is not the case many times. I know my mom has 5 kids, which is way over the 2.1 children to each mother. Additionally, I know a lot of family that have more than the 2 kids so that is part of the reason that the human population is growing at an astounding rate. This isn’t just happening in America also. In many underdeveloped parts of the world the more children you have the more hands you have to work to make money for the family. This means that family’s will have way more than 2 kids so they can make enough money to live. Also it use to be the case in China where you could only have a certain number of children. Im not sure if that is the case anymore but I don’t know if that is the answer to this dilemma. Its going to be nearly impossible to come up with a solution to this problem that makes everyone happy.

Family picture posted on http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/biblical-womanhood/book-review-start-your-family/

"Growth as the core economic paradigm has been developing for several hundred years and has become solidly entrenched since the last century. Although an end to growth seems inevitable, moving to a different economic model will involve dramatic change." (Robertson 2014)

I agree that we need an economic shift if we are going to start to try to live sustainable but I am not sure how possible that is. We have always lived as a capitalist economy that promotes growth and competition. This doesn’t take in account what it is doing to the natural world when we are producing the products that we want. It will take a dramatic change in what we are doing now to get us away from this thought process and Im not sure people are open to that idea. It will take agreement with all countries around the world to make this shift because just a couple of countries doing it will not have the effect that is needed on the environment. I also think that it maybe too late to make this shift. It is going to take many years in implement this and by the time that it goes into effect and actually makes a difference in the world we may have done too much damage already.

Capitalism posted on http://speakingofdemocracy.com/tag/capitalism/

Robertson, M. (2014). Sustainability Principles and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Shiva Biodiversity

"Microbes have had no conservation movements or campaigns for 'microbe rights' for their protection. Nor has it been recognized that in the final analysis microbes are more powerful than'Man'." (Shiva 2011)

I don’t think we will ever see microbes have a conservation movement. People get behind movements for things that they like or that are cute. No one really likes microbes or thinks they are cute so they are not high on the list for a conservation movement. That shouldn’t be a bad thing either. When the author talks about conservation movements, she makes it sound like a conservation movement for something that is close to a human is wrong. Conservation for any animals or ecosystems should be a good thing and not be put down by the author.

Microbes posted on Conservation Magazine by Richard Conniff

"According to the dominant paradigm of production, diversity goes against productivity, which creates an imperative for uniformity and monocultures." (Shiva 2011)

I agree that diversity goes against productivity. With crops, its hard to be productive if you have to produce 50 different versions of each crop. Not all the crops grow under the same conditions and at the same rate so a farmer is unable to look after all the crops. I agree that monocultures of crops is bad for biodiversity but Im not sure at this point of time we have found a better way to produce enough crops for everyone while still promoting biodiversity. Demand is too high right now and our population continues to grow that if we cut back on production of animals or crops people will not like the drop in availability of things.  We will have to find a happy medium between diversity and production that will allow us to promote biodiversity while still producing enough for everyone and that is definitely easier said than done.

Rows of corn posted on Linn-Benton Community College

"Industrial agriculture, forestry and fisheries convert rich, diverse ecosystems into biologically impoverished chemically intensive monocultures, writing a death sentence for millions of species while claiming higher 'growth'." (Shiva 2011)

I don’t think that it just claims higher growth; industrial agriculture and fisheries do produce a higher growth rate than if it was a more biodiverse farm. One of the bigger problems with this way of farming is all the chemicals that they use in order to produce the amount of crops they do. All the chemicals in the environment kill the other plants around which hurt the environment. Maybe if we were able to find a way to keep the chemicals out of this technique it will help out the biodiversity in the long run. I know that these genetically modified crops were a big deal a while ago and to my knowledge I don’t think that much has changed. As our population and demand continues to grow I don’t see a change in the near future. I don’t think people will support biodiversity over the easily availability of products that they want.

Fishery posted on ZME Science by Mihai Andrei

Shiva, V. (2011). What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It So Important? In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp. 38-57). Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks. 

Leopold's The Land Ethic

"In short, the plant succession steered the course of history; the pioneer simply demonstrated, for good or ill, what successions inhered in the land." (Leopold)

In the early days of America, I don’t think the settlers really cared what they did to the plants and the environment that they where settling. They where most likely just trying to survive no matter what the cost and that in turn hurt the land they were living on.  It would be interesting if the pioneers knew what they would ultimately do to the land if they would change anything in the way they settled.  I would think they would try to change a couple of things but it would be really hard change most of their practices. It’s hard for people to empathize with nature because people can’t relate to nature especially when they are more worried about what they need to do in order to survive themselves. Also, if they wanted to change the way they did something they might not have had the technology or knowledge in order to change it. With modern technology, we are able to see more of the long term effects of everything. Back in the day they couldn’t see what they would ultimately do to the land.

Rolling Hills of Bluegrass by Ulrlch Burkhalter posted on flickr

"One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value." (Leopold)

I think this is the biggest obstacle to a conservation system in society today. Everything in the world revolves around money and if something that has no economic value, society doesn’t really care about it. People will be more likely to want to save something if it benefits them in the long run economically. Songbirds and wildflowers aren’t things that come to mind when you think about economic growth. This might be the wrong way to think but I don’t know if society as a whole will ever change this way of thinking. The one way that we could begin to change this way of thought is to start teaching the value of these things early on in school and emphasizing it throughout school. This will bring up a new generation that sees the value of nature and will think of new ways to conserve it but it will take a lot of years in order for this to happen.

Rise and Fall of Ecological Economics by Mark Sagoff posted on the Breakthrough

"In each field one group (A) regards the land as soil, and its function as commodity-production; another group (B) regards the land as a biota, and its function as something broader." (Leopold)

To me it sounds like group A are more scientists and/or business people while group B are more, for lack of a better word, tree huggers. Group A seems to care about the land just enough not to ruin it and make it unusable for the future. Group B also care about the land but they don’t want to hurt the whole ecosystem that it comes with also. I think that we need viewpoints from both of these groups in order to help conserve the land and to educate others to help others conserve the land. Group A and B seem to even each other out and come to a happy medium in order to help all aspects of the land.

Tree Hugger picture by Narendra Shrestha posted on NBC News

Leopold, A. (2011). The Land Ethic. In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp.58-77). Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks