11. Sharayah McDonald- Free Response 5

 Currently, in my anthropology 200 class, we are discussing the Anthropocene, and I noticed a lot of similarities between information we are learning in this unit and information I have learned in intro to Environmental Studies. There are many correlations about human's creation of technology such as burning fossil fuels into energy leading to an increase in consumption. In the most recent lecture, we discussed how this new technology led to mechanized agricultural practices, which increased food supply and allowed for different jobs to be implemented. This subsequently decreased infant mortality rate, which caused our global population to skyrocket, and since then as a species we have been consuming so much more than before. While the global population is starting to level out now due to birth control, women's education, and decreased replacement rate, there are still very frightening projections of the global population that will be detrimental to the earth's ecosystems. As you can see, much of this information is identical to what we have discussed in this class. Something that really stuck out to me is that through all of evolution, hominins and humans have been adapting to natural changes that lead to natural selection. However, now we must adapt to changes that we created ourselves. There are some things I learned from this most recent lecture that I had never heard before, such as that we are losing 16 million hectares of forest a year, and forests only make up around 30% of the world's land area. Another fact I did not know is that the sea level is rising twice as fast as before 1990. Furthermore, there are currently 7 times more wildfires in the western US than in the 1970s. Something hopeful the lecture ended on is that regulation does work, such as the regulation of emissions from cars and factories decreasing the amount of smog in LA. Although a lot of people disagree with regulation, I believe it is something that is necessary in order to sustain our species' and every species' future. It is good to know that there are steps to take that have been proven to make change. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nature Walk

 I took a walk around the Noland trail last week to just be able to say I have done it before my time ends at CNU. This was always a bucket list thing to do and after the 6-mile walk, I wish I had done it a lot earlier. I felt at peace during the walk like I didn't have finals coming up or papers to write. The only thing that was going through my head was "Wow it's been an hour already". The walk calmed my nerves and prepared me for my finals week and everything to get crazy. I wish I did this freshman year so I could have made it a habit before my final semester.
Read more

Haley Conroy - 2/14/23 - John Muir - (Outside of Class Reading)

  In the beginning section of John Muir’s essay titled Wild Parks and Reservations , he goes into depressing detail about noticeable changes in landscapes, particularly plant life, in many different regions of the United States. As I read this section I found myself thinking that it seems somewhat similar to something you would see in an essay on the environmental changes induced by climate change today. One connection between the text and modern-day was between ecotourism and the quote "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity, and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers but as fountains of life." (721). Muir has taken the ideas of simplicity in life suggested by philosophers such as Thoreau and embodied them, although I think that Muir is a well-educated man that understood the complexities that exis...
Read more

Makenna Sowards—Free Response 3, Vegetarianism

 Dr. Kip speaking in class about renouncing vegetarianism because he considered it to boost him onto a moral high ground made me consider my own stance on vegetarianism. I haven't eaten meat in a year and a half, and my reasons for starting on this journey have remained as my reasons to continue. After learning about the detrimental impact of the meat-packing industry, I very quickly realized that was not something that I wanted to perpetuate by spending money on meat products. Though, it can very easily be argued that my small, personal movement against the food conglomerates responsible for releasing grotesque amounts of methane into the atmosphere as well as carbon emissions from large numbers of fossil-fueled machines does not make a very big impact, I think it serves another purpose: awareness. When people ask why I refuse to eat meat, it gives me the opportunity to speak on the carbon footprint of the meat-packing industry and how it is one of the largest contributors to dest...
Read more