Intro to Environmental Studies 23

  I believe that The Ecology of Eden is an overall exploration of humankind's place in nature, both the real, and the imagined. The Ecology of Eden can act as a balancing act so to speak and in order for an individual to to stand in relation to wilderness, the individual must stand in a right relation to civilization first. Eisenberg encourages deep thinking, understanding, and reevaluation of ourselves and our relationship with Nature and encompassing religious attitudes. Eisenberg also aims to explore our troubled relationship with the pristine, asking why our every attempt to return to it, preserve it, revere it, takes us ever further away from Eden. A quote from Eisenberg that stood out to me states, "many of the species we have trampled underfoot did jobs that we have not been able to take over." Eisenberg is depicting that over time society has taken advantage of our abundance of natural resources and we as humans cannot replace nature. I can confidently say that t...

 Today while I was at the gym I listened to a TED Talk about a new plant in Iceland that has the ability to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into rock to be stored underground. At first, I was amazed that we are finally coming up with technology that has the potential to fix our climate crisis issues, but then I realized that the goal of the plant is to get to net zero, not 0 emissions. While of course reversing climate issues as they have advanced so far is going to require more than just consuming fewer fossil fuels, the machine gives people the misconception that we can continue to use our nonrenewable resources just because it "won't be as harmful" for the planet's atmosphere if we have the kind of CO2 transformative technology all over the world. The machine works by a system of fans, heaters, and filters powered by a local geothermal plant in Iceland that separates CO2 from the air and heats it to be mixed with water, then it is pumped underground wher...

 For the past couple of days, I have been inspired by the beautiful weather to read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. While I've had this book sitting on my shelf for a few months now and I already know a lot about it and Carson, I've never read the whole thing through. I'm only about 60 pages in, but I love how it has already caught my attention with the amount of shocking information that she jumps right into at the beginning. It is so hard to grapple with the fact that Carson's research and knowledge were so overlooked for so long, even after the book was published. I really like so far that she has dedicated different chapters to talking about how the effects of DDT have impacted different factors of our environment, such as water systems and soil, and how they both lead DDT to make their way into humans. She starts by imagining a world that is contaminated by dangerous chemicals and then explains how this is actually happening as DDT became more widespread. It forms ...

  Today Dr. Redick’s son presented to us about ecological restoration. Particularly from anthropocentric design to design for the ecological community. In terms of anthropogenic land use, it can correlate directly to the simplification of landscape. Biodiversity, geographic diversity, abundance of organisms, and nutrient cycles are all related terms. Now that the way that forestry has changed over the years, there has grown a deeper and more complex goal in terms of lesser human impact, disturbance, and effects. By taking maritime forests and turning them into plantations, it truly depicts how these complex systems are difficult to control. Additionally, the removal of various individuals, species, or characteristics negatively affects the environment as a whole. An interesting point that Caleb made was that the phrase ‘let nature run its course’ which is a very broad statement due to the fact that it could take hundreds of years or even generations for that to happen. I had never ...

      The topic of sustainability and the environment tends to be a polarizing one. People stand strong in their beliefs and values and compromise tends to be rare. Often, the debates are divided between two sides, the economic and the environmental. This can be partially attributed to the effects that environmental protection measures have had on businesses. These effects tend to be mainly negative and effect smaller businesses most heavily. One example of this can be found in the Rotten: Cod is Dead Documentary that we watched in class. The government implemented specific caps on how much fishing boats could catch and bring in. This ended up not effecting the larger fishing enterprises much, but it put the majority of smaller fishing companies out of business. This allowed the larger businesses to take over the areas and fish quantities that the smaller companies had previously had.      So how can we shift the perspective to a non-polarized one? The...

 In class on Thursday, February 16th, we watched a documentary about the causes and effects of overfishing. While this information is extremely important to understand, sometimes it can feel a bit hopeless- like there is nothing we can do except sit back and watch major corporations destroy fish populations and the planet's future. Due to this feeling of helplessness, I decided to look up some of the things that we can do, or things that need to be done, in order to help fish populations. There are 10 solutions that seem to be continuous on multiple different websites, and all have good justifications and logic as to why they would help. These 10 solutions are: Rights-Based Fishery Management- fishers are guaranteed a certain portion of the catch if they adhere to rules and regulations that include the quantity of fish they can catch and what time of year they can fish. In this system, each member has a stake in the fishery that grows when the fishery does, and this stake can be pa...

In class on Feburary 16th, 2023, we watched a documentary on the fishing industry, highlighting how important it is, and the issues it is having. The fishing industry is a HUGE industry. Honestly, before this documentary, I had no idea how essential it really is. Billions of people around the world rely on fish, and fishing puts millions into the US economy annually. There is about 5 billion pounds of seafood in the US alone, as the US is the 2nd largest seafood consumer next to China. due to the amount of people relying on the fishing industry to survive, this industry is an extremely delicate and fragil system. if one thing goes wrong, it all goes wrong.  New Bedford, MA has been the biggest US seafood port for hundreds of years. It is so important, that if anyone puts any garbage or pollution into these waters, it is felt by people all over the world. But this is only one glimpse on why the fishing industry is so so delicate. New Bedford sells to the global market, and because o...