Response to Patagonia

Building the Dam

At first, building the Hoover Dam seemed to be an innocent project. It was to prevent flooding, provide jobs for workers while it was being built, and provide hydroelectric power. What they didn't expect was the impact it would have on the environment; four species that were indigenous to the Colorado river before the dam was built are now endangered.

On top of the species endangerment, the building of the Hoover Dam set a precedence to the entire nation. At the time, building this dam was going to help irrigation and thereby promote farming success. However, it sent a message that building dams and diverting the natural paths of rivers was acceptable so long as it was for a purpose. The meaning of "purpose" has changed a lot since then. We are no longer building dams to benefit something; we are disturbing the environment because it is what is convenient for us. This school of thought is exactly what is going to cause us to self-destruct.

Scientific American Haiku

In this world there are
environmental issues
McKibben tells all

Too many people
reside on this earth today
STOP HAVING BABIES

In his book he says
Bigger does not mean better
I'm sorry Texas

We consume too much
who has any ideas
about what to do

Possibilities
change the price of energy
they might change their ways

Google Alerts/Twitter :: Sustainability

I have been using Twitter for a few years now, so that experience was nothing new to me. However, I have never followed an account that has to do with environmental issues. It came as no surprise to me that our world is not-so-slowly and steadily becoming crippled. While, yes, there have been a number of amazing technological innovations and medical advancements, very little attention has been geared toward keeping our planet from imploding.

With regards to coral reefs (which is the sustainability issue that I have previously blogged about), they are continuously being degraded. Increased acidity and increased temperatures are proving to be quite fatal for the under-sea world. Tons of marine species are becoming extinct and it's almost all completely because of human beings.

Google Alerts was a new experience for me. I have never used that program before but in class on Monday, I created a Google Alert for the Chick-fil-A anti-gay ordeal to keep up with how disgustingly homophobic they are and to remind myself never to eat there again! And I created a Google Alert for the Costa Concordia shipwreck. Receiving Google Alerts via email is great because I check my email all the time, so staying up to date on interesting topics is no longer an issue for me.

Environmental Issues

One environmental issue that I believe is extremely overlooked is the degradation of coral reefs. Due to climate change and marine endeavors, our coral reefs are being demolished. Climate change is causing temperatures to rise in the oceans and when the temperatures rise, the algae that live in the coral reefs die out. Algae are an organism that is put on the back burner. But the algae are what give the coral reefs their beautiful color and when the algae die, the reefs are bleached out and no longer give us the gorgeous portrayal of the under-water world we see in post cards.

In his article, Matt Kallman explains that “Since reefs are highly sensitive to changes in water temperature, clarity, and acidity, they are early indicators of the impacts of climate change and human activities. They are vulnerable to coastal development, sediment runoff, water pollution, and many fishing practices.” All of these factors are almost totally caused by human activities.

It is not fair to these organisms that obviously don’t have the means to defend themselves against everything “we” do to them that they are being destroyed. We don’t have the right to determine what gets to live and what doesn’t get to live, therefore we need to contain the damage we do to a smaller region. The destruction of coral reefs is a prime example of why we need Island Civilization to decrease our impact on the earth and its beautiful coral reefs. 

Source

As an aside, I think it is important to point out that one person can have a tremendous impact on reefs. For example, the captain of the Costa Concordia made the decision "deviate the ship from its ideal route" and ran the ship into a reef.

Costa Concordia Accident

Island Civilization - Summary/Response

While most people in this day and age worry about things like jobs, family matters and social richness, Roderick Nash worries about the status of our planet earth in years to come. Before reading this article I thought to myself, what do I care about what the world will be like in the Fourth Millennium? I will be dead, my kids will be dead, and their kids will be dead and their kids after that. So why should I worry about what the world will be like after that? Then I got to the word “legacy” on the second page. I may not be a historian, but I too “am concerned about how the future will regard what happened to the planet on our watch.” We may not be here to witness the Fourth Millennium but what we do and the decisions we make today will either bless or damn the generations to come.

                In his essay, Nash explains that the purpose of his work is to promote and help generate ideas about what to do to change the path we humans are on because it does not seem to be even remotely sustainable. Our population is growing at uncontrollable speeds and we’re expanding at an unsustainable rate. Both of these factors (and these examples of two of many) are jeopardizing species diversity and exhausting the Earth’s resources. It seems that “our” thought process was we took over, we are taking over and we will continue to take over until we cannot take over anymore… but it is obvious that this is not going to work indefinitely.

                Back in the day when people were hunters and gatherers, humans were a part of the wild. It was when the desire for more and more and more outdid the idea that we should get by with only what we needed to survive that the ecosystem was doomed and the “mental line” between wilderness and civilization was drawn. This idea of the wilderness didn’t exist before we “civilized” land by fencing it in. Wilderness is just a place that that hasn’t been compromised by people (yet). According to the Bible, “‘wilderness’ was the land God cursed.” This seems senseless seeing that we are now trying so hard to preserve it. And if this almighty God thinks the wilderness is so bad, why are we trying to preserve it? Is it because of the priceless beauty of trees and grass when they haven’t been cut down? Or is it because of how awing it is to see hundreds of species successfully cohabitate when we humans can’t? Or at least not without causing some species to become extinct… That’s a different matter entirely, but it seems hypocritical to me that God would “curse” the wilderness if that same God “created” the Earth.

                It appears that in the last two centuries, scholarly people have started to catch on to the fat that we aren’t doing something right. We have finally figured out that bigger does not equal better (sorry Texas). We’ve realized that we’ve taken the whole idea of the frontier too far because it’s ending. In addition, it scares me that people might be starting to look to the galaxies to take over and expand. Seriously? Enough is enough. Anyway, it seems that we are starting to get back on some kind of track with the establishment of national parks. On paper, it looks like a good thing but in reality, it’s not. We’re doing it for tourism purposes to boost our economies. We’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, which poses a new question: what the heck is wrong with our moral compass?

                A lot.