Session #1

The Planetary Ecological Crisis by Frederick Engels

What are some evidence that climate change is affecting us dramatically?

Over the years climate change changed drastically and even if we don’t see the affects on daily  basis scientist have been tracking data and now how these might change our climate and environment. In 2007 the sea ice was 40 % less than in 1970s. The rise in sea level has been about 1.7 millimeters per year ever since 1875 and has been estimated to increase even more throughout the years. When the ice melts it will flow into the ocean making sea levels rise. The countries that are close to the sea would disappear. Due to the warming of the climates the mountain glaciers are melting which can contribute to flooding and water scarcity.  The Ocean water has been warming up dramatically and affecting the productivity of the creatures like zooplankton that live at the bottom of the ocean. In some parts droughts have ben expanding in different regions. Different season temperatures have changes also and thus changing those region ecosystems.

 

I was beyond shocked when reading this article seeing how we are affecting the planet every day and getting ourselves and other creatures close to extinction  as well as poisoning ourselves every day with different pesticides in our food and water. People need to be more aware of these issues and do something about it.

Session #8

A new way to look at nature is what we get out of it and that we should preserve those resources so we don’t run out of them. Different approaches has be used to preserve nature; look in terms of human rights or nature rights. However just because these rights exist does not mean that the problem is solved and that everything ideal since it is established on a paper and people will follow it. There is a lot of flaws especially looking from human rights perspective since it is a pretty selfish view.

 

 

What are human rights that Burdon describes and also what are the critiques of it?

 

The term human rights has been used as a broad term for different injustices and now it has been extended to the environment. One of the arguments is that human rights don’t explain the exploitation of resources and can’t be used as a model to explain the causes. It only has a view point from humans and not as much of the environment. The author states that the social concept of human rights is concerned only for our benefit instead of intrinsic values of nature.  The second critique of this concept that it does not get rid of social ranking and dominance just changes the framework of the concepts. There is little hope that it can change the view of capitalist’s growth economics and factors associated with it.

Session #7

Stumbling into bad behavior

The one fact that I found was interesting was when they said that when we have more boundaries and regulations or when we have to meet certain quota we tend to be more unethical because we have that pressure on us too be perfect. I remember I was reading an article about standardized test inn high schools and how that affects teachers teaching. They found that teacher would cheat by helping students on the test even though they are not supposed to .They did this because if the higschool rankings fall behind a certain level , they receive less funding from the state. So there was more cheating and unethical things happening whichever schools were at risk for their funding to be cut.  I disagree with the authors prospective that if people get punished for the wrong things they did that are more likely to do unethical things compared to people who don’t get punish (do not have regulations). I think it all depends on the person and not particularly by regulations I also believe that if you get punished or rewarded you would be more likely to do it or not to do it.

Session #6

A sand county almanac.

I liked how the author was describing every creature, plant, tree, flower, bush that existed in the prairies way before time when most of US was prairies and untouched by the humans. When the author was writing about the prairie land I could see the images in my head with birds chirping the land coming alive.

I guess in my theoretical question in your opinion if we humans didn’t exist do you think the earth would be at a better state meaning the original wildlife would still be there and there would be no problems of species extinction?

In my opinion if we us humans did not exist there would be nobody to appreciate the beauty of nature and all of its creatures. I think we are here on earth for a reason, we may have abused that power by being selfish to the earth and not thinking about consequences.  We are part of the ecosystems, prairies that were described in the article, we are here to appreciate all of the beauty of the nature. I always wondered how the earth would look different without us but then I started thinking that there would probably other smart creatures that would “dominate” the earth (made me think of planet of the apes movie). I feel like these days people don’t appreciate anymore what they have especially the nature around them, that you don’t need materialistic to be happy , being surrounded by the amazing beauty of mother nature is what makes me happy.

Session #5

Since the author talks about ecological crisis and how advanced we are in technology that we should be able to solve all the problems. What if we just don’t know all the infomation that we think we do to help us in the future?

He was saying that we have become very materialistic and selfish about the way we look at nature. If we don’t get a product out of nature we don’t value it as much as we should. Ever since we have become technologically advanced we kept taking and taking from nature without thinking about the future. We  have become all about what we want , the power we have with money and thinking we can buy anything with the green piece called money. Maybe we have become so selfish and think we have all the answers when reality we don’t. Even with a huge amount of the information we know and the advances in technology as well as solutions to the problems we have created. I think it is not just advances in technologies that can help the environment but more about the attitudes of people. Without changing our ways technology won’t get us there. So many people are stuck in their old ways and are not willing to change. I also highly doubt that we know all solutions as author stated, that  we should with all technology advances. The problem is people not technological advances.

Session #4

The Animal’s Place article was very interesting to me since I’m a vegetarian and only have been for 4years. I thought that this article brought up good point about why you should or shouldn’t eat meat and it got me thinking. My question would be : According to the article why eating meat would not be so bad or even beneficial?

One point that Pollan brought up was the animal killing when combines harvest grain and kill a lot of mice and other rodents as well as killing of other animals by pesticides. He said that according to Steve Davis if all people became vegetarians, the total number of animals killed every year would actually increase. This was a different point of view that I never thought before. The author of the article also states that a lot of people choose not to eat meat because of the moral aspect and how the animals are treated in the farms and how they are slaughtered. He says that if more slaughter houses had open windows so people could see what is going on behind more people either would become vegetarians and/or protest against such behaviors. I think I would also start eating meat if it was just like from the farm like Polyface Farm where animals are allowed to be them and are killed in a human way.

Session # 3

In the article by Richard Lamm talks about the importance and limitations of history. I believe that we can learn from past mistakes and predict the events for the future. In terms of science whenever scientist/researchers perform an experiment they always want to know the background and history before something became what it is now. History is important to teach us about past mistakes and/or provide us with a background to help solve certain problems. I do agree with the author that history, the past may not help us with sustainability and global warming if people are stuck in the past and are not able to see the future.

After reading this article do you have faith that we will become more sustainable in the future by learning what works and what does not from the past?

The author seems very negative about how we are affecting the earth and becoming selfish. That we have become ignored about everything around us and that this might prevent us from moving forward especially if we look too much into the past and not the future. I believe that we have advanced so much already with technology and sustainability and that we will keep moving forward and resolve problems. We can’t resolve all  problems in the world however people have becoming more aware of the problems, education has increased and thus knowledge to do greater things.

Session #2

Even though there is so much uncertainty about nature and how it works, why should people still trust scientists and their research?

In everyday life we observe nature and based on those observations we make inference of what is going around us and how that affects our daily life. If things repeat over time or act in the same way we infer that it will act the same way every time. The assumption is that nature exists and behaves in an uniform ways this viewpoint is usually taken by non-scientific community however scientist understand that nature is complex and a lot of times unpredictable. By conducting research and/or observations scientist can help us make the world make more sense and help us be more aware of our actions. This way when it’s hard to make a decision people can look for answers in science to make a better judgment of their actions such as current topics; global warming and conservation of species. It is important to distinguish falls claims especially in the media that is why it is important to be educated about a topic by turning to the science community to gather information and make predictions.

Dissapointed in Humanity

Everyday that I read or hear on  the news about environment and the different things that is going on in the world I lose more and more hope in humanity. There is still so many people uneducated about global warming, endangered species the affect of fossil fuels, GMO foods and etc. it is just very disappointing. Every day there is another species that is put on the list of endangered species or even more habitats are being destroyed due to deforestation, over-fishing and pollutants in the air. I’m not saying that 8 billion of us contribute to all of these damaging affects however vast majority due and without proper actions I don’t know how long the earth will able to support us. However as people are getting more aware and educated about these topics and therefore  there is some progress that is being done. For example building of solar panels, buying local foods, becoming vegan/vegeterian, recycling and etc. But are we able to reverse all the damage already done? Our technology is expanding fast and we are coming out with new things every day to be more efficient  and earth friendly every day. I hope I can see change because as of today I’m dissapointed in humanity.