Water forum

In Fridays class we discussed Water the article and the videos we linked to in our blog posts relating to the Patagonia story. Water is the only natural resource that cannot be replaced and has no substitute in life. We can replace our sources of energy coal, petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear power can all be replaced with other sources of energy such as solar and wind and other renewable techniques.

From a Google alert I received I learned about Chicago water sampling showing high levels of lead. These sampled showed more than 15 parts per billion of lead, a level that can trigger regulatory action by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA says that there is no safe level of lead exposure and have a running goal of zero exposure. This goes along with another article about toxic chromium found in drinking water.  The chromium levels found being more than 11 times higher than health standard. This shows how we are polluting our water and requiring our water to be more and more necessary for filtration.

Link http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-epa-lead-tests-20120131,0,4490886.story

Dried up amazon

This video details the drying up of the amazon as a consequence of a drought. It talks about stranded river boats, communities becoming cut off, and the dead and dying fish from starvation and lack of oxygen. This has an effect as fishing communities cannot find adequate drinking water or fish to eat.

This is affected majorly by deforestation and subsequent greenhouse gases from the cutting and burning of forests. With less trees there is less moisture rising to the air.

This cycle is not sustainable and will continue to get worse without intervention. This type of thing will just get more and more common as we continue on the path we are now.

I like this video as it shows one effect of the way humans are treating the world and is a call to action and a changing of ways.

Link: 

http://youtu.be/g7gpAy4ivZ0

Bill Mckibben Haiku Exercise

Damaged earth
Old Habits no longer
Build anew we must

Google Alerts Initial Experience

In my initial try with Google alerts I came across several different sites. In my clicking through of these sites I came across one about Virgin Airlines offering carbon offsets to consumers traveling with them. The scheme goes as follows, the passenger is first given the option to donate in offsetting their own carbon footprint of the trip ­­during the ticket purchased procedure, during the onboard orientation Virgin shows a presentation of how much carbon emissions the plane will have in the process of the flight, they go on to detail how the money will be used, to plant trees in a south American country. At this point Travelers are given a second chance to donate. The idea is to shame people into donating to the offset when they notice others donating.

I feel that this is a very productive step for sustainable practices and the changing of people’s mindset to a more globally sustainable world. I feel that there are still leagues to go before this can happen and there are some problems with this idea, one being that what happens to all that stored carbon if the tree is later cut down and burned. I do commend Richard Branson and his company on this step though.

Land Degradation

There are many environmental issues that are leading to the need for an Island Civilization. One of those is the ever increasing problem of land degradation.

Land degradation is the deteriation of the quality of land, topsoil, vegetation and water resources. This is usually caused by the exploitation of the land by people and big corporations. The majority of land degradation spawns from various unsustainable agricultural practices. Slash and burn farming techniques causes severe land degradation. Deforestation and clear-cutting are also major issues that cause land degradation. Overgrazing depletes the soil of nutrients. Other causes include urbanization, waste or garbage, and the quarrying of rock for precious ores and minerals.

The principle consequence of land degradation is reduction of land productivity. With this vulnerable land also facing increased soil erosion from weather, acidification and alkalization of the soil, flooding, and surface runoff. Also human population increases causes increased pressure on the use of arable lands and as we continue growing we send more and more land to a degraded state.

Land degradation would be easily fixed by the Island Civilization plan as the degraded land would be able to return to its pre-human state.

Here is a link to a paper by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It goes into further detail on the amounts of degraded land throughout the world.

http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/papers/land-degradation-overview.html

Nash Reading response

            In an essay by Dr. Roderick Nash titled island civilization: a vision for human occupancy of EARTH, Dr. Nash conceptualizes a world in the fourth millennium. In his envisioned future Dr. Nash proposes island civilizations entirely self-sufficient and environmentally friendly, surrounded dense wildlife left to its own will. In this plan the world population has been throttled to a mere 1.5 billion, this is nothing compared to the 7 billion of today and the billions more our growth rate suggests. Dr. Nash moves to a more detailed possible version of “Island Civilization”, with humans being scattered in five hundred habitats with a 100 mile radius all self-sufficient, having food, energy, and waste dealt with in this radius. With this new style of living societies architects and engineers would create very technologic and futuristic environments with giant floating sky metropolises similar to metro city in the 2009 movie “Astro Boy” or barge like metropolises over oceans. Goods would not need to be exchanged or traded only cultural exchanges. Dr. Nash envisions a futuristic version of the Greek-city states of old.

            In doing this Nash hopes that problems of modern society will be mended and a new system with a more utopian society will be created. Nash notes how some people might not live in these dense metropolises. The option given would be to live in the wilderness as a movement back to old hunter gatherer ways. These people would live off the land in what Nash calls “future primitive”. Furthering this ideal young people would be encouraged to take a two year mission in the wild.

            I believe that Dr. Nash’s   theory of “Island Civilization” is a commendable idea with many very earth friendly aspects. By leaving the majority of earth to its own devices the polluted and overworked land would be given a chance to heal itself of the parasitic human race of decades and centuries of the past much like earth was left fallow in the movie Wall-E. Plant succession would begin anew, slowing taking apart our old buildings and growing over them, turning back the clock to the forestland that existed before humanity laid it to waste. If this plan were to work both humans and the environment could live in peaceful harmony.

            While a good theory I believe that Dr. Nash’s plan will never come to fruition at least not in the way he thinks it will. People will never want volunteer their freedoms and land to live on island metropolises. Also Big Business, who has the majority say of what goes in our society, will try every possible way to prevent this. Anything short of the governments of the world combining into one giant governmental body to force this new system into effect, would lead to this plan being an epic failure. Nash fails to account for humans’ inherent greed and self-interest.  Even if this system is actually successful it would take only a few generations for people to forget about the ideals of their ancestors and for business and expansion to start up anew. The world in another few hundred years or so after the creation of the Island Civilization society would be back to the mindset and conditions of modern day society.

            I feel that Nash’s system is admirable and if successful, would be wonderful for both the earth and humans but, it would ultimately fail as humans would start expanding and taking advantage of the earth all over again.

            I personally believe that people will ultimately always take advantage of the land over time and that we will keep expanding until we have exceeded the Earths carrying capacity and probably start colonizing other planets and moons taking advantage of their resources also. In a never ending cycle.