Journal #17 David Orr

                David Orr’s article Love it or Lose it, made some agreeable points but others that had me scratching my head.  Like Orr, I am dumbfounded by people who say that they dislike nature.  Even so, I think the example of Woody Allen’s quote was taken out of context.  It’s obvious that Allen as a pale, city dwelling old man, isn’t comfortable out of the air conditioning and probably gets sunburned easily too.  I took this personally because I love nature and exploring it in person.  I also love my air conditioning!  Another point that Orr was that civilization has to have a phobia of nature to separate itself from the wilderness.  This too seems to be little thought out.  When our ancestors were first building their villages, separating themselves was necessary for survival.  They had to keep out wild animals that could kill.  Today we do the same thing when dangerous animals find their way to residential areas.  Besides these questionable positions the author takes, I can agree that today to many people do not interact with nature and develop fears because they don’t understand how it works.  I grew up in a neighborhood that was adjacent to a wooded area and as kids we would all go exploring and played many games in those woods.  As a result I think we all became accustomed to areas like that and developed a fondness for the great outdoors.  How do we teach inner city kids to love wildlife? I think maybe the only way is to completely restructure the way we build our cities.

journal #13

To say the least I was surprised at how much I consume.  The first thing that popped up on my screen was that we would need 6.18 Earths to provide my lifestyle to every person on earth.  My carbon footprint was equal to 142 acres. The only area where my consumption was adequate was in my housing footprint because I live in an apartment and my goods and services footprint because I buy used furniture.  I know that just by being an American I consume a lot by default, but I think that this test was inaccurate in some of its analyses because of the vague questions.  One asked if I eat meat and seafood. I had to answer “yes” because I eat shrimp and the occasional fish dinner but seafood plays a very small part in my diet, and even less now that I have learned how the world’s oceans are being over fished. 

Even with its inaccuracies this was a very awakening test to take because it showed just how much I am consuming and how it isn’t sustainable.  The question this brings to mind is how can we lower our use?  I don’t live a very luxurious life style, and still it is way too much.  If we try to implement any  plans to lower our consumption, people would riot in the streets and there would probably be wars.  The only way is to come up with more sustainable sources of energy because I cannot see any way in which people would freely give up their modern conveniences.

Journal # 12

This article about land ethic or lack thereof was one of the best I’ve read as of yet.  The idea that we need to be concerned with the well being of the land and all the life that depends on that land is a fundamental concept to any hope of sustainability.  We must change the way use land, as to not ravage and disturb nearby lands and the way the educate people about conservation.  We have in the past, massively transformed entire landscapes, uprooting whole ecosystems.  Even one species removal, however, can still wreak havoc.  The altering of the food chains is what causes this devastation.  One of the biggest problems as Leopold states, is that we depend on the government to enforce environmental regulations and protect our environment when instead we need to be getting involved personally to make an effective change because the government is incapable of doing an effective job because of the large amount of private land ownership.  In a sense, the only way to bring about these sweeping changes are by changing the way we view the land and our relationships with it.  If it remains as is, that we just se land as its potential to make money, we will never fix the problems facing us because many if not most of the biotic community of an area does not have any commercial value, but is a key member in the ecosystem.  It seems as it may already be too late to do anything worth wild to fix what we have done because entire continents have been changed and many predators that once played an integral part of the regions are long since extinct. Maybe the best we can hope for is the preservation of land that have not yet been totally devastated.

Journal #10

                The article Squeezing more oil from the ground made a logical argument.  I believe that there could be some truth to Maugeri’s case, that there is in fact a larger amount of oil than we have pumped out already.  The problem I have with it is how difficult and costly will it be to extract the remaining oil.  With gas prices at almost $4 a gallon, and that the “easy stuff” how much will it cost to move to the next phase of drilling, that is if we even want to pursue that path.

                In the video on natural gas, we once again see the industry leaders touting natural gas as our savior.  According to the video it is abundant and much cleaner than oil.  Everything sounded legitimate in the interview of one company’s CEO until he was asked about the possibility of chemicals getting into the water supply.  As soon as the question was asked his eyes got big and he went on the defensive, claiming that it is virtually impossible for the chemicals to make their way through the thick layers of rock and into the water supply.  He did a bad job of hiding the fact that he was very well aware of the cases of people who have had their groundwater turned into a flammable, toxic brew.

                Crude Awaking was a revealing video.  I think that there has to be truth behind the peak oil theory because sooner or later the stuff will run out.  I think the most logical approach would be a middle path between peak oil and the argument that we have hundreds of years worth of oil. Perhaps we do have lots of oil like Maugeri claims but peak oil theory is also correct about how much of that we can access now.  With the technology we have today we are perfectly capable of coming up with new fuels to take us into the 21^st century.

Journal #7

I thought that Douglas’ story was a very colorful, image invoking piece of writing.  For someone who has never been to the everglades—like myself, this article did a wonderful job of explaining the various plant and animal life and its processes in a way that anyone can understand.  I particularly enjoyed the story of geologic formation of not only the everglades, but the entire state of Florida.  The water flows of the everglades are explained in detail beginning with rivers in north central Florida, and how they drain into the Okeechobee Lake, down through the Glades, and eventually make its way to the sea.  The description of rock formation over millennia and how glaciers affected the landscape to the north as well as rising and falling sea levels during multiple ice ages.

                I didn’t care too much for the way the author decided to communicate the information.  Although it was effective in depicting scenery, her language focused on poetry rather than information dissemination.   There were countless references to how “green, brown, and glassy” the saw grass was.  I felt like the point she was trying to make could be done a lot quicker, without losing the attention of the reader. 

                Beside the style, the author defiantly did her research with this article.  Every speck on the map had been accounted for.  The geologic perspective enticed me and kept my attention toward the end when her boring poetic writing was starting to get the best of me.