Reflection: Weeks 13& 14

Week 13

On tuesday, we watch a little video called "The Story of Stuff". It had a lot of information for such a short video. It showed the cycle of goods being produced and who it affects along the way. On thursday, we had our walk through Bagley. It was really fun actualy learning how to use a compass. There was a lot more to it than I thought.

Week 14

This week, we did a fun activity. Dr.V had a bunch of objects, and we had to think of a bunch of different uses for them. We realized that preaty much everything can be used for a candle holder and a candy dish.

Eye Opener: Review of Reading 28 "A Forest Path out of Poverty"

Summary

The reading started out talking about a man named David Andi. He is a man from Equador who was having a hard time making a living. To make money, he could either log the rainforest or trade with Columbia. He knew that logging was bad for the rainforest, but if he traded with Columbia, it would spread the Columbian civil war into Equador.

The reading then talked about a project taking place to stop deforestation. The project is called the Callari Project. It was started by a woman named Judy Logback. While she was visiting Equador, she tried to persuade some of the communities to stop cutting down the rainforest. one of the local teachers told her, "If you want to save the rainforest, help us find a way to make a living without destroying it."

She saw some of the things that the villagers were making and started selling them to tourists. the villagers were used to getting only about $1 per item from intermediaries, were surprised when they received the full amount of what is was sold for from Logback. within two years there were products being shipped to 10 different countries.

The Callari Project has received many grants because of its reputation for doing the most with the least. It has the highest results per dollar spent.

Just How Much Is A Rainforest Worth?

Review: "An Inconvenient Truth"

For the 3 past class periods, we have been watching the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". I wasn't sure what I would think about this movie. I had heard that it was just Al Gore preaching about how we're killing the planet. After watching the movie, I was way wrong. One of the first things discussed in the movie was Roger Revelle. Revelle was the first person to propose measuring the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Starting in 1958, he found that as time went on the carbon dioxide levels would rise. One of the things I found most interesting was that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere depends on the season. This is because in the fall, the trees loose their leaves and absorb less of the carbon dioxide. In the spring, the trees start to get their leaves back and absorb more carbon dioxide.

Another thing Mr. Gore discussed was why the poles are being affected faster than other regions. He explained that the ice caps at the poles act as mirrors. The caps reflect most of the incoming solor radiation and keep the earth cool. As the ocean gets warmer, the caps get smaller and reflect less radiation. This speeds up the melting process. Something I found interesting was that a warmer ocean creates larger storms. I think that this is quite evident with storms like Hurricane Katrina.

The warming of the earth also create even more problems. One thing that has happened from this is structural damage. Some structures that had been constructed on the permafrost are now collapsing because of the melting permafrost. Global warming also causes drought in some areas. Another problem is that the precipitation that is no longer falling in some areas is being relocated to other areas. There was even a place in India that had 37 inches of rain in a 24hour period.



For the people who still don't believe in global warming, there was a study done in which a sample of 928 peer reviewed journals, and none of them disagree with the FACT that global warming does exsist. When they looked at the public press, they found that about 53% of the articles stated that global warming hasn't been proven.



In my opinion, I think that everyone should see this documentary. It has truley opened my eyes.

Review of Reading 1: The Challenges We Face

The first reading was like an introduction to some of the problems we face on this planet. Some of the topics that were discussed include: food, water, energy, and climate.
In this chapter I learned that the population of the world is currently on the decline from what it was 50 years ago. I also read that it is predicted to peak at about 11 billion people. I was also shocked to learn that AIDS is as huge of a problem as it is. "Worldwide at least 68 million people are expected to die of AIDS by 2020" (McKinney, 4). Which as I read may also help to reduce overpopulation. This reading had interesting and unknown facts all over in it.

Although many people may see genetic engineering of crops to be only a detriment to the human species, this reading points out that doing so would actually produce more food and produce more food more efficiently; this would be beneficial to the many people in the world who can not obtain food because of costs and it would help them obtain food with a real nutritional value. These crops are also beneficial because they use less water for the same amount of output. Using these types of crops with more efficient irrigation would allow humans to have more water for themselves to use for drinking and bathing.

Energy sources and pollution also rank among the top of many of the challenges we face in today's world. In the world, nearly 42% of the world's population has no access to modern energy. Today much is being done to curb the use of energy and also to replace more hazardous ways of producing energy with new, cost effective and renewable sources. Such examples are windmills, hydroelectricity, even using flourescent light bulbs is a good way to conserve and produce more energy with less of an impact on our environment. I, personally, would like to see much more development and usage of the solar panel in our world. I think that this renewable source seems to go overlooked far too often.

Reflection: Weeks 1 & 2

The first two weeks of class have been an introductory period. The first day of class I was feeling a little under the weather and was not in attendance. The second day was very interesting. I walked into the classroom to see Dr. V passing out ropes to people. I was puzzled trying to figure out what kind of activity we would be doing. It was interesting to see how people squeezed to fit inside the ropes. Dr. V showed us that there were many ways this could relate to the environment.

The second week Dr. V showed us how to create a blog. She showed us all of the great features and tools that blogger has to offer. It seemed a little confusing in the beginning, but the more you play around with it, the more you learn. It seems like everyones blogs are looking better every day. I think that doing these blogs is a great idea. I think it will be a great way for the entire class to communicate.

I'm really looking forword to the rest of the semester. I think that this will be a very interesting class with usable real world information.

Intro Post

Hi, my name is Randy Reiter. I am a sophmore at UMD and created this blog for my environmental health class.

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