Reflecting on Class

Looking back on this summer class, I came to the decision that I really enjoyed Colloquium.  I came into the class with a bad mentality.  I thought that as soon as I walked through the door I was going to get bombarded with a naturalist preaching that we must be sustainable or else the world is going to be coming to an end. Oh, how was I wrong.  Dr. Morris was a good teacher, he gave us the information that the course prescribed to us but did not try and force his own opinion on us.  He let us read the books, go on the field trips, participate in the class discussions, and then through that create our own opinions on what this whole "sustainability" thing is all about.

The conclusion that I came to was that there is not anything that one person can do.  A single individual can grow their own food, bike to work, car pool whenever their in a car, and recycle every little thing they can find, but in the end there's going to be two others that are even less environmentally aware and offsetting that persons hard work.  To truly create a cleaner planet we need to educate the people.  The more people know about how they are effecting the environment the more likely that they will do something about it.  Granted, there will always be the people that don't care about saving the environment for future generations but those of us that do want to provide a livable planet for our children need to try and reverse this mentality of not caring about the environment.

China's Shortened Life Expectancy

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/07/130708-coal-burning-shortens-lives-in-china/

This article from national geographic was about how in Northern China the life expectancy has decreased by 5.5 years since last year.  This is due to the coal emissions in that area.  This really opened my eyes to how much we as humans are effecting the environment we live in.  The everyday life that we live destroys so much of the world that we live in but no one does much to change things.  Americans in particular are bad about this.  We drive the biggest cars we can find and have minimal to no long distance public transportation, forcing everyone to drive everywhere they want to go.  This creates more and more toxic emissions that are melting our polar ice caps, which in turn are raising sea levels.  This creates a large problem for myself since I live in Florida, the state that has the majority of its land only a few feet above sea level.  Personally, I can't do much about this at the moment, but one thing that I will do in the future is buy a more gas efficient car to hopefully make my own environmental footprint smaller.

Falling in love with Nature

Last week Andy and I went back to ECHO to do our service learning project.  To cut a long story short, we were stuck in the lobby waiting for the rain to stop to make our videos for class.  While we were waiting we were sitting in the rocking chairs watching the rain fall that's when I began thinking how beautiful nature truly is.  While the rain was falling I was really able to begin to start embracing nature.  With the rain coming down in a torrential downpour the ECHO nursery really came to life with bright and vibrant colors of the plants and flowers.  While I was taking all this in I decided that I needed to become more environmentally friendly.  Later that day, when I got back home I signed my self up for a beach clean up.  Also, since that time I have attempted to begin recycling.  It is difficult, my roommates only see it as more work but I have been making progress with them slowly but surely.  Hopefully at some point in my life I'll be able to own my own garden where I can grow my own fruits and vegetables.

Downtown Fort Myers

For the last field trip of the class we went into downtown Fort Myers for the day.  We started out by walking around a local farmers market where local vendors had set up their stands to sell all sort of interesting things, ranging from different kinds of jelly to snow cones.  After our little shopping spree the class gathered around a statue of three men in the middle of the walk way.  The statue is named "Uncommon Friends" because it is representations of Edison, Ford, and Firestone who were all the fathers of the American Industrial 20th Century.  This sculpture was based off the friendship, not the fame, that these men shared.  It is a very relaxing scene for tourists to walk past as they are entering downtown.

The part of the trip that sparked my interest the most was at the end when Dr. Morris showed us the mural that had been created outside the Indigo hotel.  It was a portrait of the history of Fort Myers.  Ranging back to the Seminole Indians and how they were shipped off west by train to how the creation of the actual Fort Myers fort was created to after the Civil War was over and the railroad was created.

Lover's Key

In our last class we went on another field trip, this time we went to Lover's Key Beach down in Bonita.  There we started the trip off by talking about the different types of industries that support Florida's economy.  The main one as everyone knows is tourism, ranging from all the parks up in Orlando to the different beaches all over its coasts.  The second industry Dr. Morris talked about was the fishing industry.  Florida has some of the best fishing spots in the world.  This is because of the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the gulf steam current only being a mile off the east coast at certain points.  Those two different attributes provide a vast array of options for commercial and recreational fishers.  After having the introduction, we then proceeded to walk towards the beach.

Mid way down the board walk we came to a stop to talk about the different Mangroves in the area and their effect on the ecosystem.  There are three types of Mangrove species: black, white, and red.  The main differences between the three species is their different rooting systems.  The Red Mangrove is the biggest out of the three reaching heights of nearly 80 ft.  Also, it has a particular root system that is called a "prop root" system. These roots support the tree by reaching out horizontally above ground in a effort to expand the base in a very wet soil.  The Black Mangrove is the in between the red and white in terms of its height, reaching 65 ft. and it also has a interesting root system.  It is a style of root that spreads itself underneath the ground but then has fingers that stick up out of the ground in an effort to collect more oxygen.  Then there's the White Mangrove, this mangrove is the smallest of the three only growing to about 50 ft. tall.  One of the more interesting facts about the mangroves was the amount of protection they provide to the community.  These trees protect against hurricane winds coming in from the water ways and erosion.  Their root systems hold all of the loose earth together so that when a big storm comes all of the sand doesn't get blown all around shifting the topography of the land.  After being taught about the different mangroves and the benefits they provide, Dr. Morris let us go to the beach for the remainder of the trip.  During my free time I went on a nice swim out into the gulf as well as walk along the beach.  During my walk I saw a variety of different types of animals ranging from Pelicans hunting bait fish to Sea Slugs that had washed ashore.

ECHO

Our third field trip we went to ECHO, Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, where they create and teach people of different techniques of farming for impoverished areas.  Some of their ideas consisted of having goats eat the excess leaves around the area instead of having them decompose in a pile.  Also, they have a seed bank, in the bank they have a collection of different types of seeds that are hard to find and can be used in harsh environments.  They make little packets containing a variety of those seeds and send them with agricultural enthusiasts around the world to teach poor people how to grow their own food. The tour guide for ECHO was a knowledgeable agriculturalist but his teaching skills were a bit lacking, when we made it back into the classroom the following week Dr. Morris had to apologize for the amount of crucial information that the guide unfortunately forgot to explain.

The thing that caught my interest the most during the trip was their internship program.  In their program they have the students come and live on campus in a little house.  The students then work to maintain the plants and learn the different types of farming methods while also having to give tours.  By getting completely submerged within the culture the student will learn a tremendous amount while enjoying it at the same time.

Corkscrew Swamp

The second class we had we went on a field trip to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary down in Naples.  There at the sanctuary we learned about three different types of ecosystems that all are withing that one area.  We started in the Pine Uplands or Flatwoods, in this area it is mostly dry earth with pine trees, Sabal Palms, and Saw Palmettos.  It is home to the larger animals of the area like deer and black bears.  We then made our way to the second area, the Tall Grass Prairie.  This was the barrier between the swamp, which is the third ecosystem we saw, and the uplands.  It primarily consisted of grass with little to no trees letting us be able to see for miles up and down the narrow corridor.  We finally made it into the swamp were the earth was primarily wet and many parts would be underwater during the wet season.  It is home to animals like alligators and snakes.

The part of the field trip that I enjoyed the most was when we were walking back to the bus after the tour.  On our way back we took a different route and ended up coming across a mother Alligator and its babies.  After waiting and watching for a bit we were able to count a total of seven different hatchlings scamper out from their mother's protection either to get some sun of their own or to play around with their brothers and sisters.

Food Forest

The first day of class we went over the syllabus and the general guidelines of the class, just like every other class I've ever been in, but once we got all of that out of the way we got to go on a little nature walk through campus.  FGCU is unlike any other school, it is a "green" school, and one of the ways that it promotes environmental sustainability is by having a food forest on campus.  The food forest is a student run botanical garden that was began in April of 2011.  Starting from just a patch of land it is now home to many different kinds of plants.  Through our tour of the forest we were able to eat many different kinds of beans, which I had to try everyone, along with some fruits.  Many of the fruits were not in bloom but I did get to see baby Strawberries and Banana trees.  The Banana trees were particularly interesting to me because they would grow at an extremely fast rate but once they produced a "hand" of Bananas they would not produce again and have to be cut down.  After thinking about it, I suppose that is a good thing that they get cut down after growing a crop because otherwise they would multiply at such an alarming rate that they could take over the whole forest.  I truly enjoy going around and looking and learning about the different kinds of plants that we surround ourselves with, especially when I get to eat them.

Paris and its Bikes

In chapter 6 of Plan B 4.0 the author talks about how Paris has redesigned its urban transport system.  It all started in 2001, Paris was one of the cities with the absolute worst congestion and air pollution to date, so they decided to make a change.  The country set a goal, it was to achieve a 40% reduction in congestion and air pollution by 2020.  One way they changed their city was to introduce a Bicycle rental system.  In this program they provided 20,600 different bikes throughout the city, at 1,450 various docking stations.  The amount of the rental was based off how long a rider wanted a membership, the prices ranged from only $1 per day to $40 for an entire year.  The success of the new rental program was unprecedented, renting out 48 million bikes within the first year!

Personally, I think this program is absolutely one of the greatest things I have ever heard of, and it should be implemented in every major city.  With more people using bikes to travel from place to place, rather than cars, it will not only help with the environmental issues of congestion and air pollution but it will also improve the overall health of the city.  First of all, it will create cleaner air to breath, which was the actual design of the system but it will also get people exercising on a daily basis.  This will improve the obesity issue of our nation, the United States.  This will create a healthier community to live in and decrease the amount of health issues within a given area, all because commuters decided to ride a bike rather than drive.

Plan B 4.0 Chapter 2

While reading this chapter of the book I had mixed feelings on it.  It is concentrated on the changes the Earth is facing dealing with its land and water use.  The first section of the chapter, named Civilization's Foundation Eroding, mostly talked about the Middle East and Asia and how they have been experiencing severe dust storms.  It says these storms are created due to the top layer of soil not being rooted into the ground.  This soil is caught up in blowing winds and taken up into the air and then dispersed across a different area of the world.  Some of the more impressive statistics that were given were that the storms have increased by 4000% over the past 50 years and there have been an estimated 124 villages, in Iran alone, that have had to be deserted due to these dust storms.

My opinion on this issue is that it needs to stop.  The question is though, how can it be stopped?  Deserts in that area are expanding closer and closer together, creating super deserts.  The deserts will keep expanding because the amount of water people keep using along with the over farming of crop lands.  A simple solution would be to cut back, right? WRONG! Within the next 50 years the world's population is estimated to grow by 3 billion people and most of this growth is expected to happen in that Middle Eastern/Asian areas of the world. Cutting back on these people's source of nutrients would in turn create a massive amount of starving humans.

My conclusion after reading this part of the chapter, is that there truly are no answers.  We can cut back water and land use, but the side effect of this would be that the growing population of people would then begin to starve and die by the thousands.  Another option is that we keep using the water, as well as over farming the land, which in turn will create super deserts and more dust storms, making cities unlivable.  So, there really is no right answer, I cant even tell if there is a happy median.  I guess at this point in time, from where I'm sitting, all I can do is wait and watch how the world decides to destroy itself.