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.