Learning Activity:

Pt 1: Explain what biodiversity is and why it is important. Also explain how it relates to your own life and give examples of potential threats in your home town.

Pt 2: Explain the difference between an extinct and endangered species. Then choose an example of each and explain the causes for the species resulting in becoming endangered or extinct and if there are any measures being taken to prevent the endangered species from becoming extinct.

1.) Biodiversity is the variation and abundance of species in an area whether small scale or global. Biodiversity is extremely important to humanity. Anthropocentrically certain species provide us with food, medicine, other necessary materials and even for recreation. Ecocentric reasoning would include that organisms have a greater purpose beyond serving humans. People that view biodiversity with an ecocentric view get a feeling of fulfillment from protecting and preserving other species. I am from Williamsport, PA which is about an hour north of State College. One endangered species that could disrupt the biodiversity in my hometown is the Indiana bat. The Indiana bat is native to PA and is a major predator of pesky insects such as mosquitos. This species has become endangered mainly because of human disturbance of hibernation causing them to burn up all of their stored fat and die in the middle of Winter. The extinction of this bat could result in a negative impact on the people of Pennsylvania. An extinct bat species can mean an increase number in disease carrying insects such as mosquitos which can be harmful to the population. Over the years, even just in my hometown I have noted seeing fewer and fewer bats and an increasing number of mosquitos each year.

2.) An extinct species means that there are no longer any individuals of this species alive. An endangered species simply means that a species is at a serious risk of becoming extinct. My example of an extinct species is the ever famous dodo bird. The dodo bird lived on the islands east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was a flightless bird that both ate and nested on the ground. The primary cause of its extinction was due to the introduction of predators to the islands such as dogs and pigs from Dutch sailors. The dodo bird was over hunted for its meat which also led to its extinction. The common carnivorous plant; the venus fly trap is an example of an endangered species. The venus fly trap is native to the subtropical wetlands on the east coast of the U.S. This plant is popular in retail and many of these plants were taken right out of the ground in their natural habitat. Due to over harvesting the venus flytrap has become endangered. In order to help protect this amazing plant, taking a venus fly trap from the wild is now illegal and instead are now grown in greenhouses in various parts of the country.

My diagram illustrates the steps to the creation of the Copenhagen Accord and the results of its creation.  I began with showing how the excessive amounts of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere lead to the cause of global warming and climate change. Because of global warming it has become aware to many countries that we need to collectively take mitigative action.  In response, a climate change treaty was made between countries (Kyoto Agreement). As an effort to begin the necessary steps for mitigation of greenhouse emissions,  the Copenhagen Accord was created to get participating countries to agree to take specific actions to begin the process of lowering greenhouse emissions. This agreement in particular served interest to the U.S. as the U.S. is one of the leading countries in production of greenhouse emissions. In order to increase participating countries the U.S. took a dishonest route and began bribing, manipulating and phishing other countries into associating. Many of the smaller and poorer countries were against this accord because they are being asked to give up so much when one, they are primarily trying to create a decent standard of living for their people and also are barely contributing to the overall problem. They were being promised money if they join and threatened if they didn’t. Because of the U.S.’s dishonesty, a lot of tension and mistrust was developed between countries. However, the U.S. did manage to be successful with others. As a result 116 countries associated with the accord and more pledging to do so in the future.

It is clear that climate change is a very real event that is becoming more and more serious as time goes on with no act of change. It’s important to note that climate change is not solely one country’s problem. It is a problem for the entire planet and everyone will face the consequences whether positive or negative. The cable leaks I think are important to be made public. Climate change is a universal issue and everyone should be in light of what is happening in efforts to lower greenhouse emissions. Although the approach of the U.S. is dishonest and manipulative, you can’t argue that it wasn’t for a good cause. Collective mitigation is just that, “collective”. Universal lowering of greenhouse gas emissions cannot be done if every country is not making an effort. However, in my opinion the U.S. did not go about it the right way at all. By using dishonesty as a strategy, the U.S. has created unnecessary tensions and mistrust between countries. Third world countries especially cannot be expected to give up as much as first world countries when they do not share even close to the same quality of life. Larger countries need to have more empathy for these smaller and poorer countries and educate rather than try to force. Globally reducing greenhouse emissions is a universal collective action problem and countries need to be honest with each other and build strong relationships in order to successfully work together for positive change.

1.) My hometown is Williamsport, PA which is only about an hour from State College. Located in the Northeast of the US its pretty clear that the Northeast in general has a pretty mild intensity of natural hazards. Tropical cyclones and earthquakes aren’t even relevant and for other natural hazards it remains in the low zones. For example, for wildfires and extratropical storms its shown as being in zone 1, and for hail storms and tornadoes its a zone 2. I think the NATHAN map is pretty accurate in illustrating natural hazards in regions. I can say that for Williamsport and pretty much all of Pennsylvania, the map is accurate in the sense that we face low degrees of natural hazards and mainly get the aftermaths of natural hazards from other regions such as hurricanes which come at a much lower degree for us in comparison to more vulnerable regions.

2.)The natural hazard I would like to focus on is considered a biological hazard in the city of Beijing, China. More specifically there has been an outbreak of yellow fever and has been confirmed to have infected three people so far. My hometown could absolutely face this kind of hazard. Being that it is biological and disease related, geography really plays no part and any town could become infected. I would say that some cities are more vulnerable to this type of hazard than others. Beijing being that it is a country capital, a high tourist place, and just a place in general where a lot of people are traveling through makes it much more vulnerable than others as a high population of people coming in and out increases the risk of spreading and bringing in diseases. My town is less vulnerable as it is much much smaller than Beijing and isn’t a tourist trap, or a place where a lot of people travel through. However it is still vulnerable to an infectious disease breakout due to potential travelers but not as vulnerable as say NYC or Philly.If we consider the scale of the event, only three people so far have been infected, and Beijing has a very high population of people (approx 11.5 million). So 3 out of 11 million people really doesn’t seem like a major hazard. However if you scale this problem down to Williamsport which roughly has 30,000 people the hazard becomes much larger and is at risk for effecting a greater percentage of the total population of the city.Different people in Williamsport definitely have different levels of vulnerability. First off the geography of different people plays a huge part. Although Williamsport is a city, it is widely spread out consisting of a main downtown/city, suburban areas, and very rural areas. Those who live in the city and suburban areas are generally going to have more contact with people on a daily basis, thus increasing their risk of infection than people who live way out in the country. Socioeconomic status also plays a huge part. People of the lower class are not going to be able to afford precautions like those of the middle and upper classes such as staying home from work, vaccinations ect. For diseases like yellow fever, vaccinations do exist, but without health insurance its going to be very hard for certain people to get them making them more vulnerable. One way to lower vulnerability for this type of biological hazard would be to take precautions for disease outbreak. Educational classes could be offered to educate the community on how to decrease the risks of spreading disease and also how to personally prevent it. If a disease outbreak did begin, health clinics could offer free vaccines to people in need similar to the method of free flu vaccines offered yearly.

3.) As I mentioned above, Williamsport is not in a region of high vulnerability for natural hazards. In fact when I searched this the first thing that came up was an article ranking cities for natural hazards and Williamsport being on the list of lowest risk. Through my experience I have never witnessed a natural hazard in my town. Sure we’ve had big snow storms or small tornadoes, but never anything harmful enough to be a hazard.

Resource: CBS News Features Sperling’s Natural Hazards Ranking. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2016, from http://www.bertsperling.com/2013/06/18/cbs-news-features-sperlings-natural-hazards-ranking/

4.) Although Williamsport is not a common place for natural hazards, I believe education is truly the key to lowering vulnerability. The more educated people of a community are the safer they feel and more prepared they are in hazard or disaster did strike. People of higher power and authority such as mayors, representatives ect should be the ones taking charge and delivering these methods. People are going to listen more if someone they respect is the one educating. Personally, I have learned a lot from this module and although I am not a politician I can certainly educate the people around me and hope they keep spreading awareness.

I am from the very small rural town of Montgomery, PA located about 15 minutes outside of Williamsport. It has approximately 1,500 people residing and located in north eastern PA.Because of how small the town is, there is a very close-knit downtown. This can be classified as pedestrian-orientation. There are plenty of sidewalks that lead from some of the most essential places in the town such as the grocery store to the library to the school, ect. Everything in our town is within walking distance of each other. Although Montgomery is pedestrian friendly, the majority of people still use automobiles even for very short distances. Walking is just not considered a norm in my town. I feel if more people realized that health, and environmental benefits of using walking as a means of transportation it would become much more common. We can look at other cities who do have walking as the primary means of getting around and observe the many benefits.

My first city I would like to discuss is Beacon Hill in MA which is adjacent to Boston. It is an extremely pedestrian-oriented. The module mentions that the people of this neighborhood are very wealthy and even though they own automobiles they often choose walking as a popular choice. This can relate to my town because unlike in Montgomery, it is a social norm in Beacon Hill to walk. Even though we have a small downtown in Montgomery with easily accessible sidewalks, many people still choose to drive their automobiles because walking just isn’t something many people do here. I think we can look at the town of Beacon Hill and see how overtime walking has become more of a social norm than driving. The people of my town too, can create this new healthier norm.

The second city I would like to discuss is Bogota, Columbia. This South American city practices walking as a social norm every Sunday and every holiday. Cars are not allowed on the streets. The streets are then used safely for people to walk, bike, and skate at their own free will. There are street performers, and all kinds of celebratory events held in the streets. I think this is a wonderful way to embrace the benefits of walking and to almost celebrate it in a way. Its a benefit to the people of Bogota’s health to be forced to walk everywhere at least once a week, and prevents the usage of automobiles which cause pollution. I feel this kind of festivity promotes walking as a social norm and the use of automobiles as a kind of second resort. I feel a lot of communities including mine can take note of this and physically see the benefits of creating walking as a social norm.

When thinking about my food choices and how they have been influenced by social norms I instantly think about the period of time that I spent living in Saratoga Springs, New York. Saratoga is a very wealthy town. So the people living in it want the best of everything; cars, houses, clothes, and of course food. Almost every person that I had encountered was a vegetarian. The foods they ate were all completely organic. There were even several vegetarian restaurants in the downtown. After living here a few months, I too adopted a vegetarian life style. This was mainly because I felt a lot of pressure from the current people in my life and the surrounding community. I too began shopping at whole foods and buying tons of all organic fruits and vegetables.

Living a vegetarian lifestyle definitely helps to overcome the social issue of obesity. By cutting out meat, you are forced to up your intake of fruits and vegetables. Typically, at least from my experience, this results in a much better quality of overall health, including weight loss and/or maintaining a healthy weight Essentially all of the people in Saratoga whom were vegetarians were also very fit and healthy. Another social issue vegetarianism addresses is the cruelty of animals. Vegetarianism helps stop the act of factory farming which has become a major issue in todays society for many environmental reasons and also ethical reasons for its cruelty to animals. Factory farming forces animals to undergo seriously inadequate and cruel conditions such as crammed into small spaces, mutilation, and overdosed with antibiotics.

My first case study can be found at http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/aqua-ecua.html.

Ecuador is one of the largest producers of shrimp. In the 1980’s shrimp production in Ecuador rose by 600%. The high demand caused mariculturists to clear more and more of mangrove forests to create ponds to hold the shrimp. The extreme increase in the number of ponds solved the current high demand problem, but cannot be considered sustainable development. Sustainable development would meet the needs of the present without compromising the future, but this is not true for this case study. Creating so many new ponds also meant clearing a substantial amount of mangrove trees. Mangrove trees are an important necessity to the shrimp as well as other marine life. They produce a nutrient rich environment and offer protection from predators. The decrease in mangrove forests has greatly decreased the supply of shrimp in today’s generation. Only ½ of the ponds are being utilized in today. Due to this unsustainable development, Ecuadorean mariculturists are now paying a high price for the diminished shrimp supply.

My second case study can be found at http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/fts/salmon/casestudy.html

Although there is no specific location, it refers to farm raising salmon in places such as British Columbia and Chile. The majority of salmon products sold in stores and restaurants in the U.S. come from farm-raised salmon. Farming salmon is a cheap way to produce a substantial amount of fish in quick time to meet high demands. Salmon farming uses open, net-cages, where high densities of salmon are stocked to maximize profit.. Most salmon farms are located in areas where wild salmon also live. Because of this, many problems have occurred that are harming the wild salmon population. Large numbers of farmed fish are often escaping their net cages and out-competing the native salmon for survival. Another major issue is disease. Due to the high densities of fish in the net cages, ill conditions are created where contagious diseases, infestations, and parasites are able to be spread to native salmon. Again, this is another example of unsustainable development where an apparent productive creation is in actuality inhibiting future generations of wild salmon populations.

Both of these cases relate to each other in the sense they both deal with aquaculture. I had the opportunity to spend a few months living in Charleston, South Carolina two years ago. Although both of these cases refer to places other than South Carolina they can definitely relate. South Carolina has a large aquaculture industry. While there is aquaculture for shrimp there is not specifically for salmon, but other types of fish which have similar trends. I feel as though aquaculture is always developing to become more efficient and to make more profit. Both of these cases can be looked at as guide to achieve sustainable development. Both case studies show how disrupting the environment can negatively impact the future. Creating more ponds temporarily fixed the high demand for shrimp, but ultimately damaged the population. Fish farming has now been seen to be damaging to native populations of fish. By looking at these case studies we can better understand how easily environmental disruptions can have a negative effect on the future in such a short amount of time. In short terms these case studies show “what not to do” and better shape how places high in aquaculture can reach sustainable development rather than unsustainable.

My hometown is in Williamsport, PA. I am from the very rural parts where most people have wells at their homes. At my home there is a man made well approximately 30 feet below the ground in my backyard. The well is basically a giant pipe under the ground that collects water. When it rains, the water seeps into the ground and runs into the well. Inside the well there is a pump that pumps the water into a holding tank in the basement of our home. The water is sent through a special filter that removes sand, dirt, and other kinds of sediment. The water is then dispersed through the house for use. After the water is used it goes down the drain and out through a pipe through a septic tank where solids like food and waste are collected and the water is sent back into the ground where it becomes naturally purified and eventually reused.

Limiting myself to two gallons of water was not successful at all. To be able to do this I would have to change my entire daily routine A LOT. As you can see going from 128 gallons to 2 gallons would require quite a few major changes. For my experiment, the only water I did not try to limit was that for my pets and drinking water.. for obvious health reasons. However for other categories I did try to make some changes to reduce. To try and save water I eliminated the bath and took an extremely quick 3 minute shower just once a day. Also for other uses such as brushing teeth I turned the water off when actually brushing. For toilet flushing, as gross as it may sound you can easily save several gallons of water by not flushing every single time the toilet is used ( I was not able to do this one as my roommates would not be happy.) Geography definitely plays a major part in water use as in some places you might be restricted in how much you can use. I am lucky enough to be in a part where this isn’t an issue, but it does make you think how much water you can save if everyone just sacrifices a little bit. This is where collective action comes into play. If we all just give up a little bit or even just try not wasting water we can conserve a lot!

1.) I think it is more important to perform good acts than to be a good person. Don’t get me wrong, in reality I think both are essential, but if I had to pick one over the other it would be performing good acts. In the virtue vs action section of the reading it gives the example of “is it better to be someone who cares about the environment or to be someone who takes action to help the environment?”. In the grand scheme of things its the action of doing good deeds that is going to better the world, not just thinking about doing them. As with the example with the environment, sure someone may really love the environment but their love isn’t going to stop pollution, deforestation, ect. Even if the person doing the action of cleaning up litter doesn’t actually care about the environment, it is at least being helped, and thats more important.

2.) The pleasure and pain of non-human animals absolutely matters just as much as humans’. The concept of speciesism holds true for a lot of people I feel. Its easy to only be focused on the well-being of mankind, and to just assume that every other species on the planet can’t feel or doesn’t care. However, I have had plenty of hands on experience with animals ( I work at a veterinary hospital) to know that they do indeed have feelings. Even if an organism that is not considered to be very intelligent, perhaps a fish, should still always be taken into consideration. We are not the only species on the planet and it is completely selfish to disregard other species. Our planet is one big ecosystem and thinking just for the human race, being selfish could really be self destructive, as all of our resources come from many parts of the environment and animals. Just because non-human animals don’t have a voice doesn’t mean they should be ignored. In fact we need more people in the world to be their voices.

3.) I believe ecosystems matter for their own sake. In relation to the previous question, I think humans overall are very selfish. Many people hold the feelings of speciesism, and many people also view the environment from an anthropocentric perspective. Too many people look at a forest and only see the tons of trees that can be cut down to provide wood to make profit. When I look at a forest I see a home to many different organisms and an amazing self-regulating ecosystem. Anthropocentrism and Speciesism pretty much go hand in hand. Both view that humans are ultimately most important. Ecosystems are a huge part of our lives both indirectly and directly. Everything we need to survive comes from the environment. If all of our actions were based solely on what benefits humans we would end up destroying all of the ecosystems. We are intelligent enough to compromise between the two and to find ways that benefits both humans and ecosystems or that at least do not damage ecosystems.

For my diagram I really wanted to emphasize the human-environment relationship in this situation. I color coded each block to show whether it is an element from the environment and plays a part in our ecosystem, or whether it is human related and affecting the social system. I designed my concept map to be as easy to read as possible. It begins with the starting element of cow and human waste, is directed with an arrow to show its put into the biogas generator and the arrows show the two products that come out of the generator ( methane and slurry). I then used the arrows to show the effects of each product and how it ultimately all leads to a better quality of life for these people. This technology is great. As you can see in the map there are a few feedback mechanisms that are effected. For example, by using the methane fuel a negative feedback is creating because now less and less trees will be need to cut down. All in all the biogas generator is a positive impact on the people of India by creating an effective and stable system.

My diagram and Gerry Marten’s diagram are similar in the sense that they both generally illustrate the relationships between different elements in each system. However they do differ a lot. Marten’s diagram is much more complex in its webbing and uses a ton of arrows to show how many elements are connected. His diagram also uses more general terms where as mine is very specific to the situation in India. They most likely are similar because we are creating a map of similar topics (ecosystem and social system relations). They differ because his map is more of a general concept illustrating human ecology where as my map is illustrating one specific human-environment system so it is much more specific. We can learn from Marten’s map that generally all things in a system effect each other and we can take this into consideration when thinking about the specific biogas generator system and see that it follows this same idea.

Hello everyone! My name is Christianna Woodling and I am a Sophomore at Penn State University Park. I am originally from the Williamsport, PA area. I grew up in a very small rural town on the outskirts of the city called Montgomery. I now permanently reside in State College in my own apartment with my dog, cat, and two parakeets. I am majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in Spanish. As well as being a full time student, I also work part time at the State College Veterinary Hospital as a veterinary assistant. Although it has nothing to do with my major, animals are a large part of my life and I love caring for them along with my passion for teaching. My first semester at PSU  I took an Earth science class that went in depth about climate change and all of the different effects it is having on our planet. I really enjoyed learning and fully understanding this subject as it often appears in our daily lives whether it be in the media or real life. This is what drove me to select GEOG 30 as my required general education class. Since this class is going to be teaching about the ways humans interact with the environment, I thought it would be really interesting since I have a little bit of background in environmental science. Geography to me was always simply looking at things on a map and knowing where certain countries are, but now taking a college level geography class I am very excited to expand my knowledge of the subject and see what more geography has to offer!

One area that really interests me is ocean pollution. Our oceans are a major resource for life and so many times it is taken advantage of. As mentioned in the beginning of the module, I think “scale” is very important in terms of geography and more specifically matters such as water pollution. If me think of water pollution on a local scale, dumping waste into one area of a creek doesn’t seem like such a big deal. In the grand scheme of things its only one tiny creek out of the whole Earth. But if we scale this up globally, and if everyone thinks that dumping waste into one small creek is no big deal, suddenly we have millions of polluted creeks running into the oceans and thus becoming a global problem .