Hello all! I am Gilberto Aponte Prats. I currently live in State College, but I originate from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I am an IST Design & Development major, and I want to pursue the career of being a front-end developer (AKA make user interfaces in software). This course really interests me because geology is among the fields of science I know the least of, but I hold a very strong liking to all natural sciences. I want to know more how humans affect the Earth, given that the amount of evidence we can find of us affecting our planet is without a doubt. I love fiddling around with computers, play a lot of video games, listen to electronic music as my main genre. Essentially my life revolves around computers.
Something of great deal I have been seeing lately is the effect we have on our climate this year, and how many have resorted to basically ignore the fact that we have always had an effect in our environment since the beginning of the homo sapiens. Human-Environment interactions has a really long history, yet today many decide to think we don’t. We are reaching a point where sustainability is a real issue and the way we have used our resources in an incredibly greedy way. In today’s situation we’re reaching the point where governance with ethics will be necessary, not only to be fair, but to guarantee the survival of our society. Ethics also goes not only at the expense of non-humans anymore, what we do has a direct effect in the health of other people, as we can see in China with Beijing having an incredibly dangerous smog problem.
Hi Gilberto, my name is Siying and here’s a link to my post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/21/getting-to-know-you-siying-chen/
I think what caught my eye in your blog is that you mention the Beijing smog problem, because I’m from China. Although I’m not from Beijing, my home city doesn’t have clear sky very often like here in state college, so that is a big concern to me. I’m also interested in the human-environment interaction because I think most of the environmental problems can be traced back to human errors. Many people in China are suffering from the smog problem, but people doesn’t do enough to treat the problem, so I’m hoping if more people know about the relationship between human and the environment, we would still have the chance to make the change.
Gilberto, I find your major to be quite interesting, but considering your intent of working with interactive software I’m quite surprised you haven’t worked more closely with geology. As an architecture major, I work with maps constantly (mostly in programs such as autocad and rhino), and considering the many implications of interactive maps can bring (such has Penn State’s own University Park Campus Map Application) I think it might be a great prospect to look into.
I definitely agree on humanities ignorance on our own impact of the world. Climate change itself was only recognized at a global scale in the late 1950s (“The Rough Guide to Climate Change,” Robert Henson). It makes me wonder what else we might not be considering broadly enough about our impacts as a whole.
If you’d like to know me a little better, here is my blog post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/20/getting-to-know-you-megan-shrout/
Hi Gilberto! My Name is Kyle Hoke and I’m a senior in the Supply Chain major. I am also interested in the human-environment interactions. I think it is very important that humanity takes steps today to protect our environment. The world has limited resources and they should be used wisely. Also, the example of China’s smog should be a wake up call for everyone!
Here’s a link to my blog post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/20/kyle-hoke-getting-to-know-me/