In 150-200 words, analysis how your hometown or a place you are familiar with is affected by biodiversity. You can use any source you want, and you need to cite.

My hometown is located in southeast of China, where is the main area to fish and grow rice. We heavily rely on the water system around us. Water hyacinth, which named “Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solme” academically, now is considered to be an extremely destructive plant in my country. It originally grows in the Amazonian basin, and it is a warm water aquatic plant (this is why it only could survive in southeast of China but cannot spared to North). Water hyacinth used to be imported as pig feed decades ago. However, due to its productive character, it reproduces rapidly and densely. As a result, other aquatic plants and animals die because of lacking oxygen, sunlight, and nutrition, which propagates extremely serious ecological, economical and social problems in my hometown. Large area of died water hyacinth decay, and it will pollute local water system. According to the data, before 1960’s there were about 16 species of plants and 68 species of animals existed in this area, but just after 1980’s, only 30 species plants and animals survived. In addition, it is very difficult to wipe all of them out, it has threatened local native species diversity and changes the local environment dramatically.

Aboul-Enein, Ahmed M., Ahmed M. Al-Abd, Emad A. Shalaby, Faten Abul-Ela, Amr A. Nasr-Allah, Ali M. Mahmoud, and Hany A. El-Shemy. “Eichhornia Crassipes (Mart) solms: From water parasite to potential medicinal remedy.” Plant Signaling & Behavior. Landes Bioscience, 01 June 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3218481/

“Water Hyacinth.” Baidubaike. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=kDU3oSMO4RyYo3DM9M2y5GKfvMebb37xOGI2DFL3fc53VLyTkwzwjXSTyRKCv4kLXhS3wI1P4hCpqwo_eEwZqa

Draw a system a system diagram about what you have discussed before.

In 150-200 words, please provide at least two methods you think of to maintain biodiversity of the place you described, and analysis both their advantages and disadvantages.

In order to maintain biodiversity, several renovate ways have been developed. First, introducing water hyacinth’s natural enemy species. The benefits of this method are that new species can restrain water hyacinth growth naturally and ecologically. Once it integrates into local area, it will balance the whole ecosystem without destroying anything. However, this method is highly risky. Water hyacinth is an invaded species, and if people introduce a new species, this new species may also become a harmful invader. Second, reduce nutrition in water. The main reason why water hyacinth grows uncontrolled is eutrophication in water. If people can reduce nutrition in water system, water hyacinth can be controlled. However, water eutrophication is due to fertilizer overusing. People need to develop advanced technology to grow crops, but it is costly and will not achieve in a short time. Third method is using laborers to salvage. It is the safest way and cost less, but it is time consumption and inefficient. In short, until today people haven’t come up with a perfect method to solve water hyacinth in the city.

This article includes many aspects information. However, for my diagram, I mainly focus on the interactions between the cables sent by U.S, the Copenhagen Accord and other countries. I started my diagram with Global Warming and Greenhouse gases problems, and it is the cause of the creation of the Copenhagen Accord. Based on the article, the United States wanted as many nations as possible to accept the Copenhagen Accord for reducing greenhouse gases. In order to achieve this purpose, U.S used several methods to make other countries sign the accord. So I divided countries into different groups with different issues and solutions. First of all, it is easy to bind to rapidly growing countries and rich countries. However, the accord will cause a great loss for those poor countries that do not contribute to Greenhouse emissions. For these countries with financial issues, the record promised to send $30 billion to change their opinions, and I classified these countries as one group. Second, some countries having trust issue such as Ethiopia can be classified as one group. The other countries like Saudi Arabia are willing to show their positive attitudes toward the Copenhagen Accord but they do not want to make too much change on their economy can be defined as the third group. Because of the U.S government, even though there have 26 countries still not associated with the Copenhagen Accord, most of countries associated themselves with it. Finally, I draw the diagram with the achievement under the U.S’s hard working.

I believe the climate change problem is related to two concepts we discussed before, which are ethics and individual & collective action. When we talk about climate change, we are dealing with virtue and action ethics. I think most people believe protecting environment is the right thing, and they are always taught what they should do. These can be defined as virtue ethics. However, how many people will real put this into action? Do they turn virtue ethics into action ethics? Moreover, this situation also can goes in to individual & collective action problem. To be honest, U.S and some other developed countries released most of pollutions during their developed period. However, now they developed with the greenhouse gas level rose, and then those developed countries says to other developing countries that “you are responsible for greenhouse gases release, and you need to make sacrifice to reduce.” We admitted we have responsibility to change the situation, so at least, after the Copenhagen meeting, my country’s government asked us to set AC temperature no lower than 22℃. The United State, which is still one of the largest polluters, asked other countries to change their economy and reduce their greenhouse emissions, but what did it do? When I came to here, I noticed people always set AC to 18 ℃, and the lights always keep on even no one in the room. In addition, I believe the State Department cables should be made public because U.S needs to be the model and lead the other countries to make actions. In conclusion, climate change is not a personal thing. We all need to work together on these issues to make real changes in the world.

1.After analyzing the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, I found my hometown in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China is at a high risk of suffering both hailstorms and tornados. Nathan’s World Map of Natural Hazards demonstrates this accurately. It was not a surprise to learn of these risks: Due to my city’s coordinates, the climate is humid subtropical. In addition, my city contains two of China’s most important rivers and several big lakes, so typhoons and rainstorms hit regularly, especially during summer. Because the weather is moist and temperatures are dramatic, we also experience hailstorms. Typhoons cause million-dollar city losses every year. However, the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards is difficult to read because the scale is small, making it challenging to determine whether my city is subject to wildfire risks.

2. I am interested in an earthquake that struck Laochenglu, China on 29th March 2016, according to RSOE EDIS. My hometown is at a low risk of experiencing the same type of disaster because it is not located at the hypocenter of an earthquake zone. While the scale of the event in my hometown was small, it did cause damage. My city has higher population density, and compared to Laochenglu, it is tiny. People in my town have different levels of vulnerability because they have different wealth and education levels. Those with a higher education level are more likely to know the correct method of taking shelter during an earthquakes. Those with more wealth can buy higher quality houses so that can better withstand damage. Strengthening the buildings of my city would help reduce its vulnerability.

3. Typhoons are one of the most common hazards my city faces. If typhoons rise in severity level, they can become tornados. The website allowed me to track typhoons of past years. In 2014, my city experienced 12 typhoons. Structures collapsed and people died during each disaster. Typhoons have caused so much damage in my city that it is difficult to estimate. I experience typhoons every summer, and I believe most people in my city are used to them. Sometimes the water and electricity go out, but they are usually brought back within a day. The weather in my city is usually hot, but after a typhoon passes, it becomes cooler for a few days.

4.To reduce my town’s vulnerability to natural hazards, the most important step is prevention preparedness. Meteorologists and other scientists should forecast potential hazards to allow people to be prepared. Before an event occurs, governors should create a plan so that after an extreme event, they can quickly respond to and reduce damage. They should then apply recovery and reconstruction strategies to get conditions back to normal as soon as possible. On the other hand, it is important to develop an efficiency system in my city. For example, civil planners should develop a well-arranged drainage system. High-risk zones should be a significant focus of stabilization to protect against natural hazards such as earthquakes and floods. While I can do little for my city as a whole, I can take more precaution and learn self-preservation methods.

I lived in Hangzhou, China, which can be classified as an urban-downtown neighborhood. It has been estimated that there were about 6,670,200 people in the metropolitan area of Hangzhou in 2015, which means the urban density is very high. Hangzhou is the capital city of State Zhejiang, and it is adjacent to Shanghai. If Shanghai like New York City in China, Hangzhou will also be a highly developed city like Philadelphia. However, unlike Shanghai with so many skyscrapers, Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful landscapes and abundant culture. In addition, because of significant improvements of technology, Hangzhou now marches into the Information Age. Now when we go out, we even don’t need to bring money or credit cards. All what we need is cell phone and ID because we can do any thing using app. We all have an online bank app to store money, and we now can use app to pay check at any store by scanning QR code, and it is much safer than using credit cards. In short, people have very convenient lives in Hangzhou than other places, and I love this city so much.

I would like to discuss Shanghai, China because I am familiar with this place. Shanghai is a harbor city, and because of its environmental advantages and some historical problems, it becomes the economic center in China. Shanghai also has high urban density. It has a larger population than Hangzhou, which is about 23,019,196 people live in the metropolitan area. People could choose walking, taxi, and bicycle as their way, especial the subway system. The subway system is well designed for efficient transportation. It contains 13 transport lines crossing the whole city, so that people can arrive any place quickly and conveniently by subway. Although lots of people drive in Shanghai, more and more people choose to take subway. Comparing to drive, subway is more efficiency and sustainable, so my city is exploiting the second line of subway now.

The second city I will be discussing is Venice, Italy. Even though Venice is also a harbor city, it is very different from other places in the world including my city. Hangzhou also contains many rivers, but unlike Hangzhou, Venice is surrounded by water; so that the transportation is mainly rely on gondolas. People in Venice use gondolas as their daily vehicle to go from one place to another. It can be defined as sustainable development in Venice since people make good use of environment advantages and produce less pollution than other vehicles. This is the factor that I am looking at when I am discussing this city. However, due to the Greenhouse gases and Global warming problems, the sea level raised, and maybe in one day Venice will disappear.

• A social norm I have personally experienced in regards to food choice would be in my high school. As a Chinese, It is not exaggerated to say that I do not influenced by any social norm while choosing my food in China. However, when I came to U.S to study in a boarding high school, I have no choice of food. I needed to go to dinning hall to sign in my name, and I ate whatever they provide because we do not allowed cooking in dorm. Most of time they provide salad, chicken breast, and sandwiches with a lot of cheese. I felt ok at the beginning of one or two months, but after a half year I cannot tolerate them anymore. There is only one restaurant near my school that I can work there, and I only can go there during weekend. I like to eat rice, sushi, or noodles, but I have limited choice actually. However, if I do not eat, I will get hungry, and I will have no energy to support my daily work and excises.
• The societal issues that relating to my food choice at high school could be wasting food and lacking of essential nutrition elements. Not only me but also a lot of local students didn’t like the food in dining hall so that they throw away their food, which causing serious food wasting problem, and the kitchen also have food remained. It is hard to estimate how much food was wasted every day. For those students including me, who didn’t eat a lot in dinning hall, always get hungry during night or afternoon so we would like to eat snacks such as chips, and chocolates that contain high calories but low vitamins and minerals instead. The whole process will lead to obesity, losing hair, and some potential diseases. In order to improve these issues, I believe the dinning hall should develop food diversity, and improve the taste of the food they cooked.
• 

I decided to focus on air pollution, and I will talk about Inefficient Automobile Regulation. The regulation was released in 1989 in Mexico because of high levels of air pollution. By determining license plates, each car in Mexico City could not be driven on one specific day. However, the interesting thing is that the purpose of this passage is to prove the regulation is considered to be both inefficient and ineffective. This is an action to sacrifice individuals and benefit group. In addition, the concept of this regulation is related to sustainable development. By reducing the use of automobile, less air pollution will be produced, and the atmosphere will become high quality. However, the regulation does not achieve the goal of sustainable development; instead, it seems that automobile usage and gasoline consumption increased.

http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/air-mex.html

For my second case, I will talk about air pollution in India. This is a report analyzing air pollution and its control measures. In this research report, the scholars list pollutants produced by human activities, such as Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon monoxide, and other Volatile organic compounds. In addition, they present major measures to reduce air pollutions. First method is by using pollution filter, carbon, to absorb pollutants. The second one is by using microorganisms to dissolve pollutants. The third measure is to improve fuel usage so that less pollution will be released, and they compare different types of fuels’ advantages and disadvantages. All these three methods are based on the concept of sustainable development. They can improve environment by both controlling its original resources and dealing with outcomes.

http://www.ripublication.com/ijeem_spl/ijeemv4n5_06.pdf

I live in Hang Zhou, China. As everyone knows, China now has very serious air pollution, and the situation hasn’t been improved at all. The pollution doesn’t relate to place and time I believe. May be because we are developing country so industrial development is the most important part in today’s China. Almost a half of China is suffering from haze. We also released Automobile Regulation in some cities, including my city. I didn’t find these negative results as case 1 in my city. It seems the regulation works in China. Maybe that is because China’s Public transport is very developed so people have more choice. Similar to control measures in India, we also are trying to change fuel resources to reduce pollutants. Moreover, we are planning to renovate high-emission industries. All those action are based on the concept of sustainable development.

My hometown is in Hangzhou, China. Hang Zhou is a city with abundant water resources. One of the biggest rivers, which we called Qiantang River, is flowing through my city. This river is the main source of our daily water, and it is also the water source of Jinghang canal and West Lake. The origin of Qiantang River is the springs and rains from Yellow Mountain, flowing through 14 cities, and finally goes into East China Sea from Hangzhou bay. Tap water companies collect water from Qiantang River, and after purification, the water flow into everyone’s home by water pipes. Sewage goes into sewage treatment plants and at the end drains off into Qiantang River. However, because we only have this single water source, once the river is polluted, our tap water support will become absent, and we will suffer huge losses as well.

First, I will give up shower and teeth brushing. Then I will use one gallons of water to cook food and wash dishes, and I will drink the left gallon of water. Finally I will use swage to flush toilet. This is my strategy for living there one day. I think the experiment will be success, because when water is scare like this, we must sacrifice something, and the only goal is to keep myself alive. I have no sense about the shortage of water, so it is so hard for me to image living in a place where only have two gallons water can be used. Comparing to my table, I feel like I waste a lot of water everyday. I think geography is the most important factor of source of water. People live in areas with water scarce will treasure water, but people livein areas with water abundant have no sense about water usage. That is why my country have “south-to-north water diversion” project so that people in north of China with shortage of water could get more water source from south of China.

2. I agree with the idea that ends are important than means. The consequence is the most important thing, and no one will care about how do you achieve the consequences. That is your own business to decide how to achieve the goal. For example, a math problem could have several ways to solve it, and what students need to do is only to solve it and get credits. What actions you use and whether they are appropriate or not is another question we can talk about. If you use illegal means, it is also your responsibility to bear the consequence. Same theory applies to the example in the text. To be honest, I don’t think chopping down trees is fundamentally wrong, and I only care about whether the consequence is good or not. Doctors are trying to save a dog from a car accident, which the action is right, but unfortunately the dog dies. People usually say at least they did best to save it. So what? I feel like that is excuse, and they just using this excuse to comfort themselves or other people. What is the meaning of the action? The consequence is bad, and the action becomes meaningless. That is why I believe the consequence is more important.
3. All lives have feelings, even plants. Scientists have proved that when people sing songs and talk with plant, it will grow stronger than other plants without caring. The view of anthropocentrism in the text is totally unreasonable. Actually, I think humans are less important than species in this world. Nowadays, human active like predators. We cut down forest, causing desertization, and release greenhouse gases, causing global warming. These are impacts of human activities. People even don’t know how to coexist with the ecosystem, but how could some people believe human are more important? However, as mentioned in the text,” we live in a society where specialism is already present and we are already getting a special treatment” I doubt this idea. Talking about virtue, we all know that racism is not good so we are trying our best to improve this situation. We should do same thing to specialism, not let them develop stronger. I understand that we are on the top of the food chain, but one and the most important point we all should never forget is that we are still one part of the food chain, which means in this ecosystem, we do not have any privileges. The nature didn’t treat us special but we think we are special. The nature selected dinosaurs to be the ruler before, like human today, but the nature also selected to destroy them. We may be stronger and cleverer than other species, but that doesn’t mean we are special. On the other, the example about giving death for hunting a deer is not quit right. Human are omnivores; eating meat is okay, like other species also hunting others for food. The wrong thing is that we kill and torture animals for entertainment. I believe those people should be punished by laws. In conclusion, all species are equal, so we shouldn’t look down on them.
4. This question is really depended on the situation. Theoretically, life is equal for every one. However, it is depended on how do we value our life. Think about fireman, or any other rescue workers, do their lives worth less than other people？ Most people may not agree with this idea, so the point is why they are willing to rescue other people in the case of highly risks, even life dangerous? Is it worthy when a policeman sacrifices himself to save a girl form a criminal? On the other hand, think about why we exist? Why we live on this world? What is the meaning of our life? As far as I am concerned, we live to realize the value of our lives. When a fireman rescues a person, he achieves his life value. In addition, Chinese people were influenced by the concept of altruism thousands of years. We had many old sayings like “sacrifice myself to achieve our goal”, “Be the first to worry about the troubles across the land, the last to enjoy universal happiness” or “Who will enter the hell if I don’t?” so I believe I am also an altruism. If under some extremely situations that my life could exchange more people’s lives, I am willing to do it. I believe at that time my life have value and meaning.

The core idea behind my diagram is that showing how to make full use of waste and get benefit from them. Biogas exactly illustrates the interaction relationship between human activities and the environment. Before people introduce biogas, they use wood as fuel, and that actually cause a series negative influence on both human and environment. By using biogas technology, cow dung, food, and other organic matter breakdown and produce a mixture of gases that can be used as fuel. Moreover, this can be considered as a Positive Feedback loop. Waste produce gas and fertilizer, and gain more farmer and animal product, then more waste will use for biogas production. Unlike the dam totally relies on the nature, biogas only takes advantage of nature. In other words, the first condition is uncontrollable, and the second condition can be controlled. Those are depended on sustainability. The dam influenced nature system dramatically, but the biogas didn’t.Comparing to the Figure 1.5, the same thing is that both of the diagram shows the relationship between biogas, society and ecosystem. However, the different thing is the form of diagram. Figure 1.5 list social system’s benefits on the left and ecosystem’s benefit on the right.  However, my diagram shows biogas as the center of two systems, and connect to the core I list what will happen. According to these two examples, we can learn that the form of the diagram depends on  your concerns.

Hi everyone, my name is Baixue Chen. I was born in Lanzhou, China, stayed there for seven years, and then I moved to Hangzhou, China. I came to America four years ago. I went to High School at Virginia and currently stay at Pennsylvania. I am a sophomore and major in Environmental Engineering. I would like to deal with environmental problems in the future. However, I am really interested in learning geography and I want to learn more about our environment from this course. Interesting fact about myself is that I love traveling. I traveled a lot of places and countries already, such as Hong Kong, Japan, Bali. I already visited most of States in U.S, such as Boston, California, Iowa, Florida and so on. The Yellow Stone Park left a very amazing impression.

Because my major is Environmental System Engineering, I am really interested in the human-environment interactions topic. It is hard to over state the importance of impact that human activities cause on our environment. In order to develop our society, people already overused of the environment, and made irretrievable damages. If people keep making use of the environment without considering results, finally the results will come to people themselves. That is why people need to find the sustainability between human and environment. Sustainability is also on of the most important topic for this course. Finding a balance between human and environment is the reason why I am major in Environmental System Engineering and the goal I want to pursue in the future.