1)

2)  This systems diagram outlines the issues associated with climate change negotiations occurring around the world. The main driver of this diagram is climate change, which is caused by greenhouses gasses trapping radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere. The core idea behind this systems diagram is the principle of collective action being used to lessen the effects of global warming around the world. The logistics of solving this problem are very difficult. Figuring out ways to manage seven billion people and negotiate among differing countries can be very hard to do. This diagram outlines the negotiations among many different nations regarding a solution to climate change. Unfortunately, there is a lot of political mistrust surrounding the Copenhagen Accord. As mentioned before, it is very difficult for so many nations to come to an agreement, a core reason behind the mistrust among countries. The Accord is designed to create a plan for each nation for greenhouse gas emission cuts. It also intends to give financial aid to poorer countries who are affected by climate change, but are not necessarily the largest contributors to the problem. Most of the mistrust is among richer, larger countries like the United States. Nations must balance the negotiations between environmental benefit and financial feasibility. Solving climate change calls for the redirection of billions of dollars due to moving the global economy to a low carbon model. Despite the mistrust among the many countries, the negotiation talks have results in about 140 countries associating themselves with the Copenhagen accord. While this does not completely solve the problem, it brings the world one step closer to finding a solution to climate change.

3) I personally believe that climate change is an issue that can only be solved by every country on the world cooperating with one another. This is a collective action issue as well as an individual action problem. We must collectively work together, but also must take it upon ourselves to do whatever we can to help solve climate change. That being said, I do not believe the United States has been handling the issue of global warming very well. I do not think that we as a country are taking as much responsibility as we should for the damage we have caused. The United States is one of the largest greenhouse gas producing countries, making it our responsibility to compensate for the damage we have done. It is not ethical for the US to make other countries suffer for our actions. The concept of distributive justice explains the tradeoff between poorer and richer nations when it comes to climate change. Regardless of responsibility, the entire world’s population needs to shift from an anthropocentric view to one that focuses on ecocentrism. We must put the future of our Earth ahead of our immediate human needs. In regards to the negotiations between political entities, I am somewhat conflicted on whether or not the cables should have been made public. When it comes to making a decision and coming to an agreement, I think that the politicians would be able to come to a quicker solution if they were able to work without the pressure from the public on them. On the other hand, this is a world issue that affects all of us, so the public also has a right to know what different nations are thinking in regards to the negotiations. I think in order to solve the issues of climate change, we need to have more trust among each other and act less in self-interest and more for the benefit of all.

1) My town of Colts Neck, New Jersey is located in the Northeastern region of the United States. According to the Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards, my region is prone to several different hazards. I live in close proximity to a tropical cyclone. The cyclone’s track direction goes upwards, which can cause heavy wind. The region that I am in has had increased heavy rainfall due to climate changes.  This is what has most likely caused the large amounts of hydrological and meteorological hazards in my area. My region has also been subject to hailstorms, several extratropical storms, as well as some tornado risks. According to the map, Northeast United States faces warmer weather and fewer storms during El Nino. During La Nina, my area is prone to more storms. The Nathan World Map is beneficial for showing global hazard risks, but it would probably be more helpful in my specific case if the maps were magnified to show the effects on only North America.

2) According to the Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress Signaling and Infocommunications’ EDIS, in the Tafawa Balewa region of Nigeria, Africa there biological hazard occurring. Something known as the Lassa Hemorrhagic Fever has affected the people of the State of Bauchi, a level 4 hazard. It could be possible for my hometown to experience a disaster like this, under certain circumstances. If the disease was contracted in another area and someone brought the disease to my area, it would be possible for others to catch the infectious disease. My hometown is not particularly vulnerable because we are not close to any port or airport and the United States takes many safety measures for protecting against infectious viruses. Additionally, I live in an area that is much wealthier than Nigeria, which makes us somewhat less vulnerable to this virus. The number of educated doctors and scientists within my country also are beneficial to my area. The number of people reported to have had the illness is around 180, with 101 deaths being reported as of August 2015. This region in Nigeria is much larger than my hometown. An outbreak like this would be devastating in my town, which has a population of just about 12,000 people. As far as scale goes, the fact that the virus has been constricted to this small county in Nigeria would probably be similar to the local scale of my own county. Some ways to reduce the vulnerability for my hometown to a biological hazard such as the Lassa Fever is to prepare for it before it comes. Having plans and educating ourselves on infectious diseases such as this would help us in being able to get rid of it if it were to affect us. If faced with a Triage, it would be important that we have an emergency response team set up and additionally a facility available to save as many lives as possible.

3) My town faces several natural hazard risks. In the past we have been subject to some devastating storms, specifically hurricanes. Being so close to the coast, my area has been prone to thing such as flooding and heavy winds during storms. According to TIME Magazine, my county (Monmouth County) is considered to be less safe from natural hazards than most places. We are subject to coastal flooding, excessive heat, flash flooding, heavy snow, high wind, lightning and tropical storms. My parents have told me about Hurricanes in the past that have caused damage, but none compare to Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, that hit during my lifetime. Hurricane Irene hit in August 2011 and brought heavy winds and damage to electrical wires, causing us to lose power for weeks. Worse than Hurricane Irene was Hurricane Sandy which hit in fall of 2012. The damage to my town was unprecedented, with trees falling through houses and people being out of power for almost 2 weeks. Our neighboring Ocean County faced more damage than ever before, costing millions of dollars for reconstruction.

http://time.com/safest-counties/#34025

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/08/hurricane_irene_flashback_the_forgotten_storm_of_2011.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/new-jersey-house-sandy-demolished-photos_n_3205036.html

4) There are many measures that can be taken to reduce the vulnerability of my town. The magnitude of damage caused by hurricane Sandy was mostly due to the fact that New Jersey was unprepared for such a storm. Protecting our beaches is something that we failed with tremendously in that case. Building higher dunes and evacuating coastal towns are just a few things that can be done to protect people and infrastructure. During times of natural hazards, it is so important to have prepared emergency response teams. For example in the State of Bauchi, Nigeria that I had mentioned above, the governor had a quick response to approve the building of an infectious disease center for those affected. Having a speedy response to natural hazards is very important when it comes to protecting people. The people who are most responsible for constructing these plans are the local government. They have the largest stake in our local wellbeing, and they have the power to facilitate action. It is also important that more fortunate community members volunteer to help their fellow people in times of need. In times of hazard, it is both mine and my community member’s responsibility to do whatever we can to help those around us.

I am from a town called Colts Neck and it is located in central New Jersey. The town is about 25 minutes away from the beach and about an hour away from New York City. Originally, my town was centralized around farming and agriculture. As time has gone on however, many of the farms have been converted into housing neighborhoods. There are still several large farms in the town though. The only means of transportation in Colts Neck is automobile. The houses are very far apart and the nearest stores or food shops are only within driving distance. Unfortunately the nearest train or bus station is approximately 15 minutes away, so my town is an automobile suburb. The current population in Colts Neck is 12,331 people and the area of the region is 31.79 square miles. I have lived in Colts Neck my entire life so I have a very strong connection with it. Most of my friends are from this area and I love the fact that it is a smaller town that hasn’t become very commercial. I like being able to go to apple orchards and specialty stores within my own town rather than have people from other places flocking there for chain stores. It was a very nice place to grow up and I always look forward to going back.

One of the cities I found most interesting to learn about in this module is the city of Bogota in Colombia. Bogota is addressing the issue of Sustainable Urban Development with Ciclovias. Ciclovias happens every Sunday and holiday and it restricts the usage of vehicles on 75 miles of streets. This promotes alternative forms of transportation like cycling and walking on those streets and also reduces harmful vehicle pollutants.  It’s a great way for community members to see the city and get exercise at the same time. Something like Ciclovias would be very beneficial for my town. Because there is not very much to do in my town, having an event like Ciclovias would be a great way to develop the community. By promoting the restriction of car usage, people can find alternative ways to exercise and be entertained, thus also increasing the use-mixture of my town. This would also promote sustainability and health due to the limited usage of automobiles and increased exercise.

Another area that caught my attention was Cuba’s use of urban agriculture. After the Soviet Union collapse and the US embargo caused Cuba’s supply aid to be restricted, they were forced to come up with alternative methods for creating food. In cities like Havana, people were forced to find more innovative ways to grow food organically. Instead of using machines powered by fossil fuels, Cubans had to use “people power” and “animal power” to grow their crops. Additionally, Cubans were unable to use pesticides and insecticides in order to grow their plants, which is much better for the environment. Using harmful pesticides to grow food can be very dangerous to resident health. Their way of growing food became far more sustainable. Cubans avoided some of the difficulties associated with switching to sustainable living simply because they had no other choice. This is interesting to me because although we are not restricted in supplies in my town, we are a very farm based town. If we could use more of our land and farms in order to make our own food and grow it organically, we could become a much more sustainable town.

1. A time in which my food choice was influenced by a societal norm was growing up going to other children’s birthday parties. Most commonly in America, it is normal for a birthday party to end with pizza and cake.  Many times I would eat pizza and cake despite the fact that I did not want to. This was mostly due to lack of another option but also a result of not wanting other people to see me as weird or not normal. I developed a strong interest in eating healthy as I grew older. From a young age, I began to enjoy living a healthy lifestyle. I liked to eat nutritious foods and go running because it made me feel good about myself, gave me energy, and helped with my gastrointestinal problems. I would most often continue to eat pizza and other unhealthy foods at these birthday parties though because there were very rarely any healthy alternatives.

Most often it is normal for our society to not provide healthy options for children and young adults. When feeding mass groups of people, there are seldom healthy alternatives. This can be for cost saving reasons or for the fact that people are usually more inclined to pick the unhealthy foods. People, more specifically children, are forced into these unhealthy food choices like pizza and cake due to society’s acceptance of these foods as what is normal.

2. One of the issues that the situation I mentioned above addresses is our society’s obesity problem. The scenario I spoke about in the prior question is just one of the situations in which societal pressures can cause serious problems. The issue of nutrition is one that is crucial to any nation. America specifically is seeing the massive side effects of growing obesity. Obesity has reached so many parts of the world that it is being considered an epidemic. I believe a lot of this problem starts with the ideas and nutritional values we pass on to our children. If a child’s parents do not monitor in some way the food the child is eating, those unhealthy habits continue into adulthood. By setting an example of healthy living for society’s youth, I believe this problem can improve. Our society is very dependent on the industrial agricultural system in which high calorie crops are the largest quantities.

Another issue that the above mentioned scenario brings up is the matter of monoculture. As I have mentioned, our society is very dependent on high caloric crops such as maize. Producing so much of one crop can be good for the present in cost effectiveness of machinery, but this type of agriculture cannot be sustained forever. Some of the disadvantages include depleting the soil of one set of nutrients and reduced yield stability. Our culture being dependent on high-calorie foods makes us more dependent on a specific set of crops. This causes our agricultural system to become a monoculture.

The topic I chose to focus on is Solid Waste Disposal.  The case originates in the Washington region of the United States, specifically King County.  This case poses the question of whether economic incentives can successfully control waste disposal and promote recycling. I found this case from the Colby Sustainable Development source; the case can be found on this webpage: http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/swm-wa.html. The main issue began in the 70s and early 80s with landfills filling at a very high rate and without consideration of the environmental impact on King County. To solve this problem officials came up with the idea to provide economic incentives for people to recycle. Charging money for more than one bin of waste motivates people to produce less waste. By 1996 the county was able to obtain a rate of 53% of waste being reduced or recycles. The main goal of this case is sustainable development. By reducing the environmental impact of past generations, King County was allowing future generations to meet their own waste disposal needs. Without this development initiative, the county would be facing huge disposal issues in the present and in future generations.

The second case study I focused on concerned The Three Gorges Dam located on the Yangtze River between Chongqing and Yichang City, Hubei province in south-central China. This study was found on the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science website, University of Buffalo and can be found on this webpage: http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/three_gorges_dam.pdf. The case addresses the benefits and negative side effects of the Three Gorges Dam. China is a developing country, meaning there is an increased demand for energy. China’s energy use has increased by 56.6% from 2005-2011. The costly Dam project provides s 84 terawatt-hours of electricity annually but was a controversial project for several reasons. The Dam caused massive flooding, forced many residents to relocate, decline of fish vegetation, changes to downstream temperature and flow and much more. The goal of this development is to provide a source of energy for the ever increasing Chinese population. It turns out that this Dam project is more of an unsustainable development than it is sustainable. Building this dam causes an alteration in the wildlife and freshwater systems. The increased usage of Dams to produce energy is affecting biodiversity in a way that will prevent us from maintaining positive development.

I currently live in Colts Neck New Jersey, a town close to the eastern coast of the United States. Both cases can relate to where I live because they concern the relationship between human needs and the impact on our environment. My town’s waste also goes to a landfill facility. These types of practices cannot be sustained forever and it would be very beneficial for my town to create some sort of incentive to recycle and reduce waste. Unlike in Kings County we do not have a government mandated rule or goal for recycling but I think this could be a great idea for the future. Unlike in China, my energy is not produced from a dam because we are not located near a river source. In America, we depend on China for many of our resources and imported products. The price of energy and how it is sustained for the future is very important to America’s ability to trade and conduct business with China. My region is not facing such steep population growth as China and therefore does not have to deal with issues like building water Dams just to have enough energy. What is important to recognize is that China relies heavily on its fishing and vegetation to feed its population. Tampering with their food sources can be very detrimental to the future, which is something they must be very careful of and something we can learn from in my region.

1a) I live in a town called Colts Neck, located in central New Jersey. My town runs on a well water system. According to the 2014 Annual Water Quality Report conducted by New Jersey American Water, my town runs on the Coastal North System. This system sources water from reservoirs such as the Manasquan and Glendola Reservoir. The groundwater is sourced from an aquifer deep underground that is then pumped upwards. My house has a well system with an electric pump that sources the water from an underground aquifer. This pump is located in my basement.  Electricity pumps this water towards the surface where it is filtered in an individual filtration system for my house. Water is stored in a tank for usage and when a faucet is turned on, pressure pumps this water upwards until it reaches the faucet. Once used, the water is then drained to a septic tank that is located in my back yard. 

1b)

Daily Water Usage (in gallons)

1c) Living on just two gallons of water was very difficult for me. Things that are absolutely necessary for me to use are water for cooking, drinking water, as well as any cleaning necessities. I  had to prioritize which areas are most important to me given the day o the experiment. Staying hydrated is very important so I had to make sure that I rationed enough water for basic survival. I set aside about a half a gallon of water for drinking for the day. The next priority is cooking, another necessity for survival. Any water that I need for three given meals throughout the day had to be set aside. Lastly, I had to use whatever was left over for sanitation purposes. When dealing with germs and bacteria, it is very important to wash your hands for safety purposes. Some methods for cutting down my water use in other respects were to not wash my clothes and limiting my need for dishes and utensils by cooking meals that can be eaten with just your hands, like a burrito. Showering uses a lot of water, so I tried not to sweat too much, so as to avoid showering. My experiment for surviving on just two gallons of water was not a success. By the late afternoon I had to add more water because I felt very dehydrated and had to wash my hands more. In comparison to part b, this experiment was very eye opening. Limiting myself on cleaning dishes and washing my hands saved a lot of water. I did not realize how much water was used when flushing the toilet and for the experiment I tried to flush as little as possible. Geography is very important when considering water use. The way people use water is highly dependent on where they live and what resources are available in that given area. People don’t realize how their water usage can add up when accounted for on a larger scale. If we can take an individual action in each of our homes, we would be able to preserve a lot of energy. 

1. Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts? (Virtue ethics vs. action ethics)

The concept of being a good person and performing good acts are very closely related but are not exactly dependent on one another. It is possible to be a good person without performing good acts and it is possible to perform good acts without being a good person. This matter of virtue vs action brings up the question: What does it mean to be a good person? I believe it is more important to perform good acts because without action, there is no change. People may have good intentions and positive thoughts but in order to make the world a better place, we must turn those thoughts into something tangible. Under most circumstances, actions speak louder than words. When determining whether or not the ends justify the means, a person’s virtue must come into question. If a result makes a large positive impact on the world but the means for obtaining this result had some negative effects, this would procedurally justifiable. For example, if a person finds a new method for growing more crops but in the process had to sacrifice a few farms, the ends justify the means. The total benefit of this person’s actions outweighs any potential negatives. Destroying a farm’s crops is not seen as virtuous, but the actions were with positive intentions for change.

4. Do ecosystems matter for their own sake, or do they only matter to the extent that they impact humans (ecocentric ethics vs. anthropocentric ethics)?

Ecosystems matter for their own sake far more than for how they impact humans. Humans have existed for a significantly small portion of our ecosystems entire existence. To have an anthropocentric attitude is to say that the ecosystem is here only for our benefit. Often humans will sacrifice the environment for their own welfare. When humans use natural resources and harm the environment with over consumption, they often think little as to how this affects the ecosystem in the long run. It is more important to have an ecosystem that will be around for generations to come than it is to have an ecosystem that supports the current society. Ecocentric ethics addresses the concept of distributive justice and how the consequences that we as humans create are distributed in the environment. Improving the lives of humans does not justify destroying our ecosystems. Just because tearing down a forest will provide shelter for people does not mean we are justified in doing so. Ecosystems matter because they will be here long after our present society is. Sustaining the environment and not making a negative impact is the way we can ensure that this will happen.

6. Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness vs. altruism)?

I do not believe my life is worth any more than the life of another person. While I value my own life very much, I do not think there is any person on this Earth that deserves to be alive more or less than I do. An altruistic person can be defined as someone who contributes to the world. I believe that is what makes a person’s life worthy: how much they can contribute and make a positive impact on our world. While I care more about my family and friends than I would a random person, I do not believe my friends and family’s lives are any more valuable. While this is something I strongly believe in, I cannot truthfully say that I would be willing to sacrifice more to a total stranger than I would to a family member. Under certain circumstances, being selfish can mean not only benefitting yourself but also benefitting the people you love and care about. Being altruistic is about balancing how you value yourself and others. You can value all human life by doing things to help our world, like living sustainably.

Hi everyone my name is Cassie Hess and I am a Junior at Penn State, University Park. I am currently studying Risk Management with a focus in finance in the Smeal College of Business. I am hoping to pursue a career in the financial services industry because I like how it is constantly evolving and there is always more to learn. I grew up in a small town called Colts Neck, which is located in central New Jersey. I have lived in the same house, in the same town my entire life. I am interested in this course because it fulfills a course requirement, but also because I find the concept of geography very interesting. It is so important to our society and I would really like to learn more about what goes into the study of geography. Some other things about me are that I love to run and am currently training for a half marathon. I also enjoy cooking and reading a great book.

After reading through module 1, I have already learned a lot about geography that I wasn’t aware of. I find the concept of cartographic projection to be very interesting because I think that we are so accustomed to seeing two-dimensional maps that we don’t realize the projection scheming that must go into that. It’s interesting how we sometimes distort maps because this makes it easier for us to understand some things. A map can be completely inaccurate in terms of scale, but be very helpful in a given situation. Other than that, I am also very intrigued by the concept of how humans affect geography and how geography affects us. The concepts of sustainability, governance and ethics are all very important when discussing the impact humans have on our environment and how we can improve in the future.