In 200-250 words, explain the biodiversity of your hometown (not State College). Include a description of H.I.P.P.O. and how it impacts this area.

I am from the suburbs of Philadelphia, Bucks County, PA. My hometown has many different types of plants, and animals such as deer, squirrels, and fox. Bucks County used to be a mainly farming area that has been majorly developed within the past 20 years. Since I moved to Newtown, I have seen an incredible amount of housing developments and restaurants be made and less and less dependency on the farms that we have. H.I.P.P.O stands for Habitat loss, Invasive species, Pollution, Human Population, and Overharvesting. Habitat loss is a huge problem in my area. My previous home in Bucks County had woods backing up to our backyard and my family and I would constantly see deer running around all the time. As more and more houses were being built in my neighborhood, I was saddened to see more and more deer roaming the streets and more accidents because their habits were being replaced with home and shopping malls. Another problem that is prevalent in my hometown is human population. I know that this is a large scale issue as well, but more and more people are moving into my area which is causing the need for more homes. This overpopulation is causing traffic in the center of town as well as areas around the highways.

In 200-250 words, describe how you can help improve the biodiversity of your hometown and decrease the different H.I.P.P.O. issues that are prevalent.

Habitat loss is a huge problem in Bucks County that is overlooked more often than not. People do not think about the fact that to be able to create more homes, stores and restaurants for people, they are subsequently destroying the homes of animals that have been there for many many years. I believe that to help fight this problem we need to create protected areas that people cannot build upon to be able to control the areas that animals need to be able to live. There is a park, Tyler State Park in my town that consists of 1,711 acres of land that varies from farms, trails, and the Neshaminy creek. Tyler State Park is a great example of how we should be treating our land and I think that if Bucks County made more areas that not necessarily were as large as Tyler State Park, but had land and waters that were not to be ruined and actively protected. Using ideas from places that have great biodiversity conservation practices, like Costa Rica, such as making a certain percent of the land be protected under national parks and other forms of reserves, it is a great starting point to bring back the rich biodiversity that was once there.

My diagram shows the many different steps that ultimately went into the Copenhagen Accord coming to fruition. I began with global warming and greenhouse gas emissions because they are the main source of problems that are causing climate change. The emissions are hurting the environment, not in one specific area but all over the world. The UN conventions on climate change were extremely important because they brought many countries together to try and find a solution for climate change. What came out of the convention was ultimately the formation of the Copenhagen Accord. For the Copenhagen Accord to be able to work like they wanted it to, it needs the backing of many other countries, even those that are poorer and smaller. One problem with this is smaller countries that were not causing many greenhouse gas emissions were feeling as if they would not be benefiting from the accord as well as larger, more prominent countries would. The Copenhagen Accord being passed would greatly serve the interests of the United States. Cables that showed these negotiation tactics were obtained by WikiLeaks and released to the public. The United States began to try and coerce other countries that were not as interested in being involved, just for their own benefit. Other countries were being promised money and being threatened if they did not join. All in all, the 140 out of 193 of the countries involved in the goal for climate change are now in support of the accord.

Although I think that it is unfortunate that the United States was put in such a bad light from the release of the cables, I do believe that it is a good thing that they were published for the public to see. What occurred was wrong and people deserve to see what is going on behind closed doors, especially with things such as climate change, something universally affects everyone. It should absolutely be publicized that the strong countries of the world are taking advantage of their power position and trying to bully the smaller, weaker countries into taking the same amount of responsibility. This takes into question the ethics of what was done. I do not believe that it was ethical for the United States to bribe and threaten the other countries into joining the accord just for their own advancement. With such a large issue such as climate change, I think it is incredibly wrong and goes against ethics to bully other countries into doing what the United States thinks is best for our own country. By not taking into consideration how wrong it is to do this, the United States was being extremely selfish and I believe it is important to share the information that was in the cables to show that no one can just get away with these “negotiation” tactics. I believe that in the future, steps must be taken so what the United States did to other countries cannot be done again. There needs to be preventative measures taken where all countries can equally share responsibility for what they have done or still need to do in regards to different issues throughout the world and correct collective action can be put into these large scale issues. 

Using the Nathan world map of natural disasters I can see that my hometown, Bucks County, PA experiences zone 3 and 4 tropical cyclones with zone 3 hailstorms. The map shows that my area is in zone 1 or 2 for extratropical (or winter) storms. It seems as though my area is in zone 2 or 3 for tornados and zone 1 for wildfires. For anomalies during El Niño, my area experiences fewer storms and during La Niña, there are more storms. I do not believe that the Nathan map document is suitable for this task because it is almost impossible to correctly locate an area and report on it. The Nathan map is better suited fort finding trends for general areas instead of specific places.

According to The Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress Signaling and Infocommunications’ (RSOE) Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS) there was a volcano eruption at 6:37 AM on March 31st 2016 in the States of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos in Mexico. My hometown cannot experience the same type of disaster because there are no volcanos even in the state of Pennsylvania. The database does not specially say the scale of the disaster but considering that it did effect three different major states, this disaster is much larger than my hometown. If this volcano eruption were to happen in my hometown it would be catastrophic and take out my entire town. I believe the severity of the disaster on the human population of my hometown would be disastrous. The people in my town would not have that different of levels of vulnerability because my area is relativity flat and so everywhere would be affected relatively the same. People who are closer to the base of the volcano would be affected sooner than others. My area is very farm based and having a volcanic eruption would wipe out all of the farming and irrigation that is in place.

According to FEMA’s disaster declarations for Pennsylvania, the most common natural disasters are severe storms and flooding. These severe storms cause major problems for homes and business along the Delaware River and other bodies of water that are in Pennsylvania. The storms can cause power outages and floods as well major issues for bridges and automobiles. Yardley, the town over from mine, has experienced many devastating floods that have cause many business and homeowners along the Delaware River to either move away or rebuild their buildings to accommodate flooding so the structures would be able to withstand the water damage. https://www.fema.gov/disasters/grid/state-tribal-government/44 

One major action that can be done to reduce vulnerability to natural hazards in my town is building resilience in non-disaster times. As I stated earlier, this has been done by some buildings around rivers that often flood but structures that are normally right outside of the danger zone do not make an effort to fortify their areas. I believe this is imperative and needs to be done because when disasters happen, they need to be prepared for the worst. I think that the best people to preform these actions would be the builders for the building and homes that are in high flood and storm areas. They will be able to make and stick to guidelines when building the structures. I can help by preparing my home for floods and storms. One way that I can do this is to make sure my family is prepared with things like a generator.

I live in Bucks County, PA, more specially, in Newtown Township. Newtown is an automobile suburb with a population of 19,299 and a population density of 1,522.6 / sq m according to the 2010 census. There is no public transportation in my town so unless you live right in the center of town, which is quite small, you have to have a car to get around. I do like the location of where I live because it is driving distance to many places. The beach is about an hour drive, New York City is about two hours and Philadelphia is a little less than an hour. I have lived in Newtown since I was five and although sometimes I do wish I lived in an area with more options for entertainment, I do like the small town feel that I have there. I like having access to other major cities that are so close but still be able to have the benefits of living in a small town.

The first city from the module that I want to discuss is Boston, MA. I have been to Boston many times and love how pedestrian oriented it is. I would so much rather walk than bike or drive to where I need to go if it is not a ridiculous distance away because I enjoy taking in the scenery and enjoying where I am. Boston is one of those places that allows me to do this. Comparing Beacon Hill to my hometown, Newtown, there are many strategies that could be taken from Boston and implemented in Newtown. I think that it would be incredibly helpful if the streets into town were pedestrian accessible, unlike now where there are no sidewalks and the roads can be quite dangerous to walk on. Also implementing something like Jamaican Plain, with the rail system would be incredibly beneficial for my town.

The second city from the module that I want to discuss is Copenhagen, Denmark. I have had the pleasure of visiting Copenhagen for a day and was surprised at the lack of cars on the road and the large amount of bikers everywhere. I arrived in Copenhagen by car from Hamburg, Germany and felt out of place with the obvious lack of cars. After walking around for only a short time, I realized why barely anyone was using cars, they did not need to. Copenhagen made it incredibly easy to walk or bike around the city that it is disadvantage to explore by car. There are places that cars cannot drive as well as reduced speed areas. By making driving an inconvenience for people, car usage is reduced. Although it may be difficult to implement no driving areas in Newtown, the idea of reduced speed throughout the main town is a great idea that I think will deter people from driving through town because it will be faster to drive around it, which reduce the amount of traffic through town. 

When I was younger, my mom never had soda in our house. She knew it was bad for us and never bought it. As I got older, I never really acquired a taste for it and still do not like it. I don’t like to drink anything carbonated and whenever I would go out to restaurants or birthday parties, I would just get water or juice. This social norm, of children drinking soda never became a norm for me. My sister also does not like soda and some of my friends that cannot live without it don’t understand how I don’t like any of the kinds that are available. I did not start realizing just how bad soda is for people until I was going into high school, when I heard people talking about how if they would stop drinking soda they would loose weight so fast. I learned that it has so many carbs and sugars in it and am so thankful that I never learned to like it.

From a young age, sugary, fatty foods are being thrown at children and they grow to believe that these foods are okay. Not understanding the basic foundation of nutrition early on can be incredibly detrimental to the health of children throughout the rest of their lives. The Healthy Eating Pyramid is a great way to show children which foods are most important as well as show them which foods, such as soda, do not even make it on the food pyramid because they should not be eating them at all. The statistic that today out of the 7 billion people, 1 billion of them are starving and 500 million are obese. Obesity is a rising epidemic and people need to be more educated on not only healthy eating habits, but healthy lifestyle choices. The social norms of children eating terrible foods “just because they are children” is wrong and needs to change. Parents cannot continue to feed their children sugars and fats in place of vegetables and meats that they need to be healthy individuals.

The first case study that I chose was based out of Singapore. I found this case study through the Colby-Sustainable Development link provided. This study focuses on trying to reduce traffic congestion which was causes reduced speeds and environmental problems. The government implemented a few tactics in attempts to alleviate this issue. They first increased taxes on buying cars along with anything that needed to be purchased to use the car. They then improved public transportation to try and encourage people to utilize it more. The roads in Singapore were also improved to be able to better accommodate the traffic. The final method that was implemented was to control the amount of people on the roads during certain times. People could not drive on certain roads during the times of 7:30-9:30 unless they paid a monthly or yearly fee to obtain a certain license to do so. This case study shows how too much development is negatively impacting Singapore and new development needs to be implemented to fix what has been done.

Here’s a link to the first case study: http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/air-sing.html 

The second case study that I chose was based out of Mexico City, Mexico. I found this case study on IDRC, the International Development Research Centre. This case study focuses on the ever increasing air pollution problem that is facing the city. The rapid increase in population and individual transportation is causing a surge in an already extremely polluted area. The pollutants in the air are causing the people of Mexico many different health problems that are causing respiratory issues and shorter lifespans. Air quality improvement projects are being implemented all over Mexico City. They are heavily relying on community involvement, they want to have the people of the communities be better informed on what they can do to positively impact the environment instead of blindly continuing to destroy it. This connects to the module because it is showing that development in Mexico is reducing health and quality of life.

Here’s a link to the second case study: http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=567

I live in State College, we have free public transportation for students around campus and cheap public transportation for around state college. Having transportation readily available, decreases the needs for students to have a car at school. Although many people have their own cars here, they are not used as much if they are going to places around campus. Another system that is used for controlling traffic congestion that could be implemented in Singapore is the dot system that is on the roads as markers to show drivers how far apart they should be behind the car in front of them while they drive. I think that by implementing a system like this in Singapore, they would have less accidents and traffic would flow more smoothly. A major difference between where I live and the places that I read the case studies on was that pollution is not a major problem here like it is in Singapore and Mexico City.   Time matters because depending on when development is happening, population can make an enormous impact.

My hometown, Bucks County, PA uses the same water water system that Northeast Philadelphia does due to its location. The water is first taken out from the Delaware River in Torresdale Philadelphia and brought to the Baxter Water Treatment Plant. At the plant, the water is taken out and filtered to make sure all of the debris that were in the water are gone. Chlorine is then added to make sure it is safe for distribution. The system takes about 190 million gallons of water a day and serves close to 750,000 people in Philadelphia and Bucks County areas. After being treated at the Baxter Water Treatment Plant, some of the water is sent to the Bucks County Sewer and Water Authority as well as other distribution plants.  After being sent out to residences and the rest of the community, the water then comes back to the Bucks County Sewer and Water Authority where the sewage is properly disposed of.

Monday February 8th Water log:

Shower (10 minutes): 5 gallons per minute = 50 gallons

Teeth Brushing (2 times a day): = <2 gallons

Hands/face washing (6 times a day): = 6 gallons

Dishwashing (2 times a day, totaling 8 minutes): 2 gallons per minute = 16 gallons

Drinking water (10 glasses): = 0.625 gallons

Toilet flushing (5 times): = 15 gallons

Total: = 89.625 gallons

For my experiment to try and only use 2 gallons of water for a day,  I wanted to prioritize my hygiene, cooking, and drinking. The first thing I cut down was my shower to 2 minutes. I saved 40 gallons by just doing this. I cut down washing my dishes because I used paper plates and plastic forks so I only had to wash one pan and a spatula which took less than a minute to clean. I also cut my drinking water down to 7 glasses for the day which totaled 0.5 gallons of water. I turned the sink off while I was brushing my teeth in the morning and night. Instead of washing my face in the sink like I normally do, I used my makeup remover wipes. Although I did not achieve only using only 2 gallons of water in a day, I was able to cut it down to about 31 gallons which is much better than my average 90 gallons per day. Geography matters in water use because it ultimately determines the amount of access that people have to water in their daily lives. Less developed countries have stricter access to water that highly developed areas, thus not allowing them to develop as much as they should.

• Is it more important to be a good person or to preform good acts? (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)
  • I believe that it is more important to be a good person than to preform good acts. I have met many people that preform good acts, but are not good people. There are many people out there that try to make themselves seem like good people by doing things like donating to charities and even holding the door open for the person behind them but I believe if they are not good people at heart, these acts mean little to nothing. Of course it is great to donate to charities and that money is not going to change depending on who gives it away but someone who is donating to be able to look better for their own agenda as opposed to someone who is donating because they believe in the cause and want to make the world better, is where the true meaning is. A good person generally does good acts with some exemptions, but generally wants to bring good into the world for the benefit of everyone. A person that only preforms good acts is not looking out for others and only for their own agenda. This is why I believe that it is more important to be a good person than to preform good acts.

• Do the ends justify  the means? (ends ethics vs. means ethics)
  • I believe that generally, the ends do justify the means. I do believe that it is important to make sure that when making decisions that you have to go through a lot to get to the desired end, exactly what means are to be taken must be put into consideration. There is always that great debate that people are often asked, would you kill a small number of people if you knew that it would save the lives of many others. Like all ethical views, there is no straight forward, correct answer. I personally believe that if I knew that by killing a few people, I would be saving many more then I would. But even taking almost the exact same scenario and changing it to the few people that I would have to kill would be people close to me I would not be able to do it. Even if I knew that I would be killing many other people in making that decision. In the second scenario, my means would be that they were people that I love and care for and could not bring myself to do it. The ends would be the other people dying and to me the ends would justify the means but to others, it might be completely different. 

• Do the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans? (speciesism)
  • I believe that the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans. I believe that just because humans have been able to evolve and have the ability to make decisions about other animals, does not mean that we deserve a better quality of life. No animal, human or not, should have to go through pain and suffering and no matter it is a rodent or human, it does not make it better. Animal cruelty has been around forever and it is something that I have never been able to understand. I do not understand why people believe that it is okay to harm animals just because they are not human and can. Testing on dogs and rabbits and even rats seems better than people but in reality they should be held to the same standard. They are unable to defend themselves and unlike humans, they have no input on situations they are put into. Just because humans are lucky enough to be in the power position on the food chain, does not make the lives of all other non-human animals any less important.

My diagram shows the connections between the social systems and ecosystems in India and how they are positively as well as negatively impacted by each other. The transition from wood burning stoves to methane stoves had huge impacts on both systems. Wood burning stoves cause health problems as well as negative impacts on the education of children, while methane stoves are healthier and introduce more job opportunities for women that can now be the provider for their families instead of relying on their husbands or fathers. The diagram represents a feedback loop. It clearly shows the connections between how humanity impacts the environment which then affects how the environment impacts humanity. Both negative and positive feedback loops were shown. Stability in agriculture is extremely important and was positively impacted by biogas production. By having the excess compost be used on the farms, the crops were better which caused the people to be able to live better lives. The soil became more stable and able to continue to grow crops for the people.

Just at first glance, my diagram is broken up into two main sections, social systems and ecosystems just as Gerry Marten did in his diagram. Both of our diagrams reference the need for child labor to be able to gather the necessary fuel. Marten’s diagram included the impacts on farms and plants while mine focuses more on the people and the benefits they receive from no longer using wood burning stoves. By comparing these two diagrams, we can learn that there are more connections between the social systems and the ecosystem than we can see at first look.

Hi everyone! My name is Jacqueline Jimenez and I am a sophomore at University Park. I was born in Kennett Square, PA and lived there until I was five years old and then moved to my current hometown, Newtown, PA. I am an Elementary Education major specializing in PK-4 with a minor in Special Education. After graduation I hope to be able to teach third grade in an inclusion class. I am excited for this class because I have heard a lot of great things about it and I cannot wait to expand my knowledge on a topic that I have not had the chance to learn too much about. I absolutely love traveling and have been lucky to be able to travel to many different countries. I also work at Starbucks in the HUB.

A huge problem that we face today are human decision making and processes that are shaping and changing the natural environment.  I believe that although sustainability is a great concept, we are not trying hard enough to continue human activities without disrupting natural ecosystems. Another issue that stood out to me in Module 1 was how interconnected humans and all other animals are with the Earth. The example of the the drought in California that has devastating effects on the ecosystem as well as humans was eye opening. It began to affect agriculture and tourism as well as recreational industries. These examples of how natural events can disrupt the activities of all animals is astounding. I think that it is surprising that people can be so informed of what is going on in the natural world and still continue to not change anything in their lives to help Earth to be healthy and be able to sustain life.