Module 10- HIPPO

  1. What does HIPPO mean?
  2. How does HIPPO apply to your hometown? Does any of its components affect your hometown?

1- HIPPO

H- Habitat loss- There have been varous ways that the environment has lost land. Humans are the cause of many, including deforestation, using land for farming, building on the land, etc. What used to be land for animals to live is being turned over to the humans to use for their own needs.

I- Invasive species- New species can change a whole ecosystem when introduced. Because they have not lived with the resident species, there are no predators to control the growth rate/ population. Because of this, the new species grows without limitations and can wipe other species out of that areas ecosystem.

P- Pollution- This is when a substance that has negative effects to the environment is introduced. Even some natural substances can cause problems to the environment when there is too much of it present. Pollution can lead to the extinction of different species if not monitored.

P- human Population- The population boom since the 1800’s to now has hurt biodiversity because people had to find new land to live, thus destroying nature. Species environments have had to change to adjust to humans.

O- Overharvesting- This is the hunting/ targeting of certain species to the point of diminishing returns.

2. I have seen parts of HIPPO present in my hometown in many ways. My hometown is McMurray, PA which is 30 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. I moved to Peters Township in 2000. My family has witnessed the township develop and grow. The first sign of HIPPO that I’ve seen in my hometown is habitat loss. With more people moving to Peters, there has been new communities being built for the past 15 years. Housing developers have been buying farmland up to set up new neighborhoods. The township is debating building a new high school on farmland also. With these new housing developments popping up wherever they can fit, there;s been a lot of land cleared and forests taken down in order to house all the new people wanting to move to Peters.

Another part of HIPPO that my hometown has started to see is Pollution. The township has started new campaigns to help the environment and control pollution. During the last few years of High school, more recycling bins were put around the school and teachers started clubs to learn more about helping the environment. Also, the township has put more recycling methods in place. We now are instructed on different ways to sort our trash. The township gave everyone new recycling bins and instructions on what items go into what trash bins. The township has put up new signs and warnings on different areas that could be used to dump trash. All the sewers have stickers on them reminding people that they go directly to drinking water.

Again Human population applies to my hometown. With the population boom that my town has seen, animals have had to move to find new land to live. Recently, we have had a coyote problem. With land being taken away from them, coyotes have been forced to move around to find new places to live. This is forcing them closer to people. With more housing developments taking up land, animals have been disturbed.

Also, deer started to act like an invasive species to us. Our township has joined in an effort with neighboring townships to bring in experienced hunters over the last couple years. The hunters are used to control the deer’s population and make sure that their numbers stay low enough for the environment to handle.

 

Jason Brown

Module 9- The Copenhagen Accord

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2) The diagram I created starts off with the main idea that the issue of global warming is a main concern among most countries. The United States wanted to be a key player in trying to reduce this issue, while at the same time, making sure that they will choose a plan that helps them the most. The U.S. pushed the Kyoto protocol away because there were many restrictions and laws that were aimed at larger countries, such as the U.S., and instead, the United States proposed the Copenhagen Accord. This was much more favorable to larger countries, but hurt developing countries that aren’t able to get their hands on the supplies that the larger countries have at their disposal. in order to get support for this, the U.S. began to promise money to smaller countries for their support. When any country started to doubt the U.S., the United states would then dangle the money in front of them and threaten to take the opportunity away from them. WikiLeaks then got involved when they got their hands on many of the negotiation conversations that were occurring between the U.S. and the smaller countries. They made these conversations public, showing how the U.S. was trying to force these countries’ hands into signing onto their agreement. Even with about 75% of countries supporting the Copenhagen Accord, the plan fell through because of lack of trust between the countries involved. The U.S.’s ethics were all over the place in trying to get what the ybelieved the right plan to be to help with global warming.

3) In my opinion, I believe that it was right for the cables to be made public. We as citizens have the right to know how our government is operating and should have a say in the manner in which some business is conducted. The U.S. should have tried to solve this problem in a way that helped out the most countries, or benefit at least everyone involved in some way. Instead, there was a loss of trust between countries because of the bribery and espionage. Global warming is an issue that will require every player to participate in order to be solved. Without trust, there is no way that everyone will decide on efficient steps without checking each others proposals along the way, to make sure that no one is getting a better deal. This was a rough issue for developing countries. They were given the choice of jumping on board to a plan they didn’t like in order to get financial aid right away, or stay away from it all together and miss out on a huge financial opportunity for their country. Instead of using the wrong ways to get support, the U.S. could’ve tried to modify plans to fit different countries needs and make sure that everyone got an equal deal. The smaller countries deserve respect and should not be left behind by the more developed countries. The U.S. could’ve been altruistic and made sure that all the countries could get together to solve an issue that they all play a part in, but instead, they went about this selfishly and lost trust.

 

Jason Brown

Module 8 Vulnerability Reduction

 

My hometown is McMurray, PA. McMurray is located in southwest PA and is about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh. The Nathan World Map of Natural Hazards showed that my hometown is in areas of risk for tornadoes, extra tropical/snow storms, and hailstorms. McMurray was in zone 2 for the risk of a tornado and was in zone 3 for extra tropical storms. McMurray is also at very low risk to having any earthquakes or wildfires. The Nathan World Maps are great at showing where these disasters take place, but without clear state borders and other features, it is hard to correctly read the chart without zooming in.

A current disaster that I found using the Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress Signaling and Infocommunications’ (RSOE) Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS) was a snowstorm happening in the US state of Wyoming. IT is a state wide snowstorm. The event happened on March 30th around 1:50 PM and had a threat level of medium, with 2/5 of the damage level meter filled. There were no dead, injured, or missing people. My hometown has been at risk of snowstorms in the past and is most years waiting for the inevitable to happen. Our township does a pretty good job with handling the snowstorms. They usually have salt trucks get out early enough to lay down salt before the snow starts to hit, then plows will work continuously to try to control the snow and make sure the roads are in good shape. There was one year where we got four feet of snow and the roads were too bad to drive on for three days, but since then, our township has improved their snow removal. The scale of this event is way larger than the scale of my hometown. This snowstorm is occurring statewide in Wyoming and comparing that to my hometown is ridiculous. Because of the scale of my hometown, we have better chances of controlling our area and making sure our citizens are safe. With snowstorms, everyone is vulnerable, but during this time, older people are in the worst position. With the dropping temperature, it is harder for older people to get the supplies they need to prepare for the storms. For example, during the snowstorm that I described earlier, my parents and I had to use my uncle’s truck to drive to my grandparent’s house to help them. They live thirty minutes away from us. When we got to their house, they didn’t have much food left and their heating and electricity was knocked out. We had to bring them back to our house to make sure they were okay.

Tornadoes are the main concern for my hometown, as listed by USA.com (USA.com). I can agree with this by drawing from my own personal experiences. The only times my house has ever had flooding issues was when there were tornado warnings. With hail and large amounts of rain, the storms that came through Peters Township were rough and caused many problems. On one occasion, around 2010, after a tornado warning, my neighbor had four trees in his yard that were uprooted and scattered in his yard and the street. Other than snowstorms, the side effects of tornadoes has hit my hometown the hardest. This is why I am not surprised by the results that I saw on usa.com about my hometown’s chances of getting hit by different natural disasters.

“Pittsburgh, PA Natural Disasters and Weather Extremes.” – USA.com™. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2016. <http://www.usa.com/pittsburgh-pa-natural-disasters-extremes.htm>.

 

 

The best way to reduce vulnerability to snow storms and tornadoes, my hometown must be smart and know how to handle its citizens. First, citizens should receive pamphlets or be invited to attend awareness events hosted by the township in order to help the citizens know what they must do to prepare for these events. Households should all be prepared by having supplies and plan out what they should do in case of different natural disasters. In my hometown’s school district, the administration did a great job of performing natural disaster drills. During the tornado drill, students would go into the hallways, away from any glass windows. We would then get down on our knees and cover our heads and the backs of our neck with our hands. In order to decrease vulnerability, these drills should be performed more often throughout the school year. For snowstorms, the administration would test the roads and decide if there should be a delay/ cancellation for the day. This helped to make sure that students who drove to school and the school buses would get there safe. I can help my family by making sure they have a plan for each natural disaster. Also, we can make survival packs filled with items we could use during a natural disaster.

Module 7

I live in Peters Township which is a suburb outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I have lived there since 2000. Located in Washington county, PA, Peters Township is a suburb that has been steadily growing over the years. A 2014 estimate states that the population was about 22,800 people (http://www.peterstownship.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B3EB7A31A-2E2E-4679-BED2-6E67D01FDA90%7D). With access to many main roads that lead right to Pittsburgh, it is a great place for people who work in the city to live and have a family. Peters does not have a lot of sidewalks, so people rarely walk to stores, but their is a trail that people can walk on to get around town. Cars are the main type of transportation and buses are used to take kids to and from school. So Peters Township would be classified as an automobile suburb according to the module. Because of its distance from Pittsburgh, Peters doesn’t have any direct bus routes that lead there. Instead, we can go o neighboring counties where there is a trolley system called the T. The T starts in Pittsburgh and branches out to many suburbs all around the city, allowing people to ride into work instead of taking their cars downtown.

While reading through the module, the streetcar suburbs of Boston’s Jamaica Plain caught my eye. This is very similar to the counties/ other school districts around Peters Township that have stops for the trolley that go into town. This leads to the town being a commuter city and allowing citizens to have easy access to the city. One of the closest T stops near my house is located in Allegheny county and is about a 10 minute drive from my house. By the T stop there are dozens of stores and parking lots that allow people to walk and shop or go downtown. Allegheny county is just like Jamaica Plain because it allows people to shop while they go to work or as they come home at night. Peters Township could take notes from these towns and try to reach a deal with the Port Authority (Company that controls the T) and try to get a T station that is in Peters. This would make it easier for people to commute and allow less car travel. The township could also give residents incentives to ride the trolley to decrease pollution. The more people do it, the less traffic there would be around town.

The second topic that I could compare my town to is the neighborhood from Rochester, NY. Just like this neighborhood, Peters is mostly an automobile suburb. Most places in Peters require a car to get to and this can sometimes be a hassle. My dad likes to talk about how the main places in Peters are set up as little shopping islands, where there are many clusters of stores all over town. They are all separated from each other. Just like the Rochester neighborhood, Peters has barely any sidewalks, so it is rare to see people walking in order to shop. Peters must take notes on how surrounding townships are able to institute sidewalks. One of our rival school districts, Mt. Lebanon, has a great system of sidewalks. If you ever go there, they have everything in walking distance of peoples’ homes. They don’t even have buses for kids to go to school because their sidewalk system works so well. If Peters is able to redevelop and put in more sidewalks or regroup the layout of the stores, we could be a lot more efficient. Peters could always borrow tactics from Curitiba, Brazil’s bus system. This could allow people to ride the bus to the trolley stations to get downtown. That way they wouldn’t have to drive at all, but instead just walk to a close bus station.

 

J.R. Brown

Module 6 Social Norms

Jason Brown

I go through a situation every year where my food choice is influenced by social norms, and that time of year is Christmas Eve. My family is Catholic and my mom’s side of the family is 100% Italian. Each Christmas Eve, all of our family and friends gather at our house where we celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes. I have never been really into fish and this has tested me each year. We prepare fried cod, smelts, crab, and tons of other dishes. One of the main items that people go for is pasta with an anchovies sauce. It is infused with different flavors that help to hide the fishy-ness of the sauce, so those who don’t like fish go for that. Every year, I adjust though and I eat the fish even though I may not enjoy all of it. I do it for my family and my religion. I have started to adjust to some of the fish and  have enjoyed it recently. But I had to warp my preferences to go with the norms of the dinner and be with my family for my religion.

One of the main societal issues that comes from this dinner is food waste. Every year, adults and kids will try new foods or different types of fish and if they don’t like it, it goes right to the trash can. I can’t tell you how many times that I have walked around after the party and found half eaten food on plates just sitting around. This directly relates to ethics. While we are blessed to have the food, by wasting it we are showing no empathy for the millions of people starving around the world. This is one of the main issues with society. People need to appreciate all that they have cause many others have nothing close to that. The social norm for this should be people finding ways to try new foods in ways that excite them. Like if they were to mix the food with something else or just simply leave it be and let others eat it. This way there would be less wasted food and more people would be happy with the end result.

 

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Module 5 Development Case Studies

Jason Brown

  1. personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/trans-jap.html

The case study that i found interesting came from the Colby Sustainable Development page and was titled “Bicycles as Transportation Policy”. The study is about Japan’ climb back from World War 2 and trying to redevelop. One of the main additions to their development is the use of bikes around Japan as a main type of transportation. Because of the nation’s lack of petroleum, bikes are a great replacement for cars and let the citizens know that the reduction of the use of fossil fuels is important. Many of the older systems of travel grew old and inconvenient for the everyday riders, so substitutes had to be found. Bike ownership went up and actions were taken to try and boost the use of bikes. Pollution went down from cars to bikes and pathways and parking was built for the bikers to use. The government continued to promote bike use by putting railway stations near residential areas so commuters didn’t have long ways to bike and still could use energy efficient transportation to get to work. Bike rentals went way up as citizens would rent bikes in the city after using the train, thus helping the economy. Japan has discouraged the use of cars with more costs of owning one in the city. But as people continue to get more money, they feel the need to get more expensive cars. So the government has more work to do to promote bicycle use.

 

2. http://ash.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/CS-France-DRAFT-2_FINAL.pdf

The second case study I found comes from the Action On Smoking and Health global action. It concerns trying to make France smoke-free. The articles describes this as a rough change to make because of France’s background. For decades, France has had an overall society based off of cafe living, where the citizens like to relax out in the open and smoke as they eat or go about their activities. They have instituted new laws that try and weed out smokers from indoor places and also at work. Also, measures have been taken to build designated smoking rooms, but most companies are unwilling to pay for them even if it means increased productivity from their workers who smoke. High taxes and restrictions on marketing and ads were supposed to come around, but have all been shot down and not put into place just yet. The government works in a way where they can not simply institute new laws that the people do not like, or else there will be more civil protest.

3. Both of these studies play a part in where I am from. McMurray, PA is in the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh. My township is called Peters Township and over the years, I have seen examples of these case studies. Peters has had more bike traffic in recent years as we have had a number of our trails updated and rerouted to connect more main channel trails. More people have been riding their bikes to work and leaving their cars at home. New bridges have been able to let bikers reach new trails that let them get to work. Also, Peters has been trying to install more sidewalks for the public to use. More and more kids are ditching school buses and riding their bikes to school or carpooling. The second case relates to the USA because of the limitations that the government has been putting on tobacco companies. Now american consumers are learning about the dangers of smoking and they are starting to change their feelings about cigarettes. Now when I go to our local convenience stores, I have seen less ads for cigarettes and tobacco products. One impact of the downfall of smoking that I have seen around my township is that vaping and other forms of “safer” smoking have taken off. A vape shop opened up in one of our main shopping centers and has attracted all kinds of different demographics of people to come and test their luck at trying to ween themselves off of cigarettes. We can learn from these cases that people do not always want to change. We saw in case 2 that the french still really love to smoke. Luckily, in the US we have been able to make changes to the percentage of consumers that smoke. Also, from Case 1 we saw that most of the Japanese took to their bikes and liked the idea. I have cousins who live in Japan who always talk about the high number of students who walk and bike to school. Their schools got rid of their bus systems cause nobody used them and it was better for the environment. My hometown could try something like this if more people are willing to help the planet.

 

 

Module 4: Water Tracking and Usage

Jason Brown

1-a.)

I am from a suburb of Pittsburgh in Washington County, PA called Peters Township. My family has one source of water which is provided by the municipality. Peters Township gets the water from the Pennsylvania America Water Company and their website shows that 92% of their water sources are from surface water, 7% comes from wells, and they purchase 1% of the water sources. PAWC services about 650,000 customers and 400 communities in 36 different counties. The Monongahela river is the source of surface water and provides about 110 million gallons of water every day. The PAWC has three main channels that water goes through to get to our taps. First, the water goes through the pumping station where untreated water is removed by large pumps and pipes. Then, raw water is sent to a treatment facility, where the water gets treated and becomes purified to meet the standards of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Finally, the water goes through the distribution system, which is a large network of pipes that span all over in order to reach any house, business, or fire hydrant that is serviced by the company. The water is then able to be used by me in my home.

 

1-b.)

February 9th

Use                  USGS Rate Estimate              My water usage for today

Shower            5 gallons/min-  10 minutes/2x 100 gallons

Brush teeth      0.3 gallons- 3 times                 0.9 gallons

Toilet               3 gallons/flush-Used 4 times   12 gallons

Handwashing  1 gallon/time-8 times               8 gallons

Drinking          32 oz/water bottle- 2 bottles   .5 gallons

Ending total: 121.4 gallons of water that day.

With the USGS website estimations, I totaled 121.4 gallons of water on Feb 9th. I see this as pretty accurate because I do less activities at school with water than I would at home. Living in the dorms, I really don’t wash dishes and I didn’t do any laundry on this day for example.

1-c.)

With just two gallons of water, I changed my routine dramatically. I was able to avoid using it to cook by eating at the commons. I drank about.5 gallons of water throughout the day. The rest though was used when I brushed my teeth, washed my hands/face, and flushed the toilet. I was able to not shower though for the day because I didn’t really do any physical activity that made me sweat. I think I went over the 2 gallons limit though by washing my hands and flushing the toilet. I kind of have to do that though. I don’t want to make any one mad in the dorm that I live in and I wanted to keep my hands clean for obvious reason. So I failed this experiment but only for my personal hygiene. I bet if I did it at home, I could pass. This was a lot less water consumption though to my regular day described in part 1-b. I was able to cut back dramatically and see what it is like for other people every day. Geography is very important to water consumption. I never really saw this until my cousins in California started to have problems and we had to send them bottled water. Geography plays a role in how water gets around and it can cut people off from it. This is why people are always creating new systems for more drinkable water to be available.

Ethics Views Module 3

Question 1: Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)

I believe that it is more important to possess action ethics. Virtue and action ethics go hand in hand though as the notes said. You really possess both of these if you have one of them. Overall, I say that it is more important to perform good acts. This shows others what your thought process is and how you are morally. For example, if I saw a poster for a lost dog, I would immediately start to make phone calls or go out and help find the dog. This shows others that I know what is right and that in certain situations, it is morally right to lend a hand. By performing good acts, I am improving how I look to others while also making myself feel better. Actions truly show what people are like and you can learn a lot about someone by seeing how they act in certain situations. Sometimes people misuse tasks that help others in order to make themselves look better. This isn’t always the case though. For example, my grandfather flew in three wars. During World War Two, his officer asked for volunteers for a mission that they basically described as a suicide mission. My grandfather at the time wasn’t married and immediately stepped forward, knowing that most of his comrades had families at home. With his leadership, other men stepped up to go with him. By performing actions like this, true ethics are shown of a person and rub off on others. Action ethics help show what is right and wrong. Someone can possess virtue ethics but not always act out on them.

 

Question 3: Does the process by which decisions are made matter more than the outcomes of these decisions (procedural justice vs. distributive justice)?

The decision making process is more important than the outcomes of decisions. As the reading said, procedural justice is all about how decisions are made and who they will affect down the line. Major decisions need to be planned out before. The outcomes can be unexpected, but without planning anything, you are just going in blind. Distributive justice tries to balance the good and bad of the situations outcomes and these can’t always be measured. Going back to the story with my grandpa in the war, he knew that he may not return from the mission, but he sat down with his crew and supervisors to design a plan that gave them the best chance to survive. Decisions had to be made about where they would land, how they would fly into the area, and how they would rescue the hostages that they needed to get. Without any planning, my grandfather would not be alive today. They already knew the possible outcomes of the situation and that didn’t matter to them. The future is always up in the air, so if people didn’t make decisions to try and better the situation in the future, they would never know what could have been. Procedural justice helps people make the right choices for them when they need them instead of taking into account many outcomes that most likely won’t happen to them.

 

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

I know that my life is just as important as every one else on this planet. This idea mostly comes from my faith and family. I am no more special than anyone else on Earth. For me, I believe that I lean more towards altruism. I have always been the guy that puts others needs in front of mine. It is all about how I was raised. We always learned that family and friends came first and I have had those ethics pounded into me since day one. There are certain situations where I can be selfish, but they are when I really want to get ahead, like in sports. Sometimes during hockey practices or tryouts, I would try to matchup against a kid that I knew was not as good as me so I stood out more. But then there have been other times where I had to give up my own stuff to help others. In high school, I missed a couple hockey games in order to travel to a poorer part of my county in order to help pack food and other items and deliver baskets to people who needed help. I try as hard as I can to stay away from being selfish and making sure that others are happy when they are around me.

 

Jason (J.R.) Brown

jrb6147

Module 2-Jason Brown

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My diagram shows what the original problem was and how it was solved to help the community. It started off with the stoves. The people were worried about the negative impacts that the smoke had on their health and how damaging it was to the environment. Trees had to be taken down for firewood and the kids were missing school to help their mom cook so they could eat. Then, a positive feedback loop was created with the introduction of the biogas system. People started to recycle cow dung which polluted the village and turned it into usable methane gas. This not only stopped the killing of trees, but it lead to no more smoke. Also, the leftover mixture could then be used to fertilize the fields and sold to other local villagers for profit. Now because of this, there will be more waste in the future. Profit will rise. There will be more jobs to keep this running. The loop will keep going and the village’s health will greatly improve.

 

The diagram that the book showed had very specific terms just like mine did. I tried to put mine into social and ecosystem like the book and it kind of worked. We both connected everything together and showed how one box lead to another.The main difference is mine not having as much info as the books. I could have connected more items. These similarities and differences exist because we both looked at this system in different ways. We saw how different activities connected to each other. We can see how the bigger issues break off into smaller subtopics by looking at these diagrams and see the true drivers of the system.

Module 1: Getting to know you

My name is Jason Brown, but I like to go by J.R. I am a freshman here at Penn State University. I am originally from Canton, Ohio, but moved to McMurray, PA when I was three years old. I’ve lived there my whole life basically. McMurray is about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh, PA. I am currently pursuing a degree in marketing and someday hope to obtain a job with an NHL teams’ marketing department. This course interests me because I have never gotten to take an extensive geography class before. I want to learn more on the subject and see its impact on our lives. Also, I thought it would be great to take this as an intro to my first online class at PSU because of its different components. Other facts about me are that I love hockey and grew up playing the sport and someday hope to be able to travel to all of the 50 US states.

 

In Module 1, one of the main pages that interested me was human- environment interactions. I want to study more about how human decision making have changed the Earth’s ecosystems. Also, the concepts of governance and ethics stuck out to me. I want to study how humans make these decisions that can highly impact the environment. Geography is interesting to me after reading module 1 because before this I had no clue how much is involved in it. In high school when we talked about geography, we always just learned about the different types of maps and the continents different ecosystems/ features. I cannot wait to learn about this topic and get more info than ever before.