Once again Im going back to the topic of recycling, but this time on a different perspective, its energy use and bottle bills
We all know and understand that recycling has big environmental impacts, by putting less into our landfills, and being able to reuse items, but what else does it do?
Recycling can save energy, one thing we focused on in particular in my ESA 200 class was the recycling of bottles. We looked at a study of recycled cans verses new cans. It not only helps the environment to recycle cans but it takes up less energy. There is mining for new materials, and all the processes necessary to go through to get the aluminum to make the cans. By recycling we use less energy to get the material necessary and pollute less by letting off less emissions. Plus aluminum cans have NO LIMIT on how many times they can be recycled.
That brings up the point of bottle bills.Did you know that only 10 out of 50 states have them? What a tragedy that is in my opinion. Take Michigan for example we have a bottle bill ( which means they have the deposit on them, so you return them and get 10 cents back). Research has shown that 97% of cans with bottle bills get recycled! As opposed to say water bottles in Michigan with out bottle bills, only 20% get recycled.That is a huge amount for the cans compared to water bottles. Now yes there are some disadvantages of trying to implement this process in every state such that they have to build the facilities, it inconveniences the stores, and product producers, as well as the time and energy to take them back. But the advantages are so huge that they out way them in my opinion.We need to conserve our recourses and do what is best for our planet. Recycle!
Do you think we should have a national bottle bill?
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Prompted Post, Week # 6
While searching for articles about the environment I found a scholarly article about invasive species and their removal.
Invasive species are species of plants and animals that come into places where they are not native and take over. They can cause harm to native plants and animals by taking their recourses and causing all types of problems to the new area. They often multiply quickly and are very pesky as well as hard to get rid of.
In this article they talk about the removal of invasive species from their new home. They mention removal as well as extermination. From things that I have learned in my ESA 200 class about this I believe it is the right thing to do. These plants and animals cause more harm then good when they invade new places. Even if they do have to exterminate them. They are getting rid of a larger problem at hand. By doing so they are saving hundred of native plants and animals they need their own space with out them to survive. Also they are not endangered so there're still more of them out there. Since they are invasive they can multiply quickly so there is really no harm in getting rid of a few in unwanted areas. Getting rid of them will help the ecosystem to thrive again when they are removed. The ecosystem they are residing in can't be balanced when these invasive species come in and take over. I think this articles hit home in their point to get rid of them. I think it is the right thing to do to help maintain the sustainability of their home.
Invasive species are species of plants and animals that come into places where they are not native and take over. They can cause harm to native plants and animals by taking their recourses and causing all types of problems to the new area. They often multiply quickly and are very pesky as well as hard to get rid of.
In this article they talk about the removal of invasive species from their new home. They mention removal as well as extermination. From things that I have learned in my ESA 200 class about this I believe it is the right thing to do. These plants and animals cause more harm then good when they invade new places. Even if they do have to exterminate them. They are getting rid of a larger problem at hand. By doing so they are saving hundred of native plants and animals they need their own space with out them to survive. Also they are not endangered so there're still more of them out there. Since they are invasive they can multiply quickly so there is really no harm in getting rid of a few in unwanted areas. Getting rid of them will help the ecosystem to thrive again when they are removed. The ecosystem they are residing in can't be balanced when these invasive species come in and take over. I think this articles hit home in their point to get rid of them. I think it is the right thing to do to help maintain the sustainability of their home.
Works Cited
Kotani, Koji, et al. "Invasive Species Management in Two-Patch Environments: Agricultural Damage Control in the Raccoon (Procyon Lotor) Problem, Hokkaido, Japan." Population Ecology 51.4 (2009): 493-504. ProQuest. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Free Post # 6: The Tragedy of the Commons
The Tragedy of the commons is a big environmental issue that leads many farms into overshoot, and having overgrazed land that is no longer sufficient.
The commons include things such as grass, water, crop fields, and the air. The tragedy is when we over use these recourses, a lot of the time due to greed, need for safety, and competition. This ends up leading to social disaster. We have a sense of uncertainity when it comes to being set for the future. So lots of farmers plant more than they need or put more animals on their farm so they can feel secure, in their needs and profits. Although this is what leads to the tragedy. They put to much out and go into overshoot, ruining the commons.
We tried this out ourselves in a mock up example in my ESA 200 class to see how it works. We were put into teams of 6, which consisted of 3 families of 2 people. All 3 families had to share a certain amount of land, in this case sticky notes. Each sticky note stood for one acre of grass. To survive each family needed to obtain 8 cows at the end of four rounds. One cow took up one acre of grass. At the end of each round for very 4 sticky notes that did not have a cow on them you got an additional sticky note for the "commons".
We were given slips of paper( and went in order family a-c ) each round that told us what we could do. Team A always got a big amount of cows they could put on. They could chose to put all of them on or less. In my group we were not aloud to talk to make the simulation seem more realistic. Team A always put on all of their cows. They did so because they felt uncertain not knowing how many cows they may be aloud to put on next round. That uncertainty made them take up a lot of sticky note, leaving less of the commons for the others. Team B got more than 8 cows by the end as well and in fear of uncertainty put all their cows on each round too. Team C got exactly 8 cows by the end. Although they died because we ran out of sticky notes by their last turn, meaning we went into overshoot. There was no room for their last cow.
This is the sad tragedy of the commons that occurs all the time in our world. This simulation was close to what happens in real life. Many farms and fisheries go into overshoot, and over graze their land. They waste the commons that should be there for everyone. Now they are not and they keep dwindling.
The commons include things such as grass, water, crop fields, and the air. The tragedy is when we over use these recourses, a lot of the time due to greed, need for safety, and competition. This ends up leading to social disaster. We have a sense of uncertainity when it comes to being set for the future. So lots of farmers plant more than they need or put more animals on their farm so they can feel secure, in their needs and profits. Although this is what leads to the tragedy. They put to much out and go into overshoot, ruining the commons.
We tried this out ourselves in a mock up example in my ESA 200 class to see how it works. We were put into teams of 6, which consisted of 3 families of 2 people. All 3 families had to share a certain amount of land, in this case sticky notes. Each sticky note stood for one acre of grass. To survive each family needed to obtain 8 cows at the end of four rounds. One cow took up one acre of grass. At the end of each round for very 4 sticky notes that did not have a cow on them you got an additional sticky note for the "commons".
We were given slips of paper( and went in order family a-c ) each round that told us what we could do. Team A always got a big amount of cows they could put on. They could chose to put all of them on or less. In my group we were not aloud to talk to make the simulation seem more realistic. Team A always put on all of their cows. They did so because they felt uncertain not knowing how many cows they may be aloud to put on next round. That uncertainty made them take up a lot of sticky note, leaving less of the commons for the others. Team B got more than 8 cows by the end as well and in fear of uncertainty put all their cows on each round too. Team C got exactly 8 cows by the end. Although they died because we ran out of sticky notes by their last turn, meaning we went into overshoot. There was no room for their last cow.
This is the sad tragedy of the commons that occurs all the time in our world. This simulation was close to what happens in real life. Many farms and fisheries go into overshoot, and over graze their land. They waste the commons that should be there for everyone. Now they are not and they keep dwindling.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Prompted Post, Week # 7
One of the biggest contraversies in the Environmental field by far has to be the issue of Global warming/ Climate Change. This is a HUGE wicked problem with no clear cut solution. Technically speaking no right or wrong answer. It comes with high uncertainty and the people on each side have very strong opinions and reasons why. Each side even has some controversy among it.
The First side is obviously that the issue exists, and that our planet is indeed warming. That climate change is upon us and that we need to do something about this issue now. In this side there is also controversy between weather or not human are causing it or it is naturally occurring. This is becoming the bigger issue as more people believe in climate change. Whichever it is they both believe it is a problem. The main evidence is from temperature samples taken over the years that show that the temperature( although only slightly) has increased over that past decade. Scientists have also found higher traces of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere up to 400 Ppm with 350 Ppm being considered a safety zone. Next scientists have tracked that sea levels are rising and the oceans are warming. Extreme weather is becoming more common. The ice caps are melting and arctic sea is dwindling.Global warming is no joke to people on this side of the issue, but a big problem.
The opposing side says that Global Warming is just a made up problem, and that it is nothing we need to be concerned about. This side says that even though there is data on Global Warming that is it not significant enough to be considered a problem, and that is nothing to worry about. Some also believe that the data is not clear enough to support the issue. Also some people think that the scientists investigating global warming are mis interpreting the information to make it seem like an issue when it is not because they are specifically looking for evidence to prove global warming, instead of looking at the data to see what it really means.
Which side are you on?
Works cited:
Strickland, Jonathan, and Ed Grabianowski. "How Global Warming Works."HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, 21 Apr. 2005. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
"Evidence." Global Climate Change. NASA, 18 May 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
Works cited:
Strickland, Jonathan, and Ed Grabianowski. "How Global Warming Works."HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, 21 Apr. 2005. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
"Evidence." Global Climate Change. NASA, 18 May 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Free Post # 5: Our ecological Footprints
This week I want to talk about our personal ecological footprints we have on the planet.
As one person you may not think you have that big of an impact, but we as americans have huge individual footprints, ecological and carbon.
Just think about How much land you personally take up to sustain your lifestyle. Not only the land you live on but all the land it takes to create all the inputs in your life as well as the outputs.
Our ecological footprint is our overall impact we have on the environment. We have to determine weather or not it is sustainable ( ours as americans is not!). To do so we need to calculate the amount land required to provide all food, water, energy, and all other materials we consume and absorb.
To do this you first need to know about productive land. Biocapacity is the amount of land that can support human life. It consists of things like our oceans, forests, and croplands. On a global scale we as individuals need 15.7 Hectares per person. One Hectare is equal to 2.5 acres.
To determine your own ecological footprint you can take a quiz online. We did this in my ESA 200 class and the results were very surprising. Our class results said that if everyone lived like we did we would generally need around 5 more earths to support our way of living! That is way to much if you ask me, I think everyone needs to work on reducing our footprints. We can't be using up all of the earths recources and just getting off scotch free.
You can take the quiz yourself by clicking on the link below. Some categories are hard to know the correct answer so just estimate and do the best you can. Also for the most accurate results use your home as a reference not your dorm room.
http://myfootprint.org/en/visitor_information/
Whats your footprint?
Sources:
"Ecological Footprint." First, We Need a Little Information from You.: Quiz by Center for Sustainable Economy. CSE, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
As one person you may not think you have that big of an impact, but we as americans have huge individual footprints, ecological and carbon.
Just think about How much land you personally take up to sustain your lifestyle. Not only the land you live on but all the land it takes to create all the inputs in your life as well as the outputs.
Our ecological footprint is our overall impact we have on the environment. We have to determine weather or not it is sustainable ( ours as americans is not!). To do so we need to calculate the amount land required to provide all food, water, energy, and all other materials we consume and absorb.
To do this you first need to know about productive land. Biocapacity is the amount of land that can support human life. It consists of things like our oceans, forests, and croplands. On a global scale we as individuals need 15.7 Hectares per person. One Hectare is equal to 2.5 acres.
To determine your own ecological footprint you can take a quiz online. We did this in my ESA 200 class and the results were very surprising. Our class results said that if everyone lived like we did we would generally need around 5 more earths to support our way of living! That is way to much if you ask me, I think everyone needs to work on reducing our footprints. We can't be using up all of the earths recources and just getting off scotch free.
You can take the quiz yourself by clicking on the link below. Some categories are hard to know the correct answer so just estimate and do the best you can. Also for the most accurate results use your home as a reference not your dorm room.
http://myfootprint.org/en/visitor_information/
Whats your footprint?
Sources:
"Ecological Footprint." First, We Need a Little Information from You.: Quiz by Center for Sustainable Economy. CSE, 5 Oct. 2012. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Prompted Post, Week #5
This Week I am going to be talking about ethics. I found a code of ethics for environmental science written by the National Registry of Environmental Professionals. Their ethics include....
~ Practice only in areas where they have professional competence and is safe
~ Try to avoid any conflict of interest to the environmental issues by doing anything possible to prevent them
~ Always carry out their duties in a professional way abiding by the laws
~Use the best environmental science principles to protect the enviro
~ To abide by all levels of government policy towards the environment
~ be conscious of environmental quality and make safe laws towards it
~ Manage areas of work to be safe and healthy as well as protect employees
~ Always put the negative and positive impacts of the activities you did in writing
https://www.nrep.org/ethics.php
These relate to my own ethics because I always abide by the laws that are given and do not think of going outside of them. I would never do anything that I was not certified to do either. When doing things I personally always try to do my best to put environmental safety first. Also I try to have a safe environment for myself and others around me. Lastly I also like to write down things that happened to get all of the details hammered out after the fact of doing a task.
3 Ways in which what I am doing in college will apply to my career later on in life and referencing the guidelines include...
1. How we learn about always documenting our results, positive, and negative will help me in my career to collect data to get more accurate research about the environment
2. The in their field projects we do in my ESA 200 class will help me in my career because I will have had experiences working in the environmental field
3. We learned about always abiding by the laws when carrying out experiments and research this will help me to know my limitations when I am actually working in the filed.
Works used
National Registry of Environmental Professionals. "Code of Ethics for Environmental Professionals." Code of Ethics for Environmental Professionals. NPEP, 5 Apr. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
~ Practice only in areas where they have professional competence and is safe
~ Try to avoid any conflict of interest to the environmental issues by doing anything possible to prevent them
~ Always carry out their duties in a professional way abiding by the laws
~Use the best environmental science principles to protect the enviro
~ To abide by all levels of government policy towards the environment
~ be conscious of environmental quality and make safe laws towards it
~ Manage areas of work to be safe and healthy as well as protect employees
~ Always put the negative and positive impacts of the activities you did in writing
https://www.nrep.org/ethics.php
These relate to my own ethics because I always abide by the laws that are given and do not think of going outside of them. I would never do anything that I was not certified to do either. When doing things I personally always try to do my best to put environmental safety first. Also I try to have a safe environment for myself and others around me. Lastly I also like to write down things that happened to get all of the details hammered out after the fact of doing a task.
3 Ways in which what I am doing in college will apply to my career later on in life and referencing the guidelines include...
1. How we learn about always documenting our results, positive, and negative will help me in my career to collect data to get more accurate research about the environment
2. The in their field projects we do in my ESA 200 class will help me in my career because I will have had experiences working in the environmental field
3. We learned about always abiding by the laws when carrying out experiments and research this will help me to know my limitations when I am actually working in the filed.
Works used
National Registry of Environmental Professionals. "Code of Ethics for Environmental Professionals." Code of Ethics for Environmental Professionals. NPEP, 5 Apr. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Free Post # 4: Sustainability
This week I wanna talk about a big environmental Issue that we learned about in my ESA 200 class, Sustainability.
There are 3 E's to sustainability which are the Environment. Economy, and Social Equity. Sustainability can be defined as enabling all species to thrive across generations in a way that maintains the ability of larger environment to support this. More simply put it is a process of living well for all and in the future within the means of the environment. To be sustainable we should take nothing from the earth that can't be replaced by the earth itself. Sustainability includes all living and non living elements of life. Our environment is the ultimate source of our materials as well as the "final sink" for all of our wastes. our basic needs in life come from the materials from the natural worlds ecosystem services and we need to to our best to protect them. Sustainability is not an easy task but it is something that needs to happen if we want to continue living peacefully on this world and using the environment to our advantage.
One of the fundamental questions about sustainability is How can society be organized in ways that enable individuals and communities to thrive while sustaining the ability of the environment to support life?
In My opinion I believe we should only take what is needed from the environment and not degrade the earth to obtain every material it can give us. We should take what can be replace and not take everything at once. I understand that we need to take some things for our survival in the type of world we live in to support life and communities. Although I believe we should always be looking into more environmentally friendly options for things like energy for example. That we we do not use up all of our natural recourses before they can replenish themselves.
Whats your opinion on this fundamental question?
There are 3 E's to sustainability which are the Environment. Economy, and Social Equity. Sustainability can be defined as enabling all species to thrive across generations in a way that maintains the ability of larger environment to support this. More simply put it is a process of living well for all and in the future within the means of the environment. To be sustainable we should take nothing from the earth that can't be replaced by the earth itself. Sustainability includes all living and non living elements of life. Our environment is the ultimate source of our materials as well as the "final sink" for all of our wastes. our basic needs in life come from the materials from the natural worlds ecosystem services and we need to to our best to protect them. Sustainability is not an easy task but it is something that needs to happen if we want to continue living peacefully on this world and using the environment to our advantage.
One of the fundamental questions about sustainability is How can society be organized in ways that enable individuals and communities to thrive while sustaining the ability of the environment to support life?
In My opinion I believe we should only take what is needed from the environment and not degrade the earth to obtain every material it can give us. We should take what can be replace and not take everything at once. I understand that we need to take some things for our survival in the type of world we live in to support life and communities. Although I believe we should always be looking into more environmentally friendly options for things like energy for example. That we we do not use up all of our natural recourses before they can replenish themselves.
Whats your opinion on this fundamental question?
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Prompted Post, Week #4
This week I wanna talk about the RISE program here at MSU. It is not necessarily deemed a club but it is a group of environmental kids who are all environmental majors. They get together and work on projects. They talk about environmental problems and ways to fix them.
Their Big focus is on the environmental impacts right here at MSU. These kids works together to get grants approved and better the campus. Some of their big projects in the past have been the hoop house built right outside Bailey Hall and the composting center they have created.
This Year The legacy project they are doing is called Curbside Recycling, and I am so glad to be taking part in this project. The RISE program is trying to get MUS to a zero footprint by encouraging recycling. They are testing out a new program called Curbside Recycling in Bailey Hall starting on February 10th. What will happen is the recycling center is providing bins to be kept in the students rooms to collect their recyclables. Then each week someone from each team will come and collect the items, and sort them out to properly be recycled.
The RISE program does many field type projects besides just meeting and talking about problems with the environment or just about the field in general. They value everyones opinion and strongly believe in helping out the Environment here at MSU.
They communicate very openly, using a FaceBook page as well as having their own twitter. They communicate well because most of them all live in the same building Bailey where the program is centered. Although others can join in and help out like myself. We hear about these opportunities throughout social media and throughout some of our classes such as my ESA 200 class.
Their Big focus is on the environmental impacts right here at MSU. These kids works together to get grants approved and better the campus. Some of their big projects in the past have been the hoop house built right outside Bailey Hall and the composting center they have created.
This Year The legacy project they are doing is called Curbside Recycling, and I am so glad to be taking part in this project. The RISE program is trying to get MUS to a zero footprint by encouraging recycling. They are testing out a new program called Curbside Recycling in Bailey Hall starting on February 10th. What will happen is the recycling center is providing bins to be kept in the students rooms to collect their recyclables. Then each week someone from each team will come and collect the items, and sort them out to properly be recycled.
The RISE program does many field type projects besides just meeting and talking about problems with the environment or just about the field in general. They value everyones opinion and strongly believe in helping out the Environment here at MSU.
They communicate very openly, using a FaceBook page as well as having their own twitter. They communicate well because most of them all live in the same building Bailey where the program is centered. Although others can join in and help out like myself. We hear about these opportunities throughout social media and throughout some of our classes such as my ESA 200 class.
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