Blog 6- Interesting Links

Save Ink by Changing Font:
An interesting link to a news story about how changing fonts can save you ink, (and money)!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20001913-93.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Some links to water numbers, relating to our discussions in class about how humans waste alot of things, including water. These numbers are shocking, it is unecessary to use 20 liters of water per toilet flush.
http://home..cc.umanitoba.ca/~ggoldsb/toxicology/auditdata.pdf

Blog 6- Activity- Paddle to the Sea

Link to the film Paddle to the Sea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQuTBmW4RU

This film is about a young boy who resided on the northern shore of Lake Superior, above sea level. The young boy, Kyle Appletaggen, learned that where he lived was at the height of land, where water flowed downward towards the sea. One winter he carved a little man out of a cedar tree and named him "Paddle to the Sea". He melted lead to keep Paddle upright and carved at the bottom "please put me back into the water". He then put him a hill with snow and left him there for when the snow melted he reached the river.
Paddle was at the mercy of wind and waves, and danger that lied ahead. He could have been something to eat, or he could have ended his journey as a drift wood. One day he disappeared completely under the ice and snow. Then one day he was free again to travel to the land of people, past great waterfalls, he then reached Detroit on the 4th of July which was only 1500miles from the sea.
The world of man was dangerous and dirty, all sorts of filth and grime was dumped into the river. Downstream was Niagara Falls, which he survived.
He reached an animal sanctuary where all creatures were protected, and where a beaver could have used him as driftwood for his dam. He was caught by a young boy who played with him and accidentally released him back into the river. His next big bang was the great locks that the great ships had to also make it through.
One day, fishermen who went out to fish cod which is only found in the sea, accidentally caught him. Paddle had been in the water so long the paint was all worn off but the fisherman was still able to read "put me back into the water". Then the lighthouse keeper caught Paddle and was going to add him to his model boat collection, he then thought about the currents in the great sea. He though they might lead him to a warm shore in Africa or on the cold banks of Norway. Who knows how far he may go? or how far he came from?


This story is very old but very cute as well. It makes me think how no matter how long it takes for Paddle, or whatever it may be, the rivers and lakes are all connected together. The filth such as toxic wastes or plastics, that was dumped into the lakes by humans with Paddle, also traveled with him to the great sea, and might also follow him to the warm shores of Africa or Norway.
We are all connected, what one country does with their waste affects the entire world as one. We have to stop thinking in the sense of "out of sight, out of mind" because with this theory we are harming ourselves, eventually to the point of no return, the point where the holistic world's water is polluted.

Blog 6- Blog Reflection- Sewer/ Sludge/ Waste

I live outside of a rural town 40 minutes outside of Winnipeg. I live 5 minutes from either small community. My household has its own waterwell and septic system that is not connected to anyone else. Where does your sludge ("biosolids") go?
What happens in my situation is that the septic tank collects all "biosolids", the liquids are released in our backyard into the ground. The biosolids are collected every 2 years or when the tank is full, it is then brought to a lagoon nearby where it then sits until that also gets full and needs to be emptied. The question I had when doing this blog reflection was: "Where does the lagoon get emptied and when?" Well, the answer is where else can it go? When the lagoon is emptied the laws state that they are required to inform all residents and farmers of that area before doing so. The sewage is then dumped, without filtration or treatment, directly into the Rat River. The lagoon does not have enough time to filter all the nutrients from the septic pool, therefore it is certain that it is solid human feces sent into our river. As for the liquids from my household they are released in the backyard out towards the wetland that we have in our backyard, which is very close to the rat river. I am sure most of this is filtered naturally and very well from this natural ecosytem, our wetland, that we have available. Our water comes from a personal water well that we have dug into the ground. We have never had problems with our water therefore the wetland we have in our backyard must be doing very good work in cleansing our water.

Does this surprise you?
This does not really surprise me. After learning about sewage and waste in class, I have come to realize that there is no modern, environmentally friendly way of dumping our sewage. Unless treating it, which has a high cost. But for rural areas there is no treatment area available. We use the natural environment as our waste dump, we only hope the land will continue to do its job. Where else would our waste go? As for the liquids being realeased into our backyard soil, there is no better way. We are using the natural ecosystem provided to us, which does not require any energy to keep running.
I am sure this is leading to eutrophication in Lake Winnipeg but there is nothing me or you can do as individuals to stop this, we could only make awareness of this problem.

Blog 6- At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima or Why Political Questions Are Not All Economic

It is impossible to place economic values on physical well-being. In this selection, Mark Sagoff challenges that the true values of all things can be judged by what people are willing to pay for them in the marketplace. The concept is the limitations of economics in making environmental policies.

In Lake Ontario, the government disposed of the residues of the Manhattan Project. The New York State and local corporations replied "People who smoke, take greater risks than the people who live close to waste disposal sites.

If you take the Military Highway, from Buffalo to Lewiston, you will pass through wasteland. In all directions enormous trucks deposit sludge then bury in into the ground, there are no birds, no scavengers. It is where factories have fled, leaving their remains to decay.

This selection is concerned with the economic decisions we make about the environment, it also concerns political decisions about the environment. According to this there is only an environmental problem when some resource is not allocated in equitable and efficient ways at the level of the consumer. According to this view, the only values we have, are those that a market can price. "In principle, the utimate measure of environmental quality is the value people place on these services or their willingness to pay." We act as consumers to get what we want for ourselves, we act as citizens to achieve what we think is right or best for the community.

Mark Sagoff says he speeds on the highway, yet he wants police to enfore laws against speeding. He loves his car, and hates the bus. Yet he encourages the taxation of gasoline for public transportation. He encourages Endangered Species Act yet has no use for the Squawfish or the Indiana bat.

The cost-benefit analysis establishing that the benefits of the regulation to society outweigh its costs. These standards may conflict witht he goal of efficiency and still express and still express our political will as a nation. The policies may reflect ot on the personal choices of self-interested individuals, but the collective judgments we make on historical, cultural, aestethic, moral, and ideological grounds.
The Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. Exposure level for benzene was then reduced in 1977. The American Petroleum Institute argued, with much evidence, that the benefits to workers standard did not equal the costs to the industry.
The analyst ask workers, environmentalits, and others how much they are willing to pay for what they believe is right.
The cost-benefit approach treats people as of equal worth because it treats them as of no worth, but only as places or channels at which willingness to pay is found.
In the modern world, opposed to the ancient, emphasizes on political liberties, rights of privacy and property over those of community and participation. Here the values we wish to protect are- cultural, historical, aesthetic, and moral- and public ones which is right for the community. Hazards are regulated as a matter of right, not a commodity.
Oppositions and arguments against the cost-benefit analyst are value judgments that are nothing but espressions of personal preference, or personal gain.
The analyst is able then to base policy on preferences that exist in society and are not necessarily his own.
The corporations are "just people serving people," is consistent with particular view of power. The is the view that identifies power with the ability to get one what one wants as an individual, that is, to satisfy one's personal preferences. When government officials put aside their personal interests, they then put aside their power as well. The cost-benefit analyst is not enough to make positive changes in environmental laws.

Blog 6- Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment

In this selection Sandra Steingraber analyses what is known and unknown about the relationship between environmental factors and cancer. She argues that we can do little to change our genetic inheritance, but much can be done to reduce human exposure to environmental carcinogens.
Sandra had bladder cancer as a young adult. She explains to people the study of cancer among correlations within adoptive families but not within biological ones. Families share environments as well as chromosomes, our genes work with substances from the ecological world. What runs in families does not necessarily run in blood.
Sandra's Aunt Jean died of bladder cancer. Her father's relatives, Raymond and Violet both died of colon cancer, and LeRoy is currently under treatment. Her Uncle Ed is now being treated for prostate cancer, her borther-in-law, Jeff who cleans chemical drums for a living, had intestinal cancer. Her mother survived metastatic cancer, although her mom's two doctors died of cancer. In 1974 women were propelled to doctors' offices in the result that a lot of women were diagnosed with breast cancer in a short period of time.
Sandra began collecting articles when an article caught her eye, an article called: Scientists Identify Gene Resposible For Human Bladder Cancer. Researchers who found how to transform normal mouse cells into cancerous ones, they then located the segment of DNA resposible for the transformation. The message sent out by this changed gene was utterly changed; guanine instead of thymine; valine instead of glycine. Also associated with transitional cell carcinomas are surplus numbers of growth factor receptors. Their overexpression has been linked to the kinds of gross genetic injuries that appear near the end of the malignant process. For example bladder carcinogens called aromatic amines- are present in contaminants in cigarette smoke, added to rubber, formulated in dyes for cloth, leather and paper; used in printing and color photography, and featured in the manufacture of certain pharmaceuticals and pesticides.
Aromatic amines are detoxifyed by the body through a process called acetylation: which more than half of Americans and Europens are estimated to be slow acetylators. Bladder carcinogens were among the earliest carcinogens ever identified.
Somewhat less than half of all bladder cancers among men and one-third of all cases among women are related to cigarette smoking. The rest comes from rivers, ground-water, dump sites, and indoor air. Little to nothing is known about how these substances behave in combination.

An obsession with genes and hereditary ones prevent us from adressing cancer's environmental roots. At 10% hereditary cancers are the rare exception. Therefore finding "cancer genes" is not going to prevent the vast majority of cancers that develop.
Genetic risks and consequences of these inheritances are that people become even more sensitive to environmental carcinogens.
Cancer incidence rates are not rising because new cancer genes are sprouting.
In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's knowledge leads us to reject those who claim there is simply no choice but to continue filling the world with poisons.
Exposures during young adulthood, adolescence, childhood, and prior to birth are relevent to our present cancer risks. Afterall, except for the original blueprint of our chromosomes, all the material that is us has come to us from the environment.
Even with the lowest value, 2% in the US die from environmentally caused cancers, this is more than the number of teenagers and children who die from firearms- which is a nationally considered issue.
The alternative presumes that toxic substances will not be used as long as there is the availability of a safer choices. Laws need to set legal maximum limits on toxics present in air, food, water, workplace, and consumer goods.

Blog 6- Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services

In this selection it is said that the loss of biodiversity is a problem because it theatens the stability of ecosystems and its ability to adapt to changes in climate and other conditions. Farmers are worried since there is a lowered number of wild bees and other pollinators, and fisheries are concluded this can be the ned of commercial fishing.
Marine ecosystems have an accelarating loss of populations and species across temporal and spatial scales. Marine biodiversity loss is imparing the ocean's ability to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbation, yet it is still reversible. Species richness may enhance ecosystem productivity and stability. Marine ecosystems provide a wide variety of goods and services, including food resources for millions of people, as well as for the population living close to the coast, the services lost would flood control and waste detoxification. These changes are caused by exploitation, pollution, and habitat destruction. Ecosystems such as estruaries, coral reefs, coastal and oceanic fish communities are rapidly lossing populations, species, and entire functional groups.
Experiments were done to examine the effects of variation in genetic or species richness on productivity, resource use, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem stability. These effects have been continuously debated. All experiments showed increased diversity enhanced all ecosystem processes, diversity enhanced ecosystem stability which is the ability to withstand recurrent perturbations. Experiments demonstrated the importance of diverse food srouces, and on the life processes such as growth, survival, and fecundity. All results indicated positve lankages between biodiversity, productivity, and stability across marine ecosystems.
Experiments done on coastal ecosystems revealed a rapid decline of native species diversity since industrialization, and systems with higher regional species richness appeared more stable. There were also a loss of filtering services because of the decline in water quality and the increasing occurence of harmful algal blooms, fish kills, and beach closures, and oxygen depletion.

The experiments on large marine ecosystems revealed that globally, the rate of fisheries collapses below 10% of the recorded maximum has accelerated over time.
The experiments on marine reserves and fishery closures acknowledged the pressing question on whether management on loss of services can reverse effects, once it has occured already. It was found that reserves and fisheries closures increased species diversity, averaging a 23% increase in species richness associated with large increases in fisheries productivity. Community variability was reduced by 21% on average, and the tourism revenue increased after they were established which translates into extractive and nonextractive revenue.

It can be concluded that there are positive relationships between diversity and ecosystem functions and services that were found using experimental and correlative approaches. Studies suggested that elimination of populations and species impairs the ecosystem. Theories, experiments, and observations across widely different scales and ecosystems. High-diversity protection has economic and policy implications that must be viewed as interdependent societal goals.
By restoring marine biodiversity we can invest in the productivity and reliability of the goods and services that the ocean provides to humanity.

Blog 6- Life and Death of the Salt Marsh

I found a link related to this selection about salt marshes. I found it interesting because, for one it was a canadian issue and secondly its about the protected land in New Brunswick where I will be moving in August. This link explains how the area 20 kilometers west of Saint-John is being protected by WWF-Canada, Conservation Planning and Atlantic Region. The Musquash Estruary is the last largest intact and pristine salt marsh in the Bay of Fundy. I am excited to travel the east coast in August, I will definitely be heading out to see this area to see for myself why this area is protected. The link is: http://thegreenpages.ca/portal/nb/2007/03/dfo_praised_for_nb_salt_marsh.html.

In this selection, there are discussions of wetland ecosystems and the urgent need for wetland protection as an ecological significance.
Along the eastern coast of North America lies a green ribbon of soft, salty, wet, low-lying land, called the salt marshes. The ribbon of green marshes has a definate but elusive border as the tides of the Atlantic fluctuate. There the grass sounds like wind on the prairie, there is music of moving water, and sounds of birds, or marsh hen, and clapper rail. There is a thunder of herds of crabs moving as they flee feet or migrate in search of food. If you listen you can hear the bubbling of air from the sandy soil below. These wetlands are also filled with smells of sea and salt water, a little iodine, dead life, and smells of grass. These are clean, fresh smells, that are pleasing to one.
In marshes that have been disturbed, dug up, suffocated with trash, poisoned and eroded with wastes from large cities, the smell is different. These marshes smell of hydrogen sulfide, like the smell of rotten eggs.
Some marshes can be walked on, although the footing is spongy. In the southern marshes only one grass covers the entire parts of the marsh area, and provides firm footing. In the northern marshes there is mud rather than grass, it feels like walking on a huge trampoline.
As you walk seaward, the mud has less root material and is less firm. On the edges of the creek, where the rising tide reaches resistance, it is slowed and drops the mud it has been carrying, the ground here is firm and even dry and hard.
Down toward the creek, there are no roots to make solid, nothing but mud and water fighting to hold the area.

The dangers to salt marshes stem from human activities, not natual processes. We destroy wetlands and shallow water bottoms directly by dredgin, filling, and building, and by pollution. The increase in human population along the coast has brought a pressure to destroy more and more marsh estruarine systems. Preserving these areas brings many benefits to everyone, it is not simply for the preservation.
Some destruction of preserved wildlife areas is inevitable. Roads must be built to the marshes, along the edges of marshes for easy access.
The planning of wetland preservation could be approached at a state level, but better would it be if it were approached as a national level, since it isnt independant marshes but the whole marsh system that needs to be analyzed. Planning demands need to start by classifying the value and importance of every marsh. Safeguards against development and the last of land being diverted to industrial use must be set in place. Corporate blackmails is hard to withstand and brings high pressure on organizations controlling the marshes.
Pressure also comes from state officials. The battle is between the forces of development and conservation.
In many of our National Parks this conservation is in place, now we need to preserve different sorts of natural resouces- as the ribbin of green marshes alond the eastern coast of North America.