"World in Pieces"



The Song of the Dodo

 

In his closing chapter of the book Quammen brings the main theme of his book back around, reminding us that these questions that had been formed to study the biology of islands now apply to mainlands as well, where ecosystems are being divided into virtual islands by human activity. He uses the example of Carl Jones and the Mauritius kestrel. Even though initial efforts to save the bird were shut down Jones persisted and essentially saved the species from extinction. Quammen includes several other efforts similar to this that started out rather rocky but were essentially successful.

He then switches gears in order to end his book on a hopeful note. He tells the story of how he went to the island of Aru where Alfred Wallace had done his main research. He went to look for the colorful bird of paradise that Wallace had described over a century before. He closes with the idea that despite the signs of human activity, even on Aru, the magnificent bird survives.

 

I think out of this whole final reading the last sentiment is my favorite part. During chapters in the rest of the book it was a lot of doom and gloom and talk of extinction and endangerment but there were very few moments that made you truly hopeful such as this. There were parts in this book where I almost felt hopeless, like there really is nothing that I could do to save some of these species, but in this last happy moment he gives us hope for humanity and for the beauty in the world. I'm happy that he ended with this so as not to leave a sour taste in our mouths but to leave a feeling of joy and hopefulness.

 

 

The Ross Ice Shelf

A few semesters ago I took an EES course which was focused mainly on Arctic and Antarctic regions of the globe and I remember learning about the Ross Ice Shelf and why it is a very important area for various native species and I thought this might be an interesting variation to my usual blog posts. I went back through some old notes and dug up some new research and this is what I came up with.

 

The Ross Ice Shelf is crucial to penguins and their breeding cycles as well as to other organisms such as krill. Although the shelf’s position appears to be almost stationary, it actually undergoes continual change by calving and melting that go along with northward movement of the shelf ice. Upsetting this ice shelf upsets the balance of the Antarctic food web.

 

The shelf had significance for early explorers because its even ground allowed them to set up a base camp and then travel from there. 3.5 million years ago the Ross Ice Shelf was completely submerged under water, thus disappearing entirely. Predictions of future collapse of the ice sheet in response to global warming must take into account its past history. Scientists believe that this is likely to happen again or that the ice shelf may break off entirely.

 

Today the ice shelf regularly sheds large chunks of ice which turn into some of the largest icebergs in the Antarctic Ocean. If we believe current predictions about that ice shelf then the ice shelf may have very serious effects on the entire world in the future. Melting on the bottom of the ice shelf also occurs, and oceanographic data suggest that the net effect is the dissolution of the ice shelf by about 47–87 inches (120–220 cm) per year. If the ice shelf were to melt the sea level would rise significantly and it may even submerge other smaller ice shelves as well as some glaciers. This would mean a loss of wildlife because these ice shelves currently provide a place for many different species to live and breed.

 

The Ross Ice Shelf is extremely important to Antarctica as well as the world. Its existence plays an important role in the development of the wildlife and ecosystems, directing ocean currents as well as in climate change. The changes occurring in the ice shelf should not be taken lightly because they effect more than they appear to.

 

 

"The Hedgehog of the Amazon"

Song of the Dodo

The theory that one large reserve would support more species than several small ones was challenged in a paper by Dan Simberloff and Lawrence Abele published in 1976.
Abele studied heads of coral that supported small contained ecosystems and found through his observations that two small coral heads supported more species than one large one of equal area. In their paper they proposed that competition, the dispersal ability of species and the number of species might all contribute to natural situations where smaller areas might support more species than larger ones.

In order to test this Thomas Lovejoy, a program director for the World Wildlife Fund, convinced Brazilian ranchers who were clearing rainforest to leave square reserves of rainforest standing in determined sizes. These "islands" of rainforest were then studied, and the species counted to see if an ideal size could be determined. No hard conclusions could be reached but they did notice that the smallest of the reserves had fairly quickly unraveled, unable to support their former populations.

With these conclusions it would seem that the observations made by Abele about the coral reefs were possibly just an anomaly. I do not have any personal experience with this matter, naturally, but as far as common sense goes I think I would tend to agree with the idea that one larger reserve or area of land would be able to hold far more species than two smaller ones. Perhaps it is also possible that there are different rules for different types of ecosystems. For example, maybe Simberloff and Abele's theory would be correct for underwater ecosystems but not for forest ecosystems. I think much further exploration into this idea would need to occur before any hard conclusions could be drawn.

 
  

Effects of Pesticides continued..

There have been many studies conducted on the effects of pesticides, however, most of the test subjects have been insects and amphibians due to the obvious issues with testing these chemicals on humans. Without testing on human subjects it is hard for scientists to provide concrete proof as to the immediate effects that these chemicals have on the human body, but then the question can be raised that asks if these toxins are causing mass deaths among other living organisms on our planet what in fact are they doing to our bodies?

 

You wouldn't go into your kitchen cabinet and spray bug spray onto your family’s dinner, but spraying crops with pesticides is essentially doing just that. The EPA has the right to deem what is and what is not considered to be at a level that is too harmful to the human body to be able to be used on our food, but what is it exactly that makes something able to be deemed too harmful?

 

Through observational studies certain pesticides have been linked to the cause of certain short term illnesses and those that last long term as well. When people hear the word pesticides they generally think of some form of cancer, believing that this is the only thing that ingesting pesticides may lead to. However, they have been shown to aid in a plethora of disorders including damaging effects on the endocrine system, autism and ADHD, cancer, as well as problems of the eye, liver, kidneys and spleen, and cardiovascular, stomach and intestinal problems.

 

These problems can be seen in someone who has not even ingested these pesticides. Mere exposure to these chemicals can be enough to have them cause irreversible damage to your health.

 

 

"The Effects of Herbicides & Pesticides on Humans." LIVESTRONG.COM. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. <http://www.livestrong.com/article/246750-the-effects-of-herbicides-pesticides-on-humans/>.

 

 

Effects of Pesticide Imidacloprid

This seems to be a trend in some of my blog posts but it is an idea that I really am interested in and I figured having a relatively cohesive theme to a few of my posts might not be such a bad thing.

In this article that I found it discusses how the pesticide imidacloprid, which is actually considered to be a neurotoxin, is used to kill aphids on plants. This toxin most widely effects drinking water but the relevance of this article is simply to show some of the effects of what pesticides can do to the body in general.

Recently this chemical has been linked to “colony collapse disorder” which basically means that it is making entire colonies of our honeybees disappear. The reason that it does this so rapidly and effectively is because it is highly efficient at going from the soil to the plants pollen and nectar supplies. If it is toxic to bees at very low levels so how can this be good for humans?

The article also talks about how this chemical has a half life of six months, which means that it will not merely die out or dissipate quickly. The focus is mainly on how this particular pesticide effects honeybees, but if is effects honeybees there is a good chance that it will effect us as well. We are all living organisms. There is nothing different about the plants that honeybees are interacting with and the fruits and vegetables that we as humans are eating and utilizing on a daily basis. Although it would obviously take a much higher dosage of this chemical to effect us that it would a honeybee it still does not seem like a good idea to be ingesting something that is basically a poison.

I found this article interesting because in the long run it helps to determine why pesticides are inherently bad for our health, what some of the  main concerns are and eventually why it is worth it to buy organic food which contains no pesticides.

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=13CB8F69DFB37E68&p_docnum=1&p_queryname=1

"Preston's Bell" - "The Coming Thing"

 

The relationship between the total area of an ecological system and the number of species it is able to support is an idea that has been looked at for many years, Quammen explains in this first chapter and many different conclusions have been drawn from it. In relation to the idea of island biogeography the simplest explanation of the relationship is that the larger the island, the more species it can support.

 

A biologist named Philip Darlington supported the theory that multiplying the area times ten apparently doubled the number of species that an ecosystem could support. The title of the chapter "Preston's Bell" comes from another researcher named Frank Preston who made similar observations, and also made observations on the distribution of species within islands. Preston noted that by plotting species in a graph based on their relative commonness, it created a bell curve. So essentially in any ecological system there are a few species that are very rare, many species that are somewhat common, and a few that are very common. Preston also observed that the few most common species made up the bulk of the actual individual animals.

 

I think this part of the reading fascinated  me the most because it shows how two researchers can observe the same kind of environment with the same information to offer and both come back with entirely different, yet relevant sets of information and theories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ohio's Burning River

"An open septic tank with junk floating on top"

 

 

 

In Better Health 40 Years Later!

 

40 Years ago a spark flew from a train crossing a low bridge over the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. This spark ignited oil soaked debris in the water and causes the river to burn which then started the environmental movement. Now, 40 years later, the river is finally alive with fish and wildlife. At this same time other rivers in industrial cities in the United States were also prone to catching fire for this same reason. After the fire they started keeping track of fish in the early 1980s and parts of the river were so polluted that virtually nothing could survive. This event eventually lead to the Clean Water Act and now, 40 years later, the river has been declared as "reborn". The fact that an area to heavily devastated by pollution could be rehabilitated and made into a safe environment gives me hope for the rest of our planet.

 

 

 

Nowadays people seem to have this notion that just because they are only one person they cannot really do anything to make a difference. However, in instances such as this we see what individuals can do. Yes, it may have taken 40 years but it was a great success nonetheless! It takes every individual in a city, country and the world to take it upon themselves to save this planet. Sustainability starts on a personal level. Most people think that there isn't much that one person can do in one day to change the world, but it takes small, consistent steps to make something happen and the sooner we realize this the better.

 

 

 

Saving Bats from Wind-Farm Deaths

 

"Those swirling blades have been known to kill migratory bats"

 

My first thought when I heard this sentence was "bats migrate?" I guess you learn something new everyday! Yes this may have just been common sense but I willingly admit that I had no clue bats migrated. That being said, when the topic of wind turbines comes up the usual problems that people discuss are the effects that they have on migratory birds, bats are not issues that immediately come to mind but this does absolutely make sense. One turbine can kill several dozen bats in a year and when you take into consideration the sheer number of turbines throughout the entire United States this number can add up and effect the overall population of some of these species. Towards the end of the podcast someone brings up the idea of echolocation. In the very beginning of this discussion I had this same thought. I remember when I was young, doing a presentation on Flying Foxes, and learning that the saying "blind as a bat" really just means that bats use sonar to be their sight. I am just curious as to how bats run into these large structures if they should technically be able to sense them using echolocation.

 

I think that the simple solution that they came up with, to slow the blades down when the wind is low, could potentially help the situation. However, I think that it is hard to accurately guess when the bats will be migrating and therefore difficult to control the speed of the turbines effectively. They say that because bats are small animals that they will not fly when it is "too windy" but again, I think that is a difficult thing to judge.

 

The last thing in this podcast that fully surprised me was that they can die without actually hitting the turbine! The low pressure area near the tip of each blade can cause a vortex which causes the air in their lungs to expand rapidly and can cause fatal damage! Mind. Blown.

 

 

 

 

Pesticides in Our Food

A few weeks ago I covered a topic similar to this. In that post I discussed the difference in monetary cost of various different organic vs. non-organic foods. In this post I want to look at some of the reasons why organic would essentially be better for your health.

Last year in Malaysia there were massive fish deaths which caused a forced closing of the water treatment plant in Cameron Highlands. Upon testing of the water it was discovered that the cause of these deaths was excessive quantities of pesticides in the water. These pesticides can cause irreversible damage to human health as well as the environment. Pesticides are so freely used that they are essentially found in every living thing today. In this area in Cameron Highlands it was found that some farmers were even using pesticides that had been  previously banned. These pesticides affect human health through acute effects, chronic effects and sometimes both. Although farmers claim to be within the pesticide restriction set in place it is believed that these restrictions need to be amended because even with these limits set in place there are still traces of pesticides in almost all of our food.

If these pesticides are fatal to fish how is it even conceivable that they could be harmless to us? Yes, a fish is generally much smaller than a human however, if these pesticides are causing mass deaths among fish who is to say what they are doing to our bodies. Not only can a dose of pesticides cause immediate health problems that you would be able to notice right away but continually ingesting these chemicals can cause long term health problems that will be much more difficult to treat. Obviously treating any illness, whether short or long term, can cost a significant amount of money. Looking at this article and other ones similar to it I will leave you to draw your conclusions on whether or not it is really worth it to spend the extra money on organic foods, but it's as they say 'better safe than sorry.'

 

Idris, Mohamed. "Dangerous Residues in Our Greens." New Straits Times [Malaysia] 9 Mar. 2012: 19. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/>.

"So Huge A Bignes"

Song of the Dodo

In the third chapter of his book Quammen introduces the idea of an "insular menu" of attributes that seem to be common to species that live on islands. He divides the list of attributes into those that apply to individual species and those that apply to island communities as a whole.

 

The species attributes he lists are as:

- Dispersal Ability

- Size Change

- Loss of Dispersal Ability

- Endemism

- Relictualism

- Loss of Defensive Adaptations

- Archipelago speciation
- Adaptive radiation

 

The community attributes he lists are:

- Disharmony

- Impoverishment

   

 

During this section of the reading Quammen's writing style becomes slightly confusing. It appears as though he is directly writing his thoughts down on the paper. It is a little disjointed and jumps around often, but this is kind of what I imagine his thought process to be and therefore although it is a bit difficult to follow at times I find it interesting.

Going back to the reading I think that dispersal ability is at the top of the list for good reason. This is the ability of a species to move from place to place and in island biogeography, especially on newly formed or re-populating islands, this is incredibly important. Without good dispersal ability a species would not be able to spread itself out and therefore would become more vulnerable to extinction. In the reading they use the Krakatoa eruption as one of the best living experiments to take observations from. The first organisms to arrive on the islands were ones with excellent dispersal ability such as spiders, mosses and ferns. It seems like no matter where you go you can never get away from those pesky spiders. The animal with a great dispersal ability that surprised me the most was the elephant. Elephants have been observed to swim great distances and have been found on many islands. I would have thought that such a large animal would have a hard time covering such large distances, especially when not on dry ground. This just goes to show that you can never rule something out even if it seems far fetched.

 

The Anthropocene

Unlike other eras the anthropocene means age of man, and this means that in order to solve the problems that the Earth is currently facing the solutions will need to come solely from man. The problem with this is that most people, particularly in more well developed countries will not step up and take responsibility for their actions. For the first time scientists are considering man to be a geological force, causing more destruction and erosion than any force of nature. It means instead of thinking of humans as observers of the natural world we have to think of ourselves as fundamental pieces of it.

A fundamental question of anthropology is “what does it mean to be human?” The generally accepted definition of what it means to be human has significantly changed over the last hundred years or so and is still changing today. The old ways in which we thought about humanity was that as men we were above nature; that we could control it but were not exactly a part of it. The new idea is that we need to see ourselves as an important and fundamental part of nature that is required to keep things moving. Not only are humans part of nature, as a whole, we are also powerful forces of nature that are contributing to the constant change of the surface of the earth. The problem is that in order to make any type of effective change we must come together as a whole population and change our way of thinking, but there are always those that refuse to see the light and remain stuck in their ways.

Are the health benefits of organic food worth the monetary cost?

This is a question that I was discussing with a friend recently and so I decided that I would do this blog post to go over some of the main points.

 

"Food Safety: On What Organic Foods Should You Spend Your Money?" Boston Examiner 27 Jan. 2012, Boston Environmental Health Examiner sec. America's Newspapers. Web. 8 Feb. 2012. <http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=13C897B1957295D8&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=2>.

In this article the main ideas that are expressed are about which foods are actually worth spending your money on to go organic. They start with explaining that there is a list that comes out every year of the top twelve fruits and vegetables which have been tested and proven to have the most pesticides in them. They also say which ones have the least. Although buying organic food is not a one hundred percent foolproof way in which to avoid chemical contamination, it certainly helps.

This article helped to support the idea that I want to prove during the conversation that I was having because it shows that it is not necessary to buy everything organic. There are some foods that it is worth splurging for and spending a little extra money on. This would help to defer some of the costs and make the overall deficit not quite as extravagant. In the article they give a specific example and say how there was a test that showed strawberries containing 13 different kinds of pesticides within them. Not only are these foods being contaminated with one type of chemical but they are being infected with many different types. This idea could absolutely help to answer my question because once you realize how much of a difference it makes for certain foods when you buy organic as opposed to non organic it can be quite shocking and this inevitably shows that buying certain organic food is much better for your overall health and is worth spending a little extra money on. Personally, as a broke college student I do not have money to pay for excess amounts of organic food but especially after reading this article there are certain foods that I will be trying my hardest to buy organic.

 

 

"Doomsday' Seed Vault Opens in the Arctic"

In this podcast we learned of The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, nicknamed "the doomsday seed vault" by some, aims to preserve samples of seeds from around the world to protect the planet's crop diversity. The frozen vault has begun accepting seeds for storage. The vault was dug into the side of a mountain and is surrounded by permafrost and thick rock.

I think that this concept is simply incredible. One of the things that we worry about when it comes to our future is loss of resources; loss of food, water etc. This seed vault seems to be a way to safeguard at least one of our basic needs. The way I think of it is that say we had a massive crop loss in one area of the world. To repopulate and re-cultivate this would take a significant amount of time if we had to wait for seeds to be collected and transported from various corners of the world. However, if there was one central place where we were able to go and collect every type of seed that we needed and collect them in mass quantities it would drastically cut down on the recovery time.

I also think that the area in which they chose to build this vault is interesting but also ingenious. It would be simple to build a large structure and enforce it with mass layers of steel and other man-made substances but using durable natural resources could prove to be their best idea. The protection that a mountain could provide is likely unmatched by any man-made barrier and the layers of permafrost and thick rock would just provide extra protection. Asides from the protective aspect I personally like when any type of conservation effort is backed up in a more natural way as opposed to a man-made method.

The Man Who Knew Islands

"Song of the Dodo"

In this section of the book Quammen explains the theory of island biogeography and begins to explain its importance. He begins by explaining two of the important figures in history that based their studies from islands. The first figure that he begins to speak about is the ever famous Charles Darwin. In the 1850s he began formulating his theory of natural selection based on his observations in the Galapagos Islands. At the same time, however, a man named Alfred Wallace was coming to the same conclusions based on his entirely separate observations in the Malay Archipelago.

I think what I find most interesting about the information that we are given in this section of the book is the difference in technology and therefore collaboration of the time. Sixty years ago communication was far less advanced and therefore it was easy for misunderstandings such as this to occur. Even though Darwin and Wallace were working on this theory at the exact same time Darwin is most often given credit for his theory of natural selection. This is due mostly to the fact that there was no way to prove that Wallace had in fact been following the approximate same timeline. Today there are steps for patents and copyrights that must be taken to ensure that credit is given where credit is due. I would imagine that if a situation such as this were to arise today it would be sure to be followed by a lawsuit and in depth legal battle. Although Wallace is long gone I have to feel sympathy for him. I cannot imagine playing such a vital role in the discovery of one of the most important scientific theories of all time and not be given due credit for it.

Farmageddon

When you take a look at the state that the health of our country is in today it is no wonder that many people are looking towards healthier living as a means to pursue happiness. One aspect that is at the forefront of this movement is healthy eating, but fresh and organic food is not something that it always so easy to come by. In our grocery stores you can immediately observe which foods are easily accessible. As soon as you walk in the first foods you see are the pre-packaged sugary foods that cost the least amount of money per calorie respectively. The healthy natural and organic foods ring the outer most limits of the store making them the most inconvenient to reach and therefore the least likely to end up in your cart.

In a documentary called Farmageddon by Kristin Canty we see various groups of farmers that had been working to provide their communities with safe, healthy foods but were forced to stop. The small farmers in this film faced blocks not only from their state government but from the federal government as well. The government came in basically wanting to know what these farmers were doing that was not “science-based” which is essentially anything used that was not pesticides or other chemical fertilizer type substances; natural organic forms of growing produce.

As of right now in the United States genetically modified organisms (GMOs) do not have to be labeled. So the big juicy red apple you buy at the store could be the handy work of a farmer with a green thumb or it could be genetically modified to catch your eye and make you want to buy it. We do not know because there is no law that states that we need to know. However, at the moment a small time farmer has to go through stacks of paperwork in order for their food to be given the label of 100% certified organic. On the other hand chemical farmers do not need to give out a label that explains all of the pesticides and fertilizers used to grow their foods. The legislature on food in the US right now is somewhat of a “one-size-fits-all” when the fact is that there need to be specifications for different types of farming. There is not much government infrastructure that supports the small farms in this country and it shows.

In the United States the rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and much more have been steadily increasing over the years. This directly correlates to the increase in processed foods and lack of availability of organic foods. Many of these changes have to do with rumors and unnecessary policies. For example, raw milk used to be a classic American staple food but slowly through policies set forth by the FDA as well as ideas spread through the people said that it was dangerous and raw milk eventually faded away and even became illegal in some states such as Maryland. There are still activists that promote the consumption of raw milk and there have been several stories from farmers that say their inventory has been seized under no real legal reasoning. The laws on organic food that have been set forth and the regulations on these foods has become so strict that it makes it nearly impossible for organic farmers to continue on in the way that they previously have been. Due to this fact fresh and organic food is less available and more expensive and this has been a huge contributing factor to the decrease in overall health of America. We need to go back to what we once knew and get rid of the pesticides and the chemicals and start eating real food again.

Hi.

Hi my name is Dorothy Aceves but everyone calls me Dory. I am a graphic design major here at Lehigh University but I have always been interested in matters of the environment which is why I am looking into a minor in environmental studies. I don’t believe I actually need this class for the minor requirement but it looked highly interesting and I decided to have a go at it. In my personal opinion the two matters of conservation and biodiversity are two of the most interesting as well as important issues in environmental issues today.

There is an obvious problem occurring in the world today that has escaped our narrow point of view here in the United States. There is a constant loss of biodiversity occurring in ecosystems throughout the world. When we were little we used to learn about the endangered species around the world and the importance of saving them. There are commercials to save the pandas and the polar bears but there are thousands of other species that are in danger as well. The reason that we see these large animals as the poster children for loss of biodiversity is because they are familiar to us. When we see a video of a polar bear cub alone of an ice drift it resonates with us and we feel compassion towards it. If there were ads for a rare South American beetle that is in danger of dying out we wouldn’t be too concerned. As far as matters of biodiversity goes for the most part we only care when we are personally invested in it whether it be physically or emotionally.

The problem with this is that when biodiversity is lost so is resistance to various other factors. Biodiversity provides a defense against many mass extinction scenarios such as disease, predators, and habitat loss. This is because with a diverse population of various species is it more likely that one thing could not wipe out every species. This provides more security for a particular ecosystem.

Another problem that we as humans face when trying to deal with biodiversity is that we are not sure how diverse our planet actually is. There are innumerable species that we could not have come in contact with yet. Therefore when dealing with an ecosystem whether it be trying to develop the land or harvest the plants for food and medicine we could be destroying the habitat of an organism that we do not even know exists! In our society today we are so sure of ourselves, so sure of the decisions we make and the actions we take that we do not stop to think that there may be other organisms out there that we know nothing about that we could be effecting at this very moment.