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.