I actually preferred the second half over the first half because the second half seemed to hold more information. The topics discussed in this half are topics that I can get my head around.
It’s true that carbon dioxide is a big problem, not just in America, but around the world too. Even China has this problem. There are days when Beijing is so full of smog that you can;t see the sky from the ground. Hong Kong has a similar problem, but not all the smog we have comes from our vehicles. Much of it is smoke from the factories over in mainland china, it blows down and hovers over us, giving us dirty gray days.
While I agree that carbon dioxide is one of the ‘qualities’ of life, too much of it can be deadly. I say quality of life because it is necessary for plants to breathe in this deadly gas to create oxygen for us to breathe in. However, recently people have been producing too much carbon dioxide. Even plants have limitations people! And where does this un-recycled CO2 go? Into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, joining the already building layer of such gas in our skies, eating the ozone and trapping heat. Is it getting hot here, or is is just me? Maybe we’d all like to live like vampires, afraid of the burning rays of the sun!
In Environmental Alteration we are studying the affects of deforestation in New England. Deforestation is perhaps the greatest disturbance that can happen to a forested area. But lumber crews in New England did more than just cut down a few trees. They did all but shave the slopes of mountains and valleys in their quest for good trees like the White Pine. This left birds and other animals without homes and the area more prone to events like water erosion, especially from acid rain. What really bug me is the fact that the lumber crews may not have known any better, but people are still doing this kind of thing in places like the Amazon. I, like i’m sure many people are, am wondering why no one does anything. People try to calm down the rage by saying “We’re only cutting down a few trees”. But there is no such thing as a few trees.
Wolves, I love’em. I’ve always felt that they are misunderstood, marked as monsters by the tales we hear as children about the sly wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and the evil werewolf from monster movies. But people please! These guys are the ancestors of man’s best friend! I find it amazing to think that people like dogs, which are descended from wolves and can be just as fierce, and admire the lion, which is about four times as powerful, but that they dislike the wolf. Science has proven that if a human and wolf meet in the wild, unless the wolf is defending her pups, she’ll usually run the other way. While there have been recorded attacks in the past, many of the fatalities were due to disease. And what about farmers, who shoot and poison wolves out of fear that they will attack livestock? I say that only happens in times of desperation. A wolf is more likely to go after deer than a chicken. In fact, wolves are an important control in the environment. In places where wolves are extinct, the amount of deer and other prey has multiplied. Wolves are “An evolutionary successful, adaptable species” (P 200). It’s strange to think that we like dogs but dislike wolves, when, as dogs are the descendants of wolves, should be hate dogs as well?
We need to become more closely connected to our environment instead of exploiting it. Harvesting hundreds of trees for paper and furniture, trapping thousands of tuna just to let it go to waste, and killing wolves based on fear alone? We can live better than this people!
