Selection 20

Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services

Boris Worm et al.

Research has shown that marine biodiversity loss is constantly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Changes in marine biodiversity are concerning to what exact human impacts they would result in and are directly caused by exploitation, pollution, and habitat destruction, or indirectly through climate change. Globally, marine extinctions are slightly becoming more evident. Where as locally, areas are witnessing a rapid loss in populations. From experiments we have found that increased biodiversity of primary producers and consumers enhanced all examined ecosystem processes. These results along with tests taken from coastal ecosystems indicated that there is a positive correlation between biodiversity, productivity, and stability across trophic levels in marine ecosystems. These regional biodiversity losses impaired the number of viable fisheries, provision of nursery habitats, and loss of filtering and detoxification services. This data illustrates that substantial loss of biodiversity is closely associated with the regional loss of ecosystem services and increasing risks for coastal organisms. The collapse of large marine ecosystems also occur at a higher rate in species-poor ecosystems and proportional species losses are predicted to have similar effects at low and high levels of native biodiversity. Marine reserves and fishery closures have been used to reverse the decline of marine biodiversity on local and regional scales. Fisheries are able to recover easily because they can switch more readily among target species and can help us determine if and how can we reverse the loss of our services. There is a large variation in sample sizes and several variables that effect the outcomes, but the results do suggest that it is possible to recover lost biodiversity on local to regional scales. This trend of biodiversity loss is a because it projects the global collapse of all marine life currently fished. But by restoring marine biodiversity we can invest in the productivity and reliability of the goods and services that the ocean provides and recover from our biodiversity loss.

Selection 10

Life and Death of the Salt Marsh

John Teal and Mildred Teal

This article discusses the salt marshes that are found along the eastern coast of North America. These salt marshes can contain grass, salt water, and different kinds of biological organisms. Healthy salt marshes can have many different smells, most pleasant, but sick marshes smell of hydrogen sulfide. The north marsh, the Spartina patens, is covered with dense grass and can be harder if it has been harvested or spongy if it hasn't. The marshes in the south are covered only by Spartina alterniflora, with more separation between plants and the ground is stiff. As you get closer to the ocean and rivers you notice a change in the composition of the ground and depending on whether the tide is high or low the amount of water present. Dangers to salt marshes are from human activities and can be caused by pollution, dredging, filling, and building. These marshes are valuable ecosystems and our increase in population pressure is increasing their destruction. Some destruction is inevitable, such as creating the infrastructure around the marshes in order to preserve and enjoy them. We need to plan on the international level for the entire marsh system. We must preserve marshes by safeguarding against increased pressure due to population and industry blackmail. These salt marshes are an important natural resource that must be protected and preserved in its entirety.

Selection 31

Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment

Sandra Steingraber

This article talks about the authors experience with cancer. She had bladder cancer when she was young and cancer runs in her adopted family. This is evidence that environmental factors can influence cancer. She talks in more detail about her family's history with cancer and that her mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1974 and, to the surprise of her doctors, was still alive when this article was published. She then discusses when she first read about scientists identifying the gene responsible for human bladder cancer through transforming cancer DNA onto mice and pinpointing the exact alteration that caused the cancer to grow. It was determined that the cancer is caused by substitution of a double-ringed base called guanine for a single-ringed base called thymine. This would cause the cell to manufacture valine instead of the amino acid glycine. She then discuses findings of bladder cancer that came later which stated that people who have higher burdens of adducts than fast acetylators are at a greater risk of bladder cancer from exposure to aromatic amines. This includes more than half of the American and European population. We still don't know all suspected bladder carcinogens, their sources, how they interact with each other, and how we are exposed to them. There are certain jobs where people have been exposed to known carcinogens such as manufacturing rubber chemicals and pharmaceutical plants. What really concerns her is that almost a century after some of these findings we are still seeing some of these harmful carcinogens being manufactured, imported, used, and released into our environment. She believes that because we are obsessed with genes and heredity's influence in cancer we are not seeing that environmental factors are a cause of most cancers and have a large influence on genetic cancers as well. Rachel Carson urged recognition of an individuals right to know about poisons introduced into one's environment by others and the right to protect against them. To do this we first have to look at our ecological roots and determine what chemicals are already in our body's and environment. We then have to take a human rights approach when regulating how chemicals are used, released, disposed, and our unequal risks of being exposed to them. Toxic substances should not be used if there is another way of accomplishing the same task. This should be coordinated with active attempts to develop and make available affordable, nontoxic alternatives for currently toxic processes. We must save ourselves and the environment from the deliberate and routine release of chemical carcinogens.

Selection 33

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

Mark Sagoff

This article is about the economic and political decisions we make regarding the environment. In the opening paragraph it lists cases where they have been applied such as the community of Lewiston, N.Y., where the Manhattan Project chemicals were buried without the knowledge of future residents. We have an environmental problem when a resource is not allocated in equitable and efficient ways. In political and economic decision making, sometimes seen as one, our approach of environmental policy is based on the consumers values. "The ultimate measure of environmental quality is the value people place on these services or their willingness to pay." We support decisions with a cost-benefit analysis, where the benefits out way the costs. This is widely supported, except when dealing with regulations vs. employees having a safe and healthful working environment, then this can be altered to ensure protection of the workers. Like in the American Textile Manufacturer vs. Donovan case of 1981. Problems have arose with the Occupational Safety and Health Act, where the benefits of the workers did not equal the costs associated to industry and the consumers. The cost-benefit approach treats people of equal worth and may only appear attractive for efficiency. We value public values and the natural environment that depend upon what is right for the community not the individual. This is achieved by supporting the cost-benefit analysis but having the final say in discrepancies allocated to a legislative debate and vote. For this analysis, what is valid is not most views, but how much people are willing to pay for their subjective preferences or wants. In a Kantian approach to ethics, some values are more reasonable to others and hence have a better claim to members of the community. Therefore, both values and beliefs are either correct or mistaken. The last paragraph in this article goes back to the case of the residents of Lewiston which were given a personal response to their questions and concerns. This response puzzled and confused the residents and it is clear that the cost-benefit analysis alone is not enough to allow us to have the power to act as a nation.

Online Activity

William McDonough on cradle to cradle design

I just watched this video on http://www.ted.com/ and think that what McDonough has done over his career is fantastic. I think it is a good idea that he has been analysing items that go to the public and breaking them down to parts-per-millions and analysing them further. This really tells us what is in our products and if they are harmful. I also think it was a great idea to make this list of materials available to the public so that anyone can analyse their products down to the parts-per-million themselves. I liked the work he has been doing with helping build recyclable products such as the rugs, shoes, and car metal, that was previously being wasted. I was very interested in his sustainable architecture projects such as the GAP headquarters building with native grass on the roof for birds to nest in. I also liked his idea behind the sustainable community and I believe that it would work because they are designing it from nothing and they have thought of all needs that must be met throughout the community. As a pre-architecture student, I think that sustainable design is the way of the future and will increasingly have a greater impact on society.

Class Discussion

We watched this video on the gas leak in Bhopal India during class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-BfXLjQ9c

It was such a huge tragedy that should never have happened. When you deal with chemicals that are as deadly as that you should never take chances that can risk a leak. What was more shocking to me is that people actually lived right next to the chemical plant! Even though it was in India, they shouldn't of been allowed to build a chemical plant in such a close proximity to a residential area. But I think that this tragedy was an eye opener for India and other countries about what to allow to happen in your city and what ethical issues does it contain. It also showed the world why companies chose developing nations, because of low wages and a certain degree of low responsibility especially compared if it was in a nation like the United States. Since this happened a lot of other companies have been accused of taking advantage of developing nations and their residents, like Nike, and this hurts some of their sales because people don't want to buy their products. Plus it makes you think about the quality of their products if they are being made by someone who's wage is about 10% the cost of the product.

Blog Reflection

Consider the evidence of affluenza that you see around you. Do you see it in yourself, your friends, family, or North American society? Can you take action to combat affluenza?

Looking around and at myself I see affluenza everywhere. I don't think that anybody can say that they have never had affluenza. I am only 21 years old and have already accumulated a substantial amount of 'junk' that I don't really need. I have been with my friends when they have bought things that they soon discard and my parents have many items that were bought spur of the moment. I think that some companies market products specifically for the large portion of American society who are suffering from affluenza. I think that a big problem is that our society teaches us to want more and more stuff and that we would be happy if we had this and that. I think you can take action to combat affluenza in the form of reminding yourself what waste can come from purchasing items you will never use and I think that you would have a greater chance if you had support from a friend or family member. Another good idea is to make a list when you go shopping and only buy what is on that list, this helps with impulse shoppers. We must also understand that happiness is not totally defined by material possessions but being comfortable and doing what you love to do, whether work or play. However affluenza is a contagious condition and will not be easy to combat.