An Inconvenient Conversation

I proposed this question “What role, if any, do morality, ethics, and spirituality play in addressing climate change?” 

Our conversation consisted of the economy, the benefits of green energy and its effects on the economy. 

Essentially my whole family thinks that the Obama Administration is the end of this country as we know it and I mean in the bad way so we constantly talk about politics. But, there is one most definite sensitive topic. Taxes. Taxes and taxes and taxes. So I was talking with my family and of course we got on the subject of taxes. My family is upper middle-class so we get hit pretty hard with them. So, anyway, we are facing higher taxes with the Bush Admin. tax cuts are running out, taxes have been increased, our money is paying for stuff we don’t need, and the government is taxing the crap out of small businesses. Especially in California where it now costs more to rum your company because you have to be environmentally clean. California is trying to make us more green and clean and that’s great, don’t get me wrong but, the thing is that it now costs more than ever to run a business in California so businesses are moving out of state. And its not like its getting cleaner by moving out of state. The business takes their pollution with them to wherever they went. So California is effectively driving out small businesses and isn’t really clearing the air so to speak. So my father, sister, and myself concurred that what needs to happen is that businesses need to be offered incentives, such as tax cuts. If we offer good ones it makes sense that businesses will not only stay here and implement green technologies but we’ll get businesses from other states as well. 

What are we going to do when businesses are shutting down or moving elsewhere and we have to give up our favorite italian place because they don’t make enough money and aren’t green enough? What’s going to happen here?

I think this time the government is asking too much. Incentives over taxes is a really good idea. Take Reganomics for example. The guy cut taxes and the economy boomed because people had more money to spend. Seriously. We’re turning into a communist country and Obama refuses to see other’s points of view. All the good things he wants to do, well, that’s good but who’s going to pay for it? How’s it going to happen? Obama says Republicans refuse to see the bigger picture, but, if you say that aren’t you close minded yourself?

My dad says “The Obama Administration will forever be remembered as redeeming a nation rather than leading a great one.” Makes you think doesn’t it?

As we move on, green energy or no, the government has got to let up. Printing more money has debased the dollar. Our dollars are now worth 20% less and were making less and less money. We’re also spending less and less money. How can we afford more expensive green energy? Fossil fuels are the only option most of us can afford. They say solar panels will pay for themselves in 10 years, well, in 10 years they won’t be as efficient as newer models and you don’t have time to wait 10 years to get your money (unless you are extremely patient).

Green energy is a dilemma. I think that for right now, its a pretty dream helping the environment.   Unless the government can lessen their bloodsucking tendencies I don’t think that green energy will take off on a large scale.

Back to 1983

I woke up Tuesday morning to a very bright room in Palisade, Colorado a little town outside Grand Junction, another little town about a 40 minute commuter flight outside Denver. I had arrived Monday in Palisade and was staying at my aunt and uncle’s Bed and Breakfast, a DiVine Thyme (http://adivinethymebandb.com). I woke up I believe at around eight am. I got up out of my maroon and gold comforters and walked over to my heater and turned it off and unplugged it . Even under two comforters it was still cold. I got somewhat dressed and headed down for breakfast. Finding that no breakfast had been made, I made my own breakfast. Cereal, Vanilla Almond Special K I believe with whole milk. 

We had not planned at all to go really anywhere but my aunt suggested the western museum in Grand Junction.We all piled into the car. We actually went to a brewery restaurant beforehand. I got mac and cheese. After that, we drove a few miles and almost didn’t find the museum. As we pulled up and parked it was clear that there was actually a tower attached to the museum. We walked inside and payed the admission fee. We spent the good part of say, three hours exploring the multitude of stuff in there. I saw quite a lot. They had guns, a fake ye olde schoolroom, a telephone booth, a walk-though uranium mine, a plane, cars, a  stagecoach, saddles, spanish armor, native american pottery and headdresses, the list goes on. It really does. At the end of our exploration of the museum we decided to go up the tower (It’s for public use). 

My father and I took an elevator to almost the top of the tower while my mom, aunt, and sister climbed the stairs. My father and I had to climb two more flights of stairs because the elevator only went so far up. The view from there was amazing. We were about 10 stories up and you could see the whole valley. Grand Junction is almost like a bowl. It has a deep basin which holds the town, then is surrounded on all sides by mesas. Its quite stunning. Especially because the mesas are so high they all have snow on them it makes for a very gorgeous and very tranquil view. After we took in the view, my sister and I delighted in dropping tic-tacs of the balcony. I’m guessing they reached terminal velocity. We eventually decided to go back despite the beckoning of the picnic table up there. It was cold. Like in the 20’s. We walked down the two flights of stairs and my father and I again took the elevator. My sister made it a game and decided to race us down and beat us by mere seconds not that I was racing, but she was.

As we left the museum, my sister and I looked for our tic-tacs and, which, of course, were in many pieces upon the ground. But, hey, it was still fun. We walked the the car and packed ourselves back in like sardines. We drove back to the house. By the time we got home I was so tired that I went straight up to bed and feel asleep and that’s how my day ended. Not one bit of technology. Except for perhaps the elevator.

Biomes HW #2

Reuniting a River

"Copco No. 1 Dam is one of several Klamath dams in Oregon and California that together provide clean power for up to 70,000 homes. But dams block salmon runs and may degrade river water quality. Conservationists and Indian tribes want to raze four of them—an unprecedented removal project."

Does the government consult anybody before putting in these dams? Do they ask local people and look at predictions of the surrounding ecosystem? 

Seriously, they need to do some research before they put these things in. I wonder if Jerry Brown is going to continue with the Governator's water plan with all the dams. I think its a good idea to remove the dams. Salmon are a part of the ecosystem and if they get stuck upstream, those downstream don't get any.  Yeah "you get the water you need." The government always lies. I can't imagine what you'd smell like if you were sorting onions all day. Whew. Holy smokes. I'm pretty sure green water is dirty water. 

"A late-summer moon rises over a Karuk war dance. "The dance is a ceremony that seeks solutions between families, individuals, and villages," says Ron Reed, cultural biologist of the Karuk Tribe. "

Its cool that native people are still kicking and passing down their traditions.

Life in the Desert

"Don't be fooled by this desolate stretch of the Sonoran Desert's western boundary-the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula. The Sonoran, one of North America's four great deserts, has many faces. Stretching across 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) of southern Arizona, southeastern California, the Mexican state of Sonora, and most of Baja California, it encompasses six biotic communities-some wetter, some hotter, some hillier-that together provide habitat for thousands of Earth's most exotic plant and animal species."

Can the Sonoran Desert be a desert and a beach at the same time? 

I wonder how many different types of species live in the Sonoran Desert?

"In a rush of wings whipping the night air, as many as 500 bats a minute exit a shallow cave in the Pinacate and Grand Altar Desert Biosphere Reserve, a protected area within the Sonoran Desert just south of the Arizona border. Some 200,000 female members of this species-the lesser long-nosed bat-gather at this cave each April before giving birth to their pups in May. At night the mothers-to-be venture out to feed on the nectar and pollen of cactus flowers, including organ pipe, cardon, and saguaro. Come winter, these bats will migrate to central Mexico, where they will pollinate the flowers of agave plants, which are used to produce tequila and mescal."

That would be cool if they could harvest the bat guano somehow for fertilizer. The cardon cactus of the desert is like the towering redwood of the forest. 

Why is it you have to live more than a 100 years to get really big? 

Did dinosaurs ever get found in the Sonoran Desert?

Why is it that in the Cretaceous and the Triassic and all that everything was huge and it took so long to get little only to then take so long to get big?

I'm just glad I don't live there. 

Permafrost

"Cold is powerful. It freezes subsurface water, which can force frozen ground upward to form cone-shaped mounds with cores of ice—pingos—on Canada’s Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula."

Water is the shaping force of the earth. In fact it is the earth. The blue planet and all. Must suck getting stuck in a bog. 

The freezing and melting and freezing does it remove minerals from the soil if the water is constantly running of?

"Vast reaches of the planet have been locked for millennia in stunning permafrost formations. But perhaps not permanently."

"Like scars and wrinkles on an aged face, polygon troughs mark Norway’s Spitsbergen landscape."

Permafrost sure creates some pretty weird shaped soil.

Why does water expand when it solidifies when everything else becomes denser?

How long will the permafrost last with global warming on its way?

Great Animal Migrations

"Tens of millions of bison once rumbled across the Great Plains on a quest for grazing. By the late 1800s nearly all had been slaughtered. Today most of the half million remaining bison are in captivity, like these on the Triple U ranch in South Dakota."

If they live on a ranch where do they migrate to?

How come we are so good at destruction and destruction of other species?

Everyone says we should have peace but we should also make peace with nature. 

"Millions of monarch butterflies travel to ancestral winter roosts in Mexico's shrinking mountain fir forests. Surfing winds from southern Canada and the northern U.S., they travel thousands of miles, taking directional cues from the sun."

I actually walked through a monarch storm once. They migrated through my elementary school and they were all over the place. 

"A border wall along the lower Rio Grande in Texas divides nations as well as habitats, hindering essential daily movements of animals in the area. Bobcats would normally cross the border to find mates or catch dinner—this one caught a rat. The wall also blocks the daily rounds of ocelots, another member of the cat family."

There are ocelots in Texas?

"So researchers who want to tag males with geolocators catch them by playing a recording of a male's call, which to human ears sounds like the chirps of R2-D2, the robot of Star Wars fame."

R2-D2 could take them all.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/11/great-migrations/sartore-photography

Food Inc. Articles

Fields of Poison
I think that this is just another case of government regulation failure. Again the government doesn't want to bother with worker safety just as long as we get food on the table and they get the gratitude of the employer. I think though that workers too could go out and learn about pesticide poisoning on their own instead of sitting on their hands and maybe should ask if the field is under no entry or whatnot. Its not just the employer its the worker as well. In fact, its the whole business that needs revamping.

The Financial Crisis and World Hunger
I think that the microloans would work in poorer countries where less is way more than it is in the US. Its a good idea and its neat that most all people loaning money are women. I think that we will never solve world hunger. There will always be someone. Also, with small farms slipping from the world market why not just go local. Sell to your neighbors and feed yourself. People had victory gardens back in the day why not on a larger scale?

The Scope of the World Food Crisis
As poverty and hunger mainly occur in rural areas, why don't they come to the city? Become freegans or something. I don't think that taking care of people for their whole lives is the way to go. We can't supply food to people for free. I really don't think that the large companies are at fault here. If they had bad droughts they have to make up for the profit loss. It makes sense to charge more.

Cheap Food: Workers Pay the Price
I don't get it. We exploit workers for cheap food and they say the price is too high? Again with the regulations. This is also government regulation failure. They are required by law to enforce the laws of this country but they don't. The president is suing a state for enforcing federal law something he is legally supposed to enforce. How can you criticize a state for protecting itself when its not being enforced by larger government? But while the government is at fault these companies are also at fault for not obeying the law. Workers are at fault too. If they are illegal they shouldn't be here. I can't stand it.

I would support the microloans seeing as how so little money could make a difference. Especially because they are loaned to women. Women can finally get a leg up in third world countries. I chose this because its not all doom and gloom and the people who are getting these loans are proactive. They take the loans for a reason.

Quiz Questions

Water

Describe the distribution of the Earth’s surface water.

Out of the small percentage of freshwater on Earth, what is the second largest percentage of freshwater not held in Icecaps and Glaciers?

1. Swamps
2. Ground Water
3. Lakes
4. Rivers

Of the small amount of fresh surface water on Earth, where does most of it reside?

1. Rivers
2. Swamps
3. Lakes
4. Icecaps and Glaciers

Air and Land

Describe the possible short term effects and long term effects of air pollution on human health.

What is the most common short term effect of air pollution on human health?

1. Death
2. Poisoning 
3. Irritation of the Lungs and Eyes
4. Cancer

What is the most common long term effect of air pollution on human health?

1. Long term condition afflicting or damaging the brain, nerves, liver or kidneys
2. Lung Cancer
3. Heart Disease
4. Chronic Respiratory Disease

Who is least susceptible to air pollution?

1. A young person
2. A person with a pre-existing condition
3. A child 
4. Older individuals

Food and Agriculture

Explain how genetic engineering is used in agriculture.

In Food Inc. which crop did Monsanto have a genetic engineering patent on?

1. Corn
2. Soybeans
3. Strawberries
4. Squash

How is genetic engineering commonly used to modify crops?

1. Pest Resistance
2. Less uniformly shaped crops
3. Smaller Crops
4. Decrease drought resistance

Goals for this Week

Your Song

Goals

Cut down the huge list of flowers that I have so that I have a suitable amount for the space allowed.

Plan my garden in terms of placement of flowers.