The Thread of Biodiversity

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth into a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years (Berger et al. 1996), changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2 and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying (Glynn 1993), forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow such as fish farms and aquariums. The problem is industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can remedy the problem before catastrophe now is to drop our dependence on oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Each step will slow down our output of CO2, lowering our output gradually after each change we make.

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Pull Quote "The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years"

Abstract revised

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth into a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years1 (Berger et al. 1996), changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2 and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying2 (Glynn 1993), forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow such as fish farms and aquariums. The problem is industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can remedy the problem before catastrophe now is to drop our dependence on oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Each step will slow down our output of CO2, lowering our output gradually after each change we make.

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Abstract

Earth's biodiversity levels are unique. We are the only place that has life. Human's habits after the Industrial age have changed Earth a non sustainable state. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have raised far above our highest point in the past 600,000 years, changing the temperature of the planet along with it. The oceans are filling with CO2, and warming up, changing the cycle of life. Coral and algae are dying, forcing many fish to struggle to survive. The shortage of fish is creating a shortage of predators and food for humans to eat, forcing us to create conditions that allow them to grow. The problem is our industry is part of the problem, not the solution. Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially, but so far we are having no luck in doing so. The only way we can fix the problem now is to go cold turkey on our oil fueled ways and convert to alternate nature fueled energies such as nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, and solar. Without these, our future doesn't look positive.

Pull quote: "Humans are trying to recreate nature artificially"

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Recipe - Lettuce Wrap

Ingredients:

1 head iceberg lettuce or romaine lettuce leaves (We can use Chard)
Sauce:
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry (optional)
1 teaspoon sugar
Remaining Ingredients:
1 tablespoon sesame oil (or peanut oil)
1 slice ginger, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 lb meat from chicken breasts or sliced white chicken meat (we can use tofu)
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
Anything else can be added (corn, veggies, etc.)

Preparation:

Wash the lettuce, dry, and separate the leaves. Set aside.

Mix together the sauce ingredients. Heat the sesame oil in a non-stick frying pan on high heat. Add the garlic, ginger, and green onions and fry until the garlic and ginger are aromatic. Add the tofu and cook until the tofu is browned. Remove the tofu from the pan and set aside.

Add the veggies to be cooked to the frying pan. Add the sauce ingredients and cook at medium heat. Add the tofu back into the wok. Cook for 2 - 3 more minutes, stirring, to heat through and finish cooking the tofu.

Lay out a lettuce leaf and spoon a heaping teaspoon of the tofu and vegetable/sauce mixture into the middle. The lettuce wraps are designed to be eaten "taco-style," with the lettuce/taco mixture folded into a package. Continue with the remainder of the tofu and lettuce leaves. Serve.

This can be messed with ingredient wise. We can be creative.

Food Inc.

Food Inc. was a well put together movie made to put the truth of the food industry into the public mind. The best part I think was when Joe Salatin was talking. He really got to the point of the problem in our food industry. One of the biggest points he made was that we have an industry run off of corn, when really we should naturally have it run off of natural grass' and herbs. His farm runs like a well oiled machine. He is kind to his animals, keeps organic, and still has the efficiency needed to supply a great many people with food. One of the worst things that he described was that the FDA claimed his working conditions were unsanitary because he worked in open air, when really his meat had less contaminants than the industries meat. He also describes what the biggest problem the public has. We have become so distanced from something as intimate as our food. We don't know where it comes from so long as we can eat it and it tastes good. Another thing that struck me in the movie was when they talked about human eating habits. We as humans strive to find the rarest tastes in the wild: salt, fat, and sugar. With our current food industry, these things are easy to acquire, often easier to acquire than less salty, fatty, sugary food. This all puts our state in perspective. We have become a gluttonous nation that keeps being fed. Luckily, people are becoming more informed about our state, and slowly changing the way the industry works. They are changed by the change in money, so if the money goes healthy then the industry must go healthy or go bankrupt.

Peer Reviewed Articles for Senior Project

The first link I found was a particularly interesting one discussing climate change's future effects on marine life, especially many oceanic species. In it they show a large chart showing the species of fish, the environment and specific location it lives in, the time period of the study, and the changes in population levels throughout the time period. Some of the future results are also calculated using calculus, these results being the rate of production within the species. They also showed projected studies of specific species in three different theoretical locations/global environments, one having a high, low, and middle ground level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere above it.
The main point that I got out of this relating to the changes in biodiversity was that the climate change mostly incurs large influxes in species invasion, causing mass extinction of many species caught off guard by the new, often inexperienced species. The largest points of extinction are located in the tropical and equatorial regions of our planet.
Honestly a lot of the information is over my head at first glance, but after looking at it for a while and taking it in it starts to make more and more sense. The reason for this is because of the large prevalence of math involved in predicting future outcomes, and the complexity of their experiment and how that made the math even more elaborate.

Cheung, William W.L., Vicky W.Y. Lam, Jorge L. Sarmiento, Kelly Kearney, Reg Watson, and Daniel Pauly. "Climate Change Impact on Marine Biodiversity." Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios. seaaroundus.org, 5 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. www.seaaroundus.org/ClimateChange/images/Cheung-climate-biodiversity-FF-2009.pdf.

"Particularly, climate change impacts on marine biodiversity are likely to intensify in the future, with the intensity of impacts differing geographically according to changes in ocean conditions and sensitivity of the species (Roessig et al. 2004; Harley et al. 2006; Munday et al. 2008)."

"The A1B scenario describes a world of very rapid economic growth, low population growth, rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies, and moderate use of resources with a balanced use of technologies." (This scenario was of the high CO2 concentration. This, along with the other two descriptors, show the various projected climates they did their math using, not being a part of the result of the study.)

"...invasion to and extinction from an area (collectively called species turnover) can affect biodiversity, community structure and ecosystem functions"

"The pattern of species turnover was generally dominated by species invasion. On the other hand, although the relative rate of species turnover decreases towards the equator, the absolute number of species turning over is high in the tropics"

"The interactions between geography and species’ dispersal patterns strongly affected our predicted climate impact on marine biodiversity. In semienclosed seas, the dispersal of many species was limited by land boundaries. In addition, sea bottom temperature and SST of semi-enclosed seas were projected to increase at a faster rate than temperatures in the adjacent open seas, causing more local extinctions and range-shifting in these semienclosed water bodies."

This next link is very similar to the previous one, except it measured biodiversity levels in Europe. The way they did it was also very similar, using the same variables multiple times but changing the levels for each time the equations are ran and taking the average of the various equations. This one goes really in depth with graphs and charts, showing the various levels of different insect life over time and other things.

Dormann, Carsten F., Oliver Schweiger, and many others. "Ecology Letters: Biodiversity prediction uncertainty." Prediction uncertainty of environmental change effects on temperate European biodiversity. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. https://www.ufz.de/data/d-Dormann_2008_EcologyLett8108.pdf.

Nate Lewis Presentation Reflection

I loved the presentation that we watched because in it, he pulled together so many things that I have thought about previously, but he pulled it all together in a way that made everything realistic. I say this because when I think of things, I think of ways to make things work. One example of this is the whole plants and why they aren't black in order to attract more light from the sun. Nate Lewis touched on this towards the end when he was talking about biomass and how we need to create some sort of fast growing biofuel that could support us forever.
I also loved the way he brought up the giant solar panel. Obviously he was being sarcastic with it, but if we did start putting up solar panels, he already figured out the math that shows how many solar panels of what size we need to fuel the nation. I do agree that we need to use solar, but in our current economic situation we cannot afford it.