Blog Activity: The Political Chemistry Of OIL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-85KAYKOT4

 In this video, Lisa Margonelli described oil, its physical components, and how it relates to different fields of life. she went through citing the emotional side that concerns consumers, and how they feel about oil. moreover, i think she had a point in that the industry manipulates our perception of oil, when she said that fuel pumps at gas stations look like ATMs, and the green color that one of the gas stations used to make their consumers feel as if they were doing something beneficial for the environment. she also mentioned taxes, and her proposal, in my opinion, of raising taxes with a warning on the receipt would make a difference in the long run on oil consumers. however, she focuses on numbers that are not always a good reliable justification for a fact and do not always reflect the reality.

Blog reflection: environmental ethics.

I believe that we should work on the stability of the ecosystem before anything else. considering the current ecological crises, and the fact that humans had an important role in altering the ecosystem. it is time to value the diversity and rethink our actions and take an ecocentric position. indeed, the ecosystem has became more important than the individual since the time we started managing it to maintain a civilized style of living. the ecosystem is in great danger and demands more attention, monitoring and study. we should be more than aware that it is easy to decide a permission of an extinction of a particular species; however, natural ecosystems and species can never be restored. deteriorating the fund of biotic information, we diminish our capacities scientifically and technically.

selection 11: Will Hurricane Katrina Impact Shoreline Management?

This natural disaster that happened caused shoreline properties in coastal zones to be wiped out, wave impacts extended 0.5 km inland leaving large debris along southern Mississippi. Moreover, Dauphin Island, met more destructive consequences of this tragedy. Because of its strategic location, Katrina destroyed 150 homes in the west of the island which was on the periphery of the hurricane. During Katrina, width was added to the back of the island leaving boathouses driven ashore on land as the Island washed northward during the storm.

• Beach Replenishment.
  It seemed that beach replenishment is a desperate attempt to keep at distance the natural response of the shorelines to a rising sea level. On the other hand, hurricanes became an urban renewal for the coast in a way, but the government spending and efforts on beach nourishment would double, and would meet several problems to replenish the beach.
• Abandon the Coast?
  From research studies, the climate change and especially the increase in sea water temperature in water will result in even more powerful storms of longer duration. For this matter, it is believed that it is time to cut federal ties with coastal areas which are most vulnerable. For instance, Mississippi wave land has been destroyed twice in 35 years. As a result, they should not receive any federal tax dollars for rebuild. This is not impossible, if national policy for each storm can be developed. The areas from which federal support is to be pulled can be determined

A better and more direct presence of scientists is definitely needed by engaging in public hearings for instance. More engaging and responsibility would mean that not only those with a direct financial interest can participate in the debate. Those whose main goad and priority is not fiscal responsibility, environmental preservation or human safety.

Blog reflection: Can parks meet a dual mandate?

in my opinion, parks and can meet a dual mandate only by managing them and deciding what resource use levels are appropriate. this means, starting to apply policies such as park system planning and natural resource management, improvement of visitor services, and in the same time preserving park wilderness. these policies can be applied to park Wapusk as well. recognizing that the essence of providing public enjoyment is part of the service's assigned duty. to be more specific, the service would let users in the park but only those who are appropriate to the reason for which the park was established.

blog reflection: Alberta Tar sands projects

i think that these projects have to consider the costs involved before they continue forward. In other words, they have to look thoughtfully at the carbon dioxide emissions that result form the tar sand extractions and the amount of water lost for every barrel of oil pulled, not to mention the amount of heat to extract the oil. all these facts and many others should be measured and deemed before these projects, which are considered to be the most destructive ever, are given green light to continue on what they are doing.

selection12: Ecosystems and Human Well-being.

It is obvious that the world depend clearly on earth's ecosystems and its provided services. Humans have gone too far beyond benefiting from these services, they even changed these ecosystems rapidly in a very short period of time. These changes contributed to substantial acquisition in economical development, but other fields have been dramatically affected. Managing the world's ecosystems have caused drastic harm to particular people. The most common issues that resulted from out control of the earth's ecosystems are as the following.

• First and foremost, about 60% of the ecosystem services are being degraded , this degradation causes a barrier to achieve the millennium development goals. The problems derived from challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation and many more- that are the result of the human ecological management- cannot be simply solved. However, changes in policies and practices can indeed moderate some of these issues but definitely not all of the serious problems that resulted from the growing pressures on ecosystems.
• this rapid ans significant change in the structure and functioning of the world's ecosystems, resulted in 20% loss of the world's coral reefs. Furthermore, the amount of water confined in behind dams quadrupled since 1960. Nitrogen's amount in terrestrial ecosystems doubled, flows of phosphorous have tripled. The concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 32% due to combustion of fossil fuels. Humans also altered the diversity of life on earth which resulted in a loss of biodiversity.

The MA developed four scenarios in order to meet favourable futures for the ecosystems, these scenarios explore the world in two different paths, one in which it becomes globalized and the other in which it gets regionalized. As an example of such progress, eliminating hunger, child mortality, and deseases.

selection 7: The Tragedy Of The Commons.

Technical solutions are described as one that demands a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, requiring little or nothing in the way of change in human values or morality conception. However, technical solutions fail to solve some of the contemporary issues such as overpopulation. In other words, those who agonize over the population issues try to solve that problem abandoning any of the granted benefits they enjoy. In a technical way, overpopulation problem can not possibly be solved .First and foremost, let's discuss the real facts that should be looked at in order to understand how population size can be maintained.

Tragedy of freedom in commons. Taking a closer look, men rush toward ruin, by pursuing his/her own property rights and interests. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to a society that believes in that freedom. For instance, national parks are open to all public without any limitation. However, these parks are confined and restricted within certain limits and the values people seek in these parks are deteriorating.

pollution is related to the tragedy of the commons. In other words, what would result in pollution here, is the act of putting something in instead of the taking something out of the commons as it is normally seen. For instance, introducing chemical wastes into the air, and distracting the line of sight with unpleasant advertising signs. Private properties can not be the solution for such thing, as air and water cannot be fenced but they can be preserved by coercive laws.

Freedom to breed is intolerable, and conscience is self-eliminating. Breeding cannot be controlled by an appeal to conscience.

Coercion, is the carefully biased options given to the citizen instead of calling it a prohibition. Mutual coercion is the one that most people agree upon as it would favor the conscienceless. Enclosure of commons does indeed involve violation of a citizen's personal liberty. For that matter, when Men mutually agree to a sort of coercion, mankind become more free, and freedom is recognition of necessity according the Hegel.