eco book review

The book i am reading for our ecology book reading thingy is State of Fear by Michael Crichton. Its a fiction novel, but does have a fair amount of facts in it with referances. Its 672 pages long and right now at 3/29/07 i am on page 295. This is definitly the most interesting book of all the ones other people are reading in the class. Its got a real story to it! yay! anyways....

So far it has been talking about a lawsuit that was going to be made against the Environmental Protection Agency by an island nation called Vatutu. It was going to be funded by George Morton. It was expected to cost ~$8 million, but the lawsuit was never made. State of Fear has been so far about why that lawsuit was never made. It has argued that there are many scientists who have written peer edited works that Global Warming isn't really happening. It has given referances to most of its arguements. It has said that Antarctica is sheering off ice from the peninsula, but the total ice mass of Antarctica was increasing.

weird eco movies w/ 2 much timelapse er sumthing... They were called Life Sense!!! yay i remembered!!

Oooooooooook. these movies were kinda weird. there were too many timelapses it made all the plants look like demon thingies that grew so they could enslave the earth!!!!

anyways... the life sense movies were fairly intersting actually. The first one about the human-animal interactions showed some of the problems with development. I already knew most of things in this already but w/e it wasn't work. The first movie showed how food transfer and the colonization of places changed the environment of lots of animals and how they have adapted. For instance the perigrine falcon's main habitat is now cities.

eco film fest!! it was cool =)

YAY! our film festival was awesome!
I suggest another yayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyayyay!! anyways.....
NOOOOOOO i just found out this is a test grade!!!! =( *crys* (3/13/07)

The movies we watched were After The Warming ; An Inconvenient Truth ; Waterworld ; The Day After Tomorrow they were boring ; boring ; cool ; and OK in that order. The first two were documentaries the second two fictional movies. They all discussed the topic of global warming and what will happen if we continue in our green house gasses.

The movies were similar in that they all showed a vision of the future. The first documentary showed a world ruled by the Japanese where everyone got along, and no one ate meat. It was a horrible apocalyptic doom. The second documentary showed signs of global warming and what would most likely happen in the future if we continue our use of natural resources at its current rate. The third movie was about a world were the ice caps melted. The world was covered in water except for the tip of a big mountain. The fourth movie was about an insane winter caused by an ocean current being purified by ice caps melting.

After the Warming had the most different of all the views of the future. In this future there was a global corporation in charge of regulating the world. In this future everyone got along and they were all hippies. The future view was fairly similar to the one presented in An Inconvenient Truth in that the world suffered from people pumping too much CO2 into the atmosphere causing ice caps and the like to melt and an ocean current to purify which screws up the transfer of air causing the temperature of a lot of places to get screwed up. This also happened in Day After Tomorrow. In After the Warming everyone got along which never was shown in either of the other movies. An Inconvenient Truth implied it but didn't actually say it (i think). In Day After Tomorrow almost no one got along and it led to a massive disaster instead of a contained one with little casualties. In Waterworld the smokers fought with everyone and no one trusted people outside of their own little groups (the atoll, each individual boat, the smokers, etc.).

An Inconvenient Truth was the only movie that didn't show the future, it only said what would happen. An Inconvenient Truth said that the world's CO2 would drastically increase and the algae that keep the temperature down would die off from the excessive heat. It said the ice caps would melt and the world's maps would have to be redrawn. It said that many densely populated areas would flood and there would be major catastrophes, but it never showed this future. It only told what would happen if we continued our ways. It showed a similar idea to that in The Day After Tomorrow, where the ocean currents cause a super winter. In An Inconvenient Truth it says that the glaciers melting will cause whichever current it is to purify and stop and we all FREEZE!!!! and then all of us in Telluride are like "yay snow day!!!". Anyways.... An Inconvenient Truth kind of denys that Waterworld could ever happen. It says that everything would freeze first.

In The Day After Tomorrow the oceans are purified by melting glaciers and everything freezes. This movie is like the opposite of Waterworld, because it says that you cannot ever reach that point. The Day After Tomorrow, as well as An Inconvenient Truth, says that once the ocean currents are purified than the world freezes and re-salinifies because ice freezes and the salt is left in the liquid water.

In conclusion these movies all told of apocalyptic futures (After the Warming had no meat that's apocalyptic!!). Some of them denied each other, but for the most part they hit on key issues like the glaciers melting, and the purification of the ocean currents. It was a cool film fest and its a shame we probably won't get another... =( *crys* oh well. I guess i failed these last 2 paragraphs huh?

After the Warming responses

The film After the Warming presents a future that is ruled by the Japanese. The world is covered in trees and solar panels, Also the whole world is orderly and controlled (except the ocean currents). It looks terrible. Also people don't eat meat! that is the most horrible vision of the future possible. When meat is outlawed is the day i kill myself.
These future events were brought upon us by our blatant use of green house gases and our "somebody else will do it" attitude. We're really just doomed to a horrible fiery apocalyptic future that will kill us off. I beleave in this fiery apocalypse because we will never be able to change our ways. Human nature makes us self-centered and stubborn, as well as prone to fights. There is no way we can all work together. Everyone is always trying to help themselves in all situations. We can't work together. We are stubborn and we will continue our dooming lifestyle. =)
This film ~18 years old. It was published in 1989.
I really don't think that this vision of the future is beleavable. For one, THERES NO MEAT!! that is an atrocity to nature and will never ever work. Normal humans (which I dont con't non-meat eaters to be) like meat. Its that simple. Also we can't work together, and that movie has a world something something orginization that everyone is suppolsed to obey. As a species we won't keel over to one orginization.

Renewable Energy

solar
wind
tidal
biomass
hydroelectric

Green power is energy that isn't harmful to the environment, it is usually generated by hydroelectric or wind sources. Personally i think that there is no such thing as a renewable resource. Eventually the sun will burn out and there goes solar, wind (convection currents caused by solar heat), hydroelectric (without the sun all water would freeze), and we would be dead anyways so it doesn't really matter. We will probably all be dead soon anyways...

Our green power comes from Tri-State Generation and Transmission, who get their power from Wyoming(what a weird spelling). They are mostly using hydroelectric power and wind power. There is a little biomass. The hydroelectric power comes from dams that are located in Colorado. The wind is in Wyoming, and the bio mass is in Wyoming and Colorado. Tri-State Generation and Transmission is a power company that uses renewable resources to generate power for other areas to sell to their end users. here's a link. Green energy certificates are things you buy that give you 100-kilowatts of green power for 1.25$ extra each on your monthly bill.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8088563028704886081&q=ecology

Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power works by storing a lot of water behind a dam. The water is put through the dam and it pushes a turbine (a big fan thingy) and that turns a generator. The generator generates electircity and the water leaves the dam to join its natural stream that its suppolsed to be in, instead of being in a big dam or reservour. In the U.S. only about 12 percent of our energy comes from hydropower. Over the entire world hydroelectric power supplies 20% of all energy and that number is riseing! In Canada they use 70% hydropower. They are the world leaders in hydroelectric power, next being Austria at 67%. One of the advantavges to hydroelectric power is that it takes no fuel to run. Fossil fuels aren't used to produce hydroelectric power (unless you count the construction of the dam and repairs, but it makes up for that eventually). Also the dams are automated so that they dont require many people around to function. The dams also create reservours that can be used for recreation and that becomes a tourist thing, which leads to $$. Some of the disadvantages include: the need for irrigation is often greater than the need for power, and that can cause problems. Also The dams can disrupt the aquatic life and mess with things like the salmon's rush up stream to get to breeding grounds, but there is a lot of research going into more animal-friendly dams. Also the water that leaves the dam has little sediment in it, which can lead to the defertalization of areas, as well as the destruction of deltas and the like. the water that leaves the dam is also colder than how it was before the dam was built and that can endanger species.

my info and my pictures came from this site http://ga.water.usgs.gov/ I also used http://www.answers.com/topic/hydroelectricity

Computer Waste

Imagine how much the manufactoring of this computer wastes

OMG! computers use up soooooo much more waste than i had ever figured, or cared to think about. The construction of the parts is so wasteful. The computer chips are made in 400 steps each of which use up resources and create waste. First silicon is mined from Washington. Then it's bathed in hydrocloric acid, and hydrogen fumes to create a pure silicon rod. Then its cut up into super timy little strips and cleaned in acid, and heated to form a sheilding of silicon dioxide. Then these super high-energy machines cut the little circut paths into the silicon and plant phosphorous and boron. Then a lot of other stuff happens like copper being applied, ect. the end result is a little chip whose creation used up 2800 gallons of water and created 89 pounds of waste. Total a 55 pound computer uses 7300 gallons of water, 2300 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and creates 139 pounds of waste. The worst part is that if the factories upgraded their machinery to be state-of-the-art, or just at least what they make in the factories then this process could be done with half to a quater of the resources and create half to three fourths of the waste. I find it idiotic that they dont upgrade. The cost of upgrading would eventually be made up by the lowered amount of energy and water in the process.

Scientific Method

The scientific method really is a way for scientists to organize their experiments, and of course something for students to learn about and get bored by. It's not neccisary for an experiment. If you dont follow the scientific method the experiment wont preform any differently, your data will just be less organized. The steps are as simple as "look at something happening" then "figure out what you think will happen if you mess with whatever it is that's happening" then "make an experiment where you mess with whatevers happening in one way, be able to view whatever your testing on" then "execute your experiment and see if anything is different, and if it is then compare it to whatever is happening in it natural order" then "record you findings and tell other people". Your hypothesis is just your deciding what you think will happen based on previously known facts, when you tweek something out of its natural order. A theory is a way of describing how things work, like a diagram/text book thingy. a scientific law is a statement that something happens like gravity and is explained by a theory.
The two sites we looked at took, what appear to be, very different stances on the scientific method. The wikipedia one told the much more known variation of the scientific method being used for one experiment with the end result being to publish your results. It's version was more for the one time scientist that is just messing around, or a kid doing something in a science fair/school project. The other site's scientific method was probably more accurate for scientist's whose jobs are to discover stuff and do serious science. It said the final two steps were to use your information to predict other phenominon (or however you spell it) and then to have other independant scientists repeat the experiment. It is difficult to determine which site is more beleavable because in their own ways they are more beleavable than the other. For instance the wikipedia one uses lots of examples and is more "common man" friendly (which can lead some to finding the site more beleavable). The other one sounds a lot smarter and that can go a long way to convincing someone of its validity (mighta spelled that wrong). So its difficult to say which is more beleavable.

Gir rules!!!

Moon Hoax

Unfortunatly, there are only two ways to truly know if something is true. One is to be there and witness events or actions first hand or experiment to find your answer. The other is basically the same as the first, and that is to get your information through a device incapable of lieing, like an uncompromised computer (this is really only necissary for subatomic reactions, insanely huge math calculations, maps of the galaxy, ect.) In reality we can't actually trust anyone (I know I sound paranoid, but its true). People always lie and decive, they may not think they are but if they get their info from a bad source, or misunderstand data then they are essentially lieing. No one really likes to be fooled, it makes you look like an idiot. Also people hate it when a lie is told, especially if they belive that lie and fight in defense of it, i know i hate looking like an idiot in front of peers when i defend a lie. Any lie really will anger most people, unless they have a really good sense of humor and they don'd defend it full on and look like an ass. The film Dark Side of the Moon is a good example of this, by the end of the film it becomes obvious that its a joke and there are no hard feelings. Well, you dont like being fooled, but at least nothing bad comes of it. Anyways they kinda hinted at it being a joke during most of the movie. For one the proposed CIA leader guy wasn't speaking english. Also you never heard the questions, and the interviews were edited. Near the end it became much more obvious though. The guy that was "burned to death in a car accident" looked unscathed and there were a bunch of santas around him. And the guy that was suppolsedly cut up into little pieces and that was a suicide. How is that even possable?!?!? What are you going to do, chop off your arm then give the severed arm the machete, hatchet, surgical saw, butcher knife, sword, axe, sawblade, cleaver, ect. and have it chop you up then throw itself into a meat grinder? Or are you just going to jump into a meat grinder and get squeezed into the creepy intestine resembling tendrels of meat? That was really the bit that sealed the deal of "This movie is a joke" for me. I was pritty sure that it was fake, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I thought that other than to make a point this film was fairly pointless. It was boring and serious, but still not educational at all and its only concievable porpuse was to make a point. It would've been fairly easy to believe had I not been granting a slight fraction of my attention to the movie (in my defense it was really boring, and i was really tired, and i didn't have a pillow to sit on). Some of the points that were made seemed factually sound and convincing. The only part that i really could've beleaved was when they talked about the cameras and the flag and the footprints on the moon.

Footprints 1

The footprints of many people differ. My footprint is different than others. Mine is calculated by power consumption, the foods I eat, and the waste that follows. In a normal day I use coal power to power my house. The lights I use, the heating of my house, the computer I am typing on is also sucking in power. The average day of my life puts smog and the like into the air, from coal use. The foods I eat also cause problems. For one, almost all of the foods that stay in my house, as well as most other homes, has been packaged. Whether that packaging is individual, or a big bag it still gets thrown away and causes more problems. Another problem is that foods that aren't consumed are usually thrown away as well. Many people will throw away their foods and then it goes to the landfiland rots releasing its internal carbon dioxide contaminating more of the air. My family trys to throw out old foods into our backyard so that the wildlife around my house can eat it and keep it from going to waste. Old bread is thrown by the birds. Meat scraps are thrown to the coyotes. Old fruits and vegatables are givin to my iguana. Other food leftovers that cannot be disposed of by the surronding wildlife, like seafood remains, are sadly thrown away to be stuffed into a landfill. Another problem that I cause is that my family and I add lead and other metals to the environment through guns. We will often go target shooting. We will spend some days shooting clay pidgeons and shooting soda cans, bottle caps, or just random stuff around the area. The bullets contain lead and other metals which leak out and poison the surrounding area. The clay pidgeons break, and will sometimes biodegrate, and other times won't. Also the car we use to carry the guns and get to the places we shoot uses up a lot of gas (unfortunitly we only get about 9 miles to the gallon). We have two other cars that we use most of the time and the 9mpg truck is almost never used. The other cars have better gas milage, but still release carbon dioxide (or is it monoxide i can never remember, but I will continue to call it carbon dioxide) into the air, and use up natural resources. Our small jeep is used by my dad to get to his various job sites and runs most of the day. The other car is used for trips, driving into school, getting groceries, ect. Our ditbikes, snowmobiles, and speed boat also use up gas and release carbon dioxide. Odds are good that my footprint and my families footprint is fairly large, but what are we going to do about it? There's really not much that we can do to change that fact. The human race is in decline. We are going to burn out our resources, kill ourselves and many other species while we're at it, but eventually nature will right itself and hopefully another species like us will never evolve on this or any other planet. So lets just hope we are all dead before we run out because thats going to be one horrible horrible place, and we're to blame because of our large impact and mindless onward march to destruction. =)