Blog #3 An Inconvenient Truth

The former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" deals with Global warming from high Carbon Dioxide levels, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, and other effects to the atmosphere from human disturbances. Al Gore shows a lot of different data like Carbon Dioxide increases and temperature increases. Both these levels have spiked in the past few years, and Gore is right in trying to get people to act when it comes to helping the Earth. National Geographic News asked earth scientist Eric Steig about the claims Gore was making and the data he was giving. Steig watched the documentary and claimed that Gore wasn't many crazy accusations. Apparently Gore's data and claims were actually pretty accurate.

       I thought the documentary was not only inspiring, but it had facts, pictures and data to back up Gore's claims about global warming. Gore also shows that global warming is effecting the weather. Hurricanes have doubled in the past few years, and studies indicate that they've been getting stronger too as they enter the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina was a perfect example, as it grew in size exponentially as it hit the now warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico. So I believe that the tragedy in Louisiana wasn't entirely a natural disaster because we helped those waters get warmer by poisoning our atmosphere with toxious gases. What is even worse about these facts is that disasters like this are more likely to happen more often if we don't get our act together. Al Gore is trying to get the whole world to understand that, and he deserves a lot more credit. Some people think he is doing all this to get attention, and that doesn't make much sense to me. Al Gore has done a lot of research and presentations around the world on this topic, and that seems like a little drastic if he was just trying to get attention. Paris Hilton is trying to get attention, not Al Gore. Al Gore is trying to save the only planet we live on, and like he said, he's doing it the only way he knows how, by doing these presentations all over the world one city at a time.

Pictures like this show what global warming is doing.

      Some of the picture comparisons of glaciers from now and back in the twenties shows that global warming is a real threat, because these glaciers and the ice near the poles are very important to this world.

Blog #2 Corkscrew Sanctuary

The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is some of Florida's freshwater wetland ecosystems. The swamp contains the only wetlands that haven't been noticeably affected by human behavior. We need more protected ecosystems like this. The Sanctuary has many plants and animals that are protected from our waste and destruction. The boardwalk for visitors also provides education for many of Florida's students and that may spark interest in at least a few of them. The more knowledge that is instilled in children of south west Florida about the wetlands of Florida, the better chance of these protected areas have of staying protected. The Sanctuary also is a great place for scientists to research, because they don't have to worry about being interrupted by land development or anything of that sort.

      One of the really good things that they are doing with the wild life is creating an "Invasive Species Task Force" that launched in 2009. An invasive species is a plant or animal that is not native to a certain habitat, but somehow they are there anyways. They are usually brought from overseas by travelers and usually released into the wild accidentally, sometimes purposely. The Invasive Species Task Force monitors these species and are making an effort to controlling these species because most of them bring destruction to ecosystems and it is very important that populations of these invaders don't soar and bring more destruction to our wetlands. One species that is a huge problem is the Burmese Python. This species of python is very dangerous and is moving from the wild and into cities. Just imagine going in the shower, looking up at your shower head and instead it's the head of a python with his mouth opened up to the size of your shoulders, not cool.

       More vital than anything to Florida is our water levels. If anyone hasn't noticed, Florida is completely flat, so monitoring water levels is very important. Of course monitoring water levels is important for more reasons than just keeping us from going under. Different species of plants and animals benefit from the water being at certain levels, and monitoring these levels closely is very important for helping those species survive. The water levels affects us humans too, for instance the water we get from Lake Okeechobee. Water flows from Lake Okeechobee to south west Florida and south east Florida and that flowing water needs to be closely monitored for our sake.

Blog #1 The Environment

When discussing the environment, you have to talk about the natural environment, which are living and non-living things that take place naturally on Earth, and then there is the environment that is created by human activity. From what I have learned through environmentalists and from what I’ve learned in this class, the natural environment of our planet, is being effected much more than most of us know. If we want our planet to be here and all the resources that keep us alive to be here in the future, we must all do our part in something called ecological sustainability. This isn’t something we can fix all at once, it’s a developmental process that takes several steps from everyone to help our lives, and future generations. 

       

       Not only do we need to watch how we're effecting the environment for our own sake, but there are a lot of other species of plants and animals out there that deserve to live just as much as we do. Even if "we" don't need certain species to live, it's still important that they stay well populated because they are a part of this world too. The diversity of life is what makes Earth so great, not just that we have life on our planet. 

      I believe that global warming is something that needs to be dealt with now. What I think is going on is people don't want to believe that it's real, even though scientists have proven that it is effecting us. Two things you can look at that tells us we need to do something is carbon dioxide levels and glaciers melting. Carbon Dioxide levels are getting so high that they are effecting weather. We can also see how much smaller glaciers have gotten and that is already effecting the polar bear population. They have a certain environment that they need for survival and we're effecting it.  

        A big role in any environment is biological diversity. In biodiversity, all the species in that ecosystem has an important role in their environment. If one of these species disappears because a climate change effected by humans, that whole ecosystem can suffer. So one of the biggest problem with effecting ecosystems has got to be people having a lack of education of how they can effect life. I believe that as people who know how we can help our planet, it is our job to educate people who don't know how to help our environment.