Food Epidemic

            The film “Super sized me” attacked the fast-food industries for contributing to obesity in the United States. Obesity is a health problem in the United States; indeed the USA is the fattest country in the world. More than 60% of adult Americans are obese. Obesity can bring many problems such as premature death, risk of heart attack, and diabetes and many more. About fifteen million people in the United States have diabetes.  Morgan Spurlock, the director of this film decided to do an experiment after he had heard that two person had blamed their overweight issue on the fast food places. After the industrial revolution not only has there been an increase in population but many industrial businesses had made profit and huge amounts of money through their junk food.

His experiment was eating MacDonald’s for 30 days; no exceptions. He was to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Another of his rule was that he had to sample every single menu item within the month. Before anything, he had consulted his experiment with three doctors. They all told him he was healthy and that he was the right weight for his right height. With this said his end results are devastating to hear. Later, his weight increases dramatically. Indeed, it is fascinating how in less than a week, he gain ten pounds. That is unbelievable to me. I have wanted to gain weight in order to grow muscle; however it is nearly impossible since I exercise too much through soccer. I don’t think I can balance between food and exercise. Although I do eat a lot, my exercise is quadruple of what I eat.

At the end of his experiment, he had gained about twenty-five pounds. During this thirty day, he felt very weak, tire, with anxiety. Later, MacDonald’s food had become a necessity for him. It had become an addiction to some extent. After he ate it, he felt relieved and happy. Through this we see how organisms are able to adapt to certain habits in order for them to succeed in them. Morgan and the organism share the same concept just in different forms.   After his experiment, he had achieved many things. Every MacDonald’s must have nutrition table indicating how many calories they are going to consume. It is a law; came to be known as the cheese burger bill. Also, the super size me, sometime later had been abolished. This experiment woke up many Americans and made them think critically whether they were making the right choices of food. We see here how humans are rapidly becoming obese as time passes; thus we are producing more food. Sooner, we will deplete these resources: food. We humans must be careful with what we eat since it will not only makes us healthier but it can help our planet. 

Forest.!

In environmental class an issue that we came across was about deforestation. After European settlement forests have decreased around the world. As time has progress deforestation has increased more and more. About 300 million acres of forests have been cleared due to agriculture in the 19^th century according to this article (Forests). Also, one-third of the nation is forested; also how before the European settlement, forest covered about 1 billion acres of what is now the United States. Today there are many causes of forest loss such as urbanization, conversion to agriculture, reservoir construction, and natural disasters (Environment). For example, coniferous forests on the eastern and western regions mostly are coniferous forests.

About ten million private individuals own about 422 million of acres of forest and other woodland. Furthermore, most public forest land is run by four Federal agencies known as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. Today many forests are use for many purposes. Some are use for timber production, recreation, hunting, fishing, watershed and fish’s protection, wildlife habitat and biodiversity protection, and obtaining products to aid to the medicine field.

            In the class, I learned about degradation of habitats. With this said, I learn that in conservation biology was invented as scientist were seeing that their natural systems were extinguishing; therefore scientists began to find solutions to restore our natural systems such as forest. Within that forest, we find biodiversity, most public land is owned by federal agencies and one of those agencies is Wild Life and Biodiversity Protection. From our class, we learn that biodiversity is essential for stabilizing a population. There can be diversity at many levels such as ecosystem, species, and at the genetic diversity. All three played a major role in environmental science today. Another main causes of forest loss and that correlates to biodiversity loss in that by getting rid of forest we are making species vulnerable to extinction, as we are destroying their habitats. And since biodiversity offers free ecosystem services we may destroy all these services. Ecosystem services gives us food, shelter, fuel, purifies air and water, and detoxifies wastes, stabilizes climate, moderates floods, droughts, wind, temperature.

            This is an issue that everyone should be aware of it. As our population is increasing rapidly, there would be the need to cut down more forests for human use. We must observe this very carefully and avoid doing it, and find other ways to make room for more people to live on this planet Earth. If we don’t start to worry about this depletion of forests, soon all the trees might be gone, and more problems would occur, one of them being that there wouldn’t be oxygen for us humans. Humans should get to act quickly and begin to care more about our environment because soon if one ecosystem collapses then everything collapses. It’s a domino effect. We humans must prevent that at all costs.

The Sixth Extinction- Is it Inevitable?

Today diversity is found in nearly every single part of the world.  Diversity (variety of species) can be found in different habitats. Homo sapiens, a scientific name used for humans, today play a major role in the abundance of diversity found in the planet. Homo sapiens are not the only species on this planet; indeed, millions of other species living along with us is what makes diversity so complex and crucial. I believe that we must understand diversity in order to help sustain the future of our environment. We must look upon our actions which are impacting Earth greatly.

Throughout time, many species have gone extinct, and yet we “humans” are still here. I believe it is through luck that we have survived in this planet. Now, we are depleting our natural resources (water, fish, land, air, minerals, etc.) twice as fast as before. It is said to believe that 99.9 percent of all species that have ever step foot on this planet are extinct today.

This is one of my major concerns: extinction. I believe that the only way to maintain biodiversity is through maintaining our environment balance. I believe that humans have destroyed most of the habitats as well has intervene with other species’ habitat. Humans today are causing damage to our planet through hunting, and contamination such as pollution, excess of garbage, and the creation of technology. Humans have decreased diversity today through hunting, also bringing invasive species to new ecosystems, and by changing a habitat completely to meet their needs. By changing the state of a habitat, (known as fragmentation of habitat) is one of the most influential changes humans have created since it explains how human growth population is over taking wild habitats. These can be done through the expansion of agriculture, the building of towns and cities, and deforestation.

By incorporating these ideas, scientist believed that we are the “sixth extinction” referring to us-Homo sapiens. It is an idea that all species eventually go extinct, it is inevitable, and so humans will eventually exceed their resources as I have learned from my environmental class. Thus, in the end we will completely vanish from Earth. This is Extinction!! It is known as the Sixth Extinction because prior in history, there has been previous mass extinctions known as the Big Five mass extinctions.

 The future of mankind is destined to be extinct; there is no way out. Our future, not so distant, will be disastrous as many scientists have put it. However, as much as it is destined to happened, we can push our extinction farther in the future by changing our habits. It is our duty to understand the nature and protect it and avoid harming it. I have seen how people have no respect for animals. People should value other species living today and should see that they too deserve the same respect as us. This isn’t just our plant; it belongs to every life form that has ever lived on this planet. Animals are just important as Homo sapiens.

 Homo sapiens have played a major role in shaping the Earth today; thus encompassing the nature and wildlife. Humans are the ultimate “Sixth Extinction”. This event, I believe is inevitable, life is a cycle. In my perspective, I believe that everything that has a beginning must have an end! Our end can come much sooner than we expect if we don’t tried to conserve the diversity of life on this planet,  and avoid our depletion of natural resources.  

    

Abusing The Environment Just For Oil

Ever since the Industrial revolution, oil has being exploited by many countries. Most cases today, oil is not found everywhere in the world. People today will over pass anything just to make profit out of oil and often abuse the environment and the people living in that habitat. Some countries today depend on other country’s oil to not only increase their economy, but to maintain their needs. For example, the United States, being a very powerful country will send oil companies to other countries in the world to extract oil; then they will bring it back to the United States. Those people don’t see the drawbacks of oil extraction and how it is damaging our environment.

            When these companies are in other countries mining for oil, they don’t understand how they are contaminating the water, soil, and the air that every person in that environment lives of off. Right away we see that by contaminating that environment, we instantly see how it can affect those people. Sadly, this reminded me of what had happened in Ecuador not that long ago.  Ecuador, my country, is located near the Amazon Rain Forest. The Amazon Rain Forest and the people were being affected by an oil company named Texaco-Chevron.

At the time, the government’s mail goal was to seek oil at any expense even if it meant affecting the health of those people living there, and destroying that environment. However, the funny part was that they deny it all; and blame it on Petro-Ecuador. It was unforgettable to see how that company had abused the environment, oil, and the people living there. This had led to many years of lawsuits.

The Amazon in Ecuador had been beautiful; thus, after the extraction of the oil, it was severely devastated. It had impacted the soil, which then made it difficult for plants to grow. They had contaminated the water by mixing it with the oil waste; consequently, it affected the people there, since that water was being used by them for drinking, bathing, and cooking. Many people got sick, and many even died due to the lack of money and services such as clean water, hospitals, and medicines. Others developed diseases such as cancer. Animals were being found dead in the middle of the forests, roads, and the water.   The damage that Chevron had created was almost irreversible. 

I just can’t understand how people can make irrational decisions that can not only affect only our environment, but it can affect our health.  Countries should be cautious of what they will create with their actions. People should always be on the look out of what they will create with their actions. To avoid this, I say we must find alternative ways to seek energy like wind power and solar energy.

            

Ecuador: This is how the environment was left after the pumping of oil.

Technology Has Replace Nature

Entering my blue line on a night sky on a regular day in Chicago just frustrates me as I see that I can’t see any stars. Looking around, all I see is light everywhere.  Throughout history, the more advance we have become with technology, the more we are forgetting about nature. Humans have built rail lines, roads, houses, etc, that has taken away the essence of what really nature is. Humans now just live through using inefficient transportation methods; spend more time inside with materialistic objects, and dispose of their unnecessary garbage inappropriately that it is causing the planet to be unhealthy.

 Humans now rely more on trolleys, cars, trucks, motorcycles to get from one place to another. In doing so, they have no idea how much pollution they are contributing to the ozone layer. Humans have become lazy over time, as they have created these methods of transportations. Back in the era, before cars, people were more active since their only method of transportation was by walking. By adding all these transportations, they have had to get rid of inhabited arable land. This arable land is nature; therefore, humans have in a sense have put aside nature over technology.

In the world of 2010, humans most days rather spent time inside with their video games, plasma televisions, even exercising inside. People have forgotten about the essence of our nature. By living in the city, they have put technology a priority over nature. Today people rather spent their days inside doing activities that involve with materialistic objects, than take a walk in the park and admire the sky, the trees, and the beauty of our nature. To some extent, people have conformed to the idea that technology is the way to success and to live. They have put aside our values for nature.

Cities now are much filled with landfills that not only take up arable land, but it can create bad odor. These landfills can sometimes create diseases that can affect humans.  In the streets today, people dispose unnecessary objects like radios, televisions, old working-out machines that in the first place shouldn’t be needed since we humans have built these materials that only just create unneeded waste.  

All in all, society has shift from a more nature-based lifestyle to a technology lifestyle. As technology has taken over everything, people have put aside nature for objects that are never really needed. Although, human technology has brought many benefits to our society, it has lessened our respect for nature.

My Neighboorhood

 As soon as I step out of my house on a typical summer day in the year 2010, I turned and see vehicles, trucks, motorcycles racing down my block. I see all that smoke, and yes its going way in the sky, which affects our ozone layer. This is known as the greenhouse effect. As I continue to walk down my block I see people throwing Burger King bags, candy wrappers, bottles, and newspapers scatter all over; in turn, leaving my neighborhood in complete disaster. When I look at people’s lawns, they are filled with garbage, along with the tall grass they haven’t cut in ages. Do people not care about their front yards? Is it that hard to keep our neighborhood clean?  People should be aware that by not doing simple things as picking up trash, that they are making OUR neighborhood look like a dumpster. With the very few trees that I see in my block, many of them are with graffiti. Now, I ask myself, are people not seeing what they are creating, an environment where everything looks like crap.

 As I continue to walk down my block I encounter a dead bird with mosquitoes eating its flesh meat on the sidewalk. I soon begin to think what could have caused this misfortune. But more importantly, I don’t understand why people see this, and don’t do anything about it. They should be proactive and dispose of it efficiently. When I was small, and I saw dead animals on the streets, I would call my mom and she would put it in a bag and throw it away. Now, I do it myself. This is what people should do; instead, I see people walking through it and ignoring it. 

As I am crossing the street , I see my alley. In my alley, I see blue and black garbage cans, but what infuriates me is that people don’t bother to dispose of their garbage properly. In the blue garbage cans, where it is only suppose to be recyclable materials, I see hazardous materials such as electronic waste, tires, foam packaging. It does not take more than ten minutes to categorize the waste, people are just plain lazy. They should stop being careless and become Eco-friendly in their neighborhood. People should reflect on how we are treating our neighborhood. They should have respect for the little nature found in our neighborhood.

My Newfound Love

       

When I was in high school, I loathed science. I took physics, chemistry, and biology; but none of them really inspired me. None of these classes grabbed my attention. Science was very tedious for me in my  first three years of high school. The classes weren't difficult either; they seemed uninteresting. To excel in these courses, all I ever did was memorize formulas and definitions.  By doing this, I never got a sense of what science was really about. I thought these classes were very unnecessary and just a waste of my time. Being just a high school student, I would always say to myself what's the point of learning about our planet? Or will I ever use this knowledge? However, after taking Environmental Science my senior year, my attitude towards science completely changed. Our first assignment in the class was to read a book called “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold.

         Reading this book changed my perspective, and developed my appreciation for science. The book encouraged me to appreciate and respect the Earth. The book greatly emphasized the beauty of the seasons; thus explaining how each season could bring such a warm feeling into our hearts. Moreover, in one of the chapters he discussed land ethics. Leopold suggested that by building a relationship with the wild, people will show more respect to the land, and treat it with care and admiration. By now, my appreciation for the Earth had grown. As the course progressed, I was always very eager to learn more and more about our planet. Now, I realized that science is far beyond just knowing formulas and definitions, but its about learning to see how are planet operates, and how we impact our planet by our actions. We must see our planet as what it really is - "a marvelous paradise".

         Now with my newfound love, I want to show people where our planet stands today, and instill in them admiration and respect. I want to show people the reality of our actions. Their activities are what are causing our “marvelous paradise” to become an unhealthy habitat. By showing them a glimpse of where our world is heading to, hopefully people would reflect upon their actions and value our Mother Earth. If you would like to share your thoughts or have any questions please feel free to make any comments. You can also email me at cordero6@uic.edu.