Thinking back from the first day of class, I was not excited to go to this class. Over the classes, I began to enjoy this class more and more because of the freedom we. There was a reading here and there, but I felt the class was very free flowing from my other classes. I found a new respect for writing in this class this semester. I was always a person who would just jump in and start typing until the paper was completed. For this class, I couldn’t do that and come out with a good draft. I felt all my papers were less structured to fit the cookie cutter style, but more organized. I felt my writing has improved and the way I use logic in my papers has improved also. Sadly, that doesn’t mean my grammar or spelling has improved. I still find writing papers semi difficult, but after this class I have the potential to write better papers if I put effort into them. I felt the rebuttal argument was always something I learned in middle and high school. To disprove someone and win. This was my least favorite type of argument, but I have a feeling this is the most effective type of argument. The rogerian was my favorite. I felt it had a non threatening style, where finding compromises was the key to success. I have to admit I had the most fun with the rogerian argument paper. Finally, the narrative argument was my 2nd favorite. I felt the usage of stories was always something we incorporated into our papers, but using it as primary evidence made me a little hesitant. But in anyway, I still had a good time writing it so far.
Overall, I felt this class was one of my more productive classes where I can take what I learn and use it n the future. I rarely regret not going to this class in the morning; even if this class is so early. I learned
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Response to "Take a Hard Look"
To say that JMU has a drinking problem seems to only apply to maybe around half of the kids here (maybe a little more). But the reason why springfest has caught so much negative publicity is because the negatives stand out. For example, when most people revise papers, they are searching for mistakes and errors, and not looking at how well your paper was written. That is my view on what happened at springfest. To address the issue about JMU having a drinking problem, I feel our school is like any other school. I can’t say I haven’t drank here at JMU, or that I didn’t drink on the day of Springfest, but I can say for sure that I was not at the riot or any near the Forest Hill Manor housing complex. I can even say I didn’t even consume alcohol at that time of the riot, but the fact that I did consume alcohol that night makes me apart of the problem of JMU having a drinking problem. If we are to address the drinking problems at JMU, we first have to step back and observe all other colleges.
Reflection 3.2
For my second draft, I felt I answered a couple of questions that I had when writing the first draft. Like the rogerian paper, I felt I needed to do some major organizing to get some facts across that were not getting across clearly. I know on this draft there are some areas when I read through the paper where I thought this was the ending of the paper when it wasn’t. It is just hard when you add an argument into your stories. Also, another thing that is hard to do is adding my information from my outside sources in. I have 3 sources, one scholarly, that I can add in. But the hardest thing I feel is to not distrust the flow of the paper. For example, I start off by semi mentioning the Exxon Valdez incident, and I was planning to show this incident as a destruction of the environment real world example. But now, I cannot find a good chuck of area I can put this part of the information. The same is for the other two
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
3.2 Awareness to Help the Enviroment
Just a Note, I have my sources from my last paper and I am just wondering where to put these sources that doesn’t disrupt the flow of the paper. So, there are no sources that are added in this paper, but I have done research on this topic.
5 years ago, I remember going to Redondo Beach in California where I was able to swim and wade through the waves as they would go through me on a typical sunny California day. I can remember the warm sand through my toes and the miles of clean sand. This is one of the golden memories of my childhood. This past summer, my mother, sister and I decided to visit our family over at California. In the process, most of us wanted to go to the Redondo Beach. To my shock and disappointment, the first thing I saw when walking to the water was the sign “Swim at your own Risk”.
The first thing I thought was “Oh, no lifeguards. This will be okay because I don’t plan to swim; I just plan to walk in the water and stay there for a little.” As I stood there for around 5 minutes, I took in the scenery of the beach. I saw around 25 people, mostly kids, in the water in a half of mile stretch of beach. I also saw that there were a low number of umbrellas on the beach. My first thought was that it was a busy day and many people were just not going to the beach, but I would find out that I was very wrong. I decided to come up to go to the pier and the first thought that cross my mind was sand was sticking to the bottom of my foot. I thought it was normal, but after I put my sandal on, it stuck to my foot. After I took off my sandal and looked at the bottom of my foot, I found out that I had oil that basically covered half of the bottom of my foot. I was really confused to why there was oil on the bottom of my foot until my aunt connected the dots for me. That “Swim at your own Risk” sign was telling us that this beach was no longer safe to swim at.
I knew there were many places all of the world that were being environmentally destroyed such as the coral reefs and the wetlands because of pollution and irresponsibleness of major companies and human beings, but I wouldn’t have expected this big beach to have the status of “Swim at your own Risk” because of pollution. This situation really opened my eyes to the problems we as human beings are causing to our environment. The more I look around through the internet and through my own eyes from my daily routine, the more I see our environment is being mistreated and destroyed because of the pollution we are producing and the mistreatment we are doing to our environment. I feel we need to find a solution to protect our environment because if we keep on this tract of harming the environment through our pollution, there will be no safe environment left for our future generations to live in.
I watch the news everyday and read news from the internet about the conversation of the environment. Most issues today all have something to do with global warming. This is the biggest environmental issue that plagues our generations and I feel all the political efforts to save the environment are based towards prevent global warming. But I feel the approach of saving the environment by fixing global warming will act as a quick fix for our environmental problems. My critical thinking professor, who is a big advocate on protecting and conserving the environment, taught me that people will solve problems when they see that problem must be fixed and has priority over all over problems,. From the news of today, today’s problems are all around tax rates, war, oil, and the economy. These are the main issues that the government feels they need to fix first in order to keep the society of the United States happy. But lingering in the shadow is a problem that has been put in the back seat for many years because new problems keep occurring.
This problem is the destruction of the environment. Since the environment has very little direct connections to the typical human, most people feel the destruction of the environment is not an issue with top priority. Recently, issue has been brought to global warming and as a result has shined a light on other areas of the destruction of the environment. But shining a light on the problem does little to help fix it. I feel the government needs to take steps in protecting the government by reducing pollution caused by humans and by companies. Also, I feel we as the society need to take steps in developing habits that are beneficial to the environment. These habits can range from trying to save electricity and not buying everything you want to recycle. All of these changes will result in a healthier environment for future generations.
I remember last year I had a field trip with my biology class to the Potomac River, just outside Washington D.C. The purpose of this field trip was to learn about the environment and also to get a hand on experience with working with different equipments and tests. When I got to the river and stepped on the boat that would be taking us, the first thing I noticed was the color of the water. The water had the color of a big mud pit you would see outside your house after a big rain storm. When I looked closer, I could see some areas of the river that was completely black. The boat captain said this was because of two reasons. The first reason he gave me was since there was a lot of construction all around the river, the dirt and soil around the river would be transferred into the river, causing the color of the river to shift to a darker brown color. The second reason he gave me was the trash and pollutions from factories and from the sewage systems coming from D.C.
After traveling a little further down the river, we decided to perform some test on the river. We did a pH test and a turbidity test. The pH test would determine if the water was acidic or basic; and that would determine how much oxygen was in the river. The turbidity test would basically test of the clarity and the cleanliness of the river. After going through 30 minutes of picking up test tubes and dropping white disk into the river, we finished both test and found disturbing results. The pH test told us that the water had a pH of around 4. The pH scales from 1 to 14, where the lower the number is the more acidic the water is and the higher the number being the more basic the number is. For most organisms, such as human and fish, the recommended pH is 7. This meant that there was a low level of oxygen in the river for the fish and other organisms to breathe. When looking at the results of the turbidity test, we found out that we could look more than 2 feet down into the water and see mud. This told me that there was no chance I could see the bottom of the river and that the water was really cloudy and disgusting. These results pointed to the fact that this ecosystem for fish and underwater organisms was terrible. When I asked what the cause of these disturbing results was, the answer was the same as before; pollution and construction of new buildings around the river.
When driving back to the dock to park the boat, I got a first hand view of the causes that were harming the river. Along the sides of the river were big semi circles made out of metal that blended with the bank of the river. The captain said those big semi circles were the old drainage system for the city. He said “When the city has rain storms and the new drainage systems are just not enough to handle the amount of rain, the rain goes to the old drainage system and dumps into the river.” This didn’t seem like a big problem until me mentioned that all the trash in the city that would wash up into the drains would basically be dumped into the river. This could be seemed a little further down the river were we could see islands of trash just sitting in the shallow areas of the river. I could see McDonald wrappers, cigarette buds, soda cans, and other things that belonged in the landfills. Also, when sailing back to the dock, I could see pipes that would go along the river and would dump into the river. Even though there were was nothing coming out of the pipes, I knew what was coming out of those pipes was not good for the river and the ecosystem.
It seems ironic that in the backyard of the capital is a river that is totally disgusting to look at and can be dangerous to swim in. But the Potomac River is just one example where pollution has basically destroyed the environment and ecosystem.
Overall, harm to the environment can be caused by the pollution that humans and companies produce and when people are mistreating the environment. To be able to protect the environment is to ensure that our future generations are able to live a life where they do not need to worry about the environment having negative affects on them or their own children. And the only way to produce prevention on negative effects to the environment is to make changes on how we do things now. Maybe in the future, I could return to Redondo Beach and swim in it without the chance of stepping in oil.
Citation List
1) “Facts about Illegal Dumping”. City of Dayton Serving the Community. 2008. April 15, 2010 Web
2) “The Effects of Oil on Wildlife”. Australian Government. April 15, 2010 Web
3) Morris, Brandon. “Oil, Money, and the Environment: Punitive Damage under Due Process, Preemption, and Maritime Law in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Ligation”. Tulane Maritime Law Journal. Issue 1(2008): 165-202. Print
5 years ago, I remember going to Redondo Beach in California where I was able to swim and wade through the waves as they would go through me on a typical sunny California day. I can remember the warm sand through my toes and the miles of clean sand. This is one of the golden memories of my childhood. This past summer, my mother, sister and I decided to visit our family over at California. In the process, most of us wanted to go to the Redondo Beach. To my shock and disappointment, the first thing I saw when walking to the water was the sign “Swim at your own Risk”.
The first thing I thought was “Oh, no lifeguards. This will be okay because I don’t plan to swim; I just plan to walk in the water and stay there for a little.” As I stood there for around 5 minutes, I took in the scenery of the beach. I saw around 25 people, mostly kids, in the water in a half of mile stretch of beach. I also saw that there were a low number of umbrellas on the beach. My first thought was that it was a busy day and many people were just not going to the beach, but I would find out that I was very wrong. I decided to come up to go to the pier and the first thought that cross my mind was sand was sticking to the bottom of my foot. I thought it was normal, but after I put my sandal on, it stuck to my foot. After I took off my sandal and looked at the bottom of my foot, I found out that I had oil that basically covered half of the bottom of my foot. I was really confused to why there was oil on the bottom of my foot until my aunt connected the dots for me. That “Swim at your own Risk” sign was telling us that this beach was no longer safe to swim at.
I knew there were many places all of the world that were being environmentally destroyed such as the coral reefs and the wetlands because of pollution and irresponsibleness of major companies and human beings, but I wouldn’t have expected this big beach to have the status of “Swim at your own Risk” because of pollution. This situation really opened my eyes to the problems we as human beings are causing to our environment. The more I look around through the internet and through my own eyes from my daily routine, the more I see our environment is being mistreated and destroyed because of the pollution we are producing and the mistreatment we are doing to our environment. I feel we need to find a solution to protect our environment because if we keep on this tract of harming the environment through our pollution, there will be no safe environment left for our future generations to live in.
I watch the news everyday and read news from the internet about the conversation of the environment. Most issues today all have something to do with global warming. This is the biggest environmental issue that plagues our generations and I feel all the political efforts to save the environment are based towards prevent global warming. But I feel the approach of saving the environment by fixing global warming will act as a quick fix for our environmental problems. My critical thinking professor, who is a big advocate on protecting and conserving the environment, taught me that people will solve problems when they see that problem must be fixed and has priority over all over problems,. From the news of today, today’s problems are all around tax rates, war, oil, and the economy. These are the main issues that the government feels they need to fix first in order to keep the society of the United States happy. But lingering in the shadow is a problem that has been put in the back seat for many years because new problems keep occurring.
This problem is the destruction of the environment. Since the environment has very little direct connections to the typical human, most people feel the destruction of the environment is not an issue with top priority. Recently, issue has been brought to global warming and as a result has shined a light on other areas of the destruction of the environment. But shining a light on the problem does little to help fix it. I feel the government needs to take steps in protecting the government by reducing pollution caused by humans and by companies. Also, I feel we as the society need to take steps in developing habits that are beneficial to the environment. These habits can range from trying to save electricity and not buying everything you want to recycle. All of these changes will result in a healthier environment for future generations.
I remember last year I had a field trip with my biology class to the Potomac River, just outside Washington D.C. The purpose of this field trip was to learn about the environment and also to get a hand on experience with working with different equipments and tests. When I got to the river and stepped on the boat that would be taking us, the first thing I noticed was the color of the water. The water had the color of a big mud pit you would see outside your house after a big rain storm. When I looked closer, I could see some areas of the river that was completely black. The boat captain said this was because of two reasons. The first reason he gave me was since there was a lot of construction all around the river, the dirt and soil around the river would be transferred into the river, causing the color of the river to shift to a darker brown color. The second reason he gave me was the trash and pollutions from factories and from the sewage systems coming from D.C.
After traveling a little further down the river, we decided to perform some test on the river. We did a pH test and a turbidity test. The pH test would determine if the water was acidic or basic; and that would determine how much oxygen was in the river. The turbidity test would basically test of the clarity and the cleanliness of the river. After going through 30 minutes of picking up test tubes and dropping white disk into the river, we finished both test and found disturbing results. The pH test told us that the water had a pH of around 4. The pH scales from 1 to 14, where the lower the number is the more acidic the water is and the higher the number being the more basic the number is. For most organisms, such as human and fish, the recommended pH is 7. This meant that there was a low level of oxygen in the river for the fish and other organisms to breathe. When looking at the results of the turbidity test, we found out that we could look more than 2 feet down into the water and see mud. This told me that there was no chance I could see the bottom of the river and that the water was really cloudy and disgusting. These results pointed to the fact that this ecosystem for fish and underwater organisms was terrible. When I asked what the cause of these disturbing results was, the answer was the same as before; pollution and construction of new buildings around the river.
When driving back to the dock to park the boat, I got a first hand view of the causes that were harming the river. Along the sides of the river were big semi circles made out of metal that blended with the bank of the river. The captain said those big semi circles were the old drainage system for the city. He said “When the city has rain storms and the new drainage systems are just not enough to handle the amount of rain, the rain goes to the old drainage system and dumps into the river.” This didn’t seem like a big problem until me mentioned that all the trash in the city that would wash up into the drains would basically be dumped into the river. This could be seemed a little further down the river were we could see islands of trash just sitting in the shallow areas of the river. I could see McDonald wrappers, cigarette buds, soda cans, and other things that belonged in the landfills. Also, when sailing back to the dock, I could see pipes that would go along the river and would dump into the river. Even though there were was nothing coming out of the pipes, I knew what was coming out of those pipes was not good for the river and the ecosystem.
It seems ironic that in the backyard of the capital is a river that is totally disgusting to look at and can be dangerous to swim in. But the Potomac River is just one example where pollution has basically destroyed the environment and ecosystem.
Overall, harm to the environment can be caused by the pollution that humans and companies produce and when people are mistreating the environment. To be able to protect the environment is to ensure that our future generations are able to live a life where they do not need to worry about the environment having negative affects on them or their own children. And the only way to produce prevention on negative effects to the environment is to make changes on how we do things now. Maybe in the future, I could return to Redondo Beach and swim in it without the chance of stepping in oil.
Citation List
1) “Facts about Illegal Dumping”. City of Dayton Serving the Community. 2008. April 15, 2010 Web
2) “The Effects of Oil on Wildlife”. Australian Government. April 15, 2010 Web
3) Morris, Brandon. “Oil, Money, and the Environment: Punitive Damage under Due Process, Preemption, and Maritime Law in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Ligation”. Tulane Maritime Law Journal. Issue 1(2008): 165-202. Print
Monday, April 19, 2010
Reflection 3.1
For my first draft, I felt a little unsure at times while writing my paper. The hardest thing I felt was creating an argument. It just felt unnatural to me to use a story to create an argument and it shows in my first draft because I really felt there was no main argument. I just choose a very broad topic to use and put stories in my life as evidence. Secondly, I found it hard to add any information that pertains to sources. It just seemed unnatural again to add these facts into my story telling.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sentence Variety Exercise
Sentence Variety Exercise
Last year, I went on a field trip to my Advance Placement Biology class to the Potomac River. (Medium) Simple
The plan was we were going to get a boat and a tour guide that would lead us down the river and we would test the water to see if it was a good ecosystem and also we would just observe the creatures that lived in the river. (Long) Compound
My impression of the river was the color the river. (Short) Simple
It was dark brown in most of the river and in some spots black. (Medium) Simple
I really thought this wasn’t right, but my guide said this was because of all the runoff being produced from the neighboring construction of new buildings. (Long) Compound
Last year, I went on a field trip to my Advance Placement Biology class to the Potomac River. (Medium) Simple
The plan was we were going to get a boat and a tour guide that would lead us down the river and we would test the water to see if it was a good ecosystem and also we would just observe the creatures that lived in the river. (Long) Compound
My impression of the river was the color the river. (Short) Simple
It was dark brown in most of the river and in some spots black. (Medium) Simple
I really thought this wasn’t right, but my guide said this was because of all the runoff being produced from the neighboring construction of new buildings. (Long) Compound
Thursday, April 15, 2010
3.1 Help the Environment
All of this arguing about global warming and the cost of fixing the global warming problem I feel is pointless. This is because I feel the majority of the people who are attempting to solve this issue of global warming are trying to do a quick fix. Yes, it might delay the effects of global warming, but I feel the majority of the efforts to fix global warming should be redirected towards saving the environment and reducing the amount of pollution we are producing that will effect our environment.
Last year, I went on a field trip to my Advance Placement Biology class to the Potomac River. The plan was we were going to get a boat and a tour guide that would lead us down the river and we would test the water to see if it was a good ecosystem and also we would just observe the creatures that lived in the river. My impression of the river was the color the river. It was dark brown in most of the river and in some spots black. I really thought this wasn’t right, but my guide said this was because of all the runoff being produced from the neighboring construction of new buildings.
When we started to test the water for PH test and also a turbidity test, I found out that the river was not healthy. The PH test told me that there was very little oxygen in the river, which resulted in a low population of fish and other creatures that lived the river. Also, the turbidity test was to test the clearness of the water. It was just so surprising how unclear the water was and it made me wonder how did this all happen? Our guide told us that the drainage water from the city, runoff produced from the construction, and some illegal dumping of trash produced this almost toxic river. When we went further down the river, I saw huge semi circle gates that were all lining the side river. My guide told me this is were the trash and also the drainage water from city flows into the river. Right at that point, I saw an island of trash just sitting in the river. The after affects of illegal dumping could be increased “crime activities” in places that allow illegal dumping, contaminates in the drinking water, increase tax payer dollars to fix the river and many other side affects of dumping(Facts about Illegal Dumping). With this being some of the serious side affects of illegal dumping, I wondered who would take the serious end of all the problems that were caused by the illegal dumping. There was Mcdondaldes wrappers, soda cans, and many more items of trash.
After this sight, we decided to go fishing to observe how all of these problems to the river affected the life of the creatues living in the river. After attaching a net to the end of the boat and sailing around for a couple of minutes, we had pulled the net up and we saw some fish. I was surprised we even caught a fish. The guide said told us “Don’t be surpised if you see some deformed fish”. I thought he was kidding because he seemd like a funny man, but whne I picked up some of the fish, I saw random bumps on the sides of the fish. Also, there were some fish that had closed eyes and missing fins. The guide went on and told us that the river we were sailing on was very toxic and these deformations were a result of thes fish get cancer. The one thing I took from this field trip was that this river was toxic and basically a place where you wouldn’t want to go skinny dipping.
But when looking back on the field trip, I found it ironic that the river so close to the Capital was in this type condition. The place were laws are being passed to protect the environment is right next to a river that is uninhabitable and basically toxic to any creatues living in it. I feel that more legalization and more attention needs to be shined on the environment because soon enough, our backyards are going to be toxic to a point where we can not even go near them. Since the environment isn’t an issue that is clearly in trouble to most people, people always put “saving” or “helping” the environment in the back seat to other issues such as unemployment rates and tax issues. But people don’t realize what the environment produces for us. Without the environment, there would be no human race.
The environment and human beings live coincide with each other. If we had no rain forest, we would have terrible air qualities that would force us to take extreme measures to produce a solution. Also, with no rain forest, we would have no materials to create buildings, houses, and shelters; which we need to survive. Another aspect that humans need from the environment is organism. To protect animals that humans consume would be helping the environment because if we were to allow animals that we eat to toxic food that we produced, we would be eating toxic because these animals are toxic. There are so many situations that clearly explain our need for the environment, but the main problem is that we are not protecting the environment essentially need everyday.
A couple of days ago, I was sitting in my critical thinking class and this class is all about sustainability. The professor always talks about how sustainability shouldn’t just be about the environment, but rather sustainability plays into almost every aspect of life. It is a system where one issue will affect all of the other issues as well. For instances, I went to California 5 years ago to a city called Torrance. It is right outside Los Angeles, but it is a more neighborhood style city verse the city feeling Los Angeles. A couple minutes away from the city is Redondo Beach. I remember I always swam at the beach and would always just stand and let the small waves hit me. Also, to my right was a huge pier that usually had a lot of people fishing the top as well as a couple of restaurants serving fresh sea food. Finally, I remember that beach always having a good majority of the people swimming in water and a lot of umbrellas set up with families sitting underneath them. I went back just last year and I found a totally different beach. It was empty. There were zero umbrellas set up, barely any kids swimming in the water and the pier was a lot less crowded from what I remember. Finally, I saw a sign near the water that read “Swim at your Own Risk”. I thought it meant there were no lifeguards on duty, so I stepped into the water. After coming out, I felt my foot was sticky. I found out there was oil on my foot.
I found out that this beach was toxic now because there was oil found in the water at this beach. There could be many reasons for the oil at the beach, but it just surpised me how the oil just floated to the beach. This situation reminded me of the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska. I remember the scenes of the after affect of the oil spill where people would be cleaning off the seals and rocks with tooth brushes. The affects of an oil spill an the wild life surrounding the land are: dieses to many of the animals and their young, making animals more vulnerable to predators, killing many of the animals, and many more serious problems (The Effects of Oil on Wildlife). If I actually wanted to swim, I could have been harmed from the oil in water. This story just plays into sustainability I learned in my critical thinking class. If we don’t keep the environment healthy, it can bite us in back end and harm humans. We can be harmed from our solutions of removing trash or toxic waste from dumping in the oceans.
To have a successful life, every aspect of any life must be sustainable and balanced. Humans discarding trash and dumping waste into the oceans keeps landfills sustainable and available. But when the oceans are all dirty and toxic, the environmental aspect is not sustainable because after years of depending on the oceans as landfill, the oceans will be so toxic and so dirty that we can not even use the oceans to fish for food, swim for fun, or other activates. To keep and create ways to keep the environment sustainable for many other generations will provide a world where humans will be safe and world where the benefit of the environment will not harm humans in the process.
To protect the environment and create legislation to ensure that harm to the environment does not occur is necessary for this planet and our human race to survive. There are many issues that today’s world deals with and I feel the issue of the destruction of the environment always takes a backseat to these issues. But at the time, I feel the protection of the environment could be the most important issue of all because it has a long lasting affect on the future generations of this world. If we are solving all problems that plague this life time and in the process don’t protect the environment, it is for sure to spell out trouble for future generations. By creating legislation and ways to protect the environment efficiently, we are guaranteeing a place for our kids and their kids to live in.
CITATION LIST
1) “Facts about Illegal Dumping”. City of Dayton Serving the Community. 2008. April 15, 2010 Web
2) “The Effects of Oil on Wildlife”. Australian Government. April 15, 2010 Web
Last year, I went on a field trip to my Advance Placement Biology class to the Potomac River. The plan was we were going to get a boat and a tour guide that would lead us down the river and we would test the water to see if it was a good ecosystem and also we would just observe the creatures that lived in the river. My impression of the river was the color the river. It was dark brown in most of the river and in some spots black. I really thought this wasn’t right, but my guide said this was because of all the runoff being produced from the neighboring construction of new buildings.
When we started to test the water for PH test and also a turbidity test, I found out that the river was not healthy. The PH test told me that there was very little oxygen in the river, which resulted in a low population of fish and other creatures that lived the river. Also, the turbidity test was to test the clearness of the water. It was just so surprising how unclear the water was and it made me wonder how did this all happen? Our guide told us that the drainage water from the city, runoff produced from the construction, and some illegal dumping of trash produced this almost toxic river. When we went further down the river, I saw huge semi circle gates that were all lining the side river. My guide told me this is were the trash and also the drainage water from city flows into the river. Right at that point, I saw an island of trash just sitting in the river. The after affects of illegal dumping could be increased “crime activities” in places that allow illegal dumping, contaminates in the drinking water, increase tax payer dollars to fix the river and many other side affects of dumping(Facts about Illegal Dumping). With this being some of the serious side affects of illegal dumping, I wondered who would take the serious end of all the problems that were caused by the illegal dumping. There was Mcdondaldes wrappers, soda cans, and many more items of trash.
After this sight, we decided to go fishing to observe how all of these problems to the river affected the life of the creatues living in the river. After attaching a net to the end of the boat and sailing around for a couple of minutes, we had pulled the net up and we saw some fish. I was surprised we even caught a fish. The guide said told us “Don’t be surpised if you see some deformed fish”. I thought he was kidding because he seemd like a funny man, but whne I picked up some of the fish, I saw random bumps on the sides of the fish. Also, there were some fish that had closed eyes and missing fins. The guide went on and told us that the river we were sailing on was very toxic and these deformations were a result of thes fish get cancer. The one thing I took from this field trip was that this river was toxic and basically a place where you wouldn’t want to go skinny dipping.
But when looking back on the field trip, I found it ironic that the river so close to the Capital was in this type condition. The place were laws are being passed to protect the environment is right next to a river that is uninhabitable and basically toxic to any creatues living in it. I feel that more legalization and more attention needs to be shined on the environment because soon enough, our backyards are going to be toxic to a point where we can not even go near them. Since the environment isn’t an issue that is clearly in trouble to most people, people always put “saving” or “helping” the environment in the back seat to other issues such as unemployment rates and tax issues. But people don’t realize what the environment produces for us. Without the environment, there would be no human race.
The environment and human beings live coincide with each other. If we had no rain forest, we would have terrible air qualities that would force us to take extreme measures to produce a solution. Also, with no rain forest, we would have no materials to create buildings, houses, and shelters; which we need to survive. Another aspect that humans need from the environment is organism. To protect animals that humans consume would be helping the environment because if we were to allow animals that we eat to toxic food that we produced, we would be eating toxic because these animals are toxic. There are so many situations that clearly explain our need for the environment, but the main problem is that we are not protecting the environment essentially need everyday.
A couple of days ago, I was sitting in my critical thinking class and this class is all about sustainability. The professor always talks about how sustainability shouldn’t just be about the environment, but rather sustainability plays into almost every aspect of life. It is a system where one issue will affect all of the other issues as well. For instances, I went to California 5 years ago to a city called Torrance. It is right outside Los Angeles, but it is a more neighborhood style city verse the city feeling Los Angeles. A couple minutes away from the city is Redondo Beach. I remember I always swam at the beach and would always just stand and let the small waves hit me. Also, to my right was a huge pier that usually had a lot of people fishing the top as well as a couple of restaurants serving fresh sea food. Finally, I remember that beach always having a good majority of the people swimming in water and a lot of umbrellas set up with families sitting underneath them. I went back just last year and I found a totally different beach. It was empty. There were zero umbrellas set up, barely any kids swimming in the water and the pier was a lot less crowded from what I remember. Finally, I saw a sign near the water that read “Swim at your Own Risk”. I thought it meant there were no lifeguards on duty, so I stepped into the water. After coming out, I felt my foot was sticky. I found out there was oil on my foot.
I found out that this beach was toxic now because there was oil found in the water at this beach. There could be many reasons for the oil at the beach, but it just surpised me how the oil just floated to the beach. This situation reminded me of the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska. I remember the scenes of the after affect of the oil spill where people would be cleaning off the seals and rocks with tooth brushes. The affects of an oil spill an the wild life surrounding the land are: dieses to many of the animals and their young, making animals more vulnerable to predators, killing many of the animals, and many more serious problems (The Effects of Oil on Wildlife). If I actually wanted to swim, I could have been harmed from the oil in water. This story just plays into sustainability I learned in my critical thinking class. If we don’t keep the environment healthy, it can bite us in back end and harm humans. We can be harmed from our solutions of removing trash or toxic waste from dumping in the oceans.
To have a successful life, every aspect of any life must be sustainable and balanced. Humans discarding trash and dumping waste into the oceans keeps landfills sustainable and available. But when the oceans are all dirty and toxic, the environmental aspect is not sustainable because after years of depending on the oceans as landfill, the oceans will be so toxic and so dirty that we can not even use the oceans to fish for food, swim for fun, or other activates. To keep and create ways to keep the environment sustainable for many other generations will provide a world where humans will be safe and world where the benefit of the environment will not harm humans in the process.
To protect the environment and create legislation to ensure that harm to the environment does not occur is necessary for this planet and our human race to survive. There are many issues that today’s world deals with and I feel the issue of the destruction of the environment always takes a backseat to these issues. But at the time, I feel the protection of the environment could be the most important issue of all because it has a long lasting affect on the future generations of this world. If we are solving all problems that plague this life time and in the process don’t protect the environment, it is for sure to spell out trouble for future generations. By creating legislation and ways to protect the environment efficiently, we are guaranteeing a place for our kids and their kids to live in.
CITATION LIST
1) “Facts about Illegal Dumping”. City of Dayton Serving the Community. 2008. April 15, 2010 Web
2) “The Effects of Oil on Wildlife”. Australian Government. April 15, 2010 Web
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