week one and two...what I have learned in class

Natasha Lebby
27th August 2011 – 3rd September 2011
Blog One: What have I learned this week in class?

This week I learned a lot about people in the seventeen to eighteen hundreds, who created their own theories about the environment. For instance, Garrett Hardin wrote and essay “tragedy of the commons” to inform the pubic that if they wanted food for survival, they should move as fast as they can to obtain it. In class, we discussed, that if fishermen want to catch lobsters, they have to acquire as many as they can because they will eventfully run out. Today we know that this fact is not entirely true; we just need to take the lobsters in fewer quantities to maintain the habitat.
I learned more about a man named Thomas Malthus. I knew a little about him before and was glad to spend a little more time learning about him in this class. I learned that this man was deadly worried about the running out of food for the public.
The last thing I found really interesting in this class, was learning about Easter Island. I already acquainted myself, a little bit with the island, because I think that’s where the idea of Pink Floyd’s Album picture came from. I may be completely wrong though. I was really interested in how the massive heads came about and how many people lived on the island before the Europeans came to it.

Natasha Lebby
3rd September 2011- 10th September 2011
Blog Two: What I have learned this week in class

This week I learned a little about economics. I never really thought that there has to be so many policies to get people to treat the environment appropriately. I am very stunned that people today know that they are harming the environment and continue to do so. I did not realize that polices were created in the seventeenth and eightieth century. With the technology today, I am surprised and slightly angered that we are still having problems within the environment.
I also learned a little bit more about Rachel Carson, the Cuyahoga River, and Eutrophication. I learned that Rachel Carson’s main concern was about the use of pesticides and the harming of bird egg shells.
Another important fact learnt, was that the Cuyahoga River caught fire more then once. This river was a turning point for people. The public realized that something had to be done and the National Environment Policy Act was created and signed by Richard Nixon.
The last interesting thing that I learned in class was about the decreased levels of oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. Pollution from tributaries across the states flow into the Mississippi River and then onwards into ocean. When this happens phytoplankton multiplies, dies, and decomposes consuming the oxygen from the water. Creatures in the water that need the oxygen to survive begin to die off or retreat to another body of water.