PDS APES 5th Period 2009-10

Yes, that is Mr. W

I hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day Holiday.   As usual, I took a trip to Laurinburg, NC (my hometown) for the opening day of dove hunting season.  It got me thinking about our discussion of the Tragedy of the Commons during the first unit.

Mourning doves are migratory game birds meaning they can cross county and state lines.   Even though the hunt was on private land, the birds are considered a sort of public resource and so, regulated by the government to prevent overuse.  So, yes, they represent a “commons” of sorts (see previous post on the Tragedy of the Commons).

So, how does the government regulate this resource in the public’s interest? First, one must acquire a license to legally hunt the birds.  So, the number of people who can “harvest” the resource is limited to those who will pay the fee.  Second, there is a season established for the hunt.  A hunting season limits the amount of time people can harvest (and typically protects the birds during mating season).  Third, daily “bag limits” establish a limit to the number of birds one can legally harvest per person per day.

Do all these regulations prevent abuse of the resource (birds)?  No.  Abuse occurs by people who have no license (poachers), hunt out of season, and kill more than the legal limit.  Regulations do little good unless there is some enforcement.  So, some of the funds from the purchase of licenses go toward paying for wildlife officers who can arrest or fine offenders.

Speaking of funds, many hunters join conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited.  These organizations use donations for projects like habitat protection or improvement.  Hunters often get a bad rap, but those that hunt within legal limits and give back through conservation groups help encourage sustainable use.  Is it hard to think of a hunter as a good steward?

So, I know it’s pretty late, but I’m still reviewing my notes and study guide, and I came across somthing I didn’t understand.  On number 9 in the study guide, one of the 5 basic causes of environmental problems that i looked up in the book was “excluding environmental costs from market prices”.   I don’t understand how by not including the tolls environmental goods and services take on the environment into market prices, we are creating more problems.  There are obviously problems in the first place since we are using all the resources to make goods and produce services, but by not charging for them in prices makes the environment worse? Maybe I’m not reading it right…does anyone else understand?

Hey guys, I don’t know if this was brought up in class while I was sick, but it would be great of I could get some clarification on this. The book discusses point-source pollution and nonpoint-source pollution, point source pollution being single sources of pollution and nonpoint sources being dispersed and hard to identify. Burning fossil fuels is considered a point source, and this is where I become confused. The book claims that nonpoint sources are difficult to cleanup as they become dispersed. Wouldn’t burning fossil fuels be in this category as cleanup of these forms of pollution are nearly impossible? I understand that they come from a single source (hence the point-source), but couldn’t it be kind of both? Sorry if this is hard to understand, and thanks for the help!

I read Emily’s question about natural income vs capital, but even with Michael’s answer I’m still not completely sure what natural income is. Is it the same thing as renewable resources?

This is similar to Kevin’s question…but I am sort of struggling on what to make of the conservationists. Last year in U.S. History we said they were trying to “preserve nature now so it could be exploited later,” but I feel as if maybe that wording is a bit harsh? Would I be correct in saying that Conservationists were making at least an attempt at preserving the environment, which got the ball rolling on the environmental movement? Are they Truaxes? What exactly was their contribution to the Environmental Movement? And also, how did we suddenly go from Industrialism to Romanticism? What made that shift? Those are quite different, from utalitarian to aesthetic/moral..

I was just thinking back to the two-part video we watched in class, and based on the readings and video–not to mention the book–it’s pretty clear to me that the 1980s were a period of, well, anti-environmentalism. I know that many environmentalists were overrun by pro-business, planetary-management members of the so-called sagebrush rebellion. What I wonder is this:

How exactly did the environmental movement lose its mojo in the late 1970s? After all, there was no shortage of natural disasters, and there was a ton of political momentum (Nixon and the EPA, Carter and the Superfund). Was it just a victim of the larger fear of a too-big government? Or did people specifically consider its message to be “extreme”?

This may not be an exact question about a concept, but studying just got me thinking.

Ever heard someone talk about ignoring “the elephant in the room?” It is an issue you can’t ignore, just like you could never ignore an elephant in the room.  Check out this BBC News article about the elephant in the room for environmentalists.  No matter how much we talk about solutions to problems this year, it all comes back to the population problem you just read about…try a Google search for “the elephant in the room: overpopulation.”  I = P x A x T.  At 6.8 billion, the P is the problem…

So I was re-reading the packet that talked about U.S. environmental movement history, and I’m a little uneasy with how they did not strongly differentiate Romanticists and Preservationists. From what I learned in English 2, I know that Romanticists did not do many movements to protect nature, they just valued nature, and individuality. Is that all they contributed? The “revolutionary idea” that nature might be important? Which would lead to the Preservationists? Or did they do more.

Alrighty, something Mr. W. said in class got me thinking a little bit. According to our Evironmentalism in the US packet, part of the definition of evironmentalism is: the extension of human rights to include the right to clean healthful homes and neighborhoods. Is it really a human right to live in a clean environment? Is this ever stated anywhere like in our constitution for example? Is it implied? Currently, the only thing I can think of that somewhat proves that we do have a right to a clean environment is the Love Canal incident where the government eventually paid for the families living there to move. Any thoughts Mr. W. or my fellow students?

First off, Mr. Willard: I’m not quite sure if this counts as a reflection post, but regardless I thought it was interesting and applicable to what we are starting to studying!

Today as I was driving into my neighborhood, I was stopped right in front of my house because my neighbors across the street were doing some construction in their front lawn.  When I looked up though, I saw a tree literally hanging from a crane.  Here are some pictures that I took from my car because it really was a really funny site:

Tree hanging from the crane

Really Big Tree being cut down

Another pic of the tree in mid-air.

I’m not really sure if the pictures do it justice, but this tree was literally in mid-air and it was a really big tree.  I had never seen this process done in this manner before, and I don’t think many others have either because about 10 people were in my backyard watching the process.

As I was stopped in my car waiting for them to move the tree, I started to think about how this relates to exactly what we are starting to talk about in class.   First off, I thought about all the services that it was going to take to cut down these four trees.  They had a giant trucks, 2 bulldozers, a tree shredder, and a crane.  All of these service create a large ecological footprint.  Also, I thought about the positive effects those four trees had to the earth.  They provided oxygen, a habitat for many animals, aesthetic beauty, and many others I’m sure we will learn about this year.  I think this relates to the “A” in the I=PAT equation.  This family had the money obviously to cut down these trees, so they did without thought to the impact the trees had to the earth.  I can’t imagine how much of an impact this makes when thousands of people in our country are doing this daily.  I hope this gets other people in the class thinking about simple acts like these we see daily…