Water Conservation

Earth is known as the water planet. “Over 70% of the planet is covered by water” (Robertson, P. 94). Ironically only a small percentage is fresh, ready to use drinking water. The rest is either salt water or fresh water that is frozen or no accessible to humans. Most of the world’s fresh water comes from lakes or pounds that is replenished by rain. This is a naturel hydrologic cycle. Since this is a cycle, the problem is not that the world is running out of water, we are just pulling water out of the cycle faster than it is being replaced. The is a symptom of overpopulation, uneven disruption, and overuse.

Some places in US get very little rain and rely on other parts of the country to supply water. An example of this is California. The southern 2/3 of the state has a high demand of water for consumption by humans and for agriculture. This area only gets a few inches each year. The northern part of the state receives hundreds of inches of rain each year. “A massive system of pies, tunnels, and canals call the Central Valley Project moves water from northern California to the cites and farm lands to the south” (Robertson, P. 94).

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Water conservation is one way to fix the water crisis we are having, this can be done in two different ways through the supply or demand side. In the supply side, “we can find new ways to harvest rainwater, desalinizing seawater or protecting an aquifer or a watershed that supplies drinking water” (Robertson, P. 101). New York City rain into problems with their drinking water in the 1900’s because of increased development in the Catskill Mountains. The water was no longer up to EPA standards for drinking water. They had two options, build and operate an extremely expensive water filtrations plant or purchase forest land to create one of the largest watershed communities in the country. New York ended up doing the ladder. The EPA has certainty tested the water and it is one of the cleanest drinking waters in the country. On the demand side, initiatives include installing low-flow plumping fixtures, repairing leaks and recycling water from cooling systems.

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Fun facts, toilet flushing is the largest single use of water in the United States. Before low flow bath fixtures, most toilets would use on average 4-7 gallons per flush. Now after the EPAct, most toilets use only 1 or less gallon per flush. That is a great start to conserving water.  Other water conservation efforts are using grey water, which is water collected from sinks, showers, clothes washers and other similarly activities. This “grey water” is not up to drinking water standards but can be used to water plants, use in toilets and recreational use.

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Climate

In this chapter the booked does a great job to explain and separate the ideas of weather versus climate. It explains how climate is a long-term effect while weather is short term. The book says “A change of only a few degrees in the global average temperature has a significant impact.” (Robertson, P. 74) While I agree with this and it makes sense there are many factors to this idea. While data says that over the past 100 years global temperature has risen, lets figure out why. In the last 100 years what has changed in our world. The global population in the early 1900’s according to Google was 1.6 billion. In the last 100 years that number has more than quadruped to an astonishing 7 billion people.

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Just think, the sheer level of resources the world needs to provide for the 7.6 billion people is downright crazy. That’s why we are drilling nearly everywhere to find oil. We are trying to genetically modified foods to be able to produce more. Also all the CO2 that is created because of the machines or processes need to make these resources possible. “Since the start of the Industrial era the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen 40%.” (Robertson, P.79)

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With rising temperature causes the ice caps to melt. I learned in this book that the ice caps melting has no effect on rising water levels, cause remember frozen water is less dense than water in liquid form. As ice melts, the rays from the sun will no longer be reflected back they ocean will absorb them causing the ocean to warm and a higher level of green house gases. Water expands as it heats up causing see levels to rise. This is a huge concern as coast lines become impaled by rising waters.

There are many ways to reduce these emissions and become “climate neutral” or carbon neutral” (Robertson, P. 82). The first way to accomplish this is change or lower our energy use. Energy made from fossil fuel emits greenhouse gases. By change to a renewable energy sources such as wind, water or solar. You lower green house gases from fossil fuels. Obviously this change will come over time, along with invations that will allow it to be seamless to the consumer. In hindsight the consumers or people aren’t evil. There is just so many people on this earth that when everyone drives a car that’s a lot of CO2 emissions.

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That moves into the second points of transportation. Either making single person transportations more efficient or providing better multiple person transportation. Heck, lets bring carpooling back. By making small changes, allows all 7.6 billion people living on planet earth to enjoy it to its fullest.

The Humans Sphere

As humans we have an effect on the earth. “Carrying capacity is a scientific term that defines the number of individuals an environment can support without degrading a population’s ecosystem.” (Robertson, P. 41) Each area has a different carrying capacity. It also depends on the patterns of consumptions of the humans living there. For example, New York Cities carrying capacity is rather low because they do not have many resources being used but on the other side they are being used at a much higher rate. While In Montana, there are far fewer people using the resources and resources have the ability to replenish themselves.

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I should have known, yet I was still shocked to read in the book that if the world lived like the United States and Canada we would need 4.5 earths to provide the resources we need. Also that if we did not add to the population. If we added to the population and continued to live like the US or Canada we would need to increase the number of earths.

Through out time we have had different stages in our population that have lead us to the seven billion people that are population our spaceship earth. Throughout the decades we have learned to use the resources on earth to change the way we cultivate. By the industrial revolution, humans had learned to harvest fossil fuels to make heat and other goods.

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As we plan and look to the future the world’s population is only going, provided any natural disasters or plaques break out. The book said “If cities double in size by spreading out over agricultural land, the impact on the food production will be significant. If cities limit their physical size but grow in density, drastic changes to the infrastructure for power, water, transpiration and housing will be needed.” (Robertson, P. 44). I believe this to be one of the wises and most incite for sentences in the book. By developing our agricultural lands will lower our food production, thereby lowering our food supply. While at the same time raising our population. That is recipe for disaster. On the other hand, if we limit where we will can build, to a reasonable degree that involves comprise and flexibility on both sides. It will require us to be even more innovate and creative to create a city of the future. This ties right into one of the Principe’s of the Earth Charter “Secure Earth’s county and beautify for present and future generations”. (The Earth Charter)

Honestly it reminds me of Walt Disney’s plant for EPCOT. He wanted to create a Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. The idea of suitability was at the forefront. He wanted to create a place where people lived and worked together.

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With some countries not having sufficient water or land, they are leasing or buying up blocks of land in more developing countries to help the replace what they do not have. According to the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization “we believe that such land deals can be a win-win situation.” (Robertson, P. 56)

What is the Biosphere?

 Life has many cycles, from food to animals, and to the earth in which we are living. “Cycles happen at all scales of systems, from the metabolism of a bacterium to the pumping of carbon around the planet to.” (Robertson, P. 24)

This is true in all regards. If we look at the natural world, butterflies, they born as sluggish caterpillars and over the evolution of time they transition to beautiful butterflies. This follows of the principal of Matter how “it is never created nor destroyed, just changes form.” (Robertson, P. 23) It’s the same for our Earth, which according to experts is half way through its cycles. Things we do have different effects on cycles. We have the ability to speed up cycles or slow them down.

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The cycles have different effects on our systems. Earth has four major systems or spheres: rock, air, water, and organism. The Lithosphere of the earth is solid rock composed of rock. Just as our natural world has cycles, so does our economical world. The industrial revolution changed the way we live our life. These two worlds collided because we needed resources to create these new modern inventions. The Lithosphere is the source of 70% of the materials used. Once taken out of the lithosphere is cannot be but back. That matter is changed into a new form forever. 

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Our Atmosphere consists of the layers of air above the solid crust. “It is full of turbulent motion as winds with complex flow patterns at varying elevations constantly swift through the realm of the clouds.” (Robertson, P. 28) This change of wind patters is why plans have turbulence while flying and why some days there is lots of wind and others do not.

The water system is the Hydrosphere. The book says “Earth is a water planet.” (Robertson, P. 29) This is so true as we use water for many different reasons. From calculating PH scales to the height, water is our measuring stick.  Water can also take on many different forms, whether that is ice in the North Pole or crystal clear warm water in the tropics. We are truly surrounded.

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The Biosphere is the system where living organisms inhabit. We have learned from biologist that with in our system there are five kingdoms. If we break that down each kingdom has its own Ecosystem. These ecosystems are in regards to populations and give each organism a niche.