Guest Speaker: Vernon Martin

The idea that Vernon Martin presented was really unique... i'm still trying to fully grasp the concept. It was interesting to look at the environment from a more philosophical standpoint, rather than the facts. Martin spoke of the idea of "finding nature at the mall"... the idea that we have become so disconnected from nature that our way of showing we appreciate it and that we care about it is by consuming it. We buy small knick knacks taken from nature: petrified wood, rocks, bat boxes, et cetera; however, in this process of showing that we appreciate nature by surrounding ourselves with it, we are so disconnected from true nature that we do not think about the detrimental costs to nature by removing these items from the natural world to purchase. Its really interesting, this idea that we don't just see things as 1-dimensional, but we give them meaning. This meaning that we give things is so strong that we distance ourselves into seeing the artificial versions of things as more real than the natural. It is a big thing that occurs today in marketing. Businesses appeal to making people feel connected to nature and feel as they're doing good by intentionally building places like rainforest cafe, where there are safari animals and where things aren't the way they are in real life; however, a part of their proceeds help in environmental conservation... appealing to the public. What the public doesn't know is what damages to the environment occured to make that restaurant. Vernon Martin was a very interesting speaker and had an interesting topic, we really do see the map as more real than the territory these days.

Guest Speaker: Joe Medeiros

Joe Medeiros came to class and spoke to us about the importance of biodiversity. It was really interesting to discover that biodiversity has three different aspects: cellular level, species level, and ecosystem level. These three elements combine to encompass "life's diversity". Mammals are the smallest group in number of different species, containing 4500 different species, compared to the insect group, containing 963,000 different species. 40 percent of these insects are beetles. Scientists estimate that there are 1 million billion ants on this earth, equaling the amount of flesh of the amount of humans on this earth. Those pesky ants that I'm always killing in my house actually have a purpose that i never knew about--more than just bothering people. They sustain ecosystems by turning and fertilizing the soil, all throughout the world. I realize that our entire life is 100 percent dependent on species, but thats crazy to truly think about. 100 percent dependent. I knew that the tropical rainforest has the highest amount of biodiversity, but I didn't know until today that it regulates the global atmosphere by regulating wind, temperature, and global rainfall. We benefit from having biodiversity in every way, but specifically due to the ecosystem services provided to us. For example, having trees around a city helps decrease erosion, it holds water, it increases the oxygen supply for the population and it stores carbon, decreasing atmospheric carbon levels that lead to global warming. Biodiversity doesnt just save a polar bear, it saves our own lives as well.

Toxins and Me!

The fact that there are toxins in our environment is a familiar topic to me, and if you've ever read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, she'll beat you over the head with the idea; however, there's a difference between reading a technical book that gives you so many details and measurements that you lose the big picture, and just thinking and talking about toxins in our environment. Its crazy to think about, they're literally everywhere! I really care that there are so many toxins that I can't even go to the river and pull out a fish and know that i'm safe in eating it. Our community is dealing with the repercussions of mining waste from the beginnings of the Gold Rush. That's over 150 years of heavy toxins leaching into our environment; however, they're getting into our environment more than they should be because mining waste has not been properly cleaned up. There are still open mines and acid mine drainage into our rivers, not to mention all of the rock waste that we crush up and re-use -- releasing even more toxins (asbestos) than we need to in our environment. I definitely think that we should clean these toxins, their biomagnification just endangers us even more the longer we go without cleaning them up. Its becoming a bigger problem than it needs to be because we're ignorant and lazy. Unfortunately in our society, things have to be toxic to the point that they have very dangerous affects before we take notice and act upon them, in an ideal world, we'd take care of things right away; however, alot of times we sadly don't know things are too toxic until they have negative repercussions. Cleaning up these toxic mine wastes, we can store it in big drums deep in the mountains, like they do with nuclear waste. This is expensive, however, do the costs outweigh the health and environmental benefits? The abandoned mines should be reinforced so that they don't cave in--whether this is practical or not i'm not sure--but it would reduce the yearly accidents and cave ins. We can avoid adding more toxins to our environment by being more aware of the simple things-- re-using containers rather than using ziploc bags and all the toxins used to make plastics. We need to educate ourselves, all of us, and slowly as we all become aware of doing the little things to reduce toxins in our environment, we can make bigger strides.

Guest Speaker: Mike Thornton

Mike Thornton's lecture on the toxic legacy of gold mining was very informative. It has left dangerous chemicals throughout the Sierra Nevada region that's presence is predominately unknown by the average citizen. It was amazing to me, the example of the elementary school in El Dorado Hills that had been built on mine tailings is exposing children to asbestos on a daily basis. When these chemicals are left in the rocks in which they naturally occur, there is no harm or danger to the environment; however, with mining, these rocks are ground into a flour-like substance to extract as much gold as possible--releasing these chemicals into the atmospher, leaching into the ground, and contaminating our waterways. There are other poisons that mining has left in abundance contaminating the environments of the Sierra region: mercury, arsenic, and lead are also dangerous chemicals leftover from mining and the Gold Rush.

These chemicals are extremely dangerous as they can cause birth defects, cancers, lung disease, skin conditions, and developmental disorders. It is amazing that the gold rush, having occured more than 150 years ago has left such a long lasting issue to the Sierra environment. The poison i find of particular danger and the hot topic for news stories within the last few years is mercury. Mercury is in our waterways at unhealthily high levels. It has prevented the native peoples of the land from performing ritualistic ceremonies with salmon, since they're too dangerous to eat, and the reeds they use for basket weaving are too dangerous to put into their mouth. Also, the dangers of mercury, particularly at the human level, are that mercury biomagnifies. As it goes through the food chain, all the way from the producer to the tertiary consumer (humans), there are increased levels of mercury contaminating the tissues of the organisms; therefore, becoming more and more dangerous for human consumption. Thornton said that 26 million pounds of mercury was brought to the Sierra for mining, and only 50% of it was re-used. That means...13 MILLION POUNDS IS STILL LEFT IN OUR ENVIRONMENT!!! This is a huge problem!

Thornton provided alot of interesting information about mining that i never knew before. Miners re-routed 5,000 miles of riverin the sierra to get rid of the waste, which flooded farmland and waterways all the way to San Francisco Bay. Thats a huge amount of river, which, in re-routing it, was probably more contaminated. Apparently this later became PG&E's hydro-electric system. He highlighted the impacts of these actions and the toxins that were released into the environment and spread his awareness, which is what we will need in order to take action and get these toxins cleaned up.

Guest Speaker: Gary Noy

Wow! It was so interesting to learn about the Sierra Nevada. I never knew that the foothills and starting at Sacramento were considered a part of the Sierra Nevada. Its such a large span of climate for an environment. From 300 feet above sea level to thousands of feet in altitude. The Sierra Nevada have such a history-- the beginning of skiing started there. I never knew that 2/3 of all California water is from the Sierra Nevada. Thats alot of water for a largely populated state! The diversity of the environment of the Sierra Nevada was really interesting to me...but for a 600 million year old mountain range, its had time to gain diversity.

It was really interesting to learn that a lake i've been to many times now is over 3 earthquake faults and that a tidal wave that will drain the lake a move its debris will happen again in time. Incline Village, a beautiful place to visit was named after the incline that they would put logs on to transport over the mountain during the Gold Rush and the days of timbering. The idea of tahoe not being a virgin forest and being so thin because of the amount of mining that used to occur in that region is shocking to me--the trees are so thick and full it is amazing that they weren't always there. I've lived in the area my entire life and never knew these things. I have taken environmental science classes before and learned about the negative affects of mining on the environment and its fouling of water sources, but I never really learned about what hydraulic mining was. Its interesting seeing as there were so many hydraulic mine locations in the Sierra Nevada area.

The time flew by as Gary Noy was speaking about the human influence on Sierra Nevada environment, and although he only spoke for about an hour, I learned things i've never learned before living here my whole life. He was very knowlegeable on the subject and brought my attention to things i never knew about before.

Species Conservation

Choosing the species that we need to conserve is a difficult and almost impossible task, as the Planet Earth episode talked about, we never truly know how important a species is until they are gone. The tiny bugs and critters in our dirt complete important tasks that we may not know about until they are gone. This goes the same for larger species of mammals-- if a species is wiped out, it will disturb the balance of that ecosystem drastically. We must do our best to evaluate the different functions of individual species to assess which species are most important to each ecosystem-- hopefully the idea of hotspots works out (spending money on conserving one species affects and alternately conserves all in an ecosystem). Although the value of a particular species is impossible to determine, the species that has the biggest influence on the ecosystem is most valuable in species conservation to save.

Unfortunately, the species that we tend to conserve are the large, fuzzy, cute mammals because they appeal emotionally to the public and thus gain more support. Wildlife conservation groups also play into this trend because they need financial support and backing, and they realize that they need to appeal to what the public will actually listen to--the sadness of a polar bear drowning from exhaustion in search for food. Consequently, the important bugs and worms and amphibians in our ecosystems, or the plants that are necessary for certain ecosystems to function properly and survive are gone ignored. These are the species that need conserving the most, as they typically have a larger niche than that of the polar bears or panda bears. These are the species that feed and affect many other species of that particular ecosystem by being an important plant or by decomposing the rubbish on the forest floors into fertile soil for more food to grow.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason, but at the same time, I know that the rapid and increasing decline in practically all species across the world is much more than just being a natural part of that species evolutionary process--this is because humans have taken over the world, quite literally. There are particular cultures that are born and raised believing that they need to repopulate the world, with these outdated mindsets, we are causing serious problems with overpopulation. Not only have we expanded into and destroyed the greater majority of pristine nature/wilderness to make room for houses or for materials to build houses, but then there are people living in America averaging a carbon footprint of 6.5 earths as a nation--because we can. The decline of species is undoubtedly human induced.

Introduced species always cause problems because they are above the niche of the ecosystem, have no natural predators, and their prey are not adapted to survive against them--I believe that we should eradicate introduced species because they threaten the survival of entire ecosystems. The only reason an introduced species should be conserved is if it has lived in that ecosystem long enough to have established a niche and is not overpowering and threatening the ecosystem's survival; however, I cannot think of any circumstances like this.

Balancing the needs of humans with the needs of wildlife becomes a tricky topic, particularly when dealing with the survival of a starving family versus the survival of a rare and expensive animal/an opportunity for dinner. We must do our best as humans now to be aware to not overpopulate--only replace ourselves when having children. If we have the means, to live as green as we can. To be aware not to bring over foreign species to an area where it will take over and threaten the ecosystems. We all just need to open our eyes and minds to do what we can to work side by side with wildlife.