Author: zbigley@uoregon.edu

Father: Oregon Will Be The New California

zbigley@uoregon.edu 6 Comments

When I asked my father what climate change meant to him, he surprised me. His first response was that the polar bears are dying, but then he went in depth into some of good things first. Obviously, when one thinks climate change, they never think about positive changes, but my father talked about the opening shipping routes through the arctic and how that could benefit trade.

Now, my father was by no means supporting climate change and pollution, but he was merely looking at the bright side of the situation. This has been hard for us in a very pessimistic and negative class. Though he tried to do that, that example was one of the only practical ones he could think of.

He knew his stuff about climate change. He talked a lot about the gas prices and how they are going down. This was because they have found a cheaper way to produce gasoline (fracking), but it was worse for the environment. We posed the question: is it worth it? What is more important: saving money or saving the environment? Obviously, from a personal, here and now standpoint, one would say that saving money is worth it. Do we need to save money at that cost to our future though? Contine reading →

We Survive Together, We Die Together

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They way we act in times of stress can show us who we are. The way we act in times of distress define us as a society and species. In the book Odds Against Tomorrow, after the flood, the author Nathaniel Rich described some of the people in New York as if they had lost all of their societal common sense. They were expressed as if they were creatures that did not belong in the bodies that encased their inner beast. It was like they had forgotten that as a people, we need to band together in times of sorrow and pain, not hurt each other.

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As the Salmon Swim By, Stare, Take Good Care; One Day, They May Not Be There.

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Salmon are very important to Native American tribes all over the country. The salmon populations in the Northwest are depleting because of human activity and it is a huge issue for not only the tribes, but citizens who are used to fishing for and consuming salmon. Climate change is directly correlated to this shift in population.

Salmon are very sensitive to environmental changes in their habitat. They must migrate from the ocean back upstream to lay their eggs and a change in water temperature or surroundings could cause a change in their path home. The salmon species is in grave danger of extinction because of human activities and the EPA said, “Many salmon species are already considered threatened or endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Studies show that by 2100, one third of current habitat for Northwest salmon and other coldwater fish would be unsuitable. This is because warming temperatures are projected to pass key temperature thresholds.”

There have been many measures in place and being brought up for the future to combat this change and slow the process of habitat being unsuitable. In the talk tonight, they discussed many solutions. They ranged from restoration of the areas with increased shading or slowed flow of the rivers to using hatcheries to basically “manufacture” salmon in a controlled environment.

There was a discussion about the ethics of using hatcheries and releasing the fish into the wild because not only does it set them up for failure, but it is a short term solution for a long term problem. This meant that the fish that were released from the hatcheries would affect the natural fish because they do not know how to repopulate naturally, so they create a new environment.

The speakers highlighted that the most important thing that we can do to help the salmon is to vote. They need all the money they can get to save these sacred and good-tasting fish. Another thing we can all do is go out and help to plant trees along the sides of rivers. This creates shade, which helps to keep the water temperature cool for the salmon.

Save the salmon! They are so very important to Oregon and all the tribes as a whole. They need to stay alive.

The Pits of Despair?

zbigley@uoregon.edu 2 Comments

In class, we talked about the tar pits in Canada. They are obviously terrible for the environment and they help Canada’s GDP immensely, but we didn’t talk about why they are so awful for the environment.

The tar pits excrete oil sands and create a barren wasteland of ugly earth that can be seen from space. The miners not only clear the areas of all life and green, but they destroy the water supply in the surrounding areas. A report about water usage in the mines said, “To produce one cubic metre (m3) of synthetic crude oil (SCO) (upgraded bitumen) in a mining operation requires about 2–4.5 m3 of water (net figures).” The oil sands mining company is currently allowed to divert 359 million m3 of water, more than two times the amount needed for the local city. This is a problem that changes not only the environment in a negative way, but it is hurting the locals in many ways.

The locals are not only unable to fish and hunt, as was mentioned in lecture, but their lively hoods are completely changed by the oil sand pits as well. They are forced to assimilate into the culture that the sands bring with it. That means that they get jobs mining the sand and in production. My question is; is it worth it? Is it worth the jobs? Their lives are completely changed by this monster that comes charging in and seems to destroy everything in its path.

While I might not agree with the politics necessarily, I thought that this was a very interesting video on the tar pits.

It made me think about all the things that they go through up there and how the big companies get away with a lot. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

Contine reading →

The Water is Going, Going… Gone?

zbigley@uoregon.edu 5 Comments

The short story that we read, The Tamarisk Hunter, gave the possibility of the future with global warming effects. It describes a land controlled by the government, where water is the scarce liquid gold that everyone needed to survive. In the story, Lolo, the main character, is making a living, in some respects, by saving the water.

The water is fought over and through that, two economic classes are formed in California: those with a surplus of water and those who have to work very hard to get water to live. The ones with the water control everything. The author, Paolo Bacigalupi, writes, “The problem was that 4.4 million acre-feet of water was supposed to go down the river to California. There was water; they just couldn’t touch it,” (Bacigalupi 174). The people who own the water are the upper class of people and that left everyone else to toil in the heat. It seemed as though this theme felt like one from 1984 by George Orwell. It agrees with the idea in that book that a large part of the population has an idea that they are being mistreated, but they have no true idea how badly they have it. In both stories, the lower class has no way of moving up to the higher class either. It gives a sense of jealousy, as well as a need to understand more. Lolo is unable to figure out how to get more water without stealing and he thought it would be his end.

Contine reading →