In Conclusion

The time has come it's the end of the semester... even though I dreaded this class going into it, I did manage to get a little enjoyment out of the course. I got to meet people who I would I would not have met otherwise and I got to go some interesting places I otherwise I would not have gone to. Though I did not learn all that much new information it was interesting to me to see how much or how little knowledge the other people in the class came in with and how their views have changed since the class started.  

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Meade 

It is only through education that we can bring this enlightenment upon the rest of the world to start living sustainably and help build a brighter future for ourselves and future generations.  

Talkin' Monkey Project

I will start off by saying that this was one of the parts of the course that I was most dreading, the required service learning hours. After actually performing the majority of my hours at the Talkin’ Monkey Project my perspective has changed drastically, I actually enjoyed the work I had done and I felt that the work I had done truly had a positive impact on both the creatures that lived at the rescue center and the people who were running it.  Even though this organization has very little to do with my future career plans as a Civil Engineer, I have always loved animals and have been fascinated with monkeys as they are the closest animals to humans genetically. This caused me to jump at the opportunity to volunteer at a place where I would get to interact and be up close to some primates.

 

This organization encompasses most everything this class is about, sustainability, stewardship, and conservationism. All of the food for the monkeys is provided by donations from local grocery stores, they donate the food that is past the “sell by date” so they can no longer sell it to people, but it is still perfectly edible. So this prevents the food from just being thrown out unlike at most grocery stores where an estimated $15 billion is thrown out in the U.S. each year and provides a very good and plentiful food source for the animals. Whatever food they cannot use for the monkeys they give to their neighbors who have animals on their property as well. They also recycle everything they have including organic waste as the have a compost pile, which they use for fertilizer for the various plants they have on the property. 

Kelpie

During my time volunteering I cleaned cages, brought food to the monkeys and even got to get up close and personal with one of the spider monkeys “Kelpie”. All of us who were volunteering that day got to go inside of her cage and interact with her. She was a very friendly and docile creature who you could tell had a very strong bond with Dr.Misotti. The day I spent at the Talkin’ Monkey Project was a very memorable and enjoyable day; So much so that I plan on doing the majority of the remainder of my service learning hours there.     

Gizmo

Kelpie

RANGO

This movie was not on the list of movies for the class, but it should be... this movie while it is geared as a family movie has heavy environmental themes.

 

A family is crossing the desert by car with their lizard in an aquarium, when the driver is forced to preform an abrupt movement to avoid an accident and the aquarium falls off the car on the road. A female lizard Beans gives a ride to Rango up to an old western town called Dirt and he goes to the bar expecting to drink water. The braggart lizard tells the townspeople that he is a dangerous gunslinger called Rango and the impressed locals believe that Rango is a hero and invite him to be the sheriff. Sooner Rango finds that water is missing in town and the Major has a suspicious behavior. But when the evil Rattlesnake Jake arrives in town, Rango assumes that he is a coward and quits his position. He walks to the road but the Spirit of the West convinces him to return and fight for those that had believed in him.

- Source IMBD

Though the movie is set in the deserts of the west, it may as well be in Florida as many of the problems are similar to what our wildlife is subjected to. The missing water turns out to be caused by a new town being settled near by and it put a strain on the underground aquifer that the town of Dirt tapped into for their well, and the natural flow of water was disrupted because, of man something that is all to common in the state of Florida.  

AVATAR

To me AVATAR is one of the most overrated movies of all time. Yes, it is a very good movie, however there are many people and critics that proclaim it as the best movie of all time. This was on the list of movies to watch for the class, and it came up on several sites when I searched for "Best Nature Themed Films". However I don't really see it as a nature film, I think it draws more parallels to the "Manifest Destiny" and Cowboy's vs. Indian's. Which I guess you could say, is an environmental theme in that the natives who lived of the land and respected and cherished it were being driven off by the white man who wanted to settle and develop the land because they thought the land and its resources were inherently theirs for the taking. 

When his brother is killed in a robbery, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora. There he learns of greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridge's intentions of driving off the native humanoid "Na'vi" in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland. In exchange for the spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers intel for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by gung-ho Colonel Quaritch, while simultaneously attempting to infiltrate the Na'vi people with the use of an "avatar" identity. While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand - and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora.  

- Source IMBD

 

The Day After Tomorrow

I have seen the day after tomorrow many times before, but I watched it again recently when I saw it was on the list of recommended movies for the class, this is actually a pretty entertaining movie....

Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a paleoclimatologist who is on an expedition in Antarctica with two colleagues, Frank (Jay O. Sanders) and Jason (Dash Mihok), drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA when the ice shelf breaks off from the rest of the continent, and Jack almost falls to his death. Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference in New Delhi. Jack found that 10,000 years ago, a global warming changed the earth's climate into the Ice Age. Jack says that it could happen again in maybe 100 to 1,000 years from now if we don't stop polluting the atmosphere. Most of the diplomats, including the Vice President of the United States (Kenneth Welsh), are unconvinced by Jack's theory. At the conference, Jack meets Professor Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland, who is keeping track of the world's ocean currents. Terry tells Jack that the melting of the polar ice caps has poured fresh water into the oceans and diluted the salt level, which has caused the temperature of the ocean currents to drop 13 degrees.

Two buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in the ocean temperature, and Rapson concludes that melting of the polar ice has begun disrupting the North Atlantic current. He calls Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model holds reconstructional data of the climate change that caused the first Ice Age, to predict what will happen. Jack believed that the events would not happen for a hundred or a thousand years, but he, Frank, Jason, and NASA's meteorologist Janet Tokada (Tamlyn Tomita) build a forecast model with his, Rapson's, and Tokada's data.

All over Earth, the climate system changes for the worst. Tokyo is hit by softball size hail; it begins to snow in New Delhi; and Los Angeles is destroyed by a group of huge F5 tornadoes that hit all at the same time. The U.S. President (Perry King), authorizes the FAA to suspend air traffic over the United States due to severe turbulence. As three RAF helicopters fly to evacuate the British Royal Family from their castle in Scotland, they enter the eye of a very massive hurricane-like superstorm blizzard, that causes a temperature drop of -150 °F that freezes their fuel lines and rotors, causing them to crash down and quickly freeze to death.

Meanwhile, Jack's son, Sam, (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in New York City for an academic competition with his friends Brian and Laura (Arjay Smith and Emmy Rossum), where they also befriend a student named J.D. During the competition, the weather becomes massively violent with intense winds and flooding rains. Sam calls his father, making a promise to be on the next train home. Unfortunately, the storm worsens, forcing subways and Grand Central Station to close.

Jack sees the President and gives him the bad news that his estimate of years is now down to days, before the planet enters a new Ice Age. Jack advises the President to evacuate everybody in the southern states to Mexico, because it is too late to evacuate the people in the northern states.

As the storm worsens in Manhattan, a storm surge almost 40 feet (about half the height of the Statue of Liberty) impacts the island, causing major flooding. Sam and his friends are able to seek refuge in the New York Public Library.

Survivors in the Northern United States are forced to flee south, with some Americans illegally crossing the border into Mexico. After advising the Executive Office of the President of the United States to evacuate half the country, Jack sets off for Manhattan to find his son, accompanied by Frank and Jason. Their truck crashes into a snow-covered tractor-trailer just past Philadelphia, so the group continues on snowshoes. During the journey, Frank falls through the glass roof of a snowbound shopping mall. As Jason and Jack try to pull Frank up, the glass under them continues to crack; Frank sacrifices himself by cutting the rope and he dies.

The U.S. President's helicopter is caught in the superstorm, killing everyone on board, leaving the U.S. Vice President in charge.

Inside the library, Sam advises everyone of his father's instruction to stay indoors. Few listen, and the small group that remains burns books to keep warm and breaks the library's vending machine for food. Laura is afflicted with blood poisoning, so Sam, Brian, and J.D. must search for penicillin in a Russian cargo ship that drifted inland, and are attacked by escaped wolves from the New York Zoo. Just then, the eye of the North American superstorm begins to pass over the city with its -150 °F instant freeze temperatures, and the entire New York City skyline begins to freeze solid, buildings and air alike. The three return to the library with medicine, food, and supplies, making it to safety.

During the deep freeze, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned Wendy's restaurant, then resume their journey after the storm dissipates, finally arriving in New York City. They find the library buried in snow, but find Sam's group alive and are rescued by U.S. Army soldiers flying UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters.

In Mexico, the new President orders search and rescue teams to look for other survivors, having been given hope by the survival of Sam's group. The movie concludes with two astronauts looking down at Earth from the International Space Station, showing most of the northern hemisphere covered in ice, including all of the United States north of the southern states, and a major reduction in pollution.

-Source IMBD

This link is to a clip from an episode of south park spoofing on the film the episode is titled

"Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow"

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155004/randys-theory

In closing I know that the film was a massive over dramatization of global warming's potential effects on the climate, but it is something that could happen eventually as many scientist's believe that it may start another ice age.

Lee County Waste Management

This field trip was also one of the more interesting, both in content and getting there... at first when we got to the facility we got lost and drove around the entire place with three other cars following us... we eventually found where we needed to go after one of the employees told us where the guest parking for the tours would be. Once we finally did get parked and walked to where we were supposed to meet we went upstairs for a little presentation on the recycling facility.

I found the presentation to be very interesting, I did not realize that the facilitates in Lee county were something that would qualify as world class, our facility is something that other countries in the world use as a standard to develop their own waste management centers.  I wish were able to take us on a tour of that facility as the did with the waste management building.

The Presentation in the Garbage waste plant was equally as interesting, I just wonder how much power they actually put back onto the grid and whether it is truly an option for providing enough power to supply major cities.

The tour was interesting... we could have lingered a little less near the garbage pit... I think all of our noses would have been much happier.

'MERICA!!!!

   
I know the incinerating is done in a contained area, but the pyromaniac in me wanted to see some stuff burn!!! The rest of the facility was not nearly as exciting as the pit, but it was interesting in it's own right.

After the trip I was very proud to live in such a forward thinking county, unlike our neighbors in collier county.

My failed attempt at taking a panoramic picture on my phone...

Rookery Bay Boat Trip

I will start of by saying that I was unable to take alot of pictures during this field trip as it was very cloudy/rainy and I was helping the guide do alot of the tasks on our boat. Such as tying on to the other boat when we had to put the boats together to go over stuff, or releasing or pulling in and letting out the drag net to collect specimens for us to study.

When I woke up the morning of this field trip I was half expecting to see an email saying that the trip was cancelled because it was very cloudy and windy that morning. When we got there we were given a quick run down in their field office about the trip and the data we would be collecting. We were then issued life jackets... Now I can understand the reasoning that they would want people to have them, especially since they have no idea how good of a swimmer that any of us our, but I wish I could have just pulled out my scuba diving certification card and been exempted from wearing one... but I digress.

 Once we finally did get down to the boats the trip was fine, I got volunteered along with Spencer to work the drag net. We did get a pretty good haul according to the guide, we caught a pretty good variety of stuff including these guy.

  After were done studying and recording what we had caught we put them back in the water and we headed to the pass, and beached our boats and we were going to have lunch. No sooner did I sit down and take a bite of my sandwich, it started to sprinkle so we decided to call it a day and headed back a little earlier than we had planned.