Salmon life cycle
Female salmon clean a small section of the river where she will deposit her eggs. Immediately a male salmon will fertilize her eggs. Then the female salmon covers the eggs and defends them for a few days. Eggs hatch and fry are born. The small fish stay in back waters and feed on insects. As they grow they move to main channels downstream. They grow and develop organs that will be suitable to life in the ocean. Once they leave the rivers they stay move into the oceans where they will stay for 2-5 years before returning to the same section of the river where they were born.
What amazes me is that salmon can find their way back to the same rivers to spawn and create new life.
Salmon and Steelhead are categorized as endangered is correct. Their numbers are not what they once were and they are risk of being extinct on the Russian River. They are on the endangered species list so that they can get the protection needed. This protect varies from non fishing and also in the form of money from the government to help rebuild habitat.
My Favorite Nature Place
This is a tough question to answer as I have so many favorite places in nature that I like visit. The first place that comes to mind would be Mt. Lassen, in particular Hat Creek. Hat Creek is such a magical place. The creek is rather small in most places but does have some deep holes and wide stretches to it. Throughout the day you will see bugs bouncing off the water and wild trout leaping out of the water trying to catch them. The creek is famous to most fly-fisherman is its a top destination to check off the bucket list. The reason why its one of my top favorite nature places to go is how pristine and untouched nature is there, and the fact that almost every cast I catch a fish.
Global Climate Change
Carbon is a very important element to all living things on earth as well as the fuels that we use for transportation. The carbon cycle is a process in which carbon cycle’s through the atmosphere, ocean, soil and plant life creating a balance on earth that stabilizes our atmosphere and helps sustain life on earth. Carbon from the atmosphere is taken in by plants. Plants are then consumed by animals. Then through decomposition of poop or decaying non-living things, carbon is returned to the atmosphere. Carbon is also stored in rocks and released from weathering over time. When carbon is captured in the atmosphere at rates higher then natural balance of earths cycles, the planet heats up. As humans burn fossil fuels, coal and increase commercialized agriculture, carbon enters our atmosphere at alarming rates and stays there capturing solar energy that bounces off our planet increasing global temperatures.
There is a site that will help calculate your global footprint. I used it and my footprint came out to 3.5 earths, which means that I am on average using 2.5 times the amount of earth’s resources to sustain everyone. This is horrible and if everyone had a footprint like this then we would be in serious trouble. Well to be honest we are in serious trouble because others out there have even worse of a footprint. Mine was so high due to the daily driving I have to do for work. Try out this site or another (link posted below) and see what your footprint is. There are areas where everyone can improve. Some improvements that I can do is drive less, recycle more, buy in bulk and take shorter showers just to name a few things to lower my footprint.
There is a Ted Talk video that talks about climate change and some ways to help avoid a 4-degree climate increase. Some of the ways discussed were lowering our emissions, lowering energy demands and lower our standard of living. Making changes now will have a less of an impact in years to come instead of doing nothing and having to make more drastic changes to deal with the climate change implications from our consumption issues that lead to global warming. It’s a worthwhile video that I suggest taking a few minutes out of your day and watch.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907. Rachel first major at the Pennsylvania college for woman was an English major. Around the 1950’s, Rachel graduated John Hopkins university with an M.A. in zoology. At this time, Rachel began to see the poisonous signs that pesticides where having on the environment. Her book Silent Spring, alerted the world to effects of pesticides had on the environment. After she saw the negative effects of pesticides on the environment, she began writing her book. Her book prompted congress to launch an investigation into her work.
One word that best describes Rachel Carson’s work is, enlightening. I came to this conclusion because prior to her book being published, the public was unaware of the negative cause and effects pesticides where having on the environment and ultimately who consumed the crops that pesticides had been applied to.
The common perception of woman scientist in the 1940’s and 1950’s was that they could not be credited with groundbreaking work. I came to this conclusion because congress had to launch an investigation into her work trying to discredit it and she had to defend her work.
Yes we are contaminating our environment today with the use of pesticides and we will continue to do so unfortunately because of how little cost it is to apply them for the desired results. I feel this way because I work in the viticulture industry and for a company called Wilbur-Ellis where we sell pesticides and fertilizers to farmers. Biodynamically should be the way of the future and get away from pesticides.
She continued her work even with terminal cancer because she was passionate about her work and wanted people to be informed on the cause and effects pesticides had on the environment.
Title – Pesticides don’t discriminate, they kill all living and non-living things
The movie and article (links above), really sheds light on who Rachel Carson was and the work she did to enlighten everyone on the negative cause and effects of pesticide use on the environment. I encourage you to take some time out of your day and watch movie and read the article. If Rachel Carson hadn't stepped out of cultural norm from a woman's role in society back in the 1940's-50's, we quite possible would be blind to how negative pesticides are to our environment.
Preserve Mountain Lions
A great short video to help educate on the life of a mountain lion and need for protecting them.
The Secret Life of Mountain Lions
web page - Wild Futures
What was fascinating about the short film was how close up you got to see this mountain lion family live. It does have a few sad points were one kitten doesn't make it and another one is killed by a hunter. But these sad points show the harsh reality that mountain lions all over face. In the film it mentioned that less then 1/5 cats makes it to adult hood and reproduces. With those odds how is a species suppose to survive. Mountain lions are a keystone species that are essential in the wild to keeping the proper balance. Mountain lions have to many challenges to overcome to survive and all are at the hands of humans. We hunt them, kill their prey, build highways, they die from rodenticides and destroy their habitat. There are organizations out there that are helping educate and protect these beautiful cats, but more needs to be done. Take a moment and watch the video and see for yourself and see how amazing these animals truly are.
Soil Management Solutions
Ted Talk by Michael Pollan
Soil Solutions to Climate Change
The short video Soil Solutions to Climate Change talks about how carbon effects our planet and how soil can fix our problem of having too much C02 in our atmosphere. First, we have too much C02 in our atmosphere by our consumption of fossil fuels and our agriculture practices. This produces too much C02 that goes into our atmosphere trapping it causing our planet to heat up. The access C02 not trapped in the atmosphere falls into our oceans making them acid threatening marine life. Soil can fix this problem by taking C02 from our atmosphere and storing in the ground. Plants take in C02. So we change our sources of energy to renewable ones and change our farming practices to no till, we would be lessening our C02 production and help balance out our. Ted Talk by Michael Pollan, he says we should look at things from plants and animal perspectives to help understand our planet from and what it needs. He talks about how a bee functions and how planets benefit from the bee interaction. He also mentions how plants have evolved to gain what they need from us, such example used was how grass competes with trees for sunlight, by such that we love green short grass and we cut it so much, trees are not able to grow tall and out compete grass for sunlight. Its an interesting concept. I learned that we need to pay more attention to our cause and effect we have on this planet and implement solutions to fix our problems that we have create rather than ignoring them and continuing on with our modern day practices.
Soil Solutions to Climate Change
The short video Soil Solutions to Climate Change talks about how carbon effects our planet and how soil can fix our problem of having too much C02 in our atmosphere. First, we have too much C02 in our atmosphere by our consumption of fossil fuels and our agriculture practices. This produces too much C02 that goes into our atmosphere trapping it causing our planet to heat up. The access C02 not trapped in the atmosphere falls into our oceans making them acid threatening marine life. Soil can fix this problem by taking C02 from our atmosphere and storing in the ground. Plants take in C02. So we change our sources of energy to renewable ones and change our farming practices to no till, we would be lessening our C02 production and help balance out our. Ted Talk by Michael Pollan, he says we should look at things from plants and animal perspectives to help understand our planet from and what it needs. He talks about how a bee functions and how planets benefit from the bee interaction. He also mentions how plants have evolved to gain what they need from us, such example used was how grass competes with trees for sunlight, by such that we love green short grass and we cut it so much, trees are not able to grow tall and out compete grass for sunlight. Its an interesting concept. I learned that we need to pay more attention to our cause and effect we have on this planet and implement solutions to fix our problems that we have create rather than ignoring them and continuing on with our modern day practices.
Conscious Runs Deep
Conscious Runs Deep
My take away after watching this video was how it appeals to the younger generation and outdoors man at the same time. Having a DJ play music throughout the entire film was smart as it keep you hooked on the beat as the fisherman waded out into the water flung the fly through the air majestically. What was cool about the video is that it was staged on an actual free flowing river that made you feel at one with nature. It was a powerful message having the fisherman first see a piece of trash rolling the street in the beginning of the video to only have the same piece of trash be picked up in the river that hes fishing in.
My land ethic few is that we need to love and respect nature. It is so beautiful the way it is and we should not trash it. Our resources are valuable and need to be respected and protected from people and business that are out for personal gain and profit.
My take away after watching this video was how it appeals to the younger generation and outdoors man at the same time. Having a DJ play music throughout the entire film was smart as it keep you hooked on the beat as the fisherman waded out into the water flung the fly through the air majestically. What was cool about the video is that it was staged on an actual free flowing river that made you feel at one with nature. It was a powerful message having the fisherman first see a piece of trash rolling the street in the beginning of the video to only have the same piece of trash be picked up in the river that hes fishing in.
My land ethic few is that we need to love and respect nature. It is so beautiful the way it is and we should not trash it. Our resources are valuable and need to be respected and protected from people and business that are out for personal gain and profit.
Global Population Crisis
World Population
While watching the video on population growth, the timeline portion was overwhelming and I anticipating something to burst or blow up with how fast the yellow dots where appearing on the map. It is very scary to think that now and looking to the future we have a huge problem with the amount of people are on earth and the with the limited number of resources left. What I have learned is that we need to educate as many people on this planet right now and in the future with this crisis we are facing. Its scary to think that how little people on an everyday basis think about this issue, myself being one of them. Lowering our population growth and limit our use of resources are things we can do right now to fight this ever increasing crisis on our hands. Students in my class had some interesting and unique ways of spreading the message of global population increase and the crisis we are faced with.
The video is roughly 5mins and is a worthwhile piece of education to open your eyes to this reality we are facing.
Recently, I have started watching the global population clock. It was scary to see how fast our population is increasing every second. I wish more people learned about our global population crisis we have and band together to take steps towards informing others to make changes to limit our growth. While I believe everyone should be able to have kids if they choose to, its rather the amount of kids that is the issue. Births are outnumbering deaths by staggering amounts. Contraceptive resources and family planning needs to be shared with LDC. I advice you to visit the global population clock and sit there for a bit and watch it. Think about the imprecations this is already having on our planet today but as well as in the future.
tale of the water bottle
The Story of Bottle Water with Annie Leonard
What I learned after watching this short video is that not all bottled water is created equal and what test and studies have shown is that tap water is sometimes healthier then bottle water. Not to mention tap water also cost way less. Soda companies in the 1970's realized profits to stall out and afraid people would revert back to drinking tap water, scare tactics where implemented so that people would think that tap water should only be used to washing dishes and laundry. Bottle water companies also started to lure us with pristine wilderness pictures on labels. The problem starts with oil being pumped from the ground to create plastic bottles, then the bottles have to shipped around the world to stores, and then consumers have to spend money on something that is consumed in around 2mins. Then the plastic bottles get disposed of that end up in landfills, incinerators, or shipped over seas to be someones else's problem. We need to start drinking (clean) tap water and stop buying bottled water. The money saved from not buying or producing bottle water could be used to help others around the world that don't have access to clean water.
olivers grocery store helps local economy
Oliver's is a small local grocery store chain located in Sonoma County. The employees of Oliver's are local people that live in the surrounding area. The goods that are sold here are primary local made products. The uniqueness of Oliver's is that they support the local economy every time a customers makes a purchase at their store opposed to going to a large retail store. The local economy benefits in many ways, either from the employee earning a paycheck which in turn allows them to live locally or to the local good that was purchased supports that local business and it's employees. The "economic multiplier concept" is the concept of said local business hiring local employees, generating local taxes and selling of local goods. This would be known as a direct effect from the business. An indirect effect would be the employees spending their wages on other local business and thus causing a direct effect for another local business. The induced effect would be a roofer that needed to roof a new grocery store that opened and he went out and spent his money at a local restaurant or local retail store, thus supporting another local store. This concept keeps money circulating locally and the local economy healthy.
There was a study done at Sonoma State University that describes this process in detail and how the Economic multiplier concept works. If other areas got on board this idea of "grow local, shop local, live local" then other local economies would benefit rather than shopping at large retail stores that are interested in share holder gain rather than the local economies well being.
Link to the article, Sonoma State University - Study: 2011 of the benefits of 'Shopping Locally (PDF)
