Tuesday, November 13, 2007

How I impact soil

Oh where to start. This is going to be on big guilt trip. I've been bad...Once I didn't know where to put my car oil so I left it outside. Well the next morning I noticed that it had been kicked around and the oil had spilled and sunk into the ground. I've littered...um... let see, using chemicals on the grass can't be to good for the soil. I better stop and focus on what I need and can do to change. Well not making dumb choices to leave oil out to soak into the ground would help. There's places I can take it where the oil can be disposed of properly. Why does grass need fertilizer when it has mother earths water! Not using chemicals on the grass would easily increase the soil condition. I feel like I've been abusive to my soil!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Am I eating Genetically Modified Food?

I found out that I have eaten Genetically Modified soybeans, and corn recently. Strange to think I had no idea. It looked the same, taste the same...why not! I'm fine with it. I do feel that stores should have to label Genetically Modified foods though. It just wouldn't seem right if stores sold them labeled as regularly produced crops. All there is to say is that I couldn't taste or tell a difference from the fake and the real soybeans. Reminded me of those coke and coke zero commercials where nobody could tell a difference. That's all there is to say about that

Genetic Engineering

All I have to say is gosh.... What a tough subject to debate. I'm having trouble choosing a side since there's so many concerns I have. It seems like humans always tend to do things without seeing them all the way through. With genetic Engineering of food it seems like there might be some problems when bacteria becomes adapted and evolves. What does this mean? Does it mean we'll have created a very strong bacteria that is deadly. I must mention that Genetic Engineering isn't a subject my brain knows much about. There's the helping factors that come into play as well. I'm not saying Genetic Engineering is horrible, it sounds very very helpful. Solving world hungry is taking it to a long shot but it has its possibilities. I don't know the cost either but if it could be supplied to poor countries then Genetic Engineering could be a huge break through. Like I said....gosh...

Marine Biodiversity

The discussion was very interesting. I find myself to be under-educated on the subject of "biodiversity" so any topic related I keep my ears open. To start the discussion I tried to get my question answered on what the human ratio to marine population ratio is. Unfortunitly it didn't get answered but what I found interesting was how over fished the oceans are. It's weird to hear that 90% of the oceans have been fished out...wow! 90%...that percentage is unfathomable!! I couldn't wrap my mind around the thought of the ocean being so destroyed by fishing. After hearing everyones thoughts, it was obvious that there needed to be more rules and regulations instated to fishing.

Pros & Cons on Zoo's

I must start by saying Zoo's had a huge impact on my young childhood. Every summer my grandparents would take all the grandchildren to the zoo. I love this tradition and would love to carry it on to future generations of my family. I guess entertainment could be a good way to start of on the Pro side. Animals who are near extinction can be captured and mated in zoo's to rebuild the population of the species. A con that comes to mind is that the zoo habitats aren't built to a real life sized setting. I do feel sympathy looking at some of the animals stuck in small little cages. Also if you factor in that some of the animals taking captive for zoos were taken away from their families. From my stand point...That would suck!!! So to wrap this up, I love Zoo's but at the same time I feel slightly bad for some of the animals stuck in there. It's all just a catch 22 in my mind

Kamut

I had no idea that I had eaten Kamut. It was in my Chili soup. I enjoyed the soup so I guess you could say I like Kamut. It's a larger than normal seed, or at least it looks abnormally big to me. Being bigger means that it must carry more protein than a regular grain. This impacts biodiversity in the way where if everyone only ate one kind of grain then sooner or later it would become extinct or have to be machine made. When it comes to grain, there are many different kinds. This is maintains biodiversity since many of the different grains are used in lots of everyday uses.

Species Extinction

Extinction is a subject in which I really do not think about to often. Sure, it's a horrible thought to think a species of bird is out there on its last leg but it's just a depressing subject. Nature has it's way of extinction through natural selection but, humans also have a huge impact. Humans seem to be selfish ignorant people when it comes to extinction. When we look around we see so many of one species that it seems almost physically impossible to kill every last one. Well...it has happened in many cases. So saying humans don't have an impact on human extinction would be a lie.