Reaction to Sustainability

In Jeffrey D. Sachs' textbook, The Age of Sustainable Development, he discusses various definitions for the phrase "sustainable development" within the first chapter. Before reading this, I did not realize that it was such a difficult topic to define. Even though it is hard to define, I found that Sachs does a fairly good job at defining it in three separate ways. I found that his one definition, in sum, about "the world economy, the global society, and the Earth's physical environment (Sachs 2015, 3)" to be the better of the three. For the next essay, I would like to focus on either Australia's or Germany's sustainability development.   

  

Reactions to The Bet

After completing Paul Sabin's book, the Bet, I found that I really enjoyed this text. I thought that Sabin did a great job at not only discussing Ehrlich's and Simon's  1980 bet, but also at bringing the reader through the environmental history of the time period. For instance, I found that I knew a significant amount about President Nixon, and how he helped protect the environment throughout his period but it was nice that Sabin went into greater detail about it all. Due to still being in school and learning more about the environment every semester, I did not realize the big names within the field such as Ehrlich, and this book definitely helped me realize what side I leaned towards more. I realized that I leaned towards Ehrich's ideas more, but also found him to be a bit to radical for me at the same time. I believe that Sabin made this more clear for me through his text, because he did not seem biased throughout the majority of this book, and did a great job at talking about everything from both Ehrlich's and Simon's perspectives. Another good perspective on the book was written by Simon Nicholson called, "The Birth of Free-Market Environmentalism," where he discusses Sabin's analysis of the 1980 bet and the overall government throughout that time period & the present time period. Overall, I found Nicholson's perspective to be well done because it did a great job identifying what was bad and good about both Ehrlich's and Simon's ideas about the environment. He also did great at recognizing that even though Simon won the bet in 1990, it doesn't mean that his views on the environment are totally accurate.    

The Atlantic's First Ocean Park

In recent news, President Barack Obama has declared the first national marine park in the Atlantic Ocean at the State Department's Our Ocean conference in Washington, DC. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument lies at150 miles off the New England coastline, and is about the size of Connecticut. National Geographic's author Cynthia Barnett recently discussed this in her online article, and talked about both sides of the event very well. Barnett made sure she not only talked about the President's opinion, but also the opinions' of the fishermen whom are being affected by this. Even though Barnett talks about both sides, I also got the hint that she supported the Presidents perspective more than the fishermen's perspectives.  

Recent News on African Elephants

In recent news, New York Time's authors Niraj Chokshi and Jeffery Gettleman, released an article briefly explaining the new population status of African elephants. In their article, "African Elephant Population Dropped 30 Percent in 7 Years," they talk about the consequences that poaching has taken on the African elephant populations and how if poaching were to stop this day it would still take decades for the population to regain itself. This piece strongly took the side of the conservationists, researchers and the wildlife services whom are all working to restore the elephant populations. I found that while reading this article, I was pretty heartbroken on how bad the situation actually is. However, I do believe that the article could have talked more about what exactly is being done to stop poaching.  

Reaction to Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian

I find Malthus' theory of population growth to be extremely useful because it sheds light on the connection between population growth and the food supply on our planet. In better words, Malthus's theory does a great job at explaining how the population is growing exponentially and the food supply can not grow with it. Seeing that I do agree with Malthus's theory on population growth, I also agree with Paul Ehrlich's neo-malthusian beliefs rather than Julian Simon's beliefs. However, I do believe that some of  Ehrlich's beleifs can be a bit much, because he is somewhat of a radical with his beliefs. For instance, in the book The Bet, Paul Sabin explains Ehrlich's belief on pushing sterilization through water supplies or vasectomies which I believe is taking it a little bit to far. On the other hand, I do agree with Ehrlich's minimalist beliefs on not using more than is necessary. 

Citation: Sabin, P. (2013). The bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and our gamble over Earth's future. Yale University Press. 

Passaic River Cleanup

I believe that the Passaic River cleanup is a great idea, because it will not only benefit the community around the site but also is a great step in the right direction for cleaning up the whole river. Hopefully, once people of the surrounding community can see how beneficial it is to have that section of the river clean than they can help push for the rest of the river to become a clean up site as well. However, I do believe that factories around the clean up site should not be allowed to continuously dump into the Passaic because that would be a huge step backwards. 

Article on the Passaic River Clean Up:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-the-epa-clean-up-one-of-americas-most-toxic-rivers/2016/08/19/f9314c74-5829-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html

Article on some Pollution in USA Waterways:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0BypQRAy33pBCb1JmT3J5YU9Ucm8