The one major daily act that seems to always pop up into my head as a problem is the amount of time I spend driving/in a car a day. I grew up in Westport, Connecticut where most things are pretty spread out and easier to get to if driving. When I came to Charleston my awareness of how much I drive became very noticeable to me because Freshmen year since I was so close to campus I rarely got into a car. Along with that as I walked around the city I realized that this is really not a car city whatsoever. The streets are small enough and people park on both sides, making two-way streets seem like one way. Let alone that half the guys who have cars here decided to make them aggressively big trucks that legitimately can’t fit on the streets of Charleston. Anyway since I started to realize the unnecessary usage of cars here( because everything on the peninsula is a 30-minute walk max from each other) I asked my dad for a bike instead of letting me use the car back at home(which I would have had to drive 15 hours here). He actually got me a really cool electric bike that gets me to school, to be honest, faster than a car would because I am not stuck in traffic and can take some shortcuts cars aren’t allowed too. Honestly, one person changing one small component of their life like this won’t make a massive impact, but what it can do is set an example for others along with boosting the way you feel about yourself/lifestyle which is also very important. With us living in a time period where people’s own outcomes matter more to them than anything else it’s important to have the few who try to push forth change and or support change. Personally, by doing this I go about my day feeling better about myself. I know as of right now this change is very small and only the first of my changes, but if you fast forwarded to my life in about 40 years and I had stayed true to my change my carbon footprint would be so much lower than if I didn’t change. A major problem I’ve come to realize with this change is when traveling far distances. As much as I would like to ride my electric bike all the way it would take like 4 weeks, so I, therefore, have to fly/drive which makes me feel like I’m just giving up on my goal. Also when on vacation with family we are also driving around looking at places. This brings me to the awareness that as much as people want to change there are some things you can’t change unless you want to fully stop doing something(like traveling for work, with family, etc.) Overall i’m very happy with the change I’ve made and have followed it as strictly as possible, but in some circumstances, I must fail my goal.

News report:

• https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/rare-plant-hunters-race-against-time-save-risk-species
• Rare-plant hunters race against time to save at-risk speciesOosthoek, Sharon. “Rare-Plant Hunters Race against Time to Save at-Risk Species.” Science News for Students, 7 Feb. 2019, www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/rare-plant-hunters-race-against-time-save-risk-species.

In the news report, answer:

• The source of the article
  • Science News for Students
  • SHARON OOSTHOEK
• The Questions: What/Who/Why/When/Where/How
  • What(the article tells us)
    • What the article addresses is the amount of rare plant life we are losing due to human development/climate change, etc. She speaks about the rare Alula plant which is only located only on the islands of Hawaii. The Alula was a very common plant before aggressive human development and animal domestication. Humans destroyed large amounts of lands containing these plants and with that brought pigs goats and rats which munched away at a lot of the plant life. Along with that other foreign(not native), plants/crops brought over out competed them.
    • A big factor in the alula plant disappearance is due to the diminishing fabulous green sphinx moth. This is the plant’s natural pollinator but due to the lands cleared for human development and the domesticated animals brought over here there are no longer enough plants for them to pollinate and therefore they have declined in numbers as well.
    • The only way for these plants to live is by us pollinating them, or else they will die off.
      • Did this by hand. “They would dip small paint brushes into the pollen of some greenhouse alula flowers and then dabbing it onto the stigmas of other alula flowers”.
    • What she also talked about was the Brewer spruce which is found in northwest North America only and are considered one of these rarest trees in the world. The biggest danger to the Brewer spruce is wildfires and climate change. There are only 6 specific places on earth to find these trees and they all happened to be in Oregon.
    • Along with this, there are no laws of protection for the Brewer spruce and therefore the only reason these trees are still around is because of their isolated growing location.
    • Was also mentioned to be a survivor of the glacial period 10,000 years ago.

• • Who
    • This affects all of us because soon there won’t be diverse ecosystems which means fewer animals, food, and resources.
  • Why(bigger picture)
    • It’s happening because people just don’t realize what are rare plant species and what aren’t. Also, many people don’t interact with nature that intensely to be able to identify such species. Self-interest drives many people and they don’t care about what plants they are destroying. According to a report from the Royal Botanic Gardens 1 in 5 of the world’s plants are at risk of extinction.
    • Humans development/climate change/wildfires.
  • When
    • This report was written February 7th, 2019, but does, in fact, use some information founded by rare plant hunters from 2016-2017
  • Where
    • Northern Oregon and the islands of Hawaii.
  • How(how it affects us)
    • Due to human development and the destruction of natural habitats.
• Impact of the event or finding / Relevance to society
  • The reason this is so important is that if we lose the Brewer spruce, Alula, and other rare species we could lose possible medical discoveries. Throughout history, we have seen plants used as a source of medicine and if they disappear we will never find out what they could have cured. Along with that plants are at the bottom of the food chain which means other, bigger organisms eat them and so on. If these plants are in abundance animals won’t be able to eat which then affects the whole ecosystem.
• Relevance to the course
  • This connects well to our course because it brings in the idea of system thinking. For example when you take one part of the system out(here it’s plants) the rest of the system will be affected and might even collapse.
• Any pertinent questions raised by the story

Today I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Maude Barlow on Solving the World Water Crises. Maude Barlow has been all around the world from UN conferences to the slums in search of solutions for these crises. What the event was about was to raise the awareness about water and to show people it’s just as big of a problem as global warming/climate change. Along with how Humans have a right to water, and how the world has denied millions that right. It so amazing to see her speak because of how much she has down to raise awareness and in taking action to help fix this massive crisis. She highlighted two twin crises that our world faces today, one Ecological, the other Human. Industries today have and continue to use water as a source of human development and disregards how much they use, pollute, and completed destroy. Some of the information she presented was jaw-dropping, to the point where it makes you sit and ponder what is going to happen to our world once we pass. What I really learned today, that I had no idea about, was the massive source of groundwater that many countries have, but are exploiting and polluting. Maude referred to them as the underground “seas”, but what was so interesting was how little governments care about how much industries are polluting these water sources. Along with that, we are taking so much more from these “seas” then earth can replenish. This is such a scary and to be honest an aggravating problem because people and along with governments push this problem to the side as if it’s going to fix itself when really it’ll get to a point of no return that causes conflict/wars. I thought this connected very well with what we have been talking about in class and relating to the triple bottom line of sustainability. We talked about the triple bottom line of sustainability during our third lecture and after learning how it all works this is a perfect example of how society isn’t even thinking about the triple bottom line. In order for our society to be sustainable, we need to be able to maintain change in a balanced environment. Where the social, economic, and environment are all in harmony which increases current/future potential. The problems Maude was discussing show how industries are doing exactly the opposite. Instead of finding a more sustainable way and respecting the environment, industries are destroying them and taking so much from them that ecosystems are just fully failing. I’m very happy I attended her talk because it really broadened my knowledge of our water crises. More importantly, it inspired me to want to do more than just sit and read about. Usually, I’m just reading an article about these problems and it makes me upset, but nothing more comes from it, but after seeing Maude speak I want to take action even if it’s small contributions to start.