The giant panda has been seen as an unofficial mascot of china. They live in bamboo forest, which are threatened by china’s rapid population growth and industrialization. The loss of habitat along side with poaching has caused the panda population to decrease. China’s government is stepping in by creating national park. This will not only help pandas but also the people living in and around the new park.

The Giant Panda is in the bear family and are one of the only completely herbivore bear species. They live in bamboo forest in the western most part of China although historically they could be found all over china. Each panda has a large home range, which makes the fact that bamboo forest is on the decline a major problem. There are only 1,864 pandas left in the wild and 300 in captivity. Due to an extremely slow reproductive rate, it makes every panda very important. China strictly controls all of the pandas in captivity and in the wild. Poachers are a big problem due to them having such a volatile population. The introduction of the new 1.5 billion dollar state park will allow the population to grow. The park will be around 5 million acres, which makes it two times the size of Yellowstone. The park will also provide the 170,000 people who inhabit the land new job opportunities. The area now is struck by poverty and theses new jobs act as another driver for the national park. It is going to be built in the Sichuan Province, which allows gene flow throughout the panda population. They are hoping to be finished by 2023.

I believe that this is a huge step in the right direction. This can help not only the pandas but also the people. I know for governments to invest in state parks there are always alternate motives other than conservation. The 170,000 poverty struck people who will have new job opportunities paired turning a poor area into a tourist hotspot, makes it a better investment for the Chinese government. The addition of the new panda territory will be a long-term success in my opinion. The one question I have is how will the park run when there will be a small population of pandas initially. I understand 50 years down the road that it will be a must visit place once a steady population is present.

This all comes with the responsibility we have as people to conserve species that we have affected. The use of national parks is very usefully for governments and people who live around it. I believe with people focusing on lowering their ecological footprint, lowering the population and establishing designated areas to make sure species are safe from extinction are important if we want our kids to see the Earth as we see it today. The use of national parks have been useful in helping endangered species like the bison and the grey wolf, it will be interesting if the giant panda can also be a success story.

Press, The Associated. “China to Build Massive $1.5 Billion Panda Conservation Area.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/03/08/world/asia/ap-as-china-panda-conservation.html.

The talk I attended was called Race, place, and the de-gentrification of Nature Conservation in the south. The talk I attended was given by Dr. Drew Lanham. He is a professor at Clemson and studies natural wildlife. He studies also include the integration of race in nature. The talk he gave was a derivative of this connection on race in nature conservation in the south. The talk first started off Dr. Drew Lanham playing the song Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye. I found this to be a successful tactic to get me, as an audience member, engaged and wanting to know the connection between the song and the what the talk is about. The songs lyrical meaning is on the topic of ecology and what the world use to be compared to what it has become. Dr. Drew Lanham explained how this song was interesting because even when it was written, in 1971, it was evident that the world was changing for the worst concerning nature conservation. He then went on to explain how we as people survive and thrive through water. It was explained that we need water to make it through everyday life whether we realize it or not. He asked the question, “what is your water?” What he meant by this question was is the thing you need to survive and thrive every day. He then brings in the topic of race with water by mentioning that we are all connected to water whatever the past may be. Water was and has been the source of life for every race. He states that we must feel our way through this issue of race, “we must work for the wild things, wild place, and water.” He ended his talk with an excerpt from his book that deals with his personal connection to water. He explains the story of remembering his father gathering water from their fresh spring well. After years past his father fell ill and died. He and his mother had to find a new source of water. The pipe they had to put in place to get the water out of had a worst taste and consistency compared to the fresh water his father had gathered from the well all those years. They no longer had access to the main thing that should’ve been provided to them. Instead, he and his mother were left to uses a unnatural source of water. This is the point in his life that he explained him realizing how important water is and its impact of life. The one thing I learned from this talk was the impact that society has on water. I never realized that what we have going on in our society can largely affect the nature surrounding us. To me, nature and societal interactions was two separate ideas. I found his explanation of the two ideas working together very interesting. He ended his talk with a quote I found very important to remember when connecting society to nature. He said, “think about your ties to water and your policy.”

Alexis Waters-Peterson

  Oil Versus Limestone
As a consumer and a surfer one of the most important products to me is a wetsuit. I don’t buy these regularly but the multitude of different professions and hobbies that require one creates a wide scale demand. This demand creates experimentation with the different materials and chemicals which certainly have their implications on the environment. The most common material used in wetsuits is neoprene.
Neoprene is a synthetic rubber based material which is now being produced on the industrial scale. Neoprene is so popular because it was the first synthetic rubber developed with a unique balance of physical and chemical properties. It has good weather and ozone resistance, aging resistance, low flammability, strength, and adhesion to many substances. For these reasons neoprene can be used in many different areas and has taken over the rubber industry.
As the possibilities of neoprene increase the possibilities of adverse effects to the environment increase. The highest potential for release into the environment lies within the transfer, manufacture, and storage process. The two types of neoprene are limestone neoprene and oil based neoprene. Oil based neoprene is commonly made from polychloroprene rubber chips which are melted and mixed together with carbon black and baked in an oven until it expands to make a foamed rubber. The chips themselves are made from chloroprene monomers which are reacting small molecules. These molecules produce the macromolecules that make up rubber. In the 1960’s limestone neoprene  was developed by Japan’s Yamamoto Corporation to convert calcium carbonate from limestone into chloroprene rubber chips, resulting in limestone neoprene. Limestone neoprene is favorable for several reasons; one being it is much less dense than oil based neoprene. This produces a more impermeable, more durable, more stretchy, lighter weight, and warmer wetsuit.
The most common method used to make neoprene is derived from petroleum. The many implications of this oil based product on the environment include the release of gases and synthetic chemicals into the air. Oil exploration, drilling, and extraction result in crude oil spills that have a direct and noticeable effect on the health the surrounding ecosystem. Both oil based and limestone wetsuits are nonrenewable resources that end up in a landfill somewhere.
The other method which is less commonly used is derived from limestone. The limestone is mined, crushed, and fed into a furnace at extremely high temperatures. This process is energy intensive but significantly reduces dependence on oil based products. A limestone spill is also much easier to clean up then an oil spill. Limestone based wetsuits might slightly reduce environmental impacts for a significant reduction in impact neoprene itself must be replaced by another material. The evaporation of chemicals used in adhesives and solvents must be replaced by a new innovative approach to minimizing environmental footprint.

Have you ever wondered what to do with your prescription bottle/container that has some medication left? The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) periodically hosts National Prescription Drug Take-Back events where collection sites are set up in communities nationwide for safe disposal of prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed guidelines to dispose medication responsibly through the Take Back program. If people do not have access to that program, he or she can just throw out unused medications, but there is also a list known as the “flush list” where excess medicines from this list should be flushed for public safety. Product formulations listed on the most current version of the flush list contain the following 13 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs): buprenorphine, diazepam, fentanyl, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, meperidine, methadone, methylphenidate, morphine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, sodium oxybate, and tapentadol. Characterizing by their effects, the thirteen APIs can be broken down into one benzodiazepine (diazepam), one respiratory and central nervous system stimulant (methylphenidate), one central nervous system agent (sodium oxybate), and the remainder being opioids. Out of all items on the flush list, opioids are dominating the list. Perhaps it has been done so reduce the accidental ingestion by children. We are in the midst of opioid epidemic so quickly disposing excess opioids is highly recommended to avoid non-medical use of opioids by adolescents or accidental ingestion of sodium oxybate by children, which can result in rapid sedation. Pets are also at an elevated risk to these potentially hazardous medicines.

These APIs are listed in the flush list due to their severe toxicity and documented poison cases. But a large problem remains: even when flushed as it can remain in and poison our water system and soil. The effect of the existence of these APIs in the environment on human health is not yet fully understood, but researchers are assuming that this has a negative impact on health and are demanding an alternative to flushing these pharmaceutical ingredients.

Recently endocrine  disrupting compounds are also found in the drinking water. And Drinking water which serves or about 28 million people were tested for fifty-one different kinds of drugs  by  Mark J. Benotti, Rebecca A. Trenholm, Brett J. Vanderford, Janie C. Holady, Benjamin D. Stanford and Shane A. Snyder. Water was contaminated with not only different kinds of drugs but also other organic compound which is definitely pose risk for plant or animal  plankton, fish and human as well. Pharmaceutical compond such as atenolol, atrazine, carbamazepine, estrone, gemfibrozil, meprobamate, naproxen, phenytoin, sulfamethoxazole, TCEP, and trimethoprim were found.  Researchers also stated :

“The typical compound concentrations were less than 10 ng/L for these top eleven with an exception for sulfamethoxazole at 12 ng/L, However, TCEP levels at one drinking water treatment plant was detected to be at an absurdly high level of 120 ng/L, showing wide variance in these concentrations. Atenolol, atrazine, DEET, estrone, meprobamate, and trimethoprim can also serve as indicator compounds to represent potential contamination from other pharmaceuticals and EDCs and can gauge the efficacy of treatment processes.”

As mentioned earlier, FDA  suggested guidelines about disposing drugs in household trash. It says to mix the capsule/tablet with cat litter or used ground coffee and put the mixture in a sealed plastic bag. Any personal information on the medication must be scratched off before disposing the original medicine packaging container.

If anyone is interested to know how to dispose drugs, he or she may visit the following link.

https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/EnsuringSafeUseofMedicine/SafeDisposalofMedicines/ucm186187.htm#Flushing

A hot line is available for the consumer to provide information about disposal of drugs .Consumers may directly call 18008829539 to get DEA Office of Diversion Control’s Registration Call Center to reach the drug collector in the surrounding area. Although there is no evidence that the presence of in nature in significant amount and contributing to ecotoxicology, we hope that all our unused medication can be disposed and stored safely in certain areas so that they will not pose any threat to the environment or to the public.

Source:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28787777

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717313773?via%3Dihub

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es801845a