Blog #4

The Life and Death of the Salt Marsh

In this excerpt, John Teal and Mildred Teal talk about the significance of the marshesto the environment and the ecological importance that they hold.   They start by describing in detail, an experience of what it’s like to walk in a marsh, but then goes to say how the salt marshes are being threatened.  “We destroy wetlands and shallow water bottoms directly by dredging, filling, and building…  The marsh would often have been much more valuable as a marsh than it is in its subsequent desecrated form”, as described by John and Mildred Teal describes how despite its destruction for human development, the marsh will serve a greater purpose than we could possibly construct in its place.   They propose using the same techniques as those implemented to save provincial and federal parks, which is to push for conservation efforts, saying: “The battle between the forces of development and conservation need to be won only once by the developers but must be fought and won every year for conservation to triumph.”

Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

The main focus of this article, done during the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, is the call for immediate action for successful environmental management.  They give the example that humans have rapidly changed ecosystems over the course of history in order to meet and for most parts exceed the needs of the planet.  This has caused significant, irreversible damage to the earths ecosystems, to quote the excerpt: “Humans are fundamentally, and to a significant extent irreversibly, changing the diversity of life on Earth, and most of these changes represent a loss of biodiversity”.  The excerpt goes on to say 60% of the examined problems done by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are continuously being: “degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards and pests”.  Regardless of the economic gains made from the ecological manipulation, the cost that comes from these changes, which the world seems to be cashing in now far outweighs, the rate at which we are recovering the environment, calling for immediate changes to our daily lifestyles.

Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment

Our Stolen Future

In this excerpt, Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers talk about the potential threat that the chemicals released into the environment possess.  Examples of hormone mimics exist within the population currently, and the number of people becoming affected is on the rise. To quote the excerpt: “A number of pediatricians from various parts of the United States have expressed their concern about an increasing frequency of genital abnormalities in children, such as undescended testicles, extremely small penises, and hypospadias, a defect in which the urethra that carries urine does not extend to the end of the penis, but it is virtually impossible to document these anecdotal reports.  Rachel Carson once wrote: “Our fate is connected with the animals”.  This statement is becoming more and more clear as the chemicals we are releasing in the environment, affecting the biological cycles, which we ignored, have inevitably come full circle and are now affecting us, despite the warnings the other biological cycles have given us.

Environmental Justice For All

The term Environmental Justice was first coined c. 1980 during civil rights movements to call for the need that liberates, exclusively, poor (and mostly black) neighbourhoods from garbage dumps, land fills, incinerators and other things that might effect the health of those around it.  Starting in the 1920’s cities have been dumping garbage in poor communities.  Robert D. Bullard in this excerpt states: “Leaders introduced the concepts of environmental justice, protesting that Black, poor and working-class communities often received less environmental protection than White or more affluent communities”.  Specific examples, such as Warren County, are given, putting environmental racism on the map.   More nad more environmental justice networks and smaller community groups are making their voices heard, calling simply for the need for environmental justice regardless of where they are situated.