September 21st Class

During this class we learned how Economics and environmental protection really go hand in hand. The government needs to get involved in order to protect the environment and must depend on the input from our economy in order to make wise decisions.

We spoke about corporations becoming sustainable and I believe this is a major impact that can effect our enviroment and in order to encourage corporations to participate we need to reward the ones that do by buying their products and not buying from the companies that do not make an effort to help the environment.

We spoke about the steps that make an environment policy and how a bill becomes a law and for some of us we watched a video that brought us back to our youth about how the bill becomes a law. We then looked at the approaches to environmental policy.

Environmental policy is a key to solving some of the problems that we encounter and we need to use them to our advantage.

My Impression of September 21 Class

This week we learned about how economics has such a large impact on the environment. Economy, Subsistence economy, Capitalist market economy, Centrally planned economy, and Mixed economy are the five types of modern economies. The government plays a vital role in keeping the environment safe and there are many policies that the government has taken over the years to try and protect it.

In our September 21st class we also discussed Hypoxia, which is low concentrations of dissolved oxygen water. This is often caused by fertilizer, runoff, and sewage and is affecting areas such as the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone". This is a region of water so depleted of oxygen that marine life is either killed or driven away. It is important that the government take action on matters such as the "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico so that we can continue to use the resources that we receive from these areas.

Environmentalists and economics Video

This video shows that government should get involved in our environment and that economics provides that platform. The video states that our environment is demoralized and in order to regain momentum we must be knowledgeable in economics.

There are five ways the markets can fail and when there five things exist that is a sign that the government should be involved. Those five items consist of Externalities such as pollution, Property Rights where landowner has no incentive to invest, Lack of competion where we should have open bidding process, Imperfect information and Markets of insurance where you don't want to take risks because you don't know the effect.

Economics is how people choose to use resources and I feel the government should be involved in environmental control and everyone should agree that we should stop subsidizing bad environmental behavior! We need to continue to improve our quality of life.

What Environmentalists Need to Know about Economics

Here is this week's video. The speaker obviously has his political views on display here, but he does an excellent job of outlining many of the challenges facing people who have to develop environmental policy.

Bio 103 Cedar Cliff: The Lorax

Bio 103 Cedar Cliff: The Lorax

Chapter 1

In chapter 1 we learned that the Environment consists of all living things in our surroundings including human relationships. We also found that natural resources are vital to our survival and there are resources that can be renewed over time but also resources that can be depleted.

We were shown that science exists to sort fact from fiction and develop solutions to the problems that we face. We need scientists to test our ideas to see if they are valid as in the show Myth Busters. There are steps to testing these ideas call the Scientific Method. The results will support or reject our ideas for a better environment.

A key point that stuck with me is Sustainability because we should all be responsible for living within our plant's means but that also involves Ethical Standards and when companies are only thinking about a profit I believe their ethics are compromised.

We must become more aware of our natural and social systems if we are going to provide our future humans with a good world to live in.

The Lorax

The video is an example of environmental activism. In the clip the man is trying to object in the name of the trees and save them from being all destroyed in a short amount of time. If we do not use our resources wisely we could destroy our civilization.

The clip shows how hard it is for one person to stand up for what they believe in. Their voice does not get heard. The larger companies are only thinking about the almighty dollar and not about the future of our environment. They will keep taking until the resource is depleted. Who's responsibility is it to control this impact? I believe that is also something that not everyone would agree on.

In the example of Easter Island, the people destroyed their environment because they depleted all their resources. This shows that our survival depends on how we treat our environment and that we must use it wisely.