Final Impression

On leaving the course, I have pretty much the same view that I did when I entered the course:

1. Climate change is cyclical; man should not attempt to interfere with this process.
2. The "green" economy is mostly BS, but I'm okay with it because it creates jobs.
3. Outdoor field trips are better than in-class instruction on this topic.
4. David Orr is a communist (this is a new one, I didn't know who he was).

If I were the colloquium coordinator, I would recommend that this course not be required for all students. It should be an elective. I would also remove all content about global warming, because there doesn't seem to be any interest in presenting other warming theories, like Urban Heat, which have as much if not more evidence behind them.

I did not like any of the readings. They were all either too dry and academic, or blatantly ridiculous, like Orr's "The Problem of Sustainability" or the Earth Charter. I would keep A Land Remembered, because it's actually a pretty good book and isn't intellectually offensive.

In future classes, less material such as this and more field trips would, I think, make the course more enjoyable and less of a waste of time and money.

Interview

For this blog entry I interviewed my grandfather. He is 92 years old and lived through the Great Depression. He also served as a SeaBee in World War II. He owns a factory that produces navy standard doors and marine ventilation equipment. He says the most important thing in business is to be competitive in service, price, and quality. He says that being competitive in business is more important than sustainability, but that a business should be responsible for its effect on the environment.

When I explained to my grandfather the content of this course, he asked me why they required that we take Colloquium. He said it was all basic common sense and that we should all do our part to not destroy the world, that it was not college material.

Canoe Trip

This was by far the best class trip of the semester. I usually go kayaking in the Estero River, which is fun, but the Imperial River is definitely easier on the eyes. The only thing I can think of that would have bettered this trip would be kayaks rather than canoes. I thought I was going to go insane listening to my boat partner's paddle scraping down the side of the canoe with every stroke. Maddening. Aside from that, though, the trip was great. I saw a few ospreys, one carrying a fish, and another carrying a snake, which is probably an Indian sign or something. The best part of the trip was, without a doubt, shucking and eating oysters right out of the river. My birthday is coming up on Thursday, and as soon as I get out of work, I'm going to rent a kayak and go out to Matlacha for some oyster hunting.

Downtown Fort Myers

I thought this trip was a ridiculous waste of time. While they've certainly done a great job trying to make the downtown area more tourist-friendly by copying the Naples format, the trip didn't instill a "sense of place" or really any positive feelings about native Florida. The only part of the trip that I found interesting in a naturalistic sense was the oak tree. It seems like every time I see it there are more steel cables vainly attempting to prevent the tree from self-destructing. The house at the Florida Historical Museum, for example, should be burned down, lest the memories of those terrible times continue through the generations. Seriously, though, the historical museum was awful. Why was there a King Tut exhibit? That made no sense to me.

Again, I want to stress that while I enjoy downtown Fort Myers, it simply had no place in this Colloquium class. I hope that the next time the curriculum is revised they exclude this trip and replace it with something more in line with the focus of the class, perhaps a camping trip or something.

Energy Usage

In home energy usage:

Fans: 2 ceiling fans on 24/7, approximately 48 W/hr = 35 kW/mo.

Lights: The majority of my time at home, approximately 7 hours today, was spent in my office and bedroom, with an average of 4 CFLs on at those times, for a total of 52 W/hr. (c. 37 kW/mo.)

A/C: does not run often. It's set at 76 degrees. I live in a ground floor condo. I estimate 200 kW/mo.

Hot water: 400 kW/mo. per the sticker on the side.

Microwave: I used the microwave for 7 minutes today.

FPL shows that I average 528 kW/hrs per month over the last four months. That's a daily use of 17.5 kW/hrs. This is approximately half the energy use of the average American household.

FPL, my power company, uses power from several sources:
52% natural gas
19% nuclear
15% purchased power
8% oil
6% coal

I drove approximately 30 miles today: 15 miles each way to and from FGCU, with one person in the car.

I drive approximately 9,000 miles every year, with an average of 24 miles per gallon, for a total gasoline use of 375 gallons per year. According to fueleconomy.gov, my car puts out 5.2 tons of CO2 a year.

For the most part, my choices are those of convenience. If it's not convenient for me to make sustainable choices, then I am going to make unsustainable ones. I try to conserve fuel for economic reasons only. I believe the environmental impact of my driving to and from work, school, and the grocery store is negligible when compared to, say, a Boeing 747 that dumps its emissions directly into the upper atmosphere.

Corkscrew Swamp

The Corkscrew Sanctuary trip was interesting for me, mainly because I don't get to see cypress forests of that magnitude often. The closest thing I can remember would be the Six Mile Cypress preserve. However, the solitary peacefulness of the trip was invaded by my number one peeve - German tourists. The mere presence of these creatures was enough to pollute the experience such that I will never return again. During the most pleasant time of the year, really the only time when it is comfortable to be outside, these pests flock to Southwest Florida with their gaudy clothes, enormous cameras, repulsive language, and rude attitudes. Their presence prevented me from getting a good view of the squirrel and bird feeder as well. If these German pests could somehow be excised from the preserve, which was otherwise beautiful, then perhaps someday I will return.

Ecological Footprint

# of earths: 7.3
lowest: garbage x1
highest: food x12
After taking the consumer consequences quiz, my score was equivalent to 7.3 Earths, with my lowest footprint correlating to garbage and my highest correlating to food. I'm not a big fan of surveys like this, because the data presented is completely arbitrary: even the link that explained how the results were tallied gave no specific information. I personally don't believe that I consume more than I reasonably should. The fact that my food score heavily skewed my total score upwards basically negates the entire game, because I'm not about to stop eating any time soon. Other than that, I really doubt I consume more than the average American: I live in a huge apartment building with a minuscule electric bill, only drive to work and school, and fly a couple times a year.

I'm in the process of replacing my light bulbs with CFLs, mostly for economic reasons. And I recycled about 25 pounds of bottles yesterday, along with a month's worth of newspapers. And I don't buy as much as I used to, once again for economic reasons. I'm also trying to cut down on the amount of grains and dairy I eat.

Food Intake and Packaging

Part A - Daily Food Intake
Breakfast - 2 Cups Kashi Go-Lean Cereal (280 cal.), 1 Cup Soymilk (70. cal)
Lunch - 2 1/4lb. Costco Polish sausage w/ bun (936. cal), 16 oz. Raspberry iced tea (140 cal.)
Dinner #1 - (home) Turkey sandwich, multigrain bread (345. cal), 2 Dogfish Head IPAs (440 cal.)
Snacks - 1 Choc. chip cookie (60. cal), 1/2 20 oz. Coke (146. cal), 2 Cups Soymilk (140. cal)
Total Daily Caloric intake: 2557
Sources: About.com, food packaging labels, Dogfish Head (by phone)

My food comes from all over the U.S. I'm pretty sure I didn't eat anything imported today. It would probably not be sustainable for 6.7 billion people to eat the way I do. Thankfully, most people in the third world don't have the option, so for now, my eating habits are sustainable.

Part B - Packaging
I work in retail, in an electronics store, so today 99% of the items I handled were very likely not sustainable. Just about everything comes in a plastic case, inside a cardboard box full of styrofoam, inside a plastic tote, stacked high and wrapped in thick plastic shrink wrap. When I say not sustainable, what I mean is not economically sustainable. Most of the cardboard gets recycled, and the totes are reused. The plastic could be recycled if that was a priority. The most important thing in this equation is the items themselves, 90% of which are completely unnecessary. Who needs a netbook? Most of the people that buy them already have a laptop and a blackberry. Why do you need that printer? Unless you're in an office, it is much more economical to keep everything electronically and print the occasional document at the library. The list goes on. This will be the true downfall of humanity: our gluttony. That being said, I own all this crap, and everything I buy comes in one-use packaging.

Matanzas Pass

I'm not going to lie, the best part about the Matanzas Pass trip wasn't the boardwalk or the history lesson. It was the sea grape jelly with crackers. Hands down. That being said, the boardwalk was pretty fun. I've lived in Florida my whole life, so I already knew the difference between mangroves. It was pretty cool to see the bay, it was actually nice that day. The history lesson was interesting, I didn't realize there had been bridges previous to the one that exists today.

This is a picture from the covered area looking out into the bay. If you zoom in on the bottom center of the picture you can see a few lightning whelks.


Red and black mangroves on the right of the boardwalk.


Red and black mangroves on the left of the boardwalk.

Conservation 20/20, the Lee County department that manages the Matanzas Pass preserve, buys property and restores it to its "natural" state. I don't believe that county tax dollars should be spent this way because there is too much potential for corruption. A landowner that finds himself in possession of otherwise worthless real estate could easily make a payoff to a county commissioner in exchange for purchasing the land, for example.

Other than the Matanzas Pass preserve, I have visited the Six Mile Cypress Preserve, Koreshan, Deep Lagoon, Billy Creek, and a few others.

Water Rights

Since the dawn of the oil era, it has been common practice that whoever owns the land owns what lies beneath it. The same logic should apply to water and every other free-flowing natural resource. Therefore, so long as the pumping of groundwater does not detract from the private enjoyment of the land owned by one's neighbors, one should be allowed to extract water from one's own property. Legally speaking, impact on wildlife is not a consideration so long as the appropriate permits are obtained. Morally speaking, since I don't believe humanity has a responsibility to "preserve" nature, and provided the water will in fact be used to the benefit of the people, a property owner should be able to geoscape the land to the extent necessary to obtain the water demanded. If T. Boone Pickens's plan is rejected, presumably, it will be because Dallas can obtain water elsewhere, cheaper. There should be no legal challenge to his right to pipe water to Dallas provided he has the rights to build the pipeline. I don't think we will experience any major crises in Florida, given that not only does the SFWMD keep a tight rein on water supplies in times of drought, but also our proximity to water. The advances in desalinization technology over the last few decades have made it such that while more expensive than natural freshwater, it is economically feasible to substitute seawater.

My Water Usage
Based on the advertised volume of water my toilet, dishwasher, shower, and sink use, I estimate that I used approximately 58 gallons of water today. I believe this is far lower than the average water usage per person, at least in America. I don't "conserve" water, although I am mindful that water isn't free and am therefore not wasteful.

The Future of Food

After watching the documentary "The Future of Food," my feelings were much the same as they are any time someone brings up a "pressing issue." So What. Discussions like this are pointless because they bring about no change whatsoever. You want examples? How about "An Inconvenient Truth." People said it was groundbreaking, that it would change the way we think. And yet, several years later, the U.S. hasn't signed the Kyoto Accords, and we continue to pollute just as much as ever. Similarly, "The Future of Food," while certainly an interesting conversation piece, is as irrelevant as anything so long as we need fossil-fuel based fertilizers and bio-engineered crops, which we will continue to need even more as our population continues to bloom.

Now I'll be honest, if the film presented any ideas worthwhile at the end I missed it because I fell asleep. But in my defense, the screenwriters shouldn't have waited until the very end of the movie to get to the point. This is the YouTube generation, and our attention spans won't carry us through a feature length movie about Monsanto seeds.

Now on to the second part of the blog... I don't have a single favorite food so for simplicity's sake I'm going with bananas, mostly because I already know where they come from and what's involved in getting them from a field in Guatemala/Ecuador/Costa Rica/my dad's backyard to my kitchen counter.

I couldn't find any hard data describing the exact costs of banana production, so I'm just going to spout off what I know/think I know.
1. Bananas require fertilizer to produce consistently. That would most likely be sourced from fossil fuels. Mmmmm.
2. Bananas require pesticides and to some degree, treatment for viruses. The varieties grown for commercial production are extremely susceptible to several diseases.
3. Production provides tens of thousands of low-skill jobs, thereby keeping the Central American proletariat employed and therefore off the streets.
4. The bananas are loaded onto trucks and shipped to a port, where they are loaded onto boats, which take them eventually to Publix where they are purchased by yours truly and just about every other person that can afford to pay 69 cents a pound for fruit. I had a picture of one of the trucks from my trip to Costa Rica but I seem to have misplaced it.


Image taken from Univ. of Wisconsin Eau Claire website

According to Chiquita's website, they are committed to preventing further deforestation and also pay wages that are higher than the minimum wage in the countries they operate in. They also claim to recycle plant material, plastic bags, etc., and conserve water. Frankly, even if their website blatantly stated that they were napalming the rain forest and using children for slave labor, I'd still buy their bananas.

ECHO

The field trip to ECHO was definitely the best class so far. I'm not usually a big fan of missionary organizations, but I like ECHO's commitment to teaching people how to feed themselves. One of the biggest problems in our foreign policy to the third world is that we try to feed people in other countries, rather than teach them to fend for themselves.

When I was a teenager, I lived in Bonita Springs, on about three acres of land covered by fruit trees and a vegetable garden big enough to feed my dad's entire brood. I spent probably three hours a day for two years just maintaining the trees and the garden, so I like to think I have a green thumb. As such, I definitely appreciated the variety and methods of farming the guide showed us at ECHO. The starfruit tree was pretty cool, it reminded me of the one we had, and what a pain in the ass it was to clean up and compost the fruit every day. And the guide was right, the prickly pear cactus did taste like okra.



On Tuesday, unless they reschedule again, I'll be starting my volunteer work at ECHO. I'm assigned to the PR office, but hopefully I'll get to spend most of my time on the farm.

Campus Trail

I thought the campus trail was a fun trip. It would have been miserable any other time of year, but that's besides the point. For a wooded area on a college campus, the trail was surprisingly free of artificial debris. I personally think that the trail could be improved by either reseeding the wetland areas with melaleuca or building a raised platform similar to the one running through the Six Mile Cypress preserve.


I've lived in Florida for my entire life so I didn't see anything new. It was interesting to have a path cut through so I could walk from upland to wetland and see the change in vegetation without having to cut any down.

I'm curious as to what they are constructing on the east side of the campus. It's kind of ironic that on a field trip where we were supposed to be immersed in the University's ecological commitment we instead witnessed the clear-cutting of the forest. It made for a nice photo op though.

Sense of Place

This was a fun one. By chance the day I finally got around to walking around my neighborhood (1/25) it happened to be sunny and breezy, around seventy degrees. Basically the only time it's pleasant to go outside in Florida. I live in a massive condominium complex bordered on one side by College Parkway and by a 200 foot wide preserve and creek on the other. The preserve is actually nice, even though there's not enough space for any animals big enough to entertain me.

The complex itself is built around a naturally occurring lake which the developer conveniently bisected in order that I could drive right up to my front door without an outrageous thirty second detour. The developer was good enough to install aerators in the lake to keep the fish from dying. They work most of the time. There's not much that's actually "green" about the development. Every day there are landscapers here laying down fertilizer, poison, and chopping things down. You never know what the place will look like on a given day. On the upside, they've managed to cut down the local locust population, which in three days completely destroyed my front yard.

Incoming Reflection

My goal for this class is to earn an A and satisfy my service learning requirement. That this class also provides an open forum for me to discuss my twisted world view is just icing.

One of the major facets of this class seems to be its emphasis on global warming, a theory that is being presented in schools as fact. It is being taught to students as though the evidence behind it is incontrovertible, when, in fact, there is little impartial evidence in favor of it. In my opinion, global warming is the next big business. American industry is being transformed by a "green" revolution. Even Clorox has "all-natural" products on the market. The entire theory of global warming is an attempt to revitalize American industry by pushing overpriced products on the market so yuppies can feel justified in their conspicuous consumption lifestyle. Take solar and wind energy for example, which costs far more than any fossil fuel, both in land area and money. But it makes you feel like you're doing something positive for the environment. What about recycling? Picture this: a company obtains materials for zero cost to sell back to me as an inferior product and collects my tax dollars for the service. I could go on all day.

Contrary to my constant anti-wilderness rants, I do enjoy spending time in the wild. My two favorite vacations were to Nicaragua and Costa Rica, where I climbed volcanoes and irritated monkeys with my camera. But my least favorite thing is a hypocrite. These ivory tower scientists, politicians, and celebrities that are supposed proponents of ecology tell me I should conserve for future generations while they sit in their 15,000 square foot McMansions with the air conditioning on full blast. It's disgusting. No one deserves to talk about conservation while they reap the benefits of this slash-and-burn civilization we live in.

Now that I've gotten all this hate out of my system, I'm going to take the recycling to the curb and flip on the TV.