Forestry Discussion
Benefit: There are many benefits in deliberately setting fires. For example, when a fire gradually makes its way through the forest, it liberates nutrients tied up in dead biomass. These nutrients help in enhancing the forest by creating a nutrient-rich habitat for early-successional plant species. These plant species attract many animals such as elk and various herbivores.
Not only did these prescribed burns benefit the species in the forests but they also benefited the people encompassed by these forests. For example, there were more resources available to them like the species and plants found in these forests.
Moreover, there is an economic impact to prescribed burns. Since Yellowstone National Park was founded then later burned, 58 national parks have been established. The exposure of these parks lead to tourists which assist in profiting the economy.
Cost: Prescribed burns can always go wrong. Instead of burning a desired area of the forest, there is always a chance of the whole forest being burnt down. The whole forest being burnt down can lead to many deteriorating effects. For example, the heat caused by the fire can remove certain necessities from the ecosystem such as nitrogen and and sulfur.
Also, the people that once relied on the trees of these forests can't anymore since trees take time to grow. They have to wait until the trees are fully grown to cut them down and use them for various things. This also impacts the economy by people moving away from such areas because they are not able to acquire the resources that are essential for them.
Global Nutrition Discussion
The agricultural resources that should be diverted to people are instead diverted to animals. Since animals consume about forty percent of the grain grown in the world, there are less amounts of food available for people.
Meat production is more costly than gain production because of the amount of land required. One person eating only corn can obtain sufficient calories from 0.02 ha (0.05 acres) of land. It would take twenty times that much land for one person eating only beef. It takes twenty kg of grain to produce one kg of beef. So it would take 0.4 ha (1 acre), to feed a person who ate only beef.
Also, the amount of energy and resources needed for meat production is a lot more than the amount needed for grain production. There is a loss of land, food and other essential resources that are being absent due to the production of meat. Raising animals for food now uses a staggering thirty percent of the Earth’s land mass. Approximately two hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farm animals.
Furthermore, raising animals for food is grossly inefficient. This is because animals eat large quantities of grain, soybeans, oats and corn but can only produce comparatively small amounts of meat, dairy products or eggs in return.
There is also a negative impact of meat production on the environment. It takes more than eleven times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein. In result this burning of fossil fuels pollutes the air and when people breathe this air the pollutants get into their system.
Genetic Engineering Discussion
In genetic engineering of food plants, scientists remove one or more genes from the DNA of another organism, such as bacterium, virus, or animal, and “recombine” them into the DNA of the plant they want to alter. By adding these new genes, genetic engineers hope the plant will express the traits associated with the genes. This modification of food plants can have various economic and environmental advantages and disadvantages.
Environmental
Cost: Genetic engineering of food plants is risky because when the genetic material is inserted into the plant, you have no idea where it will go. In result, the food plant can cause many health issues. Also bees are hugely important in the pollination of many food crops, but are extremely endangered by Gm crops. Monarch butterflies are specially at risk from GMO maize plants. These bees and butterflies are at risk because of the toxicity caused by the surrounding chemical pesticides and herbicides that are commonly used with GMos. These chemical pesticides and herbicides not only affect us but they affect the other organisms living in the environment.
Benefit: Genetic engineering can increase food production in several ways. It can create strains of organisms that are resistant to pests and harsh environmental conditions such as drought or high salinity. They also produce essential nutrients for humans. Also, the need for the use of pesticides can be resisted since certain genes are inserted into the new organisms.
Economic
Cost: Recently, there has been a decline on the amount of GMOs that are being purchased. This has resulted in farmers being unable to export their produce. Also GM seeds are more expensive and the technology used for GMOs increases the farmers’ fee by forty percent. For the farmers, this is a very bad thing since the technology is costly and they are not exporting what they produce.
Benefit: Because pesticides are very costly, GMOs have the potential to reduce these expenses as they do not need the use of many pesticides. In addition, because GMO crops often produce greater yields, there is also the potential for an increase in revenues. Both of these changes can lead to higher incomes for farmers, lower food prices for consumers or both.
Sustainable Agriculture Discussion
Two farming techniques that can be used to prevent soil erosion and improve soil quality are crop rotation and contour plowing. Crop rotation rotates the crop species in a field from season to season. On the other hand, Contour plowing helps prevent erosion by water while still allowing for the practical advantages of plowing.
Benefit of Crop rotation:
You can take the same species and rotate them in a field which helps in your overall program of avoiding diseases and pests. This is because crops in the same botanical family tend to suffer from the same pest and disease problems. By crop rotation it is easier to avoid potentially harmful diseases.
Benefit of Contour plowing:
Contour plowing can reduce soil erosion by as much as fifty percent from up and down hill farming. By reducing sediment and runoff, and increasing water infiltration, contouring promotes better water quality
Pest Management Discussion
IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management. It is an environmentally effective approach whose programs use current, comprehensive information on the life cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment. This information is used to manage pest damage by the most economical means, with the least possible hazard to people, property, and the environment.
Two examples of how the IPM works is the Set Action Thresholds and Monitor and Identify Pests.
Before taking any pest control action, IPM first sets an action threshold. This threshold encompasses areas in which potential pests can be found. Just because one pest is caught by the eye does not mean that control is needed. The level at which pests will either become an economic threat is critical to guide future pest control decisions.
Also, not all insects, weeds, and other living organisms require control. Monitoring and identifying pests is an alternative to this practice. Some organisms can be beneficial so it would be naive to kill all the organisms. By monitoring pests, it's feasible to identify which of the pests are innocuous and which of the pests are beneficial. Action is taken according to the identification of the pests. Monitoring and identification removes the possibility that pesticides will be used when they are not really needed or that the wrong type of pesticide will be used.
Both of these examples are environmentally friendly because they improve the quality of the food supply by not adding a surplus of unnecessary chemicals into the environment. They also save many resources that we can use for other things.
These practices are more effective than the use of pesticides because pesticides bear many disadvantages. For example, pests may evolve resistance to pesticides over time so it is a waste to put such harmful pesticides in the environment. With IPM, the right pests are wiped out without being able to resist. Since pest populations are large and contain significant genetic diversity, it is essential to not only identify them but it is also essential to eliminate them.
BIG Picture Discussion
Human Impact:
Many people think that resources are unlimited which is false. There is a lack of incentive for people to conserve common resources so they overuse them. After consuming these resources, they do not bear the cost of using the resources which leads to depletion of these resources. This is called tragedy of the commons. Also, a rapidly growing population needs increasing amounts of food to sustain it. There is more of a need in the agriculture business. Since farmers have been practicing agriculture for centuries now, farmers have been able to increase the world's agriculture output with improved technology. The need of more food aided in improving technology.
Environmental Impact:
Various operations and aquaculture facilities allow for efficient animal growth and inexpensive food production, but can have negative environmental impacts. For example, the concentrated animal waste and the introduction of antibiotics and other waste products into the environment can lead it to deteriorate.
Also, the urban sprawl has environmental consequences. The urban sprawl leads to the dependence of cars which leads to traffic congestion. More cars are being used to for greater periods of time and these cars release hazardous gases to the atmosphere.
Economic Impact:
Because of the Green revolution, agriculture has been transformed from a system of small farms relying mainly on human labor into a system of large industrial operations relying mainly on machinery of fossil fuels. This industry leads to available and sufficient jobs for many people. Also, this machinery causes the ecosystem to be damaged and the arrival of pests. To get rid of these pests, people hire people that work in agencies like Terminix to come and rid their houses of pests.
Government Legislation:
There are many laws and regulations that are ratified which influence the use of private and public lands.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) mandates an environmental assessment of all projects involving federal money or federal permits.
The Endangered Species Act is a law designed to protect species from extinction.
Also, Urban sprawl has been influenced by federal and local laws and policies.
The Highway Trust Fund pays for the construction and maintenance of roads and highways.
The Federal House Administration (FHA) was established to jump-start the economy by creating new demand for housing.
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