Chapter 8 Blog Pollution

"Hydrogen oxide, commonly known as water, is the universal solvent. One of its most significant chemical properties is its ability to dissolve other substances, which makes it easily contaminated, allowing it to dissolve and carry pollutants for long distances. Once water is polluted it is difficult, and thus expensive, to restore."


As a youth I've always thought that our water was naturally pure and that nothing could possibly be wrong with it. We are taught from a youth stage that our water is naturally pure and that there could be no problems with the water that humans consume. It's after you get older and gain more knowledge that you begin to realize the true facts about what's going on in our water system. Prime example being Flint, Michigan. They've had polluted water for years and still haven't had their issue fixed. We need to take this more seriously as a society and demand change for Flint.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.


"Salts are extremely mobile in water, which makes them a pollution concern. One kind of salt is ordinary table salt, sodium chloride, used to de-ice roads and in oil-drilling fluids. Runoff changes the salinity in waterways, harming plants and animals. Groundwater near military bases is vulnerable to perchlorate, a salt used in explosives and rocket fuel. Perchlorate is water soluble, highly mobile in groundwater, resists chemical and bacterial degradation, and is extremely persistent (Pepper et al. 2006, 277)"



To this day I never would've thought that "Salt" would be a huge problem in our ecosystem. We've lived with salt for how many years, and it compliments pretty much every dish that we eat. Who would have thought that salt would have, been the main cause for plants dying off. I think about it now and I wonder, how many other products that we commonly use could be very harmful towards the world. We are raised in a society where everything seems perfectly fine for humans to consume or use. Yet, we hear constantly some facts about how the things that we use everyday are very harmful towards our ecosystem.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"Point source pollution comes from a single, well-defined source of emission. Point sources are facilities that concentrate pollutants, then pass them through a pipe, ditch, or canal for dis-posal. Common examples include a pipe discharging effluent into a river, a leaking storage tank, a ship, or a smokestack."



The craziest thing that I've ever seen in the world are production factories. The fact that we KNOW that they are the main cause of pollution and we do nothing about it because they are our main source of income disgusts me. There has to be a more economically friendly way that we can produce things without harming the environment. We are too far in this age of technology to be allowing these things to happen. There are literally places that dump wasted products down rivers and because they are big companies we allow that. Something has to change and it needs to spark a change in this generation as soon as possible.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Chapter 6 Water

"Earth is often called the water planet. Water makes up most of the volume of every living cell, maintains the temperature of the climate, and reshapes mountains and land. Although it covers more than 70 percent of the surface of the blue planet (Stanley 2004, 19), only a tiny percent-age is available for human use."

There’s so much about water that we know so little about. It’s fascinating to me that we’ve only discovered 5% of the ocean, FIVE PERCENT! That’s a ridiculous amount of water that encompasses the Earth. Water is pretty much the most important ingredient to everything on Earth and yet we treat it as if there’s just some endless supply of it. It’s also shocking to me that with such a high percentage of water that is on the planet, only a tiny percentage of it is available for human usage.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"Bottled water is a curious industry in which companies make billions of dollars a year selling drinking water in bottles. Consumers drink bottled water because they believe it is more benign than tap water. Is bottled water healthier? According to government and industry estimates, about 25 percent of bottled water is actually just tap water, often with no further treatment (Gleick 2004, 29). And in many jurisdictions, water quality and testing standards for bottled water are surprisingly less stringent than those for tap water (Gleick 2011, 41)."

I always wondered who came up with the fact that bottled water is more benign than bottled water. I honestly could never taste the difference between either and have never felt different after drinking either or. Now that there is evidence to support that there is tap water in bottled water, I wonder if society will change their ways and rely on tap water just to save money or will we stick to the “healthier” way. In my opinion water is better when it is filtered, for example a Brita Faucet filter. I feel as if as a society we don’t do enough research into things and just judge how we do things based on what the majority of the population is doing, prime example 

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"A final, big piece of the water puzzle is global climate change. Currently, population and economic growth are the most significant factors affecting water issues; after 2050, climate change is expected to be the major driver (OECD 2012, 213). Much of the danger from cli-mate change will arise from water, either too much or too little. In some regions flooding will increase; in others droughts will become more frequent and more severe. Countries already suffering from water scarcity will be the hardest hit. Globally, crop irrigation requirements may rise 5 to 20 percent by 2080 (FAO 2011b, 123). Glaciers that now feed rivers during the dry season will retreat."

I would’ve never thought that we’d be the main contributors towards the depletion of water. Thinking about it now though in the environmental crisis that we’re in, I can definitely see it. We as a society are way too careless with the way we go about using our resources. We use it as if it’s an infinite supply and we can just keep taking as long as we want. Now that we see the issues of climate change, we’re stuck wondering, “How did the Earth even get like this?” As stated in the book, “Much of the danger from climate change will arise from water.”  How much more damage to the earth do we have to see to realize there’s obviously an issue going on?

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Chapter 12

"Industrialized agriculture, sometimes referred to as agribusiness, is farming on a large scale. Cultivation and harvesting are done with large, fossil fuel-driven machinery. Large quantities of irrigation water and synthetic fertilizers boost crop yield, while chemical pes-ticides reduce competition from weeds and damage from pests. As opposed to small- and midsize farms, which are typically operated by their owners, farms using industrial agri-culture generally feature absentee owners, usually shareholders of corporations. Business objectives include reducing costs and development of national or international supply chains."

This is my least favorite form of farming in my opinion at least. It's understandable that this method of farming is the current upgraded model of farming and the most productive in its class. Yes, this class of farming produces more crop than that of the Organic farming but it also the worst in terms of how healthy the food is. Think about it, the owner's of these companies aren't even present while these mass producing machines are making their crops, they just hand everything down to their shareholders of the company. These companies care more about how fast they can get their crops down rather than how nutritious and healthy their food is.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"Another common example of GMOs is a line of products called “Roundup-ready crops” engineered by Monsanto, the corporation that manufactures the herbicide glyphosate under the trade name Roundup. Roundup is the most commonly-used herbicide, widely used on crop fields. Roundup-ready soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola plants are not visibly affected by glyphosate, so farmers can spray Roundup at any time without killing their crops. Over two-thirds of US soybean, corn, cotton, and canola harvests now consist of genetically-modified plants. Critics observe that these plants promote increased use of herbicide, and that herbicide-resistant weeds are beginning to evolve." 

I've never felt comfortable eating anything that has been sprayed by chemicals. Imagine, you understand what exactly is going onto these plants, the chemicals are listed on majority of the products, we know they aren't safe but because there's no visibly effects, its deemed safe for everyone. It's crazy how to this day there are people that are still convinced that these chemicals we spray onto the weeds don't effect the crop. I'd rather the crop be picked and put into a process where the crop is cleaned thoroughly through a machine that would be able use water or any other substance to thoroughly clean off any pests or anything else that is harmful for consumers. Obviously we have the technology to create but the quicker and more efficient way is always going to be pesticides."

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"Crops are grown using several methods at a range of scales. One method is known as organic agriculture. This is agriculture that does not use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides; instead, it relies on biological approaches. Organic farms return nutrients to the soil in the form of compost made of decayed plant matter. They use biological methods of controlling weeds and insect pests and techniques of crop rotation that prevent soil from becoming exhausted without the need for applying massive amounts of fertilizer. They may use manure recycled from the same farm. All food was grown organically before the advent of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the twentieth century." 

I grew up based on this tradition of farming, majority of the items in the kitchen were straight from the farm we had in the backyard or the actual farm. I can say personally this is not the most efficient way to get food but it is the most nutritious and healthy. There's just something different about the food that I am used to at home compared to the same food's that I get from my local grocery store, you can tell that the food is processed and not naturally grown. I feel that since we are in this technological generation, there has to be more of a focus on how we can improve the quality of farming overall. We don't want to wait too late until we don't have the technology to improve upon it. Even if there's not a technological way to improve upon it, we're in a employment crisis right now, creating more farming opportunities could improve upon the quality of food and create more jobs as well. 

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Robertson Chapter 9

Extraction processes for these sources are more expensive and difficult and carry even higher environmental risks than conventional drilling, with a lower net energy yield. The difference between the energy used to produce a fuel and the energy contained in the final product is the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI). The EROEI for crude oil is an average of 15:1; the EROEI for tar sands is from 5:1 to 3:1 (Wijkman and Rockström 2012, 70).

If the extraction processes for these sources that are already harmful towards the earth, then why bother? We're in a generation where technology has the capability to replace every single mechanical process. Prime example being Tesla; Tesla has sparked the new trend of electronic cars that run on batteries and are safe for the environment. Soon many companies will want to follow on their footsteps due to the demand becoming higher anytime Tesla releases a new vehicle. I personally think that technology will end up replacing a lot of mechanical processes that are harmful to the environment and soon sources such as petroleum can stay within the Earth and be preserved.



MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Petroleum forms the basis of contemporary society. It is difficult to find any non-metal object in everyday life that does not have a petroleum component. Some are obvious: oil, grease, Energy159solvents, paint, credit cards, computer keyboards, and almost anything else made of plastic begins with petroleum. Others may be less obvious. Among the millions of examples are artificial vanilla flavoring, red food coloring, vitamin capsules, shampoo, lip balm, shoes, shoe polish, fertilizer, and glue.

Our biggest problem is that petroleum is the prime source for anything we use in our daily lives. It's to the point where we aren't considering any other options to substitute the use of petroleum to produce our daily utilities. I was actually shocked to see that so many of the things that we use in our daily lives are being created by fossil fuels. It's crazy how you have to actually do research in order to find these things out. What's going to happen when our already scarce resource of fossil fuels depletes and the world starts to wonder why theres a shortage in quantity of our daily utilities and a surplus in the prices of them, maybe it's happening today as we speak, guess we'll never know.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

We live in a high-energy society based on fossil fuels. One of the hallmarks of modern society is the private automobile, powered by the very portable, very high-energy fuel, gasoline. Diesel has nearly as much energy per volume, and its use in farm equipment has led to a revolution in agricultural output. We will eventually run out of this nonrenewable resource, and before that happens we will be forced to make changes to our lifestyles to prevent runaway climate change.

My biggest question, is what are we going to do when we actually do run out of this nonrenewable resource. Is there already a plan to substitute these resources? How drastically are we going to have to change out lifestyles to avoid climate change? So many questions but so little answers. Everyday we hear the same thing, that we need to change our lifestyle or the world will soon collapse but it's as if we are just waiting until the signs of the world ending happen. We need to make an impact before it's too late. We need to start coming up with substitutes for our daily resources. All throughout history we've always moved forward, I'd hate to see us have to move backwards just because we didn't prepare things in time or 

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Gift From the Sea One Page Analysis

Shemar Gordon

Professor Carme

IDS 3920

1 March 2019

One Page Analysis

            The pages I decided to analyze out of the book, “Gift From The Sea”, were pages 31-32. On these pages, the author expresses what it’s like to live not based on ideals of what modern society brings. The author is in her own “shell” and can do as she pleases. The author starts by stating that she wants a change in her life, the change she decides to make is living on the beach. Living on the beach to the author is much less stressful than modern life in America. You don’t have to appeal to modern society. You are in control of how you want things due to the isolation on the beach. The author starts off by lessening the amount of clothes she needs, she’s on the beach where she barely needs clothes. The author considers a suitcase full of clothing to be enough to satisfy her needs. Next the author goes about how she wants her shelter to be as empty as it can be. The less furniture and housing accessories the better. I chose this page because it’s interesting to see someone who actually wants to be away from modern society rather than blend within it. The author comes from a complicated lifestyle where she has a husband and five kids. This isolation from all of that gives the author more time to think, more time to focus on herself. This shelter is also referred to as her shell. This shell is considered to be the place where she feels more like herself and not what she needs to be to fit into society. She states that she only invites people into her shell that she can be honest with, so she can shed the hypocrisy in human relationships. I found this to be very interesting because regardless of what you deem to be your shell, humans are more themselves when they’re in their most comfortable spot or in their “shell”. The author is going out of her way to make sure she shed anything she deemed unnecessary, this house on the beach was truly her shell. Barely any furniture, clothing, isolated from society. It’s just a simplistic spot where the author can be herself the most without the burden of knowing people are watching your every step behind your back.

Robertson Ch. 3 & 4

"Our task is to understand as much as we can about how systems function, that is, to read the instruction manual carefully, so that we can propose positive solutions that work."

I think that we honestly have failed when it comes to the understanding aspect of how systems function. Our lack of knowledge really has led to this environmental downfall and on going chain of effects. If we were more knowledgable of how our actions effected the Earth, we wouldn't be in this position. Hopefully now that we have more of an idea of how to make our actions more sustainable we have a better chance at making the Earth better for the future. The only problem with this is making sure that not only 10% of populations  contribute towards making the Earth more sustainable. 

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

"If all humans on the planet lived with the same standard of living enjoyed by people in the United States and Canada, we would need 4.5 more planet Earths even if the population did not grow at all."

This fact was just shocking to me at how the United States and Canada are the primary examples of how a bad standard of living is. It's more shocking to find out that we would need 4.5 more planets if the rest of the world was living like these two countries. Its crazy because these two countries will see that their standard of living is not good for the Earth and its like their mindset is more focused on "How much more can the Earth endure?" I think personally that not only these two countries but any country that has a similar standard of living will continue to have this mindset until it's entirely too late to make any changes, and that's what scares me. 

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

"Human population is growing approximately exponentially (Figure 4.1). Unlike arithmetic or linear growth that occurs when a quantity increases by adding the same number repeat-edly, exponential growth means that the quantity increases by a fixed percentage over a given time."

We are the fastest growing generation that is continuing to grow. The only way to really ensure the our future generation will be safe after we're gone is passing the sustainable torch to them and making sure we leave off on a good note. If we leave our generation with what we have now they're doomed to repeat the same actions and putting the Earth in a much worse situation. It's important that we spread the importance of sustainability because we need to ensure that the future is going to be safe. It's honestly baffling to me that we're on this rapid pace of population growth.

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)

Robertson, Margaret. Sustainability Principles and Practice. Routledge, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)

Robertson, M. (2017). Sustainability Principles and Practice. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

The Obligation To Endure

"Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm—substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends." 

Ever since the Industrial Revolution we have be poised with a problem of harming nature regardless of how we do it. We use chemicals that seep into plants which then are consumed by the animals that we consume. It's always been a problem due to us as humans not caring what the following effects of our actions are. As stated in a prior blog we as humans are a dominant force, we pretty much control the way everything shifts whether it be good or bad. We as humans need to start thinking about the effects of our actions, this will lead to better judgement and hopefully we can make better decisions that will preserve the environment rather than diminish it.

"The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamina-tion of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world—the very nature of its life." 

Crazy to think that we are the cause of pollution and that the harm that we've done is really irrecoverable. Pollution has contaminated most of our resources to the point where our resources need to be checked for chemicals. Keep that in mind, our, "Natural Resources", needs to be checked for chemicals before it is given to us. There's a clear sign that something that we are doing is wrong but in the era that we are currently in, it's already too late to even try and change things. We are progressing towards a technological era faster more than ever and before you know it, natural resources will become scarce and obsolete to some. If we don't make a change soon, it may be too late to recover from the devastating after effects of what man has done to nature.


"Among them are many that are used in man’s war against nature. Since the mid-1940’s over 200 basic
chemicals have been created for use in killing insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as “pests”; and they are sold under several thousand different brand names. These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes—nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil—all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.” " 

Not to say that this is a good or bad thing, because there are some organisms that are very harmful for the food that we consume. The production of these chemicals are good for keeping harmful organisms away from our food but yet again what about the lasting effect of the chemicals. Yes, the harmful organisms are gone but now we deal with various chemicals in the environment that are harmful to the other organisms that are living in the same environments. Agreeing with the author, there's no way that it is possible to lay a barrage of poisons in the environment without thinking it wouldn't effect the rest of the environment. Also agreeing with the author that these chemicals should not be called insecticides but biocides due to their destruction of not only the insects but life itself as a whole.