Author Archives: Hye Min Lee

Posts by Hye Min Lee

NYC’s Water Supply: Natural Gas Company

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

Natural gas companies are against the changes to the conditional Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) in 1993. We believe that the FAD if implemented will negatively affect the natural gas industry based on false concerns that hydraulic fracturing contaminates drinking water.

Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most important and effective ways to access underground resources including natural gas. With increased use of hydraulic fracturing, there has also been increased concerns for possible detrimental effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking and ground water supplies. However, extensive studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency examining any potential effects of hydraulic fracturing concluded no to very little risk of contamination of underground sources of drinking water during its processes. EPA found no confirmed links between the degradation of drinking water wells and hydraulic fracturing injection into coalbed methane wells.

EPA also reviewed four cases reported by  citizens regarding contaminated water as a result of hydraulic fracturing. They once again found that the latter was not the cause of the concerns raised by citizens which included drinking water with unpleasant taste and odor, impacts on fish, vegetation and wildlife, and loss of water in wells. Rather than hydraulic fracturing, such water problems seem to have occurred from contributions of other factors including population growth, resource development, natural conditions and practice of abandoned or historical well-completion (EPA, ES-13). Also, EPA conclude that the removal of groundwater  soon after hydraulic fracturing as well as injected fluid recovery along with dilution and dispersion, adsorption all significantly reduce the risk of hazardous chemicals contaminating drinking water (EPA, 7-5).

Hydraulic fracturing plays an importnat role in the nation’s energy demands. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, looking forward in about 20 years, demand for natural gas is projected to reach at least 45 percent (EPA, ES-2). Hydraulic fracturing play a crucial role in meeting that demand. FAD will only be a hindrance to adequately keeping up with the nation’s demand for natural gas.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency, “Evaluation of Impacts of Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs Study ( June 2004)” Accessed 01 Dec. 2012.<http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/upload/completestudy.zip>

 

Questions For Posters

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

1. How closely is obesity related to poverty and neighborhood conditions?

2. Is the number of pests increasing in New York City subway stations? What are the effects of   such pests?

3. Are there any recent invasive species in New York City? What are the impacts?

Final Chapter of Rambunctious Garden

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

Now that the previous goal of restoring nature to its pristine baseline is ineffective and impossible to achieve, Marris lays out seven new goals for conservation today in the final chapter of her book. Her first goal includes protecting the rights of other species. Such effort begins by believing that animals have intrinsic value and humans need to respect them by reducing their impact on Earth (155). Marris states, “many people have an intuition that animals have rights, just as humans do (155)” The Earth does not belong to humans only but to all animals, plants and landscapes that are just as much part of it as we are. Second goal is in protecting charismatic megafaunas. Third is slowing the rate of extinctions. This goal saves specific species but not the ecosystem as a whole. Other goals include protecting genetic diversity, defining and defending biodiversity, maximizing ecosystem services, and lastly protecting the spiritual and aesthetic experience of nature.

All these goals cannot be pursued alone. All of them have drawbacks and difficulties in our attempts to achieve them. She says, “Even after we agree to pursue all sorts of goals, we still have complex compromises to make between ideologies in contested places and between local and global interests (170).” After deciding what it is we want from nature, we need to practically consider the costs of achieving that goal and be reasonable in our pursuit of it.

A goal that spoke especially strongly to me was the last one, which was protecting the aesthetic and spiritual experience of nature. Personally I love nature. I guess it’s the idea of standing in awe of something that is significantly greater than myself. Or maybe because nature is not something I have control over. Or it may be simply because I am always in the busy city surrounded by skyscrapers and man-made structures. Marris poses a question beginning this chapter. She asks, “what kind of appeal would make you most likely to donate to a conservation organization?” And my answer would be the goal I’ve just described above. I do not want to see nature diminishing more than it already did. I feel extremely sad and hopeless whenever I hear about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest or extinction of animals as a result of human greed. It is foolish to destroy something as precious and unique to our planet as nature for something as individual and temporary as money. Damages to nature cannot be undone.

My desire is similar to that of Marris’. It is to “preserve open land” and to stay away from mindless development. To protect any open land from being destroyed. It is time for humans to stop altering the Earth and start managing it effectively. My personal views on what defines nature and conservation changed immensely through Rambunctious Garden. Now I look forward to nature existing with humanity not apart from it.

Chapters 8&9

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

In chapter 8 of Rambunctious Garden, Marris illustrates a foreign concept of “designer ecosystems.” She describes it as a created ecosystem that “is not emulating any baseline at all but building de novo to achieve a particular goal (126).” Instead of recreating the speculated baseline of an ecosystem years back before human interference, the focus is rather on designing a system with a specific benefit in mind to be earned. Some of the benefits might include supporting humans, increased biodiversity or removal of the unwanted in the ecosystem. In chapter 9 titled Conservation Everywhere, Marris presents many of the ideas she discussed in the previous chapters such as rewilding, assisted migration and embracing exotic/invasive species. All these ideas within the scope of the previous conservationists’ approach to nature and novel ecosystems are new and different, even a little bit difficult to embrace. However she argues that “they are all at some level about making the most out of every scrap of land and water, no matter its condition (135).” And she goes on to say, “To make the most of our protected areas, we must think beyond their boundaries…” As she had done throughout her book so far, Marris once again challenges her readers to approach nature and conserving it in a new way.

I completely agree with Marris that the first step to conserving and saving the already too damaged nature is to view it in its context right now. That it should no longer be about the restoration of a pristine wilderness but about making more of nature from what remains. Marris briefly mentions that often nature documentaries depict nature as an isolated thing. She claims that they intentionally “edit out any trace of the modern world, tricking viewers into thinking there is a place out there, somewhere, where cheetahs and polar bears and penguins romp free (150).” A place completely untouched is also the exact picture I draw in my head when I hear the word “nature”. I picture a far far away place with no traces of human beings. Completely isolated and protected from the modern world. But no such place exists anymore.

Many plants, birds and animals can be found near us right in the city. Marris mentions that 227 different bee species inhabit New York. There are 474 plants, close to 2,000 insects and over fifty birds in the back garden of a gardener in Leicester. Even street trees commonly spotted are homes to a variety of birds, wasps and cicadas. Simply put, “Street trees are nature (151).” The key point Marris makes is that “if conservation is to take place everywhere, we must all learn to see nature as the background to our own lives and not just as islands far away (151).” Though it might be a long process, I think it’s worth trying.

Marris Chapters 6&7

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

In chapter 6 of her book, Marris does something similar to what she did in chapters 1 and 2. As she has presented new ways of looking at nature as something that can coexist with humanity, in the later chapters of Rambunctious Garden she presents her case against the long held negative prejudice of invasive species and the exotics and a case for breaking away from such prejudice. That some invasive species can actually flourish and help the native species. She reminds the readers that the cause of interrupted and destroyed ecosystems is usually not the invasive species but humans. She says, “Ultimately, the enemy is not exotics; the enemy is us (98).

There is no doubt that when some new species are introduced to a new place, they might be detrimental to others living in the same parts of the same ecosystem. For example, the brown tree snake introduced on Stephens Island killed off “ten of twelve native forest-dwelling birds”. And consequently, the extinction of the native species negatively affected and has forever changed the dynamics of the island’s fruit trees. As demonstrated, Marris does not deny that movement of species at times have detrimental results on the area.

On the other side of the argument, nonnative species might help native species flourish. They might also “create more diversity in the future(109)” and support rare natives. For example, exotic plants with special qualities such as being able to suck metal out of soil found in Chinese brake fern can be intentionally placed with the purpose of cleaning the soil. Marris even goes to claim that maybe “the despised invaders of today may well be the keystone species of the future’s ecosystems, if we give them the space to adapt and don’t rush in and tear them out (109).”

The “exotic-dominated ecosystems” are what Marris calls novel ecosystems. It is a new approach to embracing invasive species instead of rejecting them. One example she gives of a flourishing novel ecosystem is the “mango forest”. Long time ago, mangoes were planted in a new place and they have grown and flourished bearing much fruit. Not only are they growing, they are thriving with other species in a “healthy ecosystem” (115). There are mosquitoes as well as trumpet tree, strawberry guava and rose apples from around the globe in Asia and even a white owl as well as pigs. Mangoes have thrived in a new environment. This new approach, Marris says, “can also mean ecosystem services, increased diversity, and brand-new species (122).”

In chapter 6, when Marris poses the question of why we despise and attack new species so much, whether it’s because we truly fear the extinction of native species or just fear any change in the ecosystem itself, it is something worth pondering about. As much as I was convicted to move on from the older and therefore inaffective view of nature in the beginning of the book to the more appropriate and affective perspective of nature, I am convinced that it’s important to let go of our prejudices on exotics and invasive species and make ourselves open to new approaches.

Visit to the High Line

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

What used to be an elevated commercial railroad built to transport goods for more than thirty years, High Line is now a popular site for New Yorkers and tourists alike. The railroad was abandoned after the emergence of the Interstate Highway System, which made transportation of goods much easier and efficient. Some parts of the railroad were destructed and the demolition of the High Line was preferred by the real estate owners of the property beneath it. It guaranteed an increase in its property value (388, Stalter). The Railbanking program and Friends of the High Line together worked to preserve and not only to preserve but to transform the railroad to a public walkaway that exists today.

Around 14th Street. Railroad tracks still visible through the plants.

The park runs from Gansevoort Street to West 34th Streeth between 10th and 11th Avenues. Starting with the first section in 2009 followed by the second section three years later, it is now building its last section of the park which will continue until West 34th Streets.

Walking on the High Line, I was completely surrounded by different green plants and flowers of all colors yet when I fixed my gaze to a distance not too far off I saw the city filled with crowded tall buildings and streets. This rather fits Marris’ idea of a rambunctious garden. The point of the park is not to restore the already damaged nature to its “pristine wilderness” but to create more and more nature on the planet just as it is . Instead of the park existing apart from humanity, it exists with it. Plant succession on the High Line resulted in a wide variety of plant species and consequently pollinators (388, Stalter). Many could be seen throughout my walk on the park.

Bees on flowers. Near 14th Street.

I personally believe that the park is amazing. It is in the middle of the bustling city and gives so much contrast and a peaceful resting place in the midst of a routine-led, hectic life. And an example that nature does not have to be untouched to be nature. Taking an abandoned railroad, more nature was created in the middle of one of the busiest and advanced cities in the world.

Assisted Migration

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

Human-caused climate change is greatly affecting the animals that inhabit the Earth. Carbon dioxide, methane and emission of other gases have gradually but definitely warmed the planet over the many years. Not only is the Earth getting hotter, it’s climate patterns are getting more unpredictable. “…a world in which some places get more rain, others less (74).” And the impact of this antropogenic climate change is huge for the majority of the animals that thrive better in certain temperatures.

The first example Marris gives is the American Pika. Pikas are very sensitive to the temperature of the environment in which they live. Experiments have proven that Pikas will die in 78 degree Fahrenheit heat in just a few hours (73). As the planet is getting warmer, they are moving higher up the mountain escaping from the climate changes in their usual habitats. But they can only move up higher for so much longer. Pikas will eventually reach the peak of the mountain and even the highest will become too warm for them to survive in. So to help the animals that are suffering because of humans’ dominance over nature, ecologists have come up with assisted migration. It is simply moving species from one place to another that is better and preferred by the species. Humans caused the climate change that may result in extinctions of many different animals and assisted migration is our hopeful attempt at saving the innocent ones who are suffering because of us.

There are, however, many concerns that arises from assisted migration. The process is definitely not natural. It is clearly human interference and disturbance on the Earth’s ecosystem. Marris makes the point that, “after a lifetime studying the infinitely complex workings of existing ecosystem, the idea of taking a species from one into the other willy-nilly sounds like a terrible idea (77).” Similar to rewilding, no one knows how the migrated species will adapt to their new environment. Whether they will not only survive but thrive or become invasive species or just die out. Our knowledge of the species and what they need to survive is very limited. They can easily be detrimentally affected by something as small as “some specific soil microbes or microclimatic condition” (77). Another problem is that not all troubled species can be moved and saved. As Marris mentions, species with more sentimental value as well as “well-loved species with rich and leisured supporters” will probably be migrated to a better home. But for the majority of the others, they will just remain to deal with the climate change themselves, move on their own and find their new habitat on their own, or eventually die out completely. After all, assisted migration is not going to be cheap to complete.

I think assisted migration is going to work and help save many animals from being extinct from this planet forever. I do believe that we’ve come to a sad place, that our dominance have been and continues to harm other living species that are equally as deserving as we are to live on Earth and to enjoy the fullness of nature. Humans do not own the planet but we act like we do and have caused great harm to others that inhabit it. It seems like the least we can do is move them to a better environment .

 

Rewilding

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

In chapters 1 and 2, Marris presented us with conservationists and ecologists past efforts to conserve nature by attempting to return it to its pristine baseline before human interference, which frankly proved to be futile. And its failure was mostly due to the culturally engraved incorrect understanding or romanticized view of wilderness. In chapters 3 and 4, Marris offers another method focused on not only conserving what’s left of the environment around us but making more nature. Such approach is called rewilding. The goal of rewilding is to restore the “top-of-the-food-chain predators” back to the ecosystems they were part of 13,000 years ago and naturally the large animals will balance out the population of the ecosystem bringing the area to its “pristine” state. The idea here is that, yes, humans take the role of bringing the large wild animals from different parts of the world, mainly from Africa and Asia, but they don’t have a role in the actual work of restoration in the ecosystems. The animals do that. As Vera puts it, “The only thing man did was create the conditions, and nature filled in (71).” Predators in the top-of- the- food chain will preserve diversity and balance of the various prey species, ultimately restoring all aspects of the ecosystem.

As Marris puts it, rewilding sounds like a reasonable idea to many (61). Only nature itself can heal itself or restore itself. I mean after all isn’t that what all conservationists strive after? Nature that’s “untouched” by humans and isolated from civilization. But there are many concerns and “slippery steps” to this method. First, many of the large predators that inhabited the areas are now extinct, mostly because of overhunting. They are being replaced with proxy animals, similar to the extinct ones and they are being brought into the ecosystem. There are a few major problems with proxy animals. First, the “ecosystems have changed” since the extinctions. Second, no one knows how the proxy animals will adjust and behave in the new environment. Dustin Rubenstein from Columbia University expressed a deep concern on this matter saying, “attempting to fill gaps that closed long ago with proxy animals could generate unpredictable results (65)” Proxy animals “could become invasive pests, or escape their parks and cause trouble with local landowners…(65)” There’s a lot of possibility but also risk in placing wild large animals back in the ecosystems.

Not only are there risks but proxy animals raise questions about ethics. Donlan asserts that if the large predator he brings into a new area becomes a “runaway invasive species”, it is no big deal. He can just kill them. “We killed ’em once, we can kill ’em again (65).” Is rewildering ethical if we are choosing what species to protect and are introduced to the ecosystem and killing them if they don’t give us the positive results that we seek? The possibility of proxy animals successfully replacing the role of its extinct original will always be unpredictable.

Rewildering allows the presence of death in the wildlife. And despite its problems, has attracted rare species to the area that was rewildered. “Carcasses have attracted a pair of rare white-tailed eagles to the Oostvaardersplassen (59).” Without human involvement, animals are finding their way to the rewildered ecosystem themselves because it offers what they want. Vera is also expecting wolves to make its home in the Oostvaardersplassen. The idea here once again is that humans just set the stage for wildlife in America to find its way back to the ecosystems that is balanced and diverse. And so mainly for this reason, rewildering’s potential to naturally attract more rare as well as common but equally important animals to its environment, I believe, even with its problems, rewilding might just work.

 

Workshop on NYC DOH Environmental Health Tracking Portal

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

 (click on the image for a bigger view)

Looking at the number, Brooklyn has the highest number of high school students consuming alcohol among the five boroughs in 2009. By percentage, Staten Island has the highest number indicating that about 38% of all high school students in Staten Island had at least one alcoholic beverage in the 30days from when the survey was taken. But by number, 38% translates to only 5,000 because Staten Island is lowly populated.

I’m a bit surprised by these results. I thought heaving drinking in adults in high poverty neighborhoods would be the highest in all the years but my hypothesis was wrong. There seems to be a relatively little correlation between poverty and heavy drinking. In year 2003, percent of heavy drinking in neighborhood with high poverty was the highest (5%) but it was the lowest in year 2007 (3.8%). However, it does seem like the percentage of heavy drinking in medium poverty neighborhood is usually the lowest among the three poverty levels.

Observation from the scatterplot indicates that binge drinking in adults increase as access of alcohol in service outlets increased. Majority of binge drinking in adults remain at about 13% until about 200 service outlets available but from 1,000 to 1,200, percentage shoots up to about 36%.

This graph compares binge drinking in New York City by age. The percent of adults and high school students binge drinking throughout all years recorded in the graph (2003-2010) is similar, both remaining around 15%. From about 2005 to 2007, percentage of adult binge drinking was slightly higher than that of high school students. The graph also indicates that binge drinking did not decrease in all ages throughout New York City.

The red areas indicate the neighborhoods with the highest binge drinking percentage of 18%-3.5%. From the map, we can conclude that the binge drinking rates in Queens and parts of Long Island are relatively low. Astoria, Greenpoint, Fordam (Bronx),Union Square, Chelsea, as well as Upper East Side and Upper West Side show the highest adult binge drinking percentages. This makes sense because there is a greater access to alcohol in many of the areas mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

Rambunctious Garden

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

Emma Marris, in her book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, examines the pervasive yet incorrect way people see nature and offers a more proper way to approach the environment around us. Two strong points she makes in the first two chapters of the book are the following. One, the earth’s ecosystem is never pristine and despite any human efforts, it will never be.  Second, ecosystem is never stable and constant. It is always changing, both by human disturbances and internally, on its own.

Both claims above are new and bold. They are not what most of us are used to hearing. Marris also claims that for many many years, people including ecologists who’ve dedicated their lives to study the earth’s ecosystem and conserve nature have believed the opposite (3). One, the correct and the best way to conserve nature is to preserve its “pristine wilderness”. Or to recreate the area to resemble the way it used to be before human dominance over it. Second, “the idea of nature as unchanging or fluctuating (27).” Much of the ecologists failure to conserve nature arises from such incorrect views of nature. Marris’s goal in her book then, is to shatter such long-held and culturally engraved ideas about wilderness. It is to show us a “new way of seeing nature” (2). It’s about better understanding how nature operates so that we can better conserve it. Rambunctious garden isn’t about “just building walls around the nature we have left” but about creating “more and more nature as it goes” (2-3). Its focus is not on the past but on the future. Not how nature used to be but what it should look like as the world continues to evolve. Marris attempts to make the point that nature is everywhere, not just in protected parks or isolated landscapes, and most importantly, the beauty of nature can co-exist with humanity (3).

Human interaction with nature is constant but our relationship with it is limited to our “romantic notion” of what it should be like: untouched. Marris demonstrates this misfortune very well with the Yellowstone National Park model. The park’s conservationists did not understand “that the ecology of Yellowstone is not stable over historical or prehistorical time” (34). Their goal then, was to return it to its pristine state or baseline. Naturally, they thought, to do that, the park should exist apart from humanity. Consequently, people living in the area were kicked out (26). In this example, conservationist’s blinded view of nature resulted in futile and ineffective action to conserve it. Now we better understand that “a protected area doesn’t have to be depopulated to work”(26). Regardless of people, nature change on its own. With such new knowledge, “obsessing over 1872 is” definitely “no longer as helpful to park managers (34). The focus now then for the park is on managing resilience, which is “an ecosystem’s ability to endure disturbances…without substantially changing in character” (36).

I believe she has made a very good point. Humans have dominated and continue to affect every area on the Earth. We have altered its climate, land, plants, as well as the animals living in it. And so making humanity the enemy of nature would be foolish. We need to work together, not backwards in time but to the future, equipped with a new way of seeing nature.

 

The Anthropocene

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Hye Min Lee

Human influence on the changes of the planet’s original ecosystem and landscape is undeniable. From the creation of the Earth in its pristine state and now having entered the era of the Anthropocene thousands of years later, its human inhabitants are dominating, transforming, and affecting every part of the planet’s natural systems. Vitousek in his Human Dominantion of Earth’s Ecosystems article, in an attempt to make an absolute point, goes as far as to say that “no ecosystem on Earth’s surface is free of pervasive human influence”. Absolutely none. None remains unaffected by humanity’s dominance. Kareiva, in her article called Conservation in the Antrhopocene, also poses a similar view. She writes, “humankind has already profoundly transformed the planet and will continue to do so” and “the effects of human activity are found in every corner of the Earth.” There is no question about it. Nature and people are very much intertwined.

And so consequently, I believe that understanding the interactions between nature and human activities become very important. Vitousek and Kareiva both describe some of the ways in which humans have affected the environment and the planet in which we live. Early conservation, which includes fencing and building protected areas of “wilderness” to parks, often resulted in resettling of many local people living in the area. And according to Kareiva, without human communities such special areas of wilderness became “no less human constructions than Disneyland.” Vitousek talks about how “humans use of land alters the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and it alters how ecosystems interact with the atmosphere, with aquatic systems, and with surrounding land.”

There has been an increase of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Why? Because of human’s daily use of cars, mining, and fossil fuel combustion, to name a few. Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems mention that “as many as one-quarter of Earth’s bird species have been driven to extinction”. How did that happen? The article’s answer to the question is, “by human activities over the past two millennia…” Right now, six percent of the rivers on Earth is evaporated. Why? Because of “human manipulation” on the water systems to meet the increasing demand for fresh water. As demonstrated above, human activities have direct effect on nature as well as its nonhuman inhabitants on Earth.  Humanity’s influence on Earth is immense and alters it at a much faster rate than it realizes.

As Kareiva mentions, trying to “undo” the damage already done or attempting to return to “prehumen landscapes” will be pointless and simply not possible. The more valuable task for us to complete is one articulated by Kareiva. It is to see “a new vision of a planet in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes.” Protecting and preserving nature while embracing human development seems to be the most reasonable and effective way to conserve nature and the Earth’s ecosystem.

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