Author Archives: Joanna Yang

Posts by Joanna Yang

Natural Gas Company & NYC Water Supply

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Joanna Yang

Hydraulic fracturing is a process that many natural gas companies practices today to stimulate oil and gas production. The significant practice of hydraulic fracturing and growing number of complaints regarding water quality led to various investigations against hydraulic fracturing technology. As a result, government agencies started to dig into the activity and set up various restrictions on water drilling.

 

“Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting into production wells large volumes of water, sand or other proppant, and specialized chemicals under enough pressure to fracture low-permeability geologic formations containing oil and/or natural gas. The sand and other proppant holds the new fractures open to allow the oil or gas to flow freely out of the formation and into a production well. Fracturing fluid and water remaining in the fracture zone can inhibit oil and gas production, and must be pumped back to the surface.”

 

Hydraulic fracturing is a worldwide practice that many natural gas companies use to generate energy sources. Many people were concern that hydraulic fracturing will cause underground water pollutions; however, there are not enough evidences proving that there is a direct link between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination. When a water well is not constructed and cased properly it might cause contaminated water flows from the land surface into the water well, and degraded water quality in the well. However research suggests, “contamination incidents have been attributed to poor well construction or surface activities, rather than the specific hydraulic fracturing process.” Also, many oil and gas producing States claimed that there is no direction relationship between hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination.

 

Hydraulic fracturing is responsible for providing major share of domestically produced natural gas. However, many government policies and restrictions are making it harder for natural gas companies to use this technology to generate our own energy supplies. Although as the practice of hydraulic fracturing increases, many people are concerned of water contamination; there are no sufficient scientific evidences that suggest hydraulic fracturing is the cause of groundwater contamination.

 

Source: “Hydraulic Fracturing Overview: Growth Of The Process And Safe Drinking Water Concerns.” Congressional Digest 91.3 (2012): 71-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2012.

Questions for Emma Marris

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Joanna Yang
  1. What do you think is the most effective way to conserve urban environment in New York City?
  2. In the last chapter of the book you listed seven different goals, are there particular ones that you think New Yorkers should mostly focus on?
  3. What’s the difference between how European and American scientists conserve their ecosystem?
  4. How do you think conservation will evolve for the next few decades? And do you think the trend toward conservation will be more positive or negative?

Poster Questions

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Joanna Yang

How are smoking rates different from city and suburban area?

Compare different species in Central Park and Highline Park (for example growth, and diversity)

Which New York City area has the greatest air pollution, and how does it affect people’s health?

Chapter 10

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Joanna Yang

In chapter 10 of the book Rambunctious Garden, Marris generates seven goals that scientists can use to approach conservation. These goals are not about getting the place back to the way they were, instead they are more realistic objectives that conservationists should consider.  Goal one focuses on protecting the rights of other species, I agree with Aldo Leopold’s idea that “when we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect (Marris 246)”. The concept that human and nature belong to each other; therefore human must respect and love every species. Goal two emphasizes on protecting charismatic megafauna. Conservationists believe that those megafauna are keystone species, which can cause a great impact on the ecosystem that they live in. However, protecting megafauna species is a very controversial issue; because some conservationists believe that these megafauna can be extremely hard to control, and will destroy the whole environment. In Goal three, Marris talks about slowing the rate of extinctions. This is the goal for many conservationists, but it is very difficult to achieve.  Marris talks about Possingham’s concept that every species should be equally important. But when the money and resources were limited not every species are going to be saved. As Marris puts it, “narrowly focusing on stopping extinctions, in other words, saves species but not necessarily ecosystems (Marris 229).” Goal four encourages protecting genetic diversity. It is important to preserve genetic diversity, because it “preserves the raw source of the diversity of life (Marris, 230).” Ecosystem with more genetic variants will most likely to adapt into the fast changing environments. Goal five talks about defining and defending biodiversity.  Biodiversity, also called complexity, includes all the species, genes and ecosystems that existed. It is the idea that species should be exist together, and “evolution has produced a beautiful web of interrelations, inscrutable in its complexity and inherently valuable (Marris 232).” I agree with Marris that biodiversity may be the most difficult goal to achieve because it includes so much of the nature. Goal six is related to maximizing ecosystem services, which is a more economic approach to conservation. Even though this approach sounds unethical, I actually think this is a good one. According to Marris, “taking an ecosystem services approach can reveal the common interests shared by nature lovers and business people. Everybody wins (Marris 239).” Conservation needs a lot of effort, time and money; therefore I think it will be useful to make a connection with business people. The last goal emphasizes protecting the spiritual and aesthetic experience of nature. According to Marris, “aesthetic and spiritual values are not limited to native or pristine-seeming places (Marris 241).” There are many man-made places that we may have spiritual connections with it; and all of these places are worth protecting. In the end of the book, Marris advocates that everyone should take a responsibility to manage the nature that we live in because we are the ones who changed them.

Chapter 8&9

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Joanna Yang

In chapter 8 and 9 of the book Rambunctious Garden Marris introduces the concept of designer ecosystem and the idea that conservation should occur everywhere around the globe. I agree with Marris that conservationists should think about achieving specific goals instead of heavily focused on returning the area to their baselines. Also, I like the idea that conservation should occur everywhere not just in those big parks.

In the chapter “designer ecosystem” Marris argues that while conserving ecosystem is important, there are many ways to do it. Many conservationists were too focused on setting a baseline, and trying to bring those places to meet a certain baseline conditions. While Marris thinks that by doing so it will miss the point. She suggests that, “no restoration reproduces exactly the ecosystem of hundreds of years ago. And restoration ecologists use lots of “hacks” –less-than-authentic shortcuts to get a landscape looking and working the way they want (Marris 181).” I agree with Marris that conservationists should focused more on achieving specific goals; for example, reducing the amount of nitrogen or carbons in the atmosphere, or changing the soil composition. Returning a place into what it looked like before human interferences sounds ideal, but it was not realistic. There are proofs of human interferences everywhere in this world; therefore, there are no such things as “pristine” nature. According to Hobbs, “You are not going to get the previous ecosystem back, but you can still aim for something that is valuable (Marris 187)”. It is not about making it looks the same as before, but creating a similar ecosystem that will provides same ecological services. In chapter 9 of the book, Marris talks about the idea that conservation should take place everywhere around the world. As she puts it, “To make the most of our protected areas, we must think beyond their boundaries and complement our wildernesses with conservation everywhere else too, from industrial rivers like the Duwamish to the roofs of buildings and farmer’s fields (Marris 193).” We should start paying attention to the nature that surrounds us, whether it’s a small park, a street with many trees or anywhere with plants and little creatures; because all of them represent the signs of nature. It is easy for people to talk about conservation but difficult to get everyone involved in this big project of saving nature. Marris gives an example of conservation in agricultural lands, in which many conservationists suggest “habitat and other natural values can be improved by increasing the diversity and reducing the intensity of farming (Marris 201).” By changing farm lands into habitats will decrease the agricultural production, and thus less profits. Therefore, many farmers and economists are not in favor of this idea. Marris also talks about planting more native species in private gardens; however, it is not easy for people to implement this idea. Since many of these plants attract bugs and insects, many house owners don’t want to grow anything in their gardens. I agree with the idea that conservation should occur in everywhere; however, we need to work harder to convince people to help to make a difference.

Chapter 6 & 7

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Joanna Yang

In chapter 6 and 7 of the book Rambunctious Garden, Emma Marris advocates that not all of the exotic species are harmful, in which some of them actually can be good to species’ development. Marris also introduces the concept of novel ecosystem, which is a “new, human-influenced combinations of species that can function as well or better than native ecosystems and provide for human with ecosystem services of various kinds (Marris, 160).” I think that scientists should start protecting those novel ecosystems because they are valuable, and actually increasing species diversity.

 
Many scientists think that exotic/foreign species are invasive species. Once these species are introduced into the new environment, they adapt to the new environment, and eventually become a threat to the native species. The main reason why scientists think that exotic species are their enemy is that “Sometimes a species naturalizes so well that it becomes a rowdy nuisance, taking over land or water previously held by natives, or eating them up or outcompeting them or fouling boat hulls or doing something else disagreeable (Marris, 142).” However, Sax published a paper that holds a completely different view about exotic species. Sax found out that the overall diversity of the island was actually increasing, in which the number of invasion is much greater than the number of extinction. He also argues that most extinction is not directly caused by those exotic species. In fact, according to the book, “extinctions that are directly attributable to introduced species are quite rare (Marris, 150).” Not only that, studies also shows that some of the exotic species are helping the native species to grow; for example, exotic birds replaced the roles of the extinct species in dispersing the seeds of the native plants in Hawaii. Some scientists started to think about exotic species in a more positive way. They introduced the concept of novel ecosystems, which are “defined by anthropogenic change by are not under active human management (Marris, 164).” Some novel ecosystems were purposely changed by people then leave it to go wild; others were changed indirectly by human, such as climate change, extinction, and invasion of the foreign species. According to Lugo’s research, the plantation with exotic species actually grows better than the native plantation. There are many scientists dislike the concept of novel systems because they think it doesn’t fit into their idea of pristine nature. According to Charles Elton, “a careful selection of exotic forms” could have a place beside natives in man-made landscapes designed to be “rich and interesting and stable” (Marris, 167).

As Marris says, “Novel ecosystem have proven to be useful for-of all thing- restoration of native species (Marris, 174)” I think that scientist should look deep into novel ecosystems, and maybe they will found a different approach to conservation. I agree with Marris that it doesn’t matter if the species were exotic or not, as long as they can benefit the ecosystem, they shouldn’t be treated as invasive species.

The High Line

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Joanna Yang

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the book Rambunctious Garden, Emma Marris criticizes that many conservationists approached conservation in a misleading way. Marris believes that there are no such things as pristine nature. There are evidences of human influences everywhere in the world. I think that the High Line fits into the concept of Marris’ rambunctious garden because it is heavily shaped by human, and yet still have its unique natural characteristics. According to Stalter, human visitors to the High Line accidentally bought seeds and different soils to the site, it creates various habitats for different species to live in. Other human influences such as “trampling and cutting vegetation, and the smothering of plants by debris such as tires, bottles and additional trash (Stalter 387)” also play an important role of soil composition and species diversities in the High Line.

The High Line used to be an elevated commercial railroad from 1934 to 1980. It sketches from 13th and 34th street between 10th and 11th Avenue. However, the 1950s Interstate Highway System decreased the rail freight on the High Line. The High Line rails were abandoned in 1980. Friends of the High Line, which is a non-profit organization, proposed to transform the rail lines into a pedestrian walkway. During the primary succession lichens, bryophytes, forbs, grasses and some other vegetation started to appear. Then with the growing and dying of the mosses, lichens and grasses, the soil composition become richer, which allows more species to better flourish themselves (Stalter, 387-388).

 

 
During my first visit to the High Line I was impressed by its species richness. I visited the High Line on last Tuesday; it was windy and rainy. I saw all different colors of flowers, fruits, and trees. As what Stalter reported in his paper, “the vascular flora at the High Line consisted of 161 species in 122 genera in 48 families (Stalter 388).” It is amazing that this human-made strip of nature is right in the city. I also saw a lot of pollinators like honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies and etc. It was a worthwhile trip to the High Line; I can see all different types of flora without travelling outside of the city.

 

 

I believe that the High Line supports Marris’ concept of rambunctious garden, because it is not pristine, but still have its unique beauty. According to Stalter, compare to Haffman/Swinburne Island, Bayswater State Park, Liberty and Ellis Island, the High Line has the greatest number of species. Also, “The High Line may have one of the highest levels of species richness of any temperate zone urban environment in the region (Stalter, 389).” Although many conservationists believe in pristine nature, and that nature should be kept away from human interference; the High Line proves that human and nature can be coexist, and create this strip of nature with the most species diversities.

          

Assisted Migration

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Joanna Yang

One of the biggest threats to many species caused by human is global warming. It is a result of human burning fossil fuel, thus increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Certain species can only survive under specific range of temperatures. However, as the climate continues to increase, many species are facing potential possibilities of extinction.

At the beginning of the chapter five of the book Rambunctious Garden, Marris gives an example of how global warming affects certain species. As the climate keep getting warmer, American pikas have to move to the top of the mountains to stay cooler. However, for some of them who are already at the top of the mountain, they have nowhere to go. “The animal could never migrate on its own; the trip down to the lowlands to get to the next mountain would kill it (Marris 106).” Scientists feel that human have the responsibility to clean up the mess that they produced; therefore, they came up with the idea of assisted migration, which is basically moving species to a place before it gets too warm. As human are burning more fossil fuels to become powerful, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere raises dramatically, as a result; the temperature increases every years. It becomes harder for plants and other animals to live in this heated world. According to scientist many plants and animals can only live within certain range of temperature and climate patterns, therefore a lot of them are expected to move to other places. Assisted migration seems like a very good idea, it is somewhat similar to the concept of rewilding, which is the idea of reintroducing similar species into an area, and to restore ecosystem back to 10,000 years ago, before human intervention. Marris talks about two different type of migration. The first one is upward migration, which is simply moving species up to the top of the mountain, to help them stay cooler. “Many range shifts for individual species have already been documented. University of Exeter biologist Robert Jon Wilson found that in the Sierra de Guadarramas in central Spain butterfly ranges have shifted, on average, 200 meters uphill in the last thirty-five years (Marris 109).” Although research shows that species are already moving upward, the problem with that is when all the species are moving up, then there will be a great competition of food, space and air at the top of the mountain. Eventually some of the species live at the top of the mountain are going to be extinct. Not only there is upward migration, scientists also recorded the pole-ward migration. Data from the studies of butterflies suggests that these butterflies didn’t just move up, approximately 63 percent of them also move 20 to 150 miles north since 1900 (Marris 110).

Although assisted migration may temporarily save some endangered species from getting extinct, its long-term effect is still unpredictable. I don’t think assisted migration is a good idea to save the species from getting extinct because we have no idea how these species are going to behave in the new area. As some people argue, these species may become invasive ones, which may resulted in losing even more native species.

Rewilding Chapter 3+4

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Joanna Yang

Is rewilding really worth fighting for? I doubt it while reading these two chapters of Morris’ book the Rambunctious Garden. The main concept of rewilding is about reintroducing similar species into the ecosystem where these species once lived before their extinctions. “Top-of-the-food-chain predators” are the main players in rewilding, scientists who support the idea of rewilding believe that the presence of the top predators will help to keep the ecosystem in balance. According to the book, “when predators are not around to kill the various prey species, the reasoning goes, the only check on their population is competition for food. Eventually this uncomplicated competition leads to one prey species squeezing others out until one is left with larger populations of fewer species.” (Marris, 89) When there are no top predators, medium-size predators will start to cause a bigger threat to the smaller species. Therefore, many conservationists who believe in rewilding think that we can rebuild an ecosystem back to the state where there is no human interventions by reintroducing similar species into the ecosystem. This idea sounds very rational, because if there were similar species lived in that area thousands of years ago, maybe by reintroducing them into the environment to replace the extinct species will actually work. These reintroduced species may be able to play the role as top predators and keep the ecosystem in balance. However, as I am reading through these two chapters, I am starting to question myself, is this whole idea really going to work? In order to reintroduce those species into the same area, there must be a lot of researches involved; sometimes scientists have to go across continents to find the species that were similar to the ones that were extinct. It will cost a lot of time and money to transport these animals into America. I agree with Dustin Rubenstein that, “placing proxy animals in a modern landscape could spell trouble. These ecosystems have changed, and existing species have evolved in the thousands of years since megafauna extinctions.” (Marris, 95) Reintroducing these species into the ecosystem may cause some unpredictable consequences because scientists can’t guarantee that these animals are going to behave in the way that they expect them to be; these foreign species may become a potential threat to the existing ecosystem, or they can become one of those invasive species and cause troubles with the local residents.

I don’t think that the concept of rewilding is feasible. Not only that it will take scientists a lot of efforts to be done to reintroduce the species into the ecosystem, there are also a lot of issues regarding ethnics. The book gives an example of how “African communities have to deal with large dangerous carnivores, and the United States doesn’t?” (Marris, 93) I agree that it is unfair for some people to live with their life in danger, just because the world needs lions.

Rambunctious Garden Chapter 1&2

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Joanna Yang

In the first two chapter of the book Rambunctious Garden, Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris addresses issues about nature. According to Marris, we have lost nature in the sense of how it has been destroyed, and also how we have misplaced it. Marris makes a clear argument in the beginning of the first chapter about the common misconception of how people view nature. I agree with her that when people think about nature, things that come to most of their minds are forest, wild animals, and plants. Natures shouldn’t be something that is “out there”, somewhere far away from human touch; instead it can be in everywhere around us. In Marris’ words, “Nature is also the birds in your backyard; the bees whizzing down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; the pines in rows in forest plantations the blackberries and butterfly bushes that grow alongside the urban river…”(Marris, 6) She suggests that nature is not only about those national parks such as Yellowstone, it can be anything that’s around us.

Marris also makes a strong argument that “Nature is almost everywhere. But wherever it is, there is one thing that nature is not: pristine”(Marris, 6). We are living in a planet that is constantly changing; for example, carbon level keep increasing, many species were moving from one place to another, and there is also a huge climate change. All these changes were closely related to human’s actions, in which high carbon level and climate changes are results of burning fossil fuels. Because of the significant impact that human can have on the nature, people must be responsible of their actions, and start looking at nature in a different prospective. Marris makes a forceful statement saying “we can find beauty in nature, even if signs of humanity are present.” I truly agree with this quote, because of our undeniable influences on nature, human is actually a part of the nature, which cannot be separated. Keeping nature away from human is not the most efficient way of reserving nature. Many conservationists are trying to restore nature into a state before any presences of human. However, it is very difficult for conservationists to achieve this goal, and sometimes they even have problem decide what their baselines are, because nature is constantly changing, and we don’t always know what these places were like thousands of years ago. We cannot restore everything to its original fate; therefore, we ended up having “little islands like the past” (Marris 16)

Marris also gives an example of Yellowstone to argue that nature shouldn’t be keep away from people. Millions of indigenous people have been moved just to protect nature, but Marris believes that this is not the effective way of saving our nature because natures and human are closely tied with each other. According Marris, these indigenous people can be the one who is doing least hurt to the nature that they live with. I think Marris did a good job in the opening of the book; she has made several strong arguments about nature with the support of examples.

The Anthropocene

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Joanna Yang

Anthropocene is defined as the significant impact that human have on the environment. According to Vitousek, it is clear that “all organism modify their environment, and humans are no exception.” Organisms are closely tied with their environment. Some organisms have the ability to adapt to their environment, while some are constantly changing their environment to fit their needs. Human are the most influential forces in the earth; it has the ability to change their environment in both positive and negative ways.

Human populations are constantly increasing, therefore they need more lands and foods to sustained their life. As a result, more forest are being cut down to build homes, and the species that live in the forest will lost their home, and eventually some of them may died out. This is related to the concept of land transformation. Land transformation is the use of the land to produce goods and services in order to benefit human kind. While human are constantly burning fossil fuels for industrial developments; more and more CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere. The accumulation of large percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere forms greenhouse effect, which is also known as the global warming. Human activities also have a direct effect on aquatic species. According to Vitousek, “many of the fisheries that capture marine productivity are focused on top predators, whose removal can alter marine ecosystems out of proportion to their abundance”. In addition, this article also suggests “as of 1995, 22% if recognized marine fisheries were overexploited or already depleted, and 44% more were at their limit of exploitation.” Because of human activities ecosystem lost many of its species, and a lot of them are now endanger.

In the article “Conservation in the anthropocene”, Kareiva argues that even though we may protect certain area, and reserve as parks, the rate of destruction will keep accelerating. Changing certain area into parks doesn’t really help to protect ecosystem, sometimes it may have an opposite effect. More species are lost because of conservationist’s effort of trying to change the landscape. Kareiva holds a different view from Vitousek, he believes that nature is stronger than what most of people thought, in which he address “nature is so resilient that it can recover rapidly from even the most powerful human disturbances.” While conservationists are trying to create parks, local people are forced to move to other places. Kareiva suggests that conservation shouldn’t just be about creating park and keeping human away from the nature, instead human are part of the nature.

Both articles agree that human has a strong influence on nature; every human activity will have a significant impact on the nature. In Kareiva’s article, “nature was described as primeval, fragile, and at risk of collapse from too much human use and abuse.” Human converted many places for its economic purpose, resulted in enormous loss of species. Some of these extinctions cause the whole ecosystem to lose its balance. In order to protect ecosystem, conservationists must find a different way to approach conservation not just by keeping human away from nature.

Comments by Joanna Yang