Author: Kiran Kaur

Before reading this article, I was under the impression that maybe this article would address the different ways we can implement change to the environment, so that the probability of natural disasters lessens. However, rather than focusing on the cause of these hurricanes, the article addressed ways to have innovative developments. According to the article, “many residential buildings in the 1/100 flood zone are currently insufficiently protected from floodwaters”. Since it’s impossible to get everyone to just get up and move out of the city, building more stable infrastructure and coming up with innovative ideas to reduce the impact of flooding seems like a viable solution for now. However, how is that going to help in the long run? There is a great chance that these innovative solutions to flood protection in NYC aren’t going to work 50 years from now when the Earth warms up more and there is more of a shift in the balance of nature. The infrastructure won’t hold for that time. I’m certain about this because I live in a house that was built about 100 years ago. I’m sure that this house held up to what was expected of it 100 years ago. However, now whenever it rains a lot, there’s always the scare of the basement flooding. Why does this happen? Because this house wasn’t built for the amount of rainfall we get now. There’s been a drastic shift to the climate in the past 100 years with the dramatic increase in urban life. Climate change is only going to get worse from here but we still don’t learn from our mistakes since we don’t see the effects in a tangible perspective. Not too long ago, we were supposed to be hit by another hurricane (which didn’t happen). I’m sure that a lot of people in the flood zones were ready to evacuate once the hurricane hit. What makes no sense to me is why these people would continue to live in those places when they know that its just going to be a constant cycle with the climate change -> hurricanes -> flooding -> home destroyed. These people take full advantage of their home insurance since their home is probably destroyed a lot due to these natural disasters. Wouldn’t it just be a better idea to move to a safer place without having to deal with flooding every so often?

I found this article really interesting to read because it ties in well with what I’m going to research for my term paper. Also, like a few other papers we’ve read, this paper was straight to the point with some of the benefits of having green roofs. It was very easy to follow unlike some other papers we’ve read. Before reading this paper, I was aware of some of the benefits of having plants (ie. reducing air pollution), but I wasn’t aware of the extent to which plants can help us. Being an asthmatic, green roofs can really help personally. Born and raised in NYC, I absolutely love city life except for the air pollution. Whenever I go to a suburban area or areas with a lot of vegetation, I can easily notice how there’s less air pollution since it becomes easier to breathe. Even though it’s impossible to get rid of all the air pollution, it’s actually crazy how much plants can do to help. According to the article “one square meter of green roof could offset the annual particulate matter emissions of on car. If 20% of industrial and commercial roof surfaces in Detroit were traditional extensive sedum green roofs, over 800,000 kg per year of NO2 would be removed” (2102). One square meter and 20% doesn’t seem much compared to the amount of damage plants could reverse. Also, by putting green roofs on the campus of Michigan State University alone, “they could avoid 3,640,263 kg CO2 emitted per year in electricity and natural gas consumption combined. This is equivalent of taking 661 vehicles off the road each year” (2103). If by putting green roofs on one campus can help so much, how much would it help if green roofs were scattered all over the country. Even though they are expensive and hard to maintain, I feel that the long-term consequences would be worth it. All of the money that would be spent in the future years in order to maintain the energy consumption, could be put towards green roofs as an investment which could save a lot of money in the future. Along with saving money, we end up with more vegetation (which looks pretty as well) and better living style. Green roofs have a domino effect. They help in one aspect which helps our healths. For example, green roofs also play a role in reducing excess noise which can in turn reduce health problems such as hearing impairment, hypertension, ischemic heart disease and sleep disturbance. The more plants there are around us, the better it is for everyone.

When it comes to maintaining different ecosystems, from the chapters we’ve read in this book so far, I’ve noticed that a great problem with people is that they don’t understand what the consequences of their actions will be.  I feel that this is largely due to a lack of knowledge. Along with not having a lot of knowledge about what kind of damage is being caused, people also take nature (in this chapter, marine life) for granted. A lot of human caused changes in the past have rendered marine ecosystems lifeless. Decline in oxygen levels have suffocated the animals (79). People only start to fix things when they start to realize how a decline in a specific ecosystem is going to hurt them soon. Otherwise people may see “swamps as frog-ponds and… as ulcers or sores in a man’s face spoiling the beauty of a field” (83).

It’s interesting to see how marine ecosystems usually aren’t regarded as a “life-form”. This is seen when “regional population of 10 million were dumping over a billion gallons of raw sewage into the waters, reducing the oxygen content” in some areas down to 0%. People understand that air pollution is doing a similar thing by reducing the oxygen levels in the air. Because this affects the human population directly, people realize how this is a problem. However, marine life needs oxygen as well. Let’s say that people are ignorant about this. However, I’m pretty sure that those who work in high end companies know the dangers of this but this doesn’t stop petroleum refineries ad chemical plants from discharging their wastes into the water. Along with endangering marine life, I was very surprised that companies such as GE would endanger the life of humans by polluting waterways with PCBs. The PCBs “accumulate in the fatty tissue of the fish and eventually find their way into the human diet” (88). PCBs have multiple negative effects ranging from respiratory problems, reproductive problems to cancer. The most that the government can do to fix this problem is make laws and punish those who break the laws but “government regulation alone cannot remedy conditions unless public sentiments is ready to demand a strict enforcement of the necessary laws” (87) and follow those implemented laws.

When the Europeans came over to the newly found “American” land, they brought a lot of things along with them, accidentally and intentionally. Some of the common ones that most people are familiar with are guns, germs and steel. The Europeans dominated over other cultures by the means of superior guns, population destroying germs, steel and food-producing capability. Before doing this reading, I wasn’t aware of the fact that most of the plant species in our city aren’t native at all. A lot of the plan species in our city can actually be traced back to the European origin. Carlos Westey found 36 herbal cures with 17 that are alien to our city, which are only possible because of the invasive characteristics of the Europeans.

At one point in the reading, the author accused the European’s invasive technology of destroying the whole ecosystem. However, later on she mentions how the “surpluses enabled urban populations to grow, which in turn pushed the farmer to put more land into crops to supply market demand. With a growing urban population, there is a greater need for more crops to sustain that population. Though the technique of single-culture crops used up water and nutrients and exhausted the soil, the used up soil encouraged opportunistic plants to take over. I feel that the author tries to make a point in how the Europeans ruined our ecosystem that was in the Americas before their arrival, but she ended up contradicted herself multiple times by showing how that “ruining” led to better things. By introducing alien plant species to the Americas, the native species had a lower chance of survival. However, humans themselves have also interfered in the survival of the native species. As the population expands, there is a need of more housing spaces, which can only be made on land that is covered with plant species from different ecosystems. Even though there have been initiatives taken in order to bring back and replicate some of the species, it’s not likely that a lot of them will be around in urban areas like New York City.

Throughout all of the papers and readings we’ve done, a main focus is how man-made things in urban environments interferes with the law of nature. This article, on the other hand, tells about how some of the services provided by nature can help humans. Some of these services are air filtering, micro-climate regulation, noise reduction, water regulation and waste treatment. Street trees have the capacity of filtering up to 70% of the area it’s a part of and trees in parks filter 85% of air pollution. Most people are aware of this service provided by the different ecosystems, whereas the others are not really common knowledge.

I found it very interesting how vegetation has the ability to help even out temperature deviations during the summer and winter.When one thinks of ecosystems (ie. forests, lakes) he/she doesn’t usually associate that with a difference in temperature change. By reading this article, I’ve become more aware of the the ways that ecosystems help us and the different ways they affect us. Every kind of ecosystem plays a very important role, even though we may not notice it. With a very changing and advancing world, it’s important to keep up with the environment, which we often end up neglecting. In order to sustain the environment, a lot of planning is needed and a tight community between people to make it happen, but the practicality of that isn’t very high.

The entire chapter provided information on the decline of many different species of birds. A common factor in all of these declines was humans. A reoccurring theme in most of the texts we’ve read is how the selfishness of humans ends up killing off different species. One may argue that this selfishness is valid because the humans needed living spaces so they cut down a lot of trees. However, in this chapter, a different side was shown. In the 1800s and the 1900s, birds were killed off to maintain trade. Before trade began, the Indians that lived in the region didn’t disturb the bird, nor did they carry any trade among themselves. When the Europeans came in, the hunters quickly started to kill a lot of the birds and they were hunted far beyond the need for meat. Peter Kalm stated, “The people increasing in this country, they have by hunting and shooting in part extirpated the birds, in part scared them away: in spring the people still take both eggs, mothers and young indifferently, because no regulations are made to the contrary” (129). Killing off a few birds would seem valid if they were needed to feed the people, rather than to increase trade. There was an entire bird market where in 1805, a bird fetched one penny in New York and by 1830, pigeons fetched 4 cents each. In 1870s, there were enough pigeons were hundreds could be shot in a day, but 10 years later, seeing a pigeon became rare.

Along with trading, birds started to be used for fashion. Women would wear an entire bird on their hat. In an article published by Allan Cruickshank, he says that “men fought and sometimes killed each other to maintain control over colonies of snowy egrets. When the eggs hatched and the instruct to care for the hungry young was strongest, the killers descended on the colonies. They shot each bird as it attempted to return to its helpless young” (134). No one thought twice before doing this because they didn’t think about the birds but rather their own self satisfaction. This is a prime example of speciesism, which is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. Because of this thought process, a lot of birds were shot and killed so that humans could enjoy something which they didn’t have a right to enjoy in the first place.

Out of all the readings that we have done, the Biodiversity Assessment Handbook for New York City is the one piece that puts everything into perspective. Part of this is because the focus is New York City and that makes it easier to relate to. Part of it is also because the positive effects of biodiversity and the negative effects of biodiversity loss are stated. The handbook lists reasons as to what would happen if more greenery was lost and how that would affect us in a negative manner. Whenever we think of the decline of biodiversity, one of the things that usually comes to mind is the cutting down of trees. As a whole, we understand that cutting down trees is harmful because they provide us with oxygen. However, loss of biodiversity can affect us in various different ways such as a decline in medicine since a lot of medicine is derived from plants or an increase in pollution since the cooling effects of shade and transpiration reduce the production of ground-level ozone. If there is an increase in the amount of ground-level ozone, this would aggravate asthma and other respiratory illnesses. There are a lot of other variables that come into play because of biodiversity. We may not notice it, but biodiversity benefits our lives and New York City as a whole in a huge way. For example, “the New York City trees intercept almost 890 million gallons of rainwater each year, preventing it from entering storm sewers and saving the city about $35 million annually in stormwater management cost”. These numbers are very big, mostly in part of the biodiversity that is left in our city.

Living in New York City, there are so many different species we can exposed to but don’t get to because NYC’s biodiversity is highly threatened. These threats include climate change, habitat loss, degradation, pollution, etc. When we think of pollution, we mostly think of ozone and other contaminants. However, NYC is a financial hub which also causes a lot of sound and light pollution. In a great city like ours, it’s hard to manage all the city life as well as biodiversity. Even though there are a lot of organizations out there trying to fight this loss, only time can tell how our city is going to turn out.

It’s interesting to see how a lot of the places that we know of were named because of the trees that were in that area. The name of many had a connection with trees and nature. For example, Bushwick comes from the Dutch word Boswijck which means place of woods. This is similar to “Holland” which means “land of forests”. Today when we think of these places, we don’t make a connection to trees However, back in the days, the trees in a certain place gave it its identify. A lot of the meanings don’t make sense now because a lot of the forests have been depleted and trees have been chopped down.

When the Dutch and English explored the coasts of America, they reported a lot of trees and forests. However, when the time came, the trees were chopped for selfish reasons. When there were fuel shortages in Europe, trees were cut. When shipbuilding became an essential industry during the years of expansion and empire building, trees were cut. Sawmills started being built in New Amsterdam in order to export lumber. These events were the beginning of the destruction of nature, trees, forests, etc. Once selfishness starts playing a role, it’s almost impossible to conserve trees and forests. For example, Native Americans viewed trees as a source of food, fuel, tools and construction material. The Lenapes stripped tree bark so that they could cover their houses and/or make canoes. Many would argue that this was necessary so that the Lenapes could have housing and/or a method of transportation. However, this is not entirely true because we see that the Indians did not cut trees for profit. They didn’t have any selfish motives that would force them to do so. They learned how to mange without destroying trees because they respected nature and thought of trees as their elders. This kind of mentality is not present today because we are more concerned with skyscrapers and urban life. In order to make these urban areas, trees and forests have to be destroyed. It’s not very likely that we will ever be able to reforest the land but the only thing we can do is preserve the few forest remnants that are left. If we are to no preserve these remnants, our earth is going to die sooner than we’d ever want it to.

Reading about how Manhattan was prior to becoming one of the most fast-paced, cosmopolitan cities, I was reminded of the time when one of the “field trips” for Macaulay Seminar 1: Arts in NYC was going to the New York Historical Society. There, we saw different maps of Mannahatta over the span of a few hundred years and were able to see how drastically it has changed.  After reading this article, I visited the Mannahatta Project online where instead of the skyscrapers, there were only trees and jungles. Even though these visuals were provided, it’s still hard to imagine a city without all the chaos, lights, buildings, etc.

As stated in the article, a few years after the Revolution, New York transformed into a major city rather than a colonial town which was primarily for transport of goods. This is interesting because today, New York City is still a major port. The foundations of the current New York City reflect exactly on how it’s seen today. The population throughout the 19th century went from around 33,000 people to about 1.4 million. I feel that this is due to the fact that NYC became a major port where people had easy access to other places through the trading ports. This is the same way in today’s society. Since NYC is a very diverse city, it feels as though we have access to other places because of the interactions with others as well as the connections we have to the outside world.

Even after reading the facts stated in the article, it’s hard to envision what Mannhatta looked like. In a radius of 10 blocks, I’m sure that there are a lot of different biomes that one would be able to encounter in the 1600s Mannahatta. Nowadays, it’s impossible to go back to that stage. Even if we wanted to have a half urban, half suburban Mannahatta, it would be impossible because our city has made too many advancements to go back on.

Biodiversity loss is something that conservation scientists stress about. However, the public doesn’t pay much attention to it because a lot isn’t told to the public. On the streets, sometimes one may see the people who get signatures in order to “help save the earth”. However, signatures don’t do anything and nor does petitioning. The only thing that can help is if people took the matter into their own hands, which most people do not. The most common excuse in these cases is the “I don’t have time” excuse. However, with the busy lives that people have working job(s), it’s very possible that people actually do not have time.

Scientists write about the loss of biodiversity in research papers but not many people read these papers. I feel that the best way to get people to care about the dying earth is to tell them about the possible future which may come to be if things continue the way that they are. Our technology is advanced enough for videos (which show the possible destruction) to be made. This way, the truth about the earth is going to be revealed and maybe people will connect with the conservation process a little more.

A few weeks back, there was a nationwide outrage when a dentist killed Cecil the Lion, who was an endangered species. Even though there’s nothing that can be done about a dead lion, this shows that the public cares and can make a difference when it comes to conserving biodiversity. The only problem is that no one is willing to take the first initiative.