Blog 9

While walking around at my work place during lunch time, people from up-state set up a food market right outside the 14 Union Square train station. I notice organic vegetables and fruits are very attractive for people to buy and also very expensive. Listening to one of the seller that he sells tomatoes, corns, white mushrooms and so on, he said organic food doesn't have any chemicals in it. He's vegetable are grown from natural soils and does not have any pesticides or any genetically engineered in it. He claims his vegetables is healther than fruits and vegetables that you buy in the supermarket. Since Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday and most of us are planning to consume a lot food in our system, I was thinking, I should do a little bit of research on how pesticides would impact our food and environment.

Pesticides is chemicals that kill unwanted pest. Pest that is include insects, birds, worms, mosquitoes, and microbes. Farmer spray pesticides in there crops to avoid destroying their plantations. It can save farmers money by preventing the lost of crops, decreasing food prices, and decrease in world hunger. The drawbacks of pesticides carries a toxicity to environment, animals, humans and especially HONEY BEES.

Pesticides are spray in the air when planes come across the plantations. An when it sprays some of the pesticides are carried by wind and contaminate certain areas. Pesticides can causes water pollution and soil contamination. Thats why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have to step in to regulate the proper usages of pesticides. Some people are concerns that pesticides that use on our food crops can be dangerous in the long term effects. The residue after the farmer spray in there crops will remain in our environment.

When purchese fruits and vegetables, waste it thoroughly with water and use a potato peeler to peel of the skin. Here is websites says, which fruits or veggie has the most pesticides on it: http://www.foodnews.org/. If you are extremely want to eat healthy, please look for a sign that says, Certified Organic Growers for vegetables and fruits, but it will cost you extra $$$. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

This is the website http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/securty.htm concerning the usage of pesticide in our foods.

Blog 8 Collaborative Presentations

All the students in the class did an excellent job on explaining each particular religious and the philosophy on respecting the environment. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Daoism are all have a lot in common. Depending on which religion and culture we came from, these traditions teaches the moral and ethics of respecting nature around us.

Respect, preserve and nurture the enivronment or else it will come back and haunt us. Human interconnected with animals and nature in the ecology. Each living animals and plants have a role in the enivronment that we dependent on. Balance within nature makes up the environment. Don't be extravagant of buy unnecessary things that we don't need. According to Buddhism & the environment, "What happens to one creature, happens to others." Before buying any products, think will this product harm the enivronment. The most in important is its 100% recyclable material. Practice Buddhism will lead us live in harmony and peace within us.

I did not know that Islam religion doesn't have a god. Instead the Islam believe in Allah. Islam rules rewards and encourage Muslim to plant trees and respecting animals. According to Qu'ran humans, animals, plants, mountains and even rocks have relationships and specific duty and roles. The Islam religion teaches us to be good to all living things.

These days, most of people don't really care about the enivronment. Money and things are essential part of our culture life. Religion can redirect us to think of the consequence if we takes things to lightly. We need to stop blaming each other and blame on our self. We will never have enough and never satisfy of what we have. We need to escape this vicious cycle and and free our self.

Some of these slides are too wordy which kind of loss of audiences insterest. I learn that providing more pictures and explaining straight to the point will give a clear memorable picture. According to Al Gore, "An Inconvenient Truth" he gives more pictures than long statement. His ideas is still sticking in my head. I'm glad that our group distribute sourveniours to class, which I think is kind of memorable and distracting the students from asking us question :) Overall, powerpoint slide is the best things to share our presentations.

BLOG 7 American Museum of National History

This is the first time I been to American Museum of Natural History. I find very fascinating and I definitely will revisit when the semester is over. That way, I will have enough time to visit all the halls.


There is a lot of things to learn and spending one day in the museum is not enough. The first hall I visit was the Hall of Biodiversity. This hall is about all living creature are living on earth and animals are constantly interacting within our enivronments. Each animals live in different enivronments and habitats. The benefits of biodiversity is that human rely on food, fuel, fiber, medicine and heavily on natural product. All life reqiures clean air, water and food. One thing that most attract me is the Extinction and Biodiversity Loss. It is a list of animals that are extincted. Some of them live and die without any of our knowledge of learning them. A sudden change in our climate will lead to animal extinction and new animal will take over. It takes millions of years to recovery the process. What we doing in our enivronments is human are changing the ecosystem due to globe warming. Species are disappearing at a rapid rate. The coastal pollution about the "Red tides" was very disturbing to me. I never see Red tides that cause widespread of distroying the coral reefs, frquent closing of beaches. Red tides are link to pollution from industry and sewage. The largest depletion of our ozone layer is over in Antarctica. I'm afraid that if our ozone holes gets any bigger, all living things will get skin cancer including humans. I didn't know that Mexico City is one of largest polluted city in the world. The thick smog blind the city. At least laws and regulation are pass to protect the enivornment.


Our next hall we need to visit is the Warburg Hall of New York State Environment. Before enter the Warburg Hall of New York State Environment we need to pass by the North American Forests. The professor recommend class to see the Big Tree in the California Sierras that was cut down in 1891. It was very sad that people will do such a thing. What so fascinating was this Giant Sequoia Trees is fire proof and it can survive throw many generation. The diameter of the tree was enormous and it shows clear view of the tree rings.


The Warburg Hall of New York State Environment hall talks about the importants processes of soil creation and using natural fertilizers to grow crops. Since all the environmental issues are happen among us, we cannot pollute our soil and water cycle. Our soil creates foods for our eating.


The Hall of Spitzer Hall of Human Origins is about our great ancestors evolve into humans. We do have similar appearance as due human fossil and we came long way evolve into modern human. Since human came a long way, soon human will extinct if we continue to contaminate our environment. What Stephen Hawkings will said "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planets. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars." I'm very pessimistic how our great grand children will say when we distroyed our planet.


My last stop was Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth. This halls is very similar to the movie of Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. The museum give us a live version of the Green House global warming effect. Especially when scientists drills the ice deep down and collect it to measure the temperature every year date back in 1900s. The image reminded me when I read the Inconvenient Truth. Sudden change in climate will result in great danger. For example, hurricanes are getting stronger than ever.


The museum did a great job of making every animals, plants, the background and so on very real to an extent that you don't have to image it. It feel so real and alive. We need to be more active and start going GREEN!!!

Blog 6: Research Topic and Sources

The topic that I choose for my research paper is dumping electronic waste in West Africa. Dumping E-waste in poor countries is illegal but there is always a loop pole for developing countries to by pass E-waste trade. This topic will give me plenty of sources for my research paper.

Here is a brief summary of E-waste in Ghana:

Electronic waste is broken and unwanted electronic device that are waste. It includes second-hand or broken computers, cell phones, flat screen television and etc. Ghana is located in West Africa where E-waste were label as second-hand goods. Most of the developing countries such as the United States, Germany, and United Kingdom are guilty of dumping obsolete computers in Ghana. Precious metals that worth money such as copper, silver are collected in the circuit board inside the computer and the rest of the parts are burn.


Over long term of exposure of e-waste can lead to devastating results in Ghana local’s health. Higher doses of mercury, lead, cadmium and mercury can damage the kidney the nerves system and especially around kids.



Here are some of the websites I may use for my research paper:


This website talks about the condition in Ghana including a trailer.
http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/news/poisoning-the-poor-electroni


UK Investigates E-waste Dumping in Ghana.
http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/200810/21839.asp

Greenpeace is a international organization that protects the environment and encourage peace.
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/chemical-contamination-at-e-wa.pdf


Other resources that I will definitely use are EBSCO Host in the LaGuardia College and Google Scholar.

Blog 5: Waste

I think the dumpster diving is a little bit extreme. Yes, is true that people throw away stuff that is perfectly useable, but is hard for me to go into someone garbage and start digging their trash. Especially food, I just can’t pick out food from the garbage even though it still in the sill package.


I do sometime see something I like when people pull their trash out the curve, but only visible to me and I don’t have to dig. One time I was going home from work on a Saturday morning, where people pull their trash to the curve waiting for the garbage to make up the trash, were I came across a box of old Lego wrap with a clear plastic bag inside the garbage can. I look at it keep and continue to walk while thinking should take it? I when back and I took the old Lego along with some other stuff in it. Even though I was sleepy, I went to the back yard and pick out just the Lego pieces and discard the other stuff that was in it. I weigh the bag of Lego and it was approximately 10lbs. Then sell it throw Ebay and made a profit of $25.


In my neighborhood, I see most of the neighbors get mad if you go into to their property and digging their garbage for soda cans. Usually people leave a mess after looking for stuff or some neighbor will say, if the garbage is still in my property it’s still ours. You have to wait when the garbage can are pull to the curve.


The stuff that we consume everyday is making our planet a wasteland but at least Chris Jordan put it in an artistic form of what he we can appreciate his art. One the portrait that I like was the Running the Numbers. It was using millions of millions of the same stuff and making it into a portrait. The portrait was most interesting was the Prison Uniforms, 2007. Even though it was simple portrait, but I found it hard to believe that “2.3 million prison uniforms was the equal number of Americans incarcerated.” Jordan, Chris the Prison Uniforms. Couples of these portraits are made from millions of plastic. I consume three plastic bottle of water a day and that it everyone is doing that, it can be very scary if he can build a planet just plastic bottle. I need to change my habit from plastic to glass bottle.

Blogger 3

The worst problem caused by global warming is the unusual severe weather that we encounter in recent years. Human produce the greenhouse gas emissions throw usage of cars and nuclear power plants. The more greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere, the warmer the weather gets which will leaves to global warming. The warmer the oceans get the stronger and more powerful the hurricanes get. Hurricanes feeds throw large bodies of warm water and moister in the air. Once it hits land the hurricane will lose its strength and eventually disappear. The coastal cities area gets the most damaging during hurricanes session. Instead of using the money to rebuild damages aftermath of the hurricanes, we should think of a solution how we reverse global warming.


There are two types of energy. “Renewable energy which energy generated from natural resource such as biofuels from plants, hydro power produce by water falls, solar energy by using sun light, wave power from the ocean energy waves, and wind power from wind energy. Non-Renewable Energy which is strictly depending on natural resource that cannot be man made. These resources are fixed amount on earth such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas.”[1] We need to shift to from Non-Renewable Energy to Renewable Energy. “Renewable Energy will prevent global warming pollution, reduce dependence on imported fuel, and ease the price of natural gas. Sadly United States was only responsible for about 2% of using solar energy which uses light from the sun to convert into energy to power their houses. Other counties such as European use 12% and China use 62% of the total world solar capacity by country.”[2] We are living one the most develop countries in the world and yet we are using old technologies. We rely heavy on the petroleum and we have to depend on the Middle East countries to supply us oil.

In order to spread to the public of these innovations technologies is advertisement to educate consumers. We can save money in the long run and the most important of all is reducing global warming.

[1] “U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” 8 Oct. 2008

< http://www.eere.energy.gov/ >

[2] Del Chiaro, Bernadette. “Solar Water Heating. How California Can Reduce Its Dependence on Natural Gas” Environment California on the Web April 2007 < http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/uploads/at/56/at563bKwmfrtJI6fKl9U_w/Solar-Water-Heating.pdf >

Blog 2

What’s my long term goal?

LaGuardia Community College is good stepping stone to begin my college career. I’m planning to finish my Liberal Math & Science degree in LaGuardia Community College this semester and plan to go for my bachelor at City College for Mechanical Engineering degree.

What matters to me?

What I worry the most is the next generation where our environment is threatened if continues our old habits. Since adults cannot change there old habits, we need to teach the younger generation to go green. Since the auto exhaust is the source of problem for kids and adults getting asthma due to air pollution, we must take action.


Transportation is very important. Partly most of our carbon emissions are from our vehicles. I will use this degree to design a cleaner and most efficient machine. Since I love car so much I will improve Fuel-Cell Hybrid Buses and Hybrid Cars. Since Hydrogen fuel cell electric produce zero emission in the exhaust pipe, which means less carbon dioxide. In the engineering field, I will always think green while designing any machine. That way human can benefit by using the machine and make the environment a greener place to live.