Blog Assignment 11

The most important environmental issue today involves air quality; not in terms of greenhouse effects, but in terms of pollution. It boils my blood learning of the effects of bad air on Human Health. All other environmental issues are either more damaging to humans that are effected, for example, eating fish that has been highly contaminated by mercury, however effects a few people; or are not directly involved in individual health, for example the degradation of biodiversity is clearly a loss for humans, given that a segment of the "earth/life" cycle has been broken, but it's not like someone is going to get cancer for that. Mercury contamination, and degradation of biodiversity are also issues that boil my blood. But most people can choose to avoid Mercury, and most people have the ability to say they did not take part in "destroying the environment" (biodiversity loss). But most people can not escape the horrible air quality.

According to the Air Resource Board, "The prevalence of asthma in the U.S. has increased by more than 75% since 1980." This has more to do with the automobile industry than anything. Something as plain and simple as driving to work has ruined the health of millions across the nation. Even people that don't have asthma are still constantly breathing this horrible air. Pretty soon (especially if we don't do anything about it), for us humans, it will be so clear that the air is horrible that the world we live in will be as polluted as fish swimming in crude oil.

With enough trees, improved technology, and discontinued use of fossil fuels(or anything of the sort), it would still take a long time to clean the earth, but it's worth a shot, and it is very possible. It's almost impossible to rid the world of mercury contamination; and it's even more impossible to recover all the species that have gone extinct due to our (a human collective effort) lack of responsibility. This means that there is still a possibility to live again in a world with air worth breathing, or just "air" for that matter. Perhaps even the fact that the air quality is so Horrible in Riverside, maybe that's why it upsets knowing that that the effects of our modern world gather up in Riverside and can't find another place to go. However, I am referring the Global issue of poor air quality; because there are other cities that get it much more horrible than Riverside, such as Moscow, Russia, and Beijing China.

As an individual I can continue to be conscious of the poor air quality and its effects, tell people about them whenever I get an opportunity, and continue to work on my personal project that involves cleaning the air in Riverside.

I remember in the first half of the semester in this Class, we were discussing Animals and their Roles, and I asked if there were animals of different species that interchange the roles of Prey and Predator, that is two different species of animals that prey each other; Professor Huff Gave the example of Sharks and Octopus, this is very interesting, I thought; just the simple fact that animals can have that ability to dare to willfully attack an animal that has a near 50% chance of successfully countering the attack.