Overpopulation
Jasmine Bell
04-26-10
My research discusses the problem of overpopulation and what happens when we have too many people and not enough natural resources to support them. In this paper you
will read about the fall of civilizations, natural disasters, and how we could fix it. About 2000 years ago the world was estimated at 300 million people. The population was scattered and most of the world's population existed in the eastern part of the world. It wasn't until the 1800's that the population grew to 1 billion; we were only growing at a rate of one percent each year. During the Industrial Revolution humans invented new medicines and other technology that helped us live long enough to produce more children. As a result growth rates went from one percent each year to 2.4 percent, growing at an exponential rate. “Scientist have estimated by the year 2050 we will reach a population of 9 billion people most of which will come from second and third world countries”. Overpopulation is a problem because it has led to the downfall of civilizations, global warming and not having enough resources to support everyone. We either need to have serious reduction in demand for resources or we need to have zero population growth. This will only work with dedication. We will have to make certain something like putting a child cap law out is actually safe for the population. We never know when a natural disaster will strike or a plague, and with the recent earthquakes it may or may not be a good idea. If we don’t do anything about the problem of overpopulation we could have a major problem which would lead to another lost civilization. If we fix the problem before instead of after then we may have hope after all.

This is my pull quote “Scientist have estimated by the year 2050 we will reach a population of 9 billion people most of which will come from second and third world countries”.




"Human Populations." The Global Change Program at the University of Michigan. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2010. .

Bruschetta with Tomato and Basil Recipe

One of the things Sophie and I wanted to make was Bruschetta. A recipe called Double Tomato Brushetta calls for the following... I think Bruschetta is a tasty way to make an healthy appetizer.


Ingredients
6 roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil 3 cloves minced garlic 1/4 cup olive oil 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1/4 cup fresh basil, stems removed 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 French baguette 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions
Preheat the oven on broiler setting.
In a large bowl, combine the roma tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, basil, salt, and pepper. Allow the mixture to sit for 10 minutes.
Cut the baguette into 3/4-inch slices. On a baking sheet, arrange the baguette slices in a single layer. Broil for 1 to 2 minutes, until slightly brown.
Divide the tomato mixture evenly over the baguette slices. Top the slices with mozzarella cheese.
Broil for 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

Double Tomato Bruschetta
Servings Per Recipe: 12

Amount Per Serving

Calories: 215

Total Fat: 8.9g
Cholesterol: 12mg
Sodium: 426mg
Total Carbs: 24.8g
Dietary Fiber: 1.6g
Protein: 9.6g

food inc

Jasmine Bell

04-27-10

Food Inc Reflection

Food Inc was definitely an eye opener for me; I was able to see food in a different way. Though it did not make me want to go vegetarian, I now am more conscious of where I get my food from. I thought it was horrible how the animals were being treated like they weren’t worth anything. If they are going to use the animals they should at least treat them respect. I thought it was amazing how much meat fast food places like McDonalds use; it said that McDonalds buys the most meat. With jobs losses and the economy going down I could see how families turn cheap food like the dollar menus. It’s hard to find cheap healthy food in this day in time and not everyone is fortunately not everyone has places like Trader Joes or Henry’s in their neighborhood. If we want to change the way we eat, we have to make places like these in all neighborhoods and not just rich areas. I suggest that we have a dollar menu for healthy food also. Maybe if healthier food was cheaper than more people would want bye it. I mean if I had a choice of choosing off the dollar menu and bye a whole meal for under five dollars or buying just a salad for five dollars or more I would chose getting something off the dollar menu. Not only is it cheap but you get more out of it. My overall question would be what we are willing to give up in order becoming healthier. We have to be willing to go out of our way if we want healthier food and it should be that way. Everywhere a fast food place is there should be a healthier alternative restaurant right next to it.

population control:peer review sources

"Human influence on the planet has increased more human population"
Our population has increased a lot and because of that we have more problems becasue we are contributing more than we put out. Acording to this article by JSTOR from 1860-1991 human use of energy went from 1 billion megawatt hours per year to 93 billion megawatts hours per year and that is probably way over the limit now.
".....In 1992 assumed that the Worldwide average number of children born to a women during her lifetime at current birthrates would fall to 2.5 children per women...by 2050 the number would in increase to 12.5 billion.

This is very interesting how population goes. Its a bad thing that we are becoming over-populated, but at the same time we dont want to limt so much that we become under-populated so how do we fix the problem with creating a even bigger problem?


Another reading that I read was a short passage of a critique of someones writing on population control. One quote that stuck out to me was "population in different trophic levels are expected to differ in the methods of control." It stuck out to me because I don't quite understand what it means and i that's something I can further study on. Other things that came up in the reading was carnivore and herbivore and how than stand with the whole population control.

Cites
Cohen, Joel E. Population Growth and Earth's Human Carrying Capacity. Publication. Web. http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~wwwbi/staff/creel/bio480/cohen.pdf.

The "Balance of Nature" and "Population Control"P. R. Ehrlich and L. C. BirchThe American Naturalist, Vol. 101, No. 918 (Mar. - Apr., 1967), pp. 97-107 (article consists of 11 pages)Published by: The University of Chicago Press for The American Society of NaturalistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2459443

Nate Lewis

Nate Lewis discussion on energy and climate change started get interesting towards the end once he started to name the energy sources and which ones were best to be used. The whole was a little confusing though when he mentioned terawatts and how energy is converted by a certain number of terawatts I was like whoa what does all this mean and I am still confused on that but after reviewing my notes i understand it but more.
Something that was interesting was when he mentioned that renewable energy is good all idea in all but we would still need some technology to create. We have trying to promote renewable energy and not even thinking about how money and human energy it would take just to create the energy needed to power everything.

population growth and climate change

Something that is interesting to me is population growth and how it is affecting our planet. I think it is interesting that we are getting to the point where the earth is over populated and i would like to do more research on it. I don't know exactly what topic in population growth I would like to do but I know its something I'm interested in studying more of. I read a few articles and saw a few growth maps, what interested me the most is a map of the world 2000 years ago. There were only 300 million people on earth and by 1995 it when up to approximately 6 billion Asia holding 61 percent in population. Of course this number has went up and is now affecting our food,water, and shelter.

"Math in Daily Life -- Population Growth." Teacher Professional Development and Teacher Resources by Annenberg Media. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. http://www.learner.org/interactives/dailymath/population.html.

"By 1990, that rate was down to 1.5%, and by the year 2015, it's expected to drop to 1%. Family planning initiatives, an aging population, and the effects of diseases such as AIDS are some of the factors behind this rate decrease." This quote was interseting it says that instead of population increasing as we thought it would it will decrease by the year 2015 due to health and aging. I was glad I was able to find this quote because now I am able to compare and contrast my information. I somewhat believe this data and it does make sense but I also heard that for every person that dies a person is born so regardless if someone dies we would just be replacing them with someone else. So maybe this is not an accurate asumption.

"Human Populations." The Global Change Program at the University of Michigan. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html#carrying%20capacity.

This website showed a lot of different graphs and maps of populatation growth and why it is continuing to grow. A part that struck me was fertilty growth. "the current growth of population is driven by fertility." They showed a map of the world what this map shows is the total fertility growth around the world during 1990

Peaches yummmyyyyyy

• 
  What sort of plant is it? Vegetable, Fruit, Root crop, tree, bush etc.
  The peach is a fruit that grows from a deciduous tree
  
  What is the growing season for this plant
• Peach plants grow very well in a fairly limited range, they have a chilling requirement that tropical areas cannot satisfy, and they are not very cold-hardy.
  
• The trees themselves can usually tolerate temperatures to around −26 °C to −30 °C.
  
  Should it be grown from seed? If so how long does it take to germinate? Does it require any special preparation? (ex. some seeds need to be frozen before they will germinate?
  
  
• It is also possible to grow a tree from either a peach or nectarine seed, but the fruit quality of the resulting tree will be very unpredictable.
  
  
• Peaches are best planted in early winter, as this allows time for the roots to establish and be able to sustain the new spring growth. When planting in rows, plant north-south.
  
  
• Peach trees require a constant supply of water and this should be increased shortly before the harvest. peaches taste best when you water it seasonal.
  
  
• Peaches have a high nutrient requirement, needing more nitrogen than most other fruit trees.
• An NPK fertilizer can be applied regularly, and of poultry manure in autumn soon after the harvest will benefit the tree.
  
• How long does this plant take to go from seed to harvest? Does it make sense for the time scale of this semester?…does it matter? Maybe you would still like to think about how it might benefit the garden in the long term.
  Depending on climate and cultivar, peach harvest can occur from late May into August; harvest from each tree lasts about a week.
  
  How much space does it require to grow and harvest a reasonable amount?
• Trees grown in a sheltered and south-facing position in the southeast of England are capable of producing both flowers and a large crop of fruit.
  
• Can you find any information about good companion plants that should grow along with it?
  The nectarine is a cultivar group of peach that has a smooth skin.
  
• Last, but certainly not least, provide at least one other interesting fact about this plant.
  
• In China, the peach was said to be consumed by the immortals due to its mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who ate them.

annotated sources

Jasmine Bell

01-21-10

Period 4/5

This particular article talked about fossil fuels. In the first paragraph it explained how we are soon going to run out of fossil fuel because although it is a natural source it is non -renewable. “Because of our dependence of fossil fuel, we are destroying the one thing that we need to survive, the Earth.” This makes since that the more we use fossil fuels from the earth the less we are going to have. Nature supplies only last as long as we can preserve it if we continue to waste it we won’t have any when we really need. The fossil fuel they say we waste the most was oil. This also makes since, we use oil for just about everything. I read on ask.com that “The United States consumes an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day (according to the Department of Energy). Of that, about 45 percent is used for motor gasoline each barrel of oil contains 42 gallons, which yields 19 to 20 gallons, of gasoline. So, in the United States, something like 178 million gallons of gasoline is consumed every day.” That is a lot of oil but fact of the matter is that we need oil to get us by and unless we invent something that works just as well as oil we are going to be in a lot of trouble. They have already started working on stuff like hybrid cars which consist of electricity. If we continue to find alternative energy we will be better off I think. In the next article I read it talked about alternative energy and ideas the president should consider. A quote I found interesting was “The major challenge is to develop a battery system that is small, light and able to be recharged in 10 minutes for a 200-mile capacity, even though most drivers refuel often and do not require that much range. This technology is not available today, but American ingenuity, entrepreneurship and invention can make it possible.” I honestly don’t see that happening, battery powered cars but like they said America is quick to grab the latest technology so it could possibly happen but my guess would be probably not for a long time. Ethanol is another alternative fuel we can use. Ethanol is found in alcoholic beverages but it can also be used as fuel for cars. Ethanol is easy to find because it is made from corn a natural source. I think ethanol would be a good fuel to switch to because it is natural and it doesn’t release that bad chemical into the air. “President Bush's energy bill that passed in 2005 requires 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol to be part of the nation's economy by 2012.” This right around the corner and unlike the hybrid cars I think ethanol would take less time to create something out of it to help us.

"The Energy Crisis: 2009 and Beyond | EnergyFanatics.Com." EnergyFanatics.Com - Physical Emotional Mental and Spiritual Energy. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

"WikiAnswers - How much oil does the US consume." WikiAnswers - The Q&A wiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

Potter, Robert J.. "Opinion: Obama Can Solve the Energy Crisis With Electric Vehicles ." Earth2Tech . N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

"Learn about Ethanol Alternative Fuel - E85, E10 and others." Alternative Fuel and Energy Information - Hydrogen, Ethanol, Biodiesel, Solar, Wind and More. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. .

discussion on reading

The discussion we had on the reading very interesting. To hear others people's thoughts on how we can change the way we eat was very enlightening. I personally think we can't change every body's mind about the food we need. All of the ideas that we had were really good and I think that would help the up coming generation but for this generation I think its already to late. Schools have already messed up by taking things like Home EC classes out of the curriculum if we still had classes like that I think that would have helped out a lot. Also the fact that most schools don't even have PE anymore hurts them too because they are being fed un healthy things and are not able to run it off. Our school doesn't have PE but we have a variety of things to by and have the choice of eating healthy foods which is a good thing. The idea someone put out about having a class where they can garden they're own food is also a good plan for they new generation because they know what they are eating and can cook it. All in all for all this to work were going to change a lot of peoples minds which is not impossible but it will take a lot of years and probably by then we all might not even be here to see it.

Connections to the envirionment

I asked my parents did we have any connection to the envirionment they said as far as they know no. I think if I trace way back through my ancestors I would certainly find some kind of connection to the environment.

in class discussion

I thought the discussion about space was so intresting. It was amazing to see the different galaxies because they all looked so pretty. What also struck me was how long it actually takes us to notice that has something that has happened in space. I didn't know that it takes us 8 min for us to notice the sun has changed so we are actually looking at the past. It is also amazing how many different galaxies there are. There might actually be other life forms out there studying about us just like were studying about them.

What is something your curious about in the natural world

I'm curious about the different bacterias found living in your i never knew there were so many until one day I was curious about it and decided to do some research of my own. I discovered even something as little as dust can contain harmful bugs that can cause serious heath problems. I am very curious of how many more are there and different things they can cause for you so I can be prepared and eliminate the problem before it starts