Bio 103, Week 11, Cells/life as ordered arrays of macromolecules

In the same way that photosynthesis and aerobic cellular respiration work as a water wheel, can't the byproduct from mankind's overconsumption of food, excessive abuse of fossil fuels, etc be recycled as well? An end product from photosynthesis, oxygen, becomes readily avaliable to other organism who in turn utilize it and release carbon dioxide which the same plants then use. Here in essence, nothing is going to "waste." To folllow in suit, the mass amount of actual waste humans leave behind in the air, on the grass, or on the plate can easily be put to good use. If we can continue to manufacure smaller and more compact versions of the ipod and make "healthier" food in addition to the all of the nutritional food provided by mother earth, can't we think of more productive things to do with our waste? If anything, can we strive for the creation of something that functions like photosynthetic bacteria and plants that will ultilize the excess carbon dioxide in the air. Have we already begun? We need to finish this man made water wheel.

I, too, wonder if global warming can really be stopped or slowed down. If we're going to make real changes we need to get all the countries to cooperate with one another and form a plan. This does not realy seem possible. Even just within the United States most people do not agree. We are suppposed to be a forward thinking nation and we are spending money on wars instead of science. It will be interesting to see what role global warming, and other environmental issues, will play in the upcoming presidential election.

The fundamental problem comes down to one issue.. How are we going to cap the emission of CO2 ( which will have to be done by reducing our dependency of fossil fuel.. )

 

as the difficulty in ratifying the tokyo treaty showed.. this will be no easy task for the international community to tackle..

 

With the BRICS countries rapid industrialization followed by other developing countries around the world, curbing the co2 emission will be very difficult.... ( i mean let alone convincing these nations.. we are having enough trouble convincing ourselves in reducing our dependency on fossil fuel)

 

However, i do not think the situation is hopeless. With events such as al gore winning the nobel prize, global warming seems to have gained a much larger eminence than they have every before...

 

i mean... barely 10-15 years ago, global warming was still contested at various levels and was even criticized as a over reaction by tofu eating liberals...

 

Considering how recycling started off as a weird thing that greenies do as a socially accepted custom, I think the same can be done with global warming. I believe with the recent rise in the awareness of this issue, far more people are now willing to make sacrifices, for their own sake if not for any other reason.  

 

I think that this idea of humans making the environment more impropable by striving to be more impropable is very interesting.  I think that it makes sense that the environment would have to adapt to these non-renewable sources that we are using.  then lifes becomes more impropable.  I think that at times we don't really consider how much influence we have on the environment and that is when you want into problems such as global warming.  The other thing is that because the effects that we have on the environment takes a while to show, when the effects does show its already too late.  This seems to be the case with global warming.

i thought our discussion about global warming was interesting. it was a topic covered extensively in high school, so i knew a lot of the details already... but i do have one big question: can global warming actually be "stopped?" i know there are a lot of preventative measures people are taking, and are advertising as a "way to stop global warming," but the ball is kind of already rolling...

are the consequences laid out by the experts going to happen because the rate of climate change at the moment or what they predict will only happen if the same bad practices of burning fossil fuels continues?

there's so much CO2 in the atmosphere now, already disrupting the climate on Earth-- even if we stopped all CO2 emissions, would it make a huge difference at this point in time?

would it just alleviate some of the problem?

Global Warming is a hot topic for a good reason. I recently attended Power Shift 2007, the largest youth global warming summit ever in DC, and it was eye-opening. The lectures and seminars were fascinating, and scary. We have got to take care of the earth. Admittedly, I should be better about it, but I do try-to shut the shower water off when I'm not using it, to take public transportation, etc. And while I agree that large-scale change needs to come from the government (and soon), while they keep on ignoring it, cities and local communities can do their part. There are a few great websites--www.no-burn.org, which is all about attempting to reduce waste, especially organic waste, for less global warming. Their video, "The Story of Stuff," which should be up on the website soon, is fantastic, explainging the process of how those water bottles and organic food waste lead to global warming (use nalgenes! :-)). Another great one is http://coolcities.us/, which lists the US cities that have committed to the Cool Cities Climate Challenge, involving all sorts of things we do locally, since the government hasn't decided to step up. (Philly is a Cool City-http://coolcities.us/cityProfiles.php?city=153&state=PA). There are more websites about what schools can do and what we can do individually.

Sorry, I got off on a bit of a tangent from Biology. But Global Warming is important! And interesting. And it seems like everyone wants to do something, so I think those are interesting places to start.

The section in today's class on global warming reminded me of a recent presentation I gave in my international politics class.  It is frusturating to see that countries are not playing the roles they should in really trying to stop the problem.  It obviously is an important problem that needs to be addressed or we will soon run out of resources.  There is a constant debate going on between the countries who are emitting the most fuels but at the top of the list is the USA.  What is frusturating is the fact that the USA refuses to do anything about it unless China and India do something first.  The situation is a bit more complex but that is the main point.  I believe that the USA needs to step up and take the lead because we are a major power in the world as well as a developed country, whereas the other two are not.  As disucssed in class, there are two major problems that are resulting from Global Warming: one, the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the air is increasing, and two, future generations are going to depend on these resources that take a long-time to be produced.  These problems are real and need to be addressed.  The efforts at the local level are very crucial but this is not going to happen if the country does not inforce it.  I think the USA should take a real stand and Bush should stop with his ridiculous ideas such as his new plan which essentially is trying to persuade China and India to cap their emissions.  The problem of global warming is a major problem that needs to be addressed immediately...if not, who know's where we will be in the future or even if a future will exist.