Journal 14: November 24th

Months ago, my mom told me about a giant trash mass in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I think she described the size as "double the size of Texas". For this week's blog I chose to research this subject further, & I am completely astounded by the information I have found.





Firstly, the trash mass is not double the size of Texas, but double the size of the continental United States. It is held in place by currents, but can move. When it travels close to the shore in areas such as Hawaii, some of the trash is expelled onto the shore.



Because the trash mass has never come into contact with the shore, it remained unreported/undiscovered for a long time. Eighty percent of the garbage is plastic, and the mass of the debris has doubled in the past five years.

The most pressing problem with this situation is that it has already integrated into our food chain. Another issue is that because the sea is no one country's property, it is likely that noone will take responsibility for the problem. This is another environmental issue that needs to be tackled collaboratively.

A documentary entitled "Garbage Island" was made this year:
http://www.takepart.com/tag/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

Journal 13: November 22nd

I met a guy at a Burning Man event this fall who is working in the environmental science field. He had a display on algae fuel and a small demostration area with graphics describing the process and the advantages of algae fuel as opposed to petroleum. As I walked away from the booth, I wondered why algae fuel was not getting more press, and why the American government has not yet subsidized an industry that could potentially solve two of our biggest problems: global warming and foreign oil dependence.

The facts on algae fuel are almost too good to be true:

• An acre of algae can produce 50 times more oil than an acre of soy.
• Algae facilities can suck significant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere; the fumes coming out of utility smokestacks can be piped into algae growing facilities.
• Algae uses sunlight to produce lipids (oil).
• Biodegradable.

One of the problems in algae production is finding cheap CO2. But experiments have shown that CO2 from smokestacks works well with algae. If we placed algae fields next to all smokestacks, pollution manufacturing would be green and clean energy produced.

The United States began the Aquatic Species Program in 1978. The programs first goals were to create hyrdrogen, but in the 80s the focus turned towards biodiesel production. In 1996 the program was cut because of lack of funding. GreenFuel is a private American corporation that has started where the Aquatic Species Program left off. The company's future looks bright, and at the moment it has enough investors to continue to grow without government assistance.

Journal 12: November 17th

I've been thinking a lot about the desalination of sea water, & how this process could be used to both balance the rising sea level and provide water to areas that cannot naturally supply the region's demand by natural means. This would be perfect for the Bay Area and California overall because of the water shortages we discussed in class. Lake and water table water will not last us forever.

I found an article that outlines the potential problems triggered by rising sea level that could happen locally: http://www.sfbayjv.org/news_summaries/2007/january/Sea_level_a_rising_threat.html

Sea level rose 7 inches in the last 100 years, and is expected to rise anywhere from 4 to 36 inches by 2010.

This website has an interactive map that shows how the region will be affected by various increases in sea level:
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/san-francisco.shtml
When I lived in a high-rise I often imagined the valley filled with water, & the buildings a secret undersea Atlantis that a future post-Apocalyptic society would discover centuries later.
Hey, maybe the Drawbridge ghost boats wil sail again.

Journal 11: November 10th

I decided to do some more research on caverns this week. I got an idea that maybe they could be used as bomb shelters, or some kind of protection from the elements in the future if the surface of the earth were to be unsafe. Like nature's safe havens.

Then I came across this article: http://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pageunderground.html





This is fascinating. I knew that caves and trenches were used in war, but the idea of entire underground cities that could house 20,000 is beyond what I could have ever imagined. The article also touches on the history of caves and how they are intertwined with ancient religious history.


In the last few years I've gotten interested in urban exploration, but I've never been in a cave. I know that some people on a UrbEx forum I am a part of have explored the Catacombs. The picture on the left is from someone's personal trip down into these tunnels. There are secret entrances that allow explorers access to the tunnels without going on a guided tour.



All over the world, people have found secret underground tunnels and documented their adventured on the forum: uer.ca.

Another part of the first article on caverns caught my attention:




"As a kid, I used to explore caves in the Santa Clarita Valley with my dad. Kids actually got a specific ailment from going into caves in that area, due to breathing a mold inside the caves. In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, people began to come down with "Valley Fever," which had symptoms very close to those the kids in the caves got. The theory was that the intense shaking of the earth, shook the molds and dusts out of the caves and land, and people inhaled it. And photographs from the air, of the moment of the quake, show dust clouds rising like steam, out of the land."





Maybe this is the cause of the widespread sickness caused after the Peru earthquakes that I talked about in my previous post.

Journal 10: November 3rd

I have never been afraid of earthquakes. When I was a kid I thought they were the most exciting thing ever, and you could probably even say I looked forward to them because the ones I had experienced had never threatened my safety.

About two or three weeks before the Alum Rock earthquake of October 2007, I suddenty became terrified of earthquakes. I would note to friends that it was "earthquake weather," I stressed over what I could do to be safe on the seventh floor of an ancient concrete building, and I woke up almost every night in between 3 and 4 A.M. unable to sleep because I was so scared that an earthquake was coming.

About a week before the earthquake, I walked past a machine selling the Mercury news with a headline that read: "TECTONIC TIME BOMB." This scared me even more. I was a wreck; I dreamed about earthquakes almost every night. I feel sorry for my boyfriend at the time, because by this point I was waking him up at all hours to be reassured that I was safe, no matter how irrational it was to assume that he held some magical earthquake-blocking power.

When the earthquake hit, I was relieved. My fear of earthquakes was gone again. I promised everyone I would tell them when the next earthquake was coming. So far, nothing. I'll let you know.



Anyway, my new earthquake fear is not the earthquakes themselves, but the weird shit happening before major quakes in other parts of the world. Have you seen this?

http://current.com/items/89008559/phenomenon_before_earthquake.htm

http://forgetomori.com/2007/science/earthlights-on-perus-earthquake/

Shit, now I'll be afraid of UFOs, sickness-inducing-meteors, & earthquakes happening simultaneously.

Journal 9: October 27th

I enjoyed the movie we watched in class because it went into more detail about the scientific origins of life. It's strange how sometimes classes during a semester will intersect and cover some of the same material. In Biology 10 this week I read about Stanley Miller's project in 1953 that helped confirm the theory of how life began.

"Stanley Miller observed that modern biological macromolecules (DNA, protein, carbohydrates, and so on) are all composed of elements that were present in abundance on the early Earth. He designed a closed system to simulate such conditions that could produce biologically important organic molecules from inorganic ingredients. A warmed flask of water simulated the primordial sea. An "atmosphere" - in the form of gases added to a reaction chamber - contained hydrogen gas (H2), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and water vapor (H2O). After the apparatus had run for a week, an abundance of organic molecules essential for life, including amino acids, the monomers of proteins, had collected in the "sea". These laboratory simulations of the primeval Earth have produced all 20 amino acids, several sugars, lipids, nucleotides, and even ATP" - from Essential Biology, Second Edition.

This made me question whether this information makes me believe more or less in "God" or a creator, and also what time means and how we are trapped within it. It also made me simultaneously feel a sense of responsibility and sadness about being born at a time where humans are destroying so much of the work nature has done and potentially living at the end of time on earth. At the same time, it could be just the end of HUMANS on earth and maybe a new evolution would occur from the prokaryotic archaea, who could withstand global warming/nuclear war/2012/etc.etc.etc.

How do you think the world will end?

Journal 8: October 20th

I wanted to use this blog to comment on the Global Warming Forum that we held during this week's class session. I think that this was one of the most informative, interactive, fun lectures we had so far in this class. Participation makes it easier to learn and remember information, and keeps the class session lively. I wish we had more activities like this during class time, as we can get the PDFs off the website and most of the test information is within the text.

I also enjoyed the lecture on groundwater. For some reason moving to the whiteboard and watching you put together the drawing helped me understand more than just seeing a picture of the completed groundwater system would have.

I'm not trying to criticize the class, I just thought I'd share how well I thought those two lectures went and my reasons for thinking so. I see that this upcoming week has a film after the test, and I look forward to this new way of learning in this class as well.

Journal 7: October 13th

Still on the subject of water, I decided to do some research on a local place that has been affected by groundwater mining. Alviso is a small, strange town at the edge of the bay that San Jose has annexed. In the mid-1800s Alviso was the primary method of transportation of goods and people from San Francisco to San Jose. However, the physical components of Alviso have changed drastically over the last 150 years due to overuse of resources in the Santa Clara Valley. The water level has dropped dramatically, as evidenced by the infamous "ghost marina" of Alviso: http://www.sanjose.com/underbelly/unbelly/Alviso/marina1.html .

However, the most dramatic effects of the groundwater mining can be seen in the ghost town of Drawbridge, a hidden ghost town three miles up the railroad tracks from Alviso. Once a thriving gambling and hunting community, the town is now sinking into the marsh due to groundwater being pumped from underneath by the surrounding populations. The landscape has changed dramatically is now nothing like it used to be.

Alviso and Drawbridge are two of my favorite places because they are so mysterious and aesthetically interesting. The flat marsh that extends for miles covered in marsh grass with only a train whizzing by every 20 minutes feels like something out of the movie Tideland, or the book My Antonia. Here are some pictures I took on my expedition out to Drawbridge a little over a year ago:



The "ark of Alviso," a houseboat on land.






Pictures of Drawbridge structures and railroad (still active).


Edit: I can't figure out how to get the photographs to fit within my layout. If you right click & get the URL from the properties, you'll be directed to my flickr page which contains the pictures in their entirety.

Journal 6: October 6th

This week in class we discussed water distribution in California. I started researching water in California, which linked me to some interesting information about bottled water vs. tap water.

The tap water in San Jose is so bad that I rarely drink it - unless I wake up at 5 A.M. hungover and parched as all hell and there is no bottled water in the apartment. Even then, it freaks me out. There's tons of flem and visible particles in the glass; some days it's so bad that the liquid is not even transparent. This crap is probably residue off someone else's recycled toilet water, and it's probably getting in my hair when I shower. Yuck.

Unfortunately, although bottled water may look better, studies have found that its contents vary from the same to worse than tap water:
http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/united-states/bacteria-pain-killers-us-bottled-water-5762.html


On the same side, tap water in some areas contains drugs:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26662637/


I guess I should just accept that I'm drinking & bathing in drugs, bacteria, & unidentified floaty crud no matter what. And we wonder why cancer is an epidemic...

Journal 5: September 29th

Studying for Midterm #1 has gotten me depressed. It seems that we humans have a better understanding of how climate works than I had previously thought, and that even though we have this understanding, we are ignoring the facts and living like global warming is not a threat.

It seems that along with decreasing/stopping the use of fossil fuels, increasing the earth's albedo might be a potential antidote for global warming. Local increases in albedo, such as painting a rooftop white, can help, as demonstrated in this science experiment:
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2007/Ryan.html

This upcoming larger-scale experiment plans to investigate this hypothesis further:
http://www.astc.org/iglo/?p=90

And this site seems to be promoting more of a social statement/protest regarding global warming. Those who are involved in the project wear white to signify the importance of increasing albedo:
http://www.canary-project.org/albedo/

This page shows a diagram of the vicious circle of global warming:
http://www.canary-project.org/albedo/pdfs/albedo_info_page.pdf
Maybe if we created white structures at the poles, overall global warming would be decreased? High albedo rates at the poles are also imporant because the magnetosphere directs solar wind to the poles to be reflected...for now, at least.

Journal 4: September 22nd

This week's reading got me thinking about urban microclimates. Since moving to San Jose from Morgan Hill I have been shocked by the contrast in heat, quality of air, wind, and even precipitation between these two cities that are so close to one another.

The specific issue that got me thinking about this is one that I am sure you are familiar with. I live in the tall building across from City Hall, called Vintage Tower. Sometimes when I step outside, the wind blowing down Santa Clara St. in between these two buildings is incredible. A few times I could hardly open the door because the force was so strong, and once my bike got blown over. Sometimes when this happens, it is not even that windy in other parts of downtown San Jose! Once I get past the zone that is in between these two tall buildings, the wind seems to disperse around the sides of the buildings and not be so intense.

Although this spot is the only place I have experienced this in San Jose, in San Francisco I've felt this same effect from urban wind tracks a lot. I'm sure it's a common occurance in most major cities with tall buildings. I wonder how human interferences such as highways, airplanes, and tall structures interfere with natural wind currents? Is this why the wind seems to be increasing?

Journal 3: September 15th

This week I flew to Portland, Oregon. It was actually my first time flying on a plane by myself, and my first trip out of state alone. I left SFO on the morning of September 17th and took off over the city. Everything got smaller and smaller, until I could see all of San Francisco like it was a miniature model. This made me think about the different map scales and got me wondering at what scale I was looking at the city as I reached higher and higher altitudes. At a certain altitude we flew into the thick clouds over the city and I couldn't see the ground level any more.

For most of the short flight I read a book, but as we got into Northern California/Oregon the clouds had cleared and I could once again see the land beneath the plane. I spend the rest of the flight looking out over the moutains and lakes and thought about how the lines would contour on a topographical map. Riding in a plane is a completely surreal and unnatural experience; it felt like I was seeing from a perspective that humans shouldn't see from, or something. I guess I just hadn't flown in a plane for a long time, but after this spontaneous trip alone I have a feeling that most of my extra money is going to be going towards travel from now on!

Journal 2: September 8th

I read ahead this week to Chapter 2 in the Geosystems text. As I came to the part about solar wind, I came across this term:

"The magnetosphere is a magnetic field surrounding earth, generated by dynamo-like motions within out planet. The magnetosphere deflects the solar wind toward both of Earth's poles so that only a small portion of it enters the atmosphere."

This made me immediately remember this article that I had found while browing current.com:

http://current.com/items/89067843_earth_s_magnetic_field_changing_fast
which linked to this National Geographic article:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080630-earth-core.html

I went online to find the articles again & got a sick feeling in my stomach. If the magnetosphere is changing and weakening, then the solar wind may not be deflected to the poles and more of it will porbably enter the atmosphere. This is scary stuff. Although the article does not give clues as to whether this change in the Earth's core is related to global warming or independent of it, it is certainly another aspect of physical change on Earth that must be considered. I think it is important to try and find out what is causing this so we can fix any human causes that may be contributing to this problem.

Journal 1: August 25th/September 1st

Mr. Harmon,
I have been keeping my journals in word files on my laptop & uploaded them to this blogger account I created this weekend. I have labeled them for each class session, & made sure to put them in sequential order. I'll upload new posts directly to blogger now that I have the page up & running.
Rachel



The last time I took geography was in the 5th grade. I remember making topographical maps & dioramas of biomes. It was a fun segment of the science course for me because it seemed like half art class, half science. Beyond this portion of a science class in the 5th grade I have completed map activities, but always in the context of historical events, not the science of physical structures and processes.

I mentioned in class this week that I took geography because it isn’t math intensive. While this is the primary reason, I have also always been interested in cartography & have been known to get lost daydreaming about places on maps while in class. I also find it fascinating that two cultures on either side of an imaginary line can be so distinct and different. While I get the impression from the greensheet that this class it not a social geography class, I hope to become more familiar more names and information about various nations so that I have more broad view of the world and what is happening within it.

Another geography-related subject I am interested in is humanity’s impact on the earth and what we can do to stop the damage we are inflicting on the land and resources we depend on. I want to know if there are any drastic, sweeping solutions possible because I am not convinced that the small ones are having any effect. It seems that there are so many hypothesis out there about whether or not global warming is real and what we can do to stop it that we have become oversaturated with information, & I want to get the real, scientific facts.