Littering Around Kutztown

I know that this topic was brought up in class recently, but it caught my interest so I decided to blog about it.  In the previous years, I have participated in the KU Cleanup that is held in the fall.  Me, along with various members of other sororities, fraternities, sports teams, and other volunteers, took two hours to go through the campus and the town to clean up the trash that was littered all over. And to be completely honest, and I am a little embarrassed to say this, but that was really the only times that I have had gone not just around the campus, but all of the town, to clean up the trash.  It was truly appealing to see how much trash (wrappers, paper, glass bottles, plastic bottles, alcohol bottles and cans, cigarette butts, etc.) was littered all across campus and the  whole town.  I am not talking about just an alley here or there, I am talking about every street, every alley, every parking lot, everywhere! I think a few things need to happen to help this problem.  The first and most obvious is that people should not litter as much.  Obviously, people are going to litter, but maybe there could be more public trashcans installed around the town so that people would have more incentive to throw away their trash.  Secondly, I think that there should be more events like KU Cleanup.  As I know of, there is only that event once in the fall semester and once in the spring semester.  I feel as though there should be more of these events.  Also, these events should be more publicized.  Not many people know about when this event is happening.  I feel as though that if this event was publicized not only through Bear Essentials, but through Twitter, Facebook, and posters around campus that more people would attend these events.  And most importantly, there needs to be more people interested in actually throwing away their trash and not just littering.  And I personally do not understand it.  It really is not that hard to just hold onto your trash until you reach a trash can.  I do not get why people have to throw their trash out of their car, or just throw it down when they are walking.  It really is not doing them any harm at all to just hold onto it until they reach a trashcan.  The trash is not causing them any physical pain or harm, so why can't people just wait until they see a trashcan to throw it away?  If more and more people started doing this, and started to pick up the trash that was around their area and town, there would be less and less garbage on the ground until there was none at all.

Climate Change

I recently read an article about how the recent rapid climate change is making the biodiversity loss increase. Clearly, this is not just an issue for the animals and humans, but it is also a threat to the Earth and the environment.  Clearly, it is a problem for humans because this has an interaction with the food chain.  It is also an issue for humans, because if there is an increased climate change (global warming) then there is the great possibility that the water that is on this Earth is going to reduce and some are going to probably disappear.  With the amount of water on the Earth decreasing, this will lead to a drop in the resources that are gotten for that area.  Also, if there is less water, obviously there is going to be less animals that live i the water, because at first there will be too much of the animals that live in the water.  After there are too many, the ecosystem will neutralize itself, and their population will distractedly lower.  If there are less animals and less types of animals, then there is less for the humans to eat.  There are also less animals for other animals to eat.  This is a problem, because there is a highly likelihood of more animals becoming endangered and possibly even extinct.  These issues are more significant in the Arctic Ocean then in any other place.  The Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity stated that, " Ecosystems are already showing negative impacts under current levels of climate change … which is modest compared to future projected changes…. In addition to warming temperatures, more frequent extreme weather events and changing patterns of rainfall and drought can be expected to have significant impacts on biodiversity" (Global Biodiversity Outlook 2, May 2010, Page 56).  It is clear that while some of the species may be able to adapt to these changes, more of them are not going to be able to.  And as I have previously stated, this is going to lead to the endangerment and extinction of most animals.  


Clearly, something needs to be done about these issues; but honestly what can be done?  It is obvious that due to the rise of the climate due to global warming is causing all of these issues.  Clearly, there needs to be more information available for the people that do not know much about global warming, because personally, I do not know much about Global Warming.  I have seen "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore, but other than that, I do not know much about what I can do to stop these issues for getting worse and to help the planet.  I think that these issues should be more publicized, because until I researched it, I knew nothing about this whole issue.  I feel like if there is more resources available for people to know about what is going on, then there is a higher likelihood for more people to get involved.  And if more people know about the problem, and get involved, then more people are there to help aid this problem.