recipe

Tacos de papa

2 lbs potatoes, scrubbed
¼ cup diced onion
1-2 jalapeño chiles, diced (to taste)
2-3 Tb oil
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
12 corn tortillas (I like El Milagro Blancas)
6 ounces chihuahua cheese*, shredded


This is a very simple thing to make and very delicious so I thought I'd pick it.
I saw that potatoes are in season right now so that is a good thing.
This will be a good thing to serve at exhibition at the garden it will be good and I think people will enjoy it a lot.

Abstract

Esther Ballesteros
Environmental Science
Research Abstract




Biodiversity is all of the different living organisms in this world; this includes every animal and plant species. . Biodiversity is important to life because it makes up the structure of ecosystems and habitats that provide essential living resources for humans such as food, shelter, and medicine. The different species in the ecosystems help sustain human life; we depend on the biodiversity in this world in order to live. Biodiversity is, and will continue to dwindle due to human impacts, deforestation, and climate change.
I really liked this topic because I care about the biodiversity in this world, most importantly because we are apart of it and yet we are destroying it. In my research I found that for the past 10,000 years man has had the greatest factor affecting biodiversity. Human population growth is something that affect biodiversity a lot because, there are a lot of humans and we get a lot of our resources from biodiversity.I found that Humans currently appropriate ~ 40% of the production of terrestrial ecosystems and ~ 60% of usable freshwaters, have doubled terrestrial nitrogen supply and phosphorus liberation, have manufactured and released globally significant quantities of pesticides, and have initiated a major extinction event. Some other things that show human impact would be; habitat removal, habitat fragmentation, overharvesting, overexploitation, and deforestation. These forests are cut down either for space or for the use of wood as a resource. Climate change becomes a problem when the trees are cut down, because trees are carbon sinks and when they are cut down CO2 is released into the atmosphere and eventually it is part of the process of global warming which causes climate change. The different species cannot adapt to these drastic changes and they start to die.
If something is not done about all of this I think in the future we cannot expect very little biodiversity. That will definitely affect us because we live off of it and we are part of it.



PULL QUOTE
"Humans currently appropriate ~ 40% of the production of terrestrial ecosystems and ~ 60% of usable freshwaters, have doubled terrestrial nitrogen supply and phosphorus liberation, have manufactured and released globally significant quantities of pesticides, and have
initiated a major extinction event.”

reflection

In the movie Food Inc. there were many problems in this world I got to learn about. These problems were not only about food but also about the animals used to make the food, and the people who are affected by it. A lot of the food that we eat now is not naturally grown for example tomatoes are harvested, and sprayed with efilin gas so they can ripen on the way to the store thereare being transported to. Companies are hidding where our food comes from. Restaurants are now kind of like factories all of the workers are doing the same process over and over again just like a machine in a factory would do.


Animals like cows, chickens, and pigs are being fattened up way quicker then they normally would, that way they could be killed sooner. They inject them with all kinds of hormones. In a clip of the movie we saw that the chickens were growing so much faster but their bones and their organs could not keep up with that. they did not grow as fast as the chicken got fat, this caused the chickens to loose the ability to walk we saw the chicken take a few steps and then in plopped down on the floor because it could not hold its own weight.
The major companies who run some of the food industry practice their power, I saw that the farmers were controlled by the companies because of their debt. Farmers borrowed $500,000 a year and only made 18,000 a year. I don't think that us very good for them but they are indebted to these companies and cannot do anything about it.

People are affected by all of the meat that is being produced because they eat a lot of it. they are becoming obese and a lot of them are getting diabetes. we used to have thousands of slaughter houses and now there are only thirteen and they handle all the meat, that is not for the quality of the food. people buy the unhealthy food because it is way cheaper.
Immigrants get jobs as meat packers this sucks because they get paid very little and in the end they are treated like criminals when the companies arehe ones who hired them all in the first place and nothing is happening to them

my question would have to be: would people even care enough to change the process we are in?
to make it better for themselves? or would they just let not do anything which would lead to their destruction?

What I found today!

1) I got a very good source which I think would help me very much with my research paper. It is a book called Biodiversity By E.O. Wilson. It talks about a lot of things about biodiversity like how much biological diversity there is, and at what rate it is being lost and many other things that have to do with biodiversity.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bI3cc2IMq9MC&dq=E.O.+Wilson+book+biodiversity&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=IuyPS62BB4W-sgOk4f3fCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Book Biodiversity By E.O. Wilson

2) Another one would have to be from the Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy it is also a peer reviewed source

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biodiversity/
Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy

3) I got another source which tells me about what Biodiversity is and why it is important

http://www.ciel.org/Biodiversity/WhatIsBiodiversity.html
What is Biodiversity? and why is it important?

4) This source says a lot about the Biological extinction I still have to read through it and get information for my research paper
http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/eeb310/lecture-notes/extinctions/extinctions.html
Patterns of Biological extinction

Peer Reviewed Sources

1) From this source I would get information on how multi-functional managed forests have an important role in maintaining biodiversity. It said, "The integration of biodiversity issues under the umbrella of sustainable forest management (SFM) is thus vital to achieve conservation goals."

"ScienceDirect - Forest Ecology and Management : Addressing biodiversity in a stakeholder-driven climate change vulnerability assessment of forest management." ScienceDirect - Home. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. .


2) From this source I got that climate change is a problem and it can affect the ecosystems which will affect biodiversity. Climate change is not something good for the living things on earth because many of them can die off. I wonder if any of them could adapt to a new climate? In this article it said that, "Natural systems are vulnerable to such changes due to their limited adaptive capacity." So according to that I take it that they might not be able to adapt that easily.

"ScienceDirect - Ecological Economics : Climate change as a threat to biodiversity: An application of the DPSIR approach." ScienceDirect - Home. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. .

Climate Change and Biodiversity

This is the first website I got good information from. I think it was good because I read that climate change is an" integral" part of an ecosystem. It also says that some ecosystems have already been affected by climate change, it said, "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reviewed relevant published studies of biological systems and concluded that 20 percent to 30 percent of species assessed may be at risk of extinction from climate change impacts within this century if global mean temperatures exceed 2-3 °C (3.6-5.4 °F) relative to pre-industrial levels (IPCC, 2007)." This shows that some species may be at risk of becoming extinct especially that ones that are already at risk.
1) "Ecosystems and Biodiversity | Climate Change - Health and Environmental Effects | U.S. EPA." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.

This website gave me good information on how climate has a already had effects on biodiversity. It says that there has been a lot of climate change due to human activity especially the burning of fossil fuels. This is a quote from the website "We can already see many direct impacts on biodiversity, and other threats may be made much worse."
2) "Climate change is already impacting biodiversity." BirdLife International - conserving the world's birds. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. .

In this article I read a bout a study that actually show that there has been a change in biodiversity this says, "This is the first demonstration that climate change is affecting the distributions of tropical insects, the most numerous group of animals on Earth, thus representing a major threat to global biodiversity."
3) "Global Impact Of Climate Change On Biodiversity." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. .

Reflection

Biodiversity are all the living things on this earth and they all live in different types of climates. They have different environments there are accustomed to. If there is a sudden change in climate those animals are at risk of surviving. It may also be a problem for humans because we depend on the natural resources in different ecosystems and with he climate change some of those resources may not be available for us to use this could. Climate change can make the range of the species increase, some of the living things would adapt to the new climate and they would kind of evolve into something a little different. I learned that humans are a big part of climate change due to the burning of fossils fuels. The burning of fossil fuels does not help the environment. Climate change has been happening over the years but now it is happening at a way faster ate than it ever did. In one of the articles I read it said that "At the species level, climate change affects particular species in different ways. It may alter their distribution, abundance, behaviour." It can also change ints genetic composition. The timing of imigration and breeding would also change since there are certain cyles that happen in the world depending on what season it is climate change would make that very different. In a study that the University of York has made it shows that there has been an effect in biodiversity. In this study they noticed that the animals moved up higher to be in cooler condition because the environment they were once in was no longer suitable for them. They had to move up to where they felt they could actually live. Since these living things moved up higher they have less land to live in and they don't have ase many resoucres to live on, some of these species may actually die off.

Plant Write-up

*I would like to plant a peach tree

*You can grow a peach tree from a seed or you can buy preferably a one year old tree from a nursery

*Peaches need a lot of sun and should be located in good air flow

*it is best to plant peaches in early winter, i found that this is good because it gives the roots time to establish and it will be able to make it through the new spring growth.

*Peach trees require a constant supply of water

*if you are planting the one year old tree there is a certain way you have to do it, you have to make sure you plant it with the bud onion sticking about one inch above the soil, because if you plant it to deep the plant can be injured or killed.

*I found that you should prepare the soil one or two seasons before planting, this gives you enough time to test the pH of the soil and determine the adjustment that must be mad to have thew proper amount of nutrients and organic material.

*A peach tree requires sandy soil that is rich in organic materials

*It is recommended that materials such as compost, manure, grass clippings, and leaves are mixed in. Doing that will greatly improve drainage, texture, and nutrient content

*The peach tree is native to China

what I think

When I read this article I was very surprised by all of the information I learned from it. There hasn't been a food problem in a long time but now it seems that it has gotten worse. We must step up as leader and show people that this is a problem. One major thing that has changed would have to be that Health Care prices have risen "from 5 percent of national income in 960 to 16 percent today." That is not a good thing people are struggling so much to pay for health care and all of theses food prolems are not making it any better instead thy are getting much worse. health care has risen because the fpur top killers are chronic diseases caused by a bad dit. People are aeting all of theses cheap foods in great amounts. A lot of people choose to buy the cheaper but unhealthy food. According to the article food is a national-security issue, but they do not see that there is a problem that is why nothing had been done.

agriculture

I am not sure if anyone in my family was ever interested in agriculture, well I'm sure my family in Venezuela grow many different kinds of things so that they can eat. I am interested in agriculture it seems like a great learning experience. in this class I will be able to grow thing I want then harvest them. When you grow other things you are keeping something alive if they are not in their natural environment. You bring them somewhere where they are not naturally from but you are keeping it alive. In order to do so you have to have knowledge of how to take care of them. These things that are grown can be part of things that you eat every day. You keep them alive and they do the same to you, that is something that is cool about it.

Curiosity

What is one thing in the natural world you are curious about?

Something I am curious about would have to be, the reasoning behind certain species becoming endangered species. What are the causes of them becoming endangered. Do they not reproduce enough, are there some kind of illnesses they are facing. There might be some things we don't know about yet and these different species are disappearing from the earth. Is that a good or bad thing? I don't exactly know because there are other species of animals that were here before us and they are no longer here, but then a new species is born. Maybe it is just a cycle and they are only meant to be on earth for a certain amount of time. Maybe humans are the cause of some of these animals becoming endangered species.