Ecology versus Literature and
Civilizations. Coming to school this semester I assumed these two classes would
have nothing in common. Who would expect
anything different? However, after a few
days I realized this may not be the case.
In both ecology and Lit Civ, all I heard, studied, and thought about was
water. How to conserve water, how to
observe water, how to appreciate water, and even the symbolism of water. Never before had a class made me so thirsty.
In the first couple weeks, I thought learning
about water was getting a bit ridiculous.
I know it’s everywhere, I know the water cycle I have learned every year
since 5th grade, and I know everything alive is dependent on
water. Or at least I thought I
knew. I had not considered how
incredibly intertwined our everyday lives are with water. Obviously things like drinking water,
showers, and flushing the toilet are important, but even the way we feel and
think can be influenced by water. Think
about sitting in the desert with a piece of paper and a pen and reflecting on
the shimmering heat waves. It’s just not
as pretty of a picture as watching the sunset on the ocean, and that is because
we as humans love water. We love to play
in it, stare at it, and listen to it. In
The Big Thirst Fishman makes a point
that it seems ridiculous that a psychologist claims “his patients needed the
sound of a babbling brook to do their therapy.” Although I do see the point that water is
running out and we need to save it for necessities, I also understand that
running water does in fact have an effect on people, and I would argue that it
can be therapeutic in many ways. In my
opinion, the psychologist’s argument makes a lot more sense than an argument
toward watering grass everyday on a golf course or impressing hotel visitors
with millions of gallons of water.
This discussion of water conversation
also overflowed into my ecology class.
When studying important issues in the environment, it is absolutely
impossible not to mention water at some point. We discussed topics such as acid
rain, mercury contamination, and eutrophication of lakes (basically when algae
overtakes lakes and the fish start dying because of high phosphorus levels). All this tied in really well with our
discussion in class about how unappreciative people are when it comes to
water. We expect to have easy access to
free and never-ending water here in the US, and yet we don’t want to put forth
any effort into keeping it clean and accessible.
However, as a nation we have made
some steps toward improvement. The
government has placed restrictions and regulations on power plants to reduce
the amount of sulfur and nitrogen released (both result in acid rain) You can see that the results have been successful (although not perfect) since that regulation was put into place. Additionally, restrictions on detergents have been put into place to reduce the
phosphorus levels, leading to a reduction in lake eutrophication. At the same time, the topic of water
availability is becoming more commonly discussed. As the population soars(again see the picture below to see an obnoxious population growth) the environmental problems
increase right along with it, and people are finally starting to notice. The issue is actually doing something about
it before it is way too late.
I’ve
actually enjoyed learning about this topic a lot more than I thought I
would. Rather than memorizing facts that
will soon be forgotten, we are able to discuss important issues that are
relevant to life. This is one of the
first times my classes have really tied together and it is really interesting
to see different points of view on the same idea. On one hand I get to see an idea of a major
problem all over the world with contamination of lakes and the decline in fish
species and other animals due to this mass contamination, and on the other hand
I get to learn about regional crises throughout America as we use up what good
water we do have left. I’ve finally
realized that water is actually a topic worth discussing.
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