Estero Island Cottage and Matanza Pass

I thought Estero Island Cottage and the Matanzas Pass was awesome. I didn’t see as much wildlife as I hoped to. But it was neat to see how much land was preserved so close the hustle and bustle of the beach life. I saw a couple different bird and fish in the mangroves. It was eerily quiet through the entire tour. I heard a couple birds chirping but nothing too loud.

The local quality of life is being enhanced with a place such as the Estero Island Cottage and the Matanzas Pass. Locals and tourist are able to visit places like this and educate themselves on the history of Estero Island and the environment they live in.

My hometown has developed a lot since I was a child. I grew up in a small town in Kentucky most of my childhood. That neighborhood now has a ton more houses and

there is a lot more stores and restaurants available to eat at. When I go home, I still feel a sense of community. Neighbors are willing to do anything to help each other and everyone is friendly. I miss that when I moved down to Fort Myers.

If a developer offered me 300% the market value of my childhood home to develop it into condos, I would deny the offer. Building the area I grew up into condos would take away the community small town feeling and make it seem more fast pace.  I would also deny the counties offer of purchasing the land under the 20/20 program, for 80% of its value. I love where I grew up and wouldn’t want to change the small town relaxed feeling you get when you visit there.

Ecofootprint

I did not fare very well. My ecofootprint is 4.1 earths.  I do a lot of driving, traveling, and live in a big house. I have to drive a lot to work and school. I am a commuter student who also works every day. So I go from home to work to school back to home. That is a lot of driving a day. But it is hard to carpool with anyone because of my crazy schedule. I could modify my lifestyle by taking a local vacation instead of flying.

I try to visit Kentucky twice a year. So that is a lot of flying. If I cut down on the flying, my ecofootprint would decrease. In addition, eating less animal based foods, my family could decrease our ecofootprint to 3.9 earths. The quiz did not display the maximum population that earth could sustain if everyone lived like me. But because of this quiz, I definitely will be changing how I use energy.

Sustainable Consumerism

According to Oslo Symposium, the working definition of sustainable consumerism is “the use of services and related products which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations.” Globalization and capitalism can be seen as both a positive and negative driver in this phenomenon. It’s negative because people are wanting to always try to get more for their dollar. They will not necessarily consider purchasing what is considered more sustainable. But it is positive because it drives businesses to find new creative ways to be sell more sustainable products and services. The consumer might be able to purchase a more sustainable product brought in from some other location because of globalization.

Green washing is when companies trick consumers into believing their products are healthier by using false advertising. I would be willing to pay a premium for some

foods labeled “organic”, “local”, and “fair-trade”.  I try to buy organic foods when I eat the entire food. For example, I would buy organic blueberries because you eat the

entire blueberry. But I would not buy organic oranges because you peal the peel off. I like visiting mom and pop stores when I am close to them. But usually I just visit Gulf Coast Town Center. I can’t justify wasting gas to drive further to a store that sells products that are a little bit better than what you find at Gulf Coast. If everyone has this same mindset, the ramifications are that the mom and pop stores will eventually go out of business.

Downtown Fort Myers

The word downtown evokes a couple different thoughts. First, I think of tall buildings that are really close together. It reminds me of where I lived a couple years as a child in Kentucky. And finally it reminds me of a place where people come to walk around and enjoy themselves. Overtime, the view of downtown has changed. It used to be

thought of as crime-ridden area. Now it seems more and more people are moving downtown and it is becoming more urban and built up.

Downtown Fort Myers is experiencing something of a

renaissance. They are in the process of renovating buildings while keeping the historical look of the buildings.  The city is putting up more restaurants and activities around town. There is also a lot more color and creativity found throughout downtown that makes it unlike anything else you can see in Fort Myers. There are many prominent architectural features. The engineers are using the neo-classical style of rebuild many of the buildings. But I would say that the Patio de Leon is more Mediterranean based. 

 

The city is rekindling the pedestrian spirit by having many different events downtown and adding new things to see. Downtown has Art walk and Music walk

every month. They also just opened the new park by the waterfront. It's a beautiful place to go and just relax. Events and places like this definitely get people out of their house and into the city.

While walking through the city, you can also see the history that once was there. You can see the Olympians Museum and monuments dedicated to important people in

history that lived in Fort Myers. The best part is you can see many different plaques all throughout downtown of the history that once was there.

The economy of Downtown Fort Myers has evolved also. It used to be a underdeveloped city. Presently, it is growing at a fast rate. The city is continually adding new places and renovating old ones to see in downtown. This relates to sustainability because they are refurbishing old historic buildings instead of adding so many new ones.

Energy

I do not believe that energy is too expensive. Think about where you live and your

family members. I bet you could think of one area where you are wasting some kind of energy, whether it is water, electricity, or gas.  If energy were too expensive, people would not be wasting it.

Conservation is not a dirty word. As humans, we need to better understand what it means to conserve our resources. The more we conserve, the longer it will last us. But since we don’t fully understand what conservation means, we continue to waste.

I think it is awesome how our President was showing the United States how to be conservative by wearing a cardigan and turning off the heat. We need people to see leaders be conservative and then the pack will follow. It seems a lot of people are afraid to do something different. In this case, it is living conservatively.

I would like if the government could curb the amount of fossil fuels the United States

uses on a daily basis. We need to make a drastic change and focus on renewable energy, such as wind and solar energy. This could significantly lower our energy consumption in the future.

I can definitely take steps to reduce my energy footprint tomorrow and within the next five years. I can open my windows instead of using the air conditioning on a nice spring day and I can make sure I unplug appliances before leaving. As for the next five years, I can start walking and biking to places less than a couple miles from my house. If the location is too far to bike, I could car pool with a friend going in the same direction.

Climate Change

The media has struck fear into the public with the words of climate change and global warming. But I do not think it is all our faults. I would say climate change is a fault of both manmade and natural reasons.  

We, as humans, are constantly doing things that give off greenhouse gases that hurt the ozone layer and in return cause global warming. But naturally, our planet goes through different cycles to stay in equilibrium. So certainly, the temperature is going to change as the earth adapts to the changes that happen. There is nothing we can do to change the cycles.

The best way to get your information on climate change is to do a lot of research yourself. If you read different articles, they could say conflicting facts that are backed up by research. So how do you know whom to believe? That's the reason you should research the numbers yourself and come up with your own conclusion based on the logic of your research.

The media tries to scare people about climate changes and places the blame on mans shoulders. I would say its mostly a way to get more money. If they scare people on this, people are going to be more likely to watch more the news to try to figure out how to fix it.

I try to alter my lifestyle because some of climate change is manmade. I want my kids and grandkids to have the best possible life, so I will do my part in protecting the environment.

Eucalyptus Trees

The positive and negative effects need to first be evaluated if ArborGen wished to plant a genetically modified eucalyptus tree in Southwest Florida.  The eucalyptus tree is known for growing quickly and for producing a quick profit for those who sell it. The benefits of planting a genetically modified eucalyptus tree are the many uses of the tree medicinally, such as being used for a relaxant and an antiseptic. But intrinsically, the concern about how the tree will function is being that it is genetically modified. Extrinsically speaking, we would need to worry about the water consumption of the tree. The tree has shallow roots and uses a lot of water. We would have to be worried when hurricane season happened with these trees. The roots might not hold up in the strong wind. We

would also have to worry about how fast the eucalyptus tree reproduces. The tree is able to take over forests. In California, they took over forest and posed as a forest fire

threat when doing through a drought.  Lastly, we would have to watch out for

Cryptococcus Gattii, a deadly pathogen that can kill humans and wildlife. In order to mitigate these risk, ArborGen would have to find a hug piece of land where a greenhouse could be put up to watch how the land changes as a result of the eucalyptus trees growing. But this would cost a lot of money and manpower. I do not think that the benefits of the tree outweigh the many risks.

ECHO

This past week I had the opportunity to take a tour at ECHO. ECHO is a non-profit inter-denominational Christian organization that stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization. It is located in North Fort Myers. ECHO is "dedicated to fighting world hunger through innovative options, agricultural training, and networking with community leaders and missionaries in developing countries."

I really enjoyed going to ECHO and learning what it does and what it has to offer. It was really awesome to see the different climates they have around their garden and what is actually growing in them. The tour guide, Jane, was able to point out different plants spread around the garden and explain what they were used for. The most interesting story I heard all day was about the Moringa tree. She told us how in underdeveloped nations, children were dying from being malnourished until someone explained to them that they could eat the Moringa leaves. It contains more vitamins and protein than a lot of other foods that people would normally consume. It contains seven times the vitamin C of oranges, four times the vitamin A of Carrots, four times the calcium of milk, three times the potassium of bananas, and two times the protein of yogurt.  The happy/sad part of the story was that this tree is found in a lot of places where these children were dying. Because of this plant, many children were saved and are healthy today. Had it been discovered sooner though, they would have been able to save more children. It's so crazy to think that the plants we walk by daily could cure diseases and save the lives of children.

The  American agriculture seems to be more advanced than the agricultural techniques that ECHO is teaching to the poorer countries. But in America, we have a lot more resources available to grow a lot of different things. Also the farmers growing the food typically have more money and are able to afford the machinery or whatever technology that is required to grow healthy plants.  In the poorer countries it's hard for the farmers to afford the tractors or plows or watering systems that American farmers can more easily afford.

The work of ECHO is very appropriate to developing countries because the ECHO staff and interns are showing these countries how to use what they have and how to turn it into something useful. ECHO teaches them how to conserve their water, how to do urban gardening, and how to cook with just the use of recycled barrels. ECHO teaches the developing countries to use whatever resources they have in ways that would benefit them for a longer time.

Appropriate technology is using the tools and resources that are available to complete the tasks that need to be done. Appropriate technology is different for every situation. It would not make sense to teach someone to use a tractor or a plow if they would never be able to afford such machinery.

Although I really admire the work that ECHO does, I wouldn't be interested in doing my service learning with them because the hours that they are open do not work with my schedule as compared to my selected service learning site. The location of ECHO is also far away from my house.