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Eat a sunbeam for lunch?. What is the anthropogenic impact on earth??. BIGGEST. AGRICULTURE!. It obliterates ecosystems with cultivation, harvesting and/or grazing & brings invasive organisms .
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What is the anthropogenic impact on earth?? BIGGEST
AGRICULTURE! • It obliterates ecosystems with cultivation, harvesting and/or grazing & brings invasive organisms. • It impacts many other ecosystems by withdrawing/adding water, toxins and nutrients! i.e. more fixed nitrogen, as ammonia, is added to world ecosystems than natural fixation. • It pollutes ecosystems worldwide with soil & toxic compounds designed to kill biological organisms! [Remember, you aren’t all that different from an insect biochemically!] • It depends on huge source of cheap labor, which is mostly powerless. Remove Illegal aliens?
What is Agriculture? • Production of animals for food • Production of plants for food vegetables,grains & fruits • Management of insects such as bees [pollinators] • Production of Agronomic plants seldom eaten directly such as cotton, hay or rags • Production of foodstuffs such as milk, eggs • Production of timber = lumber • Production of • Companion Animals e.g. Horses, dogs, cats • Fisheries and shellfisheries • Last but far from least in Sand I Ego: Horticultural crops tobacco ornamentals, cut flowers etc
Where does your food come from? How is it made? It’s your business to know! AgriBusiness/culture
What things are most important to you????????????? • Air to breathe [picture that!] You would last ~ 3 minutes without it. • Water to drink, especially in San Diego. The Salton Sea-wer! “California Development Company”, land and water speculators, created it in 1905. It is now 25% saltier than the ocean! Serves as nesting, feeding, breeding site on Pacific Flyway after Colorado River delta was destroyed by water diversions. Now a sump full of fertilizer, pesticides, selenium and other salts. You might last ~ 3 days without water. So WATER YOU THINKING AND DOING ABOUT THIS? [Talk about a cash crop! Farmers buy water from Colorado River for $17.50/acre foot and sell it to San Diego for $275/acre foot!] • Food to eat [good and cheap] You might last ~ 3.weeks without it. But that has changed. Now obesity is a serious medical problem in the U.S, even in CA! It is becoming a problem world-wide. • Sex: You’d last about 3 months without psychoses. We’ll get to that next!
7 x 10^9 Human Population 0 1 x 10^9 0 YBP
Abscissa reduced a hundred thousand times 7 x 10^9 Human Population 10^4 0 YBP
expansion What allowed this enormous in the human population? Humans were hunters and gatherers for 99% of our history. Does that give you a clue ?
Agriculture made possible towns, cities and many things, including population growth. g
Solutions? • Gardens, Farmer’s Markets • Organic Foods • CSSC California Student Sustainability Coalition ucfoods@yahoo.com cssc-L@ucsd.edu • CSA Community Supported Agriculture • Even Hunting & Gathering at places like Trader Joe’s • Use hemp products • Eat lower on the food chain. By 2012 California says Foie gras is out! • Yours? “Soylent Green”?
According to U of Az Anthropologist • We waste over $10 billion worth of prepared food/year in the U. S. alone. • But a famous but unidentified UCSD Professor has a solution to prevent sunbeam waste :
Suggestions • Read “Zen and the American Art of pHarming” • Visit www.sacbee.com/denial and spread the word. • View “The Price of Bounty” video (on reserve in Geisel Library) • Start today to find solutions.