User:SSalvadorV/sandbox

HON-280-001 Discussions

Wikitext Basics & First Entry

Component I: Overview of the Sonoran

I don’t really know much about myths or legends but I do know that many of them are either to try and teach a lesson or explain something that people do not understand. The connection I see with this legend is that it tries to explain the changes that the region underwent as well as why there is the plant life that there is. While I cannot say what specific connections it may have with other myths, it is similar to others that it tries to explain something.

What makes the word “desert” when talking about the Sonoran bioregion destructive and misleading is the fact that when people think about a desert, they think of an arid, empty land with no life. This cannot be further from the truth. Apparently according to National Geographic, this only describes about 10% of the total deserts in the world. When people have this idea that the desert is uninhabited, they probably think that there is not much harm done by taking water from the rivers. And they also don’t think of the huge wildlife they are harming by taking this water. This lack of awareness makes people less likely to fight against movements that only make the situation worse.

Component II: Developing a Sense of Place

I think that the change in our mindset that people need in order for projects like these to take place is to give wilderness areas more importance. I think the reason why so many people do not give importance to these projects is because they are at such a disconnect from them. Many do not even know the challenges these wild areas are facing, myself included. People need to think more about nature and the role that they play when it comes to preserving it. More importantly, they have to realize that nature is a part of them, and that without it, we would not be able to survive.

I think that in practicality, most of his solutions are actually plausible as well as not extremely difficult to achieve. Many of these solutions just involve taking more precautions as well as being more environment friendly. Unfortunately, this also means lowering the production levels of businesses that deal with this stuff, which would be extremely difficult to convince them to do. So while it would be possible, it would require a lot of convincing companies to trade money loss for the environment.

Component III: Geology/Geography

This story about the biological community of the Sonoran desert flips almost everything I thought about the Sonoran desert upside down. In my mind I had always pictured the desert as just that, an inhospitable land where only species that have adapted to live there can survive. It feels pretty weird to think that this same place was once a densely wooded forest. But I guess it makes a lot of sense considering that it is also full of fertile soil.

This does change my sense of time about the desert since apparently since millions of years ago, the desert we speak of was once a forest. And there were multiple times that it transitioned from a thriving forest, to a lifeless tundra, to an arid desert, and back to a forest. It is not very frequently that I stop to think that the world we currently live in was wildly different millions of years ago. It is also very weird to think that the current community living in the Sonoran Desert was reformed recently, a few thousand years ago.

Component IV: Water

Many portions of this reading can be connected to our previous readings. One example would be when the author is talking about the formations of the “desert” and how many of the rivers and mountains were relatively recent in geological terms. Even as far as calling them infants. It also touches on the subject of rainfall and the rivers, and how people are slowly deteriorating the integrity of such important rivers. With time people are stopping the flow of the river which not only affects the life of the region but also the people that live within.

Image of the Colorado River

By using both information as well as a descriptive narrative, McNamee is able to help the reader imagine the scenario more than if they just talked about it’s history. This is something that I personally struggled with a lot when reading the scientific articles. Even when it explained how the area looked and how it changed with time, it was difficult for me to actually imagine such changes. It also makes the article more easy to read and makes it feel more grounded. When we can actually see what is happening in front of us, even if it is just in our imagination, we can actually think how the changes have impacted the region.

Component V: Human Ecology of the Sonoran Desert

While I do not wish to say that it is part of human nature, it is definitely prevalent in our history. Humans always find a way to capture or seek control over what they love the most. I think that not only will it be possible but we're going to be forced to suppress that impulse when our survival depends on it. Of course this will be only when the problems are apparent enough for everyone to recognize it is a problem. If it were so easy, we would have already suppressed this “Instinct” since our survival already depends on it.

One direct approach that mining had on the plants and animals of the population is the transformation of the land. In order to extract the minerals from the earth, large amounts of land had to be excavated and moved from its place. This only became worse as the need of minerals for industrial use increased as well as technological advances that made digging large areas faster and easier. An indirect effect mining had was the large amount of people that it  brought to the region. People came to make a fortune digging precious metals and with more people came more settlements and need for food and resources. This caused stock farms to grow bigger and land was taken from the wildlife for cattle and agriculture.

Component VI: History & Culture

What makes the Salton Sea different this time around is that from 1905 to 1907, when the current water filled the Salton Sea, an engineering mistake caused it to fill with agricultural runoff. This caused the river to fill with all types of pesticides making the water and land it sits on poisonous. The reason people do not want it to dry is because the more the water dries, the more loose sand full of dangerous chemicals can drift into the wind which has harmful effects on the people that live nearby.

The ways that the pandemic has affected the Salton Sea is by not only lowering the funding to fix the problem, but also lowering awareness of this issue in the legislature. Emergency response in California and combined with the impact that the pandemic had on our economy, the legislature was more inclined on dealing with the current problem and leaving environmental issues such as the Salton Sea for later. This also means that less people in the legislature talk about such issues so not only does it lack money but also less people talk about it.