Plan B

In Plan B, Chapter nine caught my eye because it shows us what we need to be doing now to support the 8 Billion people we are expected to have on this earth. In chapter 9 there are a few sections but the one that I felt more of a sense of place with was the section of producing protein more efficiently. Three main quotes stood out to me, the first is “World meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 260 million tons in 1970,” plus “consumption of milk and eggs has also risen. In every society where income has risen, so has meat consumption, reflecting a taste that evolved over 4 million years of hunting and gathering.” To me these facts are not shocking at all, but the thing that sparked my interest was what the number would be now that we are reaching 8 billion people in one area. My favorite sense of place is at the beach because it is where my whole family spends about a week just having the time of our lives. We have been going to The Islander since my oldest sister was a kid. A land Remembered really attracted my attention sine they too were a 3 generation family in one place. The last quote that caught my eye was “Fast-growing, highly grain-efficient world fish farm output may also overtake world beef production in the next few years.” My favorite food besides steak would be fish and crab legs, what will happen to the food that I enjoy from the sea if it becomes more frequent to catch and kill than the multiple amounts of land animals.  In fact, aquaculture has been the fastest-growing source of animal protein since 1990; largely because of herbivorous fish convert feed into protein so efficiently. I was going to argue that we need to take in account that soon these fish that we love so much will be gone, but countries like China are finding a way to keep these animals living but still having a large catching season. China has developed a fish polyculture using techniques of four types of carp that feed at different levels of the food chain. Silver and Bighead carp are filter feeders eating on phytoplankton and zooplankton. The grass carp, feeds on vegetation while the common carp eats detritus. This multi-species system, which converts feed into high-quality protein with remarkable efficiency, allowed China to produce some 14 million tons of carp in 2007. This to me is something America could learn off of. Like many sections we have read from Louv to Leopold, I can see that we need to preserve something that is valuable to us now. Yes these authors focused on the everglades and south west Florida but it shows similarities with China on how to preserve something and still receive a large amount of resource from it. Like I mentioned before, My sense of place is at the beach, I love the ocean, I love scuba diving in the ocean, and I love seeing all the organisms it has to offer. My sense of place would be destroyed if we don’t learn soon how to feed the 8 Billion people now since our numbers in population will just increase.

One of Chinas grass carp. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_carp

Family and friends at The Islander, the motel my family has been going to since my 30 year old sister was a baby!