I believe I have a pretty good background of the environment since I have taken an environmental science class before, in addition to being apart of environmental clubs. However, I wanted to take this class to put a number to the environmental problems and climate change. Because of this class, my perspective on the ocean’s problems have strengthened since I learned a lot from my write and respond project. I became more concerned about overfishing and I’m changing my consumer habits because of what I learned.
For my write and respond project, I was curious about problems in the ocean due to climate change. I was concerned about sea levels rising, coral bleaching, plastic pollution, and overfishing. However, I decided to focus the topic of my project should be on overfishing since I had the least amount of knowledge on it and wanted to learn more. Using sources and equations I had learned from the class, I learned that the United States wastes over 600,000,000 pounds of fish per year. Thus, the extremity of the situation became more aware to me and as I dove deeper into the issue I became more impacted. I knew that overfishing was an issue, yet my perspective became stronger since I was able to educate myself on the impact of overfishing. I learned that the ocean’s problems are complex and there isn’t a simple solution; therefore, I’m going to be a better consumer and try to reduce my carbon footprint. Fish is a big part of my diet since I don’t eat much red meat, yet I’m to reduce the amount of fish I eat by a lot. In addition, I’m going to try to eat less tuna, which is one of the most overfished species. Plus, I’m going to try and eat more wild caught fish rather than farmed since farmed fish causes tons of waste. Because I learned more about overfishing, I feel more strongly about it and I’m changing my consumer habits because of it.
Ultimately, this class has taught me that climate change and environmental problems can be explained with numbers, which helps strengthens my understanding of the issues. The class topics have helped me understand that these issues are more complex and aren’t easily solvable. Learning about overfishing for my write and respond project has helped me understand the extremity of the issue and strengthened my perspective of needing to change the way fish is produced.