Since the semester began I was very excited about the observations that I had to make this semester in order to create the blog entries. I have always been person of nature, I come from Mexico and I love to spend time in my ranch and hiking, my dad and I love to hunt and I have learned how beautiful nature is. Throughout the semester and the information that was exposed in class, I liked pretty much the TED talk of climate change in which a scientist expressed how important it was for him to fight for the excess of pollution that human activity has done causing great harm to the environment and climate change. My dad and grandfather have always taught me to take care of the environment, and that is something that I really appreciate very much. I mention all this because throughout the semester I had pretty enjoyable experience with the nature, I decided to choose Barton Creek trail as my place to observe because I use to do mountain biking in those trails and I found it quite impressive.
Looking at my past blogs I mentioned how I had the opportunity to rest while I was mounting biking in the trails, I realized that there was a lot of noises coming out of the trails, it caught me rapidly how crickets were jumping around. Throughout the entire trail it was possible to hear the crickets and see neither many squirrels, which did not got scared by the bikes nor the noise we were making. I realized that it is quite common for squirrels to see humans and that is why they did not act with fear. It was noticeable how the vegetation was not as green and that dryness had harmed some of it. In October I notice that vegetation was greener, crickets were still jumping and making noises and I had the opportunity to spot a spider which was quite surprising for me to found it because it was quite windy. The last time I visited Barton Creek in November, I realized that most of laves form the trees where already on the floor, it was quite beautiful see the squirrels play and see all the leaves flying around. I did also notices how I couldn’t see as much crickets and did not spotted any spider this time; it is obvious because of the winter coming.
The word cloud seen in class did not surprise me at all; it is evident that the word Water will come out as the biggest in the cloud, everything that we have discussed during the semester in class is linked with water issues. Issues like the one discussed in the class where sea levels are rising and it was given as an example how Florida is being threatened by this climate change effect. If I go back to the TED talk about climate change that is one of the most concerning issues he sees coming in the nearest future. Nature is another word that is ranked among the most mentioned in the cloud, as I have mentioned I have a lot of respect towards nature since I have grown taking care of it, my family loves agriculture and that has giving me a closer look of how important is that we take care of it. Reading A Sand County Almanac I found quotes quite touching for me, “Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language”. I found quite interesting how the author uses words to awake our perceptions towards nature, I believe that anyone that love nature will find himself touched by this quote. Another great word used in the blogs was tree, which I also found it is one of many concerns around the globe, seeing the word tree for first time inside the cloud, it came to my mind information given in class by professor Wasserman in which he mentioned that human activity is one of the most important factors why the climate change is reacting as crazy as it is now. Deforestation has been a very important problem around the earth, examples as the Amazon where there has been many deforestation has risen a lot of concerns, the greenhouses will eventually affect in a very harmful way for the people if we kill the ones that provide carbon dioxide in order to breathe. I found another quote from Sand County Almanac which I linked with the word tree, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, but He is no longer the only one to do so. When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver: he could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker: he could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants”. This quote make us think about what it was given to us as a gift (nature), and we as a whole have been in charge of taking care of it and respect it; we are now being threatened by climate change and the diseases that it triggers. Humanity has not realized how important is to find beauty in nature, and how it is the one that keep us alive.
I invite everyone that reads this blog to acknowledge the threats we have cause for humanity, I believe that by giving us time to interact with the nature one is more likely to feel that pureness, liberty and freedom that could makes us realize that we have to take care of nature. Let us face the big climate change issues around the globe and begin by giving a little bit of our times to help nature, there are many ways we can contribute to make this world a better place to live.
“What I know of the divine sciences and Holy Scriptures, I learned in woods and fields. I have no other masters than the beaches and the oaks.”
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
