Floras impact in the Fertile Crescent

The three aspects that gave the Fertile Crescent such a large advantage over so many other areas in terms of plant domestication were its climate, its availability of domestic able plants, and the fact that the domestic able plants able to self-pollinate.

The climate of the Fertile Crescent is a Mediterranean zone, with wet winters and hot dry summers. The plants of the Fertile Crescent adapted to the weather and due to this adaptation they produce large edible seeds, rather than use energy trying to create fibrous or wood stems (136). The fact that the seeds remain dormant until the winter is also very important, because it encouraged people to start farming and cultivating these plants for their seeds, which eventually led to a sedentary lifestyle as opposed to the hunter gather lifestyle.

The second aspect is that the Fertile Crescent had such an abundance of domestic able plants compared to other areas. A possible reason as to the Fertile Crescents abundance in plants is the fact that it has the largest zone of Mediterranean climate in the world; this larger landmass also means a higher diversity of plants and animals available for domestication. (138) Not only was there an abundance of domestic able plants but these plants were very useful. They had a large return rate of energy for the amount of hours put into planting them; they also had large seeds unlike the seeds of North American plants such as Goosefoot, knotweed, little barely, and maygrass which had tiny seeds (151). Although those North American plants had a lot of nutritional value their small seeds made them undesirable to the North American people. Obviously such was not the case with the plants in the Fertile Crescent due to their large size.

Lastly the fact that Fertile Crescent contains a large percentage of hermaphrodic plants played a big role in the fertile crescents advantage over other Mediterranean climates. These plants were capable of pollinating themselves, however on occasion they could cross pollinate. The reason that this was so important was that once a favorable mutation in a plant was acquired it would not be lost due to cross pollination in the next generation; instead that mutant plant would reproduce itself leaving the mutation untouched. This meant that the favorable mutation could then be reproduced and a crop could be formed, with time.

Had these same aspects been present in Mesoamerica It is likely that agriculture would have risen there much earlier and it would have been much more productive. Agriculture would have spread throughout all of Mesoamerica. However, it would not have spread throughout the rest of the Americas due to the geographical barriers such as deserts, mountains, and tropical jungles.

Diamond: Guilty

Diamond is not innocent. He has proven time and again that guns, germs, and steel have had an impact in the world due to the world's geography. The way society functions now is a small window to how Diamond explains how society started functioning in the past: the use of domesticated animals, weaponry, and "settling down."

Guns, germs, and steel is all weaponry that we use today and even back to the fall of the Aztecs. What I would like to talk about more specifically is germs. As Diamond explains, "the mere winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies." (197) This could be shown through the fall of the Aztec Empire in which a small army of Spaniards defeated the Aztec army of 80,000. Before the great battle that determined the fate of the Aztecs, the Spaniards arrived with their foreign diseases to the Aztec Empire.

Now a days, we use domesticated animals such as the ones in the chart in page 160. Even in modern days, the list of animals in page 160 is still being used today as domesticated animals. Diamond mentions that "5 species became widespread and important around the world." (pg. 159) The use of these animals is important because they impacted how we feed ourselves. For example, the cattle and cows. The use of these animals was to use them to gather milk and food back around the world. Even in the modern day, they are still used for these uses.

Settling down is something that we, humans, have learned to do. It was not possible at first because of the climate changes which would mean that plants would change in every season. There is also the fact that animals choose to migrate and that would mean that humans would also have to keep on moving for food. The Fertile Crescent made "settling down" possible and foreshadows civilization happening in the future. Diamond explains that the Crescent had several advantages over all other terrain that made "settling down" possible. Diamond explains that there were several advantages that made this possible: "western Eurasia has by far the World's largest zone of Mediterranean climate," and, "western Eurasia's experience the greatest climatic variation from season to season and year to year." (138) This is just two of the five advantages the Crescent has what made people settle down in that area for periods of time. This allowed humans to settle in the area and change the nature of plants to have better traits and nutritional values through cross pollination. Which is what modern day farmers also do, they cross pollinate their best crops to have the best traits for growing and harvesting.

Furthermore, what such evidence show that this is not all possible. What right do we have to have to say that geography did impact history? These are all possibilities and the evidence I presented, domestication, weaponry, etc. is proof enough to place Diamond in a guilty verdict.

Foreigners

While I was away in Japan, I completely fell in love with the Japanese language. I had chosen to go on a language training program, and it was incredible. Since I had no experience with Japanese beforehand whatsoever, I was thrown into the "absolute beginner" class. My せんせい (sensei - teacher) Rieko was amazing. Her passion for teaching us Japanese reminded me of a lot of some of the teachers (former and current) at Chinquapin.

So, throughout my trip I was straining my mind to think of an idea for this project. While we traveled all around Japan, I, along with the rest of my group, became used to being the only foreigners around. In fact, whenever we would pass by or just so happen to see a foreigner, we would yell "foreigner!". Well, we would yell it just loud enough for the rest of the group to hear it. When we reached the sight-seeing part of the trip in 京都 (Kyoto), we were surrounded by masses of other foreigners. While visiting the Imperial Palace, our tour group was filled with chirping of foreign languages. I would pick out the Spanish and Portuguese while the others in my group would pick out the German, Italian, French, Greek, etc. I thought it was interesting to hear so many different languages being spoken around me. The only thing I had in common with these people was the fact that we all understood English (we were all the English tour).

Then I began to remember how some students weren't all too happy with the fact that our school only offers Spanish as a foreign language. I also thought about how Erick has been self-studying German for around a year now. So, I decided to create my project based off of the desire to learn different languages that aren't Spanish. Not that there is anything wrong with Spanish. Maybe students would enjoy learning a different language or would be interested in self-studying a language. Whatever his or her motivation is, learning a new language is fun, challenging, and becoming bilingual or just multilingual would also benefit in the work world.

While there are benefits to doing all of this, there's always the question of whether or not I (or anyone else) am motivated to actually study. I've always lacked strong intrinsic motivation. My initial thoughts of Drive were that I was going to relate in someway and that would push me forward. But as I read, I didn't feel as if there was much to relate to. I do agree that intrinsic motivation is incredibly important to have. Hopefully I'll be able to find mine before I begin this senior project. But then again, maybe I won't.

Geography determines outcomes

Throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond consistantly brings the idea that geography plays a huge role in determining human history. Although he never identifies himself as a geographic determinist, I believe that he is. Diamond emphasizes the fact that neither culture nor genetics have a determining factor in the independent advancement of the human race. What he does mention is how geography becomes what really determines the rate at which humans evolve socially. In particular, one are Diamond bases most of his ideas on is the Fertile Crescent. He also mentions that the axes of continents such as Eurasia also benefit the people around it. An east-west alignment like that of Eurasia which is near the Fertile Crescent was the most prosperous area of its time. In the mind of Diamond, this conclusion makes sense. An east-west alignment gives humans more land that has a similar climate. The Fertile Crescent also provides many nutritious plants. Animal domestication comes more easily once a steady food supply is established. Not to mention Eurasia has an abundance of animals that are likely candidates for domestication. With animal domestication expanding, humans begin to build resistances to the diseases which the animals carry. Years and years of animals developing along side the Europeans give the Europeans a huge advantage. When Europeans begin to conquer new lands, the native peoples stand no chance against these foreign diseases. Not only do these diseases kill off most native populations, but the Europeans also have guns. These weapons take out even more natives and give the Europeans more power to force their values and customs upon them. The point of this is that all of it is possible for the Europeans because they are located in an extremely rich area full of tools (land, plants, animals, minerals, etc.) for the taking. However, places that are isolated, such as Madagascar, Australia, Papua New Guinea, are less fortunate. They are separated from the rest of the world and its advancements. Also, continents such as North and South America and Africa are at a disadvantage because of their axes. Climate and daylight hours vary immensely from northern and southern latitudes. Regions within these continents also vary. Take Africa for example. There's the Sahara Desert and right under are rain forests of the Congo. Diamond takes all these things into consideration when writing his book. Because of this, knowingly or not, he portrays himself a geographical determinist and is guilty as such.

The Journey

As I was reading Drive, I read about the Sticks and Carrots and one line really stood out to me. "Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing towards the horizon," (pg 57). This quote stood out because it reminded me of one thing one of my favorite teachers once told me. My teacher said "The journey not the arrival is what matters most". I was thinking that they things that you learn as you reach for your goals are what make you a better person. Whenever you wanna become a better person, you set goals. A goal might be to be a better soccer player, but on that journey you learn to be more organized, work harder, be thoughtful. All those lessons that are learned were learned through the journey not once you reached your goal. It is on your path to your goals that you achieve greatness.

Many times we pushed to the horizon all we want to get there so bad that we take shortcuts or cheat ourselves. We forget to learn the lessons that this journey had for us. Many times our "sights" are covered by goals, and we do not push, but cheat to the horizon. The horizon we think is so important, yet its meaningless because you have learned how fool others and yourself. Your journey was a short one, and all you learned will not help you reach any other goal. If we push to the horizon we do not only learn, but make our horizon get farther since our goals get bigger and bigger as you achieve them.

In my senior project I the students to have goals or a "horizon", but I want them to learn in while reaching their goals. I do not want them to just do it because they are being forced to do it. This will defeat the purpose of my project because its making planet earth a better place includes people making the right choice. I want to see that if you decide to take on this journey that you are willing to "push to the horizon" and be ready to fail, but to learn from those mistakes. This way you do not make the same mistakes again. This project is excited because I know even I sometimes choose to take shortcuts that eventually led me to bad endings. With this project I am hoping that not only people around me learn, but I want to learn as well. I know that on this journey a good lessons will be learn if I do they right thing and work hard to reach my "horizon".

Making the right choice

My senior project, I believe its a huge project that will take me a lot of work. I believe the hardest task to achieve is to motivate people. My classmates, my friends, my family are probably people I can motivate easily, but what about the unknown people. The people I do not know about will be hard to get them involved because they do not know me. As I was reading Drive I found a quote that really stood out to me. The quote is "They're working hard and persisting through difficulties because of their internal desire to control their lives, learn about their world, and accomplish something that endures." (Pink, 79). When I read this quote I was like "this is it". If I can create videos and provide people with information, so they can learn about "their world" I think it will be a little easier to get more people involved. The reason is that people will not necessarily be listening to me, but will be listening the truth of our world. Once they see facts they will hopefully began to do something "that endures" since people will start to give up on just buying bottled water. Hopefully they will buy a bottle which can be reused , and they can do a little extra reuse this bottle. Also getting rid of plastic plastic at the grocery store since they just help carry stuff for a few minutes and then are thrown away. People will now have to have paper bags or just baskets that can be reused over and over helping to end the demand for plastics bags. Life is way easier with plastic bags, but if we take that extra step and do a little extra with reusing bags we can make a difference.

Once people begin to make small changes to their life they will be now "working hard" to keep up with these changes.Many times they will have temptations of wanting of to go back to the easier life and will have to fight hardships , but will succeed. Once the realize that they were able to overcome the challenges, they will realize that they are control of their life. People will realize that its their choice to pick they whether they want to go with the easy life with hard outcomes, or have a little harder life but live safe and a bright future. People will then look for other ways to change and become better humans.

I think this plan will is good because it shows people that being in control of their lives is what can make a difference. Sometimes we are hypnotized by the plastic bags and easy it is to get rid of them once we don't need them anymore. It good to get your head into reality and realize that its not okay to do what everyone else is doing, but to make your own choice based on what you want for the world. Lets not do what everyone is doing, lets do what we know its right even if we know it might take a little more effort.

Changing our world

The idea that I got for my senior project was inspired by the trip I made to Alaska. I want to make people understand about the use of plastic and its damage to humanity. When I use plastic, the thing I worry about the least about is its impact on the environment. Then when I went to NOLS, I had a conversation with my group about the effects on plastic. One of our instructors began to tell us how not only were humans becoming too depended on plastic, but also she told us about the bad impact that we had on the environment. She began by telling us how plastic could not be destroy as we know "matter can not be created or destroyed". She explained how plastic was thrown in the ocean, and there it just broke down into to really small pieces. Pieces so small that animals were beginning to eat this. Plankton is one of the main specie that has been affected by this because the plastic is broken down so small that is food for plankton. Plankton then is eaten by bigger animals and plastic is passed on an on from animals to animals. This is beginning to killed enormous amount of animals from the ocean.

I thought this topic was extremely interesting to me because I know I never pay attention to plastic. This meant that I was part of the problem as well since I was educating myself. I was just using plastic and being careless about where this plastic ended up. I then began to look at some websites and found a quite interesting one http://www.iwma.com/programs-events/Impact%20of%20Plastic.html. In this website I learned a little more about plastic and also was able to see a few shocking pictures of waste and animals that are dying from ingesting plastic. As soon as I saw this I thought about the animals I saw in Alaska, and how careless use of plastic can lead to more animals being killed.

Another thing that shocked me was that there an island known as Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is located in the Pacific ocean and contains all sorts of trash mostly plastic. This page gives a little more information about this island http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/. The patch is "as big as the state of Texas" the website states.

I know this project will be extremely hard to get your hands on because it does not only take one person to make a difference, but a group. I will do my job by beginning to inform people about the issue and we will see what happens next.