Readings like the ones we have just read are never surprising to me because I know exactly what is going on generally in regard to things like redlining and who is largely affected. It just really pisses me off when you read about the stories of individuals who have not only to face the obstacles that come with being a low income individual in this country but doing it while a minority makes it even worse. The purposeful lack of progression towards cleaner energy is killing people who already die at higher rates through no fault of their own other than they just so happened to be born into a certain community that others don't put any value on. The idea that they are then blamed for something that is a result of centuries of mistreatment and being put at a disadvantage is mind boggling. You don't think people would move to an area with cleaner air and water if they could or was even feasible? very few people choose to remain in these places if they have a choice. These articles speak to a bigger issue in my mind that we clearly just value some lives more than others.

The biggest thing about this paper that I was surprised about was the idea that it would be designed so that middle income families are handed the largest burden of payment with the Markey plan. I feel like the answer to this issue could be very easily resolved by having those who make more pay slightly more proportionally. On top of this I knew that Markey had a climate change policy being from MA but had never looked this in depth to the policy and its affects. Another thing that I was shocking to me would be the fact that region with the Markey plan didn't matter enough or fluctuate enough between the optimistic and pessimistic outcomes. Id think that something like that would definitely matter. I keep saying "one more thing" I'm surprised about but the last thing would be the feeling to state the obvious. The costs to stop climate change are current and the effect from lowering emissions is accrued. To think that people use that as a reason not to address it is dumb, it should be a reason to address it since we have already waited this long.

I was the most surprised by the findings in the article discussing air pollutions affect on cognitive ability in China. I expected there to be a visible decrease as people got older and exposed to more pollution. What really got me was the difference between math and language and men and women. The decline in language skills for men with regular expososure is what I expected for anyone with regular exposure regardless of the subject. It is weird to think that an organ in our body is so complex that only certain parts of it (based on the data) are affected negatively by air pollution. My biggest questions from this whole reading would be why does math seem to be unaffected and why are women so much less affected? I would like to see this done on a larger scale if possible and see what it results would be.

I think that Shrag's approach is an interesting one. I feel as if we hear all the time that we need to convert to renewable energy and we need to do it now and then we talk about the downsides of each technology. In that conversation or ones that I have had nuclear energy is not a part of it. People need to understand that yes the tech is flawed but by taking a multi faceted approach we can work to combat those flaws. On top of that if we start implementing these technologies people will, in greater numbers, work on improving said technologies as well. Why would anyone want to go into a space where there incredibly useful technology will continue to be shot down and ignored? the answer is simple, they wouldn't.I also never thought about how we were able to get out of a glacial period at any length. Snow and ice would reflect back the suns rays due to their high albedo and keep temperatures pretty cool. It was interesting to actually understand now how we got out of the glacial period to where we are now which is supposed to be cooling again. We just aren't.

For starters I was very surprised at the amount of unknowns associated with trying to determine the amount of fish/marine life there is and was harvested. The amount harvested on a large scale makes sense to me as large corporations need to communicate and track how much of a resource they are harvesting. It also makes sense that is harder to track on a smaller scale like with individual fisherman. I have taken fish from the sea according the local guidelines but it seems like ITQ and TURFS it can be hard to regulate. I have only been approached by environmental police once and I've been fishing hundreds of times. I can only imagine it how hard it would be to try and enforce area based fishing management in large areas especially when people just sneak in an dout of places that are already "protected" or "managed". The lack of mentioning smaller, simpler steps to take like limits and slot limits was also surprising to me as that seems like the most basic level of management that, again, like the rest of these, is hard to enforce but at least provides guidelines. I understand that it can be difficult as well to track the populations and keep it up to date as oftentimes the population number of a certain species might not be known until the year after when catch numbers and harvests are down. Our oceans and the open access that we have to it seems like the ultimate tragedy of the Commons. We are already beginning to feel its affects and will only continue to do so in the future if we do not make the necessary changes.

After reading this article i went on to google earth/maps and initially wanted to see how big Matto Grasso really is. For starters its massive and second of all i noticed when you zoom in you can see all these long brown patches almost reaching into dark green areas. When yo zoom in you see these massive cleared areas and fields that are expanding into what looks like dense tropical forest. Most of te state is covered in these brown patches of deforested area and its an astounding thing to see the seer size of it all from the sky. More closely related to the reading I was quite surprised at the section that talked about there being an increase in deforestation just after elections. Officials who are elected almost routinely seem to reduce regulation. there seems to be some sort of lack of information about the greater impact on the world but I completely understand why. From the outside looking in it isn't fair to judge people for doing what is in their best interest. Often times from te US we look down on "developing" countries for implementing many of the same practices we did just a few decades ago.

Although I found both articles to be interesting in their regard to protecting the environment and various ecosystems economically the article about Belize really stood out to me. The main reason was the outcry from the individuals who work in the tourist industry in Belize. For starters tourists who travel to Belize usually from quite some distance aren't going to be worried enough about a 20$ that they are charged when they are leaving the country. If I had to guess that charge is not on their minds when they are planning their. trip. I really doubt that it would be enough to make people not come and that is exactly what can be inferred from the survey data. It even takes it s a step further saying that the fee could be raised to around 34$ and people would still go. It seems like a gross oversight on the side of the tourism business owners especially when the money would be going towards protecting the environment that they themselves profit from. the other point that i found to be quite impoirtant and connected to class was the fact that visitors pay the fee when they leave. I think that it all comes back to what we discussed in class on Thursday about swimming with the whale sharks and how much you would pay to swim with them before you have done it vs. Afterwards. I see parallels between these two instances. People would be much more likely to pay a high fee after having experienced the beauty of Belize as opposed to before just like the whale sharks as the fee seems cheaper after having gone through and experienced non market goods like sunrises, beaches etc.

The second article I found pretty interesting and depressing at the same time. From what I read it just sounded like we have the capabilities to accomplish all of these things like much more fuel efficient cars, eliminate world hunger, and eliminating poverty. The issue is that we just haven't set out minds to it and devoted enough resources to it to do so. It seems there needs to be some kind of event that occurs that gets people all on the same page but it seems that this concept of unequal or lopsidedly distributed information will continue to plague us and hold us back from achieving the hopes for the future.