Statistics
We looked inside some of the posts by caturalhistorynotebook-blog and here's what we found interesting.
Average Info
Notes Per Post
0
Likes Per Post
0
Reblog Per Post
0
Reply Per Post
0
Time Between Posts
4 minutes
Number of Posts By Type
Text
7
Photo
8
Last Seen Tumblr Blogs
Fun Fact
Tumblr was the first site to host the blog for President Barack Obama in 2011.
Text
Monday, November 27, 2017
A fact from the reading this week really shook me. The Weisman reading, World Without Us said that the bulk of whatâs in landfills is construction debris and paper products. I never thought about how the reason we have 3,000 year old papyrus scrolls is that paper doesnât break down easily, and that weâll have newspapers floating around 10,000 years in the future. It really shook me because it made me reevaluate what I consider to be biodegradable. Although paper is made from natural products, it still takes a ton of time to break down if it doesnât have the help of wildlife. If even newspapers take 10,000 years to biodegrade, and we have much worse substances in our landfills, it is mind-numbing to think about how screwed we are.
It reminds me of when I learned about how much fabric is rotting away in landfills and not being disposed of properly. It never occurred to me how many clothes are not biodegradable, since the plastic in them is not as obvious as, say, a wrapper on a candy. I definitely buy too many clothes because Iâm never satisfied with my closet contents. I need to learn how to be more content with what I have or I need to learn to shop smarter for things Iâll use and be satisfied with. Thereâs so much that I do on a daily basis that I havenât considered the environmental impacts for, like buying more clothes than I need or not composting a newspaper. I wonder how to reach more people about problems like this, but many people are not very motivated to give up a lifestyle that theyâve become accustomed to in favor of buying second-hand clothes or participating less in the consumer society.
0 notes
Text
Friday, November 24, 2017
Today is Black Friday. I keep getting advertisement pop-ups and e-mails about sales going on at stores I frequently shop at. Iâve been trying to tune them out, but itâs hard because I REALLY love a good deal. Recently, Iâve become extremely bothered by my consumerism. I work three jobs and recently Iâve decided I should treat myself to something I want because Iâve been very good about budgeting and saving the money I earn. However, when I thought about what I want, the list was kind of long, and I had to evaluate if these were things that would really improve my overall well-being and productivity, or if I wanted them just based on popularity. For example, I really wanted to upgrade my iPhone 6s to an iPhone 8+, because I liked the better camera quality and the bigger screen. While the bigger screen does make a difference in emailing and reading articles, itâs not crucial to my productivity levels, and my phone works really well as it is. Thereâs no reason to get a new one, Iâve just made it up in my head because Iâve been pressured to keep upgrading my phone. But, as weâve discussed in class, this is part of our âthrow-away societyâ that we live in.
As a result of this problem of consumerism Iâve been facing, Iâve been trying to read up on how to live more simply and as waste-free as possible. I somehow came across this blog, Going Zero Waste. This lady, Kathryn, writes tons of articles about how easy it is to make lots of little changes to your lifestyle to lessen the amount of trash you create. It amazed me how some of these things, like dental floss, never occured to me. Therefore, this holiday season, Iâm going to try replace things that I have with more eco-friendly alternatives instead of buying more things that I donât need. For example, my next investments are a natural shampoo bar from Lush (instead of a plastic bottle of chemical shampoo) and a bamboo toothbrush.
0 notes
Text
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Just a quick weather report--It has been getting much colder for winter. Itâs windy and rainy and it feels like Iâm in Oregon. The back of Manoa Valley takes long to warm up, because the valley walls block the early morning sun, keeping it shady and cool. The rain and clouds also make it cooler, as it is naturally a rainforest environment back here. Itâs getting cold quite rapidly this winter.
0 notes
Photo
Monday, November 20, 2017
I still smell like campfire smoke from the trip, even though Iâve taken two showers. Turns out itâs really hard to get out of hair/clothes.
One of the places we visited on Kauaâi was Glass Sand Beach, on the southern shore of the island, near Hanapepe. Itâs called Glass Sand Beach because the sand contains tiny glass fragments (rounded, safe) of various colors: blue, green, clear, white, etc. Additionally, if you hold a magnet (in the photo, I used my phone) down to the sand, little pieces of magnetite stick to the magnet. The magnetite comes from the lava flows all over the island, it is weathered out of the rocks and carried down to the beach by wind or rivers and currents. However, there is a much higher concentration of magnetite at this beach than you would normally find on a Hawaiian beach, so is it all magnetite?
The answer is no. The reason there are so many fragments at that beach is because, upcurrent, around the side of bay that you canât see from the beach, there is a trash dump. Peopleâs glass bottles and metal trash break and weather down into these tiny pieces that get carried by the ocean and deposited here. Some of the âmagnetiteâ is really just broken down pieces of iron from other trash. While this example isnât very harmful and actually makes the beach âprettierâ and more unique, in a way, it is a stark reminder of how things you think youâve thrown away will come back to you. The dump is out of sight, just how once the garbage collectors come, our trash is magically disappeared and we no longer have to think about it. Except we should think about it.
Most beaches are not as lucky to have aesthetically pleasing glass fragments, but rather plastic pieces are strewn all over the sand. When kids play at the beach, digging in the sand to make sand castles, they come back with âtreasures,â which are unrecognizable pieces of plastic from God-knows-where. Of course, kids donât know that these âtreasuresâ donât belong at the beach, because itâs all theyâve ever known.
0 notes
Photo
Sunday, November 19, 2017
On Sunday, we went to Waimea Canyon. The soil and rocks are so red and the valleys curve back farther than you can see. The walls of the canyon were lush and green. The canyon wasnât one big ravine, but rather many different valleys with many steep, jagged walls. At another scenic point, we got to see Waimea River, which, while it is a substantial size, it is smaller than I thought it would be. It meanders nicely alongside the canyon walls to the ocean. The prevailing theory of how Kauaâi formed is that the original shield volcano had a major landslide on the eastern side of it, while the volcano was still forming. A new lava flow started to take the place of the scarred land. The new lava flow banked up against the old shield volcano and flattened out. This means that Kauaâi is formed by two volcanoes, not one as originally thought. Waimea Canyon exists because all the water that fell on the center of the island flowed west, then stopped at the landslide scar, then diverted and ran along the scar. The canyon, by the erosive forces of the water, was carved out along the scar between the two volcanoes. As a result, to the left of Waimea River, we could clearly see on the valley walls the two types of flows: the original volcano and the second volcano.
When looking out over the canyon, itâs hard to fathom how long it must have taken to form this landscape. The water carrying rocks of all sizes, from sediments to boulders slowly broke down the massive volcano, bit by bit. What we see in front of us has taken several million years to perfect. While it looks like the earth is finished, and the landscape hasnât changed, you have to remind yourself that the crafting hasnât stopped. Itâs still eroding away. The earth is more dynamic than we think, itâs just that it happens so slowly in front of our eyes that we canât see it easily.
0 notes
Photo
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Today was the first day on Kauaâi with the Geology and Geophysics program. Weâre staying up in the mountains in Kokeâe, with a windy road all the way up to the cabins. Driving up, it was pitch black outside and the stars are bright but not bright or clear enough to see the Milky Way. In the night, we had fires going as it was easily 40ÂşF outside. The cabins were about 4,000 ft elevation, and you could see your breath in front of you. In the morning, the air was really crisp and cold and the ground was wet. It didnât rain heavily but the mountains are very wet, and parts of Kauaâi are some of the wettest places on earth. We went on the Awaâawapuhi Hike, which was extremely muddy. The only creatures we saw were a chunky, fuzzy caterpillar and a quarter-sized brown spider in the middle of a web, as well as two cardinals at the scenic point at the end of the trail. At the scenic point, there were three catamarans out on the water, a small system of rain pouring offshore, and a rainbow through the clouds dumping water. It wasnât windy but it was cold and began raining on the way back up the hike. It stopped pouring for about ten minutes, then began again, at around 11:00am.
In the afternoon, even though it had stopped raining, everything outside was wet for the rest of the day and nobody wanted to do more hiking activities. We drove to scenic points around the island or stopped at roadcuts along the highway. At one of the scenic points, we saw a waterfall pouring down the side of Waimea (which means red water in Hawaiian) Canyon. (Itâs in the very background of the third photo above). It was big but despite all the rain from earlier, it wasnât red/brown water at all, which goes to show how what seems like a ton of rain to us is a regular amount of rain for the environment.
0 notes
Photo
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Today we went on a field trip to HaâikĹŤ Valley, to Papahana Kuaola, which is an organization with land in the valley to grow kalo, teach kids about mÄlama âÄina and invasive species, and connect local kids to their heritage. We toured through the loâi and walked up the Heâeia Stream that runs through the center of the valley. Itâs a relatively small and shallow stream with invasive catfish in some of the rocks on the sides. There are big boulders along the stream which shows there can be some heavy rains that cause the stream to flood and flow vigorously. There are trees fallen over to the side blocking some of the points on the river, and where thereâs a fork in the stream, we had to turn back because both sides were blocked by too many plants. There had been some heavy rain and wind a couple of days ago which could be the reason for this. Some of the trees fallen over have fanned out fungus on them, thin layers of fungus with concentric rings of color. I didnât see any wildlife except for a centimeter-long, clear, 1-mm diameter worm on my hand. There are springs downstream near the loâi, with fresh water.
It is a relatively straight stream, it does not meander as dramatically as most. Halfway up the stream, you come to an area with short, five foot waterfalls. There is a stream gauge there that the USGS uses to continually measure the streamflow. The data can be accessed here. It is pretty cool in the valley, not too cold but definitely not warm either.
(Note: I didnât take any photos during the field trip so I found some on Google Images, of the USGS stream gauge, to show what Iâm talking about better).
0 notes
Photo
Sunday, October 8, 2017
I bought this bike in early August. Itâs a really nice bike, and it was $150 from a nice guy in Kaneâohe. Parking is always hectic at school and I figured this would be an easy way to roll up to my class buildings conveniently. Plus, itâs eco-friendly. However, I already donât drive to school and instead I take the shuttle, and carpooling/public transportation is always more eco-friendly (and economical) than driving yourself. So what Iâm doing already is already pretty eco-friendly, but I thought I could push myself to do better.
School has been in session for a month and a half, and I havenât used it once. I thought it would be a convenient, eco-friendly way to get around town. The first problem with the bike is that since I have three jobs and a full course load, I am on a tight schedule and always trying to maximize my productivity. Unfortunately, that means driving my car around is more productive than using my bike, because it gets me to my work shifts or classes much quicker. The second problem is that Iâm paranoid about it being stolen. The third problem is that I havenât ridden a bike for a very long time, and the roads here are not friendly. My mother is not happy with the idea of me riding on the city streets, and it makes her and my brother very anxious. There are no bike lanes in Manoa and the roads are kind of congested. Not to mention that I wouldnât ever dream of riding my bike downtown or on King Street, even though thereâs that large bike lane. Itâs still extremely intimidating and risky for anyone, and I respect all the bikers that do it!! Hopefully I force myself to take the bike out during the early morning when the roads arenât so busy so I can acclimate to it, because the infrastructure on this island is not very bike-friendly and it will take some bravery and adjustment.
0 notes
Photo
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Iâd like to be more knowledgeable about the types of plants in Hawaiâi. Obviously I know the hibiscus, plumeria, âohiâa, papyrus, etc. but there are others I havenât had regular exposure to. However, every time I go on hikes, Iâm with my friends who donât know the names of plants weâre visually familiar with either. When Iâm with my mom or professors out doing field work, I try to make a catalog in my head of what I should be able to identify. Hopefully Iâll write more of these down as I learn them.
First, we have clidemia. I first saw these on the hike to Waiakeakua Falls in the back of MÄnoa Valley, and then again in HaâikĹŤ Valley on the windward side of Oâahu. I was enthralled by their texture at first, but my discovery that theyâre an invasive species kind of took the joy out of their fuzzy texture. They have raised rectangular/square-ish bumps on their leaves, with fuzzy hairs. The combination of the two textures is actually quite nice.
Second, there are mountain apple trees. Iâve eaten the apples as a snack going up to Waiheâe Falls in the early summer (they start bearing fruit in late May). Theyâre not as sweet or acidic as Honeycrisps or Galas and theyâre more elongate like bell peppers. Their blossoms look similar to the spiky âohiâa lehua blossoms.
Thirdly, there are Brazilian Peppertrees. I never knew what they were when I was growing up but their small, dense, bright red berries are quite distinctive. It is an invasive plant and itâs called a peppertree because its crushed leaves smell quite bad, but kind of like pepper. I havenât seen them around town very much, mostly in peoplesâ yards.
0 notes
Photo
Saturday, September 30, 2017
In a previous entry I mentioned that itâs ridiculous I havenât gone on the hike in my own backyard. So recently, I went up to Waiakeakua Falls, in the back of the valley. It is a very wet hike, with leaves plastered to the muddy floors. It is a lush, green area, and youâre frequently parting plants to get through the hike. Itâs easy to get lost because of this, but there are bright orange trail markings to help guide you. Along the way up, you see two cars rusted out with vegetation growing so thick, you wouldnât have noticed them if you werenât paying attention. I wonder how they even got up here, because they normally wouldnât have been able to drive back here. Was there a road thatâs been covered or was it less lush before?
Further up, thereâs a small pool about ten feet long and six feet wide. Itâs from some waterfalls up above, and itâs cold fresh water. Someone told me that it used to be a bathing pool for royalty, which I havenât looked into as a verifiable, historical fact. Further up the hike, there are some shorter, 8-foot tall waterfalls that feed into this pool. If you keep going to the left, youâll eventually reach the main waterfall of extremely cold, clear water, which I have photos of above. It hadnât rained particularly hard before this hike, which goes to show how naturally wet Manoa Valley is. Thereâs lots of mist near the waterfall, further back in the valley. I didnât see any animals for the three and a half hours I was up there. However, there were some really cool plants, like clydemia (which I now know the name of!) and these fungi & mushrooms pictured above.
0 notes
Photo
Sunday, September 24, 2017
I started paddling when I was ten years old, and every other year, the state championships are held on an outer island, not Oâahu. I came to enjoy getting to paddle in a different environment and different part of the ocean. After my first regular summer âsprintâ season ended, I expected things to die down at the canoe club. Instead, I saw the aunties of my canoe club begin training for the fall âdistanceâ season. The races culminated with the Na Wahine O Ke Kai regatta, going from Molokaâi across the channel to Oâahu. I knew I wanted to be a part of that. Ever since I became old enough to train for it, Iâve either been too busy with work or havenât had a solid enough crew to do the race with. Today was the 39th Na Wahine O Ke Kai race, and some of my current teammates and past teammates raced in it. I currently have three jobs which takes up any time I have to train for this regatta, and Iâm holding out hope that next year I can lighten my load to commit to the 40th anniversary race.
Paddling in the open ocean is a great feeling, but at the same time, itâs a huge pain in the ass. In rough conditions, wind is blowing your canoe around in the chop, salt water is splashed in your face, your eyes sting badly but you canât stop paddling to rub them (and youâre soaking wet so itâs not like you have anything clean to wipe your eyes off with), and part of the time youâre âair paddling,â because your canoe is pushed above the waves and you canât stick your paddle down into the water. Honestly, I have no idea how our boat even travels from one place to another, because sometimes the wind is pushing you back so hard that it doesnât feel like youâre moving at all.
With all of that in mind, itâs still a privilege to be able to do this sport in my free time. I respect that it builds my character and I love my time in the ocean, getting to feel the currents, the rhythm of the canoe surging forward, and seeing the coastline from the opposite perspective. As unenjoyable as exercising for hours at a time in harsh conditions seems on paper, it is rewarding. As one of my old coaches put it, âIt doesnât have to be fun to be fun.â Part of it is that in the water, I donât have to worry about what problems Iâm currently dealing with, and I can leave them on the shoreline. This is part of the value of âwildâ territories/areas, is that itâs therapeutic and helps keep you grounded. I can look down into the clear cobalt blue water and see some fishes, rocks, sand, as well as the occasional turtle and dolphins. Some of the turtles donât expect our canoes to be coming so fast through the water that you can actually see them get shocked, and their fins startle into action as they try to move out of our way. Itâs those kinds of exchanges, as well as being able to understand my interactions and connections with the ocean, that keep me coming back and longing to do more.
0 notes
Text
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
A year ago, I moved to the back of MÄnoa valley with my family. While I love the rain, deep eroded cuts in the walls of the valley, and the lush vegetation, I miss being able to see the ocean from my house. Our old house was on a ridge, and from our front door I could see Molokaâi, Lanaâi, and on some days, HaleakalÄ on Maui. On especially clear days, it was possible to see the sand on the beaches of Molokaâi. Molokaâi and Lanaâi are the two islands I havenât been to (besides Kahoâolawe and Niâihau), and that seems ridiculous to me every time I can clearly see them right across the water from me. The irony that the islands closest to me are the ones I havenât made time to visit is not lost on me. Itâs the same with the hike right in my backyard. I will make time to drive all the way to LÄâie for a hike, and yet I havenât bothered to check out the one in my own backyard since Iâve moved in.
0 notes
Text
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Today has been a long day for me, but I feel energized and revitalized tonight at the end of it all. Yesterday I saw the posting on our class blog for two beach cleanups in Kailua and Kahuku, sponsored by the Kokua Foundation. I knew about their âPlastic Free Hawaiiâ initiative because Jack Johnson is a part of it, and when I went to his concert at the beginning of August (a fundraiser for the Kokua Foundation), he mentioned that his stage lights were made from recycled plastic from the North Shore. So, I texted my friend about the beach cleanup, set a time to meet, and the two of us were going to head up there bright and early. I realized when I got there that this was a true privilege to be able to visit the beaches on the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, and I felt much better about spending my time to do this. The area was filled with marshes and birds, and sections of the beach had orange tape around them to guard turtle nests against the visiting volunteers. The yellow dots on this map show the locations of satellite-tagged birds tracked by the USGS Alaska Science Center, and it is extremely clear evidence of how this area is a safe haven for the wildlife. The Kokua Foundation provided us with gloves, burlap sacks (reusable, sturdy bags), screens to sift plastic bits out of the sand with, and a clipboard with a spreadsheet to record what we find. The data from that spreadsheet would be used to make legislation on banning some of the plastic goods that are most prevalent in the debris.
With our tools, we spread out along the coastline and got to work picking up whatever we could. It quickly became overwhelming, because there was so much and it seemed to be endless. As youâre walking along picking up trash, itâs hard to thoroughly clean one area when you already see more trash right in front of you in the next area that needs to be bagged. It was lucky that plenty of people showed up, because while youâre so focused on your own work, there are other people doing the same thing, and before you know it, you look around at the coastline as a whole, and the progress is extremely visible (and tangible, for that matter, which is painfully aware as youâre hauling giant trash bags to trucks). It was easy to pick up the bulky/intact trash along the beach, but what was especially heartbreaking were the bits that had already been broken down to pebble-size. Plastic at this size is eligible to become âfish foodâ and break down further into microplastic, but itâs very difficult to sift through the sand to collect these pieces. It was frustrating to know that the pieces that are arguably the most important to pick up are also the most difficult to pick up, and suddenly, even though we were there for hours, I was sad it wasnât a longer time, because I wanted to make a bigger dent in the trash piles. I hope I can be involved in more beach cleanups, because there is much work to be done.
0 notes
Text
Friday, September 15, 2017
Tonight at around 8:40pm, there was an earthquake off of Kaneohe Bay. I didnât feel it in town, but my mom was at home at the back of MÄnoa Valley. She was upstairs in her office, and she told me later that the earthâs movement felt vertical, not horizontal. She said, âIt felt like I got shot up into the air out of my chair,â and that it lasted a few seconds. Being a geology student, she asked me what is likely to have caused it. I told her most earthquakes in Hawaiâi are the result of magmatic activity, volcanic eruptions, or subsidence. Most people donât know that the weight of the multiple shield volcanoes is so heavy that it actually bends the oceanic plate. As the volcanoes grow heavier and heavier with each eruption, the plate sinks a little bit. The bending as the plate gives way and sags causes an earthquake, which might explain the vertical movement she felt.
The last real earthquake I remember feeling was on October 15, 2006, and was a 6.7 magnitude. It was off of Kiholo Bay on the Big Island. It was early in the morning, and the horizontal shaking was so strong that it woke me up, and I thought one of my family members was shaking the bed. It wasnât strong enough to do any damage in our house, thankfully. However, the power shut down. Apparently the power grids shut down automatically when large enough earthquakes occur, so that live power lines donât fall onto roads and kill people. I remember going to the nearby Foodland, in Koko Marina, (now a Walgreens, much to the communityâs disappointment) and having a clerk lead us around the store, dark like a cave, with a flashlight. We got power back later that night.
0 notes
Text
Friday, September 8, 2017
Today I went snorkeling with a visiting friend by Makai Research Pier, near Sea Life Park on the eastern side of the island. The water was a little murky, kind of gray color, perhaps due to salt and sediment. As we snorkeled around, we saw some white and gray corals with only a few fish residents. The fish were gray as well, although it was hard to tell their markings because of the murkiness. However, at around 3pm, we saw a honu swim by, maybe ten feet away from the beach. We followed him around as he stayed close to the pier and the shore. He was a dark green, about three feet long, and very graceful. He wasnât very friendly, but seemed to warily accept us following him around. I wish I had photos to post but the water was so murky it wasnât possible. The weather outside of the water was nice and clear though--clear skies and light winds. The sun doesnât feel as strong as it was over the summer. The water was cooler than warm but not cold as it gets in the fall yet.
0 notes