Name of Presenter/Organizer/Institution: Chesapeake Bay Program
Title of Presentation/Talk/Event: Bay 101 - Agriculture, Watershed Connections, Land Use, Green Infrastructure, Climate Change
Name of Series (if this is part of a longer series): Bay 101 (The Human Impact)
URL of Online Presentation/Lecture OR Production Company of Documentary:
Summarize the major points/concepts of the presentation, talk, performance or other event:
In the Bay 101 series, a variety of topics regarding the Chesapeake Bay are explored. In the set of videos above, the topics are related to the human-side of the Chesapeake Bay: the communities surrounding the region.
In the video titled Agriculture, it is explained how connecting and educating farmers on better fertilization techniques is an effective way to prevent pollution, and how such outreach is conducted. In Watershed Connections, we learn about how communities across the entirety of the Chesapeake Watershed are connected, from the starting streams to the bay, and how working together benefits everybody. In Land Use, the changes in urban development over the past few years are explored, and how it is that the community and various authorities try to keep a balance between the economy, the people, and nature. In Green Infrastructure, we see how intermingling nature with the urban environment reduces stormwater runoff along with its associated pollutants, and also saves local homeowners, businesses, and nonprofits from the costs they would incur if flooding were to occur. And finally, in Climate Change, the current and future impacts of anthropogenic global warming are explored, along with what we can do to minimize the negative changes that will occur.
Did you find the main points convincing? If so, why? If not, why not? Do NOT simply answer “yes” or “no” to the main question: you need to justify and explain your answers. For instance, are you aware of additional information which supports and/or contradicts the main points? If so, what were they? Did you observe any use of logical fallacies or other failures of critical thinking? If so, what were they?
I believe that the five videos above lay out a convincing argument as to why humans should work to retain and restore the Chesapeake watershed. They help build a foundation by showing us how it is that minimizing our effect on the landscape and incorporating nature into the urban landscape helps both humans and nature, along with how organized action across many different communities can create change for good and what we must do in the future to prepare for a changing world.
The videos above answer the first question that comes to mind, and the most important question anyone could have when it comes to the topic of environmental preservation: why does the natural world matter, and why can we not just replace nature with human innovation? To this, the videos lay out all the values that matter, whether they be intrinsic or related to utility. Intrinsically, the Chesapeake watershed provides an environment for human recreation; whether it be sport, hiking, or just relaxation. It holds cultural and historical significance to all those who live around it. Indeed, the format of media used - video - is crucial to getting this message across. A picture tells a thousand words, and a video is a thousand pictures. The beauty inherent in nature is shown directly to the audience, in the simplest and most direct manner possible. We are also shown how the Chesapeake watershed provides direct economic value to the entire East Coast. We see how it provides the resources for businesses and human survival; whether it be water to drink or farm, seafood for communities both near and far, methods of transportation, and recreation. The audience is shown that the benefits received from the Chesapeake Bay are not easy to categorize, but span vast amounts of topics over gargantuan scales, and provide us with hundreds of billions of dollars in free services annually.
These videos also provide a second important value: hope. To the average person, it may seem that individual actions can have little to no effect on the massive landscape that surrounds us and the complex world that we live in. To a large extent, that is true. But the videos listed above help show that while no one person can create much of a change, what we do as a community can. We are shown how effective outreach can lead to farmers utilizing their fertilizer more sparingly and efficiently, sparing the wetlands from environmental imbalances. We are shown how people from large distances upriver have an effect on those downriver and vice versa, both positively and negatively, and why it would be of benefit to work together. We are shown how helping to set land aside for certain uses can preserve it for future generations, and how communities play a role in these decisions. We are shown how incorporating nature into our neighborhoods has direct benefits, economically, socially, and environmentally. And we are shown how we as communities must prepare for a world that will continue to change as technology and climate change advance. The first step to helping create change is to believe that one can in the first place, and the Chesapeake Bay Program’s videos help show that is the case.
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