Public Transportation

With most of the air pollution coming from cars on a daily basis, people should pursue carpool or better yet, public transportation. This avenue is pursued by people who are not as financially stable as other people and it is a beneficial one as all they have to do is pay a $20 fee a month in order to ride the bus which beats having to pay monthly car payments along with gas as well. Such riding of these buses or other forms of public transportation can help reduce air pollution depending on what the bus is riding on and such increased participation in riding the buses can help reduce the amount of cars on the road, therefore making air quality better than with traffic on the road. This is created for reducing traffic on the beach as there is a separate getting onto the beach lessening the traffic getting onto Fort Myers Beach as it is a hassle. This can also reduce consuming of gasoline from cars as there can be a shortage of oil with the long distance being driven from many cars nowadays giving this way more interest for people that are wary of pumping plenty of gas. If there is a way to consume less of one thing, especially something as precious as oil, this oughta be looked at as a way.

Trip to Downtown

I went downtown twice Thursday, once for colloquium and later for lunch and getting my bus pass. Downtown Fort Myers is a pretty historic place to go to as memorials of historic commerce are displayed along the streets of the city. I learned that materials that were grown in the forests nearby the city were used for important inventions such as Thomas Edison using bamboo to create light bulbs. I also learned that Fort Myers was the only Union city in the south around Civil War time which could explain its hospitality around the area being better than other Florida cities. It was a city where Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone vacationed and thusly was honored in a statue called "Uncommon Friends". It was also where Billy Bowlegs was caught and exiled to New Orleans as a result of the Army trying to catch Indians and deport them to New Orleans as a result of trying to force the Seminoles out of Florida. Fort Myers is not a big city but a historic one and there is more history to come that will occur in the city.

Drought issues

As a Floridian at the moment, we always have to encounter the thought of frequent rain every day. It can be a burden on our day as it can affect our work day to day and our normal life with the unpredictability of the weather for the day, as it can be cloud free and sunny for two hours only for it to be cloudy and rainy the next two. But we should praise the fact that at least we wouldn't have to worry about a drought unlike other areas of the United States such as Arizona and the Great Plains in the summer where a drought can affect life around the area heavily as seen in the news lately with the wildfires destroying towns as a result of drought such as the wildfires in Arizona destroying homes. Sometimes, we have to respect that even in a hot state like Florida, it can rain on occasion which can cool down the state and make it liveable along with replenish plant life, think about that for a second.

A killer of the ozone

There are many things that we do that can hurt our living situation, polluting the atmosphere, things of that sort. One certain thing that can do that is smoking. I see this all over work as well as along with to and from taking the bus. Its something that needs to be lessened but it is a hard habit to break. Refraining from this from former smokers creates withdrawal and feeling the need to come back to it. I am told this numerous times from numerous people, especially from my mom and even smokers, not to smoke. Smoke also ruins air quality around people as the nicotine creates an unpleasant smell in the air from the toxins exhaled from inhaling the nicotine. Secondhand smoke is a huge killer as advertisements have shown people suffering from secondhand smoke to have altered lives as a result from it from lack of energy to not being able to walk. This proves the dangers of smoking as it can not only affect the smoker it self but also other people within breathing distance of that person. It is a huge killer and smoking killed my grandmother as a result. Kids I'm sure you heard of it before over and over again but really though, SAY NO TO SMOKING!

My line of work and wasting food

As I've said before in a couple of my essays, I work at Doc Ford's as a busser. As a busser, I see my fair share of trash. In this class, we talk about how we as Americans waste a lot of food, not to mention, how we always go out to eat and mainly receive an enormous portion of food to eat as our meal. While we enjoy these huge proportions, other countries are starving and fight extremely hard for a grain of overcooked rice. For every plate I have cleaned out into the trash can, I see at least a giant speck of food on most of those plates. I also am guilty of this too, sometimes not finishing my food and giving it to the bussers' at the end of the meal to let them know I'm full. This needs to change as we keep wasting food daily and this also can damage the atmosphere as the landfills take in this huge glob of waste and deposit the gases from it into the ozone. This reminds me that I also need to finish whatever is on my plate whenever I receive because once you package leftovers, they soon become yesterday's news and in the trash.

Comparing 2 cities climate-wise

I went back to my hometown of Vero Beach 2 days ago from Fort Myers and there is a big climate difference in the summer precipitation-wise. Fort Myers, with its wetlands and it being located near a watershed has sporadic showers in the summer which expand into clusters of storms in the day time which could affect business in the summer with the uncertainty of the weather. Vero Beach isn't really as unexpected, at least in the time I was there as it was sunny for most of the day. Its precipitation comes from fronts that travel throughout the area. Fort Myers is more of an area that is a creator of storms. Vero Beach is a receiver of storms with the city not being located near a watershed.One spot of rain in Fort Myers can expand into a big cluster of rain and thunderstorms which raises the unpredictability of the weather only for it to go away at night because of the Gulf Breeze coming into the area making the bad weather dissipate at night which is the same for Vero Beach with its ocean breeze doing the honors. Fort Myers is a good place to live in but its weather during the day can irk people from time to time.

Inland Florida weather

During my travel back to Vero, we encountered stormy weather along the way especially in the middle of the southern part of state which is where I get through in order to get back to Vero Beach. The reason for that is that is usually in that area, it is very warm and not breezy, a place like that is usually an area that tornadoes are more likely to occur which is a hazard for a town to experience especially with there being not as much business occuring in those areas in the middle of the state. The warmth of towns in the middle of Florida, especially on the southside, are subject to bad, gloomy weather and towns like LaBelle, Okeechobee, just to name a few are towns that are difficult to live in during summer as no sea breeze in the area makes life there resembling living in the desert. Sometimes, I realize that living on a city bordering the ocean is a good thing with its sea breeze cooling the area down at night as opposed to living in the farmland of Florida which involves living miserable days and nights daily during the summer, along with its lack of business occuring in the area, except for the usual suspects such as McDonalds and Wendy's, just to name a few. Unless you live in Orlando or Lakeland, the middle of the state is hard to live in with it being a magnet of tornadoes and hot weather.