Chollas lake hike + clean up 

During this hike we felt like picking up trash we see along the way would be a good way of giving back to a space that allowed us to get exercise and fresh air. We not only got to see beautiful scenery but also helped keep it beautiful. The amount of trash we picked up was around 4ft x 2ft and was mostly plastic waste. Chollas lake has a variety of animals living there and many dog owners bring their dogs as well so its better to pick up trash so they don't accidentally consume them. 

Surfrider foundation beach clean up 

Our friends spent a lot of time at the beach this summer but never really took into account the amount of trash is laying around there. Volunteering for this beach cleanup really made me spot out even  the tiniest bits of trash. Most common things we saw were cigarette buds and random napkins.

Black fish documentary 

​Black fish is a documentary about the abuse of orcas at SeaWorld. This was my first time watching the documentary but I have heard about the topic before. The documentary made me really realize how bad it is though. I stopped going to SeaWorld when I was younger because my family all agreed that it was cruel to keep animals in captivity for human entertainment. I didn't even really want to go to homecoming last year because it felt wrong going there. During the documentary there was a lot of incidents with the whales attacking trainers and almost half on them were in San Diego which made me sick. Tilikum is the whale that the documentary mostly focused on. He lived his entire life in captivity and had multiple incidents of injuring or killing trainers. After the documentary I became hyper fixated on the topic and Tilikum and one of his sons, Ikaika, is actually living in San Diego SeaWorld. While researching I also found out that SeaWorld is now on its last gen of orcas and will not be breeding orcas anymore once they pass since they can't release domesticated orcas into wildlife. Another strange thing is that Kamogawa Sea World in Japan had trainers in the water with orcas in 2016. It is said that none of the orcas there have shown aggressiveness toward the trainers but nobody knows if its because they actually are fine or if its going unreported. Anyways I think this whole thing was just cruel and too much stress on the orcas. I'm glad that it will be over in the USA and I hope that the orcas living in SeaWorld now are being treated with respect. Lastly I just wanted to say that I still cant give SeaWorld my money even if they "changed" their morals. If they didn't get backlash from this documentary it would still be happening today.

https://seaworld.com/san-diego/commitment/killer-whales/
https://www.dolphinproject.com/blog/new-aquarium-same-life-for-japans-oldest-captive-orca/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjpgM7Fa1wU
​​https://us.whales.org/our-goals/end-captivity/orca-captivity/

Stargazing in Ramona

Stargazing in Ramona might've been the one of the coolest things I've done. I hadn't seen that many stars in the sky since I was a kid and it made me sad that I  cant see that every night. We all sat in silence while looking at the stars and the longer I looked the more I saw. I noticed that when the sky first got dark little dipper was at the bottom of the mountain behind us and as the night progress it moved up to the top of us and big dipper came out. I thought It was cool to see how the earth is spinning slowly. Something I saw that I wasn't expecting was shooting stars. I thought those were rare but we saw so many which was cool.

I was predicting to see the milky way and the satellites. I was able to spot out one satellite and we saw the milky way pretty clearly. ​I was looking for Scorpio because its Scorpio season but turns out you can only see it in the summer?? I need to research that. I did see Cepheus though which was cool. Also Aries which I don't get. The stars were cool though and that has become a core memory for me.

Mt Woodson trail

This hike tried to kill me. It was extremely hot and my phone died. It would've been enjoyable on a cold day but never again on a hot day with no clouds. Before the hike I thought the rock was literally hanging there with nothing under too but I was wrong. Some animals I was on the lookout for were snakes, spiders, and scorpions. I didn't see any of those really but I did see a lot of plants. One plant I noticed was creosote bushes and I read that they have really long roots underground. Overall it was super cool and I heard they are working on preserving the area which is nice. I will come again on a cold day

Bioluminescence  waves

​Bioluminescent waves happen when algae or other small organisms in the water produce light through a chemical reaction in their body  to confuse predators. The light that we see is typically  from algae bloom of plankton and they glow when the waves break. You can't see it in the photo well but when I was in person the white area of the waves were glowing blue. It is said this happens when the sea is calm and warm. I heard about this happening a while back and always wanted to check it out. I'm glad I got to see it even though it wasn't much because I was a little late.

Cowspiracy documentary 

Notes:

• the highest safe level of emissions would be 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere (we're at 400)
• we might have climate wars in the future
• OCE is obsessive compulsive environmentalist
• raising livestock produces more greenhouse gasses than the emissions of the entire transportation sector
• methane from livestock is 86 times more destructive than carbon dioxide from vehicles 
• not a  lot of environmental groups like talking about how livestock produces so much greenhouse gasses
• humans and the animals we own make up 98% of biomass
• 91% of rainforest loss is due to raising livestock
• saying that they're antimeat can result in loss of donors and fundraising
• the poop is getting in the waters contaminating the ocean
• People try to act oblivious to the fact that livestock is the biggest contributing factor to the health of our planet
• people trying to report on this topic have been silenced and killed

Overall I think this documentary is very interesting but I don't think everyone can go vegan and we need to just regulate livestock better. Maybe some laws on how much you can have? I just don't believe that everyone not eating meat makes sense and would be difficult.