Each of my three sources provides a variety of information regarding the environmental history of my hometown. However, none of them is all-encompassing resource on the subject, so they must all be used in conjunction to create a more complete and coherent story. For example, my neighbor Ray Feeley described first-hand, personal knowledge of Pleasant Hill starting from 1964, including minute details of my own house and the general area surrounding our neighborhood. Also, he was a part of the social atmosphere at the time and could therefore compare how life in the town felt nearly fifty years ago to the present day. Yet since Ray is an individual person, he could not provide quantitative types of data, such as how fast the township was growing in terms of population or how much land area …show more content…
The town proper lies below the sweeping, hilly slopes of Briones Regional Park while the nearby Mt. Diablo towers over the eastern skyline. Such picturesque scenery reveals only a part of Pleasant Hill's long environmental history, which stretches all the way back to before the Spanish colonization of Central America when only Natives American tribes resided in the area. Since that time, the natural landscape has undergone a massive amount of change caused by the seemingly inevitable consequence of human impact on the environment. Despite its best efforts to reduce resource use and limit harmful repercussions, Pleasant Hill still suffers from the same critical issue that all development imposes: no amount of legislation, recycling, efficient energy use, environmental education and awareness, or other means can counteract the effects that humans have on the planet. Buildings will be constructed, roads will be paved, resources will be consumed, and habitats will be destroyed, and there is simply no way to fully offset the burden of