The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing.
Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns.
Trash has been a very huge problem in China in the past couple of years. At some parts in the capital, garbage has been buring houses. This is causing a very big issue in public health. People of China fear that if the government dont solve this problem, there will be a health crisis in the next couple of years. The amount of garbage in China almost tripled in the last two decades to a 300 million tons a year. 85% of China’s 7 billion tons of trash is in landfils. This is also causing problems for some villages like Zhanglidong, once a very beautiful village, untill couple of years ago when it became overwhelmed by trash, and now the village can be smelled miles away. All their sourcers are rotten, insect life driven away by the smell and all the fields are unharvested, it is completely ruining the agriculture life in the village. Almost 100 tons of garbage come to this village from other citites too. It is estimated that this village has as much garbage as 20 football stadiums would have. Chinese government are trying to build special areas that can hold this much of trash and that can reduce pollution.
Every time that you order a big juicy steak at a restaurant you are harming the environment more than any other single action. The factory farming industry has made animal agriculture the number one producer of greenhouse gases in the world. The way that this can be stopped, according the the Environmental Defense, is through vegetarianism. The Environmental Defense says that if we substituted one meal of meat a week for a vegetarian meal it would save as much carbon dioxide as taking half a million cars off the road in the US. Factory farming is the number one rated greenhouse gas producer because it is one of the worlds leading carbon dioxide producers and the leading producer of methane and nitrous oxide which combined make it the number one producer of green house gases. Many celebrities have had their voices heard about how beneficial it is to become vegetarian like Sir Paul McCartney and Chrissie Hynde. The problem is clear, the answer is not. If one meal a week can take 50 million cars off the road than imagine the possibilities of everyone becoming a full time vegetarian. Becoming a vegetarian is not something that can just happen to everyone and asking everyone to do this is ridiculous, but asking for one meal a week is not. Not only would it greatly reduce the emitance of green house gases but it would also save a great number of animals that would be nothing more than slaughtered. I myself am a huge fan of meat products but after reading about this I now have realized that this is something that everyone can do to help with the global warming situation.
With winter approaching in New England, there are several precautions we can take to ensure a warm and efficient winter. With rising heating prices every year it is necessary to find more ways to keep warm during the long months of the New England winter, while keeping costs low. Space heaters are a cheaper alternative to propane or other gas heating methods. Although electric heating can be expensive, they save money on your energy bill in the long-term perspective. Space heaters use a significantly less amount of electricity than regular electric heating, and will most certainly save you money. In order to keep heat within your house, sealers and door warmers are necessary. Many people including myself use Saran Wrap to cover windows and unused doors. You can also use a small rag as a “baffle” and lay it across the bottom of the door, to keep out cold breezes, and to keep heat in. This is a great way to save money and keep warm in the winter.
Thermostats are the evil, which we face in the winter. They are so easy to change whenever we feel cold, yet the damage they do is far worse than we imagine. 68 degrees is the perfect temperature to keep your thermostat on. If 68 is not warm enough for you, then dress warmly, keep lots of blankets around. This will prevent you from wanting to change the temperature, and thus saving you money.
If all else fails, and you have simply done everything you can to keep your house warm it is possible to ask your electric company how to “winterize” your house. Most electrically companies will come in, audit your house, and supply you with necessities for winterizing your house, and keeping warm in the long months in New England.
I found this article to be quite relevant to us because we are heading into the winter season. Although many students board, perhaps they can take some of these strategies to their room. For day students, they can ask their parents how “winter proof” their house is, and save themselves a few extra bucks to gear towards school.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4530910_make-house-warmer-winter.html
Cutting down on the amount of gas emission released every year is possible. There are many alternatives in transferring our planets generation of electricity to help. The power source that I stumbled over happened to be hydroelectricity. Hydro electricity is electricity that is generated from the water pressure using a big river. Hydro electricity is when the pressure of water is multiplied by using a dam and then transformed into mechanical electricity. These mechanisms are usually put on big rivers with a reasonably large drop of elevation. The water rushes through an opening in the dam that increases the pressure of the water. The water then runs through a hydro turbine which is a propeller that is spun by the force of the water. The energy of the spinning turbine is collected through a generator and directed straight into the power lines. This tactic of energy collection is nothing new seeing how water turbines have been around since the 19th century. It was a smart invention that has evolved into a serious source of power. These Dams can not be placed on all rivers but an increased number of hydro electric dams could decrease the amount of emissions caused by other harmful sources of energy. There are some draw backs on the use of dams but the positive results of having a hydro electric dam over rule the negative factors completely.
In this world 15 million ha are lost each year because of erosion. This means that humans are destroying their own living space. One of the multiple effects of soil erosion is dead land, which with time is transformed into desert. Another effect is global warming. People each year chop more and more trees in order to build more farms plow land to grow products, and satisfy all the necessities that society needs.
But agriculture causes more than just erosion. Globally, irrigation now accounts for 69 percent of the 3,240 cubic kilometers of water withdrawn for human use, and 87 percent of all water consumed. As we can see we are wasting water, after all this years we haven’t been able to make an efficient way to water our fields. While people is trying to save water by not letting the water run when they are brushing their teeth, farmers are wasting more water than you a week.
Another and in my personal opinion the most tragic consequence of agriculture is the runoff of fertilizers, which produces eutrophication. This means that fertilizers create a bloom of algae. Algae over use CO2 resources die back, and destroy O2 balance in the H2O therefore killing off huge amount of aquatic animals. This effect causes the extincion of many species. This makes a big change in the environment. An example we could use is Lerma lake. This lake is one of the dirtiest lakes in Mexico. It is the result of a combination of trash, algae boom, and factories residuals going to the lake. Fishing is prohibited now in that lake. The smell is terrible, and it also affects people who get in the lake. This is why agriculture is a serial killer. In order to produce food that humans need; we give up water, land and aquatic lives.
I was wondering today what a big impact on the environment it makes just by turning off the water while brushing your teeth. This idea got me thinking what other little things that we (the human race) can do to help the environment. What truly simple things can we do that do not take any effort out of our day? So I decided to look up some easy ways and it was amazing to me, so I thought I would share with everybody. If you just follow a couple of these changes in your everyday life, you can make such an impact on the environment.
Every time your printer shoots out an extra piece of paper do not crumple it up and throw it away like most people do, instead put it back. Instead of using paper towels, invest in using a kitchen towel or cloth. The cases that your cottage cheese, sour cream and other food items come in; put them through the dishwasher and reuse them. Replace your old toilet, the chances are that it is wasting a major amount of water in your home. Set your refrigerator temperature to 36 and your freezer’ temperature at 0 to 5. Unplug appliances or other items in your home that you are not using everyday. Use the oven or conventional oven instead of the microwave that uses a lot more energy. Try and connect the outdoor lights in your home so that they are automatic and only come on when there is activity.
These are some ways in your home that you can reduce the toxicity levels, something that we do not think about but it eventually becomes a serious problem for the environment. Start by buying no items with mercury, look at the household cleaners in your home and change them to a backing soda base, and have your home tested for radon. Another one of the biggest problems with the human race and the environment is the amount of trash we produce. People can start by buying rechargeable batteries, use reusable containers not aluminum foil or cling warp, buy bulk items. Most importantly try not to buy products with so many layers of packing. Almost 33 percent of items thrown away are just packing materials. There are so many more of these simple ways to help out and do your part, imagine what a difference this would make if we all did this. If you’re interested go to http://www.seql.org/100ways.cfm to see more ways to help out at the office, in your backyard, and protect our air.
Does anyone think that they would actually try and follow through with any of these ideas?
The population of deer in the Westchester County area has more than doubled in the past year. The cause of the drastic increase of deer is unknown because over the past year more New Yorkers have gotten their big game hunting licenses than ever. The deer are losing their natural habitat, and this in turn is pushing them into the New York suburbs. These deer then lose their fear of humans. I feel that this loss of fear will only lead to further increase of the population because of the lack of hunting in suburban America.
http://www.theeestory.com/files/EEStor_Office.jpg
Now being from Texas, this was a very interesting choice for me to research on. In the great city of Cedar Park, Texas, a company by the name of EESTOR claims that they have developed a new electric storage capacitor which EESTOR calls the “Electrical Energy Storage Unit or EESU.” This company says that this device can hold way more electrical storage than any other capacitor of its kind and could probably be used to propel a compact car 300 miles or so.
EESTOR says that they exceed the energy storage capacity of any other capacitor sold, and that it is by a long shot! But there happened to be a detour. A man by the name of Jim Miller, a capacitor expert, visited the plant and did a wide check-up on the EESU. He stated he was very skeptical because of a small leakage usually seen at high voltages. He said that these leaks are caused by microfractures from temperature changes.
Even though EESTOR has had many talks with various clients, including GM, LightEV, Zen, and a couple others, there have not been any EESU prototypes that have been publicly tested or even acknowledged by anyone outside the company. Even if the product were to be proven ok, there are very many doubts about its potential safety and real=world “applicability.”
Recently 60 minutes did a story on the topic of coal ash. Not many people have the slightest clue to what coal ash is, but it comes down to the waste and emissions from the burning of coal. Only recently has coal ash become a big topic in the environmental studies world, because of a large spill in Kingston Tennesse. This disaster destroyed large amounts of land and displaced the whole town. After this incident scientist began to study the composition of coal ash and have discovered that it contains many chemicals like, mercury,arsenic, and lead. Now people who live in the areas of coal ash concentrations have become very concerned, and for good reasons they should be. There are close to 500 coal ash dump sites located across the United States , all of which put out toxic chemicals. When the retention wall for the coal ash site in Kingston broke, nearly 1 billion gallons of coal ash spread into the town. For a comparison, this spill was 100 times larger than the one from the exxon valdez spill.
When the 60 minutes interview was occuring they were told that coal ash was being overplayed as an issue and that it is not bad for the environment. However upon exiting the facilites each 60 minutes member was washed down and also the car was thouroughly cleaned. Seems to me that coal ash has to be pretty toxic if it required to be cleaned down like a chemical spill just occured. Pleading there case for the coal industry, representative stated that as a nation we are dependent on coal and we could not leave it. It does provide a great amount of energy for the U.S but overtime would could create new sustainable energy.
I believe that we should end the use of coal as a main energy source and move on to cleaner energy like wind power and solar power. Both of these clean energies do not produce by products like mercury, arsenic, and lead, all of which are deadly to humans and animals alike. Coal ash is an exteme health hazard and these companies are creating ponds filled with it around communtities, which is in no way healthy and safe. I do think it would take some time to move away from the use of coal but I also believe that something needs to be done quickly to prevent another incident like the one in Kingston.
