June 8th, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Alana
The Western Toad is being affected by climate change. This toad inhabits the western regions of the United States. There was an article published in Nature in 2001 that said scientists have been able to link an increased climate-induced UV-B rays to pathogen outbreaks in the western region in amphibian populations due to an increased exposure of these rays.
Western Toad
These increases of temperature have led to the ponds that the toads find essential to life, for laying eggs, have a higher rate of evaporation. This leaves the baby toad eggs very vulnerable to the hot heat, and the UV-B rays. So therefore there is a very high mortality rate among the toads. The increase in temperature and being exposed to more of the UV-B rays makes these amphibians and probably others very prone to contracting infections and diseases.
http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/global_warming/wildlife_and_global_warming/western_toad.php
June 6th, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Alana
When people think of global warming they think hot, dry, droughts, and so on, but not many people think that there will be too much water or flooding. People would not think that streams and there animals that live near and in them will be affected, but they will be affected. Majorly.
The Stream Side Salamander is just one of many species that will be affected. In some places where the salamander lives the streams are becoming flooded, the climate changing is causing flooding to become more and more common and extreme.
This affects all the wildlife living near the stream, like the animals and plants that live near or on the banks of the stream. This salamander inhabits Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia. It lives in forest ravines, so if they flood this salamander is out of luck and most likely wont survive. It’s about four to five inches long and bluish grey or a bright orange color.
Stream Side Salamander
This species is already at risk from development, logging, pollution and other meddling in its habitat. So if there is going to be increasing flooding it could put this species in even more risk then its already in from everything else that’s already going on.
http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/global_warming/wildlife_and_global_warming/streamside_salamander.php
June 4th, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Jesse
I read an article called
“The Beginning of the End of our Oil Addiction” a couple of days ago. It claimed that electric cars would soon be coming into common use, and that this would be a good thing. I have to say that I’m still skeptical on both points.
The article acknowledged the “chicken-and-egg” problem that people need to charge vehicles in the middle of trips when they run out of power, but no “electricity stations” would be built until electric cars are in common usage. You never really hear about how this problem will be solved, though– not to mention that it doesn’t seem particularly likely that your average American would buy an electric car.
Also, current electric cars cause more CO2 emissions than vehicles with gasoline engines. The electric engines are not efficient. And remember where our electricity comes from. You know, burning coal?
We should absolutely keep developing electric vehicles. I have no doubt they will improve exponentially. And they are a step in the right direction. But I’ve already talked about what we should do for our energy in the future. Once we generate clean electricity, electric cars will most likely be efficient and widely used. I eagerly await that day.
June 4th, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Jesse
I think that we can all agree that there needs to be a fundamental change in society to prevent our planet from being virtually destroyed (most of us think that, anyway…). And I don’t think it will be controversial to say that it would be better for such a “revolution” to happen sooner rather than later.
That’s why I find articles like this so encouraging. Some people might say that I’m cynical– I won’t disagree, but I do think that deep down, humans can change their ways. I’m not convinced that the “green industrial revolution” and a transition to bio-based fuels will really gain ground, but considering how the younger generation tends to support environmental issues… it seems possible. I wouldn’t say that I’m optimistic about the future, but our fate isn’t sealed yet.
However, our corporate economy needs to change. And I’ll come under a lot of fire for this, but by extension, so does our capitalist economy. Society needs to be driven by respect and kindness for one another and the planet. Until it is, one day, nothing will ever really change. It’s not impossible– very unlikely, I’ll give you that, but what’s even more unrealistic is to expect we can do everything the same way and get different results.
June 4th, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Amar
So if you have been following along for even a little bit you would know that my second post on a specific section is about how (insert section here) effects our planet. Last section I ended by saying that even though volcanoes produce a lot of carbon dioxide humans still produce more. Well that doesn’t mean we can just forget about volcanoes. Volcanoes play a vital role in the rising carbon dioxide levels. Volcanoes produce sulfuric gases which can be dangerous if inhaled. But trust me it gets worse. After an explosion, the sulfuric gases change to sulfuric aerosol which can stay in the atmosphere for more than two years. During this time the gases slowly heat up our earth.
Besides heating up our planet, volcanoes also cause major damage to the environment that surrounds them. When volcanoes explode the gases they produce gases that can instantly kill local animals. The smoke can also choke vegetation and the lava can clear out whole paths in the forest. There is some good that comes out of a volcanic explosion. When the forest has been cleared by the lava, the ground becomes rich and fertile because of the ash. Now a brand new forest can grow. Now that I’ve finished this post, I would normally go on and talk about what is being done to stop the pollution of volcanoes. Since volcanoes are natural disasters this isn’t much that can be done to prevent them. The only thing we can do as humans is try and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that we pump into the atmosphere.
June 3rd, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Alana
They do anyways for the painted turtle. So your probably wondering why? How? And does it really matter if girls are more dominant and prominent? Well yeah it does really matter, well for painted turtles anyways. The temperature is everything for them. The climate determines what sex they will be. The sex of the baby turtles is based on the temperature they develop in. If the temperature is warmer it will be a girl, if its colder it will be a boy.
Painted Turtle
Imagine that, if human babies gender was based on temperature. Then in the Arctic and up in northern states and countries there would be just boys and near the equator and southern states and countries it would be all girls.
So since the temperature determines what gender the turtles will be, a variation in temperature would create an unbalanced shift of sex of one gender over the other in turtle populations and may lead to extinctions in some areas where the turtle lives.
http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/global_warming/wildlife_and_global_warming/index.php
June 2nd, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Corey
Perfect country, I don’t think so. Not going to happen, ever. Do you want to know why???? We, as human beings, prefer to make things as easy for ourselves as possible, if that means harming others or our environment, we say go for it.
We don’t care about the squirrel in the tree we are cutting down any more then we think about the air that we pollute when we drive our cars. We don’t think about the people half way across the world that will lose their only major source of income, I mean we don’t even think about our next door neighbors long enough to hope they don’t lose their jobs.
We are all raped up in ourselves. This is a MAJOR problem. The only way we could possibly help this situation is to work together. Shocking, I know!!! We need to stand strong. We need to stick together. Now is the time to fix our mistakes to the best of our abilities. I HOPE that we do step up and take control. I fear the consequences if we don’t.
June 2nd, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Corey
In may last two posts I have attempted to describe a perfect country. In this post I will explain why that country will never be.
To start with, people will never be able to support each other because there will always be at least one person that will look out for themselves and no one else. Families will fight and move away from each other causing the members caught in between to have to travel long distances to see them. This would not allow those people to farm. It would force them to chose between family or food. This would prompt people to invent things like buses and trains and planes.
People will feel like they have too much to do and this will prompt others to invent things like factories and machines. These cause a higher death rate. Which means we’d need more room for cemeteries, so bye bye trees.
Lets face it, we can never be completely environmentally friendly. We are always going to want to move forward. At the moment, the only way to do that is to destroy the Earth in the process. Does this mean we shouldn’t even try to stop global warming????
June 1st, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Alana
The depths of the bottom of the oceans take up about 60 percent of the Earth’s surface and are important to the global carbon cycle. Long term studies of these areas shows that animal populations on the bottom of the ocean are affected in various ways by climate change.
In the past many people including marine scientists have considered the bottom of the ocean, more then 2,000 meters below the sea surface, to be stable ecosystems and relatively isolated.
However, according to Ken Smith, a marine ecologists, changes in the Earth’s climate can cause unexpectedly large changes in the deep sea ecosystems. Based on an 18 year study, Smith and his coauthors show that these ecosystem changes happen over short time scales of weeks and months and also longer periods of time, like years to decades.
The recent study covers two time-series studies, one at “Station M” About 220 kilometers off the Central California coast, and second on the Porcupine Abyssal Plain a couple hundred kilometers southwest of Ireland. Both of these sites lie between 4,000 and 5,000 meters beneath the ocean surface.
In this dark and cold environment, not a lot of food is available. The food has to descend from the sunlit surface waters, which are thousands of meters above. As it descends all that way, the organic matter could be eaten, excreted and decompose. This drastically reduces the nutritional value. Not a lot of the organic matter produced at the surface reaches the abyssal plains is estimated that only five percent reaches the bottom of the ocean.
Research by Smith and his coauthors shows that the amount of food reaching the bottom of the ocean drastically varies over time. For example, at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain, the amount of organic material sinking from the surface of the ocean can vary by almost an order of magnitude from one year to a different year.
Food supply variation has several causes. On a seasonal bases, algal blooms near the ocean surface send pulses of organic material to the deep ocean floor. Other factors like how much algae is eaten by other marine animals, and how the ocean currents moves the material, may come into play.
Algae
So if the food supply is lower because the algae can’t reproduce because of climate change, then it will affect all the animals. Its all a cause and effect chain. So we need to stop climate change before it affects all the marine life even the depths of the ocean, where people thought that ecosystem could never be harmed. Guess what. It can.
June 1st, 2010 — ProjectClimate Tagged Amar
So in all great struggles, their comes a time when people must start pointing fingers. In this fight over climate change the finger pointing has begun. And guess what? Everybody is pointing their ten digits at China. In all honesty, the other countries are in the right because China is one of the world’s leader in pollution. If you’ve been following my other posts you already know that pollution is directly tied to climate change. So what is China doing about this finger pointing? They’ve come with a plan and they are already trying to put it into action.
As a country like China becomes industrialized, it produces millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. As that carbon dioxide is produced it builds up in the atmosphere. You already know that though don’t you? You want to know what China is doing and its my duty to tell you. China is trying to create a
low carbon economy. Now let me the first one to tell you this easier said than done. To bring the amount of carbon that it has pumped into the environment, China must bring down the number of factories. This also means that the U.S. might have to pull out China. China is like the keystone in a bridge a this bridge is slowly collapsing. A more definite plan will be prepared at the World Expo this year.
