EcoCMUfall21A

India's Modi Repeals Controversial Farm Laws Emma Pettigrew Link:  indias-modi-says-will-repeal-controversial-farm-laws The Prime Minister of India has decided to repeal three controversial laws that their farmers have protested against for more than a year. Farmers will be allowed to sell produce to buyers beyond government-regulated wholesale markers where grocers will be assured of a minimum price. These laws were made to empower the small farmers, but the government has failed to convince some farmers who have opposed the new laws. The protest have continued and last month eight people were killed due to protests. They do say that this is just the beginning of many peoples victories for their voices.

 Decarbonization- Ylaria Valadez The term decarbonization means the reduction of carbon. Decarbonization also means moving away from energy systems that produce carbon, and greenhouse gas emissions, or removing carbon buildup and carbon from combustion engines. We are moving toward a more carbon neutral global economy and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced in all aspects of society. Engine decarbonization treatment should be done similar how oil changes are done through intervals. First treatments should be done at 18,000 miles, it is mainly just removing carbon from the system. https://terrapass.com/blog/decarbonization-101-what-it-is

 Deforestation and Its Effects Jessica Bailey - November 18, 2021     Deforestation is the removal of trees and clearing of forestland purposefully by mankind. Throughout the span of human existence, forests have been cleared for many reasons. It could be to make space for fields and agriculture, animal grazing, to get wood for fuel, manufacturing and/or construction. Now-a-days, the largest amount of deforestation occurs in the tropical rainforests; this was due to the road construction that go into regions that was once almost not accessible. Deforestation is not good for the environment because it destroys ecosystems, threatens the worlds biodiversity and releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the air. While this damage can be permanent, in North America (an example) is restoring their forests by conservation efforts.  https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/deforestation/  

I feel like the food and the sea are two topics that can be related, as of the number of animals we also consume that come from the waters. Fishing is an important process here. Research shows that about 44% of food included in our diet comes from the sea. These kinds of aliments have a lot of benefits when it comes to us.  Consuming fish and shellfish is the best way to provide nutritional value to our body since they are considered a magnificent source of proteins and fatty acids such as Omega 3, essential to provide multiple health benefits and reduce cardiovascular problems.

  Oil spills are one of the worse things that can happen in an ocean. It can kill hundreds of marine animals and ruin habitats.These effects it has on the environment aren't short these problems can last a long while and they are not easy to clean up either.  It takes sound science to clean up the oil, measure the impacts of pollution, and help the ocean recover.  Oil spills are more common than you might think, and they happen in many different ways. Thousands of oil spills occur in U.S. waters each year. Most of these spills are small, for example when oil spills while refueling a ship. But these spills can still cause damage, especially if they happen in sensitive environments, like beaches, mangroves, and wetlands. https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/oil-spills 

 Blog 9  Julius Caulder  https://www.ncdemography.org/2014/03/03/north-carolina-forests/     I know a lot of people have already talked about the topic of deforestation. But through this project I have learned how deforestation affects the community I was raised in. With research you can understand the environment and how it affects each person. North Carolina will also be home to me and I hope it can remain the same North Carolina that I was raised in environmentally. I learned how deforestation affects my community.  From 2001- 2020 North Carolina has lost 26% of its tree coverage. If this continues for years to come there will be no trees eventually left in North Carolina. Natural agriculture is one of the things that makes North Carolina so beautiful. Not only does it add to the beauty of my home state but also is something that helps improve air quality and water clarity. Deforestation is a bad thing in all communities but I didn’t realize how sev...

  Is Self-Driving Safe? On one of my first blogs, I talked about Tesla and the future of electric cars. One thing, as many of you know, that comes with Tesla vehicles is self-driving. Self-driving is a form of A.I. assisted driving that is rare in vehicles, but common in Teslas. While at first seems something quite interesting, it has raised many questions in the past and continues to raise even more questions.     One of the biggest questions I had when first learning about this is what is the driver going to do. Along with this, we have seen many cases where the drivers have fallen asleep while their autopilot was on. This is very dangerous especially when in a situation where self-driving is still new and constantly in development. What do you guys think about self-driving? As of right now with the current technology that we have, I do not support full self-driving. I don't think we have the technological advancements yet for driverless vehicles. I do like the idea of ...

       Coral reefs provide some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. There are many different types of Corals that have been discovered, some coral lives in warm water, shallow tropical seas, and others live in cold, deep down in the ocean. Coral has been around for hundreds and thousands of years five hundred years to be more precise.  Coral is a living organism in the ocean, about twenty-five percent of fish in the ocean, depend on coral reefs for food and protection from preditors. They can be found in salt and fresh water, Recent studies show that coral can live up to five thousand years. Coral reefs have many benefits that are good for our environment because they protect the coastlines from storms and erosion. Coral reefs also help because they provide us with ways to find medicines. A lot of people depend on reefs for food and income. Recently coral reefs are beginning to bleach and die. The reason that the Coral reefs are dying is because the tem...

  Bree Taylor Bonobos are very closely related to humans. They share 98.7% of their DNA with humans. They happened to be just endangered for now thankfully. Their groups tend to be led by the females and are more peaceful. There is only about 10,000 to 50,000 of them left. They mainly are found in the Congo Basin in forest habitats. Civil Warfare in or near the areas they live have been greatly affecting their population. They are also losing their habitats and are currently being poached.  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bonobo

  https://civileats.com/2019/08/20/study-finds-farm-level-food-waste-is-much-worse-than-we-thought/ Brennan Logan 11/17/21 Blog 9       We all understand food waste, but have you ever thought about how much food is wasted before it’s even distributed from farms? Around a 3rd of edible crops go unharvested and wasted yearly. Not to mention the scraps from slaughterhouses, cattle farms, etc. Sure wasting food seems normal, but more than 40% of America are “food insecure” and some of that food could go to where it’s needed, even if it isn’t good enough to put in stores. Not only that, but food waste contributes to 8% of total world emissions, which is a huge problem.         I believe this can be solved or the problem could at least be reduced. If food isn’t good enough to be in stores, it can be distributed to people in need and they can work around the bad parts of the food. People are out there starving and we’re wasting food, which also cont...

Peyton Driskill https://www.nrdc.org/stories/fossil-fuels-dirty-facts For over a century burning fossil fuels has made the energy we needed to propel cars, power our businesses, and keep light on in our homes. Even today fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gas provide 80% of our energy needs. Using fossil fuels as much as we do is taking a toll on humanity and the environment and we are paying the price. That’s even beyond all the negative impacts of plastics and chemicals. 

 Nolan Cobbs jr  Professor Boon College comp Nov 16, 2021 Radioactive Water Link:  https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/170-million-americans-are-drinking-radioactive-water-this-interactive-map-shows-you-are-too/     As we know, many things can be radio active, including our bodies of water. Where i come from, we have a lake that is radioactive from it being a trash site for many years. Many places over the U.S. has bodies of waters that are radioactive as well but even worse some people may be drinking radioactive water as well. For a body of water to be radioactive many hinges like laboratories, energy plants, man made sources, and etc can make waters radioactive active. Something called radium is a toxin that is found in radioactive waters but also can be found n drinking water too. From the source, it states that,”  The study, conducted between 2010 and 2015, found that around 122 million people are drinking water that contains level...

 10 of the Most Endangered Animals Tyler Perkins Some of the top 10 animals in the world are common animals we wouldn't think are endangered. This list will be 10 endangered animals and you might be surprised what animals are on this list. 1-Vaquita 2-Amur Leopard 3-Kakapo 4-Gharial 5-Tooth-billed Pigeon 6-North Atlantic Right Whale 7-Saola 8-Sea Turtles 9-Rhinos 10-Gorillas https://onekindplanet.org/top-10/top-10-worlds-most-endangered-animals/

Carson Crager Professor Boon College Comp. 1 11/15/21 Heavy rains force evacuations, trap motorists in Canada By: Phys.org Article link Summery and Response:      This article talks about how Canada's Pacific coast recently got dumped on by a lot of rain. The rain caused lots of flooding and mudslides. The flooding and mudslide forced a towns evacuation and even trapped a few civilians. Around 80-100 cars with people inside, were trapped for a few hours and eventually rescued. "Heavy rains and subsequent mudslides/flooding have impacted various highways in the BC interior," British Columbia's transportation ministry said on Twitter. Heavy rain is continuing to fall and will do throughout the night. At the end of the article they say that this extreme weather has come after record breaking temperatures in British Colombia that had killed over 500 people due to wild fires that destroyed a town. These have impacted a lot of land and people's lives. Overall this was a...

  Coral bleaching is a huge problem all around the world. Coral bleaching is when these bright and vibrant corals turn completely white.  Coral are bright and colorful because of microscopic algae called zooxanthellae. The zooxanthellae live within the coral in a mutually beneficial relationship, each helping the other survive. One of the leading causes of coral bleaching is global warming. As little as 2 degrees can cause coral to drive out  algae. Other reasons are extremely low tides or pollution or too much sunlight.  Coral bleaching matters because once these corals die, reefs rarely come back. With few corals surviving, they struggle to reproduce, and entire reef ecosystems, on which people and wildlife depend, deteriorate.  Small, daily actions can help reduce coral reef loss, like reducing stormwater and fertilizer runoff or avoiding herbicides and pesticides. But if we really want to solve the coral bleaching problem, we must address climate c...

New Time-Of-Use Plan   In Southern California, a new plan has been made that would charge people in that area more for their electricity during certain times. This is said to be done so that citizens will have the incentive to use their electricity at earlier times when there is more energy being distributed, or later when the demand for energy is much less. Certain places will be put on certain times, so someone in one city will be charged more for electricity from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. I'm not too sure if I am personally on board with this idea. I have family in California, and they are already dealing with a system like this for their water. They have certain times during the day where they can't use water at all. This may be a quick temporary fix to the ever-evolving energy crisis, but I don't see this fixing the problem forever. Do you guys agree with this plan? Would you be able to handle two hours out of your day without power?

  Water Scarcity Water covers 70% of our world and its easy to think that we will never run out of water. However freshwater the water we drink only covers 3% of the world and 2/3rds of it is tucked away under glaciers unavailable to us. over 1.1 billion people lack water around the world and a total of 2.7 billion find a water scarce at least 1 month of the year. Many of our water sources have died and or dying because we cause a lot of stress on the water and pollute it a lot. The way we are going now by 2025 over 2/3rds of the worlds population may face water shortages, and ecosystems will suffer as well. https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity 

 What is nuclear energy? Ylaria Valadez November 3, 2021 Nuclear energy is a huge energy source that has zero emissions, which provides electricity. Nuclear energy seems like a complicated process, it comes from splitting atoms in a reactor to heat water into steam, that turns a turbine and generates electricity. There are 93 reactors in 28 states that generate 20% of the nations electricity emission free. The reactors use uranium not fossil fuels. These nuclear plants are always on, well operated, they are built to withstand extreme weather. Not only does nuclear energy provide electricity but it powers space exploration, sterilizes medical equipment, provides potable water through desalination and supplies radioisotopes for cancer treatment and much more. https://www.nei.org/fundamentals/what-is-nuclear-energy

 Living in America we contribute to a lot of air pollutants, especially in large commercial projects. In 2020 we contributed to about 68 million tons of pollution that was released into the atmosphere in the United States. While doing some research on air pollution I came across a company that is producing industry fans that process harmful air pollutants to minimize the amount and control the pollutants released into the atmosphere. The company I came across, robinsonfans.com makes industry fans for all types of work such as mining, cement, high temp recirculation, paper/wood and chemical & petrochemical. This company has been making an effort in preventing high level of air pollution since 1862, if we could start to implement these fans into large commercial projects this could be a huge stride into saving the atmosphere. https://robinsonfans.com/company/history/ https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/air-quality-national-summary

Maine Voters Add "Right to Food" to State Constitution Emma Pettigrew  Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/03/maine-right-to-food/  Voters in Maine approved an amendment on Tuesday that adds the "right to food" to their state constitution. They are the first in the United States to do this. This amendment claims that all people have a "natural, inherit, and unalienable" right to grow, raise, produce, and consume food of their own choosing. They must do this under their legal parameters though. Maine has been at the forefront of the food sovereignty movement, as they remain a state with a bustling agriculture industry, and they hope that in the long run people can see the huge picture with this amendment. They believe that this is a critical movement for those wanting to end hunger one and for all. States such as Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and North Dakota have pressed similar food sovereignty legislations, and advocates of the amendment ...

  Bree Taylor The Dugong's also more commonly known as the "sea cows," are cousins of the manatees. They are vulnerable to becoming endangered. They are commonly found in shallow costal waters off the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. They are over 800 pounds and around ten feet long. This animal has become a popular and important tourist attraction. Tourists can swim with them and observe them from boats. They are threatened by the sea grass habitat loss. This happens because water pollution from costal development and industrial activities. They are also a victim of accidental entanglement in fishing nets. https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/dugong

  Keep Endangered Species Safe Tyler Perkins Keeping endangered species safe is very important to some people and the world in general. We have to keep the endangered animals safe because some of them keep us safe. Some animals have to kill other animals so they don't hurt humans. We also have to protect the animals because they mean no harm and they are beautiful animals. We need to cherish them and take care of them. That's why they made the endangered species act. It protects the animals from harm, harassment, shooting them, and more. We need to treat some animals the way we want to be treat. https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Understanding-Conservation/Endangered-Species#:~:text=Why%20We%20Protect%20Them,and%20there's%20no%20going%20back.

 Peyton Driskill https://www.sabic.com/en/collaboration/trend/energy-efficiency?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5oiMBhDtARIsAJi0qk1jnsZMC7n4UpeZRH96NRiHrataMhczHcLoE9lhoN60C6QTw2-HZzsaAnuFEALw_wcB With the automotive collaboration are accelerating the performance and making of electric and hydride vehicles. SABIC resins reduces the weight from things such as dashboards to tailgates by as high as 40% which makes it to where vehicles can go farther. The technology world is trying to convince everyone to convert to electric vehicles. They depend on batteries that charge faster, run longer, and are also more efficient. 

  https://extension.usu.edu/agwastemanagement/management-matters/grazing/overgrazing Brennan Logan 11/3/21 Blog 8    Overgrazing is “excessive grazing which causes damage to grassland”. This can be detrimental to the whole environment as it occurs. Negative effects include: preventing plant regrowth, loss of nutrients, increase of invasive weed growth, etc. If plants can’t grow back, it’s harder to keep places green, as well as the loss of nutrients can be negative for growth if plants as well. Weed growth increases the use of pesticides, which is very toxic for animals and the environment.     A way this can be solved is by getting invisible fences with shock collars. With these collars, it allows you to create a “fence” to prevent animals from overgrazing certain areas for too long, which promotes the regrowth of these plants. These “fences” are created with satellites. You can relocate the fences as needed. While it isn’t realistic for every farmer to us...

 Julius Caulder  Blog 8  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-chemtrails-made-of/     Let me start by saying I am not a believer in the conspiracy theories about chemtrails. More a believer in the way gas admission works. I don’t think the government is using chemtrails to control the weather, control human population by sterilization, or mind controlling citizens. I completely think this is very far-fetched and extreme. What I do believe is that fuel is known to have chemical trails. I'm sure that just like cars, jets and planes must do the same. It has also been proven that the fuel itself is toxic and harmful to not only humans but animals too. I think that fuel use in general is not environmentally safe or friendly. This might just be a crazy theory but it could have some accuracy in by bringing thought to the possibility of jet and planes being harmful to our environment. It seems ridiculous to think that the white strips that appear aft...

Carson Crager Professor Boon College Comp. 1 11/2/21 Climate change: Extreme weather events are 'the new norm' By: BBC News Article Link Summery and Response:           The article starts off with a very bold statement, "Extreme weather events - including powerful heat waves and devastating floods - are now the new normal," says the World Meteorological Organisation. After reading this it made me feel pretty worried for what the future holds for us in terms of storms and other disasters. It basically told me to get used to everything that has been happening in the world. The article give some statistics about the average temperature rising, sea levels rising, record rainfalls, record droughts, and how all of this is just happening right in front of our eyes. All of this is going to destroy a lot of land and a lot of peoples things. "If we continue on our current trajectory, that rise could exceed 2m by 2100 displacing some 630 million people worldwide. The ...

  As I've been doing research, trying to figure out what are the issues nowadays with agriculture, and how these issues would affect our future. The number one issue going on with agriculture today is the ongoing trade war that is happening between the US and China. This leads to resource depletion, and costs of industrial agriculture being higher. Another big issue that agriculture is facing nowadays and can affect our future is land management. The land is degrading due to climate change and global warming. This makes it harder for us to obtain some ailments or be able to proceed with agriculture at all. Contamination is another factor that's also involved here.

  Vertical Farming is something that not everyone is familiar with.  Vertical Farming is pretty much what it sounds like the practice of growing crops vertically elevated in the air. Vertical Farming has been around since the early 1900s but was not popular because everyone thought the idea wouln's work.Not many people were a wear of how productive Vertical Farming was till professor Despommier and his students came up with an idea of a skyscraper farm that could feed up to fifty thousand people. An acer of  farm land could feed up to 100 people vs two acres to built a skyscraper that could feed up to 50000 When pappers and news heard about the idea suddenly Verical Farming was a thing that people knew about. In order to do feed fifty thousand people without vertical farming would take up to  When Farmers start to Vertically Farm they often build or find a structure to have the plants vertical some of the things that farmers use are buildings, shipping container...