Month: March 2015

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California Missed Pollution Deadline

The Los Angeles area is unlikely to make a deadline set for themselves in 2015 to clean coot from their air. The chief smog-fighting agency recently approved a plan to change their deadline for cleaning the soot out of the air, blaming the drought in California for the lack of decline in fine particle pollution. The agency will likely ask for an extension up to the year of 2017. With this extension being approved by a 10-1 vote, many air quality experts are up in arms saying that Southern California needs to do more and by missing this deadline it shows that not enough is being done, despite their being a drought.

 

I am disappointed that California is extending their deadlines and making excuses for this extremely important issue. The issue of smog is extremely relevant to southern Californian’s and it’s visibility, although decreasing is absolutely disgusting. While I understand the drought likely played a role in the original deadline not being met, I would like to see more statistics on their progress rather than just extending their deadline. I hope by the end of next year the new deadline will be met so they can continue to decrease the smog levels in Southern California.

 

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Drought Worsening Smog

The extreme drought in California has dramatically slowed down efforts to remove smog from Southern California air. The prolonged dry spells has translated to a layer of heat trapping cooler air lower to the ground. This action causes pollution’s main concentration to occur closer to the ground. The air pollution in southern California is an extreme burden on citizens and also puts them at health risk. Hot conditions have also led to more forest fires, which increase air pollution with the levels of smoke being released into the atmosphere.

 

This article speaks to how the extreme drought in California has affected the air pollution. With California being in one of its worst droughts ever, the temperatures have increased making the smog’s level of concentration to drop significantly and further impacting humans. This is alarming and particularly scary as there is no clear solution. With this being said relief could come as soon as winter with storms and rain stirring up the air.

 

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Overseas Airs affecting California’s Pollution

Increasing emissions from China and other fast-growing Asian countries are rapidly traveling across the Pacific Ocean and increasing levels of ozone in the California as well as other Western States according to a recently completed study. In a weeks’ time, winds carry ozone formed by emissions Asia to the U.S. where it adds to pollution and smog. Carmel Valley, which scientists say should have extremely clean air have found pollution on their boarders. Three other cities affected by these access emissions are Bakersfield, Fresno and Los Angeles.

 

This study did not shock me as I have previously looked into how terrible China’s contributions to air pollution across the globe is, however China should be punished for their air affecting cities across the world from them. It is not fair to Californian’s that we have to breathe the polluted air being created half way across the globe. While China is attempting to decease their emissions substantially, I think they should have to pay money for their lack of control on the important issue of air quality.

 

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Southern Californian Cancer Rate

Since the year 2005, Southern Californian’s cancer rate has dropped by a titanic rate of 65 percent. While this number seems like a tremendous success and step in the right direction, regional air quality regulators still say this number is way too high. The recent 2015 analysis found that the constant exposure to toxic air contaminants in Southern California could result in 418 cancer cases for every 1 million people’s lifetimes. This number is down from the 1,194 cases per million found in the same study during 2005. Health experts conclude that 10 cases per every million qualifies healthy air.

 

The statistics presented in this article where very astonishing and disgusting in my opinion. The fact that over 1,000 people out of every million would obtain cancer from simply living in Southern California is horrendous and changes must continue to be made at a rapid pace. While health experts conclude that 10 cases per every million qualifies healthy air, that number still seems too high to me.   However, if Southern California could make it to that number in the relatively near future it would be a tremendous success.

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Irish Water to be Cheapest in Europe

Ireland has officially become the European country with the cheapest water with Denmark having the most expensive water. This is because most European countries charge on basis of amount of water used instead of flat-rate charges. The new maximum for a single adult home will be 160 euros and 260 euros for a multi-adult household.

I think that this is extremely foolish and encourages wasteful water usage. Water is an extremely precious resource and putting a maximum price on it, no matter how much they use, is dangerous. This could lead to wasteful habits and lack of care for the environment. Although cheap water is good, I think that households should be billed based on how much water they use. penalized for over-using, and rewarded for conserving.

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Strong Winds Fuel Brazil’s Drought While Amazon River is Flooding

San Paulo, Brazil is suffering its worst drought in a century. However, not too far away, the Amazon River is flooding. Why the water discrepancy? It is due to a series of strange winds that have triggered a high pressure system that is allowing for extremely little precipitation in some areas, and very heavy rainfall in others.

Once again, one of the biggest problems with water is lack of distribution. Both too much water and too little water can be harmful to a community. I think that the cities having problems with drought should find a way to capture rainfall to use in the warmer and drier seasons. In addition, there should be limitations on how close contractors can build next to the Amazon River for public safety due to large floods.

 

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Bottled Water in China

China has 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of the world’s freshwater. In the past five years, China’s consumption of bottled water has almost doubled from 19 billion to 37 billion liters. Water has become more and more polluted as the population of China continues to grow. All of this together has water in China becoming more and more expensive.

I think that the main problem with water is unequal distribution. We should find a way to distribute water based on population so that all countries have access to clean drinking water. Providing clean drinking water to developing countries would eliminate the need to travel days for clean water, allowing for more education and growth.

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Finland flys

MTT Agrifood Research Finland. (2014, September 1). Greenhouse whitefly: Will the unwanted greenhouse guest make it in the wild?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 2, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140901102221.htm

Greenhouse whitefly is a widespread invasive pest, which has occurred in Finland since the year 1920. The greenhouse whitefly is not native to Finland but survives as it finds suitable overwintering habitats in greenhouses. Insecticides have not helped as much as they would want. They fly is a generalist herbivore which means it can almost eat anything. If biological pest control was used, whitefly populations were more susceptible to insecticides, whereas whiteflies from greenhouses treated with insecticides over the years showed initial signs of resistance development.

This is important because it shows that our unnatural desire to grow crops where and when they don’t belong. Our unnatural desire creates problems that we try to fix with pesticides which decrease their effectiveness. It also shows that if we use what nature gives us it can be a lot more beneficial in the long run. Creating generalist creatures that are resistant to pesticides sounds like a nightmare for the agriculture industry

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Chemicals

Entomological Society of America. “Insect-resistant maize could increase yields and decrease pesticide use in Mexico.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 November 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141117084715.htm>.

Mexican farmers use around 3,000 tons of active ingredient each year just to manage the fall armyworm and even more chemicals are used to control other pests. Mexican farmers don’t use methods used by large farms because many of them have way smaller farms than would be efficient and the farming conditions vary greatly. The use of bt corn could be a very good way of controlling the pest but cannot be implemented instantly. Bt corn is a genetically modified organism that is modified to protect against pest.

This is important because it shows that many of the pest management strategies are not always created with small farms in mind. It also shows that one way of controlling a pest does not work in all conditions. It shows that pest themselves have a great environmental impact because we kill of pest with large quantities of chemicals disregarding anything but our survival.

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Rice Water Weevil

Entomological Society of America. (2015, February 9). Rice growers: New resource against the rice water weevil. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 2, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209171315.htm

“A native of the southeastern U.S., the rice water weevil invaded Japan in 1976, Korea in 1980, China in 1988, and Italy in 2004.” An open-access article provides management strategies that rice growers can implement. The rice water weevil can spread very quickly because of its ability to reproduce asexually. The strategies provided by the article include draining fields, delayed planting, winter flooding, and nutrient augmentation. The article also recommends using crops that have been genetically modified as a pest management strategy.

This is related to environmental science because it shows that not all native species are appreciated by us humans. Native species can be just as harmful to us as invasive species. The difference is that a native species does not have a very dramatic effect in an ecosystem. The discussed strategies such as GMOs are looked down upon by society but are very crucial to sustaining an over populated world that carries humans that take more than what they need.