Air Pollution decrease in India

 

• Exposure to polluted air is linked to a number of health effects. Some of these are: worsened asthma, hospitalizations, and even premature death related to heart and lung disease. Toxic air pollutants emitted from cars, trucks and industry can also cause cancer. Pollution in the air causes problems for aviation because it reduces visibility, while also being responsible for damaging buildings and other structures. Pollutants in the air can end up in natural water supplies that humans use for drinking, which can result in water that is toxic and unhealthy for humans to consume.

"As the national lockdown in India reduced major urban sources of air pollution, such as traffic, industry and construction, it gave the researchers an opportunity to study the contribution of local sources of air pollutants during normal meteorological conditions." I feel like what India did here having a lockdown so they can figure out how to solve this problem was very beneficial to all of the surrounding people. India has one of the worst air pollution in the world, so by doing this will only keep the people safe. 

 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211116111318.htm

Air Pollution in India (Picture taking by Mark Danielson)

This is huge because it's something that we use to constantly talk about in class and how our humans have such a big impact on the environment. "The majority of air pollution is the result of human activities. For example, increased fossil fuel combustion from motor vehicles, industrial factories and power plants all pump large quantities of air pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, ozone and nitrous oxides, into the atmosphere. Other air pollutants, such as lead-based compounds, can lead to serious health effects like cancer, or other types of reproductive effects and birth defects." Any activity which reduces water and energy consumption can lead to positive impacts on our environment, so by finding more ways to do that will only make us successful as a whole.

https://education.seattlepi.com/effect-human-activities-environment-3653.html

Some people being affected by the air pollution 

https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-cities-with-the-worst-air-pollution-in-the-world-2015-9

"Air pollution already kills 3.3 million people a year" and the fact that the number could increase even more in the years to come is just a scary feeling to me. For people to be living in this type of situation really makes no sense. I feel like the ones who are suppose to be in charge and helping our living status isn't doing all they can with the amount of resources we have and the majority of the times it really shows.

Well thank god I never experienced anything like this and hopefully I don't have to ever. What I can take from this though is finding ways to prevent this from happening. Conserve energy, remember to turn off lights, computers, and electric appliances when not in use. Also use energy efficient light bulbs and appliances. Participate in your local utility’s energy conservation programs. There are many ways to prevent air pollution, we all have to do a better job using our minds and stopping stuff like this from happening, we have to do a better job thinking about one another so we can all live the life we want to as safe as possible. 

Final Exam (A person who is notable for Environmental Change)

Greg Asner (A global ecologist)

A person who is notable for Environmental Change in the world is Greg Asner. Greg is a global ecologist alliance of ecosystem, conservation and climate sciences. He has put it in constant hours, day in and day out, developing his technology to access and analyze extensive amount of data about ecosystem, including assessing carbon emissions, coral reef resilience, and biodiversity. Greg Asner is the founder of the "Global Airborne Observatory" which was previously known as the Carnegie Airborne Observatory". "The GAO’s mission is to make scientific discoveries, support conservation, and galvanize action to protect the environment at large geographic scales." 

"Greg Asner is the director of ASU's Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. He serves on the faculty of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Earth and Space Exploration. Asner is an ecologist recognized for his exploratory and applied research on ecosystems and climate change at regional to global scales. His research spans the areas of spatial ecology and biodiversity, terrestrial carbon cycle, animal-habitat interactions, and climate change. He develops scientific approaches and technologies for investigation and conservation assessments of large ecoregions"

What motivated Greg Asner? He wanted to create better ways about the status of natural resources and also being able to develop scientific approaches and technologies for investigation and conservation assessments of large ecoregions, including carbon sequestration and emissions, animal habitat, coral reef resilience, and biological diversity. From my perspective, Greg is a person I really admire, he has showed hard work time and time continuously and it really gives me motivation to be successful in the future on whatever I put my mind to.

Global Airborne Observatory

https://eco-age.com/resources/inspiring-people-changing-the-world/

https://sgsup.asu.edu/gregory-asner 

http://asnerlab.org/projects/carnegie-airborne-observatory/

     A view showing the pre-Columbian  agricultural raised fields in seasonally flooded savannas of French Guiana

The Amazon rainforest, The Amazon jungle or Amazonia, which ever name u want to give it, it won't matter but what you do have to keep in mind that it is Earth’s largest reservoir of plant and animal diversity, and it has been subjected to especially high rates of land use change, primarily to cattle pasture. This so unique rainforest is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon Biome covering most of the Amazon Basin in South America. Brazil takes up the majority of the forest (60%) and then it is followed up with Peru (13%), Columbia (10%) and also minor parts in Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela. The Amazon produce over half of the planet's still existing rainforest, and contain the largest and most biodiverse portion of tropical rainforest in this world, with an estimated  390 billion individual tress divided into 16,000 species.

"The Amazon rainforest is a biodiversity hotspot and large terrestrial carbon sink threatened by agricultural conversion. Rainforest-to-pasture conversion stimulates the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The biotic methane cycle is driven by microorganisms; therefore, this study focused on active methane-cycling microorganisms and their functions across land-use types. We collected intact soil cores from three land use types (primary rainforest, pasture, and secondary rainforest) of two geographically distinct areas of the Brazilian Amazon (Santarém, Pará and Ariquemes, Rondônia) and performed DNA stable-isotope probing coupled with metagenomics to identify the active methanotrophs and methanogens."

One in ten of the world’s known species live in the Amazon. The rainforest is the planet’s richest and most-varied biological reservoir, containing millions of species of plants, insects, birds and other forms of life, many still unrecorded by science. "Recent findings based on the analysis of pollen, charcoal and other plant remains spanning 2,000 years suggest that we could learn how to manage the land from the Amazon’s earliest inhabitants, with that being said due to traditional belief of the indigenous people, they used fire as a way of managing land figuring out a technique known as raised-field-farming. "Raised-field farming required the building of small mounds along the savannas that form the periphery of the rainforest, where the Amazonians would then farm. These artificial mounds would naturally drain and aerate the soil while retaining moisture, essential for the Amazon’s climate, which experiences an equal measure of drought and flooding."

The Amazon is home to more than 120 indigenous groups, including remote tribes that have not yet made contact with modern civilization. Groups such as the Awajun and Maijuna have been living in the region for thousands of years, Foods such as rice, potatoes, coffee and corn are also products of the Amazon.

The relationship I see between my person and event is simple, the two both have a huge impact on the environment in many different ways across the country, making a change for people all over.

https://scienceillustrated.com.au/blog/nature/pre-columbian-farming-secrets-could-save-the-amazonian-savanna/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-020-00804-x

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549139/

Keene New Hampshire

How does the person/event affect the lives in Keene, NH? One I feel like Greg Asner did a really good job trusting his process to become the big influence he has on a lot of us. His continuously effort to figure out ways to protect ecosystems and reduce carbon emissions, developing scientific solutions to conserve the millions of different plant and animal species on our planet, will not go unnoticed in my book and I really appreciate the work he has done and is currently doing to better our environment. Secondly I feel like lots of people should take this class to learn about events such as the Modern conversion of tropical rainforest forest in the Amazon to agricultural field because it really opened my eyes and made me think of scenarios in my head, like what if we had to experience this time of event and how will people react. These past events is good for us to all know what happened before our time and make people like me think of ways on how we can continue to grow to help keep our environment clean but also safe.

An Piece by Sukanto Tanoto 

https://www.sukantotanotobiography.com/chinese-students-participate-environmental-art-contest-rge/

A piece of art that reminds me of the person I wrote about is this picture write here. I found this picture scrolling through my social media feed a couple days back and I just fell in love with the beautiful painting and just the way they illustrated it really opened my eyes, so it kind of all comes full circle that I'm able to bring this up and having my impactful person in the environment being able to have to have some type of connection to this Art piece. 

Climate Change Could Put New Locations In Danger

 

U.S. forest service fire crew at a burn in Clay County, Alabama

Climate change is something that is difficult at times because you don't really know how to feel about it, it's just something that happens and you have to deal with it. Well I could say that's how I see it is it. "For decades, scientists have worried that many species would not be able to keep up with the current rate of climatic change, now occurring faster than in all but the most catastrophic periods of change in the past. This has led many scientists to seek places where change is likely to happen more slowly than in immediately surrounding areas". When you hear about stuff like this effecting our environment really feels surreal, it's something that makes you think a lot and wonder even something that u don't see ass an huge impact can end up changing your life. 

"But many scientists also are concerned about what is perhaps a deeper problem, for both new and existing protected areas: As the planet continues to warm, many protected areas will become less and less suited to the types of organisms and ecosystems they were created to protect". This just makes me think of all the families traveling to these new environment that has different climates and them not being able to adapt really is another problem. Moving is one thing that's no joke but you also having to deal with climate change and not being able to feel safe because of all the stuff that comes with climate change is crazy to me.

                        Personal Life

I could very much relate to this because I am someone who has dealt with the heat and not being able to really fully adapt to the climate. Living in Arizona as a kid, all i knew was the short sleeves, shorts and experiencing really hot weather. I could tell you that heat is not for everyone and if you aren't built for that lifestyle it can mentally break you. Now me living in Massachusetts  for all these years it kind gives me a mix emotion of the two different type of climates. Obviously i'm fully adapted now for living here for so long but it just hurts that some people can't live their lives without going through difficult situations like this that they can't handle.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-climate-change-could-put-new-conservation-areas-in-jeopardy

"Why Climate Change Could Put New Conservation Areas in Jeopardy"

BY Zach ST. Geroge

Devastating Pacific Northwest Flood

Atmospheric River Brings Massive Flooding To Pacific Northwest

The rainfall has been described as one of the most impact flooding to hit the region in a century, the outcome of this flood was a very critical to all of the people who lived in this region. "Floodwaters across western Washington state and British Columbia swamped homes, swept away vehicles, destroyed roads and highways, and cut off railroads. At least four people were killed by mudslides and nearly 20,000 were displaced by the floods". When something like this happens i feel like you lose hope and forget all the good things that's going on in life, you rarely see stuff like this happen and when it does occur, you can't sit back and be like "wow i lost everything", life doesn't stop and it's almost like you have to quickly readjust and get back on your feet to fix the problem you have now and think of ways to survive again. 

"The storms that caused last week’s flooding were brought by a weather system known as an “atmospheric river”—a narrow band of moisture streaming through the air. Atmospheric rivers can stretch long distances across the globe, and they’re known to dump heavy rain or snow when they make landfall."

One of the Canadian officials called this tragedy "Once in a 500 year event" and that's perfectly stated, you never really think of preparing for this stuff, it just kind of appear and you have to work your way around it and think of ways on the fly on how you can defeat this challenge. 

With that being said the aftermath of all this could end up being good for you because you dealing with this already will only make you a strong minded person i feel like. If another awful flood was to happen again, you'd be prepared and have some knowledge on how you can take care of it.

                                                    My Personal life

For me personally i never had to deal with something like this in my life but by reading this and something i took from the reading is you can't take the things in life for granted, you never know what's next but for me, I was always taught to stay prepared and maintaining a good level of knowledge on what's going on around the world, so if a huge flood was to happen right now while I'm at school, I feel like i got the right group of people around me to figure out how to work around this obstacle to survive. Obviously it won't be easy but one thing I do know is I won't quit until me and my partners make it out the situation we have to go through.

                            People trying to survive during a huge flood outbreak

http://earth-chronicles.com/natural-catastrophe/flooding-in-the-united-states.html

http://earth-chronicles.com/natural-catastrophe/flooding-in-the-united-states.html

 

Application #2 Protecting Hula Painted Frog

                                                     Hula Painted Frog

In this world you see a lot of different things, it could be strange or it can be very unique, and that's what I see when I look at the Hula Painted Frog. The Hula Painted Frog has a dark belly with small white spots, a sort of rusty color above with dark-olive-grey to greyish-black on the sides. The Hula Painted frog has only been found in the vicinity of a single pond in Israel and found terrestrially in detritus among reeds. This frog is one of the most extinct species ever, it's the only member left of the genus Latonia (a subfamily of frogs in the family Alytidae). This species was believed to be extinct as a result of habitat destruction during the 1950s until the species was rediscovered in 2011, right now the current population is unknown. 

"Nature and Parks Authority warden Yoram Malka set out Tuesday for a routine patrol to monitor the birds in the Hula Nature Reserve, but he was also keeping his sharp eyes peeled for a specific type of frog". That specific type of frog is obviously The Hula Painted Frog, however what makes this interesting is they saw something special in that frog, similar to what I see in it, I feel like for as rare as this thing is these people got to make a better effort on gathering all the informations they can and to figure out more ways to find more of The Hula Painted Frog so maybe one day it can produce and we can have a special thing going on for the future. 

According to https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6715/177694004#assessment-information 

"Listed as Critically Endangered given that its extent of occurrence (EOO) is estimated to be below 5.6 km², but its area of occupancy (AOO) is estimated to be between 8-12 km², hence the EOO is set to be the same as the AOO following the Red List Guidelines. It is known from one threat-defined location; its population may be severely fragmented; there is a continuing decline in the quality of its habitat at the most important known site; and also a likely ongoing decline in the number of mature individuals due to heavy predation pressure by the waterbird population in the Hula Valley area. The largest known subpopulation consists of fewer than 250 mature individuals and this may represent the majority of the surviving population; consequently this species may be close to, or may qualify for, listing under criterion C1. The effective population size is considerably lower, and potentially below 50 individuals." 

Probably from reading what I have up top you can figure out some of the threats that have a major affect on this frogs living situation but if u can't no worries. Housing and Urban areas is one of the significant threats to the Hula Painted Frog, other threats include Annual & perennial non-timber crops, which all makes sense to me, in the Hula Valley there aren't any surrounding buildings around, it's all filled with marshland and this species need enough of the marshes so they can have an Habitat.

                                               A Picture of a Marshland

 Although the nature reserve is well-managed, it functions as a refuge for many water birds, and elevated predation pressure is thought to be a major threat to the remaining amphibian populations. The Hula Painted Frog is protected by national legislation in Israel and there are plans to undertake a monitoring effort on this species from what I'm hearing and i couldn't agree with that any more.

Because of the draining of "Lake Hula" and its marshes in the 1950s was thought to have caused the extinction of this frog and to me hearing about that made feel some type of way, Having a what if feeling, like what if habitat destruction never happened in Israel and we got to see more and more of The Hula Painted Frog. Not too many times you see something so different in this world and if u have a chance to keep on making more of that something, you try your best to do so in my opinion. In this article I was reading about the frog the lady had a reaction I'm sure we all would've had, she says "I saw something jump that didn't look familiar,"I rushed over and caught a frog, and when I turned it over I saw that it had a black belly with white spots, the identifying mark of the painted frog." 

                                                               

https://www.haaretz.com/1.5210449?_ga=2.82061205.2023127756.1639334055-1771572860.1639334053

                                                             Lake Hula

A role someone in Keene can have on something like this is being able to use the resources we have to figure out other ways on how we can fix this problem, how we can be able to put together a plan to get more information about this unique species. Clearly this solution won't be happening overnight but whatever we can do as a group to dilemma this problem moving forward we should try and do.

https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6715/177694004#threats

https://www.haaretz.com/1.5210449?_ga=2.82061205.2023127756.1639334055-1771572860.1639334053

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29615810/

http://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/hula-painted-frog/

https://theworld.org/stories/2011-11-18/hula-painted-frog-rare-species-thought-extinct-rediscovered-israel-video

 

Homework Assignment 3

 

 We all hear about pollution turning into a concerning problem and how we should all recycle to save more energy and protect the environment. But why is recycling important? The best solution which could benefit both humans and the environment is recycling. This process helps to convert waste into useful products again, saving up on energy and reducing the process of cutting down trees and other natural resources.

"Recycling! Is it BS?, by how to save a planet"

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/gmhz2db/recycling-is-it-bs

As I'm listening to the podcast, the team talks about the aluminum can and that one stands out to me right away because i'm a person that drinks soda often as well as a lot of people. "once you make an aluminum can u can pretty much melt it down and make another aluminum can from it pretty much forever". This is good for people to listen to because making what they call "Virgile aluminum" as suppose to "recycle aluminum" it's both really hard and really polluting due to the fact that u have to mind it in a form of something called box site (a kind of rock) and then you have to chemically abstract it through something known as the "bear process", which takes up a lot of energy through the whole process. "it is so energy intensive that a Recycle Aluminum can has a 95% smaller carbon footprint than making that same can from Virgile aluminum"

Recycle Aluminum                                                        Virgile Aluminum

In every state there are slightly different rules on what type of things u can recycle, but in New York, metal of all kind such as cans, aluminum foil, empty Arizona cans, metal caps/lids, household metal items, pots, tools and etc, can be put in the recycling bin. Even furniture or cabinets can go as long as they fit. The only exception is electronics because electronics often have lots of toxic, wacky things attached to it, which makes it hard for you to pull the metal outta it.

                                                       Recycling Glass

Glass like metals can be recycled forever, you just melt it down from beginning to end. There are some caveat, glass cookware like pyrex shouldn't go in the bin because it's been treated to its withstand heat, so it makes it harder to melt it down and things like windshield has a plastic layer that also can't go in the recycling bin. Bear glass bottles is an exception too, those can pretty much be recycled forever.

One of my favorite places of nature

 

Lavender Fields on Mt Shasta

This right here is the "Lavender Fields" on MT Shasta in Northern California, I found this part of nature very interesting because as u could see the fields is all lavender out and really stands out. Mount Shasta's unique shape is because it is actually a dormant volcano who's last eruption was in in 1786 - so you are probably pretty safe taking a hike here and enjoying the spectacular natural beauty of the mountains and fields of wild flowers. I found out about this interesting location last year, just randomly scrolling through the internet and right away I had to learn more  and how it came about because of exclusive it looked.

                                                                    The Patriots Field

Although the field isn't Lavender, An empty Pats field reminds me of a place where u can go and have peace. Coming here and walking down the field, kept me calm/relaxed.

                                                            Grand Canyon 

Living in Arizona for a couple of years, all i knew was the hot weather and exploring the Grand Canyon once in a while, so this picture means a lot to me. I've always been a person that liked to explore new heights and having this experience under my belt really helped because it made me come out of my shell a little bit.