EcoCMUSpring21

Alisha Benedict  The article I have picked for this weeks blog would be about the effects of deforestation has on the environment. Deforestation is the clearing, destroying, or otherwise removal of trees through deliberate, natural  or accidental means. Places where deforestation may occur the area is  populated by trees and other plant life The majority of it is currently happening in the Amazon rainforest. Deforestation threatens the animals by taking their shelter and the ability to regulate temperature. Which brings up my next topic on how deforestation results in  the lack of trees also allows a greater amount of greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere.   The trees also help control the level of water in the atmosphere by helping to   regulate the water cycle. Deforestation causes dryer  soil and the inability to grow crops. After reading the article placed below, it made me began to think about the many different species effected by d...

 Rasmus Svensson The oceans cover 70% of the earth. The ocean's produces more than 50% of the earth oxygen and also absorbs carbon dioxide 50 times more than the atmosphere. It has a direct influence on the weather. By absorbing more heat that he should be able to handle, it causes the sea to rise. In these recent years the sea has rises more and more, every year it increases more than an inch per decade. Temperature changes in the ocean cause by the climate change will cause some variations in the weather all around the world which could also lead to stronger storms. All the living creature in the ocean will also be impacted by the absorption of carbon dioxide, so that means that the ocean becomes more acidic, so it becomes more difficult to live for some species which explain all the extinct animal in the water. https://www.eartheclipse.com/environment/causes-effects-solutions-of-ocean-acidification.html

Ahram Solis Plastics we use only once like plastic cups, straws, and etc. usually end up in our oceans that we swim in and enjoy living by. A study from IUCN has shown that at  least 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and  make up 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. This issue affects the wild sea animals because they mistaken the plastics  as food and end up dying because they choking on the plastic. This also damages our health because some plastic also end up in our drinking water and when plastic breaks down it releases toxins that can kill our spree count or poison our organs. When plastic breaks down it also contribute to global warming, which is a big problem we are trying to solve. We can solve this problem by inventing other materials that can replace plastic and start recycling more, so we can make plastic less likely to get to our waters or get more use out of the plastic. For example, there’s a company ma...

Jessica Seaton  The levels of CO2 are rising and ecosystems are become less able to absorb the nutrients from the atmosphere. Plants need CO2 to grow and we need them to absorb the CO2 from our atmosphere. Without them absorbing it, our levels will continue to increase. Research was done to figure out why the levels are rising and why plants can no longer absorb as much of it. In their study, they found that CO2 Fertilization Effect has decreased from 21% to 12% per 1000 ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere. The reason for this is the lack of other factors from climate change such as water, nutrients, and sunlight. This factor lessens the chance for plants to mitigate future climate change across the planet. In order to fix this problem, we need to adjust our carbon budget by decrease burning fossil fuel and deforestation.  https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3057/land-ecosystems-are-becoming-less-efficient-at-absorbing-carbon-dioxide/

One of the alternatives to fossil fuels is the burning of biomass. The problem with this is that it produces more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels. The cutting down and burning of the forests to use in producing energy is said to be carbon neutral which means it as no increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That’s not the case because when you start cutting down large sections of natural forest for producing energy makes the problem worse as it not only increases carbon emissions but with decreasing size of the forests it can not cut remove as much of the carbon dioxide out of the air The article I got this information was: https://www.nrdc.org/resources/our-forests-arent-fuel

       When trying to find information about agriculture I looked up the effects it had on food. The National Geographic had an article titled “Agriculture”, When reading through the article I found that today's society and civilization has been formed by the bringing up of agriculture and food. In earlier years Native Americans and Settlers had to hunt, grow, and risk their lives to get food. When the beginning of farming began rice and corn were two of the main crops being farmed and then later more was developed and the earth's population became more dependent on agriculture. Scholars at many schools believe that this happened because of climate change. Once more development happened on farming crops people started to domesticate animals for certain tasks and they were also able to start herding animals to get more production out of them. The first animals that were domesticated were dogs and later cows and sheep, this happened because the dogs would help their ow...

 Conservation- Andrew Godier     Conservation is the care and protection of earths natural resources for later generations to use. Maintaining  diversity of species, ecosystems, and genes is a big focus for conservationists.  Conservation seeks to preserve nature from human activities like logging, hunting, and mining. These things destroy earth to where sometimes it can’t keep up. Human population growth has led to unsustainable rates of consumption and simply our earth is being destroyed to measures that are irreversible. The Earth is losing its biodiversity. The main factors surrounding a loss of biodiversity is habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, and pollution. By the loss of biodiversity it’s causing for some animals are close to extinction. Scientists estimate that extinction rates are roughly a thousands times higher than fossil records. Conservation practices and policies range from the removal of invasive species, to setting aside lan...