APES Current Events

           With climate change on the inevitable rise, due to carbon emissions, as well as other plentiful greenhouse gases, the threat of speeding up this world ending disaster is a serious issue, as it may limit our time in trying to reverse it's affects. Recently, forest fires have been a serious issue, and under the watchful eye of environmentalists who are worried about global warming. Computer simulations used for decades have been found to been underestimating the effects of global warming simply due to the fact of these forest fires.      The estimate has been that forests capture about 30% of all human related CO2 emissions, which may be inaccurate, due to the large amount of data that has been misrepresented. Due to these large outbreaks in forest fires, northern forests have been increasingly dense in carbon, not only perpetuating the issue through causing more fires, but also generally heating up the immediate area.    ...

 Airports are supposedly starting to use solar power to start powering their own airports. But what if the solar power can be linked with the cities that the airports are based out of? An airport in Australia is now capable of powering over 136,000 homes when their large scale rooftop solar systems are installed. If the airports could install more of these solar panels, it will generate 10 times more power than the 17,000 residential solar panels that the city has. This is a big thing for the environment in cities as well. With most of the power coming from solar panels, it will be offsetting 151.6 kilotons of green house gasses annually. It would also reduce the amount of nonrenewable fossil fuels that these large cities are using. All in all it would be a big benefit to get these solar panels installed to any major airports.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210426140855.htm 

  https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/19/world/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-first-flight-scn-trnd/index.html     T he first powered, controlled flight on another planet took place at   3:34 a.m.  It  successfully completed its flight on Mars safely and landed back on the surface.  The flight was originally scheduled for April 11, but plans shifted after a command-sequence issue was discovered when the helicopter went through a system of preflight checks with its software. The Ingenuity team received data on April 16 showing that the helicopter successfully completed its rapid spin test after they had made a tweak to the command sequence. Without the help of the Team, the helicopter fl ew for  about 40 seconds  through the thin Martian atmosphere.  "We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet," said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at JPL.  The 4-pound helicopter spun up its two 4-foot blades, rose up 10 feet ...

  Link Logan Scholl Heagrety April 27, 2021 The 2020 carbon emission decline was staggering.     In 2020 we faced a pandemic, which was a blessing and a curse. It helped the world bring carbon emission to a low, and help it heal. The carbon emissions fell 7% in the U.S from 2019 to 2020. Daily Global carbon emissions fell by 17%. These are huge drops, espicially in China which has suffered from severe pollution for a long time. The pandemic gave us a new lessons and a achieveable goal to improve climate change.

The farming method of dhap is common in Bangledesh and is about 400 years old. The people of Bangledesh have adapted their farming techniques to the constantly changing water levels. They don't use dirt to farm but rather an invasive aquatic weed. The weed allows for the crop to float, so the food grown is not washed away every time the water levels rise. The gardens rise and fall making life in Bangledesh possible.  Want To Read More??   The creativity and efficiency of the dhap gardens can inspire many different climates to find ways to farm. The part I am most excited for is that soil is not being destroyed from farming and an invasive plant is being used. Slowly, I am seeing more farms turning to environmentally friendly habits and methods. Hopefully, the creativity of the dhap farming will encourage and inspire potential farmers to be more open minded when farming. There are plenty of farming methods to study and use as long as people are willing to try them.   ...

 There is a giant wastewater pond in Piney Point, Florida caused by industrial and agricultural sites.  This pond was recently in danger of catastrophic danger.  After the threat of collapse had passed (after pumping millions of gallons out of ponds into local waterways), residents could return to their homes after being forced to evacuate.  These ponds are vital to major industries, but cause major environmental damage.  When metals and radium are left in this pond, they are left to evaporate into our atmosphere.  This is one of the causes of global warming.  These ponds are starting to run out of capacity for more wastewater.  As previously mentioned, the way they stop these ponds from overflowing is by releasing millions of gallons into nearby waterways.  This will damage those waterways and kill some organisms living in them.  This waste also ends up on the land eventually as it moves down the waterways. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/...

The documentary follows a young couple on an eco friendly farming experiment. The goal is to farm along side nature rather than farming nature. Everything works together and the more diverse the farm is the more efficent it will be. Throughout the documentary, pest and preditorial problems were constantly affecting the production of the farm, but come the seventh year, the ecosystem on the farm balanced itself out. Problems solved themselves due to biodiversity. The benefits of working with the land  proved to be worth the experiment after an extended drought. A mass amount of rain flooded many local farms, removing the topsoil. The biodiversity of the farm is eco friendly and productive.  *The Biggest Little Farm can be viewed on Hulu with subscription Farming has had to accommodate larger masses of people, causing it to expand. In the process, farming has become more destructive to the environment. Using biodiversity when farming has proven to be the better option for the lo...

     Back in 2019 a lightning strike had been spotted by one of the researchers in the artic. Up until this point this phenomenon had been unheard of as lighting in the artic is such a rare occurrence. With the use of satellite data researchers can estimate the amount of lightning strikes in the artic increasing by 100%. This discovery lead researchers to calculating the amount of lighting strikes in the area in the past. 2015 in particular was a year with record breaking amount of forest fires with lightning strike found to be causing some of these fires. With the changing climate scientists believe that if temperature continue to rise and lighting strikes continues or increase forest fires there could be big problems. Some consist of: burning ground brush allowing more trees to grow and trap more of the suns heat, fires burning away initial ground moss and beginning to defrost the permafrost of the soil in many areas of the arctic that store greenhouse gasses.  ...

   For a select few in the domesticated rabbits breed known as sautuer d'Alfort, walking quickly on their front paws has become more practical than hopping. Researchers from PLOS Genetics report that this abnormal form of movement may be the result of a defect in a gene related to limb movement (RORB). Similarly, Stephanie Koch, a neuroscientists at the University College of London, has reported that mice containing this same genetic defect, have the same tendencies. Both animals hike their back legs up into the air then waddle forward on both front paws. A study was conducted on the rabbits where hop-less sauteur a-Alfort males were bred with New Zealand white female rabbits that could hop. The genetic makeup of the offspring was then scanned to look for mutations in the babies that couldn't hop as compared to the ones that could. The mutation of the RORB gene showed as the most likely cause. This particular mutation created faulty copies of genetic code cell use to...

 Link Logan Scholl Heagrety April, 6 Florida faces 'imminent' pollution catastrophe from phosphate mine pond          Crews were dumping millions of gallons of contaminated waste into a florida bay on sunday morning. This caused immediate pollution which is really bad because we are already are polluted so much. This cause a disaster, because the pond started to flood. Officials had to evacuate citizens out of the area of flooding around the pond. The pond was used to get water for some of the people around the area, and now that its contaminated thats a huge problem.

 Nolan Miller April 5, 2021 AP Environmental Science     The National Weather Service reported in 2019 the first known lightnings within 300 miles of the North Pole. Lighting strikes in this area are almost unheard of, but reports show that the number of lighting strikes is likely to increase by 100% in the following years. The impacts of this will be great, with lighting likely to cause fires burning plants, trees, and more crucial to the artic and tundra ecosystems. In addition to this, increased heat will melt the permafrost, leading to the release of greenhouse gasses.      I think this is interesting, as I did not know lighting was uncommon near the North Pole. I do think it may be alarming that this increase in lightning could lead to certain problems, but I don't think it is anything to worry about.  Article

 Pennsylvania's targets for renewable energy are set to max out this year, unless action is taken. Democratic leader, Joanna McClinton, said her party would like to raise the standards to help increase new green energy. But, the private sector is the one who ultimately makes the choice. Advocates for renewable energy say the state needs to increase there standards. The amount of carbon emissions keeps increasing, and action needs to be taken.  Climate change is a huge topic today. Everyday, we are contributing more and more to a changing climate. PA needs to take action now and help contribute to bettering our environment for our future. Funding is necessary, but the environment is more important. Both sides need to work together in order to save Earth in the future.   https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2021/03/15/legislative-action-on-increasing-pennsylvanias-alternative-energy-goals-appears-unlikely/