APES Current Events

The biggest source of greenhouse gasses on Earth is from the emissions that most ways of transportation release into the atmosphere. The United States has reduced the amount of carbon dioxide emissions by switching from coal power to natural gas, which releases less emissions. Although the government has made this change, the total emissions from transportation are still too high. About 60 percent of these pollutants come from the 250 million cars and pickup trucks. Freight trucks add another 23 percent to the total. The national fuel economy standards president Obama placed have kept the levels of emissions from increasing a lot more. Trump wants to pass a rollback of the required efficiency in cars, that could significantly increase the emissions in the atmosphere. New York had the highest amount of CO2 levels from vehicles in the country. Lowering emissions would require a change in technology and changes in people's behavior. I don't think most people would be willing to ch...

In Saudi Arabia at King Abdullah University of Science, they are producing freshwater with the water from the Red Sea. Through the process of desalination, you can produce freshwater from salty seawater. Desalination plants use a process called reverse osmosis which in short, removes all the impurities from the seawater by entering one side of the pipeline and leaving as freshwater from the other. This supplies the university's freshwater, around five million gallons a day, and is only a tiny amount of the freshwater produced in Saudi Arabia. In a nation of 33 million people, desalinated water makes up around half of their freshwater supply. Saudi Arabia isn't the only country to use desalination in order to get most of their water. Other countries in the Middle East and North Africa also have plans for large desalination projects to be built. Renewable water supplies in many of these countries fall far below the definition of absolute water scarcity by the United Nations. Cl...

Summary: Within this article, it brings up how scientists and officials aren't necessarily telling people they need to adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet, and with this it also touches on some key points of their research itself. Some of which including that the research being conducted on how the overwhelming consumption of meat and dairy products is contributing to climate change is showing that those in the West, specifically, are eating way more meat and dairy than they need to be, our land is not being used effectively for the production of food, and also that we're wasting too much food. All of these things are the main concerns in which the UN touches on when some of the officers say that, "Switching to a plant-based diet can help fight climate change." Ultimately, this article brings this statement from the UN, an international organization, to readers' eyes, as well as concludes with ways by which scientists have found to be the best solutions to helping th...

By the year 2050, rising sea levels will affect certain coastal cities more heavily than was thought at first. Research has been made to show that over 150 million people are currently living in cities that may be completely covered by ocean waters halfway through the century. Big centers of countries such as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam will completely vanish if the calculated future outcomes are correct. Over 20 million people in Vietnam live on land that will be covered in the next half century. Satellite research also shows that many more countries in Asia and Europe will be highly affected. Not much has been done to stop this situation and global warming seems to be the main issue. This situation is very scary and something needs to be done to stop it. The situation is worsening quickly and it seems like not there is not much we can do to stop global warming as a whole. Humanity can only slow what is already coming, so we might as well prepare ourselves for a devastating global ...

Summary: Studies about climate change are very important since they give an idea of what is happening in the world and how people can change to save this world. Studies are extremely important since there are non-believers that climate change is actually occurring. So, that is why this article focuses on the math that other researchers have done incorrectly. Because it is important when arguing your side to have facts that are accurate and concrete. The example the article gives is that a study claimed that if a trillion trees were to be planted in certain areas that would help combat climate change. But, when the math is done correctly and calculated correctly the claim of planting trees doesn't add up or won't make as much of an impact as the incorrect research states. Reaction: I believe in the same concept and idea as this article states. If we want to be able to make people believe in climate change we need to make sure our data we are presenting is accurate so our argum...

Researchers say the rising sea levels will cause much more damage then previously expected.  This is most likely because of earths population. There are around 110 million people that live below high-tide level.  The number will only continue to rise as sea levels rise, getting as high as 190 million by 2100.  Researchers were using information transmitted from the 2000 space shuttle Endeavor mission.  The problem was that houses and trees were added into the equation, which interfered with the data. The people that live in these areas will be directly affected.  This is all a big issue if the word warms by 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.  Link Reflection: I feel like this is important for people to know. These issues that could arise from even the smallest change in temperature will be detrimental.  There is already a large number of people who are at risk from the rise in sea levels, but that number can quickly increase as the temperature gets greater...

          Humans have started to become more cleaner with energy production for the example of  wind power and solar energy. With the step in the right direction their are so real big drawbacks to using cleaner energy fore example repairs and cost of the company yearly to run an renewable power plant. Some company's are so starved of of money they deemed that it is cheaper to leave broken things on the ground fore example wind farms go through turbine blades. Instead of paying company's to clean up the broken turbines to be cleaned up. But you gave to remember that their turbines are bigger than the wings of a commercial airplanes wing span. By leaving thesis turbines of the ground tho are stomping out the use of clean energy end deeming that type of energy impact to the environment.           I believe that the company that that is using renewable energy should follow if exactly to the letter and clean up any messes that they m...