APES Current Events

The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its most widespread bleaching treatments due to warm temperatures and warming oceans are threatening the corals. The Great Barrier Reef along with its surrounding areas are facing periods of heat stress in which is causing the third major bleaching in the past five years due to climate change. This is bothersome because coral does not have time to recover and grow back since the destructive events are occurring more frequently than scientists were expecting. Coral bleaching is a response to abnormal conditions that causes corals to expel tiny algae that live in their tissues to become white leaves the corals more susceptible to diseases. The corals are an important part of the ocean ecosystem because it is home to a diverse array of marine life and the bleaching is starting to have an impact on the biodiversity of the ecosystem. Climate change is having a huge impact on ecosystems and actions need to be taken to stop these destructive events from ...

 Australia's Record Heat Means Another Blow to Great Barrier Reef Australia's record temperatures have been doing massive damage to the Great Barrier Reef. These high temperatures are "bleaching" the coral of its color. If this continues to happen the coral will not survive much longer. Global warming continues to threaten marine ecosystems around the world. This "bleaching" has gone on for many years but only about five years ago is when it started to get worse. Coral reefs grow very slowly and most of them can only survive in warm waters, but they are sensitive to hotter or colder temperatures. Especially with the warmer weather from summer the coral reefs will have more damage if the temperatures reach record heat. There is not much we can do to protect the coral reefs except minimize how we change global warming. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/world/australia/bleaching-great-barrier-reef.html

linky Coronavirus in the United States Coronavirus is a highly contagious infectious disease that we do not yet have a cure for. Symptoms include a respiratory illness, flu, cough, fever, and in most severe cases difficulty breathing. Many people believe that it only effects the old and weak, however there have been reported cases and deaths of perfectly healthy people. To stop the spread of the virus, many states are under a stay at home order from the president and local legislatures. It involves only leaving the house when absolutely necessary. In the United States there is currently more cases (164,516) than Italy, China, and Spain. The US has experienced 3,174 deaths.The US has the most reported cases in the entire world. Whether that is due to the specific countries not actually reporting cases confirmed or not, we will probably never know. In Pennsylvania, there are currently 3,419 people diagnosed and there has been 41 deaths. More specifically, in Berks County, there have ...

Hi all, Hope this finds you all safe and well.  I was watching the local PBS station& I saw a trailer for Frontline's newest program, Plastic Wars. Plastic is a huge problem we have as a society.  It is everywhere. I try to recycle, but I am never quite sure if I am getting right or is it just going to the landfill. This is airing on WHYY (channel 12 on Service Electric) or you can stream it, tomorrow March 31st at ten pm. Let me know what you think-  If you find interesting APES related stuff to watch post it on here.  I need something other than sit-coms. Keep on keepin' on :) Mrs. J

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is experiencing a mass bleaching for a third time due to the water becoming extremely warm.  This problem is very concerning considering that the reef is home to thousands of marine species, and stretches for 1,100 miles.  Some coral do survive this bleaching however, the more serious cases do not.  It takes a long time for coral reefs to grow and the Great Barrier Reef has coral that are generations old.  The Australian government is planning to reduce water pollution to lessen the impact on the reef.  Although this will not improve the coral that is being damaged by global warming.  I'm happy that there is some attention on the issue by reducing water pollution.  This action is still a positive response, but it clearly won't improve everything.  Link

In a recent study, it was discovered that Sea Turtles are attracted to plastic not just because they may look like food, but because the plastic smells like food. In the experiment turtles had kept their up three times longer for the biofouled plastics, then for the control plastics and ionized water. The turtles cared more about plastic. This is not good because now we know that Sea Turtles may be seeking out plastic for food because they like the smell. It was already known that the plastic issue was bad, but now we know that animals can be seeking out for it, which leads to their death faster.  This is really scary to know because there is so much plastic in our oceans and if we continue to treat the planet poorly, more and more animals are going to be affected.  link

In Australia another intense heat wave is killing the coral reefs. The coral reefs are one of the worlds most important aquatic ecosystems and the warm water incidents that are killing them are getting closer and closer together. In 2016 and 2017 we saw the same problem in Australia with warm waters killing the barrier reefs. Now only 2 to 3 years after the last one had finished another one has started. The reefs in Australia do not only support hundreds of thousands of fish, it is also a huge economic supporter for Australia. Between tourism and fishing a big part of Australia is supported by these reefs. After the 2017 warm waters a lot of the coral was bleached due to the waters and in poor conditon. It was found in a study that 40% of the reefs coral was in very poor health or dead from the warm waters. If this trend continues to happen, soon the whole barrier reefs could die off, which would cause a major blow for this ecosystem and Australias economy. https://www.nytimes.com/202...