Blog Post #1 (final)

The topic I chose for my independent study was global warming. I chose this topic for many different reasons. I first was interested in global warming because it is an issue that directly affects the world and our lives. I also had heard that global warming is just a hoax, which somewhat confused me at first. How could global warming be a hoax, with all of this evidence that indicates global warming, how could some think it’s a hoax? This got me interested in the topic, and if global warming was actually happening I wanted to learn about ways that I could help fight against global warming. Global warming is such and immense issue and topic I knew it would be enjoyable to learn about, and would help educate, and allow me to be more aware about this problem.
Global warming is an enormous issue, and there are many different sub-topics to global warming. First you must understand what global warming is; global warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. Though there are many different factors that contribute to global warming, the biggest factors are human beings. People all around the world have contributed to global warming in many different ways over the decades. The reason that humans contribute so much to global warming is because the emission of CO2 that human beings give off. Human beings themselves don’t give off the CO2, but the items we use in everyday life, for example the car, give off huge emissions that aid global warming. CO2, carbon dioxide, and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket and trap the sun’s heat in the Earth. Coal-burning power plants are among the largest U.S. sources of carbon dioxide pollution. These power plants produce 2.5 billion tons each year. Automobiles are the second largest source, and these produce 1.5 billion tons of CO2 annually. These numbers are just for the United States, which provides evidence that the U.S. is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. America makes up 4% of the world’s pollution, and produces 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution. The United States emits more carbon dioxide then China, India, and Japan combined. The build up of these air pollutants creates, as I already mentioned, a thickening blanket. This thickening blanket is also known as the greenhouse gas effect. CO2 and other gases are known as greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are chemical compounds that are found on Earth. The sunlight from the sun is re-directed towards space, and captured by the greenhouse gases. These gases are essential to living because they allow the Earth to keep warm. If all of the greenhouse gases were gone the Earth would be very cold, and we would not be able to live. The Earth emits its own greenhouse gases that are just enough to keep the Earth at the right temperature. The emission of greenhouse gases that we emit, harm the atmosphere because if too much greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere, more heat is trapped, and the Earth heats up. Some chemicals are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and CFC's. Carbon dioxide is one of the most abundant gases that are emitted by humans.
Due to these greenhouse gases, the Earth’s temperature has been on the rise. Over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased the fastest ever seen. As the Earth is heating disasters like hurricanes, droughts, and floods are becoming more frequent. If all of this evidence is shown, why do some think that global warming is just a hoax? There are many people that believe that global warming is just a hoax, and that it is not a serious issue. The people that don't believe in global warming all have their different opinions on why they don't believe in this major issue. Some say that there is no real evidence supporting global warming, that one record year is not good enough evidence, that glaciers have always grown and receded, that one hundred years of global surface temperatures is not enough time, and that basing global warming on the temperature record is not reliable. There is also some evidence that could show that global warming is just a hoax, but with that evidence you need to look deeper, and see what actually is happening. One isolated piece of evidence might show that global warming is just a hoax, but it is only isolated. The whole Earth needs to be looked at and evaluated to show that global warming is just a hoax, not one isolated instance. Some evidence shows that Antarctic ice is growing, some evidence shows that global warming stopped in 1998, Antarctic sea ice is increasing, the sea level in the Arctic is falling, and glaciers are not melting. These are the many reasons why people think that global warming is just a hoax, but you must see the big picture in order to get the overall view. These isolated facts are somewhat like when we looked at bias in the media. The facts seem to be true, until you look at the overall picture and see that they are false. For example, evidence shows that global warming stopped in 1998. If you look deeper into the information surrounding this year, you will find out that this was an El Nino year. Some temperatures are going to get cooler from that year, but with all of the data collected, the Earth really is warming up.
There are many different ways that everyone could contribute to help fight global warming. People could recycle, use less hot water, turn appliances off instead of on standby, buy new energy saving appliances, or switch to an alternative energy source. A big way to reduce your CO2 emissions is by changing your driving style. If you drive smart you could cut these CO2 emissions greatly. There are also many different energy sources that have become available to us due to recent technologies. Now we use fossil fuels for example oil, coal, and natural gas. If people in the world want to fight global warming we must become less dependent on these fossil fuels, and switch to alternative energy sources. By using energy that is renewable and clean, will help save this planet. Some new sources of energy are fuel cells, solar panels, wind turbines, using biopower, hydrogen, hydroelectric power, and geothermal power. All of these new sources of energy produce clean and renewable power that will help save this planet from global warming. All of these alternative energy sources have their ups and downs, we should still try to migrate over and start using them. “As alternative energy is more widely accepted, it will become more effective, maybe to the point where hydrocarbons are obsolete. Alternative energy will play an important role in powering the world of tomorrow, so we can look forward to a clean, healthy and bright future.”
Over all global warming is a major issue effecting people all over the world. If we don’t accept that global warming is actually happening there is no way that we will be able to prevent it. There are many different options available to everyone to help prevent this problem, but people must take the initiative, and actually start caring about our environment. People could cut their CO2 emissions, or switch to an alternative energy source. If we don’t stop this problem we will have much greater problems in the future.

Quotes from: http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2004/wong4j0/public_html/

Blog Post #2 (final)

3.Visit at least 3 wiki pages of your classmates. Share what you’ve learned from their hard work

One of the three wikis that I looked at was Rob’s, which talked about Medicare. There are some interesting facts that Rob brings up, he explains the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. They are two different programs: Medicaid is state-run, and it provides hospital and medical coverage for people with low income. Medicare is health insurance that is offered by the federal government to people who are 65 years of age or older. I also found that there are some flaws in the system; people are getting fake IDs just to get money from Medicare and Medicaid. Another wiki I visited was Joe’s wiki on Internet impact on music. On Joe’s page I found out that there are negative and positive effects from the Internet on music. The Internet hurts the progress and profits, but it does allow you to access older music that is no longer in print, it allows for “devout music fans”, and people are all around the world have access to music, which is allowing music to spread rapidly. The last wiki I viewed was Skip’s on media censorship. Media censorship is the act of preventing the publication of news or information that is to be broadcast to the general public, says Skip. The government does this because the material that is being censored is illegal or inappropriate, and because the government is trying to manipulate the people and it does this by showing people what it wants them to see. All of these projects were very informative, and helped educate me about their topics.

Some Think a New Ice Age

Some people disregard the scientific evidence and think that we are going to be entering a new ice age. The "palaeo-record" (record and prehistoric climate changes) shows that in the last few million years, the Earth has cycled between cool and warm periods (cool periods = ice ages; warm period = interglacials). The last 10,000 years have been classified as a warm period. In the 1960s some scientists' work showed that we would be entering an ice age. Although in recent years, from the research towards global warming, humans have created elevated CO2 from greenhouse gases. These elevated levels have created a much faster warming climate then some of the changes that are associated with ice ages.

Global Warming Causing the Arctic to Heat Up?

In recent years the Arctic area has been heating up, and is evidence that global warming is actually happening.


The animated figure shows the temperature difference between the two 5-year periods 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. Such results do not show the long-term trends, but it's a fact that there have been high temperatures in the Arctic during the recent years.

The recent Arctic warming is visible in the animated plot on the right showing the NCEP re-analysis mean temperature difference between the periods 2004-2008 and 1999-2003.

(from: realclimate.org)

Ideas For Final Project

I am thinking about making a Glogster and an interactive Powerpoint.

Global Warming Podcast #2

Robyn Williams introduces Dr. Pittock, who is the author of Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat. Dr. Pittock talks about the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. She says that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up by 1/3, it has increased from around 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million. The number also increses every year. When these gases increase they absorb more of the heat that is coming off the Earth, which heats up the climate. Dr. Pittock gives some evidence that indicates that the Earth is actually heating up. She says that sea surface temperatures are increasing, more than 80% of glaciers are retreating, Artic sea ice is receding, tree lines on mountains are going up, plants are flowering early in the spring, the growth rings in trees show warming, and the isotopic measurements in ice cores indicate warming. She explains how we must reduce our greenhouse gases, and that the capture of carbon will take a long time to show a positive progress. Dr. Pittock explains how 70-80% of reductions of the greenhouse gases are needed by 2100 to avoid "a potentially disastrous climate change". She also says how potentially other forms sources of energy are to come in the future, but first we must aquire the technology in order to make these alternative energies.

Global Warming Kills Possum?

Some scientists say that a white possum, which is native to Queensland's Daintree forest, has become the first mammal to become extinct because of man-made global warming. This possum has not been seen for three years, and experts say that the climate change has killed these possums. The possum lives off moisture in the trees from cooler temperatures, in high-altitude cloud forests. If global warming caused the environment to heat up, the white possum would not be able to keeps its body temperature, and would die.

"Researchers will mount a last-ditch expedition early next year deep into the untouched 'cloud forests' of the Carbine range near Mt Lewis, three hours north of Cairns, in search of the tiny tree-dweller, dubbed the 'Dodo of the Daintree'". (quoted from a man named John Ray)


picture from : http://www.faunanet.gov.au/wos/images/factfiles/full/f302c.jpg