PDS AP Environmental Science 8th Period 2010-11

Two questions.

First off, Why would a company put VOCs on wood to put in a house. I know its shinier, but were they thinking, “Oh, lets put propane on this wood so the floor can go up in flames faster if it catches fire. Surely the loss of time of escape won’t be a problem.”?

Second, ventilation is a main relief on indoor pollution, even though it could also possibly allow pesticides from the outside to get inside the house. Or am I just applying smoke to other forms of pollution where it is not needed.

Thanks for the tip, and good luck on the test tomorrow.

If swamps can naturally clean waste water, wouldn’t that hurt the ecosystem of the swamp because run-off and feces from waste water will provide nitrogen, and thus start the process of Eutrophication?

Also, isn’t cleaned waste water and drinking water basically the same thing except drinking water has had chlorine added to it?

Despite the fact that most of the Earth is covered in water, there is a large dearth in the amount of water available to humans. Most of this is due to 97 percent of water being salty and most of the remaining fresh water being stuck in glaciers and ice caps. However, in specific areas of the world, many people are suffering from a great lack of available water. This lack of water is due to four factors.

• Dry Climate: This problem is mostly due to what biome the settlements are in. If they are in a dry biome, like the desert pictured here, than they are more likely to have a water shortage. This reason for a shortage cannot be controlled.

Drought: when there is less precipitation than usual over a long period of time. This is measured by the government as comparison to the last 30 years. This reason also cannot be controlled.

• Dessication: When most of the soil is dried out due to agriculture, the area itself warms because water is a heat sink. Without the water already there, the heat keeps more water from arriving, creating a cycle of less water availability.
• Water Stress: This is based on the demand for water by humans and other organisms in the area. This is the most controlable, if humans reduce their demand, then less water is used, which leads to less shortages.

Since the beginning of written history, humans have sought strategies for dealing with water strategies which do not involve lowering demand. The four solutions most commonly seen today are Dams, Transferring water, Withdrawing ground water, and Desalinization.

• Dams are the oldest solution still used. While they do build large reservoirs for humans and help stop floods, they do cause huge amounts of damage on both sides of their walls. Downstream, spawning fish will be unable to reach their breeding grounds and river valleys are denied fertile flood soil. Upstream, old towns and, as in the case of the Three Gorges Dam pictured here, archaeological sites are flooded and destroyed.

• Transferring Water: By taking water from one area to another where water is less abundant, you are able to turn even desert into fertile land. This however keeps water from reaching its natural destination in original location and can lead to job and biodiversity loss in those areas.
• Withdrawing Ground Water: By taking water from the aquifers, there is year round use, and no risk of evaporation loss. However, by overusing them, it is possible to empty an aquifer, which can lower the water table, thereby making it harder to reach ground water, or create sinkholes. Can also suck salt water into aquifer near ocean.

• Desalinization: The only system which actually makes new water. Factories take ocean water and distill fresh water. While very useful in rich Arab nations, it is very expensive, uses many fossil fuels, and generates huge amounts of salt based waste.

In the end, it appears that to really find a solution for Water Shortages, we humans will have to lower our own demand for water. This can be done by either changing our irrigation so that we use less water to get the same yeild, planting plants which require less water, or simply just stop moving to areas that are likely to deal with shortages. By doing this, we may be able to reliably control the water shortages we already have and hopefully reduce them for future generations.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought

http://coyotegulch.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/energy-policy-coalbed-methane-do-the-recently-issued-produced-water-regulations-fall-short

If all creature react differently to chemicals, than couldn’t it be possible that the precautionary approach might actually hamper use of chemicals that are not harmful to humans. Let’s say that to a frog, chemical…Z is incredibly deadly. It affects the lungs of the young tadpole so that they develop to quickly, and they go belly up before reaching adulthood due to an inability to breath. Since humans never have to deal with this problem, would not chemical Z be fine for industrial use with humans.

In the case of a paradox of enrichment, is it possible that an r-related species of primary consumers might be able to cancel out the paradox due to so great reproduction, and allow them eventually to live past their predators. Like cockroaches being able to stand having such a big food supply and not die out while possessing several predators?

I know that lakes and oceans share the name for the bottom most layer, but do they share a litoral zone. I know that some of the bigger lakes are affected by tides, so would that qualify the lake with an intertidal zone. And in rivers and streams, is there the same partition of zones as there are in lakes or rivers?

I have been having trouble dealing with the timeline question. From what I understand, the enviromentalist movement started in the late fifties with Minamoto Bay, gained ground in the sixties, with Silent Spring, the Tory Canyon crash, and the moon landing increasing the care for the planet, and even more so in the seventies, with the first Earth Day and the establishment of the EPA by Nixon, then fell off in the eighties with Reagan, and then revitalized by such disasters as Amoco Caddiz, Bho Pal and Chernobyl. I am not able, however, to tell where Global Warming, the hole in the Ozone (Which are two seperate problems), and acid rain are really discovered. Are they part of the late eighties, or the early ninties?

Thank you,

Max

An Ecological Footprint is the measure of a human being’s, or a population of human beings’, effect on the world and the resources of the planet. This is particularly used for non-renewable resources, like fossil fuels, or potentially renewable resources, like wood or water.

The Footprint is measured by the subject’s use of certain resources, such as food, goods and services, and carbon, and housing. With these broad categories, their are several things which make up each one of them. Such as for carbon, oil emissions and natural gas are smaller parts of the impact. While most think of carbon impact when they think of impact on the environment, but there is no direct correlation between any one category, only on the who total impact.

When finding out a populations imprint, one takes the impact per capita (ie. per person) and and multiplies that by the total number of a population. The impact per capita is determined by the person’s affluence and the countries technology. This is shown in the equation,

I=P x A x T

With I equal to environmental impact, P equal to the number of people in a population, A equal to the affluence, and T equal to the technology. With this equation, one can calculate their own countries impact on the world and its environment.

While your footprint grows the more you use up Earth’s resources, it grows smaller when you use environmentally friendly resources like solar power. If we all work hard enough, and are willing to spend the money, we can reduce our impact on the world, and still be able to live comfortable lives in our modern world, as well as keep our Earth in prime condition for the people who come after us.

Sources:

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/

The biggest environmental problem facing our world today is the possible mass extinction of the animals of the world. Hundreds of species are facing imminent destruction on the Earth, from the giant African Elephant, to the tiny Seahorse. The causes of endangerment include disease, poaching, pollution, habitat destruction, and even natural causes. We must find a way to turn back extinction, or else the next generation will not be able to see these animals that we ourselves are amazed by.