Buildings Can Wait, Focus on the Rain Forests!

       I read the article "In Fragmented Brazilian Forest, Few Species Survive" by Kelly Slivka, published in The New York Times on August 14, 2012. The article talks about how the Atlantic Forest in Brazil has been fragmented by many years of human habitation. This has caused many species to find other habitats to live in because their habitat has been ruined. If you want to read the article, here is the link: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/in-fragmented-brazilian-forest-few-species-survive/.

       The Atlantic Forest is a rain forest near Rio de Janeiro and runs along Brazil's southeastern shore. This rain forest used to be over half a million square miles! Now 90% of that is gone due to habitat fragmentation. This is a picture of the forest.

       There are some areas of forest that have survived forest fires and deforestation. These pockets of forest may vary in size. They are very important for the biodiversity that the region still boasts. Although many species have found different homes because the patches do not provide enough protection for some species to thrive, some areas have a very diverse group of species. 

       Researchers found only 22% of the original animals that inhabited the area still live there. They also found that five larger mammal species are essentially extinct throughout the region of the rain forest. This is all because trees have been exchanged for roads, cities, buildings, and fields.

        Carlos Peres, an Ecologist at the University of East Anglia in Britain said, "There is little chance that the patches from which many mammals have vanished can be repopulated because a strong “source population” would be needed for recolonization." This is very sad to hear because it is our fault that the rain forest has been fragmented. We are the ones that kept building. 

       Reading this article made me realize that humans fragmenting land is very bad for the habitat. It causes species to leave their homes. I choose to do this topic because I had never really heard about habitat destruction before and I'm glad I choose it. I think that we need to stop cutting down trees as much so we have more buildings. We don't need that many buildings and it is important to keep our habitats, such as the rain forest, the way they are.

       This is exactly like what we learned in class when we watched The Lorax. In the movie the Onceler and his family kept building factories and didn't even realize that they had ruined the habitat until it was too late. They cut down all the trees and the species that lived there had to find a new habitat. In the article the Atlantic Forest is losing its species because of habitat destruction. This goes to show that once something drastic is done to a habitat, it is very hard to get it back to normal. I hope one day the Atlantic  Forest will be the way it was many years ago, but everyone will have to try to save it because it is worth it!

The Great Barrier Reef's Coral Crisis

     

           The article, “Great Barrier Reef has Lost Half its Corals Since 1985, New Study Says” by Juliet Eilperan, published on October 1^st, 2012, from the Washington Post, can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/great-barrier-reef-has-lost-half-its-corals-since-1985-new-study-says/2012/10/01/c733025c-0bda-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html. 

            The Great Barrier Reef, located in Australia, is the world’s largest coral reef system.  Within 133,205 square miles, the Great Barrier Reef attributes about 3,000 individual reefs.  It is one of Australia’s most incredible natural gifts.  Unfortunately, Australia is slowly losing it.  Throughout the past 27 years, the Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals.  The causes of the decline of coral include hurricanes, coral-eating starfish and coral bleaching.

             Storm damage contributed 48 percent of the losses, while starfish known as crown-of-thorns caused 42 percent.  The remaining 10 percent of the damage came from coral bleaching, caused by warmer waters. While intense storms and warm water are almost impossible to control, the crown-of-thorn starfish are easier to target.  In order to do this, Australians need to improve their water quality.  This is because nutrient runoff is what is fueling the crown-of-thorn’s population to increase.  These outbreaks, which once only occurred every 50 to 80 years, are now occurring once every 15 years. 

Crown-of-Thorn Starfish

            A chief executive of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, John Gunn states, “The study shows that in the absence of crown-of-thorns, coral cover would increase at 0.89 percent per year, so even with losses due to cyclones and bleaching there should be slow recovery.”  He is saying that even with storms and coral bleaching, the coral population would increase if there weren’t any crown-of-thorns affecting it.  It is amazing how one species can impact a whole ecosystem so greatly.                         

            This article was really eye opening.  It made me realize that we are losing an ecosystem that is essential to the world.  I think that if Australians really do care about the Great Barrier Reef, they will make the effort to help it.  It’s not only the Australians, who can help save this ecosystem, but other people can help too by releasing less carbon dioxide into the air, which is raising sea temperatures and making the ocean more acidic.  I suggest that Australians release a predator of the crown-of-thorns into the Great Barrier Reef to decrease the population of the starfish, just like farmers release organisms such as ladybugs to keep pests away from their crops.  If there are no changes made, and the Great Barrier Reef keeps on losing corals at this rate, there will be barely any corals left 10 to 15 years from now.           

            This article really reminded me of the movie The Lorax, which we watched in class.  In The Lorax, the organisms were losing an ecosystem because the Onceler and his family were ruining the environment by cutting down trees.  In the article, organisms living in the Great Barrier Reef are losing an ecosystem because the crown-of-thorn starfish are eating the coral.  This shows that it only takes one species to affect an entire ecosystem.  The Great Barrier Reef is an ecosystem worth saving.

Citations for Pictures:

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://2012freshmanenglish.blog.ntu.edu.tw/files/2012/10/Great-Barrier-Reef-Holiday-Reef-Fish12.jpg>.

Crown-of-thorns Starfish. Digital image. Flickriver. N.p., 16 Jan. 2007. Web. 29 Oct. 2012. <http://www.flickriver.com/photos/g-na/370139074/>.

Lack of data could be the cause for the lack of enforcing of the no "finning'" law in UAE

For this blog post I read the article "Shark finning hitting Persian Gulf hard" by Michael Casey on boston.com, the link for the article is http://www.boston.com/news/world/middle-east/2012/10/21/shark-finning-hitting-persian-gulf-sharks-     hard/RtxR9PwCwmQwSQk5LmovON/story.html

This article was about how in the Persian Gulf while some governments have laws banning the practice of “finning”, they lack the information to enforce these laws.  Finning is the practice of catching a shark, removing its fins and tossing it overboard while it is still alive.  The fin is used in making shark fin soup which is a dish served in some asian countries.  Some people like Rima Jabado are doing research on the effects it has on the population of certain shark species.  “The government will not react until we give them actual data,” said Jabado, but these are very few people who are researching this topic.  The article states that these countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have limited data on the number of each shark population in the Persian Gulf. “Our hands are tied because of insufficient data,” said Mohammed Tabish, a fisheries specialist in the UAE, also he said that the information they receive is general and has no information on any species specific data and this makes it difficult to take action on particular species.

         If the shark hunting continues to go unregulated this could have a detrimental effect on the Persian Gulf community.  One of the affects that the extinction of the shark species would be that the remora population would take a blow because they would have to find a new symbiotic partner because the shark would not be present.  Another effect that this would have would be that because the shark is the top predator the other trophic levels would see a population increase because the top predator would be absent.  This article enforces the fact that knowledge is power because if these countries had access to the information that they need they would be able to enforce their no finning laws
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http://www.thelivingocean.net/2012_04_27_archive.html

I think this article is on an important topic that is over-shadowed by the bigger environmental issues such as global warming and whaling.  Also, what is not realized is that this is a huge issue and that 82 countries export fins mostly to to Hong Kong and other Asian markets.  Also, fishermen kill as many as 70 million sharks a year just for their fins, which in my opinion is a huge waste, just like killing elephants and rhinos just for their ivory tusks and horns.   However some questions should be answered such as (What will these countries do once they get the required information?, How will these countries get the information?, and Will these countries help the shark population of the Persian Gulf?)

There's a Fungus Among Us

I read an article on BBC’s website posted on 27 October 2012, the article was titled “Ash tree import ban to halt disease”.  This article is about a resent ban on the import of ash trees to the UK. The ban will come into force on Monday. The cause is a fungal disease that was found in the UK. This disease kills ash trees. The disease hurt the ash tree population on Europe’s mainland particularly in Denmark where 90% of the population was killed. The disease outbreak was contained in the UK as of early this week. One major point made in the article was many thought the decision to ban the ash tree import should have been made when the outbreaks were occurring in places like Denmark. One member of the Horticultural Trade Association says that “As a trade we're very frustrated about it, because in 2009 we saw it out in Denmark on trees and we said you should ban imports now.”

The fungi’s scientific name is Chalara fraxinea or C. fraxinea as abbreviated in the article. Using what I learned in Biology I am able to determine that this fungi’s relationship to the ash tree is parasitic. The fungus lives on the tree and uses its resources and energy it creates. This causes the tree to loose leaves and develop crown dieback.  The tree suffers and the fungi thrives therefore the fungi is a parasite.

I think that when it comes to environmental issues governments are slow to react. With our environment being changed by human so fast an equally fast reaction is needed. Though it should be the environment is not a priority to most governments. In the US we are lucky to have a government that takes the environment into account somewhat. In some countries such as China the government doesn’t care about the environment and can therefore be an industrial center with the ability to make cheap plastic. Though China is an extreme example of a government not caring about the environment, in places like the US and Britain the government can be slow to react. This article is an example of the result this slow reaction can cause.

Image: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/30/ash-tree-crisis-dieback-disease?newsfeed=true

Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20107186

A New Motor Oil

Did you know that there is a  motor oil that cuts automobile pollution by 40 percent? Duane Johnson, a Colorado State University cooperative extension, he is a  crops specialist that developed a lubricant made from canola oil, a seed crop grown in Colorado. This oil cut produces less automobile engine emission then the traditional motor oils. This canola oil is traditionally used as a cooking oil. However, with processing adjustments, this oil is as effective an engine lubricant as any traditional motor oil, with less engine emission.

Johnson stated,  "Processing canola into oil produces no waste. By-products include only oil and ground seeds, called meal, which can be feed to livestock. There is no waste from the  plant, and the production of the oil does not contribute to air pollution." This quote shows how the plant doesn't pollute as much as the traditional oil and doesn't cause harm to the environment.

This connects to the movie "The Lorax" because in the Lorax, when all the oncelers come in to town in their cars, they produce a bad air pollutant with their cars, along with all the factories and other machines. But if they found a source of fuel that did pollute as much (Canola oil), then they wouldn't have polluted as bad in their factories and cars.

I think that this oil should be used because you would save money and not pollute as much. The canola oil should be used instead and have the motor oil not used as much. This style will save animals habitats and lives. So lets hope that this can be implemented into our normal lives and get rid of the old motor oil.  

Citation MLA Format- Colorado State University. "Colorado Crop Provides Environmentally-Friendly Alternative To Motor Oil." ScienceDaily, 29 Jan. 1998. Web. 30 Oct. 

Website-2012.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/01/980129074428.htm

A World Without Beavers

            I read the article “Leave It to Beavers” by David Ferry published in The Atlantic in June 2012. This article talks about the effects on the ecosystem without beavers. And that they are helpful to us deal with some of the effects of global warming. Here is the link to the article http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/06/leave-it-to-beavers/308980/

            Believe it or not but beavers were once very close to extinction. To give you some brief background information, in the 1820’s people were trying to kill every beaver in the Pacific Northwest, with in 20 years of this almost all the beavers from this area were gone. Nobody knew how great beavers were for the ecosystem. Today there are only around 6-12 million beavers, where as in the 1600’s there were around 400 million.

             Our earth is impacted more than you would think by animals like the beaver. The damns that beavers make do many great things for the environment such as, they control flooding and forest fries, and they allow for fish populations to grow, they also conserve fresh water. We are very fortunate that there are organizations that are trying to grow the beaver population because they are very useful animals for global warming.

            To help you understand how the beaver helps in todays global warming issues here is a line from the article, “Because of rising temperatures, the snowpack is melting earlier in springtime, causing trillions of gallons of fresh water to gush down from the mountains, overwhelming streams and sluicing over the ground too fast to nourish the ecosystem.” The point of this line is that with beaver to build damns this could e avoided.

             

            Overall I think it is a good idea to try to bring back more beavers but it makes me think about what we learned about food webs and chain. It could result in a disruption of the community; if there are more beavers then there will be less of the food beavers eat which could lead to more issues. Hopefully the organizations who are trying to bring back the beavers have thought over all the issues that could arise from changing the dynamic of a community/ecosystem. 

A Fresh Look

 

 

 

 

            An article I just read “GMO’s: We Can’t Ignore the Consequences” By, Mark Mulcathy. Talks about Genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and how they can be hazardous to your health but the U.S.A. does not have a specific label on GMO’s.

 

A fresh red mackintosh apple is considered one of the tastiest types of apples, but is that fresh taste natural or genetically modified (GM). Bacon is loved by everyone but most people don’t know 80% of the grain fed to meat animals is a GMO. Genetically modifying an organism changes its DNA and cell fusion, gene deletion/doubling, and changing the positions of genes. This is mainly to protect agents to lessen pesticide use. But further on it said that Herbicide tolerant crops are responsible for 70 million additional pounds of pesticides being applied in U.S. agriculture alone.

 

            I can relate to this because last year my science teacher Miss. Q. told us that GMO’s are not good for your health and told us a story about how most to every crop has GMO’s. Some major foods that are genetically modified are corn, soy, and sugar. Genetically modified foods have been shown to cause harm to humans, animals, and the environment. Some people might say that this is not going to affect them or might agree but they will not do anything. I do not think we should make GMO’s apart of our everyday diet.

            “Genetically engineered is defined as: Made with techniques that alter the molecular or cell biology of an organism by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes. Genetic engineering includes recombinant DNA, cell fusion, micro- and macro-encapsulation, gene deletion and doubling, introducing a foreign gene, and changing the positions of genes. It shall not include breeding, conjugation, fermentation, hybridization, in vitro fertilization and tissue culture.”

      

            GMO’s are an environmental issue because Genetic modifications give the Modified crop a competitive advantage. If a GM crop “escapes” from its field it has the potential to replace its non-GM counterpart. When the genes from the GM crop leave the field in which they were planted there are plants that fill a similar niche with which they will compete, and because the GM crop has the advantage, they may take over. Lastly, if crop plants can cope with more weed killers then normal, farmers can have fields with even fewer weeds, and this could reduce biological diversity

 http://www.livestrong.com/article/333356-what-are-the-risks-of-eating-gmo-foods/

http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/2004-03-16/gmos-we-can%E2%80%99t-ignore-consequences

 

Things are Looking up for the Ozone

Today I read an article called Ozone hole at smallest size in decades by Erin Wayman. This article was about how every year around this time, scientists travel to Antarctica to measure approximately how large the hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere has become. This year they found something quite surprising, the hole has actually shrunk instead of grown.

The ozone layer is the layer of the atmosphere that protects us from ultraviolet radiation which is given off by the sun. O September 22nd, the ozone hole grew to its largest seasonal size: 21.2 million square miles. That may sound huge at first, but in reality that's the smallest the whole has been since 1990.

Satellite measurements made by NASA and the NOAA put the average size of the 2012 ozone hole at about 17.7 million square kilometers, the smallest since 2002. The hole is mainly caused by reactions between chlorine and other man made substances. Frigid temperatures help to promote this damage however, because of our exceedingly mild winter, the damage was lessened quite a bit.

I personally found this article to be quite intriguing and uplifting. I had always thought the ozone would just continue to break apart for the rest of days but this gives me a new hope that the earth may have a chance.

Even though man had no influence on the shrinking of the whole, I still feel its a sign that we are doing something right and should continue our efforts to make this planet as healthy as possible. If every person could double their efforts, I know the ozone hole would continue to shrink and provide a better life for the earth and her inhabitants.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/346068/description/Ozone_hole_at_smallest_size_in_decades

Arctic White Lie?

Arctic White Lie?

The article I read for my blog post is called Is the Arctic Sea Ice in “a Death Spiral” by Peter Westmore. It was published by Newsweekly on September 15, 2012. A link to this article is http://www.newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5321

This article focuses on the claims that the Arctic Sea ice is actually decreasing year by year. The claims are being supported by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) because they are saying that the amount of Arctic Sea ice is the lowest on records as a result of global warming. However, they are not telling us that there is a yearly cycle that explains why this is happening. The NSIDC doesn’t tell the public that every year, most of the Arctic Sea ice melts. The total amount of melted ice varies from a maximum of about thirteen million square km to a minimum of about four million square km.

In the summer, sunlight melts the ice. The North Atlantic Current, flows of warm water from the Pacific, and flows of fresh water from Russia and North America, and water mixing due to storms and winds also causes a decrease in the amount of Arctic Sea Ice. The thinness of the ice makes it easy for these natural processes to crack or melt it in the summer.

For centuries, people have known about the thawing of Arctic ice in the summer. Expeditions had been sent out to try to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Sea to China. After disastrous voyages in which ships became stuck in ice, people knew not to travel that way during the winter. They, however, knew that they could voyage in that direction during the brief summer thaw.

The article states that “In the last northern winter, the amount of Arctic Sea ice was about the same as for any one of the previous 10 years, perhaps a little more.” This proves that global warming is having almost no effect on the Arctic Sea ice. The NSIDC only commented on the amount of ice in the spring/summer thaw.

The amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere has increased tremendously. Since it’s a greenhouse gas, scientists theorize that it is trapping heat in our atmosphere. This causes the overall temperature of the biosphere to increase. Although the rise in temperature is subtle, it is having a huge impact on many ecosystems, including the ecosystems in the North and South Poles.

We are constantly being fed a steady stream of news about how harmful global warming is. For example, in the video “Pole to Pole” produced by Discovery Education, they teach us about how global warming is harmfully affecting the polar bears’ environment.  After reading this article, I now wonder if we are being given all of the facts about the effects of global warming. I think that it was very manipulative of the NSIDC to only give out the amount of ice in the Arctic in the summer and spring thaw when the amount of ice for the winter freeze hasn’t decreased. Maybe other organizations are only giving us some of the facts too.

The story that the NSIDC gave to the general public could have good effects on society even if it’s not accurate. If people believe them, they may try to reduce the amount of carbon they release into the atmosphere. That could help reduce the effect global warming has on other areas of the world.

This article causes some tension between the readers and the NSIDC. Reader would be angry that they are only being given part of the truth. They may feel like they have been lied to and may think that there is no such thing as global warming.