These graphs taken from NOAA’s website indicates the trend in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over time. The left one represents the recent means and the right one represents the CO2 concentrations since the 1960s. The red represents monthly values which is why the red has spikes. The black represents the average seasonal cycle which is corrected yearly to display a constant line. The X axis represents the particle parts per million while the Y axis represents time. The measurements were observed and recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. These graphs are important to climate change as it shows the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It also shows that since the mid 1900s the amount of carbon emissions have skyrocketed. This much CO2 contributes a lot to global warming as a greenhouse gas which has been a constant battle as global warming has contributed to rising temperatures and sporadic weather events.

These graphs are important as it showcases that more and more carbon dioxide is being emitted every year with no signs of slowing down. This data trend is also important to us humans as it gives us a visual on just how much of an influence we have on the environment. It should give us a way to work to reduce the carbon emissions in order to see a reduction in yearly trends. If CO2 emissions continue to be increased then there will be heavy consequences in the future.

Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT, is a synthetic pesticide that was developed in the 1940s. It was used as pest control and a way to kill off the malaria virus. At first DDT was seen as the “wonder chemical” that seemed to work like magic. Every farmer in the US used DDT on their crops which caused their farms to produce large yields. DDT was also used a public disinfectant against insect borne diseases and was used to spray down parks, beaches, and other public places. However, despite it being effecting at pest and insect borne disease control it was very effective at harming both the environment and human health. According to a recent article by the Pesticide Action Network DDT was found in 60% of heavy cream samples, 42% of kale greens, 28% of carrot produce, and 99% of blood samples from the people tested by the CDC. DDT was shown to have severe negative affects to both human and environmental health. The CDC found that DDT was causing a spike in breast cancer, reduced fertility in men, miscarriages, developmental delay, and nervous system and liver damage. In the environment there was heavy contamination in water systems which affected the fish which then affected the animals and humans that ate them. Because of DDT there was a huge reduction of bald eagle populations due to DDT thinning out the outer shells of their eggs. 

In the early 1960s Rachel Carson released her book, Silent Spring, with hopes of spreading awareness of the harmful effects of DDT. It initially was met with uncertainty and doubt until it caught the attention of then President John F. Kennedy who approved the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and banned the use of DDT with the exception of extreme special cases where DDT is absolutely necessary to use.

Sources:

https://www.panna.org/resources/ddt-story

https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/ddt-brief-history-and-status

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT

Photochemical smog is a toxic pollutant that is produced when ultraviolet solar light reacts with nitrigen oxides in the atmosphere. It produces a deep haze usually during warm mornings especially in densely populated cities like Los Angeles. Especialy with a city like Los Angeles as the area is surrounded by mountains that will literally hold the polluntant in the atmosphere for a long time. Photochemical smog mostly forms from the emissions of coal-fired power plants and cars. Nitrogen oxides from said emmisions react with water to form nitric acid and sunlight which produces ozone. These chemicals are also known as photochemical oxidants as they will oxidize compunds which includes oxidizing a person’s lungs which can cause serious health effects.

Photochemical smog can have drastic effects on human health and the evironment. The ozone thats produced can alter a plant’s ability to photosynthesize causing premature death of leaves which affects crop yeilds and produce quality. For people it can cause servere respiratory problems. People who are prone to algergies and asthma are the most at risk as the exposure can cauase irritation, reduced lung functionalty, and dificulty breathing. It can also cause server asthma attacks that can lead to death. According to sciencing.com “People with pre-existing health problems (such as respiratory diseases) are sensitive to ozone. Children, the elderly and people with poor lung function carry a far greater risk of developing respiratory illness from photochemical smog than healthy adults.” 

There are a lot ways to midigate the formation of photochemical smog and for that I will be using Los Angeles as an example since the city has had a long history of dense smog that prevails for quite a long time. Having grown up in said city I have personaly used these mitigation efforts that aid in the reduction of photochemical smog. Carpooling is a popular way to get around the city and is a good effort in reducing overall emmisions. Public transport such as electric Metro trains and busses are another popular option. The trains run in the middle of the freeways and can move a lot of poeople in and out of the inner city very quickly. The buses can usualy transport about 70 people at full capacity which significantly reduces the amount of cars on the main roads. With California’s investment in both hydrogen and elecric forms of transportation the amount of photochemical smog produce will be signicantly reduced in the future and thankfully the smog trend is already showing good signs of reduction. According to IQAir “Los Angeles air quality has dramatically improved over the last 30 years because of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Most recently, year-over-year trends have resulted in reductions in L.A. air pollution of 10.6% from 2017 to 2018, and another 11.8% from 2018 to 2019.”

Sources:

https://www.iqair.com/us/usa/california/los-angeles

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/photochemical-smog

https://sciencing.com/effect-of-photochemical-smog-12328963.html

Petrolum is the most used form of energy in the Unites States. Petrol is a non-renewable resource which means that it is finite. Currently the U.S. leads the world in the consumption of petroleum products consuming around 21.4% of the world’s oil supplies which equates to about 35 billion barrels per year. This kind of consumption is no where near sustainable as petroleum resouces will eventually run out. If nothing is done to reduce our usage of petrolium products this country will be in an engergy crysis never before seen just like how unprepared the US was, and still is in my opinion, during the covid-19 pandemic.

A lot of the country’s use for petroleum is in trasportation and idustry with transportation being the most influenced by the resourse. Transportation, which includes automotive, aviation, and freight, acounts for about 36% of the country’s petrolium consumption. A good solution to reduce the reliance on petroleum is to invest in alternative fuel vehicles such as hydrogen fuel cell cars, hybrids, and electric cars. Electric cars, which are also known as plug in vehicles, only use electricity as a source of power. They’re more reliable and emit zero carbon emmissions. The only downsides are cost, range, and charging station infastructure. Electric cars with a decent 300 mile range can become very expensive and when it comes to recharging the batteries it can be difficult to find charging stations. Thankfully companies like Amazon and Tesla are investing heavily in building up the infastructure for supporting as many charging stations as there are gas stations. It’s not just cars getting the spot light for electrification as companies like Tesla and Rivian are working to introduce 100% electric semi-trucks. Semi-trucks account for the majority of vehicles that travel on the highways and if electric semis are more widely used it will have a drastic effect on reducing pertoleum reliance and most importanty carbon emmisions. Overall electric vehicles are much more efficient with some vehicles proving to be almost 5 times more efficient than gas powered cars.

Although today electric cars are still very expensive, there are other options such as hybrids and hydrogen which are compelling alternatives to electric vehicles. While hybrids have been around for quite a while, hydrogen has had a hard time playing catchup. Hydrogen is collected using electrolysis of water however, hydrogen by itself is highly explosive and if not properly stored in a fuel cell it will have a high chance of leaking or even exploding. Despite this, hydrogen is still far more efficent than gasoline engines with its only byproduct being water. Hybrids are the cheapest of the two as they combine the power of gasoline engines with electric motors. This can be a cheaper option because there wouldnt be a need to charge the batteries up as the combination of the engine and regenerative braking will recharge the baterries. Although plug-in hybrids are another option where the electric motors are used first then the engine if needed. As of the writing of this blog electricity is sold a $0.13 per kWh, hydrogen at $16.51 per kilogram, and gas at an average of $2.18 per gallon (US Departnment of Energy). Even though gas still remians cheap, once we start running out of our petrolium resources gas priceses will only go up and alternative fuels will start to look more attractive. If people invest in these vehicles now they will be setting up the sustainability for future generations while making said vehicles more affordable at the same time.

Sources:

https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/prices.html

https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/how-much-oil-consumed-united-states

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40752#:~:text=Transportation%20accounted%20for%20about%2014,of%20petroleum%20consumption%20in%202018.

https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/

https://cafcp.org/content/cost-refill#:~:text=Long%20Answer%3A,Joint%20Agency%20Report%20(p17).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_fuel_vehicle#:~:text=In%20theory%2C%20a%20combined%20cycle,around%205%E2%80%938%25%20efficiency.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml#:~:text=Energy%20efficient.,to%20power%20at%20the%20wheels.

Fantle, M. (2021): Nonrenewable Energy [Powerpoint Slides]

There are various ways to mine nonrenewable resources. A lot of those minining techniques have pros and cons when it comes to prodction and environmental impact. For this blog I will be touching base on fracking, how it works, and its impact on the environemnt. Since its inception in the 1940s, fracking has been a very popular way to mine oil and natural gas from the ground. It works by drilling a verticle well into the area of interest to a depth of around 2 miles. Once the well has reached this depth it is then curved to a 90 degree angle in order to continue drilling horizontaly to reach the reserve. Once drilling is complete, fracking fluid, known as slickwater, is used to fracture the surounding rock with forces of up to 9,000 pounds per square inch. This allows for pockets of open space for the natural gas or oil to flow freely for extraction.

Athough fracking is a good way to extract a lot of natural gas and oil from the ground it comes with a lot of environmental risks. These risks include ground water contamination, radioactive off gases (radon) from the decay of uranium in the ground, air contamination with compounds such as benzene, ethylbenzene, toulene, and n-hexane, and, which is probably the most dangerous, fracking induced earthquakes. All of these outweigh the pros as every step in the fracking process poses a risk to polution and the creation of man-made earchquakes, which is what caused over 100 strong seismic treamours in Oklahoma back in 2011 thanks to fracking. Fortunately for today, fracking is a hotly debated issue in politics because of said risks.

Fracking should be banned entirely as the risks simply outweight the benifits. A way to get people to want to be in favor of this is to have the government impose taxes and cost of extraction which would ultimatley cause the price of the resources being extraced to go up. People work in strange ways and one of those ways is with the costs of products. If its cheap then people wont really care about how harmful the process is to get the resourse out of the ground and if its too expensive then they wont want to purchase any of it.

Sources:

https://www.wilderness.org/articles/article/truth-about-fracking-and-environment

https://www.livescience.com/34464-what-is-fracking.html

The Nelson Tunnel/Commodore Waste Rock sites are located near willow creek in Mineral County, Colorado and was founded in the late 1800s and is a suprfund site. The Commodore Waste Rock site was a waste rock dumpsite that took in material from near by mining sites that produced large amounts of minerals and metals such as lead, gold, aluminium, zinc, and silver. Over time the surrounding area including Willow Creek and the Rio Grande River, Willow Creek was a tributary, became contamiated with cadium, zinc, and lead. The Nelson Tunnel, built aoround the same time, discharges high consetrations of different metals into the Willow Creek adding to contaminated water quality. The wast rock site also heavily contaminated the surrounding soil and atmosphere, which also leads to the high conamnation of the creek, bringing a lot of health concerns to not only humans but also to the surrounding wildlife.

Some of the health conserns to humans are high lead expourse, metallic contaminaton in blood caused by repiratory injestion of airbone lead dust, consumption of contaminated meat from the wildlife that have been exposed to these mineral contaminants, and in rare cases has caused cancer. Overall, iron and lead are the highest contanimants in the surrounding area and watershead with lead causing the most consern for health. In 1999 a commitee, the Willow Creek Reclamation Committee, was formed to investigate the extent of the contamination. In 2010, the EPA began grading the large waste rock piles in order to stabilize its slope to reduce as much camination runnoff as possible. A 2,000 foot long reinforcing channel was also built around the creek to prevent further soil induced contamination. Begining in 2019 land rehabilitaion efforts began and a low level damn was built to manage the water levels from the Upper Mine Pool located around the waste rock sites. As of 2/19/2021 inspections are contuning to happen in order to figure out where more land rehabilitation efforts are needed.

Sources

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.Cleanup&id=0802630#bkground

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/HHW_CSA_Nelson-Tunnel-Followup-Surface-Soil-HC_6.12.2012.pdf

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.Cleanup&id=0802630#Done

https://www.outtherecolorado.com/news/mine-in-colorado-discharging-388-800-gallons-of-contaminated-water-daily/article_830cd633-9dc3-5687-818b-88217c2bfcfd.html

California is a state that is well known for its movie stars and beautiful beaches however, it is also know for its constant fight against droughts especially when water is involved. Water has a huge effect on California’s residents and farms as it plays a crucial on farming and sustaining desert cities. Ever since the droughts have been getting worse every other year the entire state starts depending on water even more going as far as tapping into the ground water that feeds the San Joaquim Valley which then effects the agriculture industry. During dry months 40% of water is used by agriculture while the rest of the state uses about 60%. However, whenever there is a long lasting drought like the one California is still in, the state wide usage doubles as major cities need more water to prevent dehydration and farms need more water to keep their crops alive.

Two methods, one for farms and major metropolitan areas, could be undertaken to reduce water usage. For farms, farmers can use a method called drip irrigation which has been proven to be about 60% more water efficient than traditional methods. Drip irrigation harbors the ability to slowly “drip” water consistently across hundreds of acres of crops using either gravity or a low-power pump. The only hurtle would be implementation and cost although over time it will have payed for itself quickly thanks to its efficiency. This solution would be able to reduce the constant dependency on ground water that would prove important during pronged droughts.

There are already a number of laws and practices that restrict residential water usage however despite those efforts about 85 gallons are still consumed per person per day. Which means that an average family household can consume roughly 360 gallons of water daily. A lot of that water usage goes to bathing, cooking, washing, and watering. The majority of people are using old-school water heaters that are very inefficient and take a while to produce hot water. By installing tankless water heaters hot water can be delivered throughout a house much quicker than an old-school type water heater and thanks to its 99% heat efficiency it can constantly provide it. This alone would be able to save on about 50% on water user per household which collectively will have a big effect on state wide water conservation.

Resources

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/water-heating/sizing-new-water-heater#:~:text=Most%20demand%20water%20heaters%20are,per%20minute%20through%20electric%20ones.

https://rwd3rogers.com/documents/331/Household_Water_Usage_Estimates.pdf

https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3611#:~:text=The%20reported%20data%20shows%20that,gallons%20per%20person%20per%20day.

https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/…

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/droughts-exposed-california-s-thirst-groundwater-now-state-hopes-refill-its-aquifers#:~:text=California’s%20Central%20Valley%E2%80%94one%20of,as%2060%20centimeters%20per%20year.&text=But%20it%20is%20evidence%20of,region’s%20insatiable%20thirst%20for%20groundwater.

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/11/30/is-california-heading-for-a-multi-year-drought-the-odds-arent-in-our-favor-experts-say/

Egypt’s population has hit 100 million people during the year of 2020 which for a developing county is not a good thing. In 2016 alone the country saw 2.6 million infants being born. This is a problem because the majority of Egypt’s population lives along the Nile river and with that dense of a population in one are is putting massive strain on both resources and quality of living. The continuous rise in population has also cause Egypt to be bellow the water poverty line, a metric set in place by the European Union which is the acute scarcity of water. The graph below shows how the population is continuing to grow despite the country’s current water poverty line standing.

To add more insult to injury the majority of Egypt’s citizens see large families as a sign of economic stability which to an extent is true however, for a developing country it will only bring harm to both the population and the economy. Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has described the rapidly growing population a big of a threat as terrorism is, which is another problem for the country. What is the Egyptian government doing to reduce population growth? The ministry of Social Solidarity stated that their campaign “Two is enough” is supposed to encourage couples to limit their family size to 2 children per family, provide financial aid, and understand the use of birth control methods. Another initiative is the ‘five-year’ plan which is a program that encourages reproductive health education and family planning support.

The government wants to hopefully reduce the fertility rate to 2.4 percent by 2030 however experts are skeptical. Egypt still has strict laws on abortion which a lot of the population believes that if legalized will reduce population spikes however, due to the large Islamic influence within the government it most likely will not happen. Luckily for the Egyptian government a lot of foreign interest and aid brings hopes that will help to reduce the fertility rate from 5.8 children to just 3. The foreign also helps to fund better education on the issue and to fund the many projects that the Ministry of Social Solidarity have in place.

References:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-population/egypt-promotes-birth-control-to-fight-rapid-population-growth-idUSKCN1BA153

https://fanack.com/egypt/population/population-control-programmes-gain-momentum/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/05/egypt-pushes-population-control-two-enough/743591002/