Climate
Can Large-Scale Telecommuting Save The Environment?
It feels like 2020 was a year of unmitigated disaster, filled with nothing but doom and gloom. However, while the pandemic was terrible (and is far from over at time of writing), some of our efforts to mitigate it had further-reaching effects than we expected. All you had to do was scroll through social media some time in the past year to see posts of people marveling at clear-running waters usually choked with detritus, or posting pictures of clear skies in places like Los Angeles, to get a sense of the visible effects that everyone staying home for a while had on the environment.
By Neal Litherland4 years ago in Earth
Touched by an Angel
Victoria gets hotter each year. I am pretty sure its climate change. The ocean, also getting hotter, is still refreshing on hot days. On this day, a super hot day in June, I take the spiral staircase down from the grassy bluffs of Clover Point Park. The dark pebbled beach is just radiating heat. I can feel it through the rubber soles of my water-shoes. The seaweed adds a miso soup smell to the salty air. I pull my cotton dress over my head and tangle it around a handy piece of driftwood and head to the waters edge. Its a calm day. Light waves lap against the stones. There are no suffers. No recreational fishermen standing on the edge of the wall at Angler's Point. Further down the beach two people tight rope walk along the wet side of the squiggly seaweed line. I walk into the sea. It feels so cool. I shiver as my shoulders get wet. It is a good shiver. I float easily on the waters surface for a bit. The blue of the sky punctured by the odd seagull. The water feels warm to me now. The initial refreshment blazed over by the sun. I adjust my swimming googles over my eyes and swim down to the ocean bed - its ridges capturing the complicated wave patterns above in an incomprehensible interpretation of wind and moon-pull. Delicate sea plants wave, small fish rush by, beach rocks break up the sand's wavy work. In a short distance the land below drops off to a cold looking green-black space. I come up. The sun attacks. I swim out a little further to the underwater cliff. I dive back down. The cliff is really just the backside of the sand dune, and the ocean bottom is not much lower on the other side. I pretend to bully surf own the dune's side. I feel the water getting colder by the inch. I come back up for air, I dive and ride down the side of the bar, enjoying the quick change in temperature. Back up top I float a bit. One more dive. As I reach with bottom of the lower bed something catches my eye. As my movement disturbs the sand a form - and outline of a large fish. I pull back up to the surface. My heart pounding. My toes and feet feeling very vulnerable wiggling far beneath me . Did I image the shape? I swim down - careful not to disturb the sand. The pattern is gone. I turn and swim back, this time up the slope of a sandbar. A large fish flat fish dislodges itself from the sand, turns and swims swiftly past me. We bump. I feel its rough skin brush my calf on the way past. Wait, fish have scales. Most fish have smooth slipper scales, not rough sandpapery skin! Now I am kicking quickly up - towards the sun. I swim clumsily to shore, and all but throw myself onto the beach. I sit on the edge letting the back-an-forth of the waves slow down my heart beat. But back of my mind is repeating the scary mantra of: shark, shark, shark. Not the scary Great White made famous on film, but still a fish with skin is a shark. It was fish like none I had ever seen - flat, almost like a ray, except for the tail with its two vertical fins. Strange almond shaped eyes. Later, google will clarify - a Pacific Angel Shark - very far north of its usual range, hiding as it does in the sand waiting for a meal. I was of course far too big to be considered for diner. The danger was conjured up by a phobia-like fear based on the power of a word capable of clearing beaches. I smile. Still, I was lucky to be touched by an angel.
By Debra Rohac4 years ago in Earth
5 Simple Ways To Go Green At Home
More people than ever are trying to help the environment. Whether at home or at work, as a business or an individual, the environment is a major concern. As a popular green slogan says, 'There is no Planet B!' — meaning that if we do irreversible damage to our planet, there is no alternative way forward.
By Alexander Belsey4 years ago in Earth
Geopolitics of Climate Change
Twenty of the hottest years ever recorded have happened in the past twenty-one years. Wildfire seasons, droughts, floods, hurricanes are already breaching their records year after year. These extreme weather events are also getting more and more difficult to predict, both, spatially as well as in terms of their time-frames. They cause huge damages to life and property and have proven to be very expensive for countries. These extreme weather events, however, are only a glimpse into an ominous future. What's bothering governments more are the rapidly changing climatic conditions that in turn affect agriculture, resources, trade, and infrastructure projects. All of these concerns are driving climate action plans and this is where geopolitics comes in. As climate change and climate action gain more and more traction, the world is set to witness significant changes in conventional geopolitics. For instance, as countries are reducing their oil and gas dependence, petrostates are scrambling to diversify their economies and brace for a new normal.
By Rishi Rathi4 years ago in Earth
Climate Change and Human Evolution
Author's preface: This was originally published in 2017 but still rings true today. The debate I read a brief exchange about the climate change debate this morning and it got me thinking all day about the topic. One of the questions that I kept returning to in my mind related to how humans and every other species on the planet will or will not adapt to the new environmental conditions that climate change will quite probably impose across much of the globe. For other species the answer is fairly obvious I think, they will either adapt or they will perish. As has been the case throughout all of earth’s history evolution through natural selection requires that those with the traits that are best adapted to reproduce will do so and so pass them on, especially when pressed by changes in the environment. Some have argued that the changes we are seeing or will soon see as a result of climate change are occurring too rapidly for many species to adapt. In essence that evolution cannot keep up with the pace of change. Mutations simply cannot occur frequently enough to supply a wide enough variety of phenotypes of different varieties to allow for at least one that can survive the new conditions any given species may find itself in. As usual rapid changes are the hardest for the longest lived (excluding microorganisms), and slowest reproducing creatures to deal with and they face the greatest threat of massive population decrease or even extinction. I happen to think that adaptation can happen much faster than is typically believed but I am not naive enough to think that even a greatly accelerated adaptation or mutation process will be enough to save all or even most animal species from the threat of habitat loss or change brought about by global warming.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Earth
Maintaining AQI in Major Cities & Basics of Air Purification
The air surrounds every element of our society, with a proper composition it is around us all the time. However, the air is not always the same, the composition at one place differs from the other. Similarly, it can be different at times on a single day for a single location. Seems pretty tough to understand, but it is just a part of how external particles can affect the basic structure of air. For an instance, the AQI - known as the Air Quality Index defines the daily air quality of a location with respect to time.
By Uncle Berry5 years ago in Earth
Global Warming
The global climate is changing rapidly compared to pre-industrial times, and there is several evidence that these changes are having an impact on organisms, ecosystems and human systems (high confidence). The increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) compared to 1850 and 1900, 0, reached between 2006 and 2015 ; the increase in frequency and magnitude of these impacts is very encouraging ; this indicates that a rise in GMST of 1.5 ° C or more will have an impact on natural or human systems, regardless of whether this increase is 1.6 ° C to 2 ° C.
By Kandel gita5 years ago in Earth
MONSTER HEATWAVE IN CANADA.
Hello guys, Normally Canada is considered as one of the coldest country in the world, as we know that temperature of -20°and-30°Celsius is not a great thing in Canada. But in the last few days there is a severe heatwave which caused the temperature to go beyond 49.6°C i.e., almost 50°C, you can expect this temperature in UAE or any of the middle east countries, but now it is also seen in Canada. How did these happen? Let’s try to know in today’s Article.
By Anish Patil5 years ago in Earth
What Is The Lifespan Of Our Planet
If the brightness of our star increases by 10%, the earth will no longer be in the habitable zone surrounding our star. When the Sun stops burning hydrogen in its core, Mars will be outside our habitable zone and we will be too hot to keep water on our surface. Like all things in the universe, our planet Earth will fizzle out.
By Kandel gita5 years ago in Earth
