The Paris Agreement, can it actually stop global warming?

The Paris Agreement is said to be the biggest step towards global environmental responsibility ever, roughy 120 countries signed a legally binged treaty on earth day in paris. The climate change conference call it a "historic point"

The main goal of the paris agreement is to stop the earth's temperature from rising 2 degree Celsius, compares to pre-industrial era, the number might seem small, but it would be a global disaster had it happened.

However, many people including supporters questioned the effectiveness of the paris agreement. because roughly 85% of the global pollution were produced by 55 countries, and most of the major polluter, expect the US, are developing counties. Therefore in a countries were many people were still struggling to live a decent life, whether they still follow the agreement is still unknown. 

Of course, most importantly the two biggest countries the US and China must work together in order to make this work.


http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-deal-cop-diplomacy-developing-united-nations

Why Do People Still Deny Climate Change?

Cimate change, according to almost all scientists is a fact, overwhelming number of evidents suggested that climate change is real. During the 2015 United Nation's climate change conference in Paris, over 190 countries are reaffirming their commitment in dealing with climate change. 

It is said that the Paris UN climate conference in December 2015 will deliver a new universal climate change agreement. The new agreement is aimed at putting the world firmly on track to a low-carbon, sustainable future that keeps a global temperature rise under 2 degrees C.

Even with the majority of the world leader and scientists agreed that climate change is real and we need to do everything we can to safe our planet, there are still a lot of "skeptics" of climate change. (skeptics are those who use scientific inquiry and critical investigation to challenge claims, which climate change DENIERS were not) 

Well, i think most climate change deniers refused to believe that human activity has substantially increased the rate of global warming, not because they are blind to science and reason, but because once they admit climate change is man made, many large energy corporations will have to spend a large number of money to switched to new source of energy. Therefore, they choose to ignore the facts.

http://newsroom.unfccc.int/paris/

http://www.earthtoparis.org/

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/events/2015/december/COP21-paris-climate-conference.html

GMO or not GMO?

Recently the US The Food and Drug Administration claim the safety of two types of food, apples that resist browning and potatoes that resist bruising, these are examples of genetically modified organisms - GMOs. Therefore many people are debating about the safety of GMOs.

Although 88% of scientist say that there is nothing to worried about GMOs, many people still worried about the long term effect of modifying the DNA of our food, the unnatural mixing of different spices, and the environmental impact of GMOs, 

However, there are many researches indicates that GMOs are perfectly safe, a study that compare animals that feed with GMO and conventional crops over the course of 20 years, and found that there is almost no difference between the two.

In fact, humans have been modifying the genes of animals and crop for thousands of year through human selection, that's why we have chicken, dogs, cows, corns tamatos etc. The argument of GMOs being bad are more related to the un-trust of corporations rather than facts.   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/03/proof-hes-the-science-guy-bill-nye-is-changing-his-mind-about-gmos/

http://modernfarmer.com/2015/03/fda-approves-gmo-apples-and-potatoes/

Is Being a Vegetarian Better for the Environment?

People chose to be a vegetarian for all kind of the reasons. Some don't like the idea of killing animals, some think vegetarianism is a healthier diet, and some people become a vegetarian because they think being a vegetarian is better for the environment.

Our food production system, from fertilizer manufacture to food storage and packaging is responsible for one-third of our greenhouse gas emissions. Animals like cow, goat, sheep ferment food before they digest it, and this fermentation will produce methane, it is estimated that a single cow will release 100 kg of methane per year. That is almost the same as a car's greenhouse gas emission every year.

Different meats and different production systems have varying health, climate and other environmental impacts. The argument of being a vegetarian is better for the environment is base on the fact the we feed our animals with plant, then we eat the animals, therefore we use more resources and produce more greenhouse gases than if we simply eat the plants.

However, it is not that simple, from this diagram you can see that while in a kg per kg view, meats and diary production looks really bad. But the reality is that people need certain amount of calories per day to live, and when you looking from a cal per cal perspective, pork or chicken can be a better choice than broccoli.

So, is being a vegetarian better for the environment, yes, however, if your chose your choice of meat carefully, you can be just as un-harmful to the environment as a omnivore.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/vegetarian-or-omnivore-the-environmental-implications-of-diet/2014/03/10/648fdbe8-a495-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html

http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708

http://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-meat-eaters-guide-to-climate-change-health-what-you-eat-matters/

How Does Plastic Bags Get Into the Ocean?

Even if you're hundreds of miles away from the coast, the trash you toss into the gutter can end up as plastic pollution at ocean.

According to a groundbreaking study published earlier this year in the journal Science,somewhere between 40,000 and 110,000 metric tons of plastic waste generated by Americans ends up in the ocean.Population size and the quality of waste management systems largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris.

The ocean is always downstream. One of the problem is the illegal dumping of trash in rural areas , which includes a lot of plastic, A 2013 survey of the Meuse River, which flows 575 miles through France, Belgium and the Netherlands to the North Sea, found that it contained 70,000 pieces of plastic per square meter of water, about 500 of which were roughly an inch or bigger in size..

According to the research, Without waste management infrastructure improvements, the cumulative quantity of plastic waste available to enter the ocean from land is predicted to increase by an order of magnitude by 2025

http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1260352

http://www.seeker.com/plastic-trash-islands-forming-in-ocean-garbage-patch-1768827806.html#news.discovery.com

https://wastefreewaters.wordpress.com/

Can Air Pollution atcually be good?

The Earth is a magical place, while we all know that air pollution is bad, and it is bad, scientists actually find some positive side effects of air pollution.

Believe it or nor, the more  an area is polluted, the less likely a hurricane will form. One of main source of air pollution is aerosol, and aerosol will absorb heat and makes the clouds brighter and reflects more light from the sun. Large amount of aerosol can reflect enough sunlight to change the ocean's temperature and air circulation patterns and make it harder for hurricanes to form.

Research also find that sometimes air pollution has a positive effect on global warming. That's right.
While we tend to think that plant need as much direct sunlight as possible to grow fast, the haziness cause by air pollution actually shatters sunlight so that more leafs gets sunlight, therefore they will grow faster.

Moreover, dimmer, hazier skies causes plants to absorb 20% more carbon, therefore reduces the level of carbon dioxide in the air.

So, are we supposed to keep destroying our environment? No, but scientists are looking into ways to re-create these environment without polluting the air, it is call geo-engineering. But that is an topic for another day.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/atlantic-hurricane

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=392&cookieConsent=A

The Great Barrier Reef, Is Coal Mining Endangering It?

One of the world's wonders, the great barrier reef,is facing destruction due to accelerating climate change, according to environmentalists. However, is coal mining to be blame?


The government of the Australian state of Queensland has approved a controversial coal mining project that scientists and environmental groups worry may harm the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest collection of coral formations.

Adani, the Indian energy company that will build and operate the mine, describes it as “a core component of Adani’s plans for delivering energy security in India, as well as pursing export opportunities in other Asian markets.”However, according to New Scientist,to handle those coal exports, the port at Abbott Point, which is next to the reef, would be expanded.It could potentially release plumes of soil and debris over the reef, damaging a delicate ecosystem.

Moreover,eventually burning all of that coal would put a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. helping to drive the climate change that’s raising sea temperatures and causing the reef to deteriorate.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/adanis-galilee-basin-project-mine-leases-approved-20160403-gnx016.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2083116-anger-as-coal-mine-that-could-damage-great-barrier-reef-approved/

Fish Think Plastic Is Food

Pollution is so prevalent in water bodies now that fish can't help but eat it. Many perch larvae preferred eating the tiny plastic pieces, and those that did often exhibited stunted growth and very sluggish behavior.

The findings, published in the journal Science, strengthen prior research calling for a reduction of plastic waste and a ban of microbeads in personal care products. Microbeads can be found in everything from toothpaste to facial cleansers, and are so small that they pass unfiltered through sewage treatment plants.

When the perch were placed with a natural predator, pike, they ignored the smell of these predators and were caught and eaten more than four times quicker than perch that did not consume the plastic. By eating perch that previously consumed plastics, the pike also wound up ingesting plastic. This can go on up the food chain in the wild. All of the perch exposed to microplastic particles were dead within 48 hours.