...Even though some would argue that one of the reasons for the California’s drought 2014-2015 is not global warming, Stanford Research proved that the abnormal atmospheric conditions connected with California’s current critical drought have most chances to occur under today’s global warming conditions rather than in the climate that existed before human released large amounts of gases and pollution due to industrialization. B) California’s drought 2014-2015- “man-made disaster”. Unarguably, human actions impact natural water resources, and this section will illustrate that drought that California experiences in 2014-2015 is a “man-made disaster”. According to Zimmerman, M. (2015), misguided environmental policies were one of the causes of California’s...
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...Within the article, “River Plan: Too Fishy for my Taste Buds”, its author Bill McEwen writes about the plan to restore the San Joaquin River, and about the details that seem to create more negative effects than positive effects. This author appears to be more credible, as he gives a wider view of the situation than merely who approves of the idea. He gives details of how the restoration idea would ruin what little river remains, and become a drowning waste of money. McEwen worked with the Fresno Bee for over 35 years, writing multiple articles and having a heavy understanding of politics that other writers do not. The Fresno Bee pulls in an average of 264,603 daily readers, and publishing occurs in the California city of Fresno. Fresno itself...
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...expensive to desalinate water, it is also harming the earth. “The relationship between desalinization and climate change is complex. Global warming has increased droughts around the world and turned formerly verdant landscapes into near deserts. “(Fred) Desalination is a factor in climate change. Desalination can produce greenhouse gas emissions “The plant will use a huge amount of electricity, increasing the carbon dioxide emission that causes global warming, which further strains water supplies.”(Fred) The disposal of excess salt into the ocean can also harm sea life. Large populations that have limited bodies of water may choose to build desalination plants. Without having desalination plants, it becomes harder to find available clean water. “The world health organization tells that three and a half million children die every year in this world not from lack of water but from lack of clean water.” (Godshall) Areas that are in droughts will suffer and may take the lives of innocent people. Desalination plants are a good back-up water supply in case our clean water levels are low. “To date there are about 300 desalinization plants in the United States, with 120 in Florida and less than 40 each in Texas and California. Some 20 additional plants are planned for the coast of California in the coming years, unless environmentalists extolling the virtues of conservation and wielding low-flow shower heads and toilets prevail.” (Fred). Desalination not only provides humans and livestock...
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...(drinking water, fish population, toxic algae • Cut water deliveries: Causes ecological crisis • Long fin Smelt: Considered for protection because of decline of reproduction (specially no spawn of long fin smelt) • Water officials...
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...Water, The Finite Resources Outline I. Introduction A. Opener: What is water scarcity? B. Thesis statement: One of the crises that our environment is facing is fresh water scarcity which is a very serious issue and it affects our global environmental. II. Water shortage effects on environment and human beings. A. Causes disease B. Agricultural fields C. Poverty group D. Aquatic Ecosystems III. Water scarcity is causes by different factors. A. Global warming B. Changes of climate C. Decreasing ground water level D. Population growth and the increased consumption of water IV. Solution for water scarcity is a necessity. A. Water Sharing Treaty B. Environmentalists Oppose Desalination Solution C. Government’s rules, regulations and plan V. Conclusion: People should use water wisely to prepare a better future for our next generation. Water, Our Finite Resources One of the crises that our environment is facing is fresh water scarcity which is a very serious issue and it affects our global environment. In the boundless black desert of space, the Earth which is always a blue-green oasis has a finite stock of fresh water (Lean, 2009). Water is the principal element for all socio-economic growth and for sustaining healthy ecosystems (“Water scarcity: The”, n.d.). Water scarcity is the product of an inequity between the supply of and demand for water supplies in a geographical area. Plainly put, water...
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...ton1.1 Major Themes of Environmental Science The study of environmental problems and their solutions has never been more important. Modern society in 2009 is hooked on oil. Production has declined, while demand has grown, and the population of the world has been increasing by more than 70 million each year. The emerging energy crisis is producing an economic crisis, as the prices of everything produced from oil (fertilizer, food, and fuel) rise beyond what some people can afford to pay. Energy and economic problems come at a time of unprecedented environmental concerns, from the local to global level. At the beginning of the modern era—in A.D. 1—the number of people in the world was probably about 100 million, one-third of the present population of the United States. In 1960 the world contained 3 billion people. Our population has more than doubled in the last 40 years, to 6.8 billion people today. In the United States, population increase is often apparent when we travel. Urban traffic snarls, long lines to enter national parks, and difficulty getting tickets to popular attractions are all symptoms of a growing population. If recent human population growth rates continue, our numbers could reach 9.4 billion by 2050. The problem is that the Earth has not grown any larger, and the abundance of its resources has not increased—in many cases, quite the opposite. How, then, can Earth sustain all these people? And what is the maximum number of people that could live on Earth, not just...
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...will take time, but it is comforting to know that an alternative to freshwater does exist if needed. Being able to weigh the pros against the cons shines a new light on the topic. The high energy requirements are the main cause of the amount of greenhouse gases. Desalination plants that use reverse osmosis would require less energy than other types of desalination technologies such as distillation. Sydney Water in Australia have projected that a desalination plant that produces up to 500 Mega liters (ML) of water per day through reverse osmosis would require 906 Giga Watt hours (GWh) per year and would produce between 950,000 tons (using the existing energy grid) and 480,000 tons (a gas power station adjoining the desalination plant) of greenhouse gasses per year depending on the source of energy. These alarmingly high amounts of green house gasses are the consequence of the attempts being done to try to bring more fresh water to people in need, but these consequences may be necessary as the world’s only hope of a long term, sustainable water source. Desalinization and climate change have an unordinary, complex relationship. Global warming has increased droughts around the world and turned formerly lush landscapes into near deserts. Due to these droughts, some long standing sources of fresh water are simply no longer reliably available to the hundreds of millions of people around the world that need it. Expanding populations in desert areas are putting a lot of pressure on existing...
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...We hear the term “greenhouse gas” a lot—but what is it? Humans add various gases to the earth’s atmosphere every day; these gases (known as “greenhouse gases”) consist primarily of carbon dioxide, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, and methane, and tend to warm the earth. Trees help counter greenhouse gas production during photosynthesis, by taking in carbon dioxide as waste material and producing oxygen, which of course we all need to survive. Scientists predict that the daily addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, combined with daily removal of large portions of the world’s forests, will raise the earth’s average temperature by several degrees in the next century. This in turn will raise the level of the sea and potentially create significant changes in weather patterns on a global scale. As we move into the future, many climatologists expect that most of the United States will warm. What we do not know yet is how to scientifically predict which parts of the nation will become wetter or drier. We do know there is likely to be an overall trend toward increased precipitation and evaporation, and more intense weather systems, in the form of violent rainstorms, blizzards and sun-baked, drier soils. The Facts—What Do We Already Know About Changing Global Conditions (Global Warming)? Global temperatures are rising. Observations collected over the last century suggest that the average land surface temperature has risen 0.45-0.6°C (0.8-1.0°F) in the last...
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...Water scarcity and the West. Water is a scarce and highly prized commodity in the arid Western states. Not surprisingly, water policy creation is very much a challenge for a number of reasons. Citizens hold multiple water values such as economic development and the protection of wildlife which are often contradictory. State prior appropriation laws are not easily reconciled with federal reserve rights and the public trust doctrine. There are multiple governmental and nongovernmental actors who work to influence and implement policy in a decentralized political system. If actors lose a policy battle in one decisionmaking arena (such as a legislature), they often try to influence policy at another venue (a court, Congress or an agency). Policymaking involves water issues that are dynamic over time. Furthermore, there are several types of water policy (distributive, allocative, redistributive and cooperative) that vary according to who pays costs and receives benefits, the level of conflict, the openness of decision- making to interested parties, and the level of government which dominates. Long ago, Mark Twain was correct when he said “Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting about.” © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the arid Western states, water has always been an important resource. For over 100 years, federal and state governments and local water users have worked to provide water to agriculture, industry and residents. Since 1902 the...
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...GLOBAL WARMING: Energy, Fall 2005 v30 i4 p36(2) It could get a lot warmer. (GLOBAL WARMING) Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Business Communications Company, Inc. If humans continue to use fossil fuels in a business as usual manner for the next few centuries, the polar ice caps will be depleted, ocean sea levels will rise by seven meters and median air temperatures will soar to 14.5 degrees warmer than current day. These are the stunning results of climate and carbon cycle model simulations conducted by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By using a coupled climate and carbon cycle model to look at global climate and carbon cycle changes, the scientists found that the earth would warm by 8 degrees Celsius (14.5 degrees Fahrenheit) if humans use the entire planet's available fossil fuels by the year 2300. The jump in temperature would have alarming consequences for the polar ice caps and the ocean, said lead author Govindasamy Bala of the Laboratory's Energy and Environment Directorate. In the polar regions alone, the temperature would spike more than 20 degrees Celsius, forcing the land in the region to change from ice and tundra to boreal forests. "The temperature estimate is actually conservative because the model didn't take into consideration changing land use such as deforestation and build-out of cities into outlying wilderness areas," Bala said. Today's level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is 380 parts per million (ppm). By the year 2300, the model...
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...COLLAPSE HOW S O C I E T I E S CHOOSE TO FAIL OR S U C C E E D JARED DIAMOND VIK ING VIKING Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published in 2005 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 13579 10 8642 Copyright © Jared Diamond, 2005 All rights reserved Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed/Jared Diamond. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-670-03337-5 1. Social history—Case studies. 2. Social change—Case studies. 3. Environmental policy— Case studies. I. Title. HN13. D5 2005 304.2'8—dc22...
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...Collapse- book is about a history topic about how societies choose to fail or survive. The main characters are historical people and unknown kings of Mayan cities or Easter Island villages. Jared Diamond tells the story of the Viking explorer Erik the Red, who discovered Greeland and Vinland (Terranova, in Canada). Another character is captain Olafsson, a norse sailor who wrote the last news about Greenland in 1410. Another main character is Christopher Columbus, who arrived at Hispaniola in 1492, but now this island is two countries, the Dominican Republic and the Haiti. Diamond studied the politics of two presidents. the dominican Rafael Trujillo, who protected the enviroment and the dictator François, Papa Doc, Duvalier, who decided on politics of deforestatation of his country, Haiti. The author considered the bad politics of another main character, king George II, who was interested in sending merinosheeps from Spain to Australia, an idea which was succesful from 1820 to 1950 but then the farmers understood their lands lost fertility. Another main character is Tokuwaga Jeayasu, a shogun of Japan in 1600, who prohibited Christianity in 1600 and protected his country againt deforestation. The book takes us to a lot of places around the globe: Mayan cities, Rwanda, Viking colonies of Vinland or Greenland, Haiti and Dominican Republic, Easter Island and Polynesian colonies in Pacific, and the Chaco villages in New Mexico (United States). The time period was from 800 AC, when...
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...Practice Test #1 Sentence Correction 1. To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets. 2. Organized in 1966 by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Breeding Bird Survey uses annual roadside counts along established routes to monitor changes in the populations of more than 250 bird species, including 180 songbirds. 3. Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas. 4. Excited about the prospects of harnessing Niagara Falls to produce electric power, Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, predicted in the mid-1890's that electricity generated at Niagara would one day power the streetcars of London and the streetlights of Paris. 5. The airline company, following through on recent warnings that it might start reducing service, announced that it was eliminating jet service to nine cities, closing some unneeded operations, and grounding twenty-two planes. 6. The list of animals that exhibit a preference for using either the right or the left hand (i.e., claw, paw, or foot) has been expanded to include the lower vertebrates. 7. Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect its already-tattered...
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...CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIA An Interpretive History TENTH EDITION James J. Rawls Instructor of History Diablo Valley College Walton Bean Late Professor of History University of California, Berkeley TM TM CALIFORNIA: AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY, TENTH EDITION Published by McGraw-Hill, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Previous editions © 2008, 2003, and 1998. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States. This book is printed on acid-free paper. 1234567890 QFR/QFR 10987654321 ISBN: 978-0-07-340696-1 MHID: 0-07-340696-1 Vice President & Editor-in-Chief: Michael Ryan Vice President EDP/Central Publishing Services: Kimberly Meriwether David Publisher: Christopher Freitag Sponsoring Editor: Matthew Busbridge Executive Marketing Manager: Pamela S. Cooper Editorial Coordinator: Nikki Weissman Project Manager: Erin Melloy Design Coordinator: Margarite Reynolds Cover Designer: Carole Lawson Cover Image: Albert Bierstadt, American (born...
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...GMO MYTHS AND TRUTHS An evidence-based examination of the claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified crops Michael Antoniou Claire Robinson John Fagan June 2012 GMO Myths and Truths An evidence-based examination of the claims made for the safety and efficacy of genetically modified crops Version 1.3 by Michael Antoniou Claire Robinson John Fagan © Earth Open Source www.earthopensource.org 2nd Floor 145–157, St John Street, London EC1V 4PY, United Kingdom Contact email: claire.robinson@earthopensource.org June 2012 Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this paper, or otherwise published by EOS, are those of the authors and do not represent the official policy, position, or views of other organizations, universities, companies, or corporations that the authors may be affiliated with. GMO Myths and Truths 2 About the authors Michael Antoniou, PhD is reader in molecular genetics and head, Gene Expression and Therapy Group, King’s Cols: lege London School of Medicine, London, UK. He has 28 years’ experience in the use of genetic engineering technology investigating gene organisation and control, with over 40 peer reviewed publications of original work, and holds inventor status on a number of gene expression biotechnology patents. Dr Antoniou has a large network of collaborators in industry and academia who are making use of his discoveries in gene control mechanisms for the production of research, diagnostic and therapeutic products...
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