For this first week, practice posting by selecting an interesting news item concerning any environmental issue of your choosing. Post a 200 word blog on the significance or importance of the item, and post the link to your source. Adding pictures or video to the blog when appropriate can enhance interest and educational value of the post.
As humans we have an undeniable dependence on the Earth. What most people don't realize is that once we ruin this planet we don't have another to inhabit. Because of this, steps need to be taken now to educate people about earth and how human activity affects it. As we become more educated we can understand how our activities cause changes to the earth, such as global warming. Recently Mark Flanner and his colleagues have been studying the reflection of radiation from sunlight back to space by Arctic ice and glaciers. This process is known as the albedo effect. Utilizing field measurements and satellite observations they found that the warming effect of the loss of snow and ice was substantially larger than what had been previously predicted by computer models. The higher heat of absorption is a result of human activity on Earth. Arctic melting is not the only factor, but it does have a large influence on the future climate of the earth.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/ nation/la-me-climate-arctic-20110121,0,5134908. story
For more potential effects of global warming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAbATJCugs
I don't think that it's necessarily that people don't realize that we don't have another planet to inhabit once this one is destroyed but I think they're thinking "well I will already be gone by the time anything major happens so it doesn't matter what I do anyways." It's really kind of a sad way to think. I don't know whether or not if they realize that their grandchildren and so on may later have to face the problems from their actions. If they knew that then it would make them re-evaluate their behaviors now.
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