https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24 A collage of different environmental science articles and what they're about and a short essay of two articles. en-us 2021-09-22 18:56:59 UTC 2026-02-18 17:50:20 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f335.png rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760958617 I was interested in this article because it had to do with how much mining affects the water quality, which is related to the current class topic of watersheds and how water becomes polluted. “..., in a 2003 report… there was between $1 billion and $12 billion in unfunded cleanup liability at the country’s hardrock mines.” This money has to be paid by taxpayers as the mining companies had a “guaranteed” bond that would’ve paid for the cleanup, but that money often disappeared when a company filed bankruptcy.]]> 2021-09-22 19:00:20 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760958617 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760965108 I clicked on this article because I was genuinely interested in what a “ghost forest” was. A ghost forest is a whole forest that was killed off by a bunch of salt water due to climate change raising the sea levels. Forests on the coast play a big role in filtering pollution from the ocean and creating a natural barrier from the ocean. Without them, climate change would get even worse.

]]> 2021-09-22 19:03:40 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760965108 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760999210 This staggering amount of dolphins being killed is not the usual amount for this island community. In fact, it blew way past their previous years hunt of just over 200. This traditional hunt gets food for the community and has been a tradition since viking times. Many people were very upset and they should be! This was an unregulated event as the last time this amount of dolphins were caught was in 1940 at 1,200 dolphins. This many dolphins being hunted yearly would not be good for their ecosystem as it'd severely mess up the food chain.]]> 2021-09-22 19:20:01 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1760999210 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1779135914 In Guatemala, people that have been living and farming there for years are now having to migrate in order to stay alive. Due to climate change, their crops were initially not doing well. But then a massive storm came, creating mudslides and flooding the fields which destroyed many, many crops. This left a lot of families with nothing because farming is their only source of income. Therefore they have to move and sell their belongings to get a fresh start. Some families have already been forced to move out of their own country.]]> 2021-09-29 19:11:52 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1779135914 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1779167802 This got my attention as the size of the ozone hole can be a big change in an organism's environment. Any microorganisms in the Antarctic Ocean could be harmed or killed and it could create a big disruption in the food chain if the producers cannot live in the harsh environment. The hole being larger could be proportional to the climate change situation currently happening.]]> 2021-09-29 19:25:49 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1779167802 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1797528204 The 126,000 gallon oil spill off of California deeply affects the entire environment for miles. It harshly contaminates the water, which is essential for all life to live. It affected not only ocean water but also in a marsh where many birds, one being the great egret, migrate through the land and use the water. When the birds interact with the contaminated water, it can affect environments world-wide.]]> 2021-10-06 18:52:35 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1797528204 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1797587910 West-virginia's coal business has depleted over the years as clean energy has come into being a mass producer for electricity. With the country's change to cleaner energy, the economy has dropped and West Virginia is currently one of the poorest states as most their economy comes from coal mining. Only recently has West Virginia made any moves towards adapting to solar and wind produced energy. The state started making moves to help recover and be more environmentally friendly by cleaning up coal mines and building a solar panel field.]]> 2021-10-06 19:20:16 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1797587910 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1814969001 This article sparked my interest greatly as remotely working beneficially impacted air pollution in some major cities by 20% and with some areas having a 30% change. A 20% difference is a great amount of change and if doing something as simple as changing the way a few people work can change the amount of pollution by that much, there could be plenty of other very simple ways to reduce all types of pollution.]]> 2021-10-13 19:22:44 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1814969001 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1882312309 Deforestation happens for many different things, one is majorly for palm oil. To make palm oil plantations, forests are burned or bulldozed over to make room for these large plantations. Burning these forests creates A LOT of C02 emissions. Just the general removal of the forest destroys habitats of anything living within them. This has caused a few animals that dependently live in these forests to become increasingly threatened to endangerment.]]> 2021-11-10 19:49:30 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1882312309 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1882379403 Chernobyl was a great power plant for its time. It made its city rich and prosperous and it was nearly a paradise as it generated so much power making everything in chernobyl cheap because the city was so rich. But then disaster struck one night in April of 1986. Chernobyl reactor 4 was undergoing safety tests that night and during one of the tests the power had gotten too low and it started causing power surges. The workers that have trained to handle emergency situations made wrong decisions tried to reverse the low power and allowed too much power and steam to accumulate resulting with part of the reactor exploding and emitting radiation into the surrounding area and atmosphere. This was one of few nuclear power accidents but the people who ran Chernobyl were not trained as well as they should've been. I believe nuclear energy is safe, just as long as the right qualified people and designs are used to create it.]]> 2021-11-10 20:24:55 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1882379403 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897753206 2021-11-17 19:01:47 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897753206 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897757777 2021-11-17 19:03:55 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897757777 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897760021 2021-11-17 19:04:53 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897760021 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897766734 Ghost forests and Chernobyl]]> 2021-11-17 19:07:53 UTC https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897766734 rippaar22 https://padlet.com/rippaar22/5iaojci6zbvs6p24/wish/1897770832 There were 2 articles that I was pretty interested in during my investigation of what is happening within our world’s environment. The first being the article from NBC News about the ghost forests appearing on the U.S.’s east coast. It’s interesting because these ghost forests are the first experience of how the rising sea levels will affect multiple environments. My other interest was in the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. Learning about how and why this accident occured has led me to change my opinion of nuclear power towards it being safe. These two articles changed my view on advanced environmental technology and causes to reduce climate change.

As a Wisconsin citizen that lives nowhere near the ocean, I believed that ocean levels rising couldn’t possibly affect me because there is no way that my home could possibly be flooded by rising ocean levels. The truth is that my life can be affected by more than water flooding my home. I am correct that my home will likely never be flooded as it sits on a big hill high above sea level. But the thing that will most definitely affect me is the fact that states on the East Coast that make produce like Georgia’s oranges and other products will likely be affected by rising sea levels as the rising sea levels are already causing ghost forests. These ghost forests are the result of the trees receiving salt water because of the rising ocean levels. The forest isn’t flooded by salt water but their roots are absorbing salt water which causes the trees to die and it kills the whole forest because trees are so detrimental to the environment of a forest. These forests are also a natural barrier between the ocean water and freshwater. If these natural barriers are broken, saltwater will easily get deeper and deeper into our land. Another effect of trees being missing is the land becomes looser causing much more erosion and the east coast to lose its land mass. These are the reasons why we need to look further than what we think will affect us because there is more to a direct issue that meets the eye as there are usually smaller issues that go relatively unnoticed. 

Speaking of issues that have more than what meets the eye, we have the Chernobyl Accident of 1986. This environmental catastrophe caught my eye immediately and I was very interested to learn more about this rare occurrence of nuclear mishap. Before I learned about Chernobyl and why the accident occured, I believed that nuclear energy was both dangerous and mostly unacceptable. This belief came from the fact that I associated nuclear energy with a nuclear bomb. Nuclear bombs are not the same as a nuclear energy plant as they were both made to suit two very different needs. A current-day nuclear energy plant is much safer than people realise as we have learned from past accidents like Chernobyl that there are better and much safer ways of maintaining one. What I have learned from the Chernobyl Accident is that it was manned by some unqualified workers that were uneducated, the disaster happened because Chernobyl used a positive production method which led to the explosion, and Chernobyl had badly designed safety measures. All of these factors led to the accident and it could have been easily preventable given any of these features were flipped creating a better, less explosive and radiation-inducing outcome. I learned today that nuclear energy plants have a negative production system as if the power is cut, the system will be fine and begin to cool down. People running these plants are also more educated and well-trained to handle any emergency. Safety measures have also advanced greatly since 1986. Given this it is my belief that nuclear energy is safe. Nuclear Energy still produces waste that we need to figure out a way to deal with, but in my opinion it is safe.

Conclusively, I believe that people should do more research as reading these articles have prompted me to do. There is a lot more than what you initially thought about a situation at hand. I have had my opinions completely changed about two major things that will matter within my lifetime. I do believe we need to start educating ourselves to the matters at hand and then hold our beliefs. There are many different beliefs about any given topic, some are educated, some are uneducated, some believe from their heart, others may have no opinion at all. But learning what I have learned, just from a few articles, people should educate themselves before living off assumptions like I have done.

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