Deforestation

The Amazon Forest has been seen for many years as a climate change safety net that will soak up all the excess carbon dioxide in the air. Deforestation is one of the main causes that limit forests ability, such as the Amazon, to soak up all the carbon dioxide in the air to help prevent climate change.

            Deforestation is the process of clearing the Earth’s trees on a very large scale, which then damages the quality of the land. Today, forests cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s land, “but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year”(National Geographic). With the rate that deforestation is at right now, the forests on earth could be whipped out within a hundred years.

            Forests, especially the Amazon, have helped take-in about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, but this number is gradually declining as deforestation continues to grow as a problem. Part of the issue that has grown with the excess of carbon dioxide in the air is that the growth of trees has been stimulated and their lifespan has been sped up.

            Trees thrive on carbon dioxide, but “with time, the growth stimulation feeds through the system, causing trees to live faster, and so die younger,” Oliver L. Phillips, a tropical ecologist at the University of Leeds. This statement by Phillips means that the excess of carbon dioxide in the air has caused the trees to intake great amounts of carbon dioxide that speed up their lifespan therefore the trees do not live very long. This causes issues within the issue deforestation because usable trees do not last as long as they should and these consequences can almost double the destruction of forests.

            “Forests are doing us a huge favor, but we can’t rely on them to solve the carbon problem,” Dr. Phillips said. “Instead, deeper cuts in emissions will be required to stabilize our climate.”

            Some companies have ben able to step up and speak out against deforestation to help decrease its growth in our world’s forests. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is one of the world’s largest commodities suppliers and they have ensured that they will take steps to help protect the forests. The global demands for such commodities as palm oil and soy make it difficult to accommodate their company, but with the addition of the No Deforestation policy, they have been able to take control of their supply chains.

            With the help of such major companies as ADM, deforestation can be on its way out of the headlines in the next hundred years. Although without the help of exposing the issues of deforestation, nothing will or can be done about the problem.

           

Do you know of any companies that take responsibility for their actions as ADM did?

Are there any other measures that can be taken to decrease deforestation issues?

References:

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/science/earth/amazon-forest-becoming-less-of-a-climate-change-safety-net.html?ref=earth&_r=0

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14283.html

Renewable Energy and Climate Change

Why can’t climate change be solved through the wind and solar energy technologies established today?

An article on the FoxNews.com has information on scientific issue about the effects of renewable energy on climate change. The topic came about when two Google engineers, from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, decided to find the facts behind renewable energy. They conducted a project that would determine such effects and they called the project “RE<C.”

Before the project began, the engineers had high hopes for the results of their project. In a report they released the engineers stated, “At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope.” Renewable energy has been known as a sort of gateway for the world to diminish the affects of climate change. With the results of this project the thought of creating green energy has merely been seen as an “overhyped” and “emotional dream.”

Now in the main aspects of the project, the engineers created a best-case scenario for the world if they were to switch to alternative uses of energy immediately. According to the engineers, the conclusion of the project was determined to be a failure because there would be no way to divert from climate change. A spokesman from Google has reiterated also that the conclusion of the project was not meant to antagonize or dissuade the world from using solar and wind energy.

            In addition to the project done by the Google engineers, Dr. John P. Abraham, a professor of thermal and fluid sciences at the University of St. Thomas, told FoxNews.com that the project was a good start for the engineers. They were able to determine that the solar and wind energy were simply substitutes for energy and not alternatives. He also added that because renewable energy sources are substitutes there are many different parts to the energy crisis, but the use of solar energy and its costs today are “staggering.” A spokesman from Google also agrees that this is one of the first steps to figuring out different approaches to creating and fixing the climate change problem. It is a good progressing to creating a better energy saving industry.

            Later in a statement, engineers wrote that “our society needs to fund scientists and engineers to propose and test new ideas, fail quickly, and share what they learn.” This means not just throwing money at projects and hoping they will fly off. This means investing in those who are ambitious and have a dream of something great. We need the help of such innovators to take their wildest imagination and try to make it a reality. At this point in the world we need help by those who think about the impossible scenarios. We need to help make the impossible possible because that is what may create a global salvation.

Link to this news article:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/11/25/google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-wont-solve-climate-change/

Related sites to the issues:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

The Scientific Method

Scientists in many different fields have used the scientific method for hundreds of years to guide experiments. It has been a method that has been able to determine facts and theories about elements in our world today. The scientific method as published by sciencebuddies.org is as follows:

1.     Ask Questions
2.     Do background research
3.     Construct a hypothesis
4.     Test the hypothesis through an experiment
5.     Analyze the data and draw a conclusion
6.     Communicate your results

I want to further understand the scientific method as it is used today in scientific research. Therefore, I interviewed Dr. Patrick Holt of Bellarmine University about the scientific method. I wanted to know the opinion of a current practicing scientist’s view of the scientific method. I was able to get catch up with Dr. Holt where I asked him some simple questions about his research as a practicing scientist. I asked him how he performs experiments, the steps he takes and if there are any differences to the scientific method I have listed compared to his version of the scientific method.

Dr. Holt works mostly with physical chemistry and the chemical systems, specifically molecules and how they react when they are energized by light. In developing an experiment he uses such steps as the following:

1.     How does the molecule respond when hit with light energy?
2.     Design the experiment.
3.     Perform the experiment.
4.     Analyze the data collected and draw preliminary conclusions.
5.     Design additional experiments to change the parameters of conditions of the molecules in order to        collect more complete conclusions of the molecules behavior.
6.     Develop a preliminary theory, after the experiments are done, of your observations.

In Dr. Holt’s experiments of the effects of light energy on molecules and other experiments he may perform, he does not follow the scientific method exactly to how it is stated in sciencebuddies.org. He is able to create a simpler more adapted version of the scientific method that fits to what he intends to get out of an experiment.  In consideration to the scientific method I provided earlier, Dr. Holt informed me that he simply skips over the hypothesis aspect of the scientific method. Why is that? The work that is done within an experiment does not need to have an official hypothesis. This is because, as Dr. Holt states, the outcome of an experiment could simply be an idea that lies in the “back of your head.” The aspect of developing a hypothesis would be the biggest difference from Dr. Holt’s method compared to the scientific method I have posted above. The hypothesis has almost become a lost cause among many scientists today, like Dr. Holt. In a way scientists are more adept to asking questions and developing an experiment so that they may create a theory about what they have observed from the experiment’s conclusions. In some ways hypotheses are not necessarily needed. Some of the great discoveries, such as nylon and mold, have been accidental discoveries, which show how unexpected the conclusions can be in an experiment.