Fighting for Air

By: Brita Belli

All of this climate change is really affecting of people's breathing around. (Belli) All of this change is leading to more ozone, more pollen, and more asthma. There have been reports from Bridgeport, Connecticut that people have been saying that they have trouble breathing. Jalyssa Moore from Connecticut is on a couple different inhalers and she needs to use it when there is cold air, weather changes, illness, and many allergies. (Belli) "The steroid-based inhalers have left Jalyssa with some muscle weakness that Kesher (mother of Jalyssa) says has been challenging. She has low upper body strength and low muscle strength in her legs". (Belli 1). 

"African-American children have the highest rates of asthma in the U.S., with 21% under the age of 18 having been diagnosed according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanic children are the next most impacted, with 15% diagnosed compared to 12% of white children". (Belli). As you can see this is a huge issue and all of this money spent from these parents are coming out of their bank accounts and poor families just simply cannot pay for it. In addition, there are problems with public housing because of the mold, dust, mice and others that can really affect these children's asthma. Not only are these children affected from these different households, there is so much nitrogen dioxide in the air from power plants, factories that causes a lot of symptoms like coughing, chest pain, and shortness of breath. (Belli) The warm air is especially making the air even worse because of the sun resulting in more nitrogen dioxide. What we really need to do is better use our technology to help make our air healthier. (Belli)


http://www.emagazine.com/magazine/fighting-for-air

Fracking for Natural Gas May Help Us Save Water 

By: Bryan Walsh


"Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is a water-intensive process—as critics love to point out. But by enabling the switch from thirsty coal to more efficient natural gas, fracking could be good for water scarcity" (Walsh 1). Many environmentalists are arguing that hydrofracking uses way too much water. Any average of 4 to 6 million gallons are used when there is fracking of either oil or gas. (Walsh) Even though there have been arguments, there have been new studies that have been done saying that fracking for natural gas saves water. What's correct? "Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin collected water use data from all 423 of the state’s power plants. They estimate that the water saved by switching from coal to natural gas is 25 to 50 times greater than the amount of water used in fracking to extract the shale gas in the first place". (Walsh 1). Researchers then soon discovered that Texas had consumed a larger amount of water, compared to times in the past. Irrigation is one of the most used water sources because of the several techniques that can be used. The U.S. has suffered from droughts in the past, so we need to be more aware of how much water is being used because sooner or later, water is will be so hard to get that we will be forced to shut down power plants. "Water use for fracking in Texas is also growing rapidly, from 36,000 acre-feet in 2008 to 81,500 acre-feet in 2011" (Walsh 1). To help with these problems, we need to start recycling this water from the fracking or create a substitute for all of this water use. This will test how our country is able to efficiently use these almost scarce resources. (Walsh)



http://science.time.com/2013/12/23/fracking-for-natural-gas-isnt-so-water-wasteful/

A Newly Discovered Underground Lake in Greenland Will Help Us Understand Climate Change 

By: Bryan Walsh

Being that the Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old, there are more and more discoveries each year. (Walsh) "Scientists have discovered a gigantic liquid water reservoir underneath Greenland's massive ice sheet". (Walsh 1). Nobody really saw this coming when glaciologists were in Greenland, drilling holes and there were no predictions on this discovery in 2011. "This aquifer is more than 27, 000sq. miles large-bigger than West Virginia" (Walsh 1). When looking at this, it would not be on the surface. When considering the temperatures throughout the year in Greenland, we see that there is always so much ice on the top surface. When the team was drilling these holes, they had noticed liquid water dripping, when the temperatures are below freezing. After analyzing this in 2013 recently, Lora Koenig had discovered that the temperature throughout this aquifer was at 32 degrees, which was not very near freezing point. This glaciologist thinks that the snow had changed the temperature of the aquifer because the snow had kept it from freezing. "The volume of the aquifer- which is fed by meltwater that flows through the Greenland ice sheet- is immense, and estimated 154 billions tons of water. That would be enough by itself to raise global sea level by 0.016 in. were the entire background lake to flow into the oceans". (Walsh 1). With this discovery, scientists can see how the liquid water moves in the ice sheets in Greenland. (Walsh) This will really help the scientists understand Greenland;s relationship with climate change, when looking towards the future. (Walsh)



http://science.time.com/2013/12/27/newly-discovered-underground-aquifer-greenland/

Fish Found: The Greatest Conservation Success Story of 2013? 

By: John R. Platt 


On December 23, a new species was found which was originally predicted to be no more. (Platt) This fish is called the Mangarahara cichlid (Ptychochromis insolitus). This fish is originally only found off of Madagascar. This species is extremely rare and most of the species had been destroyed. After this devastation, there were only three male fish remaining, representing this species. In order to help this species, the London Zoo Aquarium and Berlin Zoo sent out a note to other aquariums asking if any of them had any females of this species to see if this female needed a male to mate with. There was not much hope and when searching for a female. Then, "the Zoological Society of London announced that a group of Mangarahara cichlids has indeed been found. Not only that, they were actually still living in the wild". (Platt 1). 

The person who got back to the Society of London was a business owner who had remembered and had seen the fish once before in a Madagascar town. (Platt) So, "An exploratory expedition was arranged with the vital support from HM Ambassador in the British Embassy of Madagascar, so that, along with aquarists from Toronto Zoo in Canada, Brian Zimmerman and Kienan Parbles from ZSL London Zoo could head off to Madagascar to search for the Mangarahara cichlid". (Platt 1). The teams searching everywhere to find the cichlid. They were able to use nets from local villagers and finally found the remaining cichlids. (Platt)



http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2013/12/23/greatest-conservation-success-2013/