Acid Rain

1. What gases are the major cause of acid rain? -  The gases that are the major cause of acid rain are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide,

2. Where do most of these gases come from? - They come from rotting vegetation, coal-burning power plants, factories and automobiles.

3. Describe a few negative effects of acid rain. - Some negative effects would be when acid rain falls it gets into lakes and streams which eventually makes water toxic which poisons animals in the water such as crayfish, clams, fish and other aquatic animals. It also damages forests,  it leaves trees and plants less able to deal with cold temperatures, insects and disease.

Fracking

1.What is the purpose of fracking?

The purpose of fracking is to break up rocks underground to let out the natural gas that is trapped by them.

2.How is fracking done?

Fracking is done by injecting water and toxic chemicals into the ground at a very high pressure. This breaks up the layers of rock releasing any natural gas that has built up.

3.Why are people concerned about fracking?

People are concerned about fracking because, the action of fracking includes pumping toxic chemicals into the ground. When pumping toxic chemicals into the ground it always brings up concern that the chemicals will slowly leak into an aquifer nearby. When the chemicals leak into an aquifer that means that anyone using that aquifer as a source of water will be drinking those toxic chemicals which does put them at a high risk of health problems. People are concerned because they don't want anyone getting sick because of chemicals that were blasted into the ground for someone else's benefit.

I think that humans should keep building dams if they are needed. Some good things are that dams control the flood waters of rivers. This makes it so that we can protect our major cities and keep the economy from a huge downfall. Another reason would be that dams provide almost 12% of the power in the U.S. this makes it so we can rely less on fossil fuels and stop burning things. This helps the environment and slows global warming. The last positive thing would be that dams create reservoirs which help with water storage. If there is a dry season and the river starts drying up then the reservoir would provides months of good water. This makes it that so even in a drought people can carry on with their regular lives and wouldn't have to go on water rations. Some negative things would be that dams displace many people that live in the area that the reservoir would occupy. It also destroys some animal habitat and can put some species in danger. For example in China on the Yangtze river they built a dam. That dam created a barrier making it so many fish could not swim up stream to spawn and it covered much of the endangered Baiji Dolphins natural habitat putting them in even more danger of becoming extinct. Over all there are many positive and negative things about dams. But there could be very severe consequences and loss of lives if we stop building dams to save our major cities.

Global Warming Graph

1. The horizontal axis is showing years and the range is from 1860 to about 2010.

2.Present day is on the right of the graph.

3. The vertical axis is showing temperature, it is in C* and the range is 1 degrees.

4. The data supposedly came from the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Met.

Global Warming

I would like to believe the second paragraph, i don't want global warming to be true. But at the same time I have grown up hearing about global warming and although there are some very valid points in the article trying to convince us that global warming isn't true there are also some facts that have a good chance of proving it is. I understand there have been some scams are that some government agencies have been untruthful with the public when it comes to global warming but I still think that there is some truth in it. Humans have polluted the Earth, it is very easy to realize that. I think the hardest part for me and most people is to think that we could essentially be killing ourselves by having the luxuries of electronics, electricity, heat, etc. So even though i would like to believe that we are not at fault and that global warming is not true, I still have that thought in my mind that we are killing the Earth and that global warming is happening.

Statistics:

- Thats in 40 years there will be 2 billion more people on Earth.

- It takes between 200 and 1,000 years to renew 2.5cm of soil.

These both surprised me. It was very interesting that it takes so long to renew such a small amount of soil. Soil is something you don't think about running out of so I was amazed that it had become an issue. What also surprised me was the population of Earth growing by 2 billion people in the next 40 years. The Earth is already somewhat over populated so to think that 2 billion more people will be added to our population is a scary thought. Will that mean that the majority of the world will be poor or living in poverty?