"Under Pressure"

Pressure pushing down on me, pressing down on you, no man ask for, under pressure! This famous song by Queen has helped them gain recognition worldwide but why did I pick this song to start off my blog? Obama has been put under pressure recently since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA for short) has been proposing more stringent air quality standards. The EPA has until October 2015 to finalize this proposal. The Environmental Protection Agency is mainly targeting ground-level ozone layers and is trying to reset the National Ambient Air Quality Standard so that it is set between 65-70 parts per billion concentration of ozone. The current standard is set at 75 parts per billion by George W. Bush in 2008. This comes as a surprise since in recent news Obama and other world leaders have been making drastic changes to the global climate change policies. One example of one of these major changes is when the United States and Japan both promised a combined 4.5 billion dollar contribution to the Green Climate Fund organization which was setup to help developing countries establish clean energy. You can read more about that in my previous blog "The 20%". So what does this entail for the people in the United States?

Pure oxygen, I'm talking about stuff cleaner than Walter Whites. Maybe that was a terrible comparison; however, Breaking Bad is a wonderful show! What this entails is that the EPA is trying to clean up the smog that our industries are producing. This will help prevent cities in the United States from reaching smog levels equivalent to that of cities in China. Not only does this make the air more breathable and delicious, this also helps the local environment. As smog levels rise, this helps prevent solar rays from reaching the earth's surface. This in return, contributes to the lack of nutrients plants need to grow to their full extent. The main focus behind this is to help prevent health issues in the younger population. Smog directly affects your body's internal organs; it is especially dangerous for children since their internal organs are still growing. So this sounds like a wonderful addition to the nation's policies, right?

Yes and no, depending on what perspective you take. Yes, if you are a supporter for going green. No, if you deal with power plants, cars or oil and gas facilities. These corporations plan on fighting this proposal back since this will result with a price tag of 270$ billion dollars. Of course, that number is quite large but these corporations have been preparing for this and also that particular price tag is if the standard is set to 60 ppt rather than the 65-70 which the proposal has set in mind. So now everyone can be happy, or at least satisfied with this proposal. Let's hope that the EPA targets light pollution next, so we can start seeing our beautiful night sky again! 

 (Courtesy of Thierry Cohen)

If you would like to read more about this proposal by the EPA check out this article about it, here.

Climate Change Impact

This blog post will discuss a peer-reviewed journal from the George Mason University database. The journal being observed is Climate Change Impact by Marcia Mcnutt who is the Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine. The purpose of this journal was to highlight the aspects of climate change and add in Marcia Mcnutt's personal opinion on what is going to happen and how to approach it. This is a rather short journal that is only a page long in their magazine. It was written on August 2nd in 2013 appearing in that editions magazine.

Marcia Mcnutt starts off this editorial by stating that the environment needs to be protected so we can manufacture new genetic stocks for cultivation. Then she discuses that the first step for modeling greenhouse gas emissions is input from many different scientist in each area  of study such as a ecologist, and economist. This is a lot of information to collect and it takes time for these people to analyze this information and then pass it on. Collecting this data is even harder since the oceans circulations and the terrestrial ecosystem control the climate. This system is being affected by the climate change which throws this data off. Marcia then goes on to say that scientist looked into the past history of the earth and came up with the conclusion that this world could experience higher CO2 gas in the atmosphere. If animals survive this, their species will decline anyways since the ecosystem which they rely on collapses such as the ocean becoming less and less productive. If the oceans bounty of life fails the 20% of organisms that rely on this nutrition will also be affected. She then goes on to say crops will fail more and so forth. Basically the world will experience a major change for the worse is what this short paper says. The author then goes on to discuss that she isn't as optimistic as what scientist were saying and expects worse.

My personal opinion on the article you may ask? Well, she seems to just list everything and type it out more than necessary. For example, she could have just said the environment will be affected rather than listing off everything in the environment like the rivers, mountains, animals, and blah blah blah. Her article does clearly explain some of the negative effects that climate change can bring to the world. Ultimately, its a okay article to read if you are looking on just to collect a few negative impacts from climate change.

GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!!!

If you aren't screaming "NOWWWW!!!!" then you clearly have no idea who I am talking about. This blog post is dedicated to this man for being a key figure in the fight against climate. Before I get started about him, let's take note of some of his notable achievements. He became the youngest Mr. Olympia at the age of 23 in 1970 after defeating the previous three-time champion Sergio Olivia; he continued to win this competition until 1975, when he retired. He then became an actor, for a while he wasn't able to get a strong lead role up until 1982 when his luck was changed. He became an action superstar in 1982 when the movie Conan the Barbarian was released. This film along with many others in his career were able to become a box-office hit and helped boosted his popularity immensely. After acting, he decided that politics was going to be his new life, and after a couple years of being involved with United States politics, he was eventually asked if he ever thought of running for a position in office! His response you may ask? In 2003 he officially became the governor of California. Who is this majestic super-titan that I am talking about?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

This man, born on July 30, 1947 in Thal, Austria, has become a global icon. He inspires many around the world and continues to fight for his beliefs, which brings us back to climate change. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the man with one of the hardest last names to spell, has helped California revamp its policies on pollution and incentives for green energy. Arnold is known for his persistence, he even said that he would meet with other cities and discuss cutting emissions if a global deal hasn't been reached. In the United States on September 27, 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the first bill that capped greenhouse emissions. This bill limited the amount of utilities, manufacturing plants and refineries that can operate in California. He eventually signed another global warming bill that prohibited companies from signing long-term contracts with other companies or corporations that disobey or do not follow the state's greenhouse gas emissions standards. Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to lead the fight on climate change and continues to show his support of green energy use. Schwarzenegger was one of the first people to help start recognizing the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment. Without his contributions, dedication, and terminator movies, this world would not be the same as we currently know it. 

Here are the list of the resources I used for this post:

The Telegraph

R20 Regions of Climate Change

Arnold Schwarzengger Bio 

The 20%

Greed, by definition it is a selfish desire to obtain something, in most cases that something would be wealth, power, or even food. This selfish trait has existed in humans for thousands of years and still exists to this day. You may be asking, why does this relate to global warming? Well, in a recent article on The Huffington Post posted by Matt Sheehan, which you can read here, explains the politics behind the recent carbon emissions reduction promise China's president Xi Jinping guaranteed. 

Recently, the United State's president Obama has been making progress in limiting the use of greenhouse gases on a global scale. This progress was furthered when a group of scientist, backed by the United Nations, presented evidence that life was being affected on every continent and ocean because of climate change. Days after this announcement was made, Obama pledged that the United States would contribute $3000000000 (three billion dollars) to the Green Climate Fund. The purpose of this fund, which was setup four years ago, is to help developing countries combat climate change. After this contribution was made by the United States, it brought the Green Climate Funds up to $6000000000 (six billion dollars), which is more than half way to the targeted goal of between $10-15 billion dollars. This landmark decision helped progress and push a general global climate agreement. This was just the first major contribution in recent news that helped get the green train rolling. 

After the contribution of the three billion dollars Obama promised, another HUGE agreement was made. During a news conference in China, Obama announced that the United States would be cutting green house emissions by at least 26% by 2025, which doubled the current pace of carbon reduction. China's president Xi also committed to changing their thriving but corrupt energy industry into a more environmentally friendly industry. Xi promised that 20% of China's energy will be transferred to renewable energy by 2030. He also promised to crack down on high ranking members of the coal and oil companies, along with cracking down on lower officials in the energy sector. These officials were notorious for ignoring or not obeying carbon emissions regulations. This is a major turn in events for climate change since the United States and China are responsible for a third of the carbon emissions produced from green house gases. These three major promises are just a start to cleaner and more environmentally friendly environment, making the future look promising. 

If you would like to check out more about the United States commitment of $3 billion dollars, you can check that out here.

If you would like to hear more about the US-China agreement you can check that out here.

If you are interested in recent news about the Green Climate Fund, such as Japan's commitment of $1.5 billion dollars at the G-20 summit, you can find out more at their website. 

Earth: That Rock we Live on

Hey folks! Did you know that there are roughly 1.8 million organisms that exist on this planet? Well, this figure isn't exactly correct, scientist believe there are actually 5 to 50 million more organisms out there that haven't been discovered. Now what if I told you that each one of these organisms can help cure a disease? Or maybe even help advance our technology, like spiders silk. These strands when twined together become much stronger than steel, which is truly remarkable that it comes from a minuscule creature that some people fear. Fear, what defines fear? We all experience this sometime in our lives. Some cope to the situation better than others which in return provides a skewed idea of what some people perceive as fear. This can be induced multiple ways but one way in particular is when someone detects a sense of creepiness from some source. Vsauce does a tremendous job in explaining why things are creepy, you can check out the video here. Now what if I told you something rather CreEpY? What if I told you those 50 million organisms that haven't been discovered yet are dying off? Now I'm not talking about a couple a day, I'm talking about a rapid extinction that is currently plaguing our world. What is this plague called?

Global warming has been affecting earth for the past 20,000 years, or maybe it was 13,000? Who really cares anyways! Apparently the United Nations does, you know, those people that lead us and try to stabilize the world and make it peaceful. They recently delivered stark warnings about the potential irreversible dangers of greenhouse gases. These dangers include, but not limited too, rising sea levels, melting ice caps, migration of species, droughts, and many more. National Geographic composed an article about the effects of global warming if you want to check it out here. Global warming has been a increasing danger to our society! It is up to this generation to change the old ways. Green Technology is the way of the future and if our society continues to use greenhouse gases, the world as we know it presently, will disintegrate. Do you want the future students/siblings/sons and daughters to experience a world equivalent to Pixar's planet in Wall-e? If you have never seen this movie, just take a pile of compacted trash and put it on a mound of dirt. Now imagine this being all of earth, depressing isn't it? If you want to hear more reasons why to save this wonderful planet we call home then head over to MinuteEarth. This wonderful YouTube channel highlights all aspects of the earth such as "The Secret Social Life of Plants", "How to Build a Better City", and "Denizens of the Deep". I highly recommend this YouTube channel along with the other links provided throughout the blog.

If you have any comments or questions about this blog, feel free to leave it in the comment section. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.