Citizens Who Care

Earth Day is coming soon. Thanks to all MCPS students who took our poll. If you haven't, please take it. We only have one song left to choose for the walk in video. Here is the introductory video featuring the assembly. This year's feature song is: Pride by American Authors This song has been bought so there are no copyright issues. Please share  this link

Japan: Helping   the environment Samuel Desai Many countries have taken steps to help the environment. Now, we'll turn to Japan. The 11th most populous country. Has tried to help the environment. Air Pollution Japan, just like China has smog issues. At one time (1973) Japan had on average 328 nationwide smog alerts (per year). But since then, it has decreased to less than 85. Japan has renewed a 25 yen tax on gas. (According to the exchange rates at 6:00 PM on March 16, 25 yen equals 22 cents). The Kyoto Protocol In 1994, the Kyoto Protocol was established. When it took action in 2005, it set specific emission requirements for developed countries. Japan had to reduce emissions by 6% from the 1990 rates in between 2008 and 2012. Japan not only successfully did this, they decreased it by 8% .  Water Pollution In 1995, Minamata bay was declared safe after 23 years of restrictions. Fish were prevented from entering the bay because of the excess methylmer...

Hello there, I have been working really hard in the last few weeks for blog version 6.3, which just came out 30 minutes before this post was published. Here is the other information we have decided on. Technology Support Earlier this week, our primary tech person, Alan, told me he needed to step down from his position. He felt that being the head of the tech was too much for him. He will still help with the code for GED but we will have someone else take his place. We will have Kevin W take his place. New Recruits We have recruited 4th grader Carolyn Fu to the blog dev team. Welcome, Carolyn. She will be a major contributor to the update blog version 7, which will come out next month. Project GED We have planned a new project called GED. Here are all  of the details. This project, known as GED, (Gift Earth Day). Will show you a daily fact on the 20 days till earth day, and earth day itself. Hence, the 21 days of earth day. We are currently writing the c...

Hello there, You all have been wanting more details on the upcoming blog version 6.3. Here is a video featuring the new blog look which will be released on Friday. This is partially incorrect because after we filmed this video, we determined some more edits. Some stuff we had already decided on but the editor only allowed you to change the background and fonts. We will be releasing other things on Friday too. Like details on the mysterious project GED and the spring-summer 2016 leadership board. Here it is: Thanks to all of our viewers, The Green Blog

By Nathan Shan Over the last decade, India’s strong growth has increased employment opportunities and allowed millions to emerge from poverty. India’s remarkable growth record, however, has been countered by a bad environment and scarcity of natural resources. Environmental risks are driven by both prosperity and poverty. In a recent survey of 178 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranked 155th overall and almost last in air pollution exposure. The survey also concluded that India's environmental quality is far below all other countries that are quickly economizing [China (118), Brazil (77), Russia (73), and South Africa (72)]. Also, according to another recent WHO survey, 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Poverty is a cause and a consequence - the bad environment means less crops are produced, so poor people have to overuse the land and destroy trees. Here's a flaw in their logic: the bad environment causes India to us...

Chinese Environmental Activists  By Sameer Mehta China's swift industrialization has created lots of pollution which has worsened the environment. In fact, 2/3 of the most polluted major cities are in China.  The pollution in the air they breathe is hazardous to their health and the water they drink is contaminated.  400,000 people are dying from sulfur dioxide, a toxic chemical made when sulfur is burned.  China has become the world leader in environmental problems and it needs to respond to these problems.  They just can't let hundreds of thousands of people die due to bad environmental policies.  They should not worry only about economic growth at the expense of people's health.  China's first priority should be to act up and save people's lives and not try to make more factories that create more pollution. Beijing air after rain (left) Beijing day without any rain (right) The Chinese people themselves are actually trying to help the...

Dear blog viewers who are in the MCPS cluster, Please take our survey on what you want for the Earth Day walk-in video. It is on the navgation menu. We want to get a vast audience for the Earth Day assembly. Please reply by March 17, because that is the closing date for the form. Thanks, Green Blog

Finland If you want to move to an environmentally friendly place, Finland is the right place to move to. In fact, it has the highest EPI (Environmental Performance Index) in the 2016 ratings, according to the World Economic Forum. One of the most interesting things is the northern part of the nation has a lot of tourism. This could hurt the environment (people littering), but I think it inspires people to what they can do in their home country. (see fig. 1)  Finland is one of the most logged countries in Europe. It still as a lot of trees because Finland has planted back more than the number cut down. Finland is outstanding with their logging efforts. 71.6% of Finland is covered in forests. Of this, more than 17,000 square kilometers are protected. The vegetation's of the Lapland are extremely sensitive because of logging efforts and the overgrazing of reindeer. Finland used to have bad water quality. However, more than 80% of the bodies of water in the Finnish Lacustrine...

Recently, the Silicon Valley start-up Orsion has made competition for Tesla Motors Power Wall . They want to change the grid while saving the consumer money. This is clever technology. If there was a power outage or a solar flare, it would discharge its energy into its house. This technology would also save you money. It will charge when rates are low, then discharge when rates are high. One of the downsides of this technology is that it doesn't hold as much energy. The wall mount holds 1.8 KWh and the tower one holds 2.2 KWh. On the upside, you don't need solar panels to use this technology. Just plug it in to a 120 volt power outlet. A cartoon of the Orison 2.2 volt I used:  http://clapway.com/2016/02/14/save-the-environment-and-your-money-by-using-this-technology-global-warming-climate-change/