Citizens Who Care

Deforestation What is deforestation? Deforestation is a loss of trees due to fires, pollution, and land conversion. 46% of the world's trees have disappeared since the dawn of humanity. What efforts are being taken? Many organizations, such as the nature conservancy, buy land in critical places to protect it from being cleared. Lots of legislation is also being passed worldwide in order to prevent trees from being cut down. One thing many people don't know is that there is info available online to educate the public on how much land is being cleared. How is it affecting us? Trees and other plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen a necessary effect to produce oxygen for us to live. Without trees, we wouldn't be able to survive. I find that I need a green space to calm down, without plants, there would be none of this, and I'd be angry all the time. So, there's also a social aspect to deforestation. How is it affecting animals? Land ...

By: Samuel Desai Next Post - Previous Post The population on earth is growing, at about 7.5 billion and still growing , we need more natural resources every day. And we can't take these resources forever.There are many different resources we need to save. Oil Oil is one of those resources which we will lose very soon. If we continued to consume it at our current rate, our oil supply would run dry in 45 years , but our consumption rates of oil should continue to increase, lasting us about 25 more years. Consequences: Possible transition to renewable energy :) Shrinks economies like Russia's (built on oil) less transport to places Water Water is one of the most fought over resources in the modern  world. Climate Change is causing severe worldwide droughts. Only 2.5% of the worlds water is fresh. Of that 2.5%, 70% of it is locked up in glaciers. Of that amount (.75%), 10% is used for drinking. THAT ONLY LEAVES .075% of the worlds water to drink, w...

Air Pollution Next post in series Samuel Desai Many environmental activists, unlike me, like to say that pollution is an important issue. I prefer to categorize them into three different topics. Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Noise Pollution, and Light Pollution. The other types of pollution are for another week but don't worry, you will hear about them soon. You may believe that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) it the only pollutant, but it isn't. There are others. One type is methane gas, emitted by livestock and swamps. Another CFC's or chlorofluorocarbons which were used in refrigerators, hairspray, and many other things. But they were banned internationally in 2010 because of its deteriorating effect on the ozone layer. Personally, I think that the pollutant which harms us the most is sulfur dioxide. Sulfur Dioxide is a component in smog, but also reflects sunlight out into space, causing a global cooling. This may seem good, but sulfur dioxide is directly link...

Recently in India, Diwali has been going on. Diwali is the festival of lights in India which celebrates Ram and Sita defeating the reason Ravana. People usually celebrate with fireworks and lighting a "candle." These celebrations have taken a toll on India's air quality. Before Diwali, the air pollution was bad: But after, was a whole other story: These celebrations for Diwali put pollution levels 42 times above recommended pollution rates. And with now wind to blow the pollution away in the next months, it is only supposed to get worse. You see, India has two primary seasons, a season of drought, and a season on monsoons. In the dry season, there is little wind. It occurs at this time of year until the spring.  It is not like I am against these celebrations, I just wish to seek an alternative. Maybe environmental friendly fireworks display all over, instead of having one major one which everyone goes to. Good luck India! Hard time of cancer are ahead for the ne...

In December, 195 countries met in Paris to discuss climate reform. At the end of the 14 day period of talks, people agreed on an emissions target. The target The earth has warmed 1 degree Celsius (about 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the industrial revolution started in 1750. The countries met and decided to try to keep it below 2 degrees Celsius.  A chart of the worlds warming in Celsius since 1880 http://400.350.org/ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php

New Delhi is really polluted. In 2014, the World Health Organization named it the most polluted city in the world. There is dense smog in most of the city, and an estimated 10,500 people die as a result. There has been a lot of pressure from environmentalists to fix the problem and inform the population of the health risks. The government has responded with planting more trees, ordering all buses and taxis to start running on compressed natural gas, banning leaded petrol in vehicles, and the introduction of the Delhi metro. However, these efforts haven't been working that well. In the past few years, pollution levels have been increasing. Last year, there were more than 8.8 million vehicles on the road last year. Recently, the government took another step. They implemented an alternate-day travel rule. That means that if the last number your car's license plate number is odd, you can drive on one day, and on the next, you can drive if the last number is even. This wi...

The earth is warming, That is why we made this blog. It IS time to change! 20% of our world's population uses 80% of the world's resources. Oil prices are really low, $37 per barrel. People are using this money to get new cars. My family bought a new car, but I have mixed feeling about this. I know that it took a lot of oil to make the new car, and the old one will eventually end up in a landfill. However, since the car is larger I can carpool with my friends. According to the EPA, the average gas mileage of cars on the road is 24.1 MPG. This figure is one year old. This figure will probably decrease. This is because fewer mileage cars are "less" money than they used to be because gas prices are lower. That hurts the electric car market . It is less cost effective now because fuel for your Gasoline SUV is more cots effective than it used to be. Anyway... You can view the video  here Please note... I don't know this person By Samuel On behalf of ...

                Snow! By Kaden Chien Snow is an important resource. Snow helps us and the environment. In the winter, how much do you play in the snow? More importantly, is how the snow helps the environment. Snow cover helps to regulate the temperature. Once that snow melts, the water fills rivers and reservoirs. Snow also helps farmers. Farmers need the snow to blanket their fields so that when it melts in the Spring, the fields will already be irrigated. There are many different colors of snow such as black, gray, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and rainbow colored snow. Snow is endangered because of global warming. Despite the efforts to help global warming slow, it is still happening rapidly. It was even 64 degrees in December! Snow is a very important resource and we have to keep it.  RAINBOW SNOW!!!

BIOMASS By Samuel Desai INTRODUCTION Do you think that energy can be made from poop? Well it can! Biomass is a type of renewable energy derived from plant or animal byproducts. Biomass is made up of many sub-topics. Biomass can come from algae, trees, poop (scientifically called feces, or dung),and even trash! PROS You can use things that would otherwise be wasted. For example, you can use the sawdust from mills which would otherwise be burnt in a landfills and pollute the air even more!SEI 2 You can use trash to decrease landfill size. We have a limited space in our landfills! In fact, people need to cut down trees to make room for a landfill, polluting the air in the process. SEI 2 CARBON NEUTRAL- You produce virtually no carbon in the process SEI 2 CONS Causes deforestation SEI -1 Counterclaim- You could use bamboo, which grows really fast, or something else. This makes this con only a SEI of -1  EXPENSIVE- It costs a lot to make a biomass plant SEI -2...

By: Samuel Desai Today, the first day of a world changing 12-day event happened. The COP 21 is an event hosted by the ICUN in Paris. At the event, 195 countries are attending, with 40,000 delegates altogether. These countries are trying to make an agreement for a world changing agreement. They hope that the agreement will help stop Climate Change.  One of the biggest things about this is China and the US negotiating too! You see, they are the biggest producers of greenhouse gasses.  Here are some of the things people have said so far: "Countries should be allowed to seek their own solutions, according to their national interest"- Xi Jinping- China  "One of the greatest threats humanity is facing"- Vladimir Putin- Russia  "Billions of people pinning their hopes on what we do in Paris"- Angela Merkel- Germany SOURCES:  http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/europe/france-paris-cop21-climate-change-conference/ http://www.cop21paris.org...

Earlier this week, Obama announced something! He told the public that they Keystone XL pipeline will not be built. Being an environmental blog, we are all for Obama's decision. This decision comes at the time of our Energy Sources series, so we can cover more about this in our first Energy Sources post, fossil fuels. Why is this type of oil collecting worse than others? You have to clear land, and extracting the oil from the Canadian Tar Sands pollutes more than any other type of oil extraction. Environmentalists are really happy with Obama's decision! Please leave a comment!!! The other day, I met with Nathan (the owner of this blog) and Tej (the second person to blog on this blog) about the future of our blog. We have decided that each of us will do two posts for the series. The last one coming out on December 19! Then we will have a poll run from that date till January 6, my birthday. We are recruiting a tech support person, Alan Whitman, to HTML code our...

U.S. Pollution By: Nathan Shan In mid 2015, the U.S.'s regular pollution index was 33.34 and it's exp pollution index was 58.29.  If you don't know what a regular pollution index or an exp pollution index is (I didn't either), take a moment and google it!  The U.S.'s rank was 85 out of 103 countries for the regular pollution index and 82 out of 103 for the exp pollution index (rank 1 is most polluted and rank 103 is least polluted). That's actually pretty good, and we can make it even better! Help conserve the environment and stop pollution by recycling, using green things (i.e. solar panels and roof gardens), saving water, using less electricity, etc. The highest ranking country was Ghana, first in both the regular pollution index and the exp pollution index. It's regular pollution index was 100.01 and it's exp pollution index was 181.14! This surprised me, since Ghana is a small country and it does not have a lot of people. The lowest ranking...

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