December 19, 2010

This diagram shows the effects of climate change - more specifically, what will happen as the earth reaches a global average temperature increase of  X degrees celcius. It also shows the associated CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (Currently we are at a concentration of around 380 parts per million).

 

Let me draw your attention to a few changes I think are quite eye-opening and alarming.

1) With an average temperature increase of 2 degrees celcius it will bring about the "irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet". 

2) "Entire regions experience major decline in crop yields" at an increase of just over 4 degrees celcius in the global average temperature.

3) "Increasing risk of abrupt, largescale shifts in the climate system (e.g. collapse of the Atlantic Thermohaline circulation and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet)" with an increase of 3 degrees celcius and more. The Atlantic Thermohaline circulation is a deep water ocean current that circulates throughout the entire world, and the purpose of it is that it transports cooler water from the poles to warmer waters and then the warmer water up towards the poles. It begins in the North Pole above the Atlantic Ocean and because of this circulation, Europe is approximately 8-10 degrees warmer than if this circulation did not exist. It is with the formation of ice in the arctic (which then creates very salty and dense water surface water - which is actually denser than the water below it - and so the surface water and deeper water change place) that this circulation begins, and so with less ice in the arctic, this circulation will become weaker and eventually stop.
If you've seen the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' this is the premise it lies on (however exaggerated the movie is).

December 11, 2010

Take a look at these numbers of how many gallons of water it takes to produce certain things:

 

LOOK HOW MUCH WATER IS USED FOR BEEF!!!

Why is it that much you ask?

Here's why:

All of these photos are in the April 2010 National Geographic

This is why I am vegetarian.

With one in eight people on this planet lacking access to clean water, and then on top of that all this grain going to feed animals, which only the wealthy can afford to eat, why not just give the grain to people from the start? You'd be able to feed more people - especially with the population predicted to stabilize around 9 BILLION people, food and water scarcity are going to become huge issues and so we are not going to be able to allocate THIS MUCH WATER to beef. Just think how much other stuff this water could be used for if people just cut down how much meat they ate. I'm not saying become vegetarian, just eat less meat. You seriously do not need to eat meat for breakfast (bacon) lunch (sandwhiches) and dinner (roast, pasta sauce etc), every day! Honestly, think about how much meat you eat and how much water that takes up.

Also, look at the impact this has on deforestation.

The majority of forest is cleared in the amazon for cattle ranches

graph obtained from my ENVR 200 class at McGill

Just something to think about eh?

Also, I urge you to see the significance of eating meat vs being vegetarian vs being vegan by calculating your footprint (find link in my links section). You can do your footprint as a meat eater and then as a vegetarian and see the drastic difference it makes.
Arguably, what you eat makes a bigger impact on the planet than what type of transport you use.

again, something to think about in your day to day life choices.

November 29, 2010

Being a Canadian, you are used to heavy snow falls and freezing cold winters. You almost expect it to be this way and if it isn't you immediately call "CLIMATE CHANGE!" and grumble about how 10 years ago it wasn't this way. Even as a 20-something year old I catch myself thinking "when I was younger, winters were snowier" (as a reference to my first winter in Montreal in 1996/97 when cars were literally covered to their roofs in snow, and then of course the famous 1998 ice storm).

Well times are a-changin' and with it brings perhaps milder winters for Montreal and certainly harsher winters for Europe. Anyone who has friends or family in Britain right now will know of the heavy snowfalls they're been receiving, particularly in Scotland. My grandfather who lives near Aberdeen, Scotland sent through pictures of their backyard and the novel amounts of snow they've recieved. My cousins are snowed in and enjoying snowdays. Yes, remember snowdays? They seem like a thing of the past here - no amount of snow is enough to close schools here it seems!

This brings me to my point, which is that with climate change comes necessary adaptation. One of the main reasons Scotland is having such a hard time with this snow is because they are not equipped to deal with it. Even the basic infrastructure such as their roads, what with all the winding country roads, are not exactly winter-friendly.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/transport-environment/scotland-s-a-whiteout-and-it-could-cost-millions-1.1071307

Indeed, as an article in The Herald says, hundreds of schools are closed, runways at the airports are being closed and about 3000 homes were without power earlier today:

Councillor Robert Aldridge, environment leader at Edinburgh City Council, said: "We're dealing with an unprecedented situation here: more snow has fallen in the last 72 hours or so than we had in Edinburgh over the span of a few weeks last winter - approximately 14 inches of snow has fallen since Friday evening and more is on the way."

(for a detailed article, and more photos, check out this article: Scotland’s a whiteout ... and it could cost millions)

Clearly then, with Climate Change, certain adaptations are needed in order for humans to cope with changes such as increased snow fall (or decreased ice coverage in the arctic for the Inuits, or higher sea-levels for those living in coastal regions). This is going to be a big theme in the COP16 talks happening in Cancun as of today. As suggested by a guest-lecturer in my enviroment class today, he believes that adaptation is the way to go (as opposed to climate mitigation) because with increasing information it is becoming more and more evident that climate change cannot be stopped and so we must focus on making humans better equipped for dealing with the inevitable changes.

However, one thing to think about is how these changes may relate to naturally occuring changes in weather patterns. Recall my post on October 24 for more on this.

Depressing I know, to think there might be nothing we can do to stop climate change. But do not let this mean we should just stop trying! While it might not be 'stopable' it certainly can be slowed down and our actions definitely influence the degree to which our planet warms. But more on that later...

November 27, 2010

As you (hopefully) know, overfishing is a really big issue. Simply put, because everyone has access to the ocean, but there are only so many fish in the sea, each fishing boat will try and catch as much fish as possible because they want the advantage over another boat. Since people are only motivated by the here-and-now and not concerned with the future stock of fish in the oceans, they are very reluctant to cut down on the amount of fish they catch because they want profits now even if that means suffering severly somewhere down the road (due to drastic decreases in fish populations and so no fish to make money off of).

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080307/images/news.2008.658.jpg

Not only are there problems with the way fishing is done (ex. with giant nets and deep-sea trawlers that sweep up anything and everything that gets in its way), because fishing is done so intensively, fish populations are not given enough time to regenerate, and so in everyone's eagreness to catch as many fish as possible, there are fewer and fewer large full-grown fish and so they will catch the next fish, ultimately leading to only baby fish being caught since they are not given enough time to grow into adult fish. This then means there are fewer fish to breed.

An article on the BBC news website highlights this issue in recent politics:
Please take (literally) one minute to read the article.

Fishing Nations Criticised Over Deal on Bluefin Tuna

Basically, eat less fish people!  Or at least, find out which fish are farmed sustainably and which of these are available at your local grocer.
Here's a quick guide - Sustainable Seafood

Also, check out my post on Oct. 15th for a more in-depth explanation.

November 14, 2010

I got flowers for my birthday from someone I love. They specifically chose potted flowers because they believed it to be more eco-friendly since the plant gets to live longer and isn't just picked and thrown away a couple days later.

November 13, 2010

So I will write later more about how vegetarianism - and better yet, being vegan - is good for the environment, but for now, here's something to get you thinking:

I found this photo posted by a friend of a friend on facebook so I appologize for not knowing its source

November 10, 2010

Check out my article in the McGill Tribune on McGill University's sustainability:

McGill earns B+ in university sustainability rankings

"The Sustainable Endowments Institute gave McGill a B+ on its annual report card for university sustainability released on October 27. However, members of the university community raised doubts about the grade's accuracy."

""[It] scares me to think how 20,000 students are currently going to McGill and how many of those are going to be in positions to effect change in various [issues], but that their understanding of sustainability is going to be minimal," he said." 

For past articles I've written, just click on my name under the title - there's a couple others regarding environmental issues and McGill

November 8, 2010

Here's a small report by the BBC about endangered animals.

More Species Slide to Extinction

"One fifth of animal and plant species are under the threat of extinction, a global conservation study has warned."

And here are some animals that are endangered in Canada:

American Bison

http://www.wallpaperpimper.com/wallpaper/Animal/Bison/American-Bison-1-1024x768.jpg

Steller Sea-lion

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/images/steller_sealions.jpg

White Sturgeon

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/fw/fish/sport_fish/images/WhiteSturgeon_desc.jpg

Karner Blue Butterfly

http://www.ohio-nature.com/image-files/karner-blue.jpg

Now, notice the Polar Bear is not listed here. According to the World Wildlife Fund, it is not yet listed as endangered, however it's future is nowhere near certain, especially as the polar ice caps continue to receed the effects will be felt by polar bears. Currently polar bears are moving more and more onto land because it is easier for them to find food there rather than on the ice.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/polar-bear-2.jpg

information found on:
www.earthsendangered.com/list.asp

October 24, 2010

As I read my Global Environment class notes over and over ... and over again, in preparation for my midterm tomorrow, I figure a good way to procrastinate a little but feel like I'm not is to do a post about something interesting and thought provoking that I have to study.

So, everyone has heard about global warming, obviously, and yet, if you live somewhere cold, or already hot, you might not be seeing the effects of global warming. This is because, while globally there is, and will be, warming, at the local level it varies a lot.
One thing that helps explain the local variations is this thing called teleconnections. Teleconnections are natural modes of variability, and essentially they are certain correlations in pressure between two separate areas on the globe. So for example, if one area has low pressue the other area will have higher pressure, and these patterns last for a certain number of years and then it switches (the low pressure area turns high pressure and vice versa).

The specific teleconnection I want to talk about is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. What this is, is that when the north Atlantic ocean is cold and stormy, then the central Atlantic ocean will be warm and dry. And then after a certain number of years (about 20-30), this pattern will reverse.
Here is a picture that demonstrates this:

 

 Why this is an important thing to understand is because recently, this pattern has switched, the North Atlantic is now warmer and wetter and the central Atlantic has become colder. More specifically, places like Washington DC, Boston, London and Paris - places where key decisions are made - are now going to get colder winters, and so while leaders know global warming is happening, when they experience colder winters at a local level, they don't see what you'd expect to see - warmth - and so they become sceptical. Combined with the length of this pattern, they will come to believe that global warming isn't happening if they simply look at their local environment, and so the decisions they make, which can have gloabl impacts, will take global warming less and less into account.
This is a dangerous habit to start, and so people need to be aware that there is a difference between natural climate trends and human-made trends, once you separate the difference between these two, then you can truly see the impacts of human activity on the climate, locally and globally.

October 21, 2010

There is a really neat article on the BBC website today about the discovery of water-ice on the moon. Take a look for yourself:

Moon's water is useful resource, Nasa says

"There are oases of water-rich soil that could sustain astronauts on the Moon, according to Nasa."
"A Nasa-led team tells Science magazine that about 155kg of water vapour and water-ice were blown out of the crater.

The researchers' analysis suggests some areas of lunar regolith, or soil, must contain as much as 5% by weight of water-ice.

"That's a significant amount of water," said Anthony Colaprete, from the US space agency's Ames research centre."

Thoughts? Could humans be drinking moon water somewhere down the road? Will austronauts be spending extended periods on the moon, and so be able to pursure more lengthy research in space?
And most importantly, will Wallace and Gromit make tea out of water-ice on their next Grand Day Out?

http://johngushue.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451f25369e20115721c3d8e970b-800wi

Or will the little robot on the moon fulfill his skiing dreams somehow on mountains of water-ice?

http://www.davidszondy.com/images/grand_day.jpg

But seriously, as much as I want the moon robot to ski on moon water-ice, and while this doesn't directly link to our planet, it might someday. The water is underground, but apparently easily extractable and easily defrosted, so who knows, keep an eye out in the future to see if something comes of this!

October 20, 2010

Here is some food for thought...

From the September 2010 issue of National Geographic

October 18, 2010

So one of my lifelong curiosities was about how the wind came to be. Was it something that never died and just went around and around the earth? Or did it have to do with the earth's rotation?

Well my friends, I have finally learned about how wind happens.

It's a lot simpler than I thought. Basically, it has to do with air pressure. When air moves from a high pressure area to a low pressure area, that movement is what wind is.

Here's an example that really helps you understand it. Think of a plane. If you open the door while flying, there will be a giant gush of wind that sort of sucks the air out of the plane. The plane is the high pressure zone and the air outside the plane is the low pressure zone. When these two meet by opening the plane door, wind is created, and since there is such a large difference between the pressures, that is why the rush of air out of the plane - the wind! - would feel so strong.

I hope this satisfies you as much as it did me, yet another little fact to enhance your appreciation of our planet.

October 15, 2010

Here is a very eye-opening article in this month's National Geographic.
Please take the time to read it. You'll have to click on the images to enlarge them and be able to read it (sorry, if I make them bigger it will mess up the layout)

October 14, 2010

Hey, so here's a little intro to my new blog:

I am minoring in Evironment at McGill university and every single class I've had so far has taught me so much and has only ignited my love for our planet and made me increasingly conscious of the issues the world is going to have to face together; water, food, pollution etc.

Anyone who I can get to lisen to me sadly has had to endure my ramblings about how excited I am that I am learning such and such a topic and then listen to me explain what I learned, which I only realise afterwards was probably quite jumbled and round-about. So in an attempt to share my excitement with as many people as possible I have created this blog.

Hopefully it will become a mishash of interesting facts, articles and the like. 

A bit about me:

My majors are History and Poli Sci. I love photography, the Planet Earth series (as well as the Blue Planet series) by the BBC, National Geographic, camping, snowboarding, running and TV (because what student doesn't need down time?). Also, I have been vegetarian for almost a year now.

I have another blog which I've had for a while, check it out! A little something

Enjoy!