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 More and more people are being born everyday so shouldn’t we come up with a way to house them while hurting the environment as less as possible. In  Cundinamarca, a man by the name of Fernando Llanos, made a house out of recycled bricks made of plastic. He and his crew have built a number of houses that are more environmental friendly than other houses typically are. Also since using plastic brick, Fernando came up with a building strategy to make the houses faster. Once made the bricks can somehow be used as LEGO pieces and houses are made sometimes within five days. Since 2011, when the company was started, they have used over 200 tons of plastic and put it to good use. This is definitely a good way take something that has become useless and make it have a purpose. https://www.archdaily.com/869926/this-house-was-built-in-5-days-using-recycled-plastic-bricks/58fe3d5ee58ecedf33000302-this-house-was-built-in-5-days-using-recycled-plastic-bricks-image

 I think it’s crazy that our National symbol, was in danger of extinction throughout most of its range. The bald eagle is one of the most unique animals or birds ever in existence and the bird is recognized as a symbol of the United States of America. these beautiful creatures are going extinct because of Habitat destruction and degradation, illegal shooting like poaching, and the contamination of its food source. If we don’t stop now our symbol Will eventually die out and will have to find another animal to represent the United States of America and I hope it doesn’t lead to that.

 Many cities around the world are already starting to feel the effects of climate change such as changing wether patterns, and many costal cities are starting to feel the effects of rising sea levels, which means that a lot of families and businesses are having to find and create solutions to combat the new and excessive flooding that many coastal cities are now experiences.  In England the thames barrier is a great example of nations beginning to adapt to the increasing flooding levels. The Thames Barrier is made of many hollow steel water gates, that are allowed to be moved and shifted to allow the moving of ships through to ports.  Japan being an island nation, has always had to deal with flooding, but due to the increasing effects of climate change they have had to deal with new flooding patterns. They have made the use of hydropower dams, as well as a complex system of canals to help protect the low-lands of the countries from flooding.  Thames River Barrier...

     The population of vaquita have dropped to mere of 10 of them. The reasons why these animals are eating close to going extinct is because they get caught in gull nets and drown that’s used by illegal fishing operations. Vaquitas are important because they serve has a good predator and a good prey because they keep population such as (small fish, squids, crustaceans). Meanwhile they serve as a good food source for the members of the shark family or bigger predators.

                                                                    Colorado Flaming Hot Fires      Colorado has had two of its biggest fires in the last couple of years. As of right now , they’ve had the biggest wildfire in Colorado history. It was 2 in fact, it spread over 400,000 acres. One is called the “East troublesome fire” and the other “Cameron peak fire” . They both move into the mountains of The Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park.          Luckily the cold climate of Colorado has helped them out a tad bit. Because of the snowstorm , about 15 percent of the first fire is contained about 64 percent of the second fire is contained. The fire areas had supposedly reached 6-12 inches of snow, yet trees and animal wild still continue to burn. “ The snow has slowed fire...

 The more vehicles we manufacture, leads to the more roads or multi-lane highways that we have to build to accompany those vehicles. Highways is a big factor when it comes to land use because they not only take up a lot  space but also  hosts the world to the leading carbon dioxide, fossil fuel drinking machines that drive on the daily. Climate change is a worldwide thing because in the UK around 30 percent of their emissions come from vehicles with 18 percent of that coming from cars. Their emissions have increased due to people driving a whole lot more. They tried to cut fuel but it only encouraged the car usage whenever they was trying to have everybody take more trips on foot, bike, or by public transport. They like the use of electric cars but believe that its too late. I simply agree because unless everyone ditched their gas vehicles like within a month then we could possibly have a chance but we know that's not happening.  Think about how much money we would h...

 A vaquita is a type of dolphin or porpoise. It averages about 5 foot in length and can weigh up to 120 pounds. They only live in the northern portion of the Gulf of California. They weren’t discovered until 1958. Being on the critically endangered list there is only about 10 known individuals. Vaquitas get caught in gillnets and drown. The WWF is working by removing gillnets and trying to make fishing illegal  in their natural habitats.   Brennan Moots Blog Post 6 Vaquita | Species | WWF

  It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world.   With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper. Also the U.S. is ranked number one for consumer categories.  Study found that U.S. consumers are among the least likely to feel guilty about the impact they have on the environment, yet they are near to top of the list in believing that individual choices could make a difference. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/

                      Kara McQuerrey Streetcars are an old form of transportation, but this article talks about how it’s coming back. Streetcars can help economic development especially help with the transit system. We call this the “second  generation”. They utilize a lot of the same stuff streetcars use to have used. Now they have a modern train with ADA-accessible low floor boarding. Places like Salt Lake City, Tucson , Atlanta, Dallas, Washington DC and Kansas City have all reopened modern streetcar systems. They can use this to show a new way of life. And environmentally this can help lower the amount of cars in cities.  https://www.metro-magazine.com/10002970/how-cities-are-embracing-streetcars-once-again

 It’s hard to believe but many unique animals are endangered or extinct in 2020, for example the Indian cheetah. There are about 50 cheetahs in Iran today And they are literally on the brink of extinction if we can’t help them out soon. Cheetahs are known for their speed and are the fastest land mammal animals on earth. They want to roamed Much of Africa and Asia. The reason these animals are in danger is because the loss of habitat, Lack of food 2 feet on, and their vulnerability to humans, hunters, and poachers have increase the risk of becoming extinct in 2020. I hope we all can come together as a community and try to save these beautiful mammals because once they’re gone there’s no going back.

 With the world starting to see the effects of climate change more and more, there are many ways people are researching new, renewable, and more sustainable energy sources of energy that is able to effectively reduce the amount of CO2 emissions that we produce, while at the same time also reducing our consumption of fossil fuels. In this search many have found that hydropower to be a renewable and sustainable source.  The viability of hydropower as an alternative because although it is a good option to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that we consume and is a way to reduce greenhouse emissions. But at the same time due to the ever-changing rain/weather patterns which effects the water levels, and in tern can effect the amount of energy produced by hydropower. There are also many other negative side effects to the mass use of hydropower that include, effecting marine life and deforestation. All of which may not be worth the risk for a switch to a new and more renewable energy ...

 We are at the point in the world we’re anything will affect climate change for the good or the bad. So I would like to go deeper in urbanization and how just building the structures such as houses, apartments. And even big office buildings is having a negative affect on climate change. Buildings and their construction together are responsible for 36% of global energy use and 39% o& energy related to carbon emissions. It doesn’t seem like a lot but think about how many houses that are built a year with also the building of office buildings and apartments. I know everyone wants to have their dream house but wouldn’t you want to have a life in it because how’s it’s looking, you might not have much time if we don’t stop the increase rate of climate change. Then the building operations are responsible for 28% of emissions annually which makes me think if we had ever had a high in emissions because I’m picturing New York and how many building there are in Times Square. We may have h...

  The Javan rhinoceros was said to go extinct in 2011in Vietnam. But there has been a small population in a national park in Java. These Animals were going extinct because a lot of people were killing them to get their horns and either keep it or sell it for money. In study’s it show that Javan and other rhinoceros are important to the ego system because they keep foliage’s(like forests) from taking over.

  Everyone knows that many of the Earth's resources are finite. We are currently completely reliant on fossil fuels, iron and other metals, minerals and even such basic commodities as sand to keep the modern world ticking over. Adding more consumers makes those resources run out faster.  The Earth also provides for our needs with renewable resources, such as timber, clean water and air, healthy soils and wild fish consumed for food. However, our demands are so great that according to the  Global Footprint Network , we are now using those resources at almost twice the rate that the Earth can renew them. That rate has increased continually since the 1970s and, unless thing change, we will require three Earths to supply our needs by 2050. https://populationmatters.org/the-facts/resources-consumption

Kara McQuerrey Flooding can cause huge problems for land use. Mainly because we can’t use land when it’s overflowing with water. Another issue is said to be mass migration. People want to leave areas that are constantly damaged by flooding. Most often they want to leave toward cities, which causes other economic challenges. In this article they say that climate change is one of the main reasons behind weather conditions. Like I said before everything is connected somehow. Flooding is becoming more and more common in a lot more different places. That’s why towns are starting to build basins on there land. This is to help slow flooding down. Flooding is a terrible thing and can cause so much damage.  https://b-air.com/2019/04/consequences-of-flooding/

                                                          Coral Reefs gone extinct ?  Researchers in Australia blame the extinction of coral reefs on land use and pollution of human beings and factories. Because of this , the habitats of living sea creatures are diminished. The Great Barrier Reef is one of if not earths most precious habitats. Earth has lost half of its coral reef population in the last quarter century.   In Australia researchers have studied the coral reef colonies among the ocean and has found that the reef species between 1995 and 2017 found that literally every coral species has declined. They also said the drastic changes would continue unless there were a big change in climate change.” If we don’t continue to damage them they will recover” said a professor.    As global warming continues , along with d...

          Dams. It’s a four letter word that contains a lot of energy. Water dams create electricity by holding water in reservoir than gravity pulls it down then the electricity making begins. Now if you really think about it we should have dams all over the world and have a bunch of them because water is all over earth. It sadly doesn’t work that way. To much money and most dams need to be in a river. But overall dams can do good to society because it’s producing energy using natural and renewable resources. There are some small cons such as sediment build up in the water and flooding. There’s always risk that and problems that come with rewards.  https://blog.arcadia.com/pros-cons-dams/ https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/hydroelectric-power-how-it-works?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

 Amur Leopards Brennan Moots Amur Leopards are a type  of  leopard that live in Asia and Russia. They are critically endangered. There is said to be about a little more than 84 left. The Amur Leopard is dying off to a few reasons. One reason being they have a really pretty coat and people are poaching them to sell it. Another reason being loss of habitat due to deforestation. The last reason is they are on the top of the food chain and humans are killing off their prey for themselves. The species can’t grow and reproduce if they have no source of food. The WWF is working to stop poaching and trade of the Amur Leopard. They are also working to protect their habitat and monitor their population. Russia declared a protected area called Leopard National Park. It contains of 650,000 acres of land and it also is home to 10 of the endangered species Amur Tiger.  Blog Post #5    https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-leopard

 With the world now starting to see the effects of climate change with some cities now having to deal with things such as rising sea levels, shifts in weather patterns that effect farming and food sources, the increase in droughts and wildfires, and changing in weather patterns that cause states like Colorado to experience an 80 degree day in one county and in a county directly adjacent they would receive 14 inches of snow. Many scientists have developed new technologies to monitor which pars of the world are experiencing climate change already, and use this new technology to predict when, how and, what parts of the world are most likely to be effected next. There are many technologies to monitor the change in the ocean temperatures, monitor the change in weather patterns and to measure the atmosphere, changes in land, and compare that to how the climate has been in the past. I think that these new technologies being able to compare new climate data to old climate data can help us...

I think we can all agree that Sea Turtles are one of the most unique animals in the entire sea and it’s sad to say one of their species is on the verge of being extinct. A couple reasons why there on the verge of extinction is because many people in today’s culture believe it’s truly fine if we poach for uncommon animals and sell them for a profit and I honestly think it’s one of the worst things a human can do, hopefully humans can wake up and realize how unique these animals are. But sea turtles aren’t only endangered because of poachers, one of the biggest reasons why there endangered is because sea turtles eat all the pollution and plastic that is pushed onto the shore and even stuff in the middle of the sea and they really can’t help that especially if they are hungry. Hopefully we can stop the loitering And polluting the oceans so we can can save these beautiful ancient creatures from being extinct. 

White-rumped vultures are a small bird compared to other vultures. These Animals are at risk at being extinct and I can see why they don’t wanna save these birds since most people take them as scavengers or ugly birds. But since their normal diet of ungulates Species have dropped over The century they have to try to resorts to large Dead livestock animals. But these birds are good to the environment since they eat dead animals and prevent the spreads of diseases by ridding area of carcasses. There have been research of a drug to help keep vultures alive for longer or to help them have another diet but it’s just too expensive and most places in the world can’t afford it.

           Solar energy panels is one of the greatest inventions to exist when it has to do with clean energy production. Solar panels produce more energy than ground systems and work better at lower temperatures.   Countries like Japan are using these panels on there lakes and is producing tons of energy and isn’t taking up land space. There’s two types of solar panels. One is on land and the other on the water. Both are better than fossil fuels and will always will be. The sun isn’t going anywhere and fossil fuels are on a slowly decline and we will eventually run out of them. We need to increase the production of these panels and get more out there to help clean this mess up that we have created. https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi8oZLOmLTsAhWBhsAKHYDtB7wYABADGgJpbQ&sig=AOD64_350_Ozbvl79LxRP-eODOaiWzwDow&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwiojYjOmLTsAhUGPK0KHdCnBgcQ0Qx6BAgHEAE

                                                                           Kara McQuerrey Hydraulic fracturing was a technique designed to find gas and oil from shake rock. You can also hear this called fracking. It releases gas by drilling into the earth with high-pressure water mixture directed at rock. Then water sand and chemicals are put into the rock and then gas comes out of the top. Companies have to have licenses to be able to participate in fracking. So far more the 100 of them were granted in just the U.K alone. Most places are still scared of this idea. They feel they don’t know enough about it. Places like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland oppose fracking. Especially sense we don’t know the entirety of the environmental impacts it has. A place called Cuadrilla had to quit test frackin...

                                                                     Red River Catastrophe   This week I took us to North Dakota. Just up north about 15 hours away from Missouri, North Dakota has a famous river know as the famous “Red River”. The water recorded a high 43 feet which is high enough to basically be classified a major flooding.   The River flows north up to Canada’s lake, and later on Hudson valley. The River also flows over extremely flat terrain that used to be a glacier. Lake Agassiz. This is a big problem. This could lead to tons of people around the area losing there homes with months and months of flooding.     The flooding usually happens in the worst time for floods to happen. The cold fall / winter. Which could lead to a bunch of uncomfortable and bad situations for ci...

 Red Pandas  Brennan Moots Red Pandas are very interesting animals. They are way smaller than your normal Panda Bear only being around 2 feet long. These species are on the endangered list due to deforestation. They are losing trees which they live in and bamboo which is their main form of food. Red pandas are also being poached for their red fur pelts. Some are even accidentally trapped and killed in wild pig or deer traps. The WWF is helping by finding different forms of income instead of selling and cutting down forests. If someone is found buying selling or poaching Red Pandas they are fined $1,000 and/or face up to 10 years in jail. Blog Post #4 https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/red-panda

  One-fifth of the world's natural resources that are extracted for use end up as waste according to new research which examines the hidden environmental costs of raw materials use. We extract so many resources that on average  62 billion tonnes of resources such as minerals, wood, metals, fossil and biomass fuels are extracted from the earth each year.   On average that's almost 10 tonnes for every living person.  Industry can also drive change through better designs that reduce products' negative health and environmental impacts through their lifecycle.   Consumers have a role to play too by making more informed choices. These include reducing the use of unnecessary material, reusing and recycling, and taking advantage of advanced technologies to limit waste and toxins.  

 As you are reading more and more of my posts, you can tell that I’m really into the urbanization aspect of things when it comes to land use. Once again, I find plenty of articles talking about urbanization but the one I wanna talk about today caught my eye by saying more than half the world lives in the city. With 2.5 billion people expected to join them by 2050. The more we build these urbanization areas, the worst the carbon dioxide output becomes in the city even though we might have parks in the city. The carbon dioxide overwhelms the plants factor to clean the air. The frequency of torrential rain and storm surges are on the rise in highly dense populated areas such as New York which will mean that they will get hit harder with the rain to the point where there will be flooding. Which means the land that we need to grow our food on is getting more and more shallower each year to the point where we might depend on other nations for food. -Ky’on Bass Source:  https://unfcc...

  As I keep on finding articles about how we use our land in the United States, I realized that people care more about the house or community they live in rather than the food that keeps them alive.  We have lost 31 million acres of agricultural land due to development of urbanization. So I’ll put it in a better perspective, we lose about 175 acres an hour which is 3 acres per minute. Like that’s crazy because how are we constantly making these new houses and businesses for people to live in but at the end of the day, we might not even have enough food to feed everyone. It’s not like the agriculture economy doesn’t bring in money to the whole economy because actually they bring in 992 billion dollars each year to the U.S. economy, so the least we could do is give them some more land which will allow them to not just feed us but help the economy with money. The farmland industry produces millions of jobs in all sorts of fields such as machinery, field, and retailers. This Is wh...

  black footed ferrets are coming up on the list of being extinct soon. it was stated that they were extinct in 1979 until people started to see dead ferret bodies recently. What the ferrets usually eat are mice, squirrels, other rodents, and prairie dogs and prairie dogs are the main food source that they eat since its a big part of their diet. since many of prairie dogs towns turn into ghost town since farmers and ranchers killed, eliminated prairie dogs. they have taken many black footed ferrets to breeding locations, are trying to keep more prairie dogs alive as well so it can feed the ferrets. they also have to face predators such as (golden eagles, owls, coyotes). so soon if we dont help out ferrets and prairie dogs more they can go extinct.

 Geothermal energy is when the heat from the sub-surface of earth is harnessed and used to create energy. This form of energy is renewable because the earth is always creating heat inside of itself. Some of its uses are bathing, heating buildings and generating electricity. Geothermal energy was first used in Italy in the year 1904 and is very consistent. It is used in over 20 countries, the United States being the largest producer of them. Another country who depends on geothermal energy is Iceland. They produce 25% of there energy from five geothermal power plants. There are very few cons to this though. It does produce very low levels of CO2 but also emits sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. They also create small tremors due to the fracking used to access the water or steam. I think this is definitely a better alternative than using coals and fossil fuels and it should be used more in our world today.

 Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of how climate change will effect different areas. Some areas of the Planet are dealing with rising sea levels, other places experience new and worsening droughts, flooding,  and many others simply record high/low temperatures for the year. Due to the fact that climate change will effect a lot of people in a lot of different ways the CDC uses a multitude of resources to track and record what places, how, and the severity of the climate crisis and uses this data to get an idea of how our current climate crisis could potentially in the future. There have even been technologies used to track CO2 levels and emissions in real time. Just like in the film we watched that shows the NASA scientists using the data we already have collected from tracking new weather patterns, we are able to use this data to predict and prepare for the future.  Sources:  https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/7/16/21324662/climate-change-air-pollu...

  Kara McQuerrey When we think of land use we don’t ever think about how many ways we really do effect it. Even things we do unintentionally. One way we impact our land use if the worlds growing population. Our growing population puts a drive for how we use land and how much of it’s being used. It also makes an increasing demand for food. That makes land resources really important. This can also effect deforestation. In the last two decades less than 60 thousand forests, tress were removed and replaced my houses and building’s. Both which we need for our population. An example of how our population growth is a place called Wadi Ziglab. It was 11162 in 1952, 29719 in 1979 it was 63970 in 2004. Large amounts of growth. There is nothing we can really do about this unless we tell people to stop having kids. Which we can’t do that.  http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.ijas.20160601.02.html

 Brennan Moots  Polar Bears are on the Vulnerable list on the extinction risk chart. Polar bears are predators in the arctic and play a huge role in the food web. They have a few reasons for being vulnerable on the list. One reason is they are loosing food. The ice is melting so it is hard for them to travel and find prey. Them not being able to eat is malnourishing them or starving them. Putting us at reason two where the female bears barely have enough nourishments for themselves and can’t provide for their cubs. Slowing down their reproduction rates drastically. The third reason is they are losing their habitats. They are losing habitats due to climate change and oil and gas development that the WWF is fighting against.   I wasn’t aware there was already a post of Polar Bears but I read it and went a little bit more into detail about them.  Post #3 https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/polar-bear

Resource Waste: Americans have the largest material requirements in the world, each directly or indirectly use an average of 125 pounds of material every day, or about 23 tons per year. All these materials consist of things like food, oil, wood, gravel, and fuel.  Americans waste more than 1 million pounds per person per year.   Domestically, we waste 28 billion pounds of food, 300 billion pounds of organic and inorganic chemicals used for manufacturing and processing, and 700 billion pounds of hazardous waste generated by chemical production. Also this doesn’t include what we extract from the earth like oil and coal, but say we did add that to the list that’s another 34 trillion pounds of waste.

         Americans use over 100.2 quadrillion British thermal units according to U.S. energy information Administration. A pie chart was made and used to show how much we use for each category. For residential we use 21%, industrial 32%, commercial 18%, and transportation 28%. America is big into using oil and coal which means that we cause a lot of pollution in the earth today. Europe used 36% wind energy and 33% water energy. What does this tell us? America needs to step up and find better alternatives for energy so earth doesn’t get as polluted. In bigger cities you can tell pollution is a big problem and needs to be addressed. Cities such as New York, St. Louis, and Atlanta smell because of the pollutants in the air. Us as citizens can also do little things to help such as turn lights off when you leave the room, maybe don’t burn trash and drive your vehicle as much. If we tend to live on earth for hundreds of years from now then America needs to hop up on t...