Hurrican Sandy

Just as we start learning more about hurricanes like Katrina which happened in 2007, another one hits the United States and its' name is Sandy (Left). The two storms have a lot of simularities. they both have flooded the areas that they hit leaving nasty water within buildings and the streets. Hurricane Sandy has done some serious damage to New Yorks subway system, flooding it severly (Right). This time, red cross was able to help out a decent amount of victoms that needed it. This Storm has brought water up for over a mile in some places, stunning residents. The storm has also brought snow to areas all over the East Coast. New Jersey has some sever flooding, it has sank rollercoasters and eye witnesses have reported sharks in the flooded water. To me, that is a very scary thought, imagine, you go onto your doorstep to look into the river infront that was just a week ago, a street, to see a sharks fin flying through the water. Hopefully the coast guard will start draining the cities so those people can go back to their daily lives.

Story of Stuff

My teacher showed my class a video a couple weeks ago on an organization called The Story of Stuff Project. It is a website that informs the public on what the corporations are doing behind our backs. I decided to wright my second research paper on this. Most of my research was directly from their website which came to be a quite valuable source. Story of Stuff is famous for their online videos that are easy to watch. Story of Stuff sends 100 dvds of the videos to schools and buisness every month. The videos range from facts about water bottles to cosmetics to cap and trade. The organization started when Annie Leonard (left) wondered what was happening to trash. So she investigated and found surprizing material. With the information she found, she teamed up with Free Range Studios to make short easy to understand online videos. Their first video about trash got 50,000 views real quick and that surprized her and her team. now, just five years later the video has over 5,000,000. Story of Stuff is growing day by day and anybody can join or donate. Donations are helpful because Story of Stuff is a non-profit organization and there are a lot of costs to run this organization. Its quick and simple, for more information on Story of Stuff, go to www.storyofstuff.com.

Natural Selection.

Charles Darwin(right) is famous for his theories on natural selection. I personaly liked this story. I have always been intreeged in evolution and this story had it all when it came to facts. The main point of the story is that evolution is real. All animals have evolved over time, but the thing is that evolution takes a long time to work. If a bird has to migrate for a reason like climate change for instance, the bird will have to find new sources of food. If the bird cant find food, it dies. That means that the bird couldnt adapt quick enough so in a sence, it wasn't worthy of living. It is cold but true. One point Darwin made in the story is if a bird needed to crack a nut with his beak, then he would need a strong beak. If he didnt have a strong enough beak, he would die, but if the bird adapted quick enough and could crack the nut to get the food inside, it would live on and produce more offspring with its qulaities. So now the offspring can and will be able to crack the nuts and the species will live on. Natural selection can be bull sometimes also. If the animal was in the wrong place at the wrong time and dies, technolically it wasnt fit to survive, but the animal could have lived if it wasnt there. Anotehr example is that birds hatch from eggs, but not all eggs are the same thickness. So two identical birds could be in two different thickness shells and only one could make it out if they wernt strong enough. I believe in evolution and that all animals including man have evolved from primordial states.

Evolution of Man.

Watching the movie Food Inc. changed the way that I think about the food industry. After hearing what happened with Kevin, how he ate meat that was contaminated and ended up dying makes me think about food differently. The "farms" that hold the animals are not very sanitarty and are more like factories and the animals are the product being produced. The movie said that the same places where the animals eat is also where they poop. The food then is going to become contaminated and the cows will still eat the food because they dont know any better. On top of that, they feed the cows corn. The thing is that the amount of corn they are feeding the cows causes the bacteria to stay in the animal because the corn holds it in there instead of coming out the end and the bacteria ends up becoming E. coli. When they cut up the animals to make into meat, the E. coli stays in the meat and is fed to humans, this is how kevin died. The movie made it clear that feeding cows only corn is bad and that we need to find another resource to feed them. One part that amazed me was that some cows have holes in them to where people can reach there hands inside the cows stomach to get food out. Seeing this movie has opened my eyes. All i know is that I am going to be careful with what I eat and not eat much fast food anymore.

The story Atomic Dreams, by Jason Mark, shows the contravercity in atomic power. The story tells of the pros and cons of nuclear power. My biggest concern about nuclear energy is how dangerous it can be. in 1986, a nuclear power plant in Russia blew up, killing thousands and aslo poisioning the land for thousands of years. This scares me because nuclear blasts can effect areas 40 miles away. I live in a town called Manteno, and in a town, Braidwood, which is 26 miles away has a nuclear plant. The story also sais that it is a possibility for terrists to blow up nuclear plants in america. The braidwood plant is close enough to do damage in manteno if it blew up and that scares me. On the other hand, nuclear power is a good source of power. The story sais that it is cleaner than natural gas and gives a lot more energy that natural gas. Those are two very good reasons that it is greatly useful. The cheeper cost is great because the economy is in a slump right now and so the cheeper energy is great. On top of that is the cleaner energy. The environment is slowly suffering because of all the toxics we are putting into the atmosphere, cleaner enegy helps out there also. A big downside to nuclear power plants is the inital cost of the reactor can be up to $4,000,000,000. Thats a lot of zeroes to be writing on checks for countless reactors across the country. I think that Nuclear power is good and not as scary as everyone makes it sound, the only thing is to make sure we are careful with it.

The New Wilderness Land Grab

After reading The New Wilderness Land Grab by Elizabeth Arnold, I got a little inspired. The article talked about how the last years have changed the way we think about the environment. before, the environment was just unconquered land, but now that we see how important it is, there are organizations trying to save it. Even the government took steps to help out. Making forests national parks was a great idea. It lets animals live freely and also makes sure that we don't cut down too much land. The trees being cut down effect us greatly because they give oxygen and that's a necessity. I am glad that there are national parks and forest preserves because it helps the environment out and this way, not as many animals are homeless.

English Paper

My teacher has given our class a research paper assignment on our landscape or the environment. I have decided to write my paper on how overpopulation is effecting the environment. In the paper I will state how the grow in population has come to be, what if it keeps up, what is happening to our resources and the landscape itself. Overpopulation is very bad in countries like China. There are so many people so close together, that it has become illegal to have more than one child. My paper will address ideas like this one and others.