Alternative Energy Sources in The United States

Making the switch to alternative, clean, renewable energy sources can help protect the environment and ensure a healthy future for generations to come. In 2014 the United Nations sponsored the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which addressed the issues our planet is facing due to rapid climate change. It was decided that greenhouse gas emissions … Read more

Climate variability

Climate variability is universally accepted as the most complex and a major challenging environmental problem facing human kind today globally (UNEP, 2014). Increased evidence in frequency of extreme climatological events is now more certain than ever (Hartmann et al., 2013; Adhikari et al., 2015). The expected climate variability impacts manifest in the form of long … Read more

Upward march towards Renewable Energy

1.1 WHAT IS RENEWABLE ENERGY? Renewable energy is defined as energy that comes from resources which are naturally replenished on a human timescale such as sunlight, tides, waves, wind and geothermal heat. Renewable energy replaces conventional fuels in four distinct areas: electricity generation, hot water/space heating, motor fuels, and rural (off-grid) energy services 1.2 BACKGROUND … Read more

How genetics and the environment correlate to a person’s anti-social behavior

Abstract Psychologists have been for the past years interested in establishing the relationship between nature and how people are nurtured. The reason for this interest was to establish whether criminal behavior is determined by a person’s environment or their genetic composition.  Studies have been conducted in regards to this ongoing debate which has given the … Read more

Petroleum – Broken Down

Petroleum is an extremely valuable fossil fuel that has many every day uses. The natural resource can be used for fuel, storing leftover meals in plastic Tupperware, driving on different roads, roofing homes, and candles just to name a few. Many people do not realize how many products contain petroleum that they use every single … Read more

Retrofitting

Retrofitting refers to the addition of new technologies to already existing buildings in order to improve their environmental performance. In 2015 1559,470PJ of energy where used only in residences. In these cases, energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting and domestic appliances. Retrofitting aims to modify the features of the building in order to reduce … Read more

We need to protect the little fresh water reserves we have left

0.003 is the percent of Earth’s hydrosphere that is usable fresh water available to the roughly eight billion people living on Earth (Environmental Encyclopedia). Despite the staggering difference between these numbers, millions of gallons of water are wasted each day. Humans need to implement water conservation habits into their life in order to ensure a … Read more

How can the transportation sector be decarbonised?

Outline I. Introduction To keep global average temperature below C, transportation sector should be decarbonised. Although transition to electric vehicles would decrease co2 in the atmosphere, due to lack of incentives, the market adopts the EVs at slow pace. With right set of incentives, the government could induce the market to shift away from internal … Read more

Nuclear power is a game changer

As the world population rises, the energy consumption and demand has been skyrocketing ceaselessly. The urbanization of countries requires the contribution of energy for advanced technology and generating commodities. The major global energy consumption are oil, coal and gas (BBC Bitesize, 2018) , which consider as non-clean energy. When focusing the attention on sustainable development, … Read more

How can nations achieve food security?

Food security, defined by the FAO, is “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” In order to achieve food security, nations must have a stable and sustainable food supply, the affordability … Read more

Tackling food waste

For many reasons, the issue of food waste in today’s world is a difficult one to tackle. The issue is very complicated, and the magnitude of the problem is very tough to nail down. However, the issue of food waste is incredibly important in a world where we see enormous inequalities between countries with regards … Read more

Environmental refugees

Extreme sudden-onset weather events, primarily from flooding and large storms, displaced more than 38 million people worldwide in 2010. The devastating floods in Pakistan, caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in July and August accounted for 20 million.  The rains flooded nearly a fifth of Pakistan’s national territory which affected more than 10 percent of … Read more

Impact of deforestation on biodiversity

Deforestation is the clearing of a forest for industrial use. It is used globally for many different things, whether making room for houses, agriculture, or timber harvesting. There is also natural deforestation from disasters such as forest fires. As the global population grows at a rapid rate, there is a desperate need for more land … Read more

Effects of increased salinity on freshwater organisms

Discussion This experiment was conducted to test the effects of increased salinity on freshwater organisms collected from the Los Angeles watershed. We hypothesized that the sample jars with the lowest salt concentrations would contain the greatest number of organisms, and the jars with the highest salt concentrations would contain the least amount. Looking at our … Read more