Beijing's Olympic Smog Shows Pollution's Effect on Health

Link: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/05/15/beijings-olympic-smog-shows-pollutions-effect-on-health

Picture: This is a picture of the olympic stadium from the 2008 summer olympics in Bejing, China.

Article Summary: Around the time of  the 2008 summer olympics, researchers noticed a change in the air quality surrounding Bejing. They wondered if the air quality could affect any health problems with athletes. The Chinese government agreed that during the games, they would limit the use of motor vehicles. As soon as the games were over, the levels of pollution went back up. Before the games started, the researchers took measurements from 125 residents from Bejing. They found that rising air pollution levels rose the normally healthy citizens' blood pressure and blood- clotting factors. Scientist aren't very sure of which pollutants are causing the health problems because pretty much all of the pollutants they were measuring went back up after the games were over. They actually think that it might be a mix of several different pollutants.

Reflection:  I really never thought that there could be any relation between the olympics and the air quality. This article was pretty surprising. I really hope they can find out which pollutant or mixture of pollutants is causing the health problems like high blood pressure and blood- clotting factors. I wonder if during the summer olympics this year they will also do research like this. It would be petty interesting to see if the same kind of results for air pollution and health problems come back.

Questions:
1. What else do you think the Chinese government could do to try and lower the air pollution?
2. Could this happen during the summer olympics this year?
3. How else do you think they could test to find out what pollutants are the cause of the health problems?

Toxic China: Widespread Lead Pollution is Poisoning Children
March 10, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff

http://www.naturalnews.com/035202_lead_pollution_China_children.html

These dolls are recognized and cherished by children
around the world. However, toys like Barbie and Hot
Wheels are the source of making some children very
ill from the lead used in producing them.

Summary:

Even though they are known for their mastery in manufacturing, China’s industrial materials and chemicals are causing tons of environmental pollution—and the children of China are paying for it. The town of Dongtang, which is located near the main manufacturing region, has released that at least 160 of their town’s children have been poisoned by lead pollution released from local factories. There was ‘elevated’ levels of lead in the blood of many children who live near the manufacturing plants, which make lead products like heavy metals and batteries. The pollution contaminates the air, water, and often the local crops and food supply. Dongtang is not the only affected area. According to South China Morning Post, there are already more than 500 reported cases of lead poisoning in kids who live near China’s major manufacturing regions. Also, the U.S.’s Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia says that the normal range for lead in blood is less than 10 micrograms per deciliter in kids. Some of the children being tested in china had between 10,000-25,600 micrograms/deciliter. This means that the children are having an intake of up to 2,560 percent higher than the normal levels. This is not a new problem, either. There was a recall in 2007 of about one million toys such as Barbie doll and Hot Wheels, because the manufactured toys in China had dangerous amounts of lead in their paint. The residents of China have filed complaints concerning the lead poisonings, but the officials who run the industrialization are doing their best to ignore or conceal the issue of health. To make a statement for themselves, some local residents have staged protests and boycotts against the companies who pollute their towns. In one case of 2009, activists destroyed the equipment of a factory that poisoned at least 600 kids.

Reflection:

This was probably the saddest of the articles I’ve had to make a blog on. It’s terrible that the officials of the manufacturing plants in China took industry over the safety of young children. The most shocking fact to me was that they were taking in up to 2,560 percent higher levels of lead in their blood than normal! I’m surprised they all survived, or at least there was no mention of death in the article. It really makes you think too where everything comes from, and how we take things for granted. I always played with Barbie’s as a kid, and my brother had tons of Hot Wheels cars. It’s really depressing to think that all those children over there in China are suffering, and it won’t be stopped because people like us are consuming their products. I also connected this to a video we watched in science class: The Story of Stuff. In this video an environmentalist studied and shared the process of manufactured materials and how industry works. She mentioned that there were harmful pollutions emitted from the factories that produced many goods that could harm the environment as well as people. This article would be a perfect source of support for her argument of why the world’s methods of industry have gone awry, though I feel that if this happened in the US it would be stopped.

Expansion—Questions:

1)      Do any events like this occur or have occurred in the US? If so, what and how was/is this situation fixed? If not, how can our nation help stop what is going on in China?

2)      Why are the manufacturing officials China allowed to ignore the health of their own people for industry?

3)      What are the specific names of the companies that are responsible for the lead poisonings (maybe toy companies like Barbie; battery companies like Duracell, etc.)? How are the worldwide leaders of those companies dealing with the pollution in China?

Air Pollution Can Lower Childrens IQ

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/028094_air_pollution_intelligence.html#ixzz1vjxWPj9z

Picture: This image is of New York City and some of it's factories, as you can see they are creating alot of air pollution

Summary:
According to a study conducted by researchers from the Mailman School of Public Health in New York, babies in the womb whose mothers are exposed to air pollution have a lower IQ. In this over 5 year experiment, the pregnant (non-smoking) women got a personal air monitors during their pregnancy. This monitored the quality of air they were exposed to. The results showed that the women, who lived in New York City neighborhoods of Harlem, South Bronx or Washington Heights, were exposed to air pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The children were tested when they were five years old and their test scores were below the ones of the mothers who were not exposed to the air pollutants. A major source of the PAHs is the burning of fossil fuels and other organic materials, like tobacco.

Reaction:
We need to act quickly! These are the future leaders of America; we promote the smartest people possible and the air is now a boundary! You cannot blame the children or the parents.  We need to help them though, because the air is a very important part of our lives and we need to regulate the amount of pollutants that people are exposed to. The air quality is only going to get worse and then it will be harder to fix. If we start now it will not be as much that we need to fix and we can even prevent air pollution!

Questions:

1.)    What other threats does the air pollutions quality pose?

2.)    Is it the parents fault for exposing themselves to this air pollution? Why or why not?

3.)    Is it the governments fault for not looking into the air quality of New York City?

Warm winter causes various responses from the plants

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-species-global-previously-thought.html

Summary: Due to the effect of global warming, winters became a lot warmer than before. Because of this change, more plant species are blooming earlier than when they usually were bloom. Of course, there are other species of plant (usually at 30%, differs depending on the region) that seems not to be unresponsive to the drastic weather change. Yet, some studies show that these "unresponsive plants" are also drastically affected by the weather. The problem is, some plants do not know when to be ready for winter cold because the winter is not cold enough to give the "que", therefor, some plants have late arrival of spring blooming or not even go through the process at all. 2/3 of the "stable" plants are found to be going through this confusion. Though it poses to be not much of a change currently but it will make a drastic change in plants during the future. Accoring to Elizabeth Wolkovich, who works at the University of Columbia, “The key for future research will be understanding how we can predict what species and regions are most at risk of radical changes in their flowering due to warmer winters.”

Reflection: It is saddening to hear the other affect of global warming that never came to my mind. I remember the winter in our region to be very warm too considering how I felt hot in some occasions during Febuary! My only concern during those time was lack of snow and possbility of bugs that survived through the winter, but I never had a second thought about flower blooming problem. Though I don't remember our area having problems with flowers blooming, if the weather gets any warmer, I think we will see problems by then. Global warming is changing the enviorment so much and it is saddening to think that us turning off lights and all won't help much because the indusrty is using up much more of the energy than us indivisuals can imagine. I think I'll continue on with turing lights off consistantly because it will still have affects to the green house gas amount being released.

Expansion:
1)What other effects could be posed by the global warming?
2)What could be ways that would satisfy the industry and the enviornment.
3)If flowers do not bloom due to the this problem, what other problems would surface caused by the lack of flowers?

RedLove Apple

Swiss researcher proves that natural selective breeding works better than GMOs
Monday, May 09, 2011 by Ethan A. Huff

http://www.naturalnews.com/032326_selective_breeding_GMOs.html

Picture: This shows the RedLove apple, which is a breakthrough in foods. The fruit was created safely with only natural breeding, and is practically versatile in taste, growth, and safety.

Summary: After 20 long years of research and development, Swiss orchardist and researcher Marcus Kobelt has been able to produce a new kind of apple called RedLove. This spectacular new form of fruit has been designed to be resistant to disease, delicious, and easy to grow, and this has been successfully achieved. More importantly, however, this apple was made without any use of any GM’s (genetic modifications) or GE (genetic engineering). "These varieties of new apple have been created through non-GE (genetically engineered) techniques which is fantastic," said Claire Bleakley from GE Free NZ in Food and Environment, which is a non-profit organization attempting to make people aware of the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). For years, other researchers have been trying to make a GM apple with the same characteristics, but luckily Kobelt was the first to create the fruit. Kobelt only used natural breeding and cross-pollination techniques. This means that the fruit bears no serious health risks that GM foods can. The versatility of this fruit is amazing—it’s sweet and tangy flavor makes it delicious, it can be cooked or raw, beautiful and rich in color, high amounts of antioxidants, and cannot be affected by scab disease. Overall, this creation of the RedLove apple is an example as to why GMOs are not needed and should not be pursued. GMO’s are harmful to humans, animals, and the environment, and also has no known predominance over natural-grown foods.                                                                                                 

Reflection: This is definitely my favorite article of all the ones I’ve read so far. I think it’s so cool that through only cross-pollination and some natural breeding, someone was able to create such a magnificent fruit! Also, I feel that nearly all the articles we study in these blogs deal with depressing problems, which I understand because there are many environmental issues we need to become aware of. But this article, on the other hand, was a celebration of success and I was engaged when reading it. I have always been a picky eater and I’ve heard about GMOs and they really gross me out. I watched FOOD, INC. in health class recently and we learned about harmful GMOs and how unhealthy and scientifically engineered foods are practically everywhere; that they are nearly impossible to avoid. This is really reassuring that there are others trying to make better foods the right way. I really want to try the RedLove apple now, it looks so good!

Expansion:

1. Why are GMOs even used at all if natural breeding is so much better? In other words, what’s the advantage?

2. How was the RedLove apple able to be formed merely by natural cross-breeding; how did they know to get those exact traits within the apple?

3. How can we try to support the production of foods like RedLove and rid of the GMOs that are being made throughout our country?

Criticism on Indonesian Deforestation Ban

Read the article at: http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2012/05/03/indonesia-deforestation-ban-weak-green-groups


Picture: This shows of a forest that has been deforested for palm oil farm.

Summary:
What concerned people from organization like Greenpeace is the fact that about half of 8.6 million acres of forest in Indonesia is not protected by the government. The Indonesian forest is a swamp like forest that supports great biodiversity and it is a great carbon reserve. The current moratorium ( the suspension of activity) of deforestation in Indonesia was suppose to protect all of the forest in order to reduce emmision which causes the greenhouse gas. Their primary goal was to reduce the emission to 26% by 2020 or even up to 41%.Yet, the moratorium has been weakened down only to protect the major forests due to the pressure of the large business. Also, Indonesia is currently the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gas due to the deforestation that has been caused by the palm oil farming, mining and paper industries.

Reflection:
I really do think that a government should enforce things like the moratorium if it was decided to enforced. I think deforestation is a serious matter as the trees and plants that are suppose to absorb the large quatity of carbon dioxide that we spewed out is getting killed. Not only that, fire that is used to get rid of the forest is an extra quantity of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and the loss of forest also equals loss of habitat for many animals and plants that could be endangered or not even discovered yet. Also, the industries like palm oil farming are very hazardous to the enviornment as the controled enviornment that such industries create is not suited for animals and plants that used to occupy the area. It hurts my feeling to see the forests getting ripped out of its roots and if half of the forest is not protected, that would mean that about half the forest could get demolished. This would obviousely be a bad sign for the rate of carbon dioxide we are going at these days. I only do hope that the Indonesian government would enforce this moratorium rather strictly.

Expansion:
1)Would it be the responsibility of the government to enforce this moratorium or the responsibility of the industries to follow them? Explain.
2)With the carbon dioxide rate going up these days, is there any ways we can stop at least a bit of the carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere?
3)Is there any positive effect of deforestation? Explain your answer.

New Rules and Regulations

Read the Article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/science/earth/epa-caps-emissions-at-gas-and-oil-wells.html?_r=1

Picture: This picture shows a hydraulic fracturing (fracking) spot in Susquehanna County, in Pennsylvania. As you can see there is a farmhouse not too far from the Site.

Summary: Due to the new regulations regarding air quality, gas and oil companies will have to remove toxic gasses from wells, pipelines, and storage sites. This toxic gas can cause cancer. The new standards were planned in the summer of 2011 to respond to complaints from many angry citizens and environmental groups. They knew that the gasses were causing health problems and that they were polluting the air. In case you do not know, fracking is a term for hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking refers to the procedure of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting fluid into cracks to force them further open. The larger fissures allow more oil and gas to flow out of the formation and into the wellbore, from where it can be extracted” (Definition from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fracking.asp#axzz1tng6gg57).   The new rules and regulations will not be in order until January of 2015. The fracking industries will have to save about $11 million to $19 million a year to fix all the damages and prevent new ones. Many of the companies are very upset with the new rules and regulations and state they are not flexible and unfair. Unlike the gas, companies the environmental groups are overjoyed. They stated it felt like we are taking a step in the right direction and that it was a leap forward.

Reflection:

Wow, this is a bittersweet situation! Bitter, because of all the health problems the gas can cause. Sweet, because the new rules and regulations are helping the environment and the citizen living near a fracking site. I was surprised to see the photo taking in Susquehanna pa. I was not too happy to hear that these new rules and regulations will be in effect until 2015. That is kind of a long time and the more gas they fracking now will build up even more. They should just make the rules in effect now instead of wait 3 years. Or even just wait 1 year but 3 years is too long.

Expansion: 

 1. Should the pollution be the responsibility of the government or an individual? Explain your answer.

2.  Should companies and industries be held accountable for the pollution they cause? Explain.

3. Can technological advances solve global pollution problems or is technology making the problem worse? Explain.