U.S will Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord

Owen O’Brien

    The Paris Climate Accord is a treaty signed by most of the larger European nations, Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels (The Paris). Back in 2016 when the former president Donald Trump took office. He left the Accord dooming us from international ties on climate issues.

    The U.S. is one of the highest producing countries of greenhouse gas emissions. This means that leaving the Paris Accord will effectively make it harder to reach the goal of keeping the climate change rate below 2 degrees celsius. If this is possible we can slowly make strides to undo the effects of modern-day climate change. According to the United Nations, there are only 11 years left until we can no longer change the effects of climate change (only)

(Loesche)

    As of January 20, 2020, President Joe Biden was sworn into office. With this, he made executive orders that were to be taken into effect on the same day. Included in these was that the United States would rejoin the Paris agreement. There are really no downsides to this and will more than likely be a much better thing going forward. This will also help us in increasing our ties with foreign countries after the Trump administration.

(Barrabi)

    All in all, Biden being in Office and having the United States back in the Paris Climate Accord, we can ensure that we have a safer future and now be sure that there will be climate regulations in our country. That is enforced globally.

Work Cited

“The Paris Agreement.” Unfccc.int, unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-

agreement. 

“Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during 

General  Assembly High-Level Meeting | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases.” United Nations, United Nations, 28 Mar. 2019, www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm.

Loesche, Dyfed, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: Paris Climate Agreement Comes Into Effect.” Statista Infographics, 4 Nov. 2016, www.statista.com/chart/6572/paris-climate-agreement-comes-into-effect/. 

Barrabi, Thomas. “'Squad' Member Rashida Tlaib Calls Ted Cruz 'Dumba--' for Tweet against Paris Climate Accords.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 21 Jan. 2021, www.foxnews.com/politics/squad-member-rashida-tlaib-ted-cruz-tweet-against-paris-climate-agreement. 

Australia's Wildfires and What Could Happen to Us.

    

Owen O'Brien


Global warming is one of the largest fears we have in the modern world, this is because it is such a big issue that most of the people on earth can’t even comprehend what has to be done to reverse what is happening. Within the last two years, Australia was hit with one of the worst years they have had with their wildfires. With the temperatures on the rise, we do not want to see what happened in Australia to happen in our own backyard. 

(Wikimedia)

    

    The Australian wildfires from 2019 to early 2020 were one of the worst brush fires that have happened in Australia. The fires “which killed at least 33 people and three billion animals, from koalas to frogs, and torched an area twice the size of Pennsylvania.” as quoted by Craig Welch in a national geographic article about the new set of fires happening right now in Australia. A massive wildfire can cause total devastation to environments, while also being able to change a whole landscape.

    A massive wildfire like this happening in the northeastern United States would be extremely devastating. This is because of the dense population density that the eastern coast has. When compared to the wildfires in Australia. Australia has large amounts of land that is very open. This means that a wildfire there has a lot less of a chance of impacting heavily on very urban areas. If we look at the map below and compare it to what was said before about the wildfires we can see that the fire was twice the size of Pennsylvania, we can see how large the impact of a wildfire would be in the area even if it was only half of that.

(Wikimedia)

The Australian wildfires are an example of why we need to understand the effects of what wildfires can do to an environment. There is a lot that we can still do to prevent things like this.

Work Cited

"File: Bush fire at Captain Creek central Queensland Australia..JPG." Wikimedia Commons, the free 

media repository. 9 Jul 2020, 17:46 UTC. 6 Jan 2021, 15:20

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php

title=File:Bush_fire_at_Captain_Creek_central_Queensland_Australia..JPG&oldid=432104800>.

"File:Map of USA highlighting Northeast.png." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 15 

Oct 2020, 07:34 UTC. 6 Jan 2021, 15:22 

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?  

          title=File:Map_of_USA_highlighting_Northeast.png&oldid=490242146    >.

Cohen, Ilana. “A Warming Planet Makes Northeastern Forests More Susceptible to

Western-Style Wildfires.” Inside Climate News, 7 Dec. 2020,

insideclimatenews.org/news/25112020/warming-planet-northeastern-forests-wildfires/.

Trash in the Coral Reefs

 Owen O'Brien

    This week, I watched a TED talk titled "Why I Still Have Hope For Coral Reefs", this TED talk focuses on the preservation of the coral reefs. The speaker Kristen Marhaver is a marine biologist that studies things like, ecology, reproduction, and behavior of the coral reefs. 

    The main idea of the talk is that there are things that we are doing right that allows us to have the ability to keep coral alive for so long, and there are some things that need to be changed. This is interesting because when she said this, "There were corals 1,000 years old lined up one after another. They had survived the entire history of European colonialism in the Caribbean, and for centuries before that." (Marhaver) this is very cool to see because now when we see news about coral reefs we are starting to just associate it with bad things. but seeing this now is a very good morale booster. 

   

   

   This TED talk made me wonder about how much pollution it takes to destroy one coral reef, so I looked up some information on this topic. After some research I found Erik Stokstad talking about this, this is what he wrote: "Corals without any plastic had a 4% chance of being diseased, but the presence of plastic raised the risk to 89%, they report today in Science" (Erik) This is very interesting to look at because knowing that just a small amount of plastic can make irreversible damages to the reefs. 

             

 The Coral reefs are beautiful places that need to be saved and having trash throughout them is not cool at all. We need to be more aware and find new ways to make the places thrive again. Even though we are on land we have the biggest impact on these places.

Work Cited

Marhaver, Kristen. “Why I Still Have Hope for Coral Reefs.” TED, Apr. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_why_i_still_have_hope_for_coral_reefs. 

Monster, Bag. “Plastic Bag Floating in Ocean.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 19 Aug. 2008, www.flickr.com/photos/28020116@N02/2779061348/in/photolist-5ezq7Q-69xhPC-7cVZaw-2iFdDMn-2jXqMuK-2gU45wu-899Fat-6R3iKh-kJzuEP-2iHMJJ2-qeSpuM-RT4Fj5-nUUCxD-ap4ihk-7WK82G-kJjwdk-XSoTqo-DmjQrE-88MDGv-Z4wsLy-4RnkAb-mim5ec-4aTRSi-rnxtVT-4RRQuD-4QkJhz-2frNUnt-P67jqU-dX4zCN-4P25fk-4QkHMB-GYLLiQ-FSy3pY-4P27H4-dX4zEj-4P23An-6Mx9Ed-88QWJS-akM6Ei-GDFyBh-64F9Cu-dWXVvr-gPCSzY-GC8afr-HvXZMr-W43bEs-69xhEC-q1w8d7-GKR4y3-GDFyuJ. 

Erik StokstadJan. 25, 2018. “Is Plastic Trash Making Coral Reefs Sick?” Science, 25 Jan. 2018, www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/plastic-trash-making-coral-reefs-sick.

"File:Plastic Pollution in Ghana.jpg." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 14 Nov 2020, 10:08 UTC. 18 Dec 2020, 15:24 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Plastic_Pollution_in_Ghana.jpg&oldid=512560044>.

Sentinel-6

  

Owen O'Brien

    Late last month, the sentinel 6 launched with a plan to monitor the oceans around the world from space. This is a large step in climate change tracking. this is because the oceans absorb about a quarter of the carbon on the planet (What). The main job of the sentinel-6 is to monitor the sea level activity going into the near future (Brown). NASA released this in one of their statements last November.

This latest mission marks the first international involvement in Copernicus, the European  Union's Earth Observation Programme. Along with measuring sea levels for almost the entire globe, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich's suite of scientific instruments will also make atmospheric measurements that can be used to complement climate models and help meteorologists make better weather forecasts. (US) 

    The use of this technology to track weather and atmospheric measurements is a very large step in pre-disaster warning technology. we will be able to track tropical storms better, leading to the ability to be able to limit that tropical storms and hurricanes can do to coastal communities. NASA even said this "Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich's twin, Sentinel-6B, is scheduled to launch in 2025" (Brown). Allowing for more opportunity to track what is happening in the ocean.

    This week I also read a blog that had to do with what one person can do to make a difference. It started as long as you are actively involved in saving water, recycling, and things like that you will make the biggest difference as a single person. If we can let the larger companies do things like sending satellites to monitor the oceans. the article even had a man named Jason Shmedon, a climate scientist saying this ""We don't need people to be extreme about what they're doing," he said. "Be conscious in every area that you can.""(Jacobo) even better stating the fact that you do not need to be extreme.

    All in all these steps that are being taken to track and come up with plans to limit the impending doom of rising sea levels and carbon control are going in the right direction. We can trust that for the next decade we will be able to track and monitor our own oceans very consistently.

Works Cited

Brown, Katherine. “NASA TV Airs Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Launch, Prelaunch Activities.” NASA, NASA, 13 Nov. 2020, www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-tv-to-air-sentinel-6-michael-freilich-launch-prelaunch-activities. 

“US-European Mission Launches to Monitor the World's Oceans – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.” NASA, NASA, 1 Dec. 2020, climate.nasa.gov/news/3045/us-european-mission-launches-to-monitor-the-worlds-oceans/. 

“What Is Happening in the Ocean?” NASA, NASA, 1 Dec. 2020, climatekids.nasa.gov/ocean/. 

“Why the Ocean?” One World One Ocean, oneworldoneocean.com/pages/why-the-ocean/.

Jacobo, Julia. “What You Can Do to Help Prevent Climate Change, According to Experts.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 

                28 Sept. 2019, 6:07am, abcnews.go.com/US/prevent-climate-change-experts/story?id=65721423.