Air pollution resubmission

Becca Russell

Eng 151 Project 3

Feb 15, 2011

Air pollution

Do you notice all the fumes from big trucks and semi’s on the roads? That’s air pollution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 2 million premature deaths are caused each year due to air pollution in cities across the world(Buzzle.com). Too much gases evaporating into the sky causes air pollution. In big cities, like I said before, the vehicles exhaust fumes pollute the air, and air pollution from people driving cars is known to be the most dangerous act one can make. Construction sites and the work industry is also a big factor of polluting the air. Out on country roads, the tractors that are out there working on their crops and fields gives off a ton of bad air pollution. Everyday you notice cars driving on dirt roads, and you never really think anything of it, but that‘s also a huge part of it as well. Everything that I just talked about are some causes of air pollution, but one more that I want to state is the smoke being thrown into the air as people make bon fires and what not; that is still non healthy smoke fumes going into the air. If there’s not a healthy environment, that calls for a non healthy citizen population. Air pollution is very dangerous, however such high levels are not as common in the United States anymore, but I, as well as other people I’m sure, want to live in a completely clean area. It’s harmful to our health, bad for the farmer’s crops, and the wildlife is being damaged day by day. Breathing bad air is poisoning our human bodies, let alone the animals bodies, well. Not many people would disagree on air pollution not being bad, but they would disagree on ways to have the problem be fixed.

I would first like to talk about our own human life being put in danger by all these bad fumes. When air pollution is occurring, different parts of your body are being irritated. For example, breathing it in cause rashes and irritation in the throat, then it will venture on down into your lungs which could eventually lead into respiratory problems like asthma. It’s increased by traffic related air pollution, which deals with adverse cardio respiratory effects, which causes the increase in asthma prevalence. Therefore, traffic related pollution that’s exposed at homes and school may both be a possibility of the contribution to the growth and development of asthma. Air pollution can cause cancer as well. One scientist says, "This evidence that air pollutants can alter chromosomes in utero is troubling since other studies have validated this type of genetic alteration as a biomarker of cancer risk," Perera remarks. "While we can't estimate the precise increase in cancer risk, these findings underscore the need for policymakers at the federal, state and local levels to take appropriate steps to protect children from these avoidable exposures." Also, the dirt and dust that comes into the air from construction sites will also cause damage with air pollution because visibility is reduced tremendously, particularly in the larger cities. The more air pollution gets into your lungs, the more difficult it is to fight off the infections. It also hurts the most obvious part of your body; the eyes, because it’s seeing it first hand. It will make your eyes burn, and you will have some serious coughing along with feeling like you have a weight pressed against your chest. Also, the people who are most prone and affected by air pollution are those with some sort of heart disease. People who work outside a lot (like farmers) are more known to get the bad effects of air pollution, because with their job, they are working so hard, it takes a lot out of them to where they are breathing heavily and breathing heavily multiple times a day. At some points, air pollution becomes extremely high; just depends on who’s working on what, and for how long. Effects of a mass amount of air pollution can even put people in critical condition, as well as even to cause death. People always assume it’s the elder’s getting sick from air pollution, but really, it effects children to a great amount. It just makes them cough a lot and have a hard time breathing. Sometimes, symptoms turn into them having bronchitis. Ear aches are also a big symptom for children. All the pressure and bad chemicals in the sky makes the ears become clogged, then that makes for an ear ache.

My next argument is that air pollution effects the farmer’s crops and/or just plants in general. I found that it really does have effect on plants, Oxidants, Sulfur Dioxide, Fluoride, Ammonia, Particulate Matter, and Injury to vegetation. In general, when high amounts of different types of air pollution is surrounding the crops, they can be hurt. First, you’ll start to notice certain marks on the plants, and eventually it’ll stump the growth of it, and then sometimes the plants life is ended at an early age. An injury is all about what happened to cause it, and how bad is it. Not only does this depend on other other ideas, but also the amount of the exact pollutant we’re dealing with here. The factors that have to deal with this are: what the plant specie is, at what part of the developmental stage it’s in, along with figuring out whether it can have injury, or not have injury, and how long the time length of existence to the certain pollutant.

My third argument is that air pollution is extremely dangerous to our wildlife.

Pollution is one of the primary ways in which humans have caused drastic modifications of wildlife habitat. Historically we have regarded the air, water, and soil that surround us as waste receptacles and have given little consideration to the ecological consequences of our actions. As a result, wildlife populations are confronted with a bewildering array of pollutants that we release into the environment either by intent or accident (Davis). Different types of air pollution can harm the animals face to face right off the bat. For example, acid rain can effect how animals receive rain. It can also team up with other factors that can completely switch and change what animals drink, eat, and what they live on. Pollutants can harm animals directly, but the pollutants can also combine with other factors that change animals' natural resources, like soil, water and nutrients. Air pollution can also directly affect animals’ water supplies through acid rain. It’s all basically just a train. If insects and plants are ruined, that’s what animals eat, so therefore that can cause damage to the wildlife.

Industry gives off a good share of the waste that is polluting our planet, but it’s every person is contributes as well. Government involvement is key to regulating toxins, building waste systems and protecting air and waters (Buchanan). Everyone in the world knows how bad air pollution is to the environment of Earth, but in the past years, you see the more and more ignorance in people and their ways of showing how they really could care less about living a clean area. No one stops to think about what it might do to us and/or the animals. There are so many ways to actually fix this problem, people are just lazy and don’t give it enough thought and attention or people just argue about the different ways to fix the problem. For example on fixing the problem, if you need to go to the grocery store and it’s in walking distance, walk there. The amount of energy that vehicles use will be decreased a whole lot, which means air pollution would be decreased as well. You could also People need to stand up and speak out for what they really believe in. Using more human power can reduce the amount of diabetes and child obesity. If air pollution continues to be as bad as it is today, our environment is going to be so unhealthy and people, I guarentee will start dying at a much younger age. If not death at a young age, people will grow up to have serious problems due to the air pollution they were around and breathed in when they were younger. So, in conclusion, air pollution needs to be decreased due to the harmfulness to us citizens, it’s bad for the farmer’s crops and plants, and our wildlife is loosing its population due to this world issue.

My counterargument deals with to reduce air pollution vs. not even worrying about it. Smoke is everywhere in the world even if it has to deal with tobacco products, wildfires, ect. Wildfires are a big one. As we all know, they cause air pollution. We can’t control the amount of smoke that comes with it. Wildfires are a necessary part of life and nature takes these measures to renew an area of land naturally. With that thought process of some people, other people are just thinking about the simple ways you could reduce it so our environment could be healthier. The amount of driving is a big factor. They say, if it’s walking distance, save the amount of gas an air pollution and walk, or just ride a bicycle. Also, when it comes to shopping, you know everyone wants to drive to the mall and what not, but you could shop by phone or mail as well. People argue that air pollution is the source of what makes our vehicles run and air conditioners, ect. , but then people say that it’s slowly destroying our environment and causing global warming. Due to everything that I have talked about and explained, I think air pollution needs to be reduced tremendously, and I hope other people think about our world and help to reduce it as well.

WORKS CITED

Graham, Sarah. “Air Pollution can affect Fetal Development, Scientists say.” Scientific American. 16 February 2005.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=air-pollution-can-affect.

Growing as a Writer

Becca Russell

Eng 151

17 March 2011

Growing as a Writer

The first day of English 151 with Samantha Mudd was nerveracking. I became even more nervous when she said everyone was going to have their own blog on blogger.com. I’ve never had a blog before nor did I know how to work one. I’ve seen other people’s and always wished I would make time out of my day to write my thoughts down on something. I’m not really good with just coming up with things off the top of my head and being able to write and write about it for a long time, but I feel like I grew better at that in the last ten weeks that I’ve been in English class. The first blog, ever, that Samantha made us write was what we perceived “Sense of place” as, and I wrote:

“The term 'sense of place' has been defined and used in many different ways by many different kinds and types of people. Some people seem to think its more like geographic places, while others believe it to be a feeling or perception held by people. Sense of place is used to make certain characteristics special or unique. I'm pretty content with my sense of place in the world as of right now. I don't thrive on attention or anything of that sort; I'm pretty much humble. It's important, I think, to have a sense of place because it just makes that person feel wanted and feel like they are apart of something; not just like some lost soul in the world looking for where they belong. It may take some time to find your right sense of place, but you will eventually find it, and when you do, it's great and you will feel so much better about yourself and be happier person all in all.” Now that I read this and really think about it, I believe now that I could have wrote a lot more about it and gone into more depth. That post was written on January 10, 2011, and it’s now mid March, so that gave me about two months to grow as a writer and think more into things. Pertaining to sense of place, I would now talk about the bullying aspect of life. Those people are so, deeply hurt down inside, and they really don’t feel like they have a purpose in this world, nor even like walking out in public because they just know what is going to happen and what’s going to be said. I could give real life experiences that I have witnessed to add more credibility to what I am talking about.

In the past ten weeks, I just think that I have been able to expand my thoughts and really think about things on a different level; sort of like thinking “outside the box.” Being able to think outside the box makes you a much better writer and makes for great stories. It also pulls your audience’s attention in more closely and makes them want to listen and read about what you have to say. Some things that I think that have stayed the same would be my use of language. I’ve never really been a big word type of person. Even though I hear people use big words all the time, I just never really adapted that characteristic. I may use them here and there, but they really aren’t apart of my vocabulary. It would be nice if it would be, but I just wasn’t born and raised around people always using big, technical words. Using a blog for English class is great. Most English classes just make you read from a book and write papers, but English is all about expanding your mind and being able to write about everything with a good imagination and thought process, and a blog is perfect for that. After we would have speakers come in, we would go on our blog and just write about what we thought. Samantha would come up with questions pertaining to the speech as well. One researcher, Douglas, said, "Our research results are conclusive. The more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills, or at least, the more children are accustomed to using the written word, the more confident and comfortable they will be with written communication in general.”

In conclusion, these past ten weeks in my English class has really taught me a lot. I saw myself grow as a writer with opening my thoughts and minds and really opening up to myself and my audience. I also expanded my knowledge with rhetoric, which I think is very good. I’m happy with myself, and I’m excited to see where I become as a writer later down the road as I grow up.

WORKS CITED

O’Dell, Jolie. “Researchers say the Social Web improves kids’ literacy.” ReadWriteWeb. 3 December 2009.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_web_improves_literacy.php.

Relationship with Food

Becca Russell

Eng 151

16, March 2011

Relationship with Food

Food is a big part in everyone’s life. We all tend to eat the bad stuff because it’s just so good, and generally it’s quite cheap, but we don’t think about the negative effects that it will do to us. Growing up, my father was always a health freak and was always trying to get me to understand the importance of eating healthy foods. I somewhat would listen, but would go behind his back when he wasn’t home and eat the unhealthy things. Being in English 151 with Samantha Mudd has really taught me a lot of things. She was all about the healthy aspects in life and would always try and turn our attention to it. I want to talk about the movie she had us watch in class one day, Food Inc, directed by Robert Kenner. That man really knows what he is talking about. That movie not only made me open my eyes, but made me want to change the ways I ate. I highly recommend this movie to every single person in the world. It gives good facts throughout the whole thing. Also, it goes into detail about real life situations dealing with bad food and watch it does to people. I think showing real life situations is a perfect way to open people’s eyes and really get them to watch and understand the importance. This is an overall summary of what the movie is about:

“I'm not generally in the habit of praising documentaries for being good for you, but Food, Inc. is more than a terrific movie--it's an important movie, one that nourishes your knowledge of how the world works (or, in this case, has started not to work). The movie draws, among other things, upon the muckraking testimony of Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) to create an essential, disturbing portrait of the industrialization of what we eat. It's about the way our food has undergone a corporate-chemical change during the last 30 years. The ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup, the flavorless white-meat chicken (and you thought that breast enhancement was just popular for humans), the homogenized junkification of beef that was pioneered by the fast-food industry and then spread beyond those chains to the daily supermarkets--the movie weaves these phenomena into a larger, sinister narrative of conglomerate control. Food, Inc. is a movie that's hard to shake, because days after you've seen it, you will find yourself eating something--a hamburger, cereal out of the box, a perfectly round waxen hothouse tomato--and realize that you have virtually no idea what it really is,” says Entertainment Weekly. Here's a clip from the movie that really moved me:

What you put into your body reflects on how you act and the way your mind thinks each and every day. Good food plus good sleep can make a world of difference. About a year ago, my parent’s went on this cleanse where you can’t put anything bad into your body for 3 weeks. Basically all they ate was rice, asparagus, and lentos. You also could not have any alcohol enter your system in that 3 week period. It was very tough for my mom, not so much my dad, and she lost about thirty pounds. Granted, after the cleanse, she felt so refreshed and healthy, that she started eating that way from then on. Not only did she loose a ton of weight, but her blood pressure and cholesterol decreased dramatically, which was really good. She doesn’t even eat, nor crave sweets anymore. Due to the fact that I was not at college yet, so I still lived in my parents house constantly, I started to eat this way, and I lost about ten pounds. Now, I’m not saying I only did this for the weight loss, I did this because it just really feels good to put healthy foods in your body and to know that you are actually helping your system. Eating good will prevent you from getting sick all the time, keeps your blood pressure on track, saves you from getting other problems such as diabetes, and overall, is just what is best for you and your body. Now that I am at college, I don’t have my parents there to make me these healthy foods, but I still try and watch what I eat. I will only occasionally go to fast food restaurants, but not all the time. When people are at the grocery store, they just buy what ever sounds and looks good. Scientist, Breitenbeck says, “"People have become increasingly removed from the sustenance of life," he laments. "Today people buy food with a picture on the outside that explains what they're eating – they don't want to think about where a chicken wing comes from." I’ve just really realized what is healthy and what is not healthy for me, and if I want to live a good, long, healthy life, I need to watch what I eat and only put what is best for me in my body, with sometimes the allowing of bad foods.

Organic foods are known to be very good and healthy for your body, despite the fact that they are more expensive than the regular foods. Peter Melchett, the policy director of the Soil Association, said "This is a very rigorous study. There is clear evidence that a range of organic foods contain more beneficial nutrients and vitamins and less of things known to have a detrimental health effect such as saturated fats and nitrates."

In conclusion, by the talks we have had in my English class, the movies we have watched, and my own personal direct experiences, I have made the decision that it’s important to eat healthy, and that’s what I am going to do if I want to live a long, healthy life.

WORKS CITED

Kenner, Robert. “Food Inc.” Robert Kenner Films. 2008.

http://robertkennerfilms.com/films/files/detail_current.php.

“Organic IS healthier, says food scientists.” The Telegrapher 17 Mar. 2011

Pate, Katie. “LSU Scientists say Organic Food may not be healthier.” WorldNow and WLOX, a Raycom Media Station. 11 March 2011.

http://www.studyguide.org/MLAdocumentation.htm.

Non-alcoholic energy drinks

It's becoming known that highly caffeinated energy drinks are starting to be a threat to individuals health. Even if they don't contain alcohol, it's still dangerous. "Recent action to make pre-mixed alcoholic energy drinks unavailable was an important first step, but more action is needed," says University of Maryland School of Public Health researcher Amelia Arria, who directs the Center on Young Adult Health and Development. "Individuals can still mix these highly caffeinated energy drinks with alcohol on their own. It is also concerning that no regulation exists with regard to the level of caffeine that can be in an energy drink." This whole article talks about the negative affects caffeine has on your body, and then to mix it with alcohol is just even worse.

Yes, caffeine is not healthy for your body, and neither is alcohol, but everyone drinks it. To keep yourself from having very bad negative effects, be smart and just don't mix it. It messes up your body, and if you don't be careful, it can make you very dehydrated and cause serious illness. Researchers need to think of ways to send out messages to the world to let them know the negative effects that can happen, so it can put some sense into people's minds, and they can think before they act.

Is water really safe to drink?

"Over the last couple of generations, there has been a huge amount of groundwater pollution worldwide, and this has had a negative impact on our drinking water supply," says Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment at the University of Toronto. Society is trying to turn the groundwater pollution around and eventually stop it. The hard part in this process is proving that the microbes are actually cleaning up the contaminants. It's possible to bring back resources that would of been lost if people get together and work together to clean up the contaminated groundwater.

People need to realize that if this contaminated groundwater keeps up, it can be harmful to everyone in the long run. There are so many issues out there that come out of this problem, and if we all start now to think of ways of reducing it, and actually partaking in this action, it would be much healthier to the whole environment, and the people living in the environment.

"Global warming vs. Climate change"

This whole article talks about people being skeptical on how the world's weather is changing, and what that change is really called; global warming or climate change. When these changes occurred, more people believed it to be referred to climate change rather than global warming. During the study that some scientists did, they came up with the conclusion that conservatives called it climate change and liberals called it global warming.

Basically, it talks about how scientists and researches noticed and came to the conclusion that Americans may not know as much as they thought they knew. People jump on the bandwagon way too much with these kinds of issues. I mean, it's all over the news and what not, and some people only get one side of the story. I think people need to think on both sides and not just jump to conclusions; actually do some research and place your thoughts and ideas on facts that YOU find and believe in.

Pinpointing air pollution's effects

For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how the smallest air pollution particles effect us with every breath we take each and every day. Breathing it in makes us more vulnerable to cardiovascular disease and respiratory problems. Finding out how exactly it does those things has been a challenge, but they are working hard to find the solution. Investigators from the University of Rochester Medical Center has studied people with type 2 diabetes so the blood in response to breathing ultrafine particles can be tracked. After a lot of research, scientists have found that after being exposed to these particles, people had higher cardiovascular risk. The advice given in this article is that people who are known to have problems with diabetes or other chronic conditions are advised to stay in when the air quality is at a poor level. People who are healthy are not normally affected, so their risk is less severe.

I did a whole project on air pollution, and all these facts in this article are correct. Air pollution is extremely harmful to people with problems such as asthma and diabetes. It causes way more problems to people with those issues rather than to the people who are healthy, so yes, I agree that, even though it's hard and you may need to get some things done, that if you have these problems, to stay inside just to keep your body safe and healthy; it's the best for you.

Melting Ice Sheets

The findings of the study about the Greenland and Antartic ice sheets loosing mass at an accelerating pace suggested that these sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth's mountain glaciers. It took 20 years to have a study reveal that in 2006, the Antartic ice sheets and the Greenland lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. What's even worse is that the polar ice sheets lossing mass pace was found to be accelerating very fast. "What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Our study helps reduce uncertainties in near-term projections of sea level rise," said lead author, Eric Rignot, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine. It took nearly two decades for Rignot's team to observe and look at the changes in ice sheet masses and trends in acceleration of ice loss. With all of this, the authors conclude that for the next four decades, if current ice sheet melting rates continue, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15 centimeters, so the authors are taking some serious caution that in the future ice loss acceleration, considerable uncertainties remain.

This ice loss acceleration is not good at all. Even though this happens all over the world, I think it's good that people are taking caution and trying to fix the problem now; the sooner, the better. It just shows how much people care about our worlds land, and that shows a lot of respect. Obviously, some problems will occur in the future, but I'm hoping that by these helpers, they can make it less dramatic for everyone.

Japanese Quake

On March 11, 2011, Japan struggled with the cleanup of a massive 8.9 earthquake a short distance off shore, which turned into a tsunami that has taken the lives of hundreds of people and completely wrecked parts of cities. One professor argues that people who live in Japan were not so much prepared for this disaster to occur. People need to start paying attention, because due to Japan being in the Pacific Northwest from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, everyone will see more earthquakes like this happen again in the near future. Basically, this news article is saying how other than all the tragic losses of lives they had and the amount of damage they had, Japan is now more prepared than anyone else in the world. Experts at OSU and across the Pacific Northwest say that they can never predict when these events will happen; they just have to be extremely prepared. Also, they are continuing to learn what they can from each disaster to gain knowledge on how to save more lives.

It was very sad to hear about what happened in Japan with the earthquakes and the amount of lives that were taken, but I think it's a good idea that people from other countries are over there trying to help them figure out ways to be more prepared so the amount of distruction that happened this time, won't happen again next time.

Rainwater Harvest

In Central Texas, rainwater harvesting has became very known. People have been becoming worried due to the fact that people are slowly running out of water in the rural areas of Central Texas. Also, the people are interested in conserving water supplies, and by doing that, it's good for the environment. No sooner, people in neighborhoods started to question about which roofing collection surfaces are best to use for rainwater harvesting. To answer this question, Cockrell School of Engineering had to come into the picture to try and answer these folks questions. They examined the effects of alternative and conventional roofing materials on the quality of harvest rainwater. After a lot of findings and searches they did, they came up with the conclusion that cool roof and concrete tile produce the highest harvested rainwater quality for indoor domestic use. The study also showed that rainwater from asphalt fiberglass shingle roofs and increasingly popular "green" roofs contain high levels of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Water with DOC is not necessarily dangerous on it's own, "but when it's mixed with chlorine, the two substances react to form byproducts that potentially cause cancer and other negative human health effects. Someone who already has a rainwater system is probably not going to change their roofing material based on this study, but this information is useful for anyone who's trying to make an informed decision about what material to use," Kirisits said.

I agree with that quote. Everyone is freaking out about what they should change and what not, but if you've been consistant with what you have and it's been working out fine, I think you will be okay. Kirisit is right, all the information is very useful to the new people moving in places trying to make a right decision, and they should take into consideration all those facts about DOC and what not.

Air Pollution