Tech to Reconnect: The Future of Exploring Nature

          Again this isn't he post you were most likely expecting, but don't worry the third part to the overpopulation series will be out tomorrow. This post is about something that I learned about as recently as yesterday. I found the idea interesting and similar to mine, accept theirs was more formal and based on new technologies, whereas mine was based on existing and established technologies.
          Tech to Reconnect interesting and innovative in many ways. For starters, it rhymes which I personally think is clever, but that's just me. Second, it uses something that originally was thought to damage the environment, technology, and using it to influence people to appreciate nature more. It is a great idea that will hopefully cause people to see the world in a new way, without having to leave their home. However, many of the technologies are also interactive with nature, so one can also leave their home for a more interactive experience than ever.
          Some of the new technologies or interactive technologies are:

• The climate leaf, which measures temperature, humidity, and light on a leaf shaped wooden tablet.
• The mask that allows people to see the world from a bats perspective.
• A bird house that allows people to keep track of bird nesting habits.
• A Oculus Rift that gives feed from a laptop on top of a 15 foot tall giraffe shaped tower that simulates the perspective of a giraffe.

          These are just a few of the several ideas that are being created. The program is a revolutionary idea and could not happen at a better time. This event could not have come at a better time. It is the time where we as the human race have the technology to give people the experiences that this program is attempting to give. However, it is also the time where the environment is in dire need of saving, and this could be the perfect way to do it. It is merging the world of technology and the wold of nature in a way that is not destructive, something that is rarely done. It is using something that people like, technology, in order to train them to treasure nature. It is very similar to how people use food to train dogs into doing tricks. Lastly, just like not every dog can be trained, not every human will change their views on how they should treat the environment, but hopefully that is a very small portion of the population.
           If you would like to learn more about Tech to Reconnecet, then you can visit the website at http://www.techtoreconnect.org/. There is an event at the San Diego Zoo on August 13,2015 and an event at the Safari Park on September 10, 2015 after hours.
          Follow on twitter at Planet Earth and visit the Facebook page at Let's Give The World A Chance. Don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe, oh wait, this isn't YouTube. Anyway, stay green Earth, see you all next post.
         

Population of the Earth: The Problems

          There are a lot of potential problems that come with overpopulation. These problems range from natural to human created disasters. Some problems will be easier to solve than others, but the solutions are coming in the third and final post.  So without further ado, let's get into the problems with overpopulation.
           Let's be honest, people want stuff, and the more people that there are to want stuff, the more stuff is being exhausted. This brings us to problem number one, running out of resources. The problem with resources is sustainability. There is no doubt in my mind we could create a way to produce enough food, energy, and water to save humanity for a short period of time, but it will not be sustainable. Wind power and solar power at the current state can not supply about 10 billion people with power, nor can our current production of food feed 10 billion people, unless we all go vegetarian. Not only that, but all the raw materials we use to make everyday objects will deplete at some point. With more people using raw materials, the rate at which we run out of resources will be exponential.
          Now, space does not count as a resource because there is enough of it. In fact, if all humans stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, we could fit in LA. That is right, we can all fit in a single city if we REALLY wanted to. The problem with space is that we seem to want a lot of it, even though we don't need it. We are taking the space that other living things need and that is, to put things simply, bad. we share this planet with millions of other species, and we are losing between 200 to 2000 of those species each year. That is about .01% to .1% of the 2 million known species annually. Not only that, but we produce a lot of waste that needs to be put somewhere. We will eventually just destroy all the natural environment to create more space so we can pollute more, but without nature the pollution will destroy our planet even faster. Lastly, our existing space is polluted and filthy, and we don't like that, so we usually through our trash and pollution into the ocean, which ruins that environment.
          This brings me to my last topic, the natural catastrophes. This includes famine, disease, and war. You may be thinking that war is not natural, but it is in my opinion. It is something that has always and will always occur throughout all of human history, it can not be prevented indefinitely, and with more people comes more casualties. Basically, with more people who can potentially get mad, the more violence will break out. This can eventually lead to war, but much bigger wars with more people and more devastating weapons. Famine can also lead to war, with different countries fighting over food supplies and farming grounds. Lastly is disease. Disease will basically be a Black Plague 2.0. It will be more people closely packed together, with drugs that over time have slowly lost effectiveness, and most of the population susceptible to diseases do to famine.
          All in all, the problems caused by overpopulation will be devastating. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't have children, but I am saying we have to change. Here is the first solution, give Africa and India a steady supply of contraceptives, because most of the children in those areas are caused by a lack of proper protection. This will help the world's population growth tremendously because those are the two fastest growing areas in the world, and there is an easy solution.

Follow on twitter at Planet Earth and visit the Facebook page at Let's Give The World A Chance.
       
          Next blog will  talk about the solutions to overpopulation if we don't fix it before it is to late. Don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe, oh wait, this isn't YouTube. Anyway, stay green Earth, see you all next post.

          P.S. That last part is my new catch phrase, if you have any thoughts post them in the comments, I would be happy to read them.
       

The Earth is our Home

       This is not the post I said I was going to do, that one is coming in a few days. This one is just to create appreciation for our Earth. So let's get on with it.

        Earth is our home. It is where we took our first breath, took our first steps, played our first game, lost our first tooth, went to school for the first time, and where we had all of our great experiences. Every single person or animal who has ever existed has called Earth their home. In fact, the odds of you drinking at least 1 molecule of water that passed through a dinosaur per day is almost 100%, because things have been living here for millions of years.

        However, we don't take care of it as if it were our house. It is easy to let something get dirty and blame one of the 7 billion other people that live on this Earth. However, just because it is everyone's home doesn't make it everyone else's problem. If everyone has this mind set the world is going to become a pile of filth really soon. 

       If everyone would just look around them and clean their room, the world would be a much cleaner and more beautiful place. Not their actual material room of course, although at least that is a step in the right direction, but their room on this Earth. Look around your community and think, how can I make this place better. Your community is your room and you share it with thousands of other people, so clean it up together. If every room in our house called Earth is cleaned, Earth as a whole will be clean, even if each room was cleaned by a different group of people person. 

          "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." 

                                                 - Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Population of the Earth: Includes Population Clock

         Our population is growing at 2.5 people per second. That is 150 people per minute, 9000 people per hour, 216000 people per day, 1512000 per week, and 78624000 per year. Don't even get me started on Leap Year. Anyway, that is a LOT of increase in our population. We have less than 2 people dying a second, and 4 babies being born each second. This is what led to the 2.5 population growth per second. That is why I didn't say the number of people being added to the world every second, because if I said that it the growth would have been 4 people per second.
          Our growth is exponential. It took us about 50000 years to go from one human to one billion. However, we grew the other 6 billion in about 2 centuries. We hit 7 billion people around 2011 or 2012, its a little hard to calculate when there are SO MANY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET, and we hit 1 billion at around 1804. The cause of this sudden population boom was the Industrial Revolution, which is the main cause of all of humanities successes in the last 200 years, but also the cause of many destructive human made forces. It allowed us to use new technologies to provide people with more "stuff", more jobs, and more food using a lot less land and manpower. It produced more jobs because of the large amount of new industries that were being built, even though they all used less manpower. Our rate of increase is beginning to lower, which is good, but it isn't lowering by much.
          At the rate we are going we are going to reach 10 to 11 billion people by 2050, which is a growth of about 3 to 4 billion people in 35 years.The most populous countries are China at 1.4 billion people, India at 1.3 billion people, United States of America at 325 million people, Indonesia at 256 million people, Brazil at 204 million people, Pakistan at 188 million people, Nigeria at 184 million people, Bangladesh at 161 million people, Russia at 142 million people, and Japan at 127 million people.
          This brings up several problems that I will go into more detail on in my next post. First, is sustainability, there is no doubt in my mind that we could produce food for 10 to 11 billion people at 2050, I am just worried it will completely destroy what is left of the environment at that point. Second, the amount of power we will need to supply people with power, which can be done, but again will destroy the environment. Next is the water supply going dry. There are several others that but that is for another time.
          The worst part about the growth is, the growth is happening in the wrong places. The population is growing in places that can barely support themselves let alone a population boom. These places include many parts of both Africa and India. They are growing because medicine is improving, so more babies are surviving past infancy, but there is less contraception. This means same amount of babies with less casualties, which leads to a giant rise in temperature.
          Here is a link to the population clock which contains other information on the growth of our population if you are interested. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ .
          There will be other posts on this topic soon based on the problems that come with overpopulation and possible solutions. Some solutions may be a bit controversial, obvious, or far fetched, but they are still ideas. If you have any ideas I would love to hear them in the comments. Follow on twitter at Planet Earth and visit the Facebook page at Let's Give The World A Chance.

Did you know: the Future of Garbage is Power

            Mmmm, garbage.The thing nobody wants to or cares to think about. It is the stuff we have already used and the stuff we don't want to see again. That used diaper, see you later. The food in the fridge that has gone bad, adios. All the other disgusting trash that we want to get out of our sight, goodbye. However, these things still have uses left, and not through recycling. We can use the garbage for actual power by burning it.
          First, there are two ways we can use trash for energy, one that is in use today, and a potentially more effective way that is still in testing.

• First there are the Wast to Energy facilities that basically burn garbage as if it were coal. It is burned and the heat produces steam that then powers the turbines which create electricity. It is not used in many countries that still have plenty of space for landfills, such as the US, but in countries in more limited land, like the United Kingdom, these facilities are quite common. It creates less pollution than you might expect, saves space, and pollutes less than trash sitting in a landfill. The last statement is true because the trash not only leaks chemicals into the soil and our water supply, but it also emits Methane which is a more dangerous greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide.
• Next we have the landfill that is being tested. Bio reactors use bacteria to break down trash through either aerobic or anaerobic. Aerobic bio reactors use bacteria that require oxygen and anaerobic bacteria do not require oxygen. The problem is the produces a large amount of landfill gas that is harmful to the environment. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!! Landfill gas is burnable, so we can burn it to produce more energy and limit pollution, but for some reason we are not doing that.

          We need to make more of these two kinds of landfills to save space and help the environment. Both the planet and humans win. However, it is not a priority to many people so these kind of landfills are not being built, but we can make it a priority. If enough people become knowledgeable about this subject and talk about it on social media these new landfills will be created and replace the old ones.

Fun Fact: Americans generate 226 million metric tons of trash a day, that's about 2 kilograms of trash daily.

Interesting Fact about Humans and the Earth

          Almost everyone has heard of or watched the Matrix. It was a brilliant movie and was very thought provoking. The reason I am talking about this is because of one specific quote said by Agent Smith. 

     I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species, and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we...are the cure.
          
           This quote is probably my favorite quote from the movie because of how truthful it is. It made me realize that the human race needs to change because if you look at the definition of a virus, we fit it perfectly. The definition, according to  http://www.medicinenet.com/, is, "A microorganism that is smaller than a bacterium that cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell. A virus invades living cells and uses their chemical machinery to keep itself alive and to replicate itself." Now you may all be thinking, we are not microorganisms, we are far too big. However, if you compare the size of a human to the size of the Earth, we could be considered a microorganism. Next, without a planet we cannot reproduce. Even if we use technology to live on something other than a planet, it would be probably be a ship that requires supplies from a planet, or be an artificial planet. Lastly, we use up all of the Earths resources and replicate at an alarming rate. 
           We are intelligent beings that have, up until a few decades ago, only cared about our own reproduction and gain, much like a virus. The only thing that separates us from a virus is the fact that we are attempting to fix the problems we have created. We have come up with cleaner energy sources, more efficient crops, and less polluting vehicles. We are beginning to replicate at a slower rate than we did in the past, but we are still growing and we are going to reach the Earth's carrying capacity very soon. We are planning on colonizing another planet due to the fact that the Earth won't be able to sustain us forever, but this brings up another problem. If we colonize another planet it will be the first time in human history we have moved to, and infected, another planet. A viruses spread is exponential, and once we do it one time we will probably do it again and again and again. 
           However, as I said, we are trying to fix the problems we have created. We can get rid of the poor reputation if we focus more on making the world a better place. We need to donate, be active in protecting the environment, and use our cars less. You can chose to not change, but like it out not, the Earth is dying because of us, and we need people to change in order to save it. We must evolve from a virus into a beneficial part of the Earth. We must become the Earths backbone, its bloodstream, or its nervous system.
        

Global Warming Information: How it Works

          First, let's understand what Global Warming is. The simple answer is humans, but is is  much more than that. Global climate change has been occurring since the beginning of the Earth's existence. The problem with this current change in global temperature is the speed at which it is taking place. The temperature has risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in a century, which is, scientifically speaking, REALLY BAD.  A change that would have taken  millennia take effect at almost any other point in our world's history, took place in a century. Scientist observed this drastic change in temperature and developed the Global Warming theory, which was heavily debated for several years. However, as of recently it has been confirmed to be real, and the worst part is, its getting worse.
          So next I am going to explain why Global Warming is bad. It is mainly bad because of the speed at which global warming is taking place, as I already explained.  However, back when the problem started it was not seen as a problem at first because a century is a long time, right? Well, a century may be the lifespan of a human, so its a long time to us, but it is only 0.000002 % of the Earth's lifespan. Imagine if you got sick with the flu, broke your leg, had a family member die, and got fired from your job, all in about 70 seconds. All of those things alone are pretty bad, but having them all happen in such a short period of time makes it ridiculously worse, just like global warming. The reason I chose 70 seconds is because it is.000002 % of 100 years, or the length of time I compared to a human life. This has also caused severe weather patterns that are seen all over the world. This is relatively easy to explain. Basically, storms are more frequent because most of the heat is absorbed by the oceans, and heat cause evaporation. Then, since hotter environments can hold more water, storms are now bigger. The opposite happens in dry places. In dry environments, what little moisture there is is evaporated at a faster rate, which leads to dry places staying dry longer. Lastly, with the melting of the polar icecaps, the sea level will rise and swallow up most island and coastal societies by 2100 if we keep doing what we are doing. These are the three major effects that have been confirmed, many scientists also speculate that tornadoes may be more frequent due to Global Warming, but others say it may actually suppress them.
         The cause is simple. We have filled the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses that trap heat. It started during the industrial revolution and has continued, growing exponentially worse. Some of the main culprits are fumes we create from cars, nuclear power plants, coal power plants, etc. All of us have a large carbon footprint, basically how much carbon molecules, like carbon dioxide, we produce due to the use of fossil fuels. This is called the Greenhouse Effect, and it reflects more heat back to the earths surface from the atmosphere. The Greenhouse Effect is intensified the more greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere.
          We are what caused global warming, but we are also the only thing that can stop it. Everyone must reduce their carbon footprints. Walk or bike places instead of using a car is the most obvious, or carpool if a vehicle is needed. Another effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to save electricity by turning of the AC, using energy efficient light bulbs, turn off the TV and go outside, etc. Eating organic foods that have not been modified also reduces carbon footprint. In fact, stop breathing because that also releases carbon dioxide. Don't actually stop breathing, that was a joke, but you get the point. If everyone makes a small change in their life, it will make a big impact on the world, and even though it won't completely stop global warming, it will be a step in the right direction. Baby steps people, baby steps.

The Future of the Earth: It needs Help

          Today we live in a world that is being destroyed. Ecosystems are being eliminated, forests are being decimated, oceans are being trashed, and the climate is being artificially altered. These problems affect everyone on this planet. No one is exempt from them. These are called worldwide problems for a reason, and our priority should be fixing them. For example global warming, radioactive waste, the rising acidity of our oceans, water shortages, deforestation, extinction, and many more.
            Before I begin, you all should know that I am not an expert. I am simply a guy at his computer who wants to make the world a better place. Which brings me to my next point. These worldwide problems can be solved by people, and how do I communicate with people all around the world? The Worldwide Web. Today we have the ability to access ridiculous amounts of information, the ability to talk to someone on the other side of the globe, and we have the ability to change the world. I am hoping that this blog will be seen by people around the globe. I hope that people will be able to understand just how much the world needs our help. I hope that together we can make a difference.
          This blog is meant to encourage people to make a change. I mean a piece of literature, a blog post, a video, and a speech can't change the world on its own. These things are meant to give people something to fight for, something to believe in. The "I had a Dream Speech" and the 95 theses are two example of ways people gave people something to fight for. Because of those people and the things the world was changed forever. However, what really changed the world was the people and the actions the people took as followers. I am here to try to give people a common goal worth achieving, saving the world. We can all be the superhero we wanted to be as a child, just not in the way we imagined.
          If this post and the next few that I post get enough support I will continue this blog, if not, maybe I gave humanity too much credit. If this blog is to continue there will be one blog a week, perhaps two depending on the length of the first post.
       

It only takes one person to make a difference, but imagine what one billion could do.