Georgia: Suit to Protect Whales

Quarter 2

Article 8

Ny Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/science/earth/29brfs-SUITTOPROTEC_BRF.html

Miller Chapter 6

The area covered is national.

Environmental groups sued the Navy to halt plans for an offshore training range that they fear would threaten endangered right whales, which migrate to waters off Georgia and Florida each winter. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in coastal Brunswick, says the Navy approved construction of the $100 million range in July without completing studies to determine whether ships, submarines and aircraft training 75 miles offshore would pose significant harm to the whales. Researchers estimate that only 300 to 350 right whales remain.

I'm disappointed that the Navy just built this range without first conducting any studies. Since there are only few whales existing, I think that the Environmental Groups should win this case.

Vocabulary-

Right Whale - Right whales rotund bodies are mostly black, with distinctive callosities (roughened patches of skin) on their heads. They can grow up to 18 m (59 ft) long and weigh up to 100 tons. They are called "right whales" because whalers thought the whales were the "right" ones to hunt, as they float when killed and often swim within sight of shore. Intensive harvesting during the active years of the whaling industry drastically reduced populations. Today, instead of hunting them, people often watch these acrobatic animals for pleasure.

In Texas, Resistance Over Stricter U.S. Smog Limits

quarter 2

article 5

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/science/earth/03smog.html

NY times

Miller chapter 19

The area covered is national.

Environmentalist met with Texas state officials on Thursday at a hearing on the Obama administration’s proposal to tighten standards for smog-producing pollutants, a change that could improve the health of millions but would impose burdensome costs on industry and local governments. The hearing, before a panel of federal environmental officials, was one of three being held around the country on the proposed new standards, which would replace those set by the Bush administration in March 2008. Those standards, which set the limit for ozone at 75 parts per billion, ignored the advice of a panel of scientists advising the Environmental Protection Agency

and have been challenged in court as too weak. The proposed lower standards also drew fire from manufacturers and oil and gas companies, who fear they will bear the brunt of the costs of cutting down the volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides that cause smog.

I think that it is important to set new standards that integrate the advice from the Environmental Protection Agency. I also think that manufacturers and oil and gas companies will have to abide by these rules and bear the costs. The environment has to come before industry. Economic times in the United States will eventually make a recovery. However, when the environment becomes depleted, it is much more difficult to get it back.

Vocabulary-

Smog- forms when emissions from industry and other sources are exposed to sunlight.

Protecting the Forests, and Hoping for Payback

Quarter 2

Article 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/science/earth/29trees.html?_r=1

Ny Times

Miller chapter 13

The area covered is national.

Over the next 50 years or so, experts say, some forests could be cultivated to grow bigger, more resilient trees, potentially increasing their carbon storage by 50 percent and providing an important “bridge” to a time when the nation will theoretically have shifted away from greenhouse-gas producing fossil fuels. Many drier forests, including here east of the Cascades, have grown unnaturally dense after logging and efforts to save them from wildfires. Measures taken to stop fires can end up causing more devastating ones by allowing the growth of small trees and underbrush, “ladder fuels” that ignite bigger trees.

It is important that we try to prevent forest fires the right way. Logging can be more harmful because it allows for small trees that are more likely to catch fire and then ignite the bigger trees, causing a potentially more dangerous forrest fire.

Vocabulary:

logging- when certain trees are cut down for forrest management and timber.

Fight Against Asian Carp Threatens Fragile Great Lakes Unity

Fight Against Asian Carp Threatens Fragile Great Lakes Unity

Quarter 2

Article 3

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/science/earth/03states.html

NY times

Miller Chapter

The area covered is national.

Asian carp, the voracious, nonnative fish whose arrival near Lake Michigan is threatening to cause havoc in the Great Lakes, are now setting off strife on land as well. An urgent effort to close down Chicago-area passages that could allow the unwanted fish to reach Lake Michigan, the State of Michigan is suing the State of Illinois and other entities that govern the waterways here. Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin have filed documents in recent days supporting Michigan’s move, and Indiana says it will soon do the same.Some $475 million was designated to clean up pollution, protect habitat and fight invasive species in the Great Lakes. For years, leaders in the region worried about Asian bighead and silver carp — large, imported fish that can take over an ecosystem by consuming the food supply of other fish and that were known to be making their way north up the Mississippi River. But the efforts took on a new urgency in November, when the authorities reported finding genetic evidence of the carp within about six miles of Lake Michigan, in the Chicago-area waterway system that links the Mississippi to the Great Lakes.

I think that the waterways need to be governed so that nonnative fish such as Asian carp do not reach the Great Lakes. It would be very harmful to the ecosystem of the Great Lakes if the carp were able to migrate there. Since, authorities have found genetic evidence of the carp within six miles, measures need to be made immediately to try to solve this problem.

Vocabulary-

Invasive Species- A non indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically.

Dams and Development Threaten the Mekong

Quarter 2

Article 2

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/asia/18mekong.html?_r=1

NY times

Miller Chapter

The area covered is global.

The Mekong river courses 3,032 miles through parts of China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It empties into the South China Sea and is rapidly being transformed by economic development, the region’s thirst for electricity and the desire to use the river as a cargo thoroughfare. The Mekong has been spared the pollution that blackens many of Asia’s rivers, but it is no longer the backwater of centuries past.China has built three hydroelectric dams on the Mekong and is halfway through a fourth at Xiaowan, in Yunnan Province, which when completed will be the world’s tallest dam. Environmentalists worry that the rush to develop the Mekong, particularly the dams, is not only changing the panorama of the river but could also destroy the livelihoods of people who have depended on it for centuries. The most controversial aspects of the dams are their effects on migrating fish and on the rice-growing Mekong Delta in Vietnam, where half of that country’s food is grown. The dams will block sediment and fish from passing through, 87 percent which are migratory and depend on migrating up the river to spawn. Also, the dams are causing international conflict. Civic groups in Thailand say they are frustrated that China does not seem to care how its dams affect the lives of people downstream.

I think that China needs to slow down its development. China is building up fast and not regarding how its construction will take a toll on the environment and the people. These dams produce energy but they are also creating problems with the ecosystem and neighboring countries. China should not build all of the dams because they are not caring about how it affects the lives of the people downstream and the fish and other species that depend on the river for survival.

Vocabulary-

hydroelectric power- the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.

dam- a barrier to obstruct the flow of water

The Future of the California Salmon Industry

The Future of the California Salmon Industry

Quarter 2

Article 1

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/bnelson/the_future_of_the_california_s.html

Natural Resources Defense Council

Miller Chapter

The area covered is regional.

A federal district court in Fresno will hear a request from water users south of the Delta for a temporary restraining order to block protections under the Endangered Species Act for threatened and endangered species that are harmed by water project operations in the Central Valley. The combined pumping of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project increased to record levels five years ago, helping to drive the fall-run population to record lows today. The water projects appear to have forgotten their legal mandate to double salmon – and the fishing community is now paying the price. The California salmon fishery has been closed for two years now, because of the collapse of the Central Valley fall-run, and initial spawning counts suggest that the fishery may be closed for a third year

I think that the species should stop being harmed by the State Water Project and that the State Water Project needs to find a new means to operate without disturbing the existing ecosystem.

Vocabulary-

Spawn- the eggs of aquatic animals

The Endangered Species Act- The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. As stated in section 2 of the act, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."