Forbes

Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/#74972df52254

Audience: Forbes is an international platform mainly used by industrialists and business owners. The average age for users is 46.5, and since it is a paid service I would assume that the audience is rich to an extent. Also Forbes talks alot about technology to tech geeks are also a quite active part of the audience.

Plan Op-ed

The topic I am choosing to write about is what COVID-19 has to do with Climate Change. I am writing about how the pandemic has actually been saving our planet. The debate on this topic is that going vegan could have prevented not only COVID-19 but many other human diseases. The meat industry has been one of the biggest contributors to global warming for many years now and red meat is also known to be bad for people’s health. In a Euronews article, The best way to prevent future pandemics like coronavirus? Stop eating meat and go vegan written by Elisa Allen, she writes that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that “more than 75% of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals” (Allen, 2020). Another article from Wired believes that more regulations on meat markets and other places that deal with wildlife could help with slowing future zoonotic viruses. On the other hand, some believe going vegan might not have entirely prevented COVID-19. In the article, A vegan world wouldn’t keep diseases like COVID-19 from infecting humans, from Popular Science written by Kat Eschner, epidemiologist Gregory Gary said that even if the world went completely vegan, we would still be in contact with animals that carry foreign pathogens. He also stated that animal consumption is a significant contributor to many new human diseases which is important to know. In this debate, I think it’s important to take into consideration the idea of consuming less meat for the health of the population and the environment. My position is important because it helps us understand how to prevent a future outbreak.

 

Plan Your Op-ed (Essay 3)

Upload the Plan Your Op-Ed (Essay 3) activity as a reply:
1. The debate or controversy that I am writing about is _____________________
(write 1-2 sentences).
2. The Debate in this Topic is on ________________________________. (Summarize some of the major positions in the debate in a couple of sentences. Give links to 3-4 articles that take these positions.)
3. In this debate, I think/believe/argue  _________________________________ (write 1-2 sentences on your position in this debate).
4. My position is important because it helps us understand/know that ___________________.

Copper—Issac’s Blog Post

Copper. That bright, retro looking metal that might remind you of perhaps the finishing in your grandmother’s home, has surprising benefits. Used by the ancient Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Native Americans, Copper has been prized for its antimicrobial, and antibacterial properties.

 

When bacteria and viruses land on hard surfaces, they can often last for hours to five days, however almost upon instant contact with copper, bacteria and viruses die. This is why hospitals once used to be fitted with copper fixtures, as it is known to kill these sickness causing microorganisms and is the only EDA approved metal to do so. With the rise of CoronaVirus across the world, perhaps we should take a step back and look into the ancient practices of various cultures and take notes.

While it may not be feasible to change all your stainless steel hardware throughout your home to copper, a simple way that one could incorporate this rose gold metal into your daily routine would be to use a copper water bottle or water pitcher. Not only will this water hydrate you, but the container will make sure the water is antimicrobial and antibacterial. Furthermore, copper is a metal that is known to help boost immunity, which is incredibly important during this time. Thus, incorporating copper is another way (along with hand washing) to help you to stay as well as possible during this Corona Virus pandemic.

 

Whale fall — ecological cycle in the deep ocean

Yesterday, the Chinese Academy of Sciences “exploration one” ship carrying “deep sea warrior” manned submersible arrived in Sanya smoothly. This voyage started on March 10. One of the significant achievements of this voyage is that scientists first found a whale fall about 3 meters long in the South China Sea. Whale fall with hydrothermal and cold springs are called the “oasis” of deep-sea life. Experts said that at present, less than 50 modern natural whale fall had been found in the world, and the newly discovered whalebone has a long-term observation value for the change of the marine environment.

The ocean’s depths are supplied by nutrients falling down from the surface waters. Whale fall refers to a unique ecosystem formed by the slow sinking of a whale’s body into the seafloor when it dies in the ocean. Whale fall can provide a circulatory system dominated by decomposers for up to a hundred years.

Different stages of whale carcass decomposition support a range of marine communities. Scavengers eat soft tissue in a few months. Whalebones can support abundant communities for years to decades, either as hard substrates (or surfaces) for invertebrates to settle on or as sources of sulfide from the decay of organic compounds in whale bones. Microorganisms depend on the energy released by these chemical reactions to survive and form the basis of ecosystems for a sustained period of time from food sources.

One whale falls, as through blue breeze, gave life to other creatures. This is the whale’s last gentle gift to the sea.

WIRED OP-ED

The op-ed I found on wired was written by a father on April 1st about climate change and coronavirus. He wrote about how he was coming back from a ski trip with his children and they were discussing cliamte change becasue there wasn’t much snow as there normally would be. The conversation turned into a bit of an agrument when one of his children asked what invention would be able to help? He responded with a better battery, which became the topic of his op-ed, and he talks about hwo they would maybe put together a better battery with today’s technology.

This is a very different style of writing from a scholarly article or journal because there’s no evidence or logos, it’s just the writer’s opinion and point of view throughout the whole article.

Link: https://www.wired.com/story/climate-issue/

Find Your Op-Ed

Find an op-ed (opinion editorial) on environmentalism written in the last 2 weeks. It can be on any specific topic, as long as there is some connection with environmentalism.
  • Post a link to the op-ed
  • Give a 1-2 sentence summary of it—what is the writer arguing?
  • Answer the question—how can you tell this is an op-ed? How does its writing style or structure persuade you in a way that is different from other genre of writing that you’ve looked at (like scholarly article, essay, etc.?) Give specific examples from your op-ed.

Grist Oped_Reading Reaction

Feel free to either agree or disagree with the Grist op-ed. Give evidence for your opinion, either from the Grist op-ed itself or from another online source. It’s a good idea to engage with specific aspects of the text’s ideas, language or context when developing your opinion

Human challenges

According to Conservation Fund in 2002 of <Living Earth>, With humans currently using more natural resources than they can replace by 20 percent, the overall standard of living will decline after 2030 if governments do not intervene. The report indicates that there are 35% of living species on earth decreased in the past 30 years. Freshwater life was reduced by 54%; A 35 percent decline in Marine biodiversity; Tree species decreased by 15%.

The main manifestation of the resource problem is: the world’s forest decline is serious, according to green peace organization estimates, in the past 100 years, the world’s primary forest has been destroyed 80%; The problem of soil degradation is not optimistic. As a result of soil degradation, the world’s per capita cultivated land area has decreased. According to the statistics of the United Nations, the world’s per capita cultivated land area has decreased by about half from 1975 to 2000. The problem of water resources is becoming more and more serious.

There are lack of water resources and serious water pollution which became one of the most important environmental resources problem. That’s also one of the significant challenges that human beings facing. According to the UN’s 2015 world water development report there are 40% which is a huge distance that between human beings’ demand for water and  rehydration.

This responsibility and mission will eventually fall on each of us. We have no way to get rid of it and have no chance to change the past, but what I can do is to start to feel the life and power of the nature around me from now on, and to respect and protect it.

Class Blog

As we are living through an epidemic, many things seem to be getting worse as millions panic. There has been some good that has come out of this experience though, the environment seems to be getting better. In China, since everyone has been staying home and factories have closed, the number of good quality air days has gone up 12.5% since February. With factories closing, the use and burning of coal have gone down a significant amount as well. The amount of nitrogen dioxide emissions has gone down rapidly as well and it shows. The toxic clouds that hang on the horizon have been clearing up slowly. As more and more countries urge people to stay home, more pollution will decrease as well. However, experts are worried once the virus slows down and people can work again, the pollution will get even worse than before with companies having to make up for the lost time.