Monday, March 17, 2014

Climate Casino Graph

Good evening! I Nickia Davis is going to write in this blog about a graph I choose from the book my fellow classmates and I are currently reading called "The Climate Casino" by William Nordhaus. In chapter three of the book on page twenty one Figure two a line Graph of Global emissions is what I am going to explain to any fellow classmate that does not understand the concept of the graph.

In Figure two the line graph at the bottom shows that it goes from 1900-2010, and left hand side shows the billions and tons of Global CO2 emissions per year. It has two lines one dark and the other light. The light line stands for Global CO2 emissions and the dark line stands for Trends. The Dark line represents the long term trend in global Co2 emissions. The light line represents the usage of the trends meaning Co2 witch looks exactly like the dark line except it either grows or declines, but since 1900 to 2010 the global Co2 emissions grew up to 2.6 percent per a year. Should we be worried?

We should worry because the more the global emissions rise it causes Co2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which leads to climate change. Co2 concentrations is caused more from human activity. 90% of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels which makes Co2 emissions. For example my apartment gets really cold at night so I increase the heat to keep my house warm. I am currently burning fossil fuel because I feel too cold at night. Now is it necessary for me to do it? No because I can just keep warm under my blanket. Its not so easy to just stop using resources that burn fossil fuels for we use them in our every day lives. It will take a lot of money to convert to other useful resources for energy like solar power. It cost more to power our lives because to use a different energy source they would have to build more things from scratch again just to make it capable with the energy source. My suggestion would be try using less of what you use daily its a small start to a healthier environment! 

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Climate Change Effecting New York City

I Nickia Davis student from LaGuardia Community College had an assignment to write about a New York Times article called "New York is Lagging as Seas and Risk Rise Critics Warn" Written by Mireya Navarro, and published on September 10th, 2012. The purpose of this article was to explain how climate change is effecting New York and what the city should be doing to prevent disasters from happening.

New York threatened by rising sea levels and storm flooding has worried everyone! Giving city officials props for environmental awareness, but slow and steady pace of actually working on a solution to prevent the problems to our threatened city. Douglass Hill an engineer with the storm surge group stated " They lack a sense of urgency with this!" which I agree. What if its to late? When Hurricane Irene hit New York City august 28th 2011 it wasn't as bad as they thought, for it turned into a tropical storm, but In October 29th 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit and she wasn't as nice!

Hurricane Sandy flooded many areas such as Canarsie area in Brooklyn, Downtown Brooklyn, and even lower Manhattan. Just like Irene all transportation was shut down, but for Sandy the tunnels were flooded streets, and even the electricity was out! Many people where left without homes. Douglass Hill the man I mentioned before had a suggestion that the State and Federal agencies invest in something to protect the City from this kind of harm. Like building sea gates. Now if these Gates were built it could have prevent the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Eddie Bautista executive director of New York City environmental justice said that there is to much focus on the lower Manhattan when there are other industries else where along the water front of New York City. Now Canarsie is an area located in Brooklyn not Manhattan, but these people who lived there struggle to get by now because of flooded homes, some with out homes, and businesses ruined! Now this area is not located in lower Manhattan! So what about them?

A comment made by D.O.B says "It's disaster waiting to happen with these unpredictable extreme weather events increasing in incidence." His or her story was being on the path train and how the tunnels got flooded. What if it was me on the train and that happened? I mean of course any humanly thing is to be scared , but what if this could of had a chance to be prevented? like Douglass Hill suggested the sea gates to stop flooding. At that moment I would be wishing that the New York react as fast as possible and build these sea gates. I mean I wouldn't know if its actually possible to build sea gates but if it is why not build it if it helps against climate change. Why prolong it any more.