Free Writing

My topic is about pollution, which involves the main types of pollution such as  water, soil, and air pollution. I think pollution is a topic that people are aware of its issues, yet most of them hardly take any action to prevent it, such as myself. Some people tend to pollute and yet they don't think they're doing a bad or wrong thing.
This topic involves the entire ecosystem, from microorganisms stop us humans, because pollution is a global issue that threatens everyone's life.
I still have some of the questions on my mind. For example, pollution rate is higher in the developing countries and yet anything is hardly even done to reduce the pollution there. Are there any ways to make those countries realize the danger their nations are posing. Also, how can we help them prevent pollution from happening there.

Works Cited

• Cao, Yi, and Huaping Gao. "Prevalence and Causes of Air Pollution and Lung Cancer in Xuanwei City and Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province, China." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Frontiers of Medicine 6.2 (2012): 217-20. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• Chirila, Elisabeta, and Camelia Draghici. "Contamination of Soils by Waste Deposits." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Springer Netherlands, 2008. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• "Clean Water and Healthy Forests: CLF Looks Upstream to Reduce Water Pollution." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Conservation Matters, 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• "Climate Change: Our Responsibility." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Video Education America, 2008. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• Gibson, Josefine. "Air Pollution, Climate Change, and Health." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. ScienceDirect, June 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• "Rena Recovery and Reactions." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Oil Spill Intelligence. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• "Soil Contamination." Encyclopedia of Public Health 5 (n.d.): 1321-322. Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. European Commission, Sept. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• "Water Pollution Effect on Population Health in an Industrial Northern Region." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. SP MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica, 6 Apr. 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• Weis, Judith S. "Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know." Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Oxford University Press, 2015. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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• Zhao, Xiaobing. "Is Global Warming Mainly Due to Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions?" Skyline: Auraria Library Catalog. Taylor & Francis, 9 Aug. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.
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Cluster Diagram 2

When I made the first cluster diagram for my topic, I mentioned that it is going to change the more I do research. I ended up omitting some of the key points from the first diagram such as global warming and industrial revolution because those are not my main topic, pollution. However, I think I might be able to use them as a supporting fact when I'll come up with my future argument.
I made this new diagram branch into three different main points because it might help me find a common factor between them, which might develop into an argument later in the future. 

Narrating the Overall Process

When I started this blog, I had an interest in environmental science but I had no idea on what aspects of it that I might pursue. As I started researching, I began to have an interest in pollution. Later, I ended up researching the main types of pollution, which are air, soil, and water pollution. 
I used Auraria Library as my main research source. However, this took a while to just find useful sources that support my topic. In each post, I included a url to the articles I found so when I come back later to them I won't have a hard time finding them again. 
The most challenging part was when using Auraria Library because I couldn't find any useful articles easily, but I had to dig in deeper and try different search terms. I even used Prospector and WorldCat, but I still faced the same issue. Despite that, I still learned some new things regarding pollution and environmental science. 

Evaluations: Water Pollution

In this post, I'll try to discuss the similarities I found while researching water pollution. I think some of the sources that cause water, soil, and air pollution are similar. For example, industrial activities are one of the sources that cause contaminations to the water and air as their waste is often released into the water (as chemicals) and atmosphere (as smoke). Not only that, those chemicals often get into the soil and then enter the food chain, where it becomes harmful to the humans.

Some of the diseases that are caused by these pollutions are similar as well. For example, Lead (whether it comes from soil or water pollution) can cause damage to the central nervous system and kidney disease to humans. Just because these chemicals differ in the way that they enter the human body, their effect is still the same and they still pose a great threat to our health.

Effect of Water Pollution

I found an article on Auraria Library that explains the effect of water pollution on human health. It mentions that children are the ones who are affected the most by the contaminated water. Approximately 3,575,000 people die from water-borne diseases each year. Some of these diseases are Typhoid, Cholera, Paratyphoid Fever, Dysentery, Jaundice, Amoebiasis, and Malaria.

This articles also explains how chemicals in water can have an effect on human health.

• Pesticides – It can damage the nervous system and cause cancer due to the carbonates and organophosphates that they contain. 
• Lead – It can damage the central nervous system. 
• Arsenic – It causes liver damage, skin cancer, and vascular diseases
• Petrochemicals – It can cause cancer even with very low exposure

http://tb4cz3en3e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Water+pollution+effect+on+population+health+in+an+industrial+northern+region&rft.jtitle=Water+Resources&rft.au=Moiseenko%2C+T.+I&rft.au=Megorskii%2C+V.+V&rft.au=Gashkina%2C+N.+A&rft.au=Kudryavtseva%2C+L.+P&rft.date=2010-03-01&rft.issn=0097-8078&rft.eissn=1608-344X&rft.volume=37&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=194&rft.epage=203&rft_id=info:doi/10.1134%2FS0097807810020077&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=10_1134_S0097807810020077&paramdict=en-US

How to Reduce Water Pollution

In my post titled Pollution, I've talked briefly about the types of water pollution, such as point and nonpoint source pollution. I also mentioned the causes that contaminate the water, such as ocean dumping, sewage waste, nutrients, chemical waste, oil spills, and also plastics. 

This time, I'll discuss the ways of how each pollutant can be cleaned up from the water. While searching on Auraria Library, I found an article that explains the ways to reduce water pollution. For example, using native plants and natural fertilizers help to reduce the contaminations that nutrients cause since native plants need less water and are more tolerant to dry conditions. The natural fertilizers help with the plant growth and also retain the soil moisture. I think this does not only help to reduce water pollution but soil pollution as well. In my previous posts, I mentioned that the use of phosphate-contained fertilizers contaminate the soil. Thus, having natural fertilizers will not only ensure that the plants grow up healthy, but also no nutrients can contaminate the water. 

Also recycling and disposing of trash properly can ensure that no damage is caused to the sewage treatment process. This article also mentioned how oil spills can be removed from oceans and seas. For example skimming removes the oil layer from the surface of water. A chart was also provided in the article to show how effective each method of cleaning the oil is. 

From the looks of it, it doesn't seem that these three methods are really effective in cleaning up the oil in water. I'm starting to wonder whether there are more effective and advanced ways to clean up the oil spills.

http://0-ic.galegroup.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/ic/ovic/MagazinesDetailsPage/MagazinesDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Magazines&dviSelectedPage=&limiter=&u=auraria_main&currPage=&source=&disableHighlighting=&displayGroups=&sortBy=&zid=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA227282185

The Rena Oil Spill

Back when I was a freshman in high school in 2011, I remember that an accident concerning an oil spill happened near the coast of New Zealand. It's not as if this accident was one of the major oil spills, but I still remember it because my English teacher kept going on and on about it for almost two weeks. Since I'm researching water pollution now, I thought it would be an appropriate time to mention it.

The accident happened on October 5, 2011. The ship Rena was sailing in a clear weather from Napierto to Tauranga. However, it accidentally ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef. The ship was carrying over 1,368 containers that contained hazardous materials, heavy fuel oil and marine diesel oil. By October 9, the oil began washing ashore at Mount Maunganui beach and threatened the wildlife.

I find it strange how the number of the animals that died because of the oil spill and the other hazardous materials was not recorded. I tried to look it up on Auraria Library and google but I didn't find anything regarding this.
Even the Rena oil spill was not a major accident, a statistic for the number of dead animals should've been made and yet there's no such thing, which makes me wonder why? 

"Rena recovery and reactions." Oil Spill Intelligence Report 20 Oct. 2011: 1+. Business Insights: Global. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.

URL
http://0-bi.galegroup.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/global/article/GALE%7CA281901131/51350c19034fa864ba100ed20fbb9c12?u=auraria_main

Questions: Water Pollution

Just like I did before doing a research on soil pollution, I'm going to write questions about water pollution as well. However, since I already talked briefly about its causes at the beginning of this blog, I will try to take my research further deeply.

How does the rate of water pollution in the United States differ from other countries throughout the world?
What are the ways to clean up the polluted water?
Is it similar to soil pollution in which microorganisms are used to clean up the soil?
Why is sewage waste a major problem in terms of water pollution in the developing countries?
What are the issues with disposing of sewage waste in the developing countries?
What fraction do oil spills contribute to water pollution?
Is there a way to clean up the oil spills from oceans or seas?
What impacts does water pollution have on human health and ecosystem?

Evaluations: Soil & Air Pollution

So far, I've talked about the causes of soil pollution and their impact on human health, which is somewhat the same when I tried to compare air pollution to global warming. In my post about the causes of contaminations to the soil, I was able to spot the similarities between soil and air pollution, which made me curious on how the other types of pollution will be similar.
I think I'll use the same pattern when researching the other types of pollution because it might help me find a relationship between them, which could help with my future argument.
As for the next step that I'll be doing, I think I will do a deeper research on marine/water pollution as I didn't get chance to do so first because I just started the blog and had no idea on what write about.

How Does Soil Pollution Affect Human Health?

I found a research report on how soil contamination impacts human health while searching on Prospector. It explains in details the types of soil contamination and how humans can intake them. The types of soil contamination are considered to be the chemicals that offer the greatest threat to human health first, such as Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Mercury.

Unlike the articles or books I found before, this report summarizes most of its texts through tables and diagrams, which makes it easy to comprehend the materials. Because the table is big and includes several types of metals, I tried to duplicate the table and only include the metals I mentioned above.
I'm surprised by how elements can become deadly if their concentrations increase even though we rely on them to live.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/IR5_en.pdf

How Does the Soil Get Contaminated?

While searching on WorldCat on how soil can get contaminated, I found an article that goes into details on how soil pollution can occur. Due to geologic and anthropogenic activities, such as mining, burning fossil fuels, using phosphate-containing fertilizers, producing batteries (Lead), sewage sludge, and municipal waste disposal. The concentration of the heavy metals, which are already present in the soil, will increase to where they become harmful to both plants and animals.

Heavy metals tend to be ductile, malleable, and conductive. Thus, plants growing on soils with high concentrations of these metals will show a reduction in growth, performance, and yield. Therefore, these soils are treated through a special method called Bioremediation, which uses microorganisms and plants to clean up the polluted soil.

I was kind of surprised to find out how soil and air pollution can be quite related in some ways. For examples, not only that mining and burning fossil fuels cause air pollution but soil pollution as well. I'm starting to get curious on how might the other types of pollution that I still haven't researched yet are related to each others.

I also never realized that the things we use in our normal life, such batteries or the food we eat, could be polluting the environment when they're being produced.  

• Are there any ways to keep producing batteries without having to pollute the soil with Lead?
• How does the phosphate-containing fertilizers differ from any normal fertilizer?
• Is there an important role that phosphate plays in plant growth?

http://0-link.springer.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-8257-3_2

Questions: Soil Pollution

Since I've already talked about air and marine pollution, this time I'll shift to soil pollution. These questions are meant to help me think about which aspect of soil pollution that I might talk about in next posts.

• What is soil pollution?
• How does the soil get contaminated?
• What are the risks that are imposed by soil pollution?
• What role do heavy metals play in relation to soil pollution?
• How does soil pollution affect the microorganisms living in the soil?
• What are the impacts of soil pollution on the people and environment?
• There have been several cases where soil is ingested by young children, what are the consequences and the possibilities of the soil being contaminated?
• How can a contaminated soil be cleaned?
• How is soil pollution related to health problems?
• How can soil pollution be prevented?
• Is the government taking any measures to stop soil pollution?
• How do the rates of soil pollution differ from one country to another?

A Reaction That Results in a Turning Point

Looking back at the research that I've done so far, I've been trying to find a relationship between pollution in general and global warming. I was expecting that I might find more aspects about pollution that can be related to global warming and climate change. 

However, this doesn't seem to be the case even though I wanted to research more about pollution. From my previous three posts, it can be seen that air pollution is the only pollution that is related to global warming. Topics about pollutions seem to intrigue me, but I don't want to only research one aspect of it, air pollution in this case. So what to do now with all the research I did so far?

It is not the ending just yet nor my topic needs to be changed. All I need to do is just to change the way I'm viewing my topic. The way I look at it now, it feels as if I'm trying to pursue a research in global warming and climate change. But since this isn't the case, I need to place pollution, of all kinds, as my top priority, and global warming can just support the argument that I'll have to come up with later. I remember the first post I made talked about marine pollution, which is as well can support my future argument. Now, I'll start thinking about the other types of pollution and how they affect the ecosystem. Thus, by the time I'll need a thesis, this blog will guide the way. 

Health Issues Arise From Climate Change and Air Pollution

While still searching Auraria Library for some relationship between air pollution and global warming, I ran across an article where they described how the poor quality of air and the climate change can lead to health problems. 
It explained that according to IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer, there are very sufficient evidence that prove that air pollution can lead to cancer. It also explained that the changes in the distribution of sunlight might affect the rate of skin cancer, and even "altering patterns of cancer subsequent to malaria infection.” 
The article concluded that it is best to reduce air pollution as it would not only help to prevent climate change, but also give health benefits since the risks of cancer can be reduced. 

I don't think that reducing air pollution would really give us health benefits. It could give us clean air but it is not going to reduce the risk of cancer. After all, the risk of cancer is random for everyone. For example, those who smoke their entire life never get cancer, while those who don't actually get it. Sometime, children get it while old people don't. Thus, I don't believe that air pollution and climate change might really lead to cancer. Even if it actually was, why haven't people taken any action yet if it was a global issue?

http://0-www.sciencedirect.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/science/article/pii/S147020451570238X

Video: How Air Pollution Relates to Climate Change

While doing the In-Class Scavenger Hunt assignment, I found a video that relates to my previous post with the fact that air pollution is the main cause of global warming.

Here's the link to the video:
http://0-fod.infobase.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=40296

This video examines the causes of ozone depletion and the buildup of greenhouse gases in affecting the climate change. It also illustrates the key roles that agriculture, deforestation, and pollution play in contributing to global warming.
This video helps to draw a relationship between how human activities and gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, can have an impact on climate change. It examines the sources I talked about in my previous post, such as methane, CO2, and nitrous oxide on a deeper level.  For instance, it mentioned cutting down the forest's trees lead to more CO2 in the atmosphere as there'll be less plants to uptake CO2. The same goes for agriculture and raising more animal as they could lead to more methane emissions.

Video Education Australasia, Films Media Group, and Films for the Humanities & Sciences (Firm).Climate Change: Our Responsibility. New York, N.Y: Films Media Group, 2009. Web.

Is Air Pollution the Only Cause of Global Warming?

This time, I tried to look up an answer for one of my previous questions, which is whether air pollution was the only type of pollutions that leads to global warming.
Apparently from what I found while searching Auraria Library, air pollution is the only pollution that contributes to global warming because of the greenhouse gas emissions.
However in one of the articles I found, there were several types of sources listed that might cause the greenhouse gas emissions as they tend to be effective at trapping the heat in the atmosphere.

• Carbon Dioxide:
• It can be released by fossil fuel, electricity production, and transportations.
• Methane:
• It can be released by coal mining, landfills, natural gas and petroleum production, as well as wastewater treatment.
• Nitrous Oxide:
• It is contained in the soil but can be released by the agricultural activities 
• Fluorinated Gases:
• It can be emitted by the industrial activities, including the production of aluminum

After doing the research on this question, I feel shocked and disappointed at the same as I expected to find more and not just one type of pollution. 

• Cao, Yi, and Huaping Gao. "Prevalence and Causes of Air Pollution and Lung Cancer in Xuanwei City and Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province, China." Frontiers of Medicine 6.2 (2012): 217-20. Web.

Questions: Pollution & Global Warming

• If anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were causing a change in the average global temperature, does that mean that only air pollution is cause of global warming?
• If there were more types of pollution that are contributing to climate change, are they a point or nonpoint source pollution?
• Are they controllable or not?
• Is there anything being done to prevent or lessen these pollutions?
• Why do people care less about what's happening to their environment, especially those who don't even believe in global warming?
• What can the government or the media do to bring more attention to these issues? 

Cluster Diagram 1

Since I've already started gaining more ideas about my topic, I think a cluster diagram or a scale of abstraction would help me keep those ideas more organized. I might also be able to draw a connection between them that will help with further future research.

             Scale

            Environmental Science

             

            Global Warming

             

            Pollution

             

            Human Activities 

             

            Industrial Revolution

Since my ideas are still new, most of the items in above scale are subjected to change. For instance, pollution is wide range issue just like global warming, which is why in my upcoming posts I'll try to determine the types of pollution that might be contributing to global warming. I tried placing Industrial Revolution last because I'm thinking of how and since when did human activities start causing pollution let alone lead to global warming. 

Pollution and Global Warming

Based on my previous post, I tried researching which environmental issues that are closely related to pollution. I searched terms such as "global warming" and "pollution." This led me to start thinking of several questions:

• How might pollution leads to global warming? 
• What are the impacts if one or two degrees in the average global temperature had changed?
• How much has the average global temperature risen since the industrial revolution?
• Why would human activities since the industrial revolution be a cause of climate change?

As a result of researching, I came across a scientific research paper that had conducted an experiment to determine the main cause of global warning. Their main argument states that global warming could be caused by either anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions or CO2 emissions. They relied on data from temperature and CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Then, they used linear models to find to find the results. The results of their experiment showed that CO2 emissions has little significance in contributing to global warming over the course of 15 years in comparison to greenhouse gas emissions.

http://0-www.tandfonline.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/doi/full/10.1080/15567030903515013

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/climateChange/CCS/man-madeEffect.html

Pollution

While researching on Auraria Library, I found this book, Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know. The author mainly focuses on the pollution that happens in oceans. She also explains the major sources of pollution in the marine environment such as ocean dumping, point sources, and nonpoint sources.

She argues that these contaminations occur not because of ocean dumping, but rather as a result of factories and sewage treatment plants releasing their wastes into receiving waters through a pipe, which is also called point source pollution. She also explains nonpoint source pollution, which they're the diffuse runoffs and atmospheric depositions, where contaminants come from the soil, streets, construction sites.
She also provides a diagram of how nonpoint source pollution might occur:

I think I can use this book as a source for answering my question on whether pollution is really caused by humans or not and how it can controlled.

http://0-lib.myilibrary.com.skyline.ucdenver.edu/Open.aspx?id=650466 

Introduction: Environmental Science

I've decided to change my original topic, which was about cloning, due to the fact that it's uncommon and lacks good research materials so I can't research it thoroughly.
As for my new topic, it's going to be centered on environmental science. Even though it might seems really broad, I think with further research I'll be able to narrow it down to a specific issue. I've never really thought hard about environmental science and always felt that it shouldn't matter because it's just nature. However, this time I'll be taking a new step and try to learn something new.


Some of the questions that I tried to come up with are:

• Are there any lessons that can be learned from nature?
• Is increasing people's standard of living more important than protecting the environment or vise versa? 
• Is pollution always caused by humans?
• How is energy wasted? Are there any issues with using renewable energy?
• How does living on an island or a coast increase the danger of global warming?