To Be Renewable or Non-renewable, There is No Question.
Climate change is the changing of our climate in extreme ways. This can be warming annual temperatures and more aggressive storms. There are natural changes in climate from time to time, such as ice ages and warmer times. This is when the Earth moves closer of farther away from the sun. These are thousands of years apart and the change is gradual. The unnatural climate change that we are experiencing is the effect of the industrial revolution and human impact on our planet. The CO2 levels of our planet are above anything we have seen in the past. Looking back in time through geology and ice core samples, we can see a correlation between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the temperature on the surface. When there was high levels of CO2, it was hot. Right now we have a lot of CO2 in our atmosphere and the heat is starting to catch up. The planet is heated by the greenhouse effect. This effect works a lot like its namesake, it allows light and heat to come in but does not let it out easily, so it stays hot. Sun light is the main heat source of our planet. Normally the planet reflects high levels of sunlight and releases heat back into space, but we have been pumping greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses are gasses that trap heat and reflect it back down to earth. These include CO2, Methane, chlorofluorocarbon, etc. When sunlight penetrates the earths atmosphere, some of it is absorbed, but the rest is reflected back towards space. Now that there is an unsustainable amount of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, that heat is reflected right back down to earth and is trapped in our atmosphere. The more greenhouse gasses we put in the atmosphere, the more heat they trap. This heat then melts ice caps which releases large amounts of water into the ocean and causes sea levels to rise. Ice and snow are one of the best reflectors we have on earth. Snow has one of the highest albedo on the planet. Albedo is how much sun light it reflects. When the snow melts, we reflect less sunlight which heats the planet more and causes more snow to melt. This snowball will keep getting bigger and bigger, until there is no more snow. This is happening way too fast and it will create massive problems in the near future. For my project I studied electricity and how it contributes to climate change. The problem I found is that we are using fossil fuels, naturally forming substances that we can burn to create large amounts of heat at the cost of high levels of the CO2 they release, to create power. Burning these fossil fuels puts more CO2 into the air which heats the planet. Electricity is the largest producer of CO2 on the planet and it has only grown in the past years. The best solution to this problem is to begin fazing out coal power plants and ICE cars for renewable energy and electric cars. I believe that this is achievable and is the only option if we are to survive. There are a few problems though. Many people like the idea of sustainable energy, but it is also a multi billion dollar industry that the government can't just shut down(the gov gets a lot of money from oil). Right now about 84% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. If we were to take that away in an instant, it would cause world wide panic and chaos. Our best bet is to start building more renewable energy creators, such as wind turbines, solar panels, biofuels, hydro plants, and nuclear power.
Covid Throughout the World
In our first semester we studied Cells, Bacteria, Viruses, and diseases which lead to us studying Covid 19 and Coronavirus. After doing research on Covid 19 we began to look at specific countries and how they handled and are handling Covid. I chose to look into Poland. I created an infographic about Poland throughout Covid. I learned a lot about research and viruses throughout this project. If I were to go back and do it again, I think I would create more in depth charts and tables.