Search results for ‘environment’

How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the economy?

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Sharing an insightful article that was written in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic about the economy! It’s amazing how far we’ve come!

COVID-19 and the Global Economic Recession

We constantly hear about how COVID-19 has or will destroy the economy all the time. Terms like “global economic recession” and “industry shut-downs” are being used more and more as this pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the globe. Even if a large majority of society may not understand exactly what these terms mean, they’ve been used enough times to gather that it doesn’t indicate the situation is getting better, and they are terms you don’t generally want to hear every day on the television. But what much of society doesn’t know, is why these terms are being used. This is imperative to understand in order to identify how to make the situation better.

Alberto Santos-Dumont vs The Wright Brothers: Giants of Aviation

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Back in 2016, Rio de Janeiro hosted the Summer Olympics. The opening ceremony featured bossa nova, capoeira, and laser-lit choreography depicting key points in Brazil’s history. Among these theatric renditions was a curious biplane aviator that the Olympic announcer noted Brazilians claim to have beaten the Wright Brothers in their claim to fame. Are there any merits to this assertion? Has history snubbed this Brazilian inventor?

Top 15 Activities to do During Quarantine

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In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have been forced to quarantine themselves in their homes. Although countries are starting to open and people are exiting quarantine, social distancing is still common  and previously planned summer activities such as trips, internships and summer jobs have been postponed or cancelled. With summer having arrived, students will no longer be distracted by their classes. This raises the question, what can we do over a quarantined summer?

The Little Ice Age: Definition, History, Causes, and Ending of the Ice Age

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Earth has experienced at least five Ice Ages: the Huronian, the Cryogenian, the Andean-Saharan, the Karoo, and the Quaternary. The latest of these is the Quaternary Ice Age, which began 2.6 million years ago and is still ongoing. That might sound off given that the popular conception of an ice age is of a world blanketed in snow and roaming with wooly mammoths, but the scientific definition only requires that a substantial ice sheet be present on the Earth’s surface, and Antarctica fits the bill. While their causes vary, ice ages are typified by periods of sustained global cooling and glacial expansion. Going by this, the Little Ice Age qualifies, though it is also an ice age within an ice age, making it a sort of matryoshka doll climate event. The Little Ice Age is not the only lesser ice age, though it is the best known as it occurred the most recently and within recorded history. After having touched on similarities, our next logical step is to examine what makes the Little Ice Age different.

How the Environment Responded to Covid-19

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The coronavirus pandemic may seem like one of the worst things that could be happening to the world right now. And although that might be the case for us, the environment is finally getting the break from human activity that it’s been longing for. With businesses shut down, traveling banned, and everyone in lockdown, traffic and pollution have been significantly reduced and it’s had some notable effects on nature. So while you’re stuck being quarantined, here are some cool things happening around the world as a result.

Beyond Fuel: Petrochemical Products and Environmental Impacts

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Petroleum (or oil) and natural gas are widely used sources of fuel. Around the world many transportation, energy, and heating infrastructures depend in large part on one or both of these hydrocarbon-rich fuels, petrochemical products. While in the past it may have seemed inconceivable that people would have to step away from fossil fuels, climate change increasingly necessitates greener alternatives. It is also hard to imagine life without plastics. For many applications, such as in healthcare, there may be no better materials. A future with zero plastic is neither warranted nor desirable, but the threats to various ecosystems are likely to force the development of greener and more sustainable materials.

Oceanic Forestry: Coral Farming and Biorocks

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Climate change affects the entirety of the earth’s surface, and nowhere more so than our oceans. While our seas cover about two-thirds of the earth’s surface they absorb over ninety percent of the additional heat attributable to global warming. Both land masses and bodies of water absorb and reflect solar radiation that rebounds off of the greenhouse gases trapped in our atmosphere, but the latter is generally more absorptive and holds on to heat longer due to differences in physical properties. This of course has led to increases in global seawater temperatures, which has and continues to endanger several aquatic species. This article will examine one of those species and go over human efforts to preserve it.

Rewilding and Not So Wildlife

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The basics of rewilding (at least in North America) are the Three C’s: Cores, Corridors, and Carnivores. Rewilding was developed in the 1990’s as a new approach to ecological restoration. Proponents have characterized it as being active rather than reactive. What this means is that instead of viewing conservation as stemming a tide or becoming shepherds to ever-declining animal populations, rewilding is focused on restoring the equilibrium of ecological systems. This is accomplished through a variety of methods that are grouped together under the Three C’s.

History 101: Debunking the Middle Ages

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One way of looking at history is in terms of progress. Many historians and fans of the subject laud Rome for its advances in military organization, infrastructure, and civics. Similar adulation is often heaped upon the Renaissance for the strides made in philosophy, arts, and sciences during that period, which in turn set the stage for the Age of Enlightenment. But what of the time between shining antiquity and the rekindling that was the Renaissance? lternately called the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, and the Medieval Ages, the time period from roughly the 5th century to the 15th century is usually framed in the West as its own era of history.