Environmental Science Notes Essay Example for Free

Environmental Science Notes Essay 1. Green revolution: intro of scientifically bred or selected varieties of grain that can greatly increase crop yields. 2. Things that cause seasons on earth: earth tilted on axis, sun distribution 3. Large scale hydroelectric projects around the world: 3 gorges dam, dams going on in india 4. Age distribution diagrams: ZPG=looks like a building that doesn’t change, bottom same as top. Slow growth=base a bit longer than top but not quite a pyramid. Rapid growth=WIDE base, narrow top, like a pyramid 5. Waste water treatment process: get water, drain out sludge, have sludge area, water goes through process to get more sludge out, water gets aerated, water gets filtered with Cl to remove bacteria. 6. Human pop on earth: 6.8 billion. US pop: 300 million. Most populated countries: china, india, US 7. Soil horizons: O,A,B,C. O is organic material and leaf litter and such. A is top soil and humus. B is parent material. C is bedrock, solid rock 8. Rule of 70: 70/percent=time it will take to double population 9. Replacement level fertility: reproducing enough babies to replace yourself(in developed countries, it’s 2.1, but in developing, it’s 2.5 because of infant mortality) 10. Waste created by nuclear power plants: radioactive waste in solid liquid or gas state 11. Biggest threats to biodiversity: HIPPO, habitat loss, invasive species, population growth, pollution, and overexploitation 12. Integrated pest management: people come in and solve your pest problem without using harmful chemicals or pesticides. Situations are situation specific and take a longer time to solve. 13. Aquaculture: trapping fish in a coast, or netted fenced area of water to use for produce and food or commercial use 14. Demographic transition model: preindustrial, transitional, industrial, postindustrial. Pre- high birth and death rates. Trans- high birth rates and low death rates. Ind- lower birth rates, and same death rates. Post- birth and death rates equal 15. Photosynthesis: CO2+H2OO2+C6H12O6. Needs solar energy 16. Half life: radioactive decay of how long it takes for half of material to decay 17. Tragedy of the commons: when a renewable available to everyone resource is depleted 18. Population growth rate equation: (births-deaths)/10 19. Genetic engineering: getting genes from one organism and putting them in other organisms to get desired trait 20. 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics: 1st states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. 2nd states that as energy is changed and moves up trophic levels, it decreases 21. Where is coal located around world: US in mountainous areas, Russia, china, and Australia 22. Denitrification: ammonium to N gas. Assimilation: when plants and animals turn nitrates into amino acids and proteins. Ammonification: nitrates to ammonium. Nitrification: N gas to nitrates and nitrites. Nitrogen fixation: Nitrogen to nitrogen gas that is ready to go to nitrites 23. Montreal protocol: when they noticed that ozone was disappearing, they banned chlorofluorocarbons in industries and anything else in 1987 24. Antarctic treaty of 1961: countries could only use Antarctica for peaceful matters 25. Pop growth curves: irruptive- overshootdieback. Cyclic: predator and prey’s pop patterns change together. Logistic: exponential to carrying capacity then moves around the carrying patterns a little. 26. Carrying capacity: biotic potential + environmental resistance, what population the environment can withstand What I kind of know 1. Cons of mining: removes 90% of nonfuel mineral and rock recourses, 60% of coal used in US destroys forests, contaminates streams and groundwater, leaves highly erodible hills of rubble, susceptible to chemical weathering, slow vegetation regrowth, damages and buries streams below, toxic wastewater, produces air pollution 2. Ways to reduce soil erosion: terracing (growing food on slopes), no till farming, windbreaks of trees, strip cropping, contour farming 3. Cause of fluctuation of CO2 levels during a year: amount of trees, photosynthetic activity, burning fossil fuels, trash, power generation and transport 4. Surface mining: to remove mineral deposits found fairly close to the earth’s surface, removing soil, subsoil and other strata. 5. Types of irrigation: drip-delivers small amts of water onto crop roots (best). Flood-delivers more water than needed for a crop to grow. Centro pivotal- spray attachments water crops 6. Consequences of global temperature increase: melting ice and snow, less sunlight reflected back into space, rising sea levels, changing ocean currents, more acidic seas, change in precipitation and weather extremes, and disrupting ecosystems, more radiation 7. Pros and cons of dams: pros-cheap electricity, reduces downstream flooding, provide year round water for irrigation. Cons: displace people, disrupt aquatic systems, and prevent fish to swim upstream and get caught in it and die 8. Ozone layer function: filter out most of sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation 9. Cause of stratospheric ozone loss: chlorofluorocarbons use, ODCs, halons, hydrobromofluorocarbons, methyl bromide, HCl, carbochluorides, methyl chloroform, n-propyl bromide, hexachlorobutadicine. 10. Ways to reduce atmospheric CO2: cut fossil fuel use, shift from coal to natural gas, improve energy efficiency, shift to renewable energy resources, transfer energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to developing contries, reduce deforestation, use sustainable agriculture and forestry, reduce poverty, slow population growth 11. Season when ozone hole is most noticeable: October, Antarctic spring (winter) 12. DDT, mercury: pesticides that are toxic to humans and are very persistent and a lot of the time they go to the wrong species and they disrupt the ecosystem. They are broad spectrum pesticides. 13. P cycle: P circulates through water, earth’s crust, and living things, it is the most limiting because it does not become gaseous. C cycle: C circulated through earth’s air, water, soil, and living things and it depends on photosynthesis and respiration. N cycle: bacteria helps recycle N through the earth’s air, water, soil and living organisms (N fixationnitrificationassimilationammonificationdenitrificationN fixation). Water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, percolation 14. Importance of genetic diversity: resistance to mass extinctions, monocultures, and inbreeding 15. Biomes, locations, reasons for why they are located in certain areas: 1. Gasification: agricultural wastes, including wood wastes any of various processes by which coal is turned into low, medium or high BTU gases 2. Cogeneration: production of 2 useful forms of energy, such as high temp heat or steam and electricity, from the same fuel source 3. Cultural eutrophication: human activities that greatly accelerate the input of plant nutrients to a lake (mostly NO3 and phosphate). 4. Sand: low porosity and high permeability. Clay: low permeability and high porosity. Porosity is the volume of pore space. Silt has low to average porosity and average permeability. Permeability is the ability of water to flow through the soil 5. Incinerating trash: burning trash, boiling water to make steam for heating water of space for producing electricity. Cons: expensive to build, costs more than short distance hauling to landfills, difficult to site because of citizen opposition, some air pollution, older poorly managed facilities can release large amts of air pollution, output approach that encourages waste production, competes with recycling for burnable materials like newspaper. Pros: reduces trash volumes, less need for landfills, low water pollution, concentrates hazardous substances into ash for burial or use as landfill cover, sale of energy reduces cost, modern controls reduce air pollution, some facilities recover and sell metals. 6. Sun angle, fewer daylight hours, tropospheric length has not enough solar radiation to reach the surface, high Albeao and less water vapor causes polar areas to get really cold. 7. Integrated waste management: variety of strategies for waste reduction and management to deal with our produced solid wasted reduce, reuse and recycle 8. Layers of atmosphere: troposphere is closest to earth’s surface and contains 90% of mass of entire atmosphere. Stratosphere has the ozone layer that absorbs UV rays from sun and protects life on earth. Mesosphere is the coldest layer of the atmosphere. The mesopause is the boundary between mesosphere and thermosphere. Thermosphere is the last layer of atmosphere and it is warmer than mesosphere and has a little O2 and has a layer of ionized gases 9. Waste created by coal power plants: heat to troposphere, CO2 and air pollution 10. Pros and cons of coal power: pros- ample supply, high net energy, low cost, well developed mining and combustion technology, air pollution can be reduced with improved technologies. Cons: severe land disturbance, air pollution, water pollution, high land use, severe threats to human health, high CO2 emissions, radioactive particles and toxi mercury into air 11. Pros and cons of nuclear power: pros- large fuel supply, low envir. Impact, emits 1/6 as much CO2 as coal, moderate land use and disruption and water pollution, and Low risk of accidents. Cons- expensive, low net energy yield, catastrophic accidents, no solution for radioactive waste storage, terrorist attacks, weapons 12. Source of radon: some soil and rock 13. Tropospheric ozone: air pollutant, bad ozone because it can damage living tissue and break down certain materials 14. Acid rain: caused by coal burning power plants, ore smelters and industrial plants that use tall smokestacks to emit SO2 and NO2 into troposphere. Consequences: 2-14 day persistence, ruins sensitive soil, worsens respiratory disease, attacks metallic and stone, decreases atmospheric visibility, kills fish, depletes soil of vital plant nutrients and harms crops and plants. Solutions: improving energy efficiency, reduce coal use, increase natural gas use and renewable energy resourcs, burn low sulfur coal, remove SO2 and NO2 from smokestack gases, remove NO2 from motor vehicular exhaust, tax emissions of SO2, add lime to neutralize acidified lakes and add phosphate fertilizer to neutralize acidified lakes. pH of rain: 5.6 or less. Problem in eastern US. 15. Greenhouse gases and their sources: water vapor, CO2, CH4, NO2, O3. Sources are burning fossil fuels, electricity production, transportation, industry, commercial and residential, agriculture, land use and forestry. 16. LD-50: median lethal dose of a toxin, radiation or pathogen is dose required to kill  ½ the members of a tested pop after specified test duration 17. Radon: Rn-222 is a natural occurring gas that is colorless and odorless and radioactive found in some soil and rock, seeps into homes and buildings and can cause lung cancer. Lichen can indicate it 18. Clean water act: attempt to control efforts of pollution of country’s surface waters. Standards for allowed levels of key water pollutants and requires polluters to get permits limiting how much of various pollutants can discharge into aquatic systems 19. Clean air act: causes lakes to be acidic. Made to prevent smog and prevent more air pollution disasters, air pollutant regulations for key pollutants 20. How carbon is removed from the atmosphere: remove from smokestack and vehicle emissions, store by planting trees, sequester deep underground, sequester in soil by using no till conservation and taking cropland out of production, sequester CO2 deep in ocean, repair leaky gas pipelines and facilities, use animal feeds that reduce methane emissions by belching cows. 21. UN conference of the human environment: expanding understanding of envir. Issues, gathering and evaluation envir. Data, develop and monitor international envir. Treaties, provide grants and loans for sustainable econ. Devel. And reducing poverty, help more than 1—nations develop envir. Laws and institutions 22. Reclamation of disturbed lands: process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds or lake. Stabilized against the hazards of water and wind erosion 23. RCRA: resource conservation and recovery act regulates hazardous waste produced in the US passed in 1976 amended in 1984. Goal to prevent unsafe and il legal disposal of hazardous wastes on the land. 24. Uranium-235: isotope of uranium making up about .72% of the natural uranium sustains fission chain reaction 25. Biomagnifications: increase in concentration of DDT, PCBs, and other slowly degradable far soluble chemicals in organisms at successively higher trophic levels of a food chain or web. 26. Efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb (5%), photosynthesis (1%), coal power (33%) 27. Fecal coliform bacteria: various strains of E. Coli to detect the presence of infectious agents in water 28. Consequences of SO2, lead, O3 in troposphere, and particulates: SO2- breathing problems, visibility reduction and aggravation of asthma, damages crops, trees, soils, and lake aquatic life, corrodes metals and damages paint, paper, and leather and stone on buildings. O3- coughing, breathing problems, reduces resistance to colds and pneumonia, irritates eyes, nose, and throat, aggravates asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease and damages plants, rubber in tires, fabrics and paints. Particulates- irritate the nose and throat, damage lungs, aggravate asthma and bronchitis, shortens life. Lead- mutations, reproductive problems, cancer, nervous system damage, mental retardation and digestive and other health problems, reduce visibility and corrode metals and discolor clothes and paints. 29. CERCLA: requires parties responsible for creating a hazardous waste site to be responsible for its cleanup 30. NAFTA: goal to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between US, Canada and Mexico to eliminate tariffs on more than  ½ of Mexico’s exports to the US. Try to pressure countries to improve envir. Protection mechanism 31. Electrostatic precipitators: to remove particulates, after they are in smokestack gas, it gives them a negative charge, they are attracted to a positively charged precipitator wall and fall off the wall into a collector, they maintain and remove 99% of particulate, but use a lot of electricity and do not remove hazardous ultrafine particles and produce a toxic dust that must be disposed of safely. 32. Alternatives to chlorine in waste water treatment: microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ion exchange

The Problem of Magwitchs return in Great Expectations :: Great Expectations Essays

The Problem of Magwitch's return in Great Expectations It would be fair to say that Australia's role in Great Expectations is fairly minimal. It simply functions as a plot device; a place to deposit Magwitch when he is no longer required and a place for him to return from when needed again to further the plot. With the rise in postcolonial studies, however, Australia and Magwitch's experiences there have become the focal points for new readings of the novel. Thus it is through a postcolonial reading of Great Expectations that the issue of Magwitch's return can be addressed. As I have already pointed out, Dickens uses Australia to get rid of Magwitch in the first place and then to have him return. This return I have always found to be problematic: why does Magwitch come back under the threat of death? The answer 'to see Pip' is not satisfactory. However, a postcolonial reading of the novel, I feel, offers a more plausible explanation. Magwitch's identity and status with regard to the empire throughout the text is an important factor in his motivations for returning. In Postcolonial terms, he is seen through the eyes of the empire (and those of the reader) as other. Pip's first encounter marks him thus, firstly as a convict and then through the cannibal references when he threatens to eat Pip's 'fat cheeks' (3 GE) and threatens to have another convict eat his heart and liver. Due to Magwitch's otherness and subsequent inability to function in normative society, he, along with his heart eating fellow cannibal, is being transported, displaced and removed from the centre. the shipment of convicts to Australia was familiar to Dickens and, though never having gone there, he was a firm believer in its benefits for both the convicts and the imperial centre: it was the 'solution for all social problems for England' (Coral Lansbury, Charles Dickens and his Australia). It seems, for the Victorian reader at least, that no elaboration on Magwitch's Australian life was needed other than that he obtained his freedom and gained financial success for his plans for Pip. This plot development would be entirely plausible and unquestioned by Dickens' readers. A convict could easily better themselves socially as well as financially, particularly under pro-emancipist governor Lachlan Macquarie. And although a class system did exist in Australia, it was less rigid than in England and would have allowed for Magwitch's prosperity.

Management Structures

Efficient management structure that meets the needs of an organization is definitely a must in every company. Needless to say, there are various management structures, but each one of them does affect both daily and long term activities of a company. Departmentalization In general, departmentalization refers to grouping activities into separate departments that are coordinated by a specialist or a group of specialists depending on the size of an organization (Torbiorn, 2004). Whether departmentalization is functions, product, customer, geigraphic, process, or a mixture of the stated above types, the affect on daily activities varies accordingly. As a result of departmentalization, the work process is built around certain products, services, or locations; the effeiciency of the production process also increases. To be more specific, the need for extensive external coordination reduces, since ability for the internal coordination within one unit increases, which means that daily company activities are more structured better organized around a certain factor, i.e. customer support department is built around the customer. Matrix Organizations In matrix management, workers in a company are grouped based on their skills, i.e. high-tech specialists work in the IT department (Shell, 2003). In this case, several projects can be assigned to a single department, which then leads to employees reporting to several project managers. Given workers are engaged in narrow activities and are grouped based on their specialization field, the depth of knowledge of employees increases. For instance, Java programmers, being involved solely in programming on this language, have their daily activities centered on this narrow activity, which then leads to narrow professional growth. The Project Team In the case of the project team, people are grouped together based on the common function, project they need to carry out (Shell, 2003) Given people are viewed as a one team, the performance is assessed based on mutual work, which then increases the â€Å"team spirit†. The daily work of team members is more supportive especially in situations when, for instance, one of the the members of a group team failed to carry out a task assigned. The Collegial Model Under the collegial model, the deision making process consensual and involves representatives of all parties affected by the decision (Nicholl, 2006) This management structure is more of idealistic, as daily activities of an organization are centered around meaningful progress, which even though leads to a greater level of empowerment and increases the level of interest, is still less efficient. This includes situations when a decision must be taken that has a negative impact on one or more parties that still must be taken for the mutual benefit. As the daily decision making process is more complicated, time and efforts consuming. It should be noted, that all management structures have positive and negatives sides, whereas implementation of a definite structure is a matter of specific organizational needs of a given company. References Nicholl, P. (2006). Organisational Structures Do Matter for Good Governance and Good Performance. Comparative Economic Studies, 48(2), 214. Shell, R. L. (2003). Management of Professionals (2nd ed.). New York: Marcel Dekker. Torbiorn, I. (1994). Operative and Strategic Use of Expatriates in New Organizations and Market Structures. International Studies of Management & Organization, 24(3), 5.

Death Of Death By Radiation - 1610 Words

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This high powered radiation machine was controlled by a computer from a separate room to protect the operator from being exposed to any unnecessary, moreover unwanted, doses of radiation. As previously stated, the Therac-25 had two main functionalities: low energy and high energy. To be clear, low energy consists of an electron beam of [roughly] 200 rads that was meant to be aimed directly at the patient. High energy mode consisted of turning the machine to fullShow MoreRelatedAtomic Bombs And Its Effects On Japan1369 Words   |  6 Pagesdecision of dropping atomic bombs is inhumane and unjustified for the massive loss of Japanese lives. Including that soon the Japanese were going to surrender without bombs. Most importantly, how the bombing of its short and long-term effects of radiation on Japan. To begin, President Truman’s decision of dropping atomic bombs is inhumane and unjustified for the massive loss of Japanese lives. 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