While taking Contemporary Science and Innovation with Professor Shatz, it is safe to say that watching Trading Spouses was a wild trip, entering her world outside of the classroom. Throughout the beginning of the show it seems like both family’s have normal laid back lives, but what we don’ t know about are all the habits and day-to-day activities. Automatically when seeing a family from Kentucky and an Orthodox family from Brookline, Boston, there are bound to be differences.

The fact of the matter that Professor Shatz does not like hunting is definitely true, aside from religious beliefs this a huge no-no in her dictionary as it is in mine. Also, it seems like they have a very slow pace life in Kentucky and that the daughter is much too good for school and the son is needs a tutor and help with extracurricular activities. While the family in Kentucky are more laid back with education, it is definitely a fact that when the Sh

atz children come home from school, they are already doing homework, and even for three hours, which I doubt is an exaggeration. Hard work pays off, and this is something that is embedded in our classroom that most of the students, including myself, tend to forget about while blogging.

While Professor Shatz washes the dishes,  I don’t believe he reads while doing them because it takes an intense multitasker to do that! It’s pretty amazing how there are two sinks, two dishwashers, and even two sets of dishes, but within the Orthodox religion, I understand.

I find it hard to believe that the family in Kentucky are so uneducated about the Jewish religion in general so this could have been exaggerated but perhaps it is true.

When Professor Shatz arrives to the house I believe that there was no kosher food or any stores that had kosher products in stock, so she had to order her food to be sent over night. When the other mother went to Boston, I am clueless as to wether the kids have had parties or not. It seems like they are very studious but to not have friends besides each other is a little intense. I do think its true that the Kentucky mother took Shatz’s son to go shopping and a hair cut, but can’t believe she threw a party and the Rabbi came at that exact moment to receive a check. As if it was all planned out.

After watching this it will be very funny talking about this in class, and really knowing what was true or not!

Due to the raise of awareness of global warming, President Obama’s ‘Climate Action Plan’ is a pledge that by 2020, America would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005, if all other major economies agree to their emissions as well.

Stated beautifully, a part of the action plan states:

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms”

-President Obama, Second Inaugural Address, January 2013

While many are trying to reduce their waste, emissions, and enhance their ways of living an eco-friendly life, there are many large companies that also need to change for the better. As the article says, climate change is no longer a distant threat. We are already feeling its impacts across the country and the world with temperature changes, increasing floods and raising food prices. The plan, which consists of many executive actions, has three key pillars:

1. Cutting Carbon Pollution in America: The Obama Administration is putting in place tough new rules to cut carbon pollution to protect children and move our economy toward American-made clean energy sources that will create good jobs and lower home energy bills.
2. Preparing the U.S. for the Impacts of Climate Change: While taking new steps to reduce carbon pollution, we also need to prepare for the impact of a changing climate that are already obvious. Obama Administration will help state and local governments strengthen our roads, bridges and shorelines to better protect people’s homes businesses & a way of life from severe weather.
3. Last but not least: Lead International Efforts to Combat Global Climate Change and Prepare for its Impacts: The U.S.  needs to prepare for climate impacts, and drive progress through the international negotiations.

Climate change represents one of our greatest challenges of our time, but it is a challenge uniquely suited to America’s strengths. Out of the Climate Action Plan, I have chose these three initiatives: Working with other countries to take action to address climate change, protecting our economy and natural resources, and building stronger and safer communities and infrastructure.

One way of engaging other countries to take action on addressing climate change is the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a high-level forum that brings together 17 countries that account for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. With major emerging economies, the Obama Administration has sought to intensify bilateral climate cooperation with key major emerging economies through initiatives like the U.S.- China Clean Energy Research Center, along with working with India and Brazil.

As climate change is affecting nearly every aspect of our society, from agriculture and tourism to the health and safety of the citizens to natural resources protecting the economy and natural resources is necessary. The Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior released several studies outlining changing climate poses for agricultural enterprise, forests, water supply, wildlife, and public lands. The Department of Health and Human Services will launch an effort to create sustainable and resilient hospitals in the face of climate change. Born and raised in California, their ‘Reducing Wildfire Risks’ appealed to my eye. With tribes, states, and local governments as partners, the Administration has worked to make landscapes more resistance to wildfires, which are created by heat and drought conditions resulting from climate change. Plans are to expand and prioritize forest and rangeland restoration efforts in order to make natural areas and communities less vulnerable.

Thankfully, many states, cities, and communities are already planning and preparing for the impacts of climate change. I know that were I am from in California, one has a tiny bin for trash and a larger bin for recycling and green waste. Recommendations and tips are always great for any community to flourish and grow.

Lastly, as the article states, the U.S. has made historic progress in the international climate negotiations during the past four years and I as an individual will continue to do my best to keep our environment healthy.

The process, “hydraulic fracturing”, literally involves the smashing of rock with millions of gallons of water, along with sand and a undisclosed assortment of chemicals in order to bring gas to the surface. Developed in the late 1940’s to gain access to fossil energy deposits previously inaccessible to drilling operations, hydrofracking is a controversial oil and gas extraction technique.

There are many risks and concerns with hydrofracking like:

• Contamination of groundwater
• Methane pollution and its impact on climate change
• Air pollution impacts
• Exposure to toxic chemicals
• Blowouts due to gas explosion
• Waste disposal
• Large volume water use in water-deficient regions
• Fracking-induced earthquakes
• Workplace safety
• Infrastructure degradation
• • U.S. energy production (However, foreign companies are buying leases. The gas will be sold on the international market to highest bidders.)• Loss of property values
• Loss of county property tax revenues
• Greatly increased traffic and accidents
•  Increased road damage from large trucks
• Increased need to repair roads (with your tax dollars which to do: repair roads or cut school budget?)
• Along with pros like…
• Short-term jobs for a few local people
• Short-term increased customers for local businesses
• Profit for a few land owners; profit for a few mineral rights owners

On a more positive note, researchers say that hydrofracking has provided the states with an overabundance of cheap fossil fuel and brought the United States from being a gas imported just a few years ago to the verge of being a net exported of natural gas.

Over the past two weeks in ‘Contemporary Science and Innovation SCI 184’ we have been working as teams to analyze how the robot, a car made into small lego pieces, functions with the program LabView. Our group always ranges from 3-4 people, depending on the attendance of our initial team but whether or not it is the same members in the group it is easy to continue what we were doing in the previous class due to the instructions and basic understandings of the program.

The robot car has four wheels that have a ‘motor’, which determines how the car is going to run. There are two orange arrows and a yellow ‘play’ button. To connect the robot to the computer, we hooked the USB and attached it to the NXT to the computer and opened LabView.

LabView is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programing language.

After entering different numbers, we were able to understand the key elements of the car and measure the circumference and the diameters. We were able to program how far or how short we wanted the car to move with the numbers we typed in. We finally disconnected the cord to the robot car and measured how far it could move and aimed at measuring it to 2 feet, in a perfect circle. When completing this we became very excited! The robot experiment allowed me to better understand how cars function via distance and was relevant to our energy and sustainable class.

Formed on October 22 and dissipated on October 31, 2012, Hurricane Sandy is know as the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of 2012. Not only the most destructive, but the second-costliest hurricane in United States history as well. The damage in the United States alone amounted to $65 billion, according to the New York Times.

Developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea, Sandy gradually intensified. On October 24^th Sandy became a hurricane, hit Jamaica, the Caribbean Sea, Cuba, and then the Bahamas. and affected 24 states in the U.S.

In an interview hosted on ‘Green’ by the New York Times, Kevin E. Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado, stated that “Natural variability very likely accounted for the bulk of that temperature extreme”. It has been noted that summer sea ice in the Arctic has fallen by roughly half since the late 1970’s, a change most climate scientists believe has been caused largely by human-induced warming.

In the article “Did Global Warming Contribute to Hurricane Sandy’s Devastation”, it was stated that human induced global warming has been human-induced global warming has been raising the overall temperature of the surface ocean, by about one degree Fahrenheit since the 1970s. So global warming very likely contributed a notable fraction of the energy on which the storm thrived — perhaps as much as 10 percent, Trenberth said.

Regardless if there is hard evidence or not, the way the planet has changed due to human destructive actions definitely has an effect, small or large.  In  ‘Climate Change Partly to Blame for Hurricane Damage’ by Douglas Main, stated that “Climate change likely made Hurricane Sandy worse than it otherwise would have been. Hurricanes and tropical stormed would occur with our without global warming. But  many climate models suggest that such storms will become more intense as the plant warms”

Overall, hurricane Sandy has greatly left its mark and it has been said that it has also made the geography of New York more susceptible to storm surges. The immensity of this hurricane will probably never be forgotten and I hope people are being more cautious not only for themselves, but for our planet, knowing that it cannot sustain more damage.

http://www.livescience.com/24338-hurricane-sandy-photos-frankenstorm.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/13/world/americas/hurricane-sandy-fast-facts/

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/did-global-warming-contribute-to-hurricane-sandys-devastation/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

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