scrAPES #9 "Earth Has Entered First 'Mass Extinction' Since Dinosaurs, Study Warns"

Earth has Entered First 'Mass Extinction Since Dinosaurs, Study Warns by Lydia O'Connor was posted on 6/22/2015. The article is about how the Earth is having its 6th mass extinction phase. Vertebrate animals which includes mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles, and fish are disappearing. They are disappearing 114 times faster than normal. Scientists say the number of animals going extinct would usually take around 800 - 10,000 years. The scientists say that us humans have a major role in this mass extinction. Our global society is one of the main reason this extinction is happening. Habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain, and climate change are one of the main reasons the Earth is going through this mass extinction. These extinctions can very much harm the biodiversity like crop pollination and water purification could disappear in less than 3 life-times, putting the human species in danger.

This article caught my eye because this is a very important topic. This is important to me because being an animal lover hearing about this gets interested about whats happening to the animals and what I can learn to help stop or slow down. Humans are the main reason why there are so many animals going extinct. If we wanted to slow down the rate of the animals going extinct, we would have to start conserving the already threatened animals and ease the pressures on their population.

The environmental science aspect of this article is the animal extinction. The animal extinction plays a huge role on our earth because not only are we killing off beautiful animals, were also killing ourselves, the human species. The more we destroy habitats and pollute the air, we are slowly killing ourselves and other species.

In class today we talked about the population. There are many things that happen to the population. I learned that currently there are almost 7.2 billion people in the world living. In fact that there are so many people living that the world may not be able to support them. Also in the beginning before there were 7 billion people there were almost nobody living. There was a steady pace of when someone dying, there would another being born. But after a while, there were economic advances and the population grew. On the website it said I was 5,989,114,224th person to be born.

Having this many people on Earth kind of scares me. The Earth does not have many resources to hold 7 billion people. There will a point in time where there will be no resources left to keep human existence going. Right now there are already resources we have that are running low; for example fossil fuel, they suspect that we will run out in 2052.

scrAPES #8 "Greenland’s undercut glaciers melting faster than thought"

Greenland's Undercut Glaciers Melting Faster than Thought was published on July 21, 2015 by Alan Buis and Janet Wilson. This article is about Greenland's glaciers melting. Greenland's glaciers are getting below sea level causing ocean water that undercuts the glaciers. This can cause sea levels to rise all around the world and can cause a serious problem. A team of scientist found many glaciers eroding under the surface that could any second melt and collapse.

What caught my eye about this article is the title sounded interesting to me.  Glaciers melting is a serious problem because it can make the sea levels higher, which can cause serious flooding. That is a big problem that will not be good for anyone.

The environmental aspect of this article are the glaciers melting. The glaciers melting, like I said before, can cause serious problems. That is why a group of scientist when to Greenland to observe and analyze the glaciers to see exactly how close these glaciers are from collapsing or melting.

EcoBook #10 - habitat

EcoBook #9 - nonrenewable resources

EcoBook #8 - habitat destruction

EcoBook #7 - pesticide use