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By: Hannah Meadows The New Madrid fault line is a growing danger right under peoples feet. Most people don’t realize how catastrophic it would be if the fault line went off and the worst part… there is no telling when it will go off. Usually, earthquakes wouldn’t be an issue in places like California because all of their buildings are built to withstand earthquakes. However, the New Madrid fault line sits right along southern Missouri and Missouri is known for its sedimentary rock. This means an earthquake in Missouri would cause all buildings and houses to be buried since they aren’t built to withstand earthquakes. Now what would the statistics really look like if the New Madrid fault line were to go off unexpectedly?  84,000 buildings damaged and 37,000 more destroyed, almost entirely residences  Over 15,000 people killed and an additional 120,000 displaced Nearly 200 schools and over 100 fire stations would be damaged  37 hospitals and 67 police stations would be compl...

 Hydropower is not often talked about as a primary option for sustainable energy, however, 6.6% of energy produced in the U.S. is through hydropower, compared to solar energy which happens to only be 2.3% and is usually the first thought when someone mentions “clean energy.” The reason for this being the majority hydropower plants only give energy to large-scale, industrial operations.  Hydropower boasts a few positives that make it a viable option, those being that it is reliable, safe, and produces a very low amount of emissions. Other than that, they are fairly expensive to build, and they have a very realistic potential to cause droughts. Hydropower is an interesting source of energy and as of now it is only really used for industrial use, however in the future there is a very real possibility for it to be used to power residential areas.  https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/hydroelectric-energy-pros-and-cons#pros-and-cons

  Back to the Future? Men’s fashion of the 1970’s Energy Crisis Threatens Return Of 1970s Inflation https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2021/10/19/energy-crisis-threatens-return-of-1970s-inflation/?sh=683c50e27e20 It amazing how the past repeats itself over and over and again through out history. I was researching the current energy crisis I noticed articles coming up about the 1970’s energy crisis. I decided to see if there is was a connection to  what was going on then with what is going on now. I looked at some comparisons: Leadership – 1970’s Democrat Jimmy Carter – 2021 Democrat Joe Biden 1970’s and now rising prices in fuel, cars, food, rent and just about all the basics of life. 2021- we are midst a country recovering from a pandemic, but advisers warn this is more than a transition phase from the pandemic supply chain problems. The price of al commodities is going up all while the government is spending more than ever and demanding more from the middle...

 Today, in my blog, I would like to speak about issues’ Pollution. Indeed, we are all concerned by this problem. Pollution means to the addition of any substance ( for exemple liquid, solid or gas) or any form of energy (for exemple heat, sound or radioactivity) which are dispersed to the environment. Actually, the major kinds of this phenomenon are air, water and land pollution. Indeed, we used a lot plastic things and we trow it directly in the nature. It’s bad and we have to change. Pollution of all kinds can have negative effects on the environment and wildlife and often impacts human health and well-being.  Although natural events like forest fires or active volcanoes can caused the environmental pollution.  On this article I found a truly good picture show us all the things to know concerning pollution’s phenomenon.  Rayane baitiche  https://www.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/pollution-overview

                              http://www.pollutionissues.com/Co-Ea/Disasters-Environmental-Mining-Accidents.html                                                                              By: Brea Shipley      There are many environmental issues that come from mining that affect the land. The bad part about this is that this eventually effects other things like the air and water. What you probably did know is that there are many different types of mining called, open pit mining, underground mining, in situ leach mining, heap leaching, and brine mining. Mining  causes a lot of dust and metal output into the air, carbon output, erosion, and causes damag...

      Farmers Killing There Self https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/06/why-are-americas-farmers-killing-themselves-in-record-numbers By: Cody Hughes This article I read this time is about farmers and how the stress from it leads to any farmers killing there self. In the begging of the article it talks about how the rate of farmers killing there self is more than double the rate of veterans. This is a article about a man who killed himself and his wife talking about it. She talks about all the stress that goes into it and all the finical and mental demand it has. She said that she has seen the effects it has on people and it can be hard at times. This was a great article to read but also a sad one. 

 Many people don't know the true benefits of land and animal conservation and in this article it helps you realize that there is more than you expect. All of these help maximize the conservation outcomes. One big thing that comes from land conservation is that it helps reduce air and water pollution. To learn about many more of the benefits that come from conservation read the article below. -Xander Benefits of Land Conservation – HeadWaters Land Conservancy (headwatersconservancy.org)

   Wildlife conservation is related to the protection and preservation of animals. By conserving wildlife, we are ensuring that future generations can enjoy our natural world and the amazing species that live in it. Plants and animals have life events that seem to run like clockwork every year. Birds can migrate, mammals can hibernate, flowers bloom, and leaves change color. The study of how the biological world controls these natural events is called phenology. Phenology is an important subject for conservationists to study because it helps us understand the patterns of specific species and the overall health of the ecosystem. Each species has an impact on those in its food chain and community, and the timing of one species' phenological events can be very important to another species' survival.   When animals eat their prey, they consume more than just energy. They also absorb all the chemicals and nutrients inside the prey. Sometimes animals ingest pollutants that can ...

 I was talking to one of the farmers I used to work for, we were talking about how much technology is in combines now you basically don’t have to do much. You do have to watch for rocks in the field and stuff when you do see a rock you have to pick up the head and make sure you don’t hit it. What I’m getting at here what if they made more technology in them that saw the stuff that was in the field so we didn’t break so many heads and slow down the farmers. We should do something like it starts beeping when it sees something in the field or warn the farmer in the combine just so they know and don’t accidentally hit it.  By: Carson

     The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon water supplies has been struggling for years now due to the aging infrastructure system and the sparse funds. With the water coming out as brown and sometimes nothing at all, President Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law that will fortify roads, bridges and waterways, etc. hopefully the money being a game changer to help replace the contaminated/insufficient with clean water for the whole tribe community. Read more about the possibility of the infrastructure law helping the tribes get fresh and clean drinking water. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1054418311/tribes-hope-infrastructure-law-means-theyll-finally-get-clean-drinking-water Kaitlyn “KK” Kongdara

      One of the best things you could do in order to combat climate change is to invest in some form of green new energy. If you were in charge of a state or even had some national sway, and you wanted to help inspire the growth of green renewable energy how would you do?  I would recommend that you do what Illinois is doing right now; providing businesses and individuals tax or cost exhibitions as a couple of incentives. Proposals for programs like these are inspiring for green energy because it makes fiscal sense for people, who without these programs, would not probably be able to purchase solar or wind power. Illinois had temporarily discarded their program for reasons unknown within the state legislator.  -Konnor T. Wright

 Research shows that 60 to 87 percent of the ocean is expected to experience major concerns due to climate change. This mainly includes large Che,iCal changes in the oceans, water temperature, and much more by 2060. Because of the affects on climate change to the ocean, it was have a huge concern towards sea life as well possibly causing extension to some sea life species. And the rate at which this is occurring is moving extremely fast with a 76 to 97% chance of this occurring.  https://uk.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-will-have-altered-up-to-87-of-the-ocean-environments-by-2060-171450542.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHBo8vx8XKvLw-LS9uGHdhYLEr7LENNDfxRVmVoqRm_rCnbeBkVQdDNkDO6sGN2fLakBZMmVckPCNahp1ei01icg2EeWVKYdAY9g7XEaTbyLADnoUuL0iMfTZTHfy21YTiAQSVRsQwVoFccz99dD8UIQDL65vdQUgg1eVDWLrf1N

Kala Davis   Have you ever thought about how much time our land has left if everything we keep doing continues? Well according to this article our farm lands only have about 60 years left if land degradation continues the way it does at the rate it is at. Already about a third of the worlds top soil has been degraded. We need our farm lands more than you might think, that is one of the main food supply for the world and without it who knows how our food will become or if we will even have some. Read more in this article to find out more only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues  

  There are a lot of problems that we has a human race have effect the way we get our food and have cost the further food as well. If there was a problem that happened tomorrow it could effect the way we get our food down the road to were our kids kids won’t have any of the same food we have. A lot can be change that we has a human race can do before it effects the way we live in the future. I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of change it needs to happen for us to keep living on this plant.   The global food system is expected to provide safe and nutritious food to a population that will likely grow from 7.5 billion people today, to nearly 10 billion by 2050. Not only will there be more mouths to feed, but  as incomes grow in emerging and developing economies, so too will the demand for meat, fish, and dairy . However, food production is only one aspect of the food system. The agro-food sector also provides a livelihood for millions of people. Globally, most ...

 when we look at how the world has been changing in the past couple of years we have to look at why we start to raise live stock and grow planets out of the ground for us to eat and enjoy. There is a saying its called “so god made a farmer” one of the passages from it  God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board" this quote is from Paul Harvey.  People have said that been a farmer is easy and not that hard but the the work they have to do is hard and long. A lot of people still are trying to keep this way of life going for other people to take over for them for more years to come. After peaking at 6.8 million farms in 1935, the number of U.S. farms fell sharply until the early 1970s. Rapidly falling farm numbers during the earlier period reflected growing productivity in agriculture and increased nonfarm employment oppor...

When we think of Florida, we think all of the animals that exist there including alligators, the florida panther, and many other animals. The problem with what is happening is that the corridors are being damaged. Florida's legislature finally put a stop to this by putting a act to help preserve water and the animals. The act is called the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act.  The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act helps with providing help with all the habitats existing all across the state of Florida. The act was passed unanimously with a vote of 40 and 0 by the Senate and 115 to 0 by the house. They then instituted 400 million dollars to organizations across Florida. This is huge because this helps with all kinds of animals and species that exist all around Florida. This also helps with all the water that exist in Florida including the Everglades.  https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2021/06/30/florida-legislature-recognizes-the-florida-wildlife-corridor/

Kayla Karpe  Water towers are known to be in each town in case of emergencies. Water towers are now are going into a crisis. The amount of water towers are going extinct because with the amount of global warming and population increase their amount of water is now being dispersed when it shouldn't be for decades. You can read more about this issue in the link below. https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/the-importance-and-vulnerability-of-water-towers/?amp=1  

      Read this article to learn more about the different seasons and their effect on our food supply. Changes in weather could have significant impacts on crop yields. Most crops yields decline when the temperature reaches an extreme point. The climate not only impacts the crops but also livestock. Americans consume more than 36 million metric tons of meat and poultry annually but the climate could affect animals directly and indirectly. These changes in weather include heat waves, drought, and increases in carbon dioxide. These affect the US and almost everywhere in the world.  By: Kaitlyn Witthar I am not sure there is much we can do about this topic but it is something that I think would be beneficial if people knew more about it.  Link:  https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-agriculture-and-food-supply_.html

When I would go on road trips to Colorado I would really admire these majestic windmills. I chose this topic because of how much renewable energy a state so close to us uses. Very strong winds blow across the open fields of Kansas, creating very significant wind energy sources. Many major river systems including the Arkansas and smoky hill rivers offer hydropower potential. The graph above shows the amount of wind power/ energy being generated at a height of 50m. Kansas

Kayla Karpe   By the year 2050 there will be a fight for water. It was found by the United Nations World Water Development report in 2018 that there will not be enough to go around. The reason that this is happening due to the increase of pollution in the bodies of water, the increasing amount of population and global warming issues. The way to help is through local decisions that through global decisions.  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-019-0039-9  

  Water-related challenges 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services. ( WHO/UNICEF 2019 ) Almost 2 billion people depend on health care facilities without basic water services ( WHO/UNICEF 2020 ) Over half of the global population or 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. ( WHO/UNICEF 2019 ) 297,000 children under five die every year from diarrheic diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water. ( WHO/UNICEF 2019 ) 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. ( UN 2019 ) 90 per cent of natural disasters are weather-related, including floods and droughts. ( UNISDR ) 80 per cent of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. ( UNESCO, 2017 ) Around two-thirds of the world’s transboundary rivers do not have a cooperative management framework. ( SIWI ) Agriculture accounts for 70 per cent of global water withdrawal. ( FAO ) The right to wa...

 Kala Davis  During the holidays, it is a time for celebration, a time to have fun with friends and family. But one thing we don't think about is how much paper we tend to use. A main holiday we use the most paper for is Christmas. But we also use a lot for the holidays where we just have a big gather of people, like Thanksgiving. Read more about the paper use and ways we can try and reduce it this holiday season.  environmental-impact-of-the-holiday-season

The past 20 years have led to a significant decrease in the cost to produce solar cells, due to the increase in popularity or the use of solar energy. This has also been the result of more abundant resources that are able to capture light energy, and over the years, engineers have been working to produce more cost effective and efficient solar panels to be made in mass production.  Most people look at switching to solar energy because it will lower your electric bill, it improves the value of a home, and most importantly, it significantly reduces carbon footprints. The cons of switching over are very minor compared to the pros, and solar energy needs to become a more mass produced source of energy because of its ability to be cost effective and environmentally efficient.  https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/future-solar-bright/

https://www.environment.co.za/mining/effects-of-mining.html By: Brea Shipley      If you are like me you probably have not heard about the ways mining effects the land. Mining can pollute many different things, such as water, air, and soil. When mining they used heavy metals and even acid. These products can get into the soil, air, and water. Mining pollution has even got into drinking water wells in many rural western towns. This could be very harmful to the people drinking it. In recent years mining industries have reported 2.8 billion pounds of toxics emitted to air, water and land. This is a very bad think for our land and they need to find a better way of mining without putting all this pollution into our land, air, and water. https://wman-info.org/resource/environmental-impacts-of-mining/

           The Cost of Modern Farming https://www.agdaily.com/insights/true-financial-cost-modern-farming/ By: Cody Hughes To be a farmer it takes a lot of money now of days. In the beginning of this article it talks about how the cost of being a farmer is going up. This is due to the new more expensive farming equipment that you need for your far. Yes, I know you don't always need the best one but when one breaks its a lot of money for a new one. Then it gets in the cost of land. It is really expensive to be able to buy a big part of land that will be a good fit for a farm. The going down the article it lists so many other things about the costs of being a farmer. Also in each of the sections it shows numbers between different thing showing how much it all is. 

 Today, I want to speak about the environmental degradation. That correspond to the deterioration of the environment through some consumption like water, air or soil. We can also speak about eradication of wildlife with an aggravation to  nature’s turf. This phenomenon is created by the consolidation of effectively substantial and human improve these effects.  I wanted to speak about environmental degradation because it is one of the largest threats that are being looked at in the world today and if we do nothing to counter, we run a our loss. There are a number of different techniques that are being used on the goals to prevent this phenomenon like environment resource protection and more. We can also quote a lot of degradation :  First of all, there are the land and soil degradation which means the degradation of soil quality from poor farming practices. Then, we have the water degradation which means the pollution of water from trash threw-in oceans. Then, we can ...

       We are all fairly familiar with the different highway dividers that split the separate lanes of traffic/travel. Most of these concrete dividers are just that, concrete and nothing more; Massachusetts plans to change this. Massachusetts plans to begin implementing a plan to decorate and renovate these highway-rail blockers with solar panels. This small and ingenious idea will surely give Massachusetts large amounts of energy without harming the environment. Hopefully, different states can come to bring different plans relating to renewable energy into fruition.     These solar panels will be nothing but a positive influence on the state's energy independence along with proactive energy standards to set better examples for neighboring states. Below is the link to the article I highly recommend you read for additional information about Massachusetts's new highway solar panels. -Konnor T. Wright HERE'S THE LINK TO THE ARTICLE

  As floods and droughts get more severe and temperatures rising over the past decades, which means the demand for water goes up. This is all caused due to the climate change that is taking place now. And agricultural     crops is being affected due to the greater demand for water. Read more on how climate change is affecting the water cycle. https://news.yahoo.com/climate-change-is-wreaking-havoc-on-the-earths-water-cycle-090046604.html Kaitlyn “KK” Kongdar

 As we all seen either in person or pictures, waterfalls are a gorgeous land feature. Sadly, many waterfalls have either entirely dried out or are very close too. Tourist level is lower and Earths natural beauty’s of waterfalls are causing beauty spots sadly empty and bare to look at. The drought in areas is causing this as well as a fear if it will dry out other land water features because of this.  https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/dry-waterfalls.htm  

            There is a new farming trend that uses drones to estimate crop production and help gather information. This is the country's first agricultural project that uses technology for the estimation of production. This project will also use high spatial resolution satellite data, models, sampling, and artificial intelligence. The benefit of using drones is that it contributes to increased productivity, contributes pollution reduction, enhances employment prospects, and adapts to changing climatic conditions.  I think that this could be very beneficial to the agriculture world and the farmers in the industry. Read this article to find out more benefits of drones.  By: Kaitlyn Witthar Link:  https://techbullion.com/rise-of-precision-farming-driving-agriculture-drone-market-growth/

 In today's society, we know that the US imports and exports but this is not good to the giraffe population. The giraffe population is becoming critically endangered. 40 percent of the giraffe population has dropped and only 69,000 remain today. The US uses giraffe parts for things like their bones, trophies, and many other parts. In order for the US to stop importing and selling giraffe parts, it needs protection to stops the trade of giraffe parts.    https://www.endangered.org/giraffe-lawsuit-tackles-federal-failure-to-protect-iconic-animals-from-trade/  

  Conservation has many parts to it. It involves protecting many of our natural resources that include air, minerals, plants, soil, water, and wildlife. There is a declining biodiversity that is intertwined with species extinction. As extinction is a normal part of nature. The rate it is happening now is not. They are around 1000 times higher than they should be. To read more about the extinction of animals such as the passenger pigeon and more about conservation click the link below.  https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/conservation/

 In this weeks blog we will talk about strategic irrigation. Some places get a lot of rain which can be good and bad for crops, some places don’t get any rain and that is what i wanna write about this week. Some farmers use a sprinkler irrigation but that seems kind of tough since you have to use a combine and might run over a sprinkler which would be a bad deal. If you were just growing crops in your back yard that would be perfect. Now farmers can figure all the math and how much moisture is in the air all the time so they can plan accordingly. I think we need to be better at planning accordingly to the weather. Some weather will ruin crops in an hour and there is nothing they can do about that. Therefore when we don’t have bad weather like that we need to do better to keep the crops healthy.  Thanks for reading, Carson