After learning some of the science behind climate change, Valley Middle School's group 2E plans to try the following 3 simple ideas to help reduce their contribution to CO2 in the atmosphere:
1. Turn off appliances when they are not being used
2. Think about whether you really need and will use something before buying it
3. Plant trees!

Wolf Lake has finally acquired an icy cover for the winter. Underneath the ice, life goes on for most aquatic animals. Insects such as stoneflies, caddisflies, and dragonflies overwinter as nymphs (their immature life stage) and will emerge as adults in the spring. Mink frogs and leopard frogs hibernate under the ice, and fish stick to the bottom of the lake, where it's warmer. The fact that only the top of the lake freezes is due to the remarkable properties of water. Water expands when it freezes (and thus floats) because of the hydrogen bonds in the H2O molecule. Every other substance condenses as it freezes. If water were "normal," it would sink to the bottom of the lake instead of float on top, and the entire lake or pond would be frozen solid by winter's end. Thank goodness for water's weirdness!

Recently I and a few other naturalists were privileged enough to see the first all white snowshoe hare of the season. The snowshoe hare's adaptation to change from their summer coat to their winter coat is what is known as a photoperiodic phenomenon, meaning that the change is triggered by the shortening daylight hours and actually has nothing to do with the presence of snow on the ground. Keep your eyes peeled for these quick hoppers, but it is going to get a lot tougher once the snow starts to fly!

Welcome to the next installment of 'Why Life Fails.' Today we will discuss an interesting concept; Climate Change. Yes and to all those of you who have listened to Al Gore it's more than just 'Global Warming.' It is the process in which the world not only becomes hotter but forces almost every part of it to change, hence the name. But because this is such a broad enormous topic and I only have till my mom gets home to write this (Boo) we are going to narrow down our topic and find out how it affects you. That's right puppets, I said YOU. Climate Change affects everyone including the boy playing video games in the house across from mine, and the girl in the next room watching TV. It effects everyone. But how? There is a direct correlation (Oh big word) with Climate Change and Human Health, hence the title of the selection.

Climate Change effects the world in four ways that directly and indirectly effect the Human Health; Stratospheric (Ozone layer) depletion, Biodiversity (all the funky stuff that is really weird on our planet, i.e. Birds of Paradise, Butterflies, Monkeys, everything that makes the world interesting) loss and ecosystem function, Desertification (turning stuff into deserts) and land degradation, and fresh water decline. [WHO] The effects on these aspects of our lives are devastating. *gasp*

To begin with we have Stratospheric Depletion. This problem is the biggest irony of the blog. Because of all the cotton-headed junk we put into our sky we are kicking ourselves in the butt. In the United States we emit six (if you check out the link they say seven but they group "industrials" together and I think that's stupid) different types of the junk other wise known as GREEN HOUSE GASES (It's a vocab word remember it). These include Carbon dioxide CO2 (My computer can't do the funky reverse exponent thing so I changed the size Loophole!) Methane CH4, Nitrous oxide N2O, Sulfur hexafluoride SF6 (six fluorine yay Chem) Perfluorocarbons (holy goodness that's a big word,) and Hydrofluorocarbons (shiznits). [TONTO] These really long words are causing an enhanced version of the GREEN HOUSE EFFECT ('nother vocab word.) Usually the green house effect is a good thing, in fact if we didn't have it the world wouldn't be able to house those monkey's I talked about up there or for that matter anything at all. No you, no me, no Aunt Sally either. But, we all know about moderation don't we, 35 pieces of chocolate and 57 pixie stix make you puke no matter what. (Try purple pixie stix with sprite it foams in the mouth.) Unfortunately for the world the U.S and developed countries like her don't know much about that rule and put way too much crap in the air. From that junk comes climate change. And, finally back to the topic of this paragraph, the Ozone depletion. Ozone depletion causes certain nasty sun rays (UV) to penetrate and find its way to our skin. This leads to UV exposure. [WHO] Sun block won't help this time I can promise. I'm not sure the direct correlation (there's that word again) between harmful sun rays and skin cancer but I can say that probably wouldn't be fun. (Probably)

RAWR. The next topic is loss of all the funky life forms that make our planet special and of the loss of ecosystem function. First and fore most we are an incredibly visual creature and to be honest, the majority of us like shiny stuff that's pretty. And I don't really want to live in a world were there aren't specialist species like Snow Leopards (Hence the rawr at the beginning) and the Giant Panda. The world would be really boring without all the fun things that we like looking at. The climate change is causing the areas that these endemic species only live in to disappear rapidly. And that's bad news bears literally. Along with their areas of living ours are depleting too. Imagine a winter without snow, no skiing, snowboarding, holidays without snowmen. Ya that's what's happening. Human happiness is a part of human health and even though the cold is sometimes annoying it keeps away certain things that are a little too diverse for me (cockroaches ewww.) And with the rising of the average temperature around the world comes another one of our favorite friends; viruses. Freezing temperatures kill most ugly viruses and their vectors like mosquitoes. But the climate change "is incurring lots of unintended consequences for health around the world" [NEWS] This is not good in any sense of the word. Diseases that will probably turn into pandemics cause considerable fear.

Desertification is next. This is when drylands, the area around deserts, are turned into deserts themselves. [GREEN] This takes away from grazing lands which reduce the food in our shelves. (And the McDoubles which is a sin against the world) Land degradation also takes away from the world's ability to create food, which leads farmers to not be able to plant and not be able to reap any benefits. This leads to poverty and the lack of food leads to famine which is bad. (No food, not fun.)

The last topic is fresh water decline. Even though because of Climate change the water level is rising, it's only raising the sea level to heights that are unfavorable to humans. The larger amount of sea water takes away from the fresh water we have possibly bringing drought across the world. (Not good) The water level rising also creates devastation. *Du Du Du!!!* Storms will increase in their frequency and their severity. (Parallel structures A.P Lang Yay.) This could cost human lives and that my dear reader affects their health.

This wraps up another blog of "Why Life Fails." Climate Change directly correlates (there it is one more time) with Human Health.

by LSHS student A.E.

Since the start of the industrial revolution, many nations have been powered by coal. It is cheap, and found nearly every where in abundance. However, coal also has a dark side. It is one of the leading causes of global warming. Every year humans burn approximately 6,743,786,000 short tons of coal per year. This number is expected to increase to 9.98 billion by the year 2030. This is mainly because China and India are expected to increase their output resulting in 86% of the total increase by 2030. With most nations becoming more dependent on coal global warming will increase. One of the main greenhouse gasses is co2, and for every kg of coal burned it produces 1.83kg of co2. Greenhouse gasses work by when the suns energy hits the earth some of it bounces back towards the atmosphere, and greenhouse gasses absorb the energy. However, some states like Minnesota are trying to reduce our dependency on coal. Minnesota has recently passed a bill requiring all electric utilities to produce 25% of their total energy by green power by the year 2025. However, there is also new technology involving ccs, or carbon capture and storage. These new systems will potentially allow the U.S. to store all of their co2 emissions for decades. This process works by injecting co2 into used oil and natural gas reservoirs. Our civilization would not be where it is today without coal. Its abundance and price allowed every nation to have access to it and expand their economies resulting in many of the innovations we have today. However, if humans would like to keep advancing we will have to find a way to effectively reduce CO2 emissions from existing coal plants, or use alternative energy sources.

by LSHS student, M.C.

If you haven't heard of global warming, please come out of that rock you've been living under and listen up. The technical term for global warming, according to word-net-web.princeton, is "an increase in the average temperature of earth's atmosphere". Meaning that global warming is making the earth hotter, when it shouldn't be. And now you're thinking, "So what, why should I care? It's not like it's going to affect me." Well you should care, because the impacts and consequences of global warming is going to affect us all, and all the other generations to come. One dangerous impact would be the increase in severe storms.

Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are already deadly as they are, but add a little bit of global warming and you have a world scaled mega disaster. It is now a fact that global warming is making these severe storms even more intense, as reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists. How you ask? Well the precipitation increases from global warming means that there is going to be more rainfall and more warm moisture in the air. Not only are the sea levels rising from rainfall, but they are also rising from the melting glaciers. A lot of water in the ocean and with warm moisture in the air creates these mega water-disasters. So basically, the main reason that these rare storms even come out is because of the warm temperatures from the ocean. And lately because of global warming these severe storms will become more frequent. In the words of Ker Than, a writer from LifeScience, " a warmer world also means a wet one." Some scientists at world-science.net even link Hurricane Katrina to global warming. Could you image having storms like Katrina on an annual basis? Unfortunately this could become reality unless humans try to stop and reduce their emissions of green house gases and carbon footprints.

Not only are these global warming produced storms dangerous, they will without a doubt affect the world. As stated in Hurricane and Climate Change by ucsusa.org, with rising sea levels means higher storm surges, even if they are minor, will increase coastal flooding and storm damages along the coasts. In addition, the heavy rainfall can extended further inland and also flood and damage land that is not near the coast. And according to research from sciencedaily.com, severe storms produce heavy rain, wind, and hail which can even spawn tornadoes. So in essence, there is no truly safe place in America where you could possibly not endure a severe storm caused by global warming. Like I said before, global warming affects us all.

Now that you know one out of the countless impacts of global warming I hope you can see why is it important. It is important for us as a society and humans beings of the earth to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our part from contributing to green house gases, and most importantly spread the message to others. The more people know, the more they will want to do something about it. So if you still haven't gotten out of that rock you've been living under, how about coming out and making an impact AGAINST global warming?

by LSHS student N.S.