population

Salmon Are Literally Swimming Out of Our Lives

Casey Leach 2 Comments

Due to climate change, salmon populations are decreasing because the dams are affecting upstream and downstream migrants. While attending the discussion on climate change’s impact on salmon, I found it to be really interesting because I didn’t realize how climate change and the dams were negatively impacting the salmon populations. The dams make it impossible for the fish to repopulate because they are unable to reach their unique original spawning grounds further upstream. Climate change is impacting the salmon by the warming temperatures because salmon are used to living in a cold-water habitat.

Since the temperatures are increasing, mid-watershed elevations will switch from snow dominated to rain dominated. Higher climate temperatures lead to less snow and more rain, which is a major cause for the rivers’ temperatures to be rising. The increased water temperatures will stress migrating adults, may disrupt growth and downstream migration timing of juveniles. As of right now, they are unsure of how much warming will wipe out the salmon population, but there have already been fish die offs from the rising water temperatures.

Contine reading →

Is “Interstellar” our future?

aweltin 4 Comments

The climate change that we are bringing to Earth is believed to be nearly irreversible. Most automobile, electric, and fossil fuel companies are taking steps to minimize and maybe even neutralize the damage that their industries are causing to our planet. Although less emissions in our atmosphere is ideal and necessary, many scientists believe that the damage is already done.

With our population increasing every year, our societies need to look past just the emissions and pollution to our planet, but also focus on how we are planning to sustain human life. Food and clean water are necessary for our prosperity. But how long until our planet cannot sustain the population? One day our food supplies and resources will be drained and humans will have no way to provide food for their families. Modern farming can only provide so much before the land refuses to provide the amount our world’s population will need in the near future.

The first week of class we were asked what questions we had about climate change. Mine was, “How will climate change effect how or what we eat in the future?”. This led me to think about the recent blockbuster film by Christopher Nolan “Interstellar” starring Matthew McConaughey. The film is based around the main character who is a farmer in around the year 2070 (an exact date is never given). The conditions of this society is that of the dust bowl in the 1930s. Dust is killing all the crops every year as well as causing major health problems to those who live in the dusty areas. On top of this, a disease called blight is spreading and replacing the oxygen in the air with nitrogen. These factors are making it impossible for farmers to provide for their families, let alone a population of nearly 9 billion people.

The storyline of this film is that Coop (McConaughey) locates NASA after it has been shut down for almost 20 years. They were working on a way to leave Earth and find a new planet that humans can prosper on. NASA’s efforts were unsuccessful and the government shut them down in order to stop providing the population with false hope. After they locate a worm hole that has possibilities to reach 3 planets possible of holding human life, Coop is sent on one last mission in an effort to find humans a new home.

I am not here claiming that we will one day be able to go through a worm hole and find a new planet to prosper on. I am more focusing on the inevitable problems that Earth is going to face in the not so distant future if something doesn’t change. Someday our population will reach a breaking point and our planet will not be able to provide enough food. Famine and starvation will spread through the underdeveloped areas, while the developed countries will have wars over food, water, and other resources. Farmers today are more important than ever. They are more vital to the human race every year as our population increases and our planet perishes.  Contine reading →