Josh

--May 18th 2013--

So this week, we watched Wall-E during the extended bio period; while most of the movie's mainstream audience would probably walk away from the movie assuming that it was just a kid's flick without any real message, Wall-E actually does have an important message: we need to stop abusing our environment, or soon it will become unable to sustain life. In the film, Earth has already been reduced to a shriveled husk by rampant commercialism/pollution, and most of Earth's population has fled to escape the consequences of their own actions; Wall-E (as in, the titular robot), is just one of many identical robots that have been left behind in an attempt to clean up the mess through trash compaction. However, the effort fails, and the movie opens with Wall-E as the lone "survivor", carrying out his directive in a futile effort. While this concept of a destroyed earth might seem like paranoid fantasy, it isn't too far off. The best example of this concept would be China. [|Beijing smog] [] [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Industrial_pollution]

Simply put, China is destroying the environment around it. And its gotten so bad that their pollution isn't just contaminating nearby areas like Korea and Japan, but it has even managed to spread to America through the air! People in China are suffering obviously: citizens can't go outside without putting themselves at risk for horrible health problems, the Chinese ministry of Health admits that cancer caused by industrial pollution is the leading cause of death, and 500 million citizens have no access to clean drinking water. These are the statistics that the Chinese government has allowed to be made public; they are still withholding countless statistics for fear of "social unrest". But what can we do about it? Simple: we need to put more pressure on China for enviromental reform. As a nation, we need to tell China that what they are doing is unacceptable. Perhaps we could put a tariff on imports from China until they clean up their mess. Point is, we need to do something, anything, to get the Chinese government to do something.

This is unrelated to the Chinese pollution, but this is a short satire of the global warming issue done by Futurama that I really enjoy (and its quite accurate too). media type="youtube" key="2taViFH_6_Y" width="420" height="315"

--May 25th 2013--

Today when I checked the wikispace, I noticed that Allen Tang had posted in my page's discussion tab; he agreed with my earlier point, but he also brought up another interesting argument: The US in general is all too willing to cripple the environment if it means more cash flowing in. In fact, the US is a big factor in China's pollution problem, as it tends to outsource industrial production to China, where production costs are so much cheaper. However, in China environmental policies are much more lax (Too relaxed!), which results in things like this: [|Coverage of the Pearl River's pollution problem (some swearing)]

Unfortunately, the Chinese government doesn't really care about their environment as long as they keep getting money from American companies, and American companies in turn don't care about the problems they are causing as long as they can keep making profits off cheap products. Worse still, the people in the political scene with the most influence don't care about what the companies are doing as long as they keep getting paid off by company lobbyists! As Allen mentioned, our nations have to cooperate to bring about environmental reform, but the problem is, why would the nations cooperate for reform as long they are getting money from each other? Sad as it is to say, money conquers all other interests in the eyes of most political party members, and as long as these people have a say, things won't change. But how can we start change? The first thing we need to do is make more people aware about our environment and teach them how to appreciate nature again. Once more people are aware of our environment, they'll realize what big industries are doing, and they'll act on it. We live in a democratic society where the majority vote rules; if people want change, they'll get change, but they need to be informed in order for them to realize that they want change. Of course, big industry is aware of this, and they're working hard to keep people ignorant, but we can stop that as long as we can educate the public.

--June 1st 2013--

So, I decided to think a little more positive this week, and focus on an invention I found while Googling. It isn't exactly a new invention (invented in 2005), but it is still in active circulation, and it is still making a pretty big impact in people's lives. This is a "LifeStraw". In class, we watched a Ted talk about a new water bottle that could filter out the pollutants, viruses, and bacteria from contaminated water to make fresh, drinkable water. The LifeStraw is essentially the same thing, but as a portable straw: it filters out 99.9999% of bacteria, while filtering out 99.9% of parasites, and one LifeStraw can filter 1000 liters of water. All you have to do is put one end of the straw in the water, and suck on the other end! The suction forces the water through .2 micron diameter filters, purifying the water. While the straw is a bit too expensive for the developing countries it targets, the straw has been given away for free time to time; more specifically, it was given away during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2010 Pakistan floods , and 2011 Thailand floods. media type="youtube" key="Unr565H9r4o" width="420" height="315" This straw seems like it would be extremely helpful, but the main obstacle is definitely its high price. Of course, companies still have to make money I suppose...

You can learn more here: [] and here: [] -

--6/7/13--

Well, this is my last post here, and I so I decided I would end things by talking about this: Pictured is a newly developed lithium sulfur battery designed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is meant to soon replace lithium ion batteries as a safer, cheaper, and more energy efficient battery. The lithium sulfur battery has been tested to have 8 times the energy of standard ion batteries (although in practicality, its really 4 times since the sulfur batteries can only deliver half the voltage), and in strong contrast with ion batteries, which require an expensive, highly flammable liquid electrolyte, the sulfur batteries use a solid, stable sulfur component as an electrolyte, which drastically drops manufacturing prices due to the abundance of sulfur. Lithium Sulfur batteries have actually been in development for decades, but the main issue has always been the sulfur's tendency to break down when used in a traditional liquid electrolyte. However, by using a solid electrolyte instead, the issue of sulfur breakdown has been eliminated. However, despite the breakthrough, the batteries are still in a developmental stage, and scientists are still working on introducing them to the market.

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