Tag Archive for Polar bears

What If All The Ice on Earth Melted

What If All The Ice on Earth MeltedScience Insider gives us a look at a world where all the ice on Earth melted. This should be a dose of reality to the 53% of Americans who believe global warming will not harm them. The video shows the dire future of our planet as the oceans shallow major cities across the globe.

 

The encyclopedia Britannica says that global warming is the increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is caused primarily by air pollution. In 2007 the UN forecast that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase up to 7.2 °F. The UN is 90% certain that most of the warming observed over the previous half century could be attributed to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities.

Polar ice caps and mountain glaciers melt

Many scientists predict that such an increase in temperature would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly. This will cause significant changes to the Earth. The changes include raising sea levels, and new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall. These changes will seriously disrupt food production in certain regions.

How you can help Ukraine!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedInFacebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Earth Day 2021

Earth Day 2021Earth Day is April 22nd. It is the 51st Earth Day. Earth Day is “celebrated around the world when people take time to appreciate humankind’s connection to the Earth and to raise awareness of our environmental challenges,” according to the Earth Day Initiative.

environmental protectionMore than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year. Earth day is the largest civic observance in the world. At the first Earth Day in 1970, concerned citizens gathered across the country to learn about environmental degradation. The activism that followed led to the passing of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. These are still landmark legislation in environmental protection.

How to commemorate Earth Day

To commemorate Earth Day 2021, here are some ways to make your tech greener.

  • Reuse Old PC’s – Retired hardware can be used for tasks with lower resource requirements. They can also be re-sold – after wiping your data, of course.
  • Responsibly RecycleResponsibly Recycle – The toxic materials in electronic devices can contain dangerous materials like Cadmium, Mercury Hexavalent chromium and Flame retardants.  Be sure to recycle your electronic waste responsibly to avoid leakage of harmful substances into the environment.
  • User more efficient hardwareSolid State Disk Drives (SSDs) – use less energy than traditional HDDs. An SSD can extend your laptop battery life by 30-45 minutes on average. And they are quitier too.
  • Skip the printer – Use online communications. By skipping the printer you can save a tree and save the money you waste on printer ink. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the average person makes 10,000 copies or prints annually at the office plus printing at home.
  • Skip the daily commute – Thanks to COVID, most of use are telecommuting now but – skipping the  commuting to the job can reduce green house gas CO2 that causes climate change. And you can save some cash paying for gas.

Stay safe out there !

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedInFacebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

What the Internet Should Be Like

Take some time away from you FB feed while locked down and expand your horizons. Check out something on the Internet that might make you think. Here are a few ways to expand your online horizons.

Neal Agarwal at neal.fun is trying to make the web more fun. The developer created The Deep Sea. With the interactive visualization of the ocean, you can scroll, scroll, and then scroll some more to see what sea life (and other things) reside at various depths of the Oceans.

The deep-sea

What the Internet Should Be Like
Thanks to the site, you can see how deep-sea critters can dive.

The size of space

Another site Mr. Agarwal developed is The Size of Space. This one is an interactive visualization of the scale of the universe.

What the Internet Should Be LikeAt this site, you can compare the size of a Saturn 5 rocket that took NASA astronauts to the moon to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our home.

Detroit Industry

The Detroit Institute of Arts has an online presence. One magnificent artifact is “Detroit Industry.” The murals depict the development of industry history and Detroit. You can see the four-wall mural created by Diego Rivera in 1932-1933 online via Google’s Arts and Culture project.

"Detroit Industry" by Diego Rivera. 1932-1933

Toilet Paper Calculator

Of course, we can’t ignore current events. The Toilet Paper Calculator by Nathan Yau offers a tool to estimate how TP much you need to hoard buy to survive the COVID lock-down.

The Toilet Paper Calculator

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This is the internet I signed up for.

Stay safe out there!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedInFacebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Earth Day 2010

Every day is Earth Day …

Earth Day

…When your world is disappearing

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedInFacebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

LCDs Increase Global Warming

LCDs Increase Global WarmingAn article on NewScientist reveals an industrial chemical being used in ever larger quantities to make flat-screen televisions may be making global warming worse. The gas, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) was developed an alternative to perfluorocarbons (PFCs) gases subject to the Kyoto protocol as a measure to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce Global Warming.

Kyoto protocolAs a greenhouse gas NF3 is 17,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide, yet is not covered by Kyoto because it was made in tiny amounts when the protocol was agreed in 1997. The electronics industry uses NF3 mainly to flush out the by-products of chemical vapor deposition, a process which deposits thin films onto glass surfaces for liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and onto silicon wafers for semiconductors.

Michael Prather of the University of California, Irvine, calculates that NF3 has a half-life in the atmosphere of 550 years. Mr. Prather puts the first global estimate of NF3 production at about 4,000 tons this year, and double that for next year. The potential global warming effect of currently manufactured NF3 is greater than both sulphur hexafluoride and PFCs individually.

nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) was developed an alternative to perfluorocarbons (PFCs)Mr. Prather agrees that switching to NF3 “probably was an improvement” for this reason, but he warns that NF3 is twice as potent as perfluorocarbons.  At least one manufacturer of LCDs is concerned about the global warming effect of its NF3 emissions. Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology says it has developed a process that uses pure fluorine instead of NF3, resulting in “zero greenhouse gas emissions”.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedInFacebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.