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The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean, about 6.8 miles from the surface there lies an unseen ecosystem that is mostly unexplored. At 13,000 feet deep, there is no sunlight and the temperature is around it's freezing point. Beyond that point still lies an incredible variety of sea creatures that live under this mass amount of pressure that can be up to 500 atm. The deep sea has an incredible variety of life including many species of fish, crustaceans, corals, worms, and jellyfish. All of which have adapted through millions of years of evolution to embody their physical presence. The female anglerfish has a mouth that takes up half of its body that is embedded with fang like teeth ready to clamp on an inferior victim. Other fish may have massive eyes to see any existing light to avoid predators. Even bioluminescent fish that look like something from another planet have adapted to glow on certain parts of their body to attract prey. In order for humans to study these species and its vast landscape they have built incredible vehicles that withstand the immense pressure of the deep sea. Some vehicles are manned by the scientists themselves to get a firsthand look at what lies on the ocean floor while others are manned remotely attached to a cable from the boat. The deep sea is a largely unexplored ecosystem which explains why it always caught my eye. It is amazing to think that creatures can evolve over millions of years to function the way they do to play a vital part in its ecosystem.

Source: https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/deep-sea/deep-sea

The Carbon Cycle is a very well studied process that has been going on since the beginning of life on earth. Carbon much of the time is considered the “backbone” of organic life, and that really holds true when broken down from a chemistry standpoint. The carbon cycle allows us to observe how carbon moves through different mediums as fuel and bi-products from other cycles that bring carbon right back to where it started. Carbon is located in the atmosphere where it is then transferred to the biosphere through a familiar process known as photosynthesis. Basically, plants use energy from the sunlight to convert carbon dioxide to sugar molecules by pairing with hydrogens and oxygens from water molecules. Primary consumers now use the plant as food, ingesting those sugar molecules. Animals then respirate, excrete, and decompose back into the earth and atmosphere to complete the cycle. Carbon is stored both in the ocean and within different layers of the earth’s crust. In fact, the coal and fossil fuels that we use today contain carbon from ancient plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. Burning these fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide back into the environment where the cycle once began. Humans have made an impact on the carbon cycle, causing it to slightly change. We put mass amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere along with mining tons of limestone in order to make concrete. An abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a good thing, it causes a phenomenon known as ocean acidification caused by the oceans absorbance of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This messes with the balance of chemicals within the ocean water which give some species of fish a harder time than others.

Source: https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate-education-resources/carbon-cycle

The Nitrogen Cycle should be something we are all familiar with, but nitrogen is a key component when it comes to plant life. Without nitrogen, the plant's growth will be stunted, and produce much smaller fruits or flowers if produced at all. All fertilizers used are riddled with nitrogen in order to give the soil enough for the plants to have an adequate yield. However, it’s imperative that the right amount is calculated for the plants, otherwise runoff with excess nitrogen can be destructive to certain habitats. Nitrogen is often considered the “key” to life because it is important to the makeup of the nucleic acids that make up our DNA and RNA. The first step in the Nitrogen cycle is the fixation of nitrogen, or the movement of Nitrogen gas from the atmosphere to the soil. Energy is required to make nitrogen gas available for plant absorption, this can be done by intense pressure and heat, but it is most commonly done within the soil by nitrogen fixing bacteria. The same process is synthesized in aquaponics from my earlier post. The second step is mineralization, this occurs in the soil and is when microbes fix nitrogen from decomposed material or manure that can be used by plants once more, this often results in excess ammonia. The third step is nitrification, which also occurs within the soil. This is where the ammonia created from mineralization is converted to nitrites and nitrates, nitrites will eventually be converted to nitrates by more nitrogen fixing bacteria but the nitrates are directly edible for plants and will be used as food. The last step is denitrification, where bacteria convert nitrates into nitrogen gas which is released back into the atmosphere.

Source: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-nitrogen-cycle-processes-players-and-human-15644632/

We can all agree that plastics have been beneficial to humans and the world in a multitude of ways. It has helped advance technology especially in the medical industry where it has allowed us to do things we have never done before. There is much controversy over the disposal of used plastics and lack of recycling by the people. One of the more sobering thoughts of plastics is the fact that we are not using them at a sustainable rate. As mentioned in some of my previous blog posts plastic will find its way to the ocean and other habitats if not disposed of in the correct way. A major problem is the fact that one-time use plastics are very popular because they are cheap and you don't have to clean them. A lot of plastic is also used for packaging products where they are immediately discarded with no thought of recycling. How we get rid of trash at the landfill is still mind boggling to me, we wrap our trash in plastic and bury it in the ground. There is still a limited amount of space for our trash and it just keeps piling up. There are some solutions like reduction of plastic in products, strategies to reduce littering, and continued awareness of recycling. The environment is currently taking a hard hit from the plastics already produced and will continue to be damaged over the years until we find a more cost effective alternative. Sustainability is great and everyone should strive for it, but most of the time humans choose the cheaper and easier route.

Source: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2009.0053

Whether it’s indoor or outdoor, aquaponics takes the cake when it comes to sustainable farming techniques. If set up correctly and the base principals are understood, an aquaponics garden will need minimal maintenance the only required maintenance will be feeding the fish and monitoring the ammonia and temperature levels. There are multiple different set ups and each of them have their unique qualities. The general idea of aquaponics is to mimic a real life ecosystem by using fish and their waste to provide adequate nutrition to grow plants. Aquaponics systems are generally hydroponics based, by that I mean similar set-ups are used like DWC, NFT, and vertical. Typically there are two types of media, one type of media for the actual plants to grow, and the other media for the nitrogen fixing bacteria. However there is a media based variation of aquaponics where the plants and bacteria use the same media to grow in. Nitrogen fixing bacteria require surface area to live and do their job, so a good bacteria grow media will be cla aggregate, and lava rocks.The fish tank is separate from the grow beds, a pump takes the ammonia and fish waste water to the bacteria grow beds where they will convert nitrites to nitrates, which is consumable to plants. The plants absorb the nitrates as food leaving clean water to drain back into the fish tank. You can be very creative in making your own set up using different variations of hydroponics as long as you understand the mechanism behind the entire cycle.

Source: https://www.theaquaponicsource.com/what-is-aquaponics/

When it comes to sustainable farming, it seems the most effective way of conserving resources seems to be indoor vertical farming. Vertical farming seems to still be a slightly foreign concept used by a limited amount of people. As our resources and soil nutrients deplete along with the overuse of farmland a more sustainable way of providing food for millions has been slowly in development. With indoor vertical farming, the farmer has complete dictation of the carbon dioxide levels, humidity levels, and temperature. Getting freshly picked fruits and vegetables is relatively rare in the colder winter months, depending on where you live. With indoor farming, that can quickly become a reality with using 95% less soil. There are endless opportunities when it comes to vertical farming and countless growing techniques that have yet to be mastered. Adding vertical grow operations in urban areas could take a significant amount of pressure off of conventional methods of farming. With the projected world population being around 9 billion by 2050, such strides are needed to constantly provide fresh locally grown foods to such a massive growing population. More research is going into the sustainable aspect of vertical farming as far as plant breeding, engineering, and pest management. Vertical farming is a very healthy alternative to conventional agriculture where millions of miles of soil are being depleted of nutrients time and time again creating water runoff pollution and algal blooms. If you ask me, everyone should have their own type of garden whether it be indoor, vertical, or outdoor. Any individual who does that takes pressure off of the agriculture industry, even if it's a miniscule amount.

Source: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2018/08/14/vertical-farming-future

Genetically Modified Organisms are genetically engineered crops that are very common in main produce when walking through a grocery store. There is a very compelling argument for GMOs as well as why we should avoid them. To put it plainly, GMO’s are engineered through selective breeding in order to get the genetic expression desired. Some of these include resistance from disease and insects, along with a tolerance to herbicides to allow farmers to better control the pests that seem to give organic farmers a problem. Genetically engineering plants have made a tremendous difference considering the fact that you can modify plants to be more nutrient dense, resistant to drought, and more durable as far as delicacy and bruising. All of these pros will fulfill the desire of a higher crop yield that every farmer strives for. Since GMOs are a fairly recent thing, people are skeptical of their long term health impacts. To keep an even playing field, GMO products are still held to the same standard as non-GMO products as far as safety requirements. However, there is still a large number of people who link health problems like cancer, allergies, and antibiotic resistance to GMO products. I suggest doing research and coming to your own conclusion as far as health safety and whether you should consume these products. Although there isn’t much research, some articles have a compelling argument, which means it is still good to have a piece of mind when consuming a genetically modified product. 

Source: https://gmoanswers.com/gmo-basics?gclid=CjwKCAjw1cX0BRBmEiwAy9tKHreKf5qhNuNPHJxnBkwW2RH90ojaukkiXhmikAYLni6yAQ-LSP7yUBoCHLMQAvD_BwE

Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/gmos-pros-and-cons#labeling

When people think about polluting the ocean, we tend to mostly think of sewage, runoff, plastics, etc. After learning about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, my perspective on ocean pollution and littering drastically changed. As we all know, oceans have currents. Many are small, but the Pacific Ocean’s currents tend to gather up trash and eventually bring it all to one place. The pacific trash vortex is split into two different patches,  the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Easter Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. The vortex covers 7.7 million square miles with the East and West garbage patches being at ends. The Eastern Garbage patch is an estimated 610,000 square miles wide and who knows how deep. Estimates suggest that there is over 100,000 tons of debris in the patch along with an estimated 1.8 trillion plastic pieces. Diagrams suggest that the depth of the debris is much deeper in the central part of the patch compared to the outer areas. As you can imagine there are many things that could go wrong with this much plastic in the ocean. Many are unaware of the garbage vortex and are simply ignorant to how so much plastic in the ocean is detrimental to marine life. Observations of plastics in the ocean have been recorded since the 1970’s. As the sun, water, and weather break down the mega plastics they eventually turn into macro plastics, then mes plastics, and eventually micro plastics. When it has reached the level of micro plastics, it is very hard to collect, and is often mistaken for fish food. Ever since I have learned about the problems with trash in the ocean, I have become much more aware of how I dispose of plastics and trash making sure that it makes it to a landfill.

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

Source: https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

 The bright and colorful coral reefs have existed and thrived for hundreds and billions of years making them essential to many organism’s life cycles and the ocean's biodiversity. In recent years, there are reports of the “bleaching” of coral reefs around the world. Coral reefs are already locally under stress through over fishing and pollution, now there seems to be a problem globally. This global problem of coral bleaching is directly related to global warming due to the increase in ocean temperature. Coral is dependent on algae for its survival and vice versa. When coral is exposed to some sudden environmental change, in this case temperature, the coral expels the algae living within its tissues leaving it a dead white color. Luckily, coral is resilient enough to recover from bleaching, but the longer and more intense the changes are the mortality chances increase. Reefs can take decades to recover from a bleaching event, but it completely depends on what we as humans do to help preserve these vital underwater communities. Carbon pollution seems to be the main culprit in the cause of rising ocean temperature, which is caused completely by humans. If you ask me, we have an inherent duty to help preserve the coral reefs and other ecosystems destroyed by climate change because we are ultimately at fault. If we continue expelling carbon emissions at this rate then the earth’s coral reefs are destined for catastrophe with no return. The only thing we can do as individuals is reduce our carbon footprint and spread the word about our slowly disappearing coral reefs. 

Source: https://www.marineconservation.org.au/coral-bleaching/

Hydroponics is a great way to start and maintain your own indoor/outdoor gardening system. You are able to grow organic vegetables in a sustainable way in order to reduce your carbon footprint. When it comes to hydroponics, as long as you understand the nutrient cycle, you can utilize some creativity in how you design your set up. There are many variations when it comes to the set up, but there are three main hydroponic techniques. The first one, Deep Water Culture is suitable for a beginner because it is arguably the easiest growth system due to its low maintenance and relatively easy set up. In a DWC system the entire root of the plant is suspended into a nutrient solution that is constantly aerated by air stones in order to provide oxygen to the roots. This allows the plant to have access to water and nutrients constantly, in turn creating a much larger and quicker yield.  Another method is the Nutrient Film Technique, similar to the DWC system, but only the tips of the roots are suspended in a nutrient solution. This time the nutrient solution slowly runs through the roots due to its tilted set up. This allows a constant circulation of fresh nutrient solution and exceptional air availability to the roots allowing a very fast growing system. The last hydroponics method is the flood and drain technique. For this set up each of the plants will be planted within a grow medium where the medium will be flooded with nutrient solution and slowly drain back into the reservoir at certain intervals. The kind of plant also has an impact on which technique you should use. Some plants prefer to have a constant flow of nutrients, and for that you would use the NFT and/or DWC systems. However, some plants flourish in a slight dry period that the Flood and Drain Technique provides. In any circumstance, hydroponics is an ideal sustainable way to provide healthy organic vegetables.

Source: https://www.fullbloomgreenhouse.com/hydroponic-systems-101/

Humans by nature seek the easiest route to a destination. In terms of energy, humans want what is convenient. A high energy output with easy access. With the fossil fuel industry still booming, it’s always been easily accessible to people to the point where almost everyone relies on it for daily living routines. For many years people have neglected to realize what our impact has on the earth’s atmosphere by constantly pumping chemicals and emissions into the air. It’s something that not too many people really think about and that needs to change quickly. Up to their banning in 1987, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were legal and were in many products like refrigerators and spray cans. They were also found in factory wastes being pumped into the atmosphere. We quickly found that this was greatly affecting our earth’s ozone layer, tearing massive holes in it allowing deadly strong ultraviolet rays from the sun to penetrate to the earth’s surface. Many chemicals were banned in products and fuels by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established in 1987. Ever since the discovery of the ozone holes, there have been efforts in recovering our ozone layer. So far, we are doing a great job in doing so by regulating what goes into products and what comes out of them. By 2005, the consumption of ozone depleting chemicals that were under these bannings had fallen about 90-95% in the countries that are under the agreement. With a world still ran by fossil fuels, the switch to renewable energy will take many years. However, it’s something that humanity really needs to start talking about because fossil fuels are projected to run dry within the 21st century.

Source: http://www.theozonehole.com/

When it comes to nutrition, there are many effective ways for a person to get their daily intake. Eating mature fruits and vegetables is a good way to get that nutrition but there is actually a more effective way of getting that same nutrition, and that is through microgreens. Microgreens are any kinds of vegetables or plants that are harvested at only about 7 to 14 days old, typically when the baby plant is about one to three inches tall. These small greens are harvested and can be put into salads, and be garnished with soups and sandwiches, but you can really do whatever you want with them. They are bursting with nutrition because they are growing at an amazing rate at that age. Microgreens are typically grown inside on trays where their environment is controlled and able to be closely monitored. The USDA’s agricultural research team found that when the mature plant and the microgreens of the same plant are weighed out in equal weights, the microgreens contain up to five times more nutrients than that of the mature plant. The only drawback to microgreens is that they don’t have too long of a shelf life once they are harvested. They are only good for a couple of days after without refrigeration, but with refrigeration they can last weeks. Microgreens are the kind of thing that you can do yourself at home and can be as easy as growing them right next to your window! That’s an immense amount of nutrition grown easy and fresh right from your home.

Source: https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/nutrition/what-are-microgreens/

Agriculture has been around since the beginning of the human race. Traditional techniques were enough to feed the population for thousands of years. Just recently relative to the age of the earth have humans revolutionized agriculture through mechanized farming. Through mechanized farming humans can now use a great amount of land to produce crops to support the population. With the revolution of transportation, it’s hard to come by freshly picked organic crops. With technology advancing and more studies being done on indoor crop growing, the next agricultural boom is for sure to be through vertical farming. Vertical farming is a simple idea but has only been recently discovered due to experimenting and technological advancements. It’s the idea of putting the plant in it’s ideal conditions and supplying it with a constant feed of oxygen, water, and nutrition in order to yield a maximum product. Vertical farming is often paired with some kind of hydroponic growing technique. One of the most common hydroponic techniques for vertical farming is the nutrient film system. This system uses a pump to pump nutrient solution from a reservoir to the high end of the system where gravity will run the solution water through tubes containing the plant roots as shown in the picture below. At the bottom of the system , the remaining water drips back into the reservoir containing an air stone to oxygenate the water so it can be used again. There are more techniques but this is one of the most common ones to be used commercially. With these systems being indoor, you must use artificial light to supply the plants with all the ingredients for photosynthesis. Since this all takes place indoor in a controlled environment, the risk for contamination and pests are minimized and are able to supply the population year round, no matter the season.

Source: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2018/08/14/vertical-farming-future

Water treatment facilities are something that I never really paid any attention to because most of them are hidden off somewhere and away from everything. It’s something that you don’t really think about because we just enjoy the end result and benefit of it. The water treatment facility that we visited uses a natural way of cleaning the water with microorganisms to ensure the water is completely safe and free of any cleansing chemicals. For the preliminary treatment, the untreated water is pulled by a massive screw pump that hauls millions of gallons of water per day. From here, the water is put through a screen to separate the rags and solids from the water. The last section of the preliminary treatment is where, the water then moves to these long channels where the grit and grease from the water will separate and sit on top, the grit and grease are collected while the water moves to the next station. This next station is where the microorganisms become involved. The water is put into an oxidation mixer where the microorganisms are supplied with oxygen so they can break down the remaining waste in the water. After this the water is moved to a massive settling tank where a collection skimmer collects the left over micro solids and dead microorganisms. From this the water will move to the final stage which is where the water is re-oxygenated and tested for various levels of chemicals. Once the chemical levels are up to standard, the water is pumped and released into a stream back into the environment. It is important to perform chemical testing because the water may contain too much of a certain chemical and can affect wildlife and humans directly.

Source: Class Notes

Our first field trip in environmental science class was to a passive house. A passive house is a house where the use of energy is very limited in the sense of conserving energy and electricity to reduce the ecological footprint of sustainable living as much as possible. The goal of a passive house owner is to have a net energy value of zero. By installing solar panels, rain collection systems, and passive heating and cooling systems, this goal is possible to meet. The motivation for passive house owners is typically an overall concern for climate change and the future of fossil fuels as we consistently use them up. The first step to creating a passive house is making sure that your house is suitable for the job, meaning it’s not oversized because the more space there is, the more energy is required. Next you must make sure the insulation of your house is airtight and thick enough to hold in coolness and heat. The house that we went to didn’t have thick enough walls, so the owner built a false wall on the outside all around his house and filled the gap between the wall and false wall with insulation. A common technique for heating in passive houses is capturing the natural heat from the sun by using a thermal solar panel that will carry the naturally heated air straight to an air pump system designed to use minimum wattage that will pump that air into tubs distributed throughout the house. For cooling, he had installed an energy recovery ventilation system (ERV) in the crawl space underneath his house. With air being naturally cooler under the house, it maintains a steady cool temperature throughout the seasons and saves mass amounts of money in air conditioning costs. The upfront costs of these systems may be a little eyebrow raising but will pay off in the long run with no energy bill. In fact, depending on where you live, if you produce more energy than you use, the electricity company may pay you per watt hour for contributing to the power grid.

Source: Class Notes

With fossil fuels depleting exponentially fast, the big question is how long will it take to turn completely to renewable resources for energy. With multiple technologies being developed, many show promise to sustain our energy capacity, but all could use improvement. The technology for harvesting wind power is an ingenious idea that has been around for years. Now that our fossil fuels are on the brink of scarcity, technological advancements have been pushed to overdrive to sustain our energy consumption. Improved designs of wind turbines give wind energy a good chance in being part of the frontier of clean, renewable power. These designs include larger rotors, taller towers, and more efficient energy capture technology. These new designs with a higher hub level will increase the amount of space available for wind farms, making them seem more sustainable. The cost of these new designs will be more up front but will create 10x the amount of energy than turbines in use at the moment, which will be better off in the long run. Height of newly developed wind turbines are limited solely because the regulated bridge heights for transportation, this is because taller turbines, require a larger base diameter. Along with the expansion of clean, renewable energy, just wind energy is projected to create over 70,000 new jobs in the United States. A large challenge with wind farms is the cost of transition lines from the actual wind turbine to the power grid. In order for wind power to reach its potential, the infrastructure of transition lines must be improved as wind farms expand and reach new locations. Another promising side to wind energy is offshore wind farms. Offshore wind farms produce on average more than onshore wind farms because the wind is stronger and more consistent. With roughly 50% of the United States population on the coasts, offshore wind farms seem like the way to go. Overall, wind turbines are a very efficient way of obtaining clean, renewable energy with only an upfront cost. I believe that these techniques and technologies will play a huge part in the crossover from non-renewable to renewable resources.

Source: https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/mapping-frontier-new-wind-power-potential

http://www.mecal.eu/wind-energy

Crop fertilizers have been around since agriculture started. It started from putting human and animal waste back into the soil to producing pure artificial fertilizers in the lab. The study of plant nutrition didn’t take place until the 1700’s but it has come a long way from then. Not all commercial farmers have turned to artificial fertilizers, in fact, many farmers still use traditional ways of spreading animal waste. Another way modern farmers keep nutrient dense soil is by applying the leftover “cake” from a nearby water treatment facility. The substances in this “cake” contain nutrient rich organic materials but must be tested for the content concentration of certain bio metals like copper, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc, etc.. In fact, all fertilizers made from waste products on animals or humans must be tested for these metals, and also ammonia. Like all things, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Because of the soil depletion after one crop cycle, farmers are forced to apply these fertilizers again and again, which causes the surrounding areas to be severely polluted with excess nitrogen and phosphorus. Nutrient runoff from fertilizers and pesticides is a very big problem that causes extreme difficulties for surrounding ecosystems and communities. For example, an algal bloom caused by excess nutrients may completely deplete a pond of life after a period of time. New technologies are being developed for a more cleaner way fertilizing crops that won’t harm the environment in any way. Bio-fertilizers seem to have good potential when it comes to providing crops with adequate nutrients without creating a significant amount of pollution. Bio-fertilizers are substances that contain microorganisms which attach to a plant seed and increases the availability of the primary nutrients needed. Research is being done on what strains of bacteria found in fertilizers more benefit the growing of certain plants. Also, all bio-fertilizers act to suppress the amount of diseases and pathogens throughout the soil, which will improve the crop’s overall health. There is only one drawback that has shown so far in bio-fertilizers, this is that all testing has been done in laboratories and in ideal conditions. There is only one way to find out if bio-fertilizers will truly work, and that is to put them to use outside of the labs and into the fields. However, bio-fertilizers still show great potential for indoor growing.

Source: https://www.liqui-grow.com/bio-fertilizers-soil-fertility-fertilizer-technology/

https://www.ohiofarmer.com/crops/pros-and-cons-granular-and-liquid-fertilizers