Author Archives: Matthew Pascazio

Global Perspective

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For my final blog post of the term, I will focus on Global Perspective. A global perspective is a viewpoint that attempts to understand the place of individuals, groups, cultures, and societies in the world and how they relate to each other. An example of a global perspective is studying the implications of economic policies on illegal drug use specifically the supply chain, where the drug is produced, and the local area where the drug is sold.
The link below provides information on the global perspective of climate change. In terms of the math part of this, According to The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from 280 ppm in the period 1000–1750 AD to 379 ppm in the year 2005. The concentration of methane in the atmosphere has more than doubled from 700 ppb in the period 1000–1750 AD, to reach a concentration of 1774 ppb in the year 2005. The concentrations of hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, SF6, and N2O have also increased. The tropospheric concentration of ozone has increased even though its stratospheric concentration has decreased.

 

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-5774-8_1#:~:text=The%20global%20mean%20surface%20temperature,warmed%20faster%20than%20the%20oceans.

 

 

global perspective

 

The Power of Hydro Electricity

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For this blog post, I chose to present information on Hydroelectric Power. It’s one of the oldest forms of renewable energy, which began use in 1950.

Hydroelectric power’s source of power is water and plants are usually located on or near a water source. The volume of the water flow and the change or fall in elevation is often referred to as head. The head from one point to another determines the amount of available energy in moving water. The greater the water flow and the higher the head, the more electricity a hydropower plant can produce.

There are about 1,450 conventional and 40 pumped-storage hydropower plants operating in the United States. The average lifespan of a hydropower facility is 100 years.

In 2021, hydroelectricity accounted for about 6.3% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation and 31.5% of total utility-scale renewable electricity generation.

Hydroelectric energy is sustainable because it relies on and uses the environment, benefits society, and can benefit the economy. It’s an affordable form of renewable energy that is more affordable than other renewable energy sources. Another reason why it’s sustainable is it’s been used for a long time.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydropower/https://

www.energy.gov/eere/water/hydropower-basicshttps://

www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/34916.pdf

 

2 Charts That Relate to Sustainability

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For this Blog assignment, I made 2 charts. The first chart is a scatter plot chart. The second chart is a line chart. I inserted the links to my charts at the bottom because I can’t figure out how to insert the charts on this blog post.

For the first chart, I found that the average family wastes 180 gallons of water per week. I got this from the link below. I took that number and multiplied it by 4 to find out how much they waste in a month. I multiplied the number of gallons wasted in a month and multiplied it by 2 then 3 then 4 all the way up to twelve to see how much water is wasted for each month in a year. My first chart shows how many gallons of water the average family wastes in a year.

https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts#:~:text=Water%20Stats,gallons%20of%20water%20annually%20nationwide.

For my second chart, I found out how many pounds of food are wasted by the average American in one month. I got this number from the first link below. I multiplied 20 by 1, 2, 3, all the way up to 12 to find the amount of food wasted for each month.

https://www.5280.com/2016/10/how-much-food-are-you-wasting/#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20wastes%20around,wastes%20nine%20pounds%20per%20week.

 

Chart 1: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-jinw_hxVzHjQrjhTdICHVJsv8g13ahH0ajJmawfEXU/edit?usp=sharing

Chart 2: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qin9nFouNjJ76o2g7SPIu-Onwz_c8ffmmFuWSRN7rSc/edit?usp=sharing

U.S. Health Care Affordability in 2020

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This article looks at health insurance coverage for adults in America during the first half of 2020. This article presents results from the Commonwealth Fund’s latest Biennial Health Insurance Survey, which assesses the extent and quality of coverage for U.S. working-age adults. The survey began in 2001 and has three measures to gauge the adequacy of insurance coverage. The first is whether or not people have insurance. The second is if they have insurance and whether they experienced a gap in coverage in the prior year. The third is whether high out-of-pocket costs and deductibles are causing them to be underinsured, despite having continuous coverage throughout the year.

The survey for this article began in January of 2020. A nationally representative sample of 4,272 adults ages 19 to 64 was interviewed about their health insurance coverage through June 5.

The article gives important highlights of the survey, explains who is underinsured, and gives a graph that shows the percentage change of people that are underinsured over ten years.

The article goes on to present many graphs that present the percentage of ethnic groups who are uninsured, the change over time of adults in employer plans that are underinsured, change over time of the percentage of adults with a share of private insurance with deductibles of $1,000 or more, the percentage of people with inadequate insurance coverage that have more problems paying medical bills, the percentage of medical debt that leaves people with lingering financial problems, the percentage of uninsured or underinsured adults who often avoid or delay getting needed health care and medications, the percentage of people with higher deductibles who report financial problems more frequently because of medical bills or delaying care because of cost, then finally the percentage of adults who look for but do not buy plans in the individual market or marketplaces cite because of affordability.

The article concludes by explaining how the study was conducted.

This article and information relate to Social Injustice by showing the high uninsured rates of ethnic groups. The uninsured rates of black and Latino people are much higher than the uninsured rate of white people.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/aug/looming-crisis-health-coverage-2020-biennial

 

 

Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture

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As the population of the world continues to grow, this increases the demand for food. For every person that is born, it’s another mouth to feed and eventually another family to feed. Also, it’s important that the food being served to the public is safe to eat and good for health.

The main goals of food security and sustainable agriculture are to improve the global supply chain, decrease food losses and waste, and ensure that all who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition have access to nutritious food.

In 2012 world leaders met at the Conference on Sustainable Development and agreed that everyone has the right to have access to safe nutritious food, adequate food, and to be free from hunger. At the conference, the UN Secretary-General created and launched a Zero Hunger Challenge which called on governments, civil society, faith communities, the private sector, and research institutions to work together to end hunger and eliminate the worst forms of malnutrition.

The goals of the Zero Hunger Challenge are: to make sure there are zero stunted children under the age of two, 100% of people have access to adequate food all year round, make sure that all food systems are sustainable, there is a 100% increase in smallholder productivity and income, and that there is zero loss or waste of food.

These are big goals that can be accomplished over time. Some important math that is important for accomplishing these goals is the use of the rate of change. This is important to calculate how fast the population of the world is increasing or decreasing. To calculate the rate of change two important pieces of information is needed. The first is the amount of change that occurred and how long in terms of the time it took for that change to happen. The formula is the average amount of change divided by the amount of time required for the change to happen. This is a good way to calculate how much the population of the earth changed in one day, week, month, or year. Once these numbers are determined they will give a good idea of how much food needs to be produced and distributed.

https://sdgs.un.org/topics/food-security-and-nutrition-and-sustainable-agriculture

Solar and Wind Energy Working Together To Make A Difference

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Solar and Wind are both good forms of renewable energy. Very recently, during the first week of this month, photovoltaic energy (a form of Solar Energy) broke records in the Spanish, Italian, and French markets. This energy along with wind energy helped lower the prices of energy in most European Electricity markets.

The first week of April ended with a general increase in solar energy production compared to the previous week. In the Spanish Energy Market, the hourly photovoltaic energy production record was broken on April 7 with 11 313 MWh. On April 10th, the highest production in history was registered in the French market, at 8788 MWh. The Italian market reached the highest production with this technology since July 2014, with 12 310 MWh on the same day April 10th.

The increase in production in the Italian market was 48% and in the French market was 24%, compared to the previous week. In the German market, the increase in solar energy production was 11%.

Solar PV Energy Breaks Records & Together With Wind Energy Lowers European Electricity Markets Prices

Money Given To Wastewater and Drinking Water Infrastructure Projects In New York

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Good news for New York State. On April 7th, the Governor of New York State announced that the State Environmental Facilities Corporation Board of Directors has approved more than $189 million in funding for nine municipalities and public authorities for critical wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects. The purpose of these projects is to modernize the water systems to ensure safe drinking water for all New Yorkers. The nine municipal regions are the Capital Region, Central NY, Mid-Hudson area, Long Island, Mohawk Valley, New York City, the North Country area, and the Southern Tier area.
The Environmental Facilities Corporation is urging municipalities to participate in the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Watersheds Needs Survey which was kicked off in New York on March 1.

This should improve the water systems in New York over time.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-189-million-fund-water-infrastructure-projects

First Detection of Reduced Human Carbon Dioxide Emission

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There is a first for everything and for the first time researchers have found short-term regional fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide worldwide due to emissions from human activities. Scientists used a combination of NASA satellites and atmospheric modeling to discover this change in Carbon Dioxide emissions. The study used data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 to measure drops in CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 pandemic from space.

A few earlier studies investigated the effects of lockdowns on the levels of Carbon Dioxide emissions early in the pandemic. The studies found that global levels dropped slightly in 2020. Nonetheless, by combining OCO-2’s high-resolution data with modeling and data analysis tools from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System the team was able to narrow down which monthly changes were due to human activity and which were due to natural causes at a regional scale. This is how they were able to conclude that some of the drops in Carbon Dioxide levels were caused by human activities. The article goes on to explain what Carbon Dioxide is, and how to notice slight changes in its level in the atmosphere.

References

Evans, Jessica Merzdorf. “First-of-Its-Kind Detection of Reduced Human Carbon Dioxide Emissions.” Phys.Org – News and Articles on Science and Technology, Phys.org, 1 Apr. 2022, https://phys.org/news/2022-04-first-of-its-kind-human-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html.

Introduction to Matteo

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My name is Matthew Pascazio and Matteo is just a cool nickname. I’m an excellent musician and a great student. I graduated from Suny Schenectady County Community College with an Associate’s Degree in Performing Arts: Music and a Music Certificate. I graduated with a 3.4 (Pie) grade point average. I play the pipe organ, harpsichord, piano, and I compose music. I’m a big fan of college hockey (Go Union!) and rock & roll music. My favorite band is The Scorpions. Everyone buy and enjoy their new album “Rock Believer”, it’s absolutely awesome!

I love cooking and baking that’s why you see me in the kitchen.

So I’m all about music. I have 0 experience with or knowledge of Math of Sustainability. I will work smart and hard to get at least a C.

The Pipe Organ is powered by wind which is a sustainable form of energy.