Extinction

   Extinction is very important to human life. Extinction is part of natural selection which is the main part of evolution. If an animal can't survive in the environment that it is in then it is forced to evolve or die trying, but we humans have a habit of saving animals that are necessary and some that aren't necessary.

   As a human race we pour billions of dollars into saving the panda which doesn't do that much for the human race, but the panda is very cute so it has lots of people giving money to save them. Animals that are less cute then the but are more important than the panda are becoming extinct.

   A list that I created of five things that an animal would have to have to be reasonable to save the animal from extinction.

   1. The food web/ chain it is involved in.

If the animal goes extinct it might have a huge effect on the whole food web.

   2. What the animal eats.

If we were to save an animal we would need to feed it, so if the food that they eat would have to relatively cheap.

   3. Can the animal be kept in captivity

If the animal can't be kept in captivity, then it makes it that much difficult to bring the animal back from the brink of extinction

   4. How big is the animal.

If the animal is huge (say an elephant) then it would be much more difficult as well as expensive.

   5. If the animal is aquatic.

If the animal is aquatic, then we would have to have a tank for the animal to be kept in captivity.

   Here is a list of five endangered animals that would be perfect or horrible to be saved.

• Amur Leopard: The Amur leopard is very import to other animals in their food web, above and below itself. The animals above would have less food to eat, and the animals below would expand in numbers because the Amur Leopard wouldn't be there to eat them. The Amur Leopard is also adoptable, but having a leopard in my house I don't know if I would like that.
  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-leopard
• Blue Whale: Almost everyone knows what a Blue Whale is. This animal would be extremely difficult to be kept in captivity, so if we would try to save this animal then we would do so in the wild. The Blue Whale is also an aquatic animal meaning that it would be even more likely to be kept in the wild in a protected area making it much more difficult to keep track of.
  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/blue-whale
• Elephant: The Elephant is import to tree species because trees may require elephants to help with dispersal and germination They also help many other animals by crush small bushes making them easier to eat for small animals.
  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant
• Polar Bear: the polar bear is at the top of the food chain and controls a lot of the marine life in the Artic. The polar bear is also very important to the cultures of people who live in the Artic.
  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/polar-bear
• Panda: A Panda is only important to the bamboo forest in china, eating and spreading the bamboo.
  https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda

   Animals like the elephant and the blue whale would be difficult or impossible to be kept in captivity but would be the most useful to their environment, and animals like the panda aren’t really necessary to anything

Promised Land (movie)

   I watched the movie Promised Land. Which is all about a natural gas company called Global Crosspower Solutions which is trying to get the people of a small town in Pennsylvania. Global wanted to start drilling there because the town is very poor so they would accept almost any offer Global hands them.

*Spoiler* 
   Later on in the story the town decides that they should put the question if they should let Global actually come and start fracking (a way of gathering natural gas from shale.) to a vote. Which makes Global send a fake enviromental person who told a sob story about his farm that had pretty much died, but the whole thing was a lie and he left in "shame".
                                                                                                                          *End of Spoiler*
   At the end of the movie the town has all the information they need and go to vote, but we don't actually see what they voted, but if I was in that town I would say that Global should come and start fracking.

   I would say yes to the fracking because it has more pros. then cons. especially in that scenario.

Website Pro Fracking - http://info.drillinginfo.com/10-reasons-fracking-improves-american-lives/
Website Con Fracking - http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/26367-9-good-reasons-to-ban-fracking-immediately

Floods

   I wanted to see if my house was susceptible to flooding so I went to This website. I typed in my address and the website pulled up my street. Then what I did was clicked the button labeled interactive map. This opened a new tab with a map showing where my house was and the risk of flooding. My house had a minimal risk of flooding.

   Three techniques to prevent flooding are a dam, artificial levees, and seawalls. A dam is structure designed to block the flow of water in a river. A dam also can control the amount of water it releases, and most dams are built to capture the energy of the flowing water changing it into electricity. Artificial levees are built on the edge of rivers or other bodies of water and increase the height of the banks of the river making the river have to raise much higher in order to flood. The levees are normally made out of concrete or another impermeable (impermeable - not allowing fluids to pass through) material that is resistant to erosion. A seawall is a very simplistic approach to coastal flooding. All a seawall consists of is a relatively small wall built be the shore. A seawall is much like a levee but is built by the shore and would most likely extend higher then a levee.

   I live in the Newton - Conover area we don't have that many floods but we had one a couple years ago. I think that if we had used even just really small levees then we could have prevented most of the over flowing water.