Is Mass Tourism Destroying Cities? : Negative Impacts of Tourism

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Rashid Faridi

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On Comparing 30-Year “Climate Normals”

Posted on September 3, 2021 by Rashid Faridi

Iowa Climate Science Education's avatarIowa Climate Science Education

What is normal weather?

One doesn?t spend much time learning about climatology before coming across a marvelous sound bite: ?Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.? The catch is it?s not clear how to measure what you expect. We?re a lot better at measuring weather.

The whole topic of measuring expectations deserves its own web page, as does the problem that we humans are pretty terrible at remembering weather, even extreme weather, and sometimes even recognizing extreme weather.

One way we define ?normal? is that every ten years climatologists collect and average the previous thirty years of weather data, then release that as the ?new normals.? While that has a lot of shortcomings, and some are mentioned below, it all works out pretty well when comparing the ?current normals? to the ?current weather.? However, when new normals are released, and are different than the old…

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The Rome of America: Teotihuacan

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Rashid Faridi

At its peak, around 200 AD, Teotihuacan counted a population of well over 125,000, boasted hundreds of temples and palaces, and three massive pyramids named after the Sun, the Moon, and the Feathered Serpent (itself a symbol of the planet Venus). The ruins of what is often called the Rome of America , Teotihuacan, lie a mere 50 km (31 miles) North-East of modern day Mexico City.

By the time the Aztecs came onto the scene, at the beginning of the 14th century AD, the ancient metropolis already lay in ruins, its great pyramids covered in shrubs and vegetation. No doubt the Aztecs were left with the same questions that every modern visitor to the site is confronted with today. Who were the mysterious builders of Teotihuacan, and where had they come from? To the Aztecs, the answer to this question could be no other than the Gods themselves.

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Urban Pollution : A Pertinent Problem for Optimum Urban Growth

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Rashid Faridi

An environment is made-up of the circumstances, objects or conditions by which a human, animal, plant or object is surrounded. The term environment’ generally refers to the natural world as perceived by humans.

‘Pollution’ refers to harmful environmental contaminants and to the act or the process of polluting the environment. It is adding the unsirable. Generally, the process needs to concern human activity, which results in pollution. Even relatively benign products of human activity are liable to be regarded as pollution, if they precipitate negative effects later on.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines pollution as ‘the presence of a substance in the environment that because of its chemical composition or quality prevents the functioning of natural processes and produces undesirable environmental and health effects.’ Any material that causes the pollution is called a ‘pollutant.’

Pollution can be defined according to its contextual efficacy . Algal Blooms and the resultant eutrophication (the enrichment of an aquatic system by the addition of nutrients primarily caused by leached phosphorous or nitrogen containing compounds in lakes, rivers, bays or other semi-enclosed waters) of lakes and coastal ocean is con­sidered as pollution, when it is fuelled by the nutrients from industrial, agricultural or residential run-off.

Although carbondioxide (CO2) is not toxic and actually stimulates plant growth but because it is a greenhouse gas that fosters global warming, it is sometimes referred to as pollution. More often and more properly, CO2 from such sources as combustion of fuels is labelled neutrally as ’emission.’

Traditional forms of pollution include air pollution, water pollution, while a broader interpretation of the word has led to the ideas of ship pollution, light pollution and noise pollution.

Pollutants are thought to play a part in a variety of maladies including cancer, lupus, immune diseases, allergies and asthma

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