Blog Entry Five

Noah Swart

Environmental Health and Safety

Mr. Moss

Sustainability

  Environmental Sustainability is a pretty self-explanatory title, but it in itself is a very complex. The earth isn’t self-sustaining and a lot of species on the planet use what they need. Humans are the only species on the planet that understand the earth’s sustainability, and are able to accurately measure it. Of course, it took humans a long period of time to actually get to the point of measuring out impact on the planet. We are the largest cause of global warming and Eco destruction all around the planet. The question then begins, what exactly is Environmental Sustainability and how are we able to measure and properly repair and not continue the destruction of our environment.

Triangle of Sustainability

  Environmental Sustainability refers to the sustainability of a certain measurable Eco system. This Eco system can be a small pond or the entire planet’s environment. The sustainability of these places is measured by what’s in them and if the sources of the ecosystem are able to be replenished on their own. If an ecosystem isn’t naturally able to be replenished then its Environmental Sustainability will only be till all its natural resources are used up. Humans can play either a positive or

negative role in environmental sustainability. If humans plant more trees or keep river systems cleaner that can elongate the sustainability of the area. If in the case of the rain-forest, humans cut down trees at a rate that newer trees cannot grow back in time then the sustainability is dramatically decreased.

  As for the Earth’s Environmental Sustainability, that can be a lot trickier to measure. We have to take into account how quickly all the natural resources of the planet are being used up and why. Along with this we have to understand what natural resources mean more to the Earth as a whole. We know that we need oxygen to breath and that trees are of great importance to this sustainability. With this knowledge we have set environmental standards for how many trees are allowed to be cut down in certain areas, and if certain logging efforts could potentially damage an important ecosystem then certain steps are made to prevent that logging of the area.

  Environmental Sustainability, itself, is a very complicated field that requires a lot of knowledge of particular and wide range ecosystems.  This factor leads to a lot of confusion in the overall sustainability of the Earth, some believe we are eventually doomed to fail as a planet while others see the planet as a perfectly pristine natural resource that belongs to humans as free use. Both of these conceptions of the planet are of course wrong, and the planets sustainability is fully within our reaches. The only problem is that society as a whole is either unwilling or unknowingly allowing the destruction of our planet to continue unchecked.

Noah Swart

Blog Topic 4

Stress and how we deal with it

Environmental Health and safety

Stress in itself is seen in many different ways by each person and cultures. Some societies even see stress as an indicator of a hard worker. This social standard causes a problem however, as stress is not good for the body. Although, to be able to treat and assist in stress relief we first need to be able to location the stress indicator and what one can do to relieve this indicator. It can be as easy as changing your perspective on life or where you fit in life. However, it can be as difficult as someone you’re close with who can cause your stress. This means that you have to find a way to cope successfully with this stress, or manage in it such a way that your stress won’t effect you later in life.

There are multiple methods to successfully dealing with stress

The feeling of stress

, but a lot rely on the individual to understand when they are stressed and why. One key way to relieving stress is to participate in physical activities, working your body without putting physical stress on yourself can greatly reduce your stress levels. You can even mix two stress relievers in one, by conjoining in physical activates and social activities at the same time can greatly help. Of course, you can always work your way around life avoiding stress, but it does find its way to sneak up on you, without even seeing stressful, until the time hits. By altering your situation in life you can turn a stressful environment into something more positive. Such as just expressing your inner feelings to those around you instead of portraying yourself in a way different then you are. Even just managing your time better can create an effect in life. One example is to complete your assignments ahead of time instead of the day before.

Even if altering your situation doesn’t work you can just do what mammals were programmed to do, adapt. Look at the big picture in life and see that what you stress about has a small effect in the long run of your life. Just change your standards on what makes you happy and enjoy yourself, make time for the small things and you’ll see a drastic change. The last and most important way to reduce stress is simple, just accept who you are and what life itself is. You can see the world as the largest complicated mess or a small existence in a vast expansion of space that doesn’t worry about the troubles of everyday life.

Just Relax 

Society is so good at finding the indicators for stress because society itself causes stress. Who and how we interact with each other can and will change how our bodies perform in the future. Everyone will always tell you that stress is a state of mind, but it’s a state of mind that can damage the individual who isn’t able to control and rid their minds of all the stressful thoughts. Be mindful of how your body works and you’ll be able to find a peaceful place. 

Blog Topic 3

Noah Swart

Environmental Health

Mr. Moss

    The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, has a large list of information regarding all topics of public health. With this website I found an article regarding the use of pesticides

in our environment. This article described the full names of commonly used chemicals and what they’re used for. It also explained the exposure of certain types of pesticides and how the most dangerous pesticides for both the environment and people are the ones used on crops and farm fields to eradicate insects and other unsavory critters.

Spraying

   I found the article, both interesting and informative, as I was not always aware of the wide variety of chemicals that are being used in our day to day environment. I also had little to no knowledge of the names each chemical was under, and how depending on the name it can make it more or less dangerous. I found the article to have an unbiased tone, with neither an opinion on if the topic at hand is good for the environment and people or not. I personally believe that pesticides are overall bad for the environment regardless of the small benefit that it gives to people. I know that pesticides are not always regulated properly and can run off into streams or other wildlife sanctuaries. Regardless, it’s nice for the article to be all about the fact of the matter as opposed to the author’s personal opinion.

Run off

   The article was written with enough enticement that it lead me to expand my knowledge more on the topic. Its credibility of all articles listed pretty firmly throughout the website I had no feeling that the article was leading me misinformation. Overall, the article was to the point and helpful, it lead me to get a better understanding for what we put in our food, rivers, grass, and even our bodies. I hope that more people are able to find the website and get the understanding I did from these few crucial paragraphs.

   

Blog entry #2

Noah Swart

EH – 2000

Blog Topic – American Association/annual report

  Poison control centers are something almost everyone has seen at least once on a warning label. Of course, unlike the widely known emergency numbers like 911 but when time comes nobody can remember the number for the poison control. Just by calling 1-800-222-1222 you can have access to both information regarding all forms of poisons, but also access to statistics, emergency poison help and up and coming research on the daily toxic leaks.

The dangers

  Poison is normally portrayed as something that rarely happens and only does if it is an intentional criminal act. The reality is that poisonings happen all the time, and unintentional poisoning is the most common form. Inside the website of the American Association of Poison Control the current annual report is listed. This report lists the annual report for poison control centers. When it comes to the average age of who ingests the most poisons/toxins it is made up largely by children, the age of six and under precisely 47.7%. This may be surprising to a few people but the fact of the matter is that young children don’t have the ability to question what they put in their mouths. Even more so in the instance of children three or under who make up 35.6% of poison cases, this is due to the fact that young children lack the senses needed to learn an object through touch. With their mouths they are able to feel the object and learn its capabilities.

AAPCC 

  How do people, and mostly small children manage to get these toxins/poisons in their bodies? Well 79.4% of poison exposures are unintentional, with 53.8% being overall unintentional acts, 12.6% being therapeutic errors, and 5.8% being unintentional misuse. Realistically the fear some hold of being poisoned is just a fear and never holds a huge merit. Of course, this doesn’t apply for the chance that a mistake of someone else’s could be what gets you poisoned.

  With the idea that babies’ major routes of exposures are indeed their mouths, as they are always putting things in their mouths one wouldn’t be all that surprised that the most common route of exposure is ingestion 83.7% normally and with fatality rates of 81.4%. This is due to a few reasons, one a lot of poisons are easy to ingest, are commonly in liquid form, and because our skin has a built in protection for what it absorbs into our bodies. The second largest rate for exposure fatalities is inhalation coming in at 10.1%, which itself is also very realistic. We are of course constantly breathing and sometimes not even the nose can pick up toxic poisonous gases. The third greatest route of exposure is unknown 7.8% because a lot of the time tracking the type of poison and process of ingestion can be difficult.

 These statistics change every year, and that’s why the American Association of Poison and Control does well to monitor and research how the overall percentage of poison/toxin deaths can be diminished in our society. This should also apply to the person, as everyone should be vigilant about what they put into their bodies, either It be a soft drink or the typical work day hazardous gasses that one may run into, or simply just what your baby manages to get in mouth distance. Any of these methods can decrease the rate at which one becomes ill.

Blog Entry one – Heuristic

Noah Swart

EH – 2000

The Thought Process

Heuristic is an approach to a problem or a learning situation or something that is discovered that needs a new approach to be understood. Heuristic employs a practical method to solve something, the heuristic method however isn’t always the most logical way nor is it optimal. Due to the way heuristic method presents themselves this can lead to a bias. Although, is not always prevalent in heuristic problem solving. This bias can still show itself quite often, an example would be educated guessing. Educated guessing is the process of taking a multiple choice question and breaking it down realistically using the common knowledge that is known to the user.

How does this present a bias? When the user is basing his answer off of an answer or question that has been presented to him before, and how is the user to know if that question was right or if he absorbed the wrong form of the answer. Another example, would be using common sense to solve a problem, this of course doesn’t have a huge amount of bias structured into it but some can still be prevalent.

The term using common sense refers to looking at the problem or situation from a situational stand point. You think about how the normal person would behave or how a perfectly logical person would handle the situation and you go from there. Heuristics in its most basic form is just a simple thought process that leads us to make the simple decisions we do. People rely on how easy it is to making a decision without stressing the brain to think through the process.

Stressing 

 However, there are two types of heuristic problem solving, those being availability heuristics and representative heuristics. Availability heuristics is the process of making a decision based on your already base knowledge, the example of educated guessing is an availability heuristics because you’ll bring up past problems or events that remind you of the problem and critically analyze how to solve it. Meanwhile, representative heuristics is the process of looking at the average or stereotype of something and comparing it to the problem you have now.

Heuristics is just a basic process of the human brain, however it can be seen as something of a short cut like most short cuts it isn’t foolproof. As we use heuristics in our daily lives we must also look through and be able to spot the signs of bias and logical faults in our constant problematic situations.