Both water and air pollution are harmful aspects of the life we live everyday. Water pollution occurs when harmful substances contaminate any body of water, degrading the water quality and making it toxic to humans and the environment. There are many things that can contaminate water from chemicals to soda cans. The effects of water pollution are mainly centered around the health of humans and animals. The biggest thing is drinking and if chemicals are in our drinking water, we then ingest them. This can cause cancer, hormone disruption and altered brain function. Water pollution has killed 1.8 million people in recent years and make about 1 billion people sick annually. Another thing we use water for is swimming. If we swim in contaminated water, we can get skin rashes, pink eye, respiratory infections and hepatitis. This type of water contamination can also cause an excess of algae to form that leads to a reduced oxygen level which suffocates the plants and animals that are living in the water. This also causes animals to lose their ability to reproduce. Water contamination also deals with marine debris which mainly affects animals. This is from plastic bags, soda cans, straws and fishing gear being put into the water and it suffocates, strangles, starves and kills many fish.

On the other hand, air pollution is just as or maybe even more harmful than water pollution. Air pollution occurs when their is a release of pollutants into the air that are detrimental to human health and the planet as a whole. T Even though water pollution can make humans very sick and threatens the livelihood of aquatic animals, air pollution threatens the future of the entire planet. For humans, air pollution allows the particles of chemicals to penetrate the lungs and bloodstream. This leads to extreme bronchitis, heart attacks, irritation of the eyes and throat, worsening of asthma and allergies, and even death. Greenhouse gases are a major aspect of air pollution and can be considered a great threat to the planet. By trapping in the earth’s heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases lead to higher temperatures and climate change. This leads to rising sea levels, more extreme weather, heat related deaths, and increasing transmission of infectious diseases. he fact that air pollution is dangerous to the planet as a whole and not only humans is really scary and makes me believe that this is far worse than water pollution is.

When you invest in something, it is a huge responsibility and an even bigger risk. If I were to invest in something, I would have to think long and hard about what it was going to be. Out of the given resources to invest in, I think I would invest in solar energy. Solar energy is an up and coming business and has been for a while. I chose solar energy to invest in because the other options did not seem as promising. We will always have the sun and solar energy will just continue to get more popular as the years go on. Other industries such as oil, I do not think would be a good idea to invest in. While the oil industries continues to boom right now, sooner or later that oil supply will be harder and harder to find. Wind would have also been a promising industry to invest in, considering the wind will never go away just like the sun, but wind mills are less popular than solar panels. Instead of going on your roof, they take up space in fields and seem to be more popular in rural areas, rather than everywhere like solar panels. Solar panels are something that are becoming more prevalent in neighborhoods. Many families are now buying them instead of using and paying for electricity. As more people use them, more people will buy them and countless numbers of people rave about them. All of these aspects lead to a successful industry and a smart investment.

The city, countryside and suburbs are three completely different places. The lives that people live in these places are none in the same. The closest city that I live too is New York City. This is the city that never sleeps and all of the time I have spent there proves that I would never be able to live there. Even though many cities can not be compared to each other, I still do not think I could live in any city. Cities tend to be so crowded with countless amounts of people and cars. They also tend to be very dirty and crazy expensive, something I will not be able to live with the stress of. Only few people are made to live in the hustle and bustle of city life, and I am definitely not one of them.

On the other hand, living in the countryside is the complete opposite of city life. There is empty land as far as the eye can see and everyone has their own space. Every building, every place has their own area and nothing is on top of each other as it is in the city. Although it does not have all of the things I did not like about the city, I do not think I would be able to live here either. I would not like living in the middle of nowhere or on a farm with animals. That is not a life I can see myself living. Another thing that I do not like about countryside living is how far everything is from each other. Some people have an hour drive just to get to the grocery store. Imagine what happens if they forget one thing on their shopping list. Along with cities, I can add countryside to the places I can’t see myself living.

Now onto suburban life. I truly think living in the suburbs is the type of living for me. It is the perfect balance of all lives. Many people live in the suburbs, but there is enough space and nothing ever feels super overcrowded. There are farms and animals, but nothing like the countryside. You can choose to live in less populated areas or in an area with more people. I think I would chose to live in the suburbs because it is where I have lived my whole life and I truly do not think I would be able to live in any other type of area.

Each of these professions have many pros and cons to them. While these jobs are entirely different in what they do, they seem to have the same benefits and dangers to them. I feel like in order to pick which profession I would rather be in, the pros and cons need to be weighed for each. In regards to farming, many of the pros and cons of the job have to deal with the fact that you work for yourself. Benefits of being a farmer consist of working for yourself, your work is self-sustaining, you can set your own work pace and the need for farming will never end. The cons of being a farmer includes not getting a huge annual salary, frequent injuries and unusual work hours due to the weather. Moving onto the profession of a fisherman, the benefits pretty much only include the pay. There are many more cons when you work as a fisherman which include hard, heavy, dangerous work, extreme injuries, sporadic pay, isolation and even death.

Lumberjacking is a professions that reaps many benefits including the fact that it employs many people and is essential in many regions. It is an essential business that can be down responsibly and bring in profit throughout the year. On the other hand, this job has some cons because trees will sooner or later urn out and this profession will no longer be needed. It is also a hard job when the demand for these materials is much higher than the ability to supply them. The last job to look at is a miner and some of its benefits include the many job offerings and good pay. The cons of working as a miner include the fact that it is a very dangerous job, not safe, major injuries, developing chronic respiratory illness, and even death. After weighing all of the jobs, mining, fishing and lumberjacking seem to be the worse picks for two reasons. They are unsafe and can cause major injuries if something doesn’t go right and two of the jobs can be fatal. Another reason I would not pick these three professions is that the need for them might decrease and their sustainability is not good. These jobs will no longer be available if we cut down all of the trees, fish all of the fish in the sea and mine every cave. That is why I would rather be a farmer. It tends to be safer in terms of injury and the longevity of the job. There will always a need for food and a need for someone to grow it.

One world government is an idea that refers to a central government whose authority extends across the entirety of the world. This is the idea that the many countries around the world would join together in a federation under one central government. This idea is similar to the federation of states in countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada. This idea of a one world government feels more and more of a reality as time goes on. The internet is leading the way to the transition and as it progresses, I think we are just getting closer to a time when we will live in a one world government. Human civilization may not be able to survive if we do not manage to create this global government. Although this idea might seem out of place during these times of international tensions, nationalism and identity politics. Instead out going against this idea, that sometimes does seem unattainable, we should embrace it the further we progress towards it. There are many issues we face that are strongly rooted in the fact that no global government exists.

We first need to figure out how to set the world up in order to do so. The major key to a one world government is the elimination of cultural boundaries. Although these boundaries are not physical, they may be the hardest to break through. This would most likely be the hardest challenge for the world to overcome if and when we transition into an one world government. Our beliefs of “us” and “them” need to be broken in order for us to be able to think freely of the people around us, even though they have not endured similar experiences or have the same understanding of life.

Scavenger Hunt Pictures:

Culture is something that is different all around the world. Every country has their own culture. Even the specific regions that are in a country have their variation of culture. The lives that people live on the East Coast of America are completely different than those lives that people live on the West Coast. I believe that language is the most important aspect in culture. In the previous instance, there are differences in the dialect from those regions and that it plays a big part of the variety of the United States culture that is in both of those areas. Even though religion is a big part of the lives people live, I do not think it has anything to do with culture. There are similar religions all around that are practiced throughout many different cultures.

All of the main aspects of a culture are through its language. A language can tell you a lot about a culture, even if you have no idea about it to begin with. Language tends to be the essence of all cultures. Aside from spoken language, written language is also very important for a culture. Without written language, it used to be very hard for a culture to survive. A culture without written language is doomed. It is everything to be able to read and write nowadays. Language is also important in a culture because it can tell you so much about the very beginnings of that culture. For example, in the countries where English is the primary language, that language can be followed back to the roots of the country. Language can tell you so much about a culture. It is important that people realize that and use the language of a culture as the resource it is.

The growing population on Earth is something that tends to be very scary when thought of in the future. Right now, there are roughly 7 billion people living on Earth. I think that a comfortable number of people to live on Earth is around what it is now, whether the same, slightly higher or lower. Studies have shown that Earth’s maximum carrying capacity is around 9 or 10 billion people, but even those numbers might be pushing the power of the Earth. If the number of people on Earth got to that number, there would have to be significant changes to every day life in order for people to live and I do not think that those changes are worth it.

In the case of maximum efficiency, in which all of the grains grown on Earth would go to feeding humans and not livestock, there would only be enough to feed 10 billion people. If the population on Earth grew to this point, all people would have to agree to becoming vegetarian because there would not be enough food to feed the animals and people. Since it is extremely unlikely that every person on Earth would agree to be vegetarian, the number of people to live on Earth will most likely be under 10 billion when food is consider. Besides food, space is also a big consideration when it comes to the thought of how many people can comfortably live on Earth. Right now as the Earth inhabits around 7 billion people, it is starting to feel overcrowded as it is and I can not imagine how it would feel if 2 to 3 billion more people lived on it.

Natural disasters can be some of the scariest things to live through. Living in NJ, I have been able to experience both an earthquake and a hurricane. The earthquake that I’ve experienced was nothing like the ones in areas where they are more frequent. Although it was only one minor earthquake, I was still able to imagine what life would be like in an area where they are more frequent and aggressive. I realized that I would never like to live in an area where earthquakes occur.

Earthquakes can do so much more damage than hurricanes can. Even if an earthquake is considered minor, there is still quite some damage that can result from it. People could lose their balance and fall on the floor or even down the stairs. Along with that, there are many things inside of a home that can get damaged such as any pictures on a wall or valuables that might fall off of a shelf. Most of the earthquakes that occur are considered minor, but when massive earthquakes occur, the damage that is done can almost never be fully recovered. Buildings can completely crumble to the ground, roads can split in half and fatal landslides can happen as a result. Another disaster that can result from an earthquake is a tsunami. Tsunamis are terrifying and knowing that they are a result of an earthquake is enough for me to stay away from any area where earthquakes occur.

On the other hand, hurricanes can be threatening, but for the most part they are rarely as dangerous and ruining as earthquakes. Most hurricanes bring strong winds and heavy rain. These weather conditions are nothing unusual in the places where hurricanes occur. Also, many of the places where hurricanes occur are always ready for a hurricane to happen. There are a lot more ways to prepare and be safe in a hurricane than there is when an earthquake is going to occur. Although hurricanes are seen as a natural disaster, the more frequent hurricanes that occur are just rain that might turn the electricity off for a few hours. Hurricanes are not on the same level of frequency and severity as earthquakes and I feel much safer living in an area that has hurricanes rather than earthquakes.

All during school and any other time that I look at a map, I was always used to seeing the Mercator projection. Before this class, I never saw the other two map projections and they seemed very different to me. Even know they look very different from the average map, they both make sense to me. The Peters map projection is the most similar to the Mercator map between the two. When looking at the Peters map, it makes sense as to why the continents are shifted upwards and are longer. The mercator map was meant to be rounded on a globe, so when it was projected onto paper to be hung on the wall, all of the contents became out of whack. The equator is higher up on the map which is why all of the continents were shifted up. The continents also appear longer because on the rounded Mercator map, they are on the underside, making them appear smaller than they actually are. The Peters map made it so that the latitude and longitude were parallel on the map, making it an accurate projection of the Earth.

The MacArthur’s Corrective map was a little bizarre when I first looked at it. It never occurred to me to look at the Earth in that direction. But after studying it, it made me realize that it doesn’t matter which way the Earth is projected on a map. On a piece of paper, north and south can be in any which way the designer chooses and that is exactly what is done on the MacArthur Corrective map. Everything on the map appears the same way as it does on any other, the only thing different is the direction. This map also changed my views on how the Australians view the Earth and various maps. With this map, an Australian was able to take his continent and place it on top of the map, crushing all things people could say about “coming from down under”. Not only did this new map break boundaries on how people thought maps should look like, but it brought Australia up on top and helped them to feel as though the superior continent.

All throughout school, we were always learning something that our teachers considered geography. The biggest bulk of geography that I learned in school was the map. I first started to learn geography in second grade when they taught us the states song and we began to memorize them along with their location. From the point on, geography was always present in social studies class, but it was nothing like the way we are learning geography in this class. The study of geography in public schools went nothing further than maps and map quizzes. Every continent and even the capitals of each state, we were tested on everything.

Before this class, I never realized how many ways geography can be studied and how many things can impact it. It is very interesting to me that so much of geography can be related and affected by culture. I feel like those two things are something I never would have connected before this class. I feel like there were so many stones left unturned when we were taught geography throughout public school, that most of us left thinking geography was nothing more but maps and locations. This thought was sparked at the beginning of lecture today. The question was why do people in Quebec speak French? A question I feel is so simple to answer if you are taught about geography in its entirety along with its connection with culture. I knew the answer to this question, not because it was a topic for discussion in any of my history classes, but because I finally made the connection myself after years of history classes making no effort to share those connections between geography, culture and history.