Sunday, February 15, 2015
Environmental Sustainability
Environmental sustainability is involved with preserving the environment and making sure that nature is protected. Environmental sustainability is specifically interested in businesses and the effects they have or can have on the environment. The idea here is to teach businesses about the long term effects they can positively have for the environment and nature, instead of negative ones. On the website http://toolkit.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/part/17/86/371 , there is a short list of ways that businesses are causing damage to the environment. A few listed include pollution through burning fossil fuels, and damaging woods and rain forests by logging. Businesses might be a little skeptical at this idea, however, because everything is about making money and the idea may not appear to be very thrifty. However, according to the website http://toolkit.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/part/17/86/372 , having the environment in mind with your business may actually be beneficial to businesses. One of the benefits is about being more energy efficient and in the long run, save the business a lot of money. Another benefit that acting towards environmental sustainability is beneficial to businesses is that a business is going to have an advantage over other businesses while talking to partners, investors and customers if their business is thinking about the environment. People are going to keep those ideas in mind when comparing business to business. These are just a few ways described on this web site. According to the website http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501027 , there are 4 research areas within environmental sustainability. These four things are industrial ecology, green engineering, ecological engineering and earth systems engineering. These four areas of research are concerned about people's well-being and environmental issues. So, what is environmental sustainability? quite simply, it is the study and idea of making the environment safe/safer and thinking about the long term effects individuals and businesses can have on it, and what can be done long term in a positive way instead of in a negative way. I hope this blog helped describe what environmental sustainability is, as well as provide some useful information as to how it is being done.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Noise Induced Hearing Loss
What is noise induced hearing loss? Well, it can be described as the permanent impairment to hearing over time after being exposed to loud noises. Everyday there are noises around us that do not damage our hearing because they are at a safe level. However, exposure to higher levels for long, or possibly even short amounts of time can be very detrimental to ones hearing. Things that are everyday noises that are at safe levels to our hearing are things like house hold appliances use to clean or cook, music (at a moderate volume), traffic noises like cars driving down the street, and also sounds from the television. Obviously some of these things can be harmful to ones hearing at high levels, but there are many things that are automatically harmful to ones hearing and that can cause noise induced hearing loss quickly. Some if these things include loud concerts, hearing an explosion, shooting targets and hunting, listening to music through headphones at high volumes, and using lawn equipment like leaf blowers and lawn mowers. You can get some data on decibel levels on the website http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/noise.aspx and also on this website you can see what decibel levels are safer levels than others. Also, if you want to learn more about the ear, this website has a diagram of the ear and I have also posted a picture of the ear on my blog. How can noise induced hearing loss, or NIHL, be prevented? There are many things you can do, according to the website http://american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hearing-loss/#whatis . Obviously the number one thing, try and avoid loud noises. Other things include wearing hearing protection like earplugs and earmuffs to lower the sound intensity. I hope this blog was helpful in describing what noise induced hearing loss is and what can cause it and also how it can be prevented.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
National Environmental Public Health Tracking
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a very helpful website that allows people to explore many things concerning health. This website is http://ephtracking.cdc.gov/showHome.action . Once at the home page of this site, there are a few tabs, these tabs titled Environments, Health Effects, and Population Health. Each one of these tabs has a few bullet points describing the kind of information that can be found inside that specific tab. So, lets just say you click on Environments. Once you click this tab, there are many more tabs with more specific topics. So lets say you click on climate change because you want to learn more about it. Lets just say you have never really gotten a complete understanding of what climate change actually is? Well, no worries. There is a detailed description at the very top of the page there to assist you. Now, you have some sort of background about what climate change is, right? So now it peeks your interest a little more, and you decide to research further about climate change. You decide to study climate change in your region, but how do you do that? One of the tabs within the climate change tab is actually available for you to type in anywhere you want to research the climate and/or climate change. You simply click on the tab titled Search Data and go from there, its that simple! You can type in the places you want to research and the data is available to you. Also, while surfing this website for climate change, there are links all over the page related to the topic with which you are browsing. So, on the climate change page, there are quick links about climate change and your health, as well as extreme heat. Lower down the page you will also find topics that are being discussed a lot, such as carbon monoxide poisoning prevention. So once you get on this site, you will find yourself just browsing the web for more information because it is everywhere. No matter where you are on this site, there is a link that allows you to search for health information by location. Another thing that's useful on this site is the tracking index at the top of the page. You can type in or search health information a lot easier this way. Basically, this website is very useful in providing people with health information. I hope this article was helpful in describing just how useful this site can be when researching health information.
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