XIAO YANG
POINTS TOTAL
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XIAO's actions
Action Track: Healing & Renewal
Eat Mindfully
I will eat all of my meals without distractions, e.g., phone, computer, TV, or newspaper.
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XIAO YANG 2/21/2022 6:19 PMI watched Before the Flood (2016), a documentary film by Leonardo DiCaprio.This documentary film is not on a particular topic of environmental issues, but rather introducing different consequences of global warming and the necessity of taking actions. Ice in Greenland is melting, palm tree forest in Indonesia is being cutting down, reefs are wilting……It is shocking to view all these scenes even though I have heard of them. This is an impressing documentary since Leonardo visit all these places mentioned above and let the audience to discover the seriousness of climate crises.Aside from the introduction of climate change phenomena, I am attracted most by the discussion and rethinking of what we should expect from the United States on taking actions. During Leonardo’s conversation with an Indian official, she directly points out that 70 percent of Indian population do not have access to coal but are still using biomass energy sources like cow’s dung. It is the United States that benefits most from the fossil fuels and emits most carbon dioxide, said by this official, so why are those NGOs expecting developing countries like India for the transition to solar and other new energies, given by the fact that the United States has not done that? This is in accordance with my previous thoughts that there are still a lot of regions in the world suffering from poverty, and they might not be able to put environmental concerns at a prior place.Next, the interview with a scientist who has worked for the government has revealed some hidden reasons: there is a resisting force in the council against acting for environmental change. They are trying to confuse people that there is no environmental change at all, and statements like “How can people be so arrogant that that believe they can change the environment” are often made by the “experts” on television. It is further revealed that many of the senators with resistant attitude are actually invested by those fossil fuel giants like Koch Industries. This surprised me because I can’t imagine the government can be affected by commercial power to this extent. -
XIAO YANG 2/21/2022 10:59 AMToday I attended an asynchronous lecture on drought in California organized by Cal Poly Pomona. The speaker is Alex Hall, a professor in UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.I was confused during the introduction when he was talking about the outline, since as he states, both the drought and the flooding will increase simultaneously gradually in the future. These two changes seemed conflict for me, so I became more interested in how he will demonstrate his ideas later.First, he introduced the reason for all these possible changes: loss of snow due to the global warming. This is a foreseeable consequence of warming, but I didn’t imagine that this will be so serious: as illustrated in one of the graphs, California will undergo an overall 30% percent of snow loss at the end of this century, and this number even goes up to 90-100% in some regions. Aside from the acceleration in melting, another consequence of warming is that the precipitation will be more in the form of rain instead of snow. In conclusion, the source of snow precipitation is limited, and the melting of snow is accelerated, resulting in a possible severe loss of snow.As a result of the melting snow and increasing rain precipitation, the number of extreme wet years is predicted to be 2.5 times as it is now. At the same time, due to this imbalanced water precipitation, the number of extreme dry years will also double. Although the total amount of precipitation might now change, they are allocated more unevenly so that our weather condition will become more extreme. This is a horrible future for all of us.Fortunately, he introduced some strategies to alleviate these impacts. First, the water storage should be established to store more water from the wet years and get through the deeper dry spells. Next, the large increase in runoff during extreme precipitation implies a major flood control challenge and a rethinking associated with existing water resource infrastructure. Finally, the increase in extreme dry years warns us to be careful about the consequently increasing fire risk.
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XIAO YANG 2/05/2022 7:14 PMYesterday I watched the open ceremony of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
I found it interesting that this is the first time a large torch is not lighted in the Olympics history.Here are some images of the large torches in 2008 Beijing and 1992 Barcelona.
This year, only a small version is used. In the interview of Zhang Yimou, the director of this opening ceremony, he states that this is responding to the low-carbon and environmental appeals. He told us that the large torch in 2008 consumed about 1 million m^3 gases, which is about 10,000 times of the amount consumed by a family per year. Therefore, they decided to use a small version this year, and it really surprised the world. I think it's great to see that China, as one of the largest country in the world, is being active on environmental concerns.
Here are some images (Can you find your country in this pic?)
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Kim Tran 2/08/2022 6:54 PMHi! I've also been watching the 2022 Beijing Olympics. While watching one of the snowboarding events, I heard the commentators say that all of the snow for this year's Winter Olympics was entirely artificial snow, making this the first games to be competed on completely artificial snow. So I looked further into the snow situation and I found a lot of news articles reporting on how climate change is impacting the Winter Olympics since rising temperatures makes it difficult to have the right conditions needed to play winter sports. The article “Will climate change melt the Winter Olympics?” also describes how creating artificial snow requires tons of energy, water, and money, and even then there’s only so much that can be done to combat the warm temperatures caused by climate change that’ll ultimately lead to the snow melting faster than it can be produced. Athletes also have shared concerns that climate change has limited their practice locations since not as many areas will reliably have enough snow; this makes sports like snowboarding and skiing more expensive since athletes have to travel further, which then brings up concerns about their carbon footprint.So, I think it’s interesting how every time the Olympics occurs, the topic of how the host nation is making the games sustainable is always comes up, like how last year for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan had cardboard beds and Olympic medals made out of recycled material or during the 2016 Rio Olympics, they had major issues with the water quality for swimming events and many residents being forcibly relocated to build the Olympic Park, which now sits abandoned and unused. This year, some of the 2022 Beijing Olympics ventures into sustainability involve use of completely fake snow, no traditional torch lighting, and apparently being entirely carbon neutral.Articles:
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XIAO YANG 2/04/2022 9:02 PMHere are some consequences of sea level rise I extracted from the talk:
First, sea level rise will cause the erosion of natural shoreline, and thus the coastal transgression (the movement inland). Next, he has shown us the vulnerabilities of us to sea level rise. Santa Barbara was raised as an example. With a hypothesized 0.25m sea level rise and storms, the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport is immediately threatened by the flood risks. Further estimation states that for California, >$150 billion of property damage (6% of the state’s GDP) and 600,000 people could be impacted by 2100. Aside from the human-built facilities, sea level rise will also lead to environmental issues, for example, the coastal wetland loss. Prof. Ambrose warned us about the fact that the rate of sea level rise will soon exceeds the capacity of a marsh to increase, resulting in its potential transition to mudflat or subtidal.
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Alicia Cheng 2/06/2022 8:45 PMHi there! I attended this event as well! I felt some personal connections to the rising sea level at Santa Barbara when Prof. Ambrose mentioned that in his speech since I transferred from UC Santa Barbara.
UCSB is built right along the coastline. It's literally AT the coastline. There's even a lagoon on the campus, which is a lake formed by seawater. There's also a trail sitting between the lagoon and the sea, and it was only a few meters high. Prof. Ambrose mentioned that the sea level is expected to rise by 1 -3 meters in California by 2100. The campus is so vulnerable that such an increment will fluid into the campus, and the first buildings being affected are likely to be the ocean-view dorms. I can't imagine that one day the university needs to plan for a relocation due to the sea level rise. It will be a huge financial cost for the university, and also psychological distress for the students. As one of the alumni, I don't want my school to be buried down in the ocean where I can never visit again. And yes, Santa Barbara Municipal Airport is very close to the coast as well. In fact, it sits right behind the campus of UCSB. As an airport, it's designed to be very flat, so the threat comes immediately posed to the entire airport if sea level rise. So this issue has some personal importance to me, and I wish to participate in some prevention measures that I can contribute to.
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XIAO YANG 2/04/2022 8:44 PMToday, I attend a lecture held by California Poly Pomona Department of Landscape Architecture in terms of sea level rise. The speaker is Richard Ambrose, a professor in UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. The talk consists of several parts: Sea level rise (global / in California), consequences of sea level rise, and adaptation strategies for sea level rise along the coast.
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XIAO YANG 2/01/2022 5:49 PMA walk is relaxing after a whole day of remote instruction :)
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XIAO YANG 1/30/2022 11:26 AMThis week I have tried to not look at my smart phone while eating, which was what I used to do. I felt a bit uncomfortable at the beginning, since eating itself seems not so attractive, and I had been looking to something else (TV in childhood and smart phones later) for longer than a decade.
But later I found that I could focus on the taste of the food, and have my mind free from the explosive information for a while. I think this is quite rare in our lives now. We are receiving information from everywhere at every time, but there's a little chance for us to stop receiving but think independently for a moment. I started to think about my application to grad schools, whether this is a good choice, and what influences it might have on my future career. These thoughts are more valuable than watching some short videos and forget them immediately afterwards.
I think I would like to keep my phone away while eating from now on. -
XIAO YANG 1/25/2022 11:41 PMRecently I have been trying to walk to UCLA campus (about 22 minutes) and I found that my body gets more fit by doing so. Walking and listening to music become my time of pleasure every day, and it's really enjoyable walking in these warm sunny days.
