The Disasters

Avoiding Future Environmental

Disasters

By: Jacob Whittenburg

People can always work to save the environment, but most people don’t want to spend the energy. People need the environment to live, for food and for shelter. Everyone needs the environment for all of their needs like water and food. People can use the environment responsibly by not littering all around the country. They can make better use of energy sources, like solar or wind power, so they don’t pollute as much. If people were not greedy about selling wheat like they were during the dust bowl, the dust bowl probably wouldn’t have happened.

There are five sources that were reviewed.

1. Dust bowl Disaster

2. Deep Trouble

3. Easter Island

4. The Lorax

5. To drill or not to drill

6. Wall-E

Bibliography

Brace, H. (1995). Cycles and Soil. In H. Brace, Science Anytime (pp. E37-E38). Harcout Brace.

Geography, N. (Director). (2010). Mysteries of Easter Island [Motion Picture].

Jenson, N. (2009). Deep Trouble. Dallas: reading A-Z.

Pratt, H. (Director). (1972). The Lorax [Motion Picture].

Roberts, B. (2011). Dust Bowl Disaster. Dallas: Reading A-Z.

Stanton, A. (Director). (2008). Wall-E [Motion Picture].

All of the books and movies are about environmental disasters. They tell about disasters like the dust bowl and the oil spill of Deepwater Horizon. The movies were fake disasters, but could be real. Wall-e’s world was scorched with a drought, lots of pollution and, deforestation. The Lorax was about every tree being cut down. All of them are about natural and manmade disasters.

The dust bowl was about dust blowing around the great plain, after there was a terrible drought. The dust was in thick clouds, and it killed many people and animals. Everybody tried to protect themselves, but it was very hard. People only had wet clothes to cover their mouths, they also had newspapers to cover the door and window cracks. They also had a special paste to cover the door and window cracks. The dust bowl was worst on Black Sunday. The sky was blue and the sun was shining in the morning, but in the afternoon, it was the worst dust cloud yet. The dust Bowl was first only in the Great Plains. Washington and New York thought that the dust bowl was rubbish. The dust bowl was caused by manmade and natural causes. The American farmers only grew, so they could sell lots of wheat to Europe. They were in World War 1 and all the cannons and bombs hit their farming fields. The wheat wasn’t as strong as other plants, so when the wheat was in the ground, the soil wasn’t held down. Then the wind blew all the dust from the ground into the air. The dust was a killer. It killed people, and it also killed animals. It was terrible.

The lesson that can be learned from it is that we can’t plant wheat all at the same time. If we plant a lot of wheat, we also need to plant plants that have stronger roots. Prairie Plant Roots are a good way to keep dirt in the ground. Another thing you can use is a cover crop.

It takes 100 years - 1000 years for one centimeter of soil to form. A parent material or a rock gets broke down by wind, water, and other forces. After a while, there will be lots of soil, because the wind will hit the rock or parent material to make soil. This connects to the dust bowl, because it is about the same concept, it’s about tiny pieces of rock blowing around and in the dust bowl it’s about dust blowing around. In the dust bowl, after it started, there was no way to end it until the drought ended. In the science book, there was two ways to stop the dust from blowing. They could use prairie plant roots and cover crops. The prairie plant roots are plants that have very long and strong roots. A cover crop is a plant to help the enrichment of the soil. Also you can use organic material like A.K.A fertilizer, which can help keep the soil strong.

These books are about the safety of our country’s environment. To drill or not to drill and Deepwater Horizon have something in common because there both about oil. Deep Water Horizon is about a giant oil spill and them trying to clean it up. To drill or no to drill is about A.N.W.R with lots of oil in the ground with laws to not drill the oil up. In A.N.W.R there are lots of animals and plants that would be destroyed if they drilled for oil. One is a disaster and the other is something that could become a disaster. The dust bowl connects to the two books because there are all books about the environment. There all about disasters that happened to the environment and how people tried to save it. The dust bowl is about a dust storm that happened because wheat weakened the soil in the ground. They connect to the dust bowl because it also is about disasters. The dust bowl is a natural and manmade disaster. Deepwater Horizon is about a natural disaster. A.N.W.R was going to be a manmade disaster if they drilled in A.N.W.R. which would have been bad.

Wall-E is a movie about a robot who is the only thing living on earth. Wall-E gets visited by a futuristic robot that is trying to find a plant. Her name is Eva, when her ship comes to get her Wall-E jumps on. He goes through lots of stuff until he finds out that this ship is full of fat humans. This robot doesn’t want to go back to earth. The plant is the only way they can go home. They eventually got to earth because Wall-E found the plant and sent them back home.

The Lorax was about an animal who could talk and wanted to protect the trees. This man came to where the Lorax lived and liked the feel of the trees wool. The man made a Sneed with a silent S. After he sold a few Sneed’s he invited his whole family over. They made a whole factory and everybody wanted a Sneed they cut down so many trees until they cut down the last one. All the animals had to leave because the place was so polluted then the Lorax flew into the sky. The man’s factory closed then he had nothing anymore.

The islander went to Easter Island and got obsessed with making statues. Then by trying to move the statues and making a place to put the statues. They cut down all the trees there were once many palm trees but then they cut them all down. They used the cut down palm trees for moving there statues. Then after they used up most of their resources they had a civil war. The islanders fought their own kind and it killed many people. They used all of their trees so they couldn’t ever leave. They made their own living jail. Then they had a drought which brought great disasters like the dust bowl. The wind picked up and dust blew like the dust bowl. There were no roots anywhere because they cut down their trees.

A lesson about Deepwater Horizon is we need to try to make our safety valve the best we can. A lesson about the Dust Bowl is that we can’t be greedy at the risk of our environment. We also can’t grow so much wheat because it has weak roots. We always need to plant an extra plant like a cover crop and prairie plant roots. A Lesson about The Lorax is that we can’t have greedy people who will cut down many trees just to get rich. We need trees for oxygen and we need trees to hold down soil. We can’t have deforestation happen like the Lorax, because it will be bad. A lesson about To drill or not to drill is that we need to not drill in reserves like A.N.W.R which is in Alaska. We need land for endangered animals to thrive, run around, have their babies, and other things endangered animals do. A lesson about Wall-E is that we need to not pollute so much that we have to move to space. We need to not pollute as much as we do or we will have to leave our planet.

We need to prevent our planet from being really polluted by… Putting more laws up about littering and dumping stuff in lakes. We also need more laws about all our exhaust which gives people lung cancer. We need more laws about trees being cut down which will help our economy. We need to make a law that says if you cut down one tree you must plant two more for a small one and four more to replace a big tree. We need to buy less gas cars and more electric cars. We also need to buy and make less plastic objects that are made in polluting factories. This is what we need to do if we want to keep our earth in good condition, we need to stop polluting. We need to stand up and help Mother Nature save our EARTH.