Shortly after federal authorities took down a national college admissions scam in March, officials at USC launched their own investigation with emails to dozens of students.
They did not mince words: The school wanted to know whether the 33 students had lied on their applications to USC. Some of the students understood what was happening because their parents had been charged in the federal case. Others were in the dark.
The reason for the emails would soon become clear to them all. They had been linked to William “Rick” Singer, the confessed leader of the admissions con, and they now faced expulsion, depending on what university investigators discovered.
Username: Tumake_Chai Published on 2020-07-03 15:30:24 ID NUMBER: 2230
The Western Chimpanzee hails from West Africa - you can spot them from Senegal to Ghana. They thrive in varied habitats, be it dry and moist lowland tropical forests or forest galleries creeping into savannah woodlands.
Their diet is as diverse as their habitat. They are omnivorous, favoring fruits and sometimes leaves or bark. Mammals and insects also enter their platter, while dietary preferences vary among communities and seasons.
Populations of these subspecies form communities of about 12 to 84 individuals. Alarmingly, Western Chimpanzees are critically endangered5, with a steep drop of 6.53% yearly from 1990 to 2014. Primary threats include habitat destruction due to human activities, bushmeat poaching, and infectious diseases.
There are different schools of thought on whether tree planting can reverse global warming. Some think it is just what we need to stop climate change once and for all, but others are not so optimistic. Before examining all the different opinions on the climate-saving power of trees, let’s see how carbon sequestration works.
The process of photosynthesis through which plants increase their biomass requires carbon dioxide, amongst other things. CO2 is responsible for 33% to 60% of plant growth. So for plants to survive, they need carbon dioxide, and there is an excess amount in the atmosphere already. So forests absorb and store carbon, and they also help our lands store it as well. In tropical forests, 50% of CO2 is stored in plant biomass, and the other half is in the soil.
Trees all over the world help to maintain the CO2 balance of the planet. Not only do forests absorb CO2, but they also release it too. When we burn trees, cut them down, or they die and decay, the carbon escapes into the atmosphere.
Over the past four decades, forests have sequestered one-quarter of the CO2 emissions caused by humans. Scientists believe that they can do an even better job. The forests in the EU have an estimated 9.8 billion tons of carbon stored in their biomass. This means that the yearly carbon emissions of the EU are only about one-seventh of the amount already stored in the forests. Therefore, the forests in the EU are seen as a viable method of reducing global warming.
Scientific evidence shows that forests, both old-growth and managed, sequester up to 6 tons of carbon per hectare. Research theorizes that replanting trees on 2 billion hectares of degraded land can wipe out the yearly increase of atmospheric CO2.
Using trees to reduce global warming is not as straightforward as it may sound. This is because forests could also become carbon sources. Fires, pest outbreaks, and storms cause a massive return of carbon to the atmosphere.
For instance, Canada's managed forests have done a great job as carbon sinks until recently. In the past decades, however, the forests were carbon sources at some points. This happened because of tree insect outbreaks, forest fires, and land use.
Another study advises that the tropics are the best place to plant trees2. Trees grow faster in these areas and therefore absorb CO2 faster. The study suggests that planting trees in snowy areas could become problematic. This is because the trees can create a warming effect, which is the issue we are trying to avoid in the first place.
In temperate climates like much of Europe and some parts of the US, planting trees may have no significant effect on global warming. The study concludes that planting trees to solve global warming is not the worldwide solution presented by enthusiasts.
Professor Beverly Law of Oregon state university disagrees with the idea that more trees will do damage to the icy regions of the planet. In her opinion, the polar regions are warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the earth.
It is not correct to assume that the snow cover will remain intact without trees despite the earth’s rising temperature. It is most likely that the snow will melt in the coming decades anyway. In that situation, trees will not create an albedo effect.
Then again, Nadine Unger, a professor at the University of Exeter, UK, warns against tree planting. She states trees could form the greenhouse gas methane or ozone through a chemical reaction as the chief reason.
In her 2014 study, she calculates that deforestation from 1850 to the 2000s has created a cooling effect that slightly offsets the warming of greenhouse gas emissions. Her article “to save the planet, don't plant trees” was published in the New York Times. However, Professor Dominick Spracklen, who has studied the effects of aerosols, says such reactions are insignificant. And have a very minute impact on the climate of the earth.
Warming temperatures could also cause increased heterot
Individuals, organizations, and governments are throwing their weight behind tree planting. There are efforts to protect existing forests and plant new ones.
The Paris Agreement has a significant number of nations coming together to combat climate change. Although President Donald Trump announced intentions to pull out of the agreement, he endorsed the 1 trillion trees program at the 2020 world economic forum.
The 1 trillion trees program is a multi-stakeholder effort by the world economic forum and its partners to grow, restore, and conserve 1 trillion trees. The United States representative, Bruce Westerman, also pushed the 1 trillion trees act. Although it garnered a lot of criticism, the president supports the 1 trillion trees act.
Nations under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe have seen an increase in how much CO2 trees have taken up. This is because the policies and laws concerning forests in the area ensure that new trees are planted to replace the ones cut down. The total forest cover of this region amounts to 1.9 billion hectares.
Research led by professor Tom Crowther found that there are 1.7 billion hectares of land that could support new trees. This area is 11% of all land and equal to the size of the United States and China put together. The researchers did not include urban areas or crop fields in their analysis. They estimate that this worldwide tree-planting scheme could remove 205 gigatons of human-caused carbon emissions in 50-100 years.
In professor Crowther's words
“... it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed”.
The researchers make it clear in an erratum later published that the statement in the earlier sentence does not mean to put planting trees above the reduction of fossil fuel emissions. The study gives a clear blueprint of how much more trees we can plant without disrupting agriculture4. Although these proposed new forests will cover areas worldwide, over 50% of the forest restoration land area are in the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and Australia.
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management tried to examine if more trees are all that we need to stop global warming. They created two simulations; in the first, two situations are considered. The first is constant deforestation, no large-scale reforestation, and the Amazon sink becoming a carbon source. This situation showed atmospheric concentration exceeding 500ppm in 2050. In the second situation, they reduce deforestation and add extensive reforestation, but atmospheric concentration also exceeded 500 ppm in 2060.
In the second simulation, they considered again the same situations but with a vast reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. In the first weak forestry situation, atmospheric concentration peaked in 2070. In the strong forest situation, however, critical atmospheric concentration was never reached. Rather it began to reduce in 2050.
This led the ECCM to conclude that tree planting alone can not solve global warming. It needs to be combined with a reduction in fossil fuel emissions. As Greta Thunberg says
“planting trees is very good, of course, but it is nowhere near enough”.
In addition to protecting the planet, increased forestry can be beneficial to people. Planting fruit and rubber trees can provide income for them. Also, in countries with large wood industries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon, a reforestation campaign could reduce pressure on their natural forests. An abundance of trees is equal to an abundance of wood that we could use to replace fossil fuels in some processes.
Moths are winged flying insects. They are a paraphyletic group of insects that consists of all members of the order Lepidoptera, excluding butterflies.
Lepidoptera, which translates to “scaly-winged,” is an order of insects whereby insects undergo a larval stage popularly known as a caterpillar, a pupal stage known as chrysalis, or cocoon, and the adult stage known as butterfly or moth. Many people often confuse moths with butterflies, but they differ from each other.
There are about 160,000 unique species of the nocturnal flying moth1, except for a few species active during the day, like the sphinx moth, day moth, and buck moth. On the other hand, moths’ close relative, the butterfly, has 17,500 species. There are nearly 11,000 species of moth in the United States and 2,500 in the United Kingdom.
Like all insects, moths have six legs, two antennae, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. They have a life span of six months to three years. Furthermore, moths range in size from a few millimeters to the largest moth species with a wingspan of 10 inches (25cm).
In addition, moths are diverse in their ecology. Moths inhabit places like farmlands, gardens, woodlands, marshlands, sand dunes, and even mountains. They also tend to lay eggs within cracks, near plumbing fixtures, and other dark areas. Moths come in various types, from the familiar brown house moth to multicolored, unique ones.
Scientific name: Chrysiridia rhipheus,
This beautifully colored moth can be mistaken for a butterfly because of its color. It has a wingspan of between 3.25 inches and 4 inches. This moth lives in Madagascar with a background color of black, and its wings are especially showy, with many tails.
This hind wing has a blue band, and there are also green band dots and stippling on the forewings. Also, the moth gets its name from the sunset-colored patches near the bottom of its hind wings—little wonder why it is often referred to as one of the most beautiful insects.
However, the colorful wings aren't simply for the pleasure of humankind as they warn predators that the moth is toxic.
Scientific name: Actias luna,
Another brightly colored moth is the Luna Moth, a type of silk moth. It’s also known as the American moon moth. Its species name is Actias luna, common in the United States and Mexico. It’s a part of the Saturniidae family, the giant silk moth family. The family also consists of the Japanese silk moth and emperor moth, and as with other giant silkworm moths, they exist to lay eggs and don't eat anything as adults.
It’s one of the prettiest moths, with a wingspan of 3 to 4.25 inches. The wing is colored in luminous pale lime-green or blue-green. The wings each have an eyespot attached to them with a band of brown. The hind wing also has scalloped eyespots and beautiful long tails that aid its identification as a moth. Luna moth male and female species are identical, though the male has fuzzier antennae. The white body is fat and covered with pale fur.
Scientific name: Agarista agricola.
Large Agarista, otherwise known as Joseph's Coat Moth, is another of the world's most beautiful and brightly colored moths. It has black wings with streaks and blotches and yellow, white, blue, and red bands. It has a hind wing fringed with white, and the thorax - the segment between the head and abdomen is yellow.
Its wingspan is between 2.5 inches and 2.75 inches, with a metallic glimmer in its blue wing. It also has a cape of cream or white color and feeds on species of wild grapevines.
Scientific name: Hypercompe scribonia.
The giant leopard moth belongs to the family Erebidae. It has bright white wings covered with dark, round blotches in a manner that resembles a snow leopard.
It has a distinctive color pattern. When it spreads its wings, its colorful abdomen becomes visible with shiny blue and orange spots. The wingspan is about 7.6cm, and the average male grows to an average length of 5.1cm while the female counterparts grow up to 3cm. Their mating session is exceptionally long and can last for about 24 hours or even more.
Scientific name: Dysphania militaris.
This moth is another moth that people often mistake for a butterfly, perhaps due to its bright coloration; that looks like some swallowtail butterflies. We can find it in Southeast Asia with a wingspan of about 3.5 inches.
The head, thorax, and abdomen are golden yellow with purple bands. Also, the forewings have half golden yellow, with the other outer half purple.
Scientific name: Attacus atlas.
The atlas moth falls under the Saturniidae family. It’s one of the largest moths in the world, with a wingspan of around 10 inches (25cm). These brown moths have brightly colored orange-brown wings with triangular markings of white, and black stripes, yellowish patterned margins, and a round orange-brown body.
Its antennae of two long filaments make it look like a fish skeleton. They live in forests and shrublands in Southeast Asia. As beautiful as these adult moths are, they have a short life span. The atlas moth only lives a few weeks once it’s out of its cocoons.
The Western Chimpanzee hails from West Africa - you can spot them from Senegal to Ghana. They thrive in varied habitats, be it dry and moist lowland tropical forests or forest galleries creeping into savannah woodlands.
Their diet is as diverse as their habitat. They are omnivorous, favoring fruits and sometimes leaves or bark. Mammals and insects also enter their platter, while dietary preferences vary among communities and seasons.
Populations of these subspecies form communities of about 12 to 84 individuals. Alarmingly, Western Chimpanzees are critically endangered5, with a steep drop of 6.53% yearly from 1990 to 2014. Primary threats include habitat destruction due to human activities, bushmeat poaching, and infectious diseases.
There are different schools of thought on whether tree planting can reverse global warming. Some think it is just what we need to stop climate change once and for all, but others are not so optimistic. Before examining all the different opinions on the climate-saving power of trees, let’s see how carbon sequestration works.
The process of photosynthesis through which plants increase their biomass requires carbon dioxide, amongst other things. CO2 is responsible for 33% to 60% of plant growth. So for plants to survive, they need carbon dioxide, and there is an excess amount in the atmosphere already. So forests absorb and store carbon, and they also help our lands store it as well. In tropical forests, 50% of CO2 is stored in plant biomass, and the other half is in the soil.
Trees all over the world help to maintain the CO2 balance of the planet. Not only do forests absorb CO2, but they also release it too. When we burn trees, cut them down, or they die and decay, the carbon escapes into the atmosphere.
Over the past four decades, forests have sequestered one-quarter of the CO2 emissions caused by humans. Scientists believe that they can do an even better job. The forests in the EU have an estimated 9.8 billion tons of carbon stored in their biomass. This means that the yearly carbon emissions of the EU are only about one-seventh of the amount already stored in the forests. Therefore, the forests in the EU are seen as a viable method of reducing global warming.
Scientific evidence shows that forests, both old-growth and managed, sequester up to 6 tons of carbon per hectare. Research theorizes that replanting trees on 2 billion hectares of degraded land can wipe out the yearly increase of atmospheric CO2.
Using trees to reduce global warming is not as straightforward as it may sound. This is because forests could also become carbon sources. Fires, pest outbreaks, and storms cause a massive return of carbon to the atmosphere.
For instance, Canada's managed forests have done a great job as carbon sinks until recently. In the past decades, however, the forests were carbon sources at some points. This happened because of tree insect outbreaks, forest fires, and land use.
Another study advises that the tropics are the best place to plant trees2. Trees grow faster in these areas and therefore absorb CO2 faster. The study suggests that planting trees in snowy areas could become problematic. This is because the trees can create a warming effect, which is the issue we are trying to avoid in the first place.
In temperate climates like much of Europe and some parts of the US, planting trees may have no significant effect on global warming. The study concludes that planting trees to solve global warming is not the worldwide solution presented by enthusiasts.
Professor Beverly Law of Oregon state university disagrees with the idea that more trees will do damage to the icy regions of the planet. In her opinion, the polar regions are warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the earth.
It is not correct to assume that the snow cover will remain intact without trees despite the earth’s rising temperature. It is most likely that the snow will melt in the coming decades anyway. In that situation, trees will not create an albedo effect.
Then again, Nadine Unger, a professor at the University of Exeter, UK, warns against tree planting. She states trees could form the greenhouse gas methane or ozone through a chemical reaction as the chief reason.
In her 2014 study, she calculates that deforestation from 1850 to the 2000s has created a cooling effect that slightly offsets the warming of greenhouse gas emissions. Her article “to save the planet, don't plant trees” was published in the New York Times. However, Professor Dominick Spracklen, who has studied the effects of aerosols, says such reactions are insignificant. And have a very minute impact on the climate of the earth.
Warming temperatures could also cause increased heterot
Individuals, organizations, and governments are throwing their weight behind tree planting. There are efforts to protect existing forests and plant new ones.
The Paris Agreement has a significant number of nations coming together to combat climate change. Although President Donald Trump announced intentions to pull out of the agreement, he endorsed the 1 trillion trees program at the 2020 world economic forum.
The 1 trillion trees program is a multi-stakeholder effort by the world economic forum and its partners to grow, restore, and conserve 1 trillion trees. The United States representative, Bruce Westerman, also pushed the 1 trillion trees act. Although it garnered a lot of criticism, the president supports the 1 trillion trees act.
Nations under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe have seen an increase in how much CO2 trees have taken up. This is because the policies and laws concerning forests in the area ensure that new trees are planted to replace the ones cut down. The total forest cover of this region amounts to 1.9 billion hectares.
Research led by professor Tom Crowther found that there are 1.7 billion hectares of land that could support new trees. This area is 11% of all land and equal to the size of the United States and China put together. The researchers did not include urban areas or crop fields in their analysis. They estimate that this worldwide tree-planting scheme could remove 205 gigatons of human-caused carbon emissions in 50-100 years.
In professor Crowther's words
“... it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed”.
The researchers make it clear in an erratum later published that the statement in the earlier sentence does not mean to put planting trees above the reduction of fossil fuel emissions. The study gives a clear blueprint of how much more trees we can plant without disrupting agriculture4. Although these proposed new forests will cover areas worldwide, over 50% of the forest restoration land area are in the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and Australia.
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management tried to examine if more trees are all that we need to stop global warming. They created two simulations; in the first, two situations are considered. The first is constant deforestation, no large-scale reforestation, and the Amazon sink becoming a carbon source. This situation showed atmospheric concentration exceeding 500ppm in 2050. In the second situation, they reduce deforestation and add extensive reforestation, but atmospheric concentration also exceeded 500 ppm in 2060.
In the second simulation, they considered again the same situations but with a vast reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. In the first weak forestry situation, atmospheric concentration peaked in 2070. In the strong forest situation, however, critical atmospheric concentration was never reached. Rather it began to reduce in 2050.
This led the ECCM to conclude that tree planting alone can not solve global warming. It needs to be combined with a reduction in fossil fuel emissions. As Greta Thunberg says
“planting trees is very good, of course, but it is nowhere near enough”.
In addition to protecting the planet, increased forestry can be beneficial to people. Planting fruit and rubber trees can provide income for them. Also, in countries with large wood industries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon, a reforestation campaign could reduce pressure on their natural forests. An abundance of trees is equal to an abundance of wood that we could use to replace fossil fuels in some processes.
Moths are winged flying insects. They are a paraphyletic group of insects that consists of all members of the order Lepidoptera, excluding butterflies.
Lepidoptera, which translates to “scaly-winged,” is an order of insects whereby insects undergo a larval stage popularly known as a caterpillar, a pupal stage known as chrysalis, or cocoon, and the adult stage known as butterfly or moth. Many people often confuse moths with butterflies, but they differ from each other.
There are about 160,000 unique species of the nocturnal flying moth1, except for a few species active during the day, like the sphinx moth, day moth, and buck moth. On the other hand, moths’ close relative, the butterfly, has 17,500 species. There are nearly 11,000 species of moth in the United States and 2,500 in the United Kingdom.
Like all insects, moths have six legs, two antennae, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. They have a life span of six months to three years. Furthermore, moths range in size from a few millimeters to the largest moth species with a wingspan of 10 inches (25cm).
In addition, moths are diverse in their ecology. Moths inhabit places like farmlands, gardens, woodlands, marshlands, sand dunes, and even mountains. They also tend to lay eggs within cracks, near plumbing fixtures, and other dark areas. Moths come in various types, from the familiar brown house moth to multicolored, unique ones.
Scientific name: Chrysiridia rhipheus,
This beautifully colored moth can be mistaken for a butterfly because of its color. It has a wingspan of between 3.25 inches and 4 inches. This moth lives in Madagascar with a background color of black, and its wings are especially showy, with many tails.
This hind wing has a blue band, and there are also green band dots and stippling on the forewings. Also, the moth gets its name from the sunset-colored patches near the bottom of its hind wings—little wonder why it is often referred to as one of the most beautiful insects.
However, the colorful wings aren't simply for the pleasure of humankind as they warn predators that the moth is toxic.
Scientific name: Actias luna,
Another brightly colored moth is the Luna Moth, a type of silk moth. It’s also known as the American moon moth. Its species name is Actias luna, common in the United States and Mexico. It’s a part of the Saturniidae family, the giant silk moth family. The family also consists of the Japanese silk moth and emperor moth, and as with other giant silkworm moths, they exist to lay eggs and don't eat anything as adults.
It’s one of the prettiest moths, with a wingspan of 3 to 4.25 inches. The wing is colored in luminous pale lime-green or blue-green. The wings each have an eyespot attached to them with a band of brown. The hind wing also has scalloped eyespots and beautiful long tails that aid its identification as a moth. Luna moth male and female species are identical, though the male has fuzzier antennae. The white body is fat and covered with pale fur.
Scientific name: Agarista agricola.
Large Agarista, otherwise known as Joseph's Coat Moth, is another of the world's most beautiful and brightly colored moths. It has black wings with streaks and blotches and yellow, white, blue, and red bands. It has a hind wing fringed with white, and the thorax - the segment between the head and abdomen is yellow.
Its wingspan is between 2.5 inches and 2.75 inches, with a metallic glimmer in its blue wing. It also has a cape of cream or white color and feeds on species of wild grapevines.
Scientific name: Hypercompe scribonia.
The giant leopard moth belongs to the family Erebidae. It has bright white wings covered with dark, round blotches in a manner that resembles a snow leopard.
It has a distinctive color pattern. When it spreads its wings, its colorful abdomen becomes visible with shiny blue and orange spots. The wingspan is about 7.6cm, and the average male grows to an average length of 5.1cm while the female counterparts grow up to 3cm. Their mating session is exceptionally long and can last for about 24 hours or even more.
Scientific name: Dysphania militaris.
This moth is another moth that people often mistake for a butterfly, perhaps due to its bright coloration; that looks like some swallowtail butterflies. We can find it in Southeast Asia with a wingspan of about 3.5 inches.
The head, thorax, and abdomen are golden yellow with purple bands. Also, the forewings have half golden yellow, with the other outer half purple.
Scientific name: Attacus atlas.
The atlas moth falls under the Saturniidae family. It’s one of the largest moths in the world, with a wingspan of around 10 inches (25cm). These brown moths have brightly colored orange-brown wings with triangular markings of white, and black stripes, yellowish patterned margins, and a round orange-brown body.
Its antennae of two long filaments make it look like a fish skeleton. They live in forests and shrublands in Southeast Asia. As beautiful as these adult moths are, they have a short life span. The atlas moth only lives a few weeks once it’s out of its cocoons.
