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Green Junction: The Treacherous Reality of Tree Loss By Julie Peller Ph.D.
For areas of the Northern Hemisphere that experience four distinctive weather seasons, it is the time of the year when trees provide an ablaze of colors, one of nature’s stunning wonders. In addition to their visual beauty, trees provide oxygen, shade, ecosystems, and so much more to life on earth. The tree cover worldwide plays…
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Green Junction: Glass is a Beautiful Thing. By Julie Peller, Ph.D.
Glass is a beautiful material that is believed to date back to 2400 BC. Glass is made of roughly 70% silica sand with other components, namely limestone (calcium carbonate) and soda ash (sodium carbonate). By heating these materials in a furnace above 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and then cooling, glass forms. Soda-lime glass is the most…
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GREEN JUNCTION: In the 6th anniversary year of Pope Francis’s Laudato Si, BY JULIE PELLER PH.D
In the 6th anniversary year of Pope Francis’s Laudato Si, there are ongoing efforts by many organizations and individuals for ecological conversion to restore and protect Our Common Home. Ecological conversion involves changes of mind and heart that transform lifestyles towards harmony with the earth. Professor Stacy Davis at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, describes…
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GREEN JUNCTION: do you know what is happening to the corn belt? BY JULIE PELLER PH.D
A recently reported study on the Midwest Corn Belt determined that nearly one-third of this farmland has lost its carbon-rich topsoil. Soil organic matter, the carbon-based portion of the soil, is a critical component of healthy soil. The loss has been primarily from hilltops and ridgelines and is a consequence of tillage erosion from repeated…
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Green Junction: What Do Trees Do For Us? By Julie Peller Ph.D
Ecosystem services is a term used to describe the ways nature provides materials and functions for the essence of life. The food we eat, the oxygen we breathe, the medicines we take, and so much more are only possible by the services provided via resources of the earth. Trees are an example of nature’s offerings.…
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GREEN JUNCTION: “Approximately 8% of Americans and 32% of Canadians live in the Great Lakes basin,” BY JULIE PELLER PH.D
The Great Lakes are considered the most extensive freshwater system globally, containing enough water to cover the surface of the United States 10 feet deep. Approximately 8% of Americans and 32% of Canadians live in the Great Lakes basin, formed by the glaciers about 10,000 years ago. In addition to the numerous species that rely…
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AI must be understood in the context of Eudaemonia
AI must be understood in the context of Eudaimonia ~The Greater Good of Humans. Left in the hands of only corporations and including high tech globally, we will see the same cause-effect as at the beginning of the agricultural & Industrial revolution. It won’t be pretty! What we saw in the agricultural and industrial revolutions…
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GREEN JUNCTION: “80 million pounds of pesticides ” BY JULIE PELLER PH.D.
American homeowners use over 80 million pounds of pesticides to maintain their lawns, mostly for aesthetic purposes. Lawn service businesses that apply chemicals to kill weeds and feed grass have realized enormous growth just over the past decade. Trugreen reported revenue of 1.4 billion dollars in 2019. This seems to indicate that the American homeowner values a perfect green…
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GREEN JUNCTION: “The word fatberg” BY JULIE PELLER PH.D.
The word fatberg came to my attention a few years ago. The term was coined in the UK to describe the tangled mass of cleaning wipes and cooking fat that forms in sewage systems. The largest fatberg in London was defined as the size of a double-decker bus. Significant sewage blockages (fatbergs) have become more common in…
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Green Junction: Our Physical Surroundings by Julie Peller Ph.D.
Green Junction The physical surroundings of the celebrated events of Christianity – the birth of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus – are profoundly different today than in that time of human history. Our visions and celebrations of Christmas and Easter in the present day are complicated by secular and material influences. In…
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