The%20End%20is%20Nigh!

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The End is Nigh!

• I share tales of doom and gloom
• the future is bleak!
• (if things keep going like theyve been)

The Science of the Late 1700s
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Science Issue 1 Yellow Fever

• Back then, people thought it was caused by.
• People to people contact
• Damp air/being close to stagnant water
• Alignment of planets and moons
• Bad blood
• They would treat it by.
• Quarantine
• Blood-letting

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Now We Know CAUSE

• In the 1800s, Carlos Finlay, a Cuban doctor and
  scientist, identifies the true VECTOR
• MOSQUITOES
• (not people-to-people)

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TedEd The Loathsome Mosquito
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Now we knowTREATMENT

• Vector control eliminate mosquito breeding sites
  (wet areas), pesticides
• Vaccination injecting people with just a little
  bit of the bad stuff to help their bodies built
  up a resistance. (this was highly controversial
  at first)

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Science Issue 2 Terrible Personal Hygiene

• Many people believed bathing in hot water invited
  illness into your body.
• Deodorant wasnt popular yet.
• Toothpaste was only used by the most wealthy.
• Most people were infected with hair and body
  lice, mercury was the most popular treatment.
• http//listverse.com/2012/10/22/10-revolting-facts
  -about-the-18th-century/

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Mercury to treat lice?!?

• 18th century people had a love affair with
  mercury. They ate it, they rubbed it on their
  skin, and then they went completely crazy and
  died. (It is a neurotoxin.) On the positive side
  at least it killed the lice first!

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Science Issue 3 The Effects of a Changing
Climate (even back then!)

• In 1783-4, a volcano in Iceland named Laki
  erupted for 8 straight months.
• The resulting ash and sulfur emissions spewed
  into the atmosphere causing widespread COOLING
• In North America, the winter of 1784 was the
  longest and one of the coldest on record. It was
  the longest period of below-zero temperatures
  in New England, with the largest accumulation of
  snow in New Jersey, and the longest freezing over
  of the Chesapeake Bay, where Annapolis, Maryland,
  then the capital of the United States, is
  located the weather delayed Congressmen in
  coming to Annapolis to vote for the Treaty of
  Paris, which would end the American Revolutionary
  War. A huge snowstorm hit the south, the
  Mississippi River froze at New Orleans and there
  was ice in the Gulf of Mexico.

Winter of 1784- Extremely Cold New Jersey- One of
Largest Snowfalls EVER
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The Climate is A-Changing

• Do you think this was a concern of people in the
  late 1700s?

http//www.c2es.org/facts-figures/international-em
issions/historical
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http//www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/gaw/ghg/images/
Graph_IPCC2007_WG1_Chap2_faq-2-1-fig-1.jpg
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http//www.nipccreport.org/articles/2012/jun/6jun2
012a5.html
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How greenhouse gases like CO2 cause the climate
to change

• Climate Change Earths Giant Game of Tetris

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Can this problem be solved, now that we know what
we do about the causes of global warming?

1. Why is global warming bad?
2. What can we do about it?
3. If we could go back and change one thing, we
   would.
4. (and why)