Tag: environment

New Year New Me

mushuooLeave a comment

I have never been a fan of the whole “New Years resolutions” thing. Everyone always talks about losing weight or eating more vegetables. I find it kind of silly that when the New Year comes around, everyone is frantic to head to the gym and start a new lifestyle.

Until this year, I never understood why anyone would make an effort to do something they should have been doing in the first place.

In late December, I had dinner with a friend who has always been very environmentally friendly and aware. We were talking about what her New Years resolution was. She had decided to use re-usable water bottles everyday and NEVER buy water in plastic containers.

A similar thought crossed my mind as she said that, and I brought up the idea to not use plastic bags anymore. I tried to not use them in the first place, but I was guilty of carrying around a few Target bags full of miscellaneous items once in a while.

This year would be different.

I was only going to use paper bags or bring re-usable bags whenever I went shopping. So far this year, I have saved approximately fifteen plastic bags, and we’re only 26 days into the new year.

Photo Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/45176802483723630/

Plastic bags are one of the many causes for the enormous build up of trash in the oceans. This build up destroys habitats for the wildlife, and the wildlife itself. I do not want to encourage this anymore than I already have. This year, I will try my best not to aid in the harming of our environment.

 

The Green.

enternity1030Leave a comment

How do you feel when the Winter comes?
How do you feel when no one understands your loneliness and sorrow?
How do you feel when they cut your bodies and burn them into ruins?

I see you standing there alone and sighed with grief.
You are afraid of being treated as your friends.

But now you have no worries, because right now there is only me.

Tell me your pain. Tell me your despair.
You have no reasons to fear, because now it’s the time for us to realize how important you are. Tell me your concern. Tell me your anger!

You are the gifts from nature. You are the painter who decorates our world into a colorful heaven.
You are the guards of danger. And you have beautiful names – trees.

As one human being, I am now standing out to tell you that we will keep working to rebuild you a comfortable home with hope and green.

People of the Earth, our environment is getting worse these days with the development of industries and political issues. For example, the variety of life on Earth, including “the number of species of plants, animals, microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species, and the different ecosystems on the planet”(Shah, Anup), is decreasing these years.

Fortunately, most of us know the danger and are trying to change the situation by doing lots of works in different countries. In China, people begin to pick up trash in streets, parks and schools as a community services. In Japan, “FUJITSU TEN is widening the circle of voluntary environmental action, with each and every employee fulfilling his or her responsibility as a member of the community. In addition, we perform tree planting and stock waterways with fish to help maintain biodiversity.” (Global Environmental Protection)

Take the action now and begin to do the smallest things.
Starting from picking up trashes and saving energy. Do not forget the easiest ones which can change a lot as a result.

How will you feel if the air is filled with clearness and fragrance?
How will you feel if the sky is colored into bluish-green as a mirror of beauty?
How will you feel if our friend nature starts to sing out with joy again?

I see your smile with desire and hope.

Therefore, let’s stay together as a whole family to resist this crisis with confidence and courage! We can not live without each other because this is a world of GREEN!

“Clear” Sky

enternity1030Leave a comment

Three weeks ago, when my plane landed on the ground, I was totally shocked about the view outside the window, because I could see nothing but hazy and foggy air.

I heard about the haze in my city before I left school, but I did not expect the situation to be such serious.

It made me sad somehow. There is not more bright sun or shiny stars. Tall buildings could only be seen partially. Everyone was wearing mouth masks. It became hard to catch a taxi because you could not see the cars clearly enough.

People were living in an unclear and gloomy world. And I missed my city – the clean, lively place.

Thick layers of haze that have been choking lots of cities in China recently. Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky. Sources for haze particles include farming (ploughing in dry weather), traffic, industry, and wildfires. Industrial pollution can also result in dense haze, which is known as smog.

Big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Xi’An were all victims, which led to issues including flight delaying, diseases and inconvenience of people’s daily lives.

The good news was that the air became much clearer than the day I arrived but I still saw a different city.

I don’t know what is going on nowadays with the environment.
I just want my city and the clear sky back.

Beavers.

eternity1030Leave a comment

The first time “beavers” came across my mind was during last year’s US History class. The European traders used to trade beaver furs. However, this time when I heard the word “beaver” again, it was more about how they destroy the environment.

The beaver is among the largest rodents including two species, North American beaver and Eurasian beaver. Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges with their powerful teeth and jaws. They build dams to provide still, deep, water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material.

Beavers have been a major threat to the environment. They create massive log, branch, and mud structures to block streams and turn fields and forests into the large ponds as their homes. But at the same time, millions of trees are destroyed. Beavers also eat crops and aquatic plants. Beaver activity jeopardizes millions of dollars in transportation infrastructure and can also cause significant damage to timber resources. For example, Alabama alone estimates $19 million in lost timber annually due to beaver.

The beaver becomes a challenge when they interfere with man’s use of the land. However, beavers are not damaging the environment as most people think they are. Beavers’ ponds act as a reservoir to impound and store water, therefore reducing flooding events further down stream. The stored water is released slowly and provides for a moderate flow in dry periods that will keep the fish in the creek alive.

Before we think about the destructions beavers can cause, we should recognize that beaver ponds also play important roles in the ecosystem by creating habitat for many animals, birds and insects.

By the way, they are cute too!

The Green.

eternity1030Leave a comment

How do you feel when the Winter comes?
How do you feel when no one understands your loneliness and sorrow?
How do you feel when they cut your bodies and burn them into ruins?

I see you standing there alone and sighed with grief.
You are afraid of being treated as your friends.

But now you have no worries, because right now there is only me. Tell me your pain. Tell me your despair.
You have no reasons to fear, because now it’s the time for us to realize how important you are. Tell me your concern. Tell me your anger!

You are the gifts from nature. You are the painter who decorates our world into a colorful heaven.
You are the guards of danger. And you have beautiful names – trees.

As one human being, I am now standing out to tell you that we will keep working to rebuild you a comfortable home with hope and green.

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Black n White.

eternity1030Leave a comment

They are the cutest creatures who are painted in black and white. With a bear shape and a cat face, they are members of the bear family.

Now take a look at them. Black fur on ears, nose, eyes patches, and shoulders and the rest is white. They move slowly and clumsily. However, each movement only makes them cuter and cuter like they care about nothing.

They live in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in the Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. They spend their lives roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests.

They have simple eating habits. They eat bamboo only, so they have to live in certain places where large amount of bamboo can be found. But in the zoos, the can eat some other things like rice porridge, apples, sweet potatoes and carrots.

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Environmental Policies

therightliberalLeave a comment

I often question others sanity. Chances are it is me who is insane, but on occasion it seems that others are far off their rocker.

It was proposed, years ago, to build an oil pipeline from the oil sands in Canada, all the way down to the refineries in Texas. Luckily Obama delayed the building of it, but it is still being pushed for.

The reason for the proposed pipeline is far from surprising: money. And money in all sense. It increases the price that the oil sands companies get paid, it increases the refinery work in Texas and on top of it all, with all the transport, the overall price goes up.

But it is not the bogus price hike that will come from the ludicrous transportation; it is the environmental cost.

The whole process is full of pollution and dirty business. Tons of tar and other unhealthy things are pumped into the atmosphere as well as polluting water.

Oil is great, don’t get me wrong. I wish we could just keep using oil and not worry about it. But two things make that not possible. The first is that we are quickly running out and the second is that we are destroying the planet we live on.

And yet, we have no clear cut solution. Ethanol and biodiesel have to potential to replace gasoline usage for the most part. But that requires a lot of investing in switchgrass and distilleries.

There are other potential ways around oil but they all require us to change how we live everyday. With ethanol and biodiesel, we can keep our cars the same and we would not need to come up with a whole lot of new technology.

By doing these simple things, we can work to cut our dependence on oil as well as working to make the world cleaner.

But the key thing is that we need to wake up. It is not fun to admit but we are almost out of oil. We can choose to deny the facts and face a very harsh future or we can prepare and make the transition easier.

Climate Change

therightliberalLeave a comment

In a time where the word “change” is constantly being used as a positive, climate change is sneaking up from behind.

It could just be me, but it seems as though all the talk about how quickly we are changing our climate has quickly died off. This worries me.

I am not a radical in my environmental thinking. I feel that people should do what they can to reduce their personal effect of the environment. I am not one to say that we all need to ride bikes and never buy a product that does not contain recycled material.

However, there are so many simple things we can do to prevent our home from becoming a lot less nice than it is now.

We can recycle at every possible moment. It really is not that difficult to put things in the right bin and purchase products that can easily be recycled. We can make conscious choices throughout our day that are little yet make a difference.

I am lazy so I understand that making these changes can be tedious at times. But in the long run it seems worth it. We can work now to slow the damage that we are increasingly doing to the earth.

From a political standpoint this is a prime example of what is wrong with our political system. By far the majority of the people of the US realize we need to change. And yet, there is hardly any political movement because of sticking to party lines.

How about we all just admit we need to change the way we live. Remember how change can be used as a powerful and great word? Lets change our path to avoid extreme climate change. Let us change the little things to achieve the big things.

Tianjin: the Self-Sustainable City of the Future

yrreskrapLeave a comment

The environmentalist trend has struck China with a bang. No, Tainjin is not just recycling and sorting out its trash. Tianjin isn’t just implementing solar power in a few office rooms here and there. Tianjin isn’t just planting trees or building houses with sustainable bamboo hardwood. No. Tianjin is going all the way.

Tianjin is becoming China’s first ever eco-city, meaning entire communities will be self-sustainable. Surbana Urban Planning Group, the company that designed the 30 square kilometer eco-city, is revolved around environmentally friendly construction. Other projects by Urban Planning include construction in Shanghai, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Urban Planning will be finished with the eco-city in an estimated 9 years. The new city is said to be ready in 2020 for a whopping 350,000 inhabitants to experience. The newest energy saving technologies will be used and residents will be able to choose from many landscapes, making commutes a thing of the past.