Helping The Planet One Step A Time

Global Warming…Its Happening

zeeeko — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:18:46 +0000

When we wake up in the morning, sometimes we now that it’s going to be raining that day, or sunny, or even snowing which means no school…hopefully. Climate is the average weather over many years. It changes gradually, and lasts for a long time like during the four seasons. Many, many, many years, we’ll say millions of years ago many of the earth’s land was under ice, for example a “few thousand years ago UK was under ice,” EPA scientists say. Earth has warmed up really fast, and still is. This is called Global Warming.

How is the Earth’s climate changed?

How is earth warmed up…obviously from the sun, our number one resource for energy and light. But many things block the heat from being released such as the greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases are Carbon Dioxide, Nitrous Oxide, Methane, and Water Vapor. The image beside shows how that works…but it mostly works like a regular greenhouse works. That’s why they call it the greenhouse effect. From all these greenhouse gases…it warms up the earth…maybe in the future too hot for us to survive.

Greenhouse Gases

Carbon dioxide comes from many natural sources such as volcanoes, soils, oceans, and living things. Plants soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow and the ocean acts like a sink for carbon dioxide to be stored in. Carbon dioxide is a key greenhouse gas because it is common and increasing because of human activity such as cars to other engines that makes life easier for the humans.

Nitrous oxide comes from soils, oceans and burning wood and fossil fuels. Its greenhouse effect is 320 times greater than carbon dioxide, but it is rare in the atmosphere.

Water vapour is the most common and strongest greenhouse gas. Lots, lots of water evaporates from the oceans, mostly closer to the equator since its hotter there.

Methane is formed when things rot without oxygen. It has 25 times more greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, and its also rare in the atmosphere.

Many of our activities make greenhouse gases.

Burning Fossil Fuel

Fossil fuels (coal, gas & oil) are the remains of organisms that have been buried since the dinosaurs walked the Earth. We burn fossil fuel in power stations and to heat our houses. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon that has been trapped for millions of years and adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels have increased by 25% since the industrial revolution.

Driving Cars

Petrol is a fossil fuel, so we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by burning it. Car exhausts also contain many other polluting chemicals.

Deforestation

Huge areas of forest are being cut down all over the world. When trees are burnt, the carbon that they locked away is released as carbon dioxide.

Landfill sites

When we throw food and garden waste into our rubbish bins, it gets buried in landfill sites. As it rots under piles of other rubbish, it creates methane.

CFCs For Fridges and Aerosols

CFC stands for chlorofluoro-carbon. CFCs do not exist naturally. Wemake them using industrial processes. They are used for coolants in fridges andpropellants in aerosols. There are only tiny amounts in the atmosphere (less than 0.000001%), but they have around 10,000 times the ‘greenhouse effect’ of carbon dioxide. CFCs also destroy ozone – an important part of the upper atmosphere. Some ozone friendly CFCs are still greenhouse gases.

Farming

When farmers add nitrogen fertiliser to the soil, some of it is turned into nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Cows produce methane when grass ferments in their stomach. There are an estimated 1.2 billion cattle in the world, all adding to the world’s greenhouse gases.

Sources

Image-http://www.effectofglobalwarming.com/images/What-is-global-warming-img.jpg

http://www.funnyandjokes.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/shark-global-warming.jpg

EPA Climate Change

Climate Change Vs. Global Warming

…Eco-City

zeeeko — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:23:03 +0000

This blog is part two of the image blog where I talked briefly about an Eco-city. An Eco-city has great importance to the environment, for the people that live in that area, and all the living species that live within and around it. The Eco-city that I previously talked about was Dongtan and that Eco-city was designed by Alejandro Gutierrez and he went onto designing the Eco-city because it was located near the Yangtze River in Shanghai that rare birds use as migratory path. So an Eco-city is important for us to consider and pursue in.

An eco-city is like “an ecologically healthy city,” Eco-City Naturalist explains,”Today’s cities are making life systems on the planet-the ecology of the planet-very sick.” Then they go on making a point that the atmosphere and the ocean have a fever…heating up from the global warming. We are killing off animals all around the world all because of expansion of industries, companies, and cities. How, from polluting, taking over their habitat, and so on.

Eco-City is what people are doing now because they realize that we have been wrong and doing the wrong thing from the emissions of carbon dioxide from cars to allowing companies dump their waste in rivers-we can enforce regulations of the environment better if we tried. But we don’t!

Buildings

Its buildings make best use of sun, wind, and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants. Generally multistory to maximize the land available for green space.

Biodiversity

It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation.

Transport

Its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs. The majority of its residents live within walking or cycling distance of their workplace, to minimize the need for motorized transport. Frequent public transport connects local centers for people who need to travel further. Local car sharing allows people to use a car only when needed.

Industry

The goods it produces are designed for reuse, re-manufacture, and recycling. The industrial processes its uses involve reuse of by products, and minimize the movement of goods.

Energy

It reduces energy consumption through conservation, produces energy locally and sustainably through installation of renewable energy technology, and converts existing uses of fossil-fuel energy to renewable energy.

Economy

It has a labor intensive rather than a material, energy, and water intensive economy, to maintain full employment and minimize material throughput.

Emerging Threats

It will make development and land use decisions that prepare for climate change-related flooding, drought, disease, and other impacts from severe weather events, conserve energy and achieve carbon-neutrality, identify ways to reduce/eliminate nutrient loading to waterways, and conduct accurate and continual assessments of resource and infrastructure capacity when planning to ensure growth and development does not exceed capacity.

Sources

Image-http://www.arch.nus.edu.sg/staff_a/big.jpg

http://architecture.myninjaplease.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/foster_masdar_1.jpg

Eco-City Naturally Better Living

Eco-City Charter 2008

The Heart of Nature

zeeeko — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:11:06 +0000

The heart of nature can be from the roar of the lions in the jungle, the “three little birds on my doorstep” (song by Bob Marley) chirping away, to the sound of the wave crashing against rocks.

But everyone has their own definition of nature…so they intend to have their own love and affection for it. From the picture of above, it makes you feel relaxed, calms you down, and instantly you feel like just sitting down by the waterfall listening to the birds talk and slowly falling asleep to the sound of the water crashing onto the rocks.

Many people believe nature begins in their backyard and ends there. But nature doesn’t end…its everywhere from the vegetable garden to the flower beds, from the little park in your community to the water by the bay. It even extends so far that it even engulfs the Pentagon with its greenness.

A 2007 Time magazine reported: “In a recent paper, former CIA Director James Woolseyimagined a dialogue between John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, and General George Patton on climate change. In Woolsey’s telling, Muir cares about the environment, and Patton about security, but in subject after subject-alternative energy, increasing efficiency, improving the electrical grid-they come to the same green conclusion, if for different reasons. ‘It just happens that the two ideas produce the same outcome,’ says Woolsey. ‘There is something there for everybody.’ “

John Muir was one of the first environmentalist who worked hard to conserve, preserve, and make the earth a better place for everyone including himself. He accomplished many things from writing books to motivating President Theodore Roosevelt to conserving parks such as the Yosemite Park. Back in the day, way back, there were few environmentalists and people working to conserve, preserve, and save planet earth. Now a whole network of people are working together to not only conserve, preserve, and save the planet, but are doing it in a luxurious way by building Eco-Homes and Eco-Cities.

By destroying habitats for harvesting crops, cutting down trees for lumber, throwing away garbage in the water, all can destroy that heart. That heart of nature that calls out to you differently than other people. Maybe its the frogs from the wetlands that was destroyed for harvesting, the monkey from the rain forest that was cut down for lumber, or even the small water fall that was clogged by garbage thrown away in the water. Its simple, caring for the environment will save what nature means to you, me, and everyone.

Sources

Picture-http://i.pbase.com/o6/83/697483/1/74271793.ZurkMQcB.Brasstown.jpg

Time Magazine 2007-http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/

Eco What…

zeeeko — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:07:31 +0000

A simple picture can be of a waterfall taken by a photographer from a camera or it can be a design of the future created by Alejando Gutierrez on a computer. This is a picture of the future Eco-City Dongtan in the island Chongming located by Shanghai in China which is issued in the Wired Magazine . The picture catches the attention of many environmentalists and people who are concerned about the earth and want to move towards building Eco-Cities. From the green rooftops to the lake and water system in the image makes you feel that there is a chance for a Eco-City to make a difference in our environmental problems today. This image not only marks the achievements of many designers it also marks the time in history where people from all around the world are working together to make a difference and they are doing it by building an Eco-City.

What I mean by when I say that people from all around the world are working together is how this all started. It all started with a little step taken from Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation to have a city developed by the mouth of the Yangtze River.,

“Three years ago Alejandro Gutierrez got a strange and tantalizing message from Hong Kong. Some McKinsey consultants were putting together a business plan for a big client that wanted to build a small city on the outskirts of Shanghai. Today Gutierrez and a team of Arup specialists from Europe, North America, and Asia are finalizing a plan for a scratch- built metropolis called Dongtan,” wrote Douglas McGray in the Wired Magazine 15.05.

Dongtan is the new city plan for the island Chongming near Shanghai. It should by open by the time EXPO 2010 opens in Shangai. It doesn’t seem like a problem for Shanghai it have it up and running accommodating for about 50,000 because Shanghai’s economy is growing three times faster than United State’s economy. Transportation for Dongtan is bicycle paths, buses, walking routes, and water taxis. They will be solar or hydrogen fuel powered and visitors will be asked to leave their vehicles outside of the city.

Eco-Cities are designed to be ecologically friendly, with zerogreenhouse emission transit, complete self sufficiency in water and energy. This particular design has to be ecologically sensitive since its located near a wetland of global importance since its the migratory path for one of the rarest birds in the world, the black-faced spoonbill.

Key Principles Of Sustainablity

to keep the ecological footprint to less than 2.2 Ha/person
to minimize energy consumption in transportation and buildings
to maximize the use of renewable energy
to create loop of recycling-waste to be reused or recycled
to propose the maximum use of organic food
to produce their own food

Sources

Photo-http://www.wayfaring.info/2007/04/16/dongtan-eco-city-china/

Douglas McGray-Wired Magazine 15.05

ARUP-Dongtan Eco-City

Helping Others Help Me

zeeeko — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:30:37 +0000

Joey Ball my neighbor says, “Help means to assist someone who needs assistance,” and his wife Karla says, “Help is to contribute from the kindness of your heart with no selfishness in mind.” Many people have different definitions for help, but what does the dictionary say.

“Help is to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.”

www.dictionary.com

I consider helping a selfish act. Why? Well first of all in class we are given an extra 30% boost in our assignment for helping others…which in return helps me. Do people really help from the kindness of their heart or are they hoping that one day that person might help me when they need it. I don’t know about them, but I know about myself. I help others hoping that in the future they might help me when I need it, if they don’t help you, you could be like, “I helped YOU!, why can’t you help me?” Just consider that while we explore how we can help the environment.

Why do we care about the earth, the environment, our well being on this planet. All because we want to live a long and luxurious life. Don’t we all? Of course we do…we all work together…”helping” each other to fulfill that dream of ours, that luxurious dream. Again and again we do the so called “help” thing to help ourself, to help ourself to have that luxurious dream come to a reality. Why do I help plant trees? So I don’t get deprived of oxygen. Why do I save water? So I don’t run out of water. Why do people consider this helping others…I don’t. I think its a loop, that when I help them in return that help comes back to me…helping others help me. Help is like a mutualism relationship where both of the species or in this case both of the parties benefit.

My idea for this blog is to help others with coming up with answers to current environmental issues, ideas to live a sustainable life, and other environmental related things such as moving towards renewable resources that we can work together to accomplish so I in the future can live that luxurious life along with you.

image source-”Helping Hand”-The Jungle Book

Intro To Zeeko’s Eco-Blog

zeeeko — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:16:47 +0000

In this blog I am going to talk about what interests a high percentage of the population and what concerns us the most as consumers, the environment. How we can improve our lifestyles to benefit us and our environment for a longer and healthy life for the Earth and how to live sustainably. Offer ideas and solutions to problems that are revolving in current environmental issues and how we can reduce the usage of nonrenewable resources and increase the consumption of renewable resources and explore other ways for energy like solar and wind power-Green Power.

Writing this blog first of all seemed like a great chance for me to get my opinons out to the people on the issue that interested me the most, Environmental Science. What made me interested in this was taking an AP course which matured me to really think about the environment, to care about the environment, and teach others about the environment. So this blog is sort of a way I can help others help the environment, themselves, and me.

This is somewhat like a “journey” for me into the real world being a high school student. Learning and showing my prespective on issues that can change the world, not just only for me, but everyone else. What makes this blog, my blog unique is that it offers the perspective of teenager, a young adult, a 17 year old that is hoping to make a difference.