Friday, June 20, 2008

Penguins

I became interested in penguins after I heard that the penguin is in danger because of global warming. “Over the past 50 years, the population of Antarctic emperor penguins has declined by 50 percent due to global warming” (Roach, 2001, para. 1). Also penguins are losing their habitats because the ice is melting even now. The penguins eat krill or lantern fish, but they are going to die, which means there is not enough food for penguins anymore. According to Eccleston (2007), most krill, which are penguin’s food, are going to die, because of high temperature of the sea. They also must live in colder climates; like penguins, they now face extinction. The penguins need to live in really cold weather but the climate has been changed by global warming to warmer than before. It is a very serious thing for penguins; one author said, “One of the coldest environments in the world is actually seeing some of the fastest rates of global warming, and unless action is taken to reduce global CO2 emissions, the future of many Antarctic species looks bleak” (Aldred, 2007, para. 4). These days, not many people care about global warming, because they do not really feel it is serious. However, this event is going to be more serious, so from now on we need to care about environmental problems.

There have been some problems with penguins, so we need to protect them as soon as possible. What we can do is we should prevent global warming, provide them their food, which is krill, and make their nests.

First, now we should not make global warming worse. In “Global Warming” the author states “Global warming is climate change that causes the average temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere to increase” (n.d, para. 2). In addition, global warming comes from human activity actually. It means a lot of living organisms are going to die because of us. Many people do not know whether they make pollution. They need to realize quickly what they are doing wrong. Global warming comes because of the greenhouse effect. Many people know that global warming is becoming more serious, but they do not try anything, because if they try, their living will be uncomfortable. Moreover, in “Cars and Global Warming: What's the Link? RFF Scholar Proposes CO2 Emissions Labels on All New Cars” the author says, “The United States is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in general, and CO2 in particular. Fully 23 percent of all CO2 emissions come from the United States. One-third of these emissions come from the transportation sector” (2006, para. 7). However they do not really care about CO2 emissions, because car dealers do not tell buyers anything about that. Nowadays, our living style is very comfortable, but it has caused global warming. Actually the greenhouse effect is not bad, because it has made the earth warm enough to live on. However, greenhouse gases absorb too much sunlight, and then it brings global warming. Greenhouse gases come from many things, especially the cars. As a result, we need to reduce greenhouse gases by using our own cars less and using less of things that include carbon dioxide.

Second, I suggest that we should support penguins with their food. They usually eat krill, which is similar to shrimp, but the krill is almost dead because of the high temperature of the sea. The krill cannot live in warmer sea, so just little of krill is surviving. Unfortunately, penguins are not only becoming homeless but also going to starve. According to Aldred’s article, he states “Some colonies of chinstraps have seen reductions in numbers of up to two-thirds because less food has made it more difficult for youngsters to survive” (2007, para 8). So we should help them, because it is our fault. They have never destroyed anything; we made almost everything that is harmful for the earth. So we should have a responsibility about that. I think it is possible to rear krill for them. It also can create jobs for poor countries, and then we can protect the environment, because I have heard that poverty is one of the pollutants in core class. This problem is also one that we made, so everyone should join this project. I do not mean everyone should work to rear krill; I mean we should help in some way that we can do, even if it is a little thing.

Finally, we should make a place which is kept at a low temperature and is at a specific place. Penguins are losing their home now because glaciers are melting now. According to Guodong’s article, “Warmer temperatures and stronger winds mean the penguins had to raise their chicks on increasingly thinner sea ice. For many years, sea ice has broken off early and many eggs and chicks have been blown away before they were ready to survive on their own” (2007, para. 5). It means they cannot take care of their chicks, because sea ice has broken down many places and they need to move to a fine place to live continually. In fact, they are still fine to stay, but they will not have any places to stay in a short time. So we need to help them as soon as we can. It will be expensive to make something such as that thing, but we should keep every living organism as we do human beings, because we have made them like that. Perhaps some people have already tried to make them homes, for example, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), but it could not be done because it cannot be done by minor people. So, if we want to be successful to do that, we need to help them as much as we can. However, one thing we have a problem with is that many people do not know how we can participate. For example, I would like to help them, but I do not know how to help or how to participate to help them. So WWF or an organization like it needs to let us know the way to help them and participate.

Many people think that it is unnecessary to help penguins, because they think it is hard for even them to live now. They just care about their family and friends or someone who is around them. It is absolutely unfair, because penguins also have their lives and their family and they did not destroy the environment. Almost every person thinks that is not their business, so they are becoming selfish now. The most serious thing is that people always think there are a lot of environmentalists, so many people think environmental problems will be solved by the environmentalists. Global warming comes because of all the people; however, why do people just think the environmentalists should do that? The problem has come because of all the people, so everybody should solve the problems together. However they do not want to even try to realize. One thing they do not know is that if other organisms were gone, human also will be gone. In addition, some people know how serious it is but they do not try because they do not feel they need to help penguins. In my opinion a lot of harmful factors are caused by human activities, due to our convenient life, so from now on we should help them and we need to help them live without worrying.

In conclusion, they are going to die due to human activity actually, so I would like to say we have to, but I know it is not going to work, so we ought to help them even with a little thing. I think the government should do something as soon as possible; it is not only my opinion but also Guodong’s opinion that “After such a long march to Bali, ministers must now commit to sharp reductions in carbon emissions for industrialized countries, to protect Antarctica and safeguard the health of the planet” (2007, para. 12). Global warming is becoming more serious, so we should reduce what is causing global warming to get worse, we should start to rear krill as soon as possible, and we need to know how we can help them, and then we should participate to help them.

Reference

Aldred, J. (2007, November 11). Bleak future for Antarctic penguins, report warns. Guardian. Retrieved on June 10, 2008 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/11/endangeredspecies.conservation

Cars and Global Warming: What's the Link? RFF Scholar Proposes CO2 Emissions Labels on All New Cars. (2006, March 23). WWF Resources. Retrieved on June 18, 2008 from http://www.rff.org/rff/News/Releases/2006Releases/Cars-and-Global-Warming.cfm

Du G. (2007, December 11). WWF: Climate warming threatens Antarctica Penguins.Xinhua. Retrieved on June 19, 2008 from http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/11/content_7230273.htm

Eccleston, P. (2007, November 12). Penguins now threatened by global warming. Telegraph. Retrieved on June 10, 2008 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=2PFWTF5YFYOJ5QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/earth/2007/12/11/eapeng111.xml&site=30&page=0

Global warming . (n.d). Chicagotribune. Retrieved on June 19, 2008 from http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/environmental-issues/global-warming/06011000.topic

Roach, J. (2004, September 13). Penguin decline due to global warming? NationalGeographic. Retrieved on June 10, 2008 from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0913_040913_penguins.html

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Internet style language

These days, we cannot live without the Internet; that means the Internet has become part of our cultures now. There are many good things about using the Internet; however, there are also bad things about using it for people, especially for high school students. Nowadays high school students use the Internet for playing games, chatting with friends and reading unnecessary articles. One of the articles said that “Their abilities to write clearly have deteriorated appreciably in the past four or five years” (2008, para. 35).

So, even though the Internet is useful, I disagree that high school students should use the Internet a lot, because it can cause serious problems. There might be some students who use the Internet in a good way, but some others might not. Using the Internet a lot brings some problem to high school students, so their parents should control it for their children.

First, high school students have lost their writing skills because of Internet style language. They usually use informal language such as slang, or they make words shortly. According to Weeks, “the things that suffer most are spelling and punctuation. They put a comma, not a period, where there is a pause” (2008, para. 36). Nobody thinks it is serious, but it is very serious because language is one part of the big culture. If we let them use language like this now, the academic language will slowly go away. As long as they are learning writing skill at school, there should be a time limit on using computer before they graduate.

Second, the online game is an issue recently, because some students play the online game most of their days. They just stay at home and play online games. This situation can bring them death or give them mental disorders. They usually skip classes; they stay alone and they do not talk with family much. It is common for game addicts. In Asia, many people have died because of game addiction. So parents should not let them do that if they really care about their children.

Finally, nowadays they use a lot of slang and they use shortcuts. I think there are a lot of websites, where I can read unnecessary articles. The articles are mostly stories about celebrities and pictures. As you know there are a lot of slang words and shortcuts. High school students can access that website easily online and most of them like celebrities’ stories. When they read those articles and they find some new word, they will try to use that word. Because of that reason, their writing skill is going bad. In Lee’s article, she says that “some teachers find the new writing style alarming”. “First of all, it’s very rude, and it’s very careless”(2008, paras. 37-38). It is getting more serious now, so the people who wrote the celebrity articles should not write articles which include slang and shortcuts.

In my opinion, the Internet is very useful for our lives, but it can cause serious problems for high school students. Nowadays nobody can live without computer, so let them use computer with a time limit. In addition, someone should teach them how to use Internet effectively. Writing skill is very important, but high school students do not realize that writing can show the writer’s personality.

Reference

Lee, J. (2002, September). Nu shortcuts in school R2 much $ teachers. NY Times. Retrieved on June 17, 2008, from http://tinyurl.com/5p7vtb

Weeks, L. (2008, June 15). The fate of the sentence: is the writing on the wall? Washington Post. Retrieved on June 17, 2008, from http://tinyurl.com/6bp4kz

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Friday, June 6, 2008

Threatened Penguin

In Bryan Walsh’s (2008) article, “Is it too warm for penguins?” he states that penguins are threatened by global warming now. In this article, the author says that penguins still have an acceptable population; however, they are not sure after decades. They are hardly surviving now because global warming brings big events; for example, global warming changes the temperature of the sea, which removes their food, which is lantern fish or krill. So their chicks going to die due to not being supplied feed. Also many researchers say that the penguins need ice to live, but rising temperature continues getting higher as ice melts.
As the world has developed, our lifestyles have become so comfortable now. However, do you know the environment is being destroyed even right now? Carbon dioxide is the biggest reason to bring greenhouse effect, so we need to know about it and make it gone. Now I will illustrate some solutions.

First, nowadays human activities are harmful even for humans. They do not realize that we cannot survive without the environment. They just want to be more comfortable. People always drive their own car, and do not use the public transportation. I know we cannot live without any transportation. However, we need to control it now. The gas from cars mostly consists of carbon dioxide, so from now on we should use the public transportation instead of using our own cars.

Second, recently there are some places where they use alternative energy in many countries. It was really good to try, but now not many people prefer it, because using alternative energy is more expensive. But if we think of our future, we ought to do that without thinking about money. The nuclear power makes energy a lot of energy with a little bit of resources. However while making energy, the carbon dioxide is much more than with other kinds. And also it is hard to clean up after using nuclear resources. We should change to make our energy system to use natural resources.

Third, as everyone knows, trees change carbon dioxide to oxygen. However, people have been logging uncountable trees these days for their own benefit. The carbon dioxide is continually coming out of everywhere, but humans are taking trees away. I read some articles and they said that we should keep planting many trees right now. Also the government should create a law that makes a limit on logging trees.

In conclusion, I realize as I am writing this, that now not only penguins or any other organisms but also humans are in danger. Nevertheless, nobody cares about that, as if that is not their business. In my opinion, the most important thing is to notice many times how serious it is. In addition, every student should be required to learn about global warming. What we need to do is do it first from myself.

Reference

Walsh, B. (2008, February 12). Is it getting too warm for penguins? Time. Retrieved June 3, 2008 from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1712518,00.html

Friday, May 30, 2008

Penguin in danger

In Paul Eccleston’s (2007) article, “Penguin now threatened by global warming,” he explains that the penguins have lost their place to live because of global warming. Global warming causes climate change and overfishing, which is harmful for penguins. Warmer weather condition makes some penguins gone. In addition, the temperature of the sea is higher and sea ice has been melting. Then, some species are dead, especially the prey of penguins. Therefore, penguins that can live in a warmer climate cannot avoid death because they are in deficiency of their feed. They usually eat krill but krill is dying now because of the high temperature of the sea. Nowadays, people try to protect penguins from global warming.

Now, we need to protect penguins before they are exterminated. What we can do for them is we can make them their nest, supply them with food, and try to prevent global warming.

First, we should make the place, which is kept at a low temperature at a specific place. They are losing their home now because glacier is melting now. In fact, they are still fine to stay, but they will not have any places to stay in a short time. So we need to help them as soon as we can. It will be expensive to make something such as that thing, but we should keep every living organism as we do human beings. Perhaps some people have already tried to make them homes, but it could not be done because of cost. So if all people are paid, a little bit, it would be a lot of money and then we could make that for them.

Second, they are in trouble that is worse than losing their home. They usually eat krill, which is similar to shrimp, but the krill is almost dead because of the high temperature of the sea. The krill cannot live in warmer sea, so just 15% of krill is surviving. Unfortunately, penguins are not only becoming homeless but also going to starve. However, if we tried to help them, it could work. Actually, I want to help them but I do not know how do it. Therefore, if someone noticed how to help them, many people who are animal lovers would do that.

Third, now we know that every problem comes from global warming. In addition, global warming comes from human activity actually. It means a lot of living organisms are going to die because of us. Many people do not know whether they make pollution. They need to realize quickly what they are doing wrong. For example, the air pollution comes from many kinds of gas, especially gas from the cars. In this day, almost everyone has their own car instead of using public transportation. We should know that if environment was destroyed, we would not survive anymore.

In conclusion, global warming is serious for not only penguins but also all the living organisms. Now, I am interested in penguins so I am looking for many articles about penguins. Penguin is one of the most endearing symbols of animals, so we need to protect them by figuring out solutions so that penguin can survive. We should not care of just ourselves; we should care about every living organism that we are living together with.

Reference

Eccleston, P. (2007, November 12). Penguins now threatened by global warming. Telegraph. Retrieved on May 29, 2008 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=2PFWTF5YFYOJ5QFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/earth/2007/12/11/eapeng111.xml&site=30&page=0

Antarctica Wilkins ice

According to P. Spotts (March 28, 2008) in this article “Antarctica’s Wilkins Ice Shelf eroding at an unforeseen pace” Antarctica's ice shelf has collapsed and been destroyed because of global warming recently. This article says that its erosion would not directly affect the sea level. However, glaciologists are worried about Antarctica`s ice shelves because if this would be melted, it could make the sea level definitely higher, and another reason is the glaciers are melting faster than before now. So one of the researchers says that scientists need to find why events like that happen and then they can anticipate what will happen next.

I am going to write about why global warming has come; it is because of gas from the car, the Freon gas and gas from waste treatment.

First, these days there are many cars in the world now and many people use the cars now. The global warming is going to be more serious, but nobody cares about that. The gas from cars destroys the ozone. As we know the ozone is important for our lives; we should protect that. The way we can protect the ozone is we need to use public transportation instead of our own car. If we do that, we can not only protect the ozone but also save our money.

Second, we ought to control the use of air conditioner because it is really harmful for the environment. When we use air conditioner the Freon gas will come out from there. It also destroys the ozone as a gas from car. Some people turn on the air conditioner all day. It can not only waste money but also destroy the environment. If you really knew what will happen next because of global warming, just try to control the use of air conditioner.

Third, I did not know this before, but when we treat waste, some harmful gas comes out of there. But I heard that if we use recyclable things or organic things, the gas will be reduced a lot. Nowadays there are a lot of recyclable things and organic things, but many people do not purchase those things because of price. It is true those things are more expensive than the other things, but we need to buy them for the environment. The pollution is going to be more serious in 10 years, which means we will not be able to live the same as now. Many people do not realize how serious it is. when they realize it, that will be too late. Even from now on, we try to change to purchase things that are recyclable things and organic things.

In my opinion, the global warming did not seem to be so serious for me. However I read some articles, and then I realized that I was wrong. I knew that if the ozone is destroyed, it can become the most serious thing ever. We could have skin cancer if it was more serious than now. Everyone needs to realize this as soon as possible and they should try what they can do. What we can do are we can use public transportation instead of our own car, try to control the use of air conditioner and finally we can buy recyclable and organic things instead of non-recyclable things.

Reference

Spotts, P. (2008, March 28). Antarctic’s Wilkins Ice Shelf Eroding at an Unforeseen Pace. The christian Science Monitor. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0328/p25s10-wogi.htm

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Starbucks cup

A Starbucks cup is not recyclable, but now “Starbucks, the Seattle coffee company, plans to announce Wednesday that it will start stocking its store with cups made with 10 percent recycled material” (Warner, 2004, para. 2). Starbucks is one of the famous coffee shops, so they use a lot of cups. According to Warner (2004), Starbucks uses an estimated 1.5 billion cups annually. It is incredibly a lot, but they do not switch to recyclable material, because the cost is too high. Also Warner (2004) said, “The higher cost is one reason that other food companies have not switched to recycled cups” (para. 7). Some people think it is good to try even 10 percent, but some other people think this is too little to recycle. “Anna Kim-Williams, Starbucks spokeswoman, said she encourages customers to bring their own mugs, which she said helped North American Starbucks customers save more than 674,000 pounds of paper in 2006. Bringing one’s own cup to Starbucks scores a 10-cent discount on coffee” (Adewumi, 2007 para. 6). The real problem is people never care about whether the environment is being destroyed or not. Today, nobody thinks about how they can protect the environment, they just think how they can live well. We would find out how much the environment is important to live for us, when the environment is destroyed.

There would be some problems if they tried to switch to recyclable cups, but they did not try, because it is expensive. They need to announce to bring customers’ own mugs to save paper. Now they use large amount of paper; if they tried to find a method to help the environment, customers would be glad to know that Starbucks is green even if that is pretending.

First, I believe that Starbucks earns a lot nowadays as everyone knows, but I don’t understand why they care about money too much to change to recycled cups. According to one article, “Chaplin said Solo has fully recyclable cups in development that use plant-based resins made from corn. These recyclable cups are expected to be able to be available in early 2008, but Chaplin said the corn demand is high now, which may drive up the cost of the cups for potential buyers like Starbucks” (Adewumi, 2007, para. 10). I just think negatively, because I believe they don’t care whether the environment is destroyed or not. I mean they just do that because they want to show us that Starbucks is really worried about the environment in a commercial. If they really are worried, they ought to switch to more than 10% recyclable material or to fully recyclable cups. In my opinion people will spend more time at Starbucks when people think Starbucks is really eco-friendly. There are some people who do not care whether Starbucks is green or not, but some other people do. So even if a fully recycled cup is expensive, they ought to change for the environment and us. At first, they might earn less than before, because they spend a lot of money for fully recyclable cups, but as time goes on, they will not only earn a lot but also become more famous than before because they’ve tried to be green and done it. The coffee price should increase, because cups are expensive, but people will drink at Starbucks, because they are greener. I think it is good for both Starbucks and the environment, because of that reason.

Second, Starbucks uses a lot of paper cups annually, and such a large amount of paper is becoming garbage now. “Starbucks, which uses an estimated 1.5 billion cups annually, currently puts recycled paper into its cardboard cup sleeves, napkins and cardboard carriers” (Warner, 2004, para. 4). “Starbucks, which goes through 1.9 billion cups annually, plans to eventually increase the recycled-fiber content of its packaging” (Anderson 2006, para. 2). If they are really eco-friendly, they should find a method to help the environment. But they do not do anything at this moment; they do not appear to care whether a large amount of paper is becoming garbage. And there is one more problem that “Amy Schirf, Centre Country Solid Waste Authority education counselor, said the county does not accept the coffee cups, and said she was not aware of any waste management group in Centre County accepting them” (Conrad, 2007, para. 2). As the author says, the cups are not accepted, so where they are going? I am sure that neither anyone knows nor anyone cares about that. Almost nobody knows whether Starbucks cups are recyclable, even some who worked or are working at Starbucks (Adewumi 2007, para. 9). Also this article says that Starbuck also looks at what happens after the cup is used (2007, para. 14). They know they cannot throw their cups away anywhere. But they do not care about that. However someone who works at Starbucks feels guilty about dropping their cup anywhere.

Now, it is time for them to do something for everyone including employees, customers and the environment.

Third, if Starbucks tries to announce that if consumers bring their own mugs, cost will be down, more people will bring their own mug than now. According to Conrad (2007), “Customers in the United States and Canada took that offer more than 17 million times in 2006, saving 674,000 pounds of paper, said Starbucks spokeswoman Valerie Carborg” (para 17). But just few people bring their own cup, because people think bringing a cup is annoying. And also some people do not know that the price will go down if they bring their own mugs. I think if more people try to bring their own mugs, we can save incredibly a lot. I tried to bring my own mug and then I told them. I didn’t know how much cost would go down; however, it went down only 10 cents. After that I did not try to bring my mug any more, because it is annoying and price goes down too little. In my opinion Starbucks needs to discount more than 10 cents if customers bring their own mugs, and announce more clearly that bringing one’s own mug will make the price go down.

Some people say that Starbucks was first to include even 10 percent recycled material, so it is really good. However I strongly disagree about that. 10 percent-recycled materials are too little to make the environment better. “’Anything can be recycled, but the system is not designed to take the individual Starbucks cups’, said Steve Sargent, director of recycling for Rumpke Recycling, Columbus’ largest recycler” (Adewumi, 2007, para. 6). I think this means anything can be recycled, but in fact it is not practical to recycle Starbucks cups. The author says the Starbucks said that it was just first step, but they have not taken another step yet. I believe that they just wanted to attract consumers for selling their products by pretending to be going green.

In conclusion, they do try what other shops do not, because they brewed up the first FDA approved recycled cup (GreenBiz, 2004). Perhaps it is a really big deal with the environment, as many people thought at that time. However, even if they used approved recycled cups, recycling the cups was not practical in fact; I think it was just competition, not being worried about the environment, and they just wanted to get more money using a green icon. I can understand why other coffee shops have not changed yet. The reason they have not switched is they do not earn as much as what Starbucks earns. Perhaps, even if they want to switch, they cannot, because of money. However Starbucks has a lot of money to change to fully recyclable cups that are made from corn. If Starbucks tried to switch, customers would be more impressed and would go to Starbucks more. Nowadays, when people purchase something, some people check if the things are green or not, which means green is more important than ever. I am angry that they know their cups are not recyclable and they know nowhere accepts their used cups. They must find a method as soon as possible. I think it is not only Starbucks’ problem but also the problem of every place that uses non-recyclable cups. In Epps’ article “Craft Ideas for How to Recycle Starbucks Cups” (2008), he explains how to recycle non-recyclable cups. He says, we can get them and we can make something with them. It is really good to challenge, but the problem is how many people are doing it with them. I do not think many people try. I think it is a fantastic method to reduce paper, but I do not really think it has become popular. A lot of people do not know that bringing their own mugs will lower their price. So they need to announce their consumers to bring their own mugs and they need to discount more than 10 cents, because it is so little. They just want to show people they are doing so many things for the environment. I didn’t know anything about this before I read this article, so people don’t know what problems Starbucks actually has. Everyone should know and realize, and then they should make them consider the problems they have. I am sure that we will regret about this someday.

Reference

Adewumi, D. (2007, September 27). Starbucks, local coffee shops’ cups not recyclable. Collegian. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/09/27/starbucks_local_coffee_shops_c.aspx

Anderson, D. (2006, September 19). Creating the eco-cup. CNN. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_achive/2006/10/02/8387528/index.htm

Conrad, D. (2006, September 19). Creating the eco-cup. CNN. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://www.organicconsumers.org/article/article_7176.cfm

Epps, P. (2008). Craft Ideas for How to Recycle Starbucks Cups. Associated content. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/pop_print.shtml?content_type=article&content_type_id=448666

Starbucks Brews Up First FDA-Approved Recycled-Content Cup. (2004, November 18). Greenbiz. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://www.greenbiz.com/news/printer.cfm?NewsID=27395

Warner, M. (2004, November 17). Starbucks continues to Greenwash with Weak Environmental Policy. New York Times News Service. Organic Consumers Association. Retrieved on April 29, 2008, from http://www.organicconsumers.org/starbugs/recycle.cfm