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

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

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