Importance of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a necessary part of life. The diverseness of species is what makes an ecosystem thrives. Millions of species all related to each other, their roles intertwined to help maintain the environment that they're living in. The more intertwined they are to others, the more resilient the environment is to change. However, we are, in many ways, destroying the diversity in ecosystems all around the world. So for today, I'm going to talk about the importance of biodiversity and why we should protect it. (For anyone who's too lazy to read, there's a video at the bottom which pretty much covers all that we're going to talk about.)

First of all, watch the video above so you'll have a basic understanding of what biodiversity is. Don't worry, I'll wait.

A little treat for male readers out there. ;)

Why is biodiversity important? If you google that question, you'll find that biodiversity is not only important to environment but to mankind as well. If you've finished watching the video, then you should have an understanding of how biodiversity helps shape an ecosystem. Therefore, I'm only going to focus about what role biodiversity take part in our life.

First of all, we all know that biodiversity helps create strong, resilient, healthy ecosystems. So how does a healthy ecosystem benefit us? Here's a list of just a few things that ecosystems can offer to us:

• Protecting areas from soil erosion, floods, and other harmful weather conditions

• Reducing risk of local and global climate change

• Recycling nutrients

• Pollination and biological control

• Controlling pollutants

• Monitoring the health of the environment

(Green-Schools Ireland)

So biodiversity helps create environment where life can thrive, therefore it is keeping us alive. Pretty important, right? But it's hard to imagine that something so vague is keeping us alive. Therefore, let's talk about the economic value that biodiversity brings (because money is easier to imagine than the how nitrogen get recycled by nature).

It's kinda hard to imagine something like this, isn't it?

What does biodiversity bring that is economically-benefited to us? Well food is one thing. Biodiversity offers us a whole range of different kinds of food (like a gigantic buffet), each has its own nutrients that are beneficial to human being. Also, it makes eating more enjoyable. Imagine how suck it would be if the gigantic buffet only has one dish. 

Can't decide which image to use, so I use all of them. :)

Secondly, biodiversity offers us medicines. For thousands of years, human have been using herbs, plants, and even animal parts as medicines to cure a wide range of different diseases. Not to mention, it also provide herbs that is enjoyed by many teenagers nowadays (ehem, weed, ehem). I'm not saying that it's good or not (however there's a ton of articles saying that it is), but it's certainly is interesting to know that biodiversity provide teenager an addicted pastime.  

Were you expecting a picture of weed?

Thirdly, biodiversity provide materials for commercial uses. Plants provide trees, wool, syrup, oil, dye, seasonings, etc. while animals provide meat, fur, eggs, etc. In an earlier blog that I wrote about ocean ecology, I've mention that the ocean ecosystem provides about 1.2 million jobs, 38 million dollar worth of income, and 140 million dollar worth of sales in 2014 for the U.S. Now that's a lot of money.

And what have humans do to the thing that have given us so much? We're destroying it, little by little, every day. Watch the video below to know about the threats that biodiversity is facing, thanks to us. 8-|

So what can we do to stop people from damaging biodiversity? You can encourage your local community to protect and diversify biodiversity by planting trees and gardens, and consume goods moderately. If your local community uses pesticide, encourage them to stop using pesticides and instead invest in animals that can help kill pests. You can also spread information about the importance of biodiversity to others (like this blog, for instance), or create events that help promote biodiversity protection.

There are many ways in which you can help protect biodiversity. No one way is better than other. As long as you can remember the importance of biodiversity to nature and human life, and work toward protecting it from being destroy, any way you choose is a good way.

Too lazy to read? Watch this video instead!

Source + extra links for people who are interested in this topic:

Learning to protect biodiversity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHhspf5IfdE

Why is biodiversity important?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_vRtHJZu4
http://www.greenschoolsireland.org/biodiversity/why-is-biodiversity-important.364.html
http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares
Threats to biodiversity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhRBqeuG1Jc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RC3Hsk90t8

Nuclear Energy - Good or Bad?

After decades of using coal as an energy source, most people have finally acknowledge its harmful side effects. Many countries are slowly moving away from coal in favor of more environmentally friendly energy source, clean energy, as they call it. This new and emergent trend is becoming more and more popular in developed countries, who wish to protect the environment and not follow the footsteps of China. However, a question arises, "Which one should we use?" Well, you can probably guess which one I'm going to talk about based on the title. Yes, I'm going to talk about nuclear energy, arguably one of the most promising alternative for coal. However, is nuclear energy a good source of energy to use, or are the cons completely overwhelm the pros? (Video at the bottom for people who are too lazy to read)

First, you should watch the video above to have a basic understanding of what nuclear energy is. It's ok, I'll wait. :-w Done? Ok, let's talk.

What are the benefits of using nuclear energy? First of all, it's much cleaner than coal. It's CO2 emission is relatively low. Unlike coal, where huge amounts of CO2 is released into the air when energy is produce, energy production in nuclear power plants release zero CO2 gases, as well as other greenhouse gases such as SO2 and NO. The process of recovering uranium from the Earth's crust, transportation of uranium and wastes, construction of power plants, etc. do release a certain amount of greenhouse gases into the air. This amount of gases, however, is insignificant when compare to the 1,562 million metric tons of CO2 released by coal power plants in the U.S last year. Because of this, nuclear energy has been proposed as "the" method to mitigate the effects of climate change.

No more

Secondly, nuclear energy is more proficient than fossil fuels. Here is an interesting fact for you: the amount of energy nuclear fission produced is about 10 million times greater than burning 1 atom of fossil fuel. Also, 1 gram of uranium can produce the same amount of energy as that of 3 tonnes of coal. Nuclear energy is renewable, contrary to popular belief, through the use of breeder reactors and fusion reactors. This plus the fact that if we can learn to control atomic fusion, the same reactions as those that fueled the sun, we'll have access to almost unlimited energy.

But no type of energy is perfect. Even though the whole "unlimited energy" sounds awesome, nuclear energy does possess threats that makes countries and investors hesitate to use it (everything has a catch, I guess).

The first con of nuclear energy is radiation. Radioactive waste is a product of nuclear fission. These waste can't be get rid of and instead being stored in storage ponds under tight security so it won't leak out to the environment. After a certain time, the radiation level of the waste will drop below the harmful level. However, that will take hundreds of years for radioactive waste to completely decay into harmless material. And with nuclear power plants producing more and more waste everyday, we're running out of place to safely store them.

Accident is another problem that many people fear. Example of famous nuclear power plant accidents including the Three Mile Island accident, the Chernobyl disaster, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. In reality, these kind of accidents rarely happen. But when they do, they devastated the entire area, making it inhabitable. The Fukishima accident, for example, create a 30-km evacuation zone where no one is allowed to come in unless under government supervision. The Chernobyl disaster killed 31 workers when it happened, and need a total cost of 18 billion rubles (350 million dollars) to contain the contamination. When such an event happened, it not only devastated the economy of a country, but also intoxicated the surrounding environment and harm people. If you want to know more about how radiation affect a person and what are its effect to human health, click here.

Another con of nuclear energy is the amount of money needed to built a nuclear power plant. Even though when compare to coal power plant, nuclear power plant doesn't cost as much to operate, the cost to build one is just too high for some investors. This is because nuclear power plant have to follow a lot of regulations to make sure that accidents don't happen or radioactive material don't escape to the outside world. Not only that, the cost to store radioactive waste are also high, too. With so much rules and regulations to follow, many investors decide to stick with coal instead. But hey, rules are rules. /nobigdeal

The last con of nuclear energy is that they are hot target for terrorist. Imagine a group of terrorists have control of a ship transferring radioactive waste container to another country for storage. All that radioactive material is now in the hand of people who are willing to release them into the world for their own purposes. How danger does that sound? Nuclear power plant can also be used by countries to make nuclear weapons. Imagine something like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings happen again right now. The effects would be catastrophic.

So, the question still remains: "Should we use nuclear energy or not?" In my opinion, we should use nuclear energy because it can produce a huge amount of energy with low effects on the environment. But if we are going to use nuclear energy more frequently, there need to be better technologies to help increase the safety of power plants, storage of radioactive waste, and recycle radioactive waste. Development in the field of nuclear energy has been stagnant since the 1970s. A lot of nuclear power plant in the world are still using old technologies, which increase the risk of another disaster to happen. So, in order for nuclear energy to replace fossil fuel in the future, improvement in technology is a must.

Too lazy to read? Watch this video instead!

Sources:

Nuclear energy's pros and cons:
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-energy.php
http://energyinformative.org/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEYbgyL5n1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVbLlnmxIbY
Nuclear power plant CO2 emission:
http://timeforchange.org/co2-emission-nuclear-power-stations-electricity
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/air-emissions.html
Coal power plant CO2 emission:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=77&t=11
Science of nuclear power:
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/TheScienceOfNuclearPower
Nuclear power explained:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7LO8lL4Ai4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcOFV4y5z8c
Health effects of radiation:
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/health_effects.html
Chernobyl disaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
Fukishima Daiichi nuclear disaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Clean Water Crisis

"For many of us, clean water is so plentiful and readily available that we rarely, if ever, pause to consider what life would be like without it." - Marcus Samuelsson

What can we say about water than haven't been said before? "It's important to our lives" would be the most cliche answer there is. But it would be a correct one. Water is a crucial factor in almost every aspect of our lives, or rather, of the lives of every living things on Earth. From the largest of biome, to the smallest of living cell, water is always there, sustaining life as it always do. Therefore, it's only logical that something as useful as water should be conserve for long-time usage.

However, that's not the case with us humans. If you can stop just for a moment and have a look at the video above, you would see how have people wasted water on a daily basis and the consequences behind. Also, corporations releases thousands of gallons of industrial wastes in streams and river every day, turning perfectly good water source into toxic streams of death. Wasting water, polluting water, we are literally destroying the thing that's keeping us alive everyday. Why do people do it? What's the result of this course of action? Who does it affect? And how can we stop it? That's what I'm going to talk about today.

Why do people waste water? In my opinion, it has to do with how human reacts to abundance. Whenever we have a lot of something to use, we don't usually worry about how much is left or how effectively we use it until we run low on it. If someone have a lot of time to do HW, he might wasted his time surfing the Internet until the last minute. Likewise, we don't usually think about how much water we are wasting because we have so much of it, or at least that's what we thought. If you want some water, you can just turn the tap and there it is. So because water is so easy to get in our daily lives, we are caught in this illusion of abundance, thinking that since water is so accessible, there must be a lot of it, so it's ok if we wasted a little bit. It's this illogical thinking that puts California in the position it's in today. (click here to read about the California drought)

What's the result of wasting and polluting water? There are 769 million people in the world who don't have access to clean water right now. That's one tenth of the entire human population. And then there's people who use water as if they have access to an infinite amount of it. But soon, as Californians have experienced, their water resource runs out, and they suffered from it. Water is such an important factor in our life, but because it's so easy to access, we sometimes forgot just how precious they truly are. Only 21% of Earth's water is drinkable, and that amount of water have are used by almost every living things on Earth. What if one day, we wasted our last drop and pollute our last river, what would happen then? I'll tell you what happen: every living thing will die.

How can we stop it? One might think the answer is simple and straightforward: Stop wasting and polluting water. But just saying that means nothing. People aren't going to stop wasting water, factories aren't going to stop polluting rivers, and companies aren't going to pay for water cleaning systems just because we said so. We have to do something to convince people that shortage in clean water is a serious problem, that wasting water is a luxury we can't afford and polluting water is a sin we can't recover from. So, if you truly think that shortage in clean water is a serious world problem, go out there and do what you can to stop people from wasting and polluting it.

Ocean Ecology

"Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet can live without humans." - Evo Morales

Since the ocean covers 71% of Earth's surface, it's only reasonable that the marine ecosystem is one of the biggest ecosystem in the world. It's also one of the most diversify ecosystem, with coral reefs capable of having more than 1000 species per square meter. However, in recent years, we human have been destroying the ocean ecosystem and making many ocean species gone extinct. This act needs to stop or else the biggest ecosystem in the world is going to be destroyed.

Why do we need to preserve the ocean ecosystem? First of all, the ocean contains many mysteries still remained undiscovered. Even with the knowledge and technology we have now, humans have only discovered 5% of the entire ocean. Some scientists said that we know more about space than we know about Earth's ocean. The estimated number of species in the ocean is about 1 million. Of all that, we've only discovered about 226,000 species. This means that there are still hundreds of thousands of species left out there still waiting for us to discover. This means that ocean legend like the Kraken might actually exist, we just haven't found it yet :). But if we humans destroys the ocean ecosystem, those mysterious and possibly out of this world creatures would have gone before we get a chance to discover them.

Second, the ocean ecosystem is a huge source for fisheries. Every year, in the US alone, ocean fisheries provides 1.2 million jobs, 38 million dollar worth of income, and 140 million dollar worth of sales. Not to mention, the ocean is a huge source of food. From fishes, shrimps, scallops, caviar, to those huge and deluxe lobsters, the ocean have given us many raw materials used to create millions of delicacies. So if we destroy the ocean ecosystem, we also destroy a huge source of income for any country in the world, not to mention removed millions of delicious dishes from our menu.

What have human done to the ocean ecosystem? If you Google human's affect on the ocean, there will be a huge list of many different horrible acts that we human have commited to the ocean. From over-fisheries, pollution, eutrophication, to introduce new species, ocean acidification, and climate change, because of our acts, 39% of marine wildlife is gone, and 30-35% of ocean ecosystems world wide is gone.

So if you're reading this, I sincerely hope that you will spread the information to everyone you know about this problem so everyone can be aware of the harmful effects that we're doing to the ocean. If many people understands the important of ocean, hopefully, in the future, ocean ecosystem will be protect.

Gender Equality

"A woman is human.
She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man.
Likewise, she is never less.
Equality is a given.
A woman is human." - Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calender of Inspiration

Many religions in the world worship female godness. From the Egyptian goddess of nature and magic Isis, the Chinese goddess of sea Mazu, to Mother Mary in Christianity, women have always appear in many culture's mythology. And then there's the female that is worship most of them all, mom. We worshipped her so much that we called our homeland Motherland and the nature Mother Nature. It's obvious that the women are worshipped in many cultures on Earth. But at some point in time, the status of women and men were reversed. Somehow, women became discriminated by men, refused of basic human rights such as education and getting a job, and is only seen useful as a caretaker. So today I'm going to talk about gender inequality.

We're now living in a better world where sexism wasn't as widespread as before. With the help of the Internet, many people now aware that women are needed to be treated equally. No longer are the times when female were heavily mistreated by virtually everyone in society. Now, in most countries, women are allowed to vote, to learn, to love, to make their own decisions, and live their life the way they wanted. But even with all the freedom and rights that women have fought for, societies nowadays are still crawled with traces of discrimination against female, from school, work, to relationship, and family.

One of the most common signs of sexism is the gender pay gap in work places. According to many studies, women are usually paid lower than their male counterpart, regardless of individual skills. It doesn't matter if the job is corporate, government, education, retail, or medical, if you look at the chart showing earnings between male and female employees, you would find that women's earning are usually, if not always, lower than male's. Why is that?

There are many factors that researchers came up with to explain the reason behind this peculiar income disparity. From the difference in physical, mental, and emotional strength, education and experience, to social status, pregnancy, marriage... women are being unconsciously discriminated not only by men, but also by women, too. A study at Yale University where leaders at scientific research institutes were given identical job applications with either male or female names. Participants, both men and women, rated male applicants as more qualify and hireable than their identical femal applicant. These participants also selected a higer starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. As you can see, even when a woman has the identical skills as a man, she's still being short-changed by employers, which results to lower income and less chance for promotion.

Up there is just one of the many instances in society where women are discriminated. Women are also being unfairly treated in families, relationships, marriage... It's important that we stand up and defend women from discrimination because they are just as good as men. I once heard this saying about gender equality that I really like: "The only thing men can do that women can't is growing a beard." And even that's possible for some women. In a society as advance as it is today, we need to be aware of the fact that women are just as capable of doing what men do, therefore they should be treated equally as men. I'm not saying that women should do everything that men do (there are things that men are more suitable doing), but that we should treated women equally and indiscriminately. If you find this interesting, please share it with people you know so that gender inequality can be erase and women all around the world can be just as free as men.

Tobacco Use

"Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times." - Mark Twain

I bet almost all of you have already heard someone saying "Smoking is bad for you", right? But have you ever wonder why smoking is bad for you? Don't get me wrong here, smoking will definitely kill you. But what is it that's harmful about tobacco? And why are people still smoking even though most of them probably know that it will reduce your life? That's what I'm going to talk about today.

Ok, let's start with some general facts. Do you know that the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that approximately 15 billion cigarettes are smoked worldwide everyday? Holy crap! That's twice the population of Earth. And out of all that, 1 in 3 cigarettes smoked in the world today is smoked in China. That''s 5 billion cigarettes per day in a country of 1 billion, meaning that everyone in China is smoking 5 cigarettes per day. Talk about serious health issues.Not only do they have to worry about toxic factory gases, now they have to be aware of the millions of people around them smoking? China is like a torture cell for your lung or something.

But seriously, why do people smoke so much? And what are the harms of smoking? Let's start by analysing what cigarette is. Wikipedia identified a cigarette as "...a small cylinder of finely cut tobacco leaves rolled in thin paper for smoking." It might sounds like nothing, but a study shown that a cigarette contains more than 7000 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause lung cancer. Because of its toxicity, it's known for causing 1 in 5 deaths in the US every year (or about 400,000 people). Out of that, 50,000 people died due to "secondary" smoking, meaning that you breath in the smoke that the smoker releases. Not only that, smoking also reduce your life expectancy. People who smoked are expected to live a shorter life than those who don't by up to 13.2 years for men and 14.5 years for women. But that's not all, smoking also increase the risk of having heart diseases and many types of cancer, affects your circulation, fertility, and even give you sex problems.

So why do people smoke so much? Insofar as we know, smoking causes huge problems to your body. Well, the answer is Nicotine. Nicotine is a psychoactive chemical found in tobacco, and it's addictive. That means that when you're used to smoking, it's very hard for you to quit. A study shows that 69% of smokers want to quit completely. But they couldn't because smoking is just so addicting. Moreover, a study has discovered that every day, nearly 4000 teens in the U.S. smoke their first cigarette, while 1000 start smoking in a daily basis. This is alarming because a) Your not-fully-developed body can't take the tolls of cigarettes like an adult's body can, b) when these kids get addicted to smoking, it's going to be harder to quit once they grow up and realize the damage of smoking and c) smoking is going to ruin your future. People tends to avoid hanging out or hiring someone who smoke. My friend once told me that when he returned to his primary school to visit, he saw a 5-grader smoking. That's just wrong. What have society become that small children have already begin to smoke at the age of 10?

So what can you do if you want to quit smoking? First of all, get rid of all of your cigarettes. Then try to ask for your friends and family to help you with quitting smoking. While it's true that you can accomplish this task by yourself, it's always better to have someone to look after you and stop you if you try to smoke again. Then try to develop a plan to eat healthy and work out so your body can recover from all the smoking. If you eat healthy and exercise, in a couple of months, your body will return to normal. But if there are times when you just can't fight back the urge to smoke, try one of these methods: a) Try chewing gum, b) Medicine (must be prescribed by your doctor), c)Nicotine Replacement Therapy (works best if you get behavioral therapy and support from family). Below I've list some links that can help you to quit smoking.

This is just a quick blog showing you some of the effects of smoking and how you can quit it. Smoking is harmful for your body and you shouldn't try to smoke, even if someone offers it to you or your friends told you it's cool to do it. If you know someone who smoke a lot, be sure to share with them things that you've read in this blog so they can understand what the risks of smoking are. If you want to know more about tobacco usage, you can find them in the links at the bottom. See you later and remember: "Smoking is bad for you."

Links:
http://www.patient.co.uk/health/smoking-the-facts
http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/facts-figures/general-smoking-facts.html
http://www.factslides.com/s-Smoking#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette
http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/quit-smoking
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/addiction/how-to-quit-smoking.htm

Domestic Violence

“Now let's move on to the subject of how a real man treats his wife. A real man doesn't slap even a ten-dollar hooker around, if he's got any self respect, much less hurt his own woman. Much less ten times over the mother of his kids. A real man busts his ass to feed his family, fights for them if he has to, dies for them if he has to. And he treats his wife with respect every day of his life, treats her like a queen - the queen of the home she makes for their children.”  - S.M.Stirling, Dies The Fire

It's sad to see how bad people treated each other nowadays, not only between others in society, but also between members in a family. People curse at each other, threaten each other, beat up each other, and do all kinds of horrible acts to the people who were supposed to be their family. Domestic violence is and have always been a problem in each and every country in the world. Everyday we see news of husbands beating up their wifes, children getting poorly treated by their parents, etc. Therefore, today I'm going to share some facts about domestic violence and, hopefully, after reading this blog you'll share this information to others so more and more people can be aware of how wrong domestic violence is.

So to start off, what's domestic violence? Oxford Dictionaries said that it's "Violent or agressive behavior within the home, typically involving the violent abuse of a spouse or partner." This simply means that domestic violence is the abuse of family members by other family members, like parents to children, husbands to wife, uncle to nephew, etc.They can happen in both heterosexual (man and woman) and same-sex relationship. Yes, what you've just read is, in fact, true. Same sex partners do show a tendency to abuse their other partner. Some even argue that domestic violence occurs just as frequent in same-sex relationship as they do in heterosexual relationship. So the next time you see a gay or lesbian couple in the street,  just remember that their relationship might not be as perfect as you might think.

In heterosexual relationship, the female is usually the victim of domestic violence. They are often being abuse by their male partner, either through verbal assault, physical assault, or even sexual assault. They are forced to do what the men wanted them to do, otherwise they'll get physically and/or mentally abuse by their husband. This leads these women to having low-esteem, depressed, PTSD, disfigurement, or even death.

Ok, you've seen how bad women have to suffer. But do you know that, sometimes it's the husbands who are the ones getting abuse? Just like how husbands abuse their wifes, these men are also put through physical, emotional, verbal, and even economic abuse by their wifes. But unfortunately, unlike women, who are encourage to report to the authority whenever they experienced domestic violence and can easily get help and support, men don't get that much support from society. Some studies have shown that woman who assaulted their their male partners are more likely to avoid arrest even when the male victim contact the police. In the court, women are also occasionally treated as a victim rather than an actual offender. This is really ironic because with all the banners and events around the world demanding equality in women, it's the women who is more capable of getting away with abusing their male partners, not only because of the bias in the justice system, but also because most men tend to refuse to report that they've been abuse because they fear that society is going to judge them and their masculinity. So if a man was to be abuse by his wife, he's most likely going to try to endure it, rather than seeking help from other people.

These are just some aspects of domestic violence that I wanted to share with you today/ There are so many more to say about domestic violence, this is just a tip of the iceberg. But I think this is enough to show you how domestic violence affect people's lives around the world. As we strive to improve the quality of our life, it's necessary to make sure that all the illness in our lives are removed. And what better way to do than to start by making sure domestic violence doesn't happen anymore. If you think that domestic violence is a serious problem in the world and it needs to be stop, please share these information to everyone you know so that they, too, can be aware of this problem. Domestic violence maybe hard to stop, but I believe that if we're all aware of this problem, we can prevent domestic violence from appearing, eventually erase it from our society.