After so much news on droughts, floods, and other natural disasters happened around the world lately, it's pretty a good time to review the documentary 'HOME' again. Although the film provided only hard facts about the Earth, they are so impressive and left me in awe every time I watched it. Enjoy it YouTube here.
A little bit interesting information about the shooting of 'HOME':
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
May 4, 2010
HOME
The Cove
Thousands of dolphins are being slaughtered in Taijii, Japan, for profit every year, and the local government seemed to permit the business. 'The Cove' is about the story of how a few people went against the government to uncover this shocking fact to the world.
This is an award winning documentary. Please find more information about the movie on IMDb here.
Movie Review
One of the absurd excuses the Japanese government used for killing dolphins was that the dolphins were eating up fishes, which were also the target of Japanese fishing business. They named the slaughter 'pest control', and they were proud that the time they killed each dolphin was getting shorter and shorter each year, making the dolphins much less painful. We can very well see how ignorant and cruel can dirty money turn human kind into.
'The Cove' also talked about loopholes in the relevant regulations. Dolphins are a kind of whale, and there seems only one internationally recognised organization about protecting them, the International Whaling Commission (IWC). However, it does not have much established regulations regarding the fishing of dolphins yet and Japan played a significant role in the commission. A lot of the developing countries supported Japan simply because Japan pay them good money.
In the documentary, Ric O'Barry, the activist who is determined to stop the dolphin killing, was actually the famous dolphin trainer who popularized dolphins among the public in the 1960s, indirectly making dolphin shows a profitable business. Anyway, I'm amazed at his courage to stand up against the government and change the world.
Related Links
Below is a PSA on saving the dolphins, featuring a number of movie stars. For more information, please visit the official site for the movie here, or the follow-ups on the movie here.
Apr 5, 2010
Apr 22, 2009
Words for the Earth Day
"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road - the one "less traveled by" - offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth.
The choice, after all, is ours to make."
- By Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
Mar 16, 2009
WWF Advertising Campaign
Here are some environmental protection advertisement created by WWF. You can check out more of their work here, or a blog that shared even more ads from other organization here.
About WWF
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization for the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in the United States and Canada. It is the world's largest independent conservation organization with over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in more than 90 countries, supporting around 1300 [4] conservation and environmental projects around the world. It is a charity, with approximately 9% of its funding coming from voluntary donations by private individuals and businesses.The group says its mission is "to halt and reverse the destruction of our environment". Currently, much of its work focuses on the conservation of three biomes that contain most of the world's biodiversity: forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. Among other issues, it is also concerned with endangered species, pollution and climate change.
Visit its official website here.
Mar 14, 2009
The Girl Who Silenced The World For 6 Minutes
This was 16 years ago, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Summit, Earth Summit (or, in Portuguese, Eco '92), a major conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992. the UN international Environmental Conference.
Did anybody listen?
Feb 22, 2009
Sylvia Earle: Protect the Blue Heart of the Planet
Here is another fantastic talk from TED. The speaker, Sylvia Earle, has been a pioneer of deep ocean exploration for more than forty years. She not only has led more than 50 undersea expeditions but also has been an active advocate for our oceans and the creatures who live in them.
This presentation has won the TED prize this year and is one of my personal favorite. The whole speech was almost statistics-free and thus not hard to understand at all. Ms. Earle replaced simple PPT with video cuts, which truly reveal the beauty of nature, and her voice was so calm and persuasive that it was like watching a narrated film all the way through. In this smart way, she minimized her role which distracted audience's attention and magnified the beauty of the ocean, which filled people with awe. This is a great way to present environmental issues. After all, isn't the beauty of nature that touches our heart and is worth our effort?
When discussing science issues that involve the design of the creator, I sometimes feel small with my major in economics and finance. Compared to the natural system, the financial market made by human are only measured by money and can be easily destroyed by greed or silliness. Ms. Earle made a quite funny joke that when she intended to show people at the World Bank the beauty of earth, they only see assets.
Anyway, it's like if a leader has to unite a team, he has to do some contact work or other little but necessary things to keep the whole team from troubles--finance is like those little but necessary things. On the other hand, to have the whole team inspired and maximize productivity, the leader need to keep the ultimate goal present for everyone--understanding and protecting the beauty and wisdom of nature is the ultimate goal.
OK, that's all for today. Are you ready for a-20-minute journey?
Further information:
- Watch the talk on TED.com here
- Sylvia Earle's website about her books and research
- Sylvia Earle on National Geography
- As mentioned in Ms. Earle's speech, Google Earth has upgraded to enable viewer dip into the ocean around the globe. Here and here are some further introduction of the new feature, and download Google Earth here.
May 17, 2008
SUDAN: Climate Change - Only One Cause Among Many for Darfur Conflict
Recently, competition for resources resulted from climate change has been considered as a significant factor of the Darfur crisis. However, it should be reminded that the Darfur crisis is not solely driven by a simple factor. The complexity of the different factors driving Darfur's conflict need to be borne in mind in efforts towards its resolution and, therefore, over-simplification should be avoided.
There is an article which provides arguments related to the Darfur crisis from different perspectives - please click here to view the article. This shall give us a good insight on how to view the crisis from different angles.
Enjoy!
By Agatha.
Apr 15, 2008
2 views on Climate change: is it really that urgent?
Al Gore's presentation has successfully raised global awareness on climate change issues. However, there are different views on how urgent is the problem. Below are the links to the powerpoints given by different scholars from LSE, who held opposite views. Have a look and see who you agree with:
Not that urgent? Cool It: global warming and getting our priorities straight
Or.. Why economics supports strong action to reduce the risks of climate change
Further reading:
[BBC] Viewpoints: Tackling climate change
Apr 3, 2008
[fun] climate change and business
Delivered by John Doerr, a venture capitalist.
we have been thinking about ways as small as asking every individual to reduce their use of plastic bags to alleviate the environment changes. however, corporations are the real dominators of this society. their power of changing the world is well recorded in this documentary. just like the starbucks near the great wall (there was one in the forbidden city before, but it was closed down), there are profits. how can people resist the seduction?
one of the impressive example was how Wal-mart's small change in designing its shopping mall, like painting its roof all white, embedding more roof-windows to reduce its consumption of energy, and that leads to a big reduction instantly.
actually, one big thing that we can think about is how to MAKE the LINK between businesses and climate change issues, which is also about business innovation.
enjoy^^
Mar 30, 2008
What is Water Footprint?
You may be familiar with the idea of carbon footprint - the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity. How about water footprint? Now scientists have begun calculating a water footprint - the amount of water needed to produce goods or services.
The ever growing water footprint has raised concerns on the scarcity of water resources. Nearly half the people on Earth, about 2.5 billion, have no access to sanitation, many of them in urban slums. The world's cities are growing by 1 million people a week, and soon their aging water systems will not cope.
A report published this month by UNESCO-IHE, the Institute for Water Education in Delft, says it takes 70-400 times as much water to create energy from biofuels as it does from fossil fuels.It said the production of crude oil requires slightly more than one cubic meter of water for one unit of energy, compared with 61 cubic meters to grow biomass in Brazil -- mostly sugar used for ethanol -- for the same amount of energy. The water footprint of biomass grown in the Netherlands is 24 cubic meters, the report said.
According to a U.S. Environmental Agency, biofuel is considered by some as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy security by providing an alternative to fossil fuels. However, the report of UNESCO-IHE may suggest that this alternative may create problems on water security.
How could we link water security to global citizenship? All our acts in Hong Kong/ Cambodia/ every part in the world are affecting the environment. From a market perspective, the production of energy (i.e. supply of energy) is dependent on our demand on goods and services. If we consume less energy, less energy would be produced and thus less water would be used for producing biofuel.
From an environmental perspective, a decrease of consumption of water does not only improve water security, but also improves the problem of climate change. Oh, wait! Global warming has made the ice melting, so we would have more water then? Some regions are threatening by rising sea level! Yes, indeed, this statement is half right and half wrong. This is because, on the other hand, global warming has increased the temperature and inland regions would not be "benefited" from rising sea level. Instead, people there would be threatened by droughts and thus suffered from water scarcity.
We have briefly talked about human security in previuos entry. Water security is a major area which human security advocates concern on. So, what can we do? How about changing our consumption behaviour in order to decrease both carbon footprint and water footprint?
The ever growing water footprint has raised concerns on the scarcity of water resources. Nearly half the people on Earth, about 2.5 billion, have no access to sanitation, many of them in urban slums. The world's cities are growing by 1 million people a week, and soon their aging water systems will not cope.
A report published this month by UNESCO-IHE, the Institute for Water Education in Delft, says it takes 70-400 times as much water to create energy from biofuels as it does from fossil fuels.It said the production of crude oil requires slightly more than one cubic meter of water for one unit of energy, compared with 61 cubic meters to grow biomass in Brazil -- mostly sugar used for ethanol -- for the same amount of energy. The water footprint of biomass grown in the Netherlands is 24 cubic meters, the report said.
According to a U.S. Environmental Agency, biofuel is considered by some as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy security by providing an alternative to fossil fuels. However, the report of UNESCO-IHE may suggest that this alternative may create problems on water security.
How could we link water security to global citizenship? All our acts in Hong Kong/ Cambodia/ every part in the world are affecting the environment. From a market perspective, the production of energy (i.e. supply of energy) is dependent on our demand on goods and services. If we consume less energy, less energy would be produced and thus less water would be used for producing biofuel.
From an environmental perspective, a decrease of consumption of water does not only improve water security, but also improves the problem of climate change. Oh, wait! Global warming has made the ice melting, so we would have more water then? Some regions are threatening by rising sea level! Yes, indeed, this statement is half right and half wrong. This is because, on the other hand, global warming has increased the temperature and inland regions would not be "benefited" from rising sea level. Instead, people there would be threatened by droughts and thus suffered from water scarcity.
We have briefly talked about human security in previuos entry. Water security is a major area which human security advocates concern on. So, what can we do? How about changing our consumption behaviour in order to decrease both carbon footprint and water footprint?
Mar 17, 2008
[fun] Volcano/geoengineering: solution to the climate change?
a talk delivered by environmental scientist David Keith: a cheap, effective, shocking solution to climate change: What if we injected a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere, to deflect sunlight and heat?
people have been discussing about climate change since 1950, but the situation has not been better. what is the reason?
maybe, it's time to think wilder. how about imitate the nature - eruption of volcanos
help cool the atmosphere. it's terribly cheap! but the hiden problem is that when people know it's easy to solve the problem then there is less incentive for people to reduce their harmful activities such as emission of CO2. that is also called moral hazard. so, a DEBATE is really in need.
help cool the atmosphere. it's terribly cheap! but the hiden problem is that when people know it's easy to solve the problem then there is less incentive for people to reduce their harmful activities such as emission of CO2. that is also called moral hazard. so, a DEBATE is really in need.the speed of the speaker is quite quick. if you have time, take a look~ or go to TED and check out more speeches on Climate Change.
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