April’s Blog ;)

Hey =)

This is my second environmental blog post for this week. I think I’m going to do it on poachers, because it’s a very important environmental issue that is extremely harmful to animals.

What is a poacher?

A poacher is a person who hunts animals illegally. Poaching is surrounded by myths that just aren’t true. Poachers are not poor people who are merely trying to feed their families. Putting food on the table is one of the least common motives. Poachers kill just for the thrill of killing and for profit. Poachers kill wildlife anywhere, anytime, and they can, using the most unsporting methods. Poachers often use expensive vehicles, guns and equipment purchased through their profitable trafficking in illegal wildlife.

What can we do to stop poachers? Why would we stop them?

If you know someone who is a poacher, turn them in immediatly. Poachers could easily wipe out an endangered species. But why would you want to stop a poacher? Well, for one, hunting animals both legally and illegally is sick. How would you feel if something was always trying to hunt you and you always had to run from it? Try to stop poachers. They are destroying your wildlife.

…Why do people become poachers?

Some people think that poachers are poor people trying to feed their families, but they aren’t always poor. Some poachers just do it for the fun and money. Some poachers work for other people and if they don’t continue poaching for them, they could get in trouble from the guy they are working for. If that person gets mad enough, they might even want to injure the poacher working for them. I don’t understand why people would poach for fun. How can they think that poaching is fun?!

If you know anything else about poaching, or ways to prevent/stop poaching, just add it in a comment (I think the spam might be all gone!)

To view a bunch of different sites about poaching, click here. I just typed “poachers” in on Google, and a lot of good websites came up. Click on the one that interests you!

Here are some pictures of poaching. They are quite heartbreaking…

An orangutan in a cage.

A shark caught by poachers.

Those pictures are extremely sad . That’s why we should stop poachers from doing the things they do!

*April

Hey =)

Today in class we watched the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” I know I said that I was going to be turning off my comments for a while due to spam, but I think this post definitely deserves some comments. However, if spam hits this post, I’ll be turning the comments off again. So make sure to leave your comments as soon as possible!

Anyway, as we were watching the movie, Mr. Fisher had us write some things in something like a chart: images, dialogue, and impressions. He’s having us write about the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” for one of our blog posts this week.

First of all, what is “An Inconvenient Truth?”

Before I get into telling you about all this information, I should probably tell you a bit about the movie. This movie was inspired by Al Gore. It’s about global warming and what it’s doing to our planet…and the thing is, global warming us caused by us humans, I learned from the movie. But we can stop global warming as easily as we started it. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I suggest you do because it’s scary. If everyone in the world saw this movie, we might try and prevent global warming. So yeah, watch the movie. It’s out on DVD.

Anyway, back to that chart-like thing that Mr. Fisher had us do.

Images

We had to write about interesting images we saw in the movie. The most interesting ones I saw were the different places changing over time. There were these massive areas with huge glaciers, but over time, they were barely there anymore. This just shows how fast global warming is melting the ice on our planet. Al Gore also presented some graphs showing how global warming is increasing. It’s not going down, it’s going up. He also showed some maps of areas like Florida going under water. These were the most interesting, scary images I saw in the movie.

Dialogue

Here is some dialogue in the movie that made me think…

“What we take for granted may not be here for our children.” - What does this mean? Well, everything that adults take for granted, for example, the use of cars, their children won’t be able to do all those things. You see, if we don’t try to prevent global warming, in 50 years our planet will be underwater. Kinda makes you think…

“The ten hottest years have occurred in the past fourteen years, the hottest one being year 2005.” - Well, I guess this one is easy to get the meaning from =P. But it’s kind of scary…that just shows how much hotter our planet has been getting. If 2005 was the hottest year so far, just imagine how hot years like 2010 will be…

“Polar bears have drowned due to melting ice.” - As you may already know, polar bears swim to get around. They use ice to rest on, though. But since there is barely any ice left, scientists have found polar bears that have drowned, due to not having any ice to rest on. Polar bears are already almost extinct. Just imagine how much faster that will happen if they don’t even have any ice anymore…

Impressions/Final Words/Extra Facts

So what was my impression on the movie? Let’s just say I thought it was the scariest thing ever. Even scarier than “The Grudge.” And I got super scared when I watched that movie. But anyways, back to the movie. I thought it was scary because it’s true. Absolutely, positively, 100% true. Whether you want to believe it or not is completely up to you; you’re welcome to your own opinion. I’m just saying it’s true because it’s what I believe; scientists have proved it. We were talking about in class how the movie got it’s name. It’s an inconvenient truth because we’re going to have to change our lifestyles. We may have to find new ways of, for example, transportation, industries, and our ways at home. This may be inconvenient, but it’s much better than destroying our planet. At least children will be able to live in the world.

There have been 928 reviews on global warming. They were brought to scientists to read over. Wanna know how many disagreed? 0. All of the scientists agreed that global warming is going to happen. All scientists agreed that we need to do something.

An Inconvenient Truth is not a scary movie like The Grudge or The Ring or something. It’s a scary movie because it’s the truth.

What do you think of global warming? Is it true or not? If you’ve watched the movie, what did you think of it?

(Remember to get your comments in A.S.A.P!! If spam hits this post, they’re going off again! Sorry )

*April

(Oh, I almost forgot: Here’s some pictures of global warming…)

 I can’t find a picture of this place originally, but I can tell you that this place was once a glacier. It had ice everywhere, and this is what it looks like now.

 This is a picture of a glacier melting, due to global warming.

 Al Gore, the creator of the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Hey =]

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve turned the comments off on approximately the last 15 posts. Why? Well, not so that you guys can’t comment, but so that I don’t get so much spam! I had about 326 comments on one of my posts, all of them spam. It’s really gross so I’ve turned my comments off and moderated my comments so that I can approve them first. Hopefully, you’ll be able to comment again soon, and the spam will go away. Spam has been on almost everyone’s blog in our class, so now we’re trying to stop it!

Hopefully the spam will go away and we can continue blogging…

*April

Hey =)

Well, here’s my second environmental blog post for the week. I think I’m going to do it on acid rain, since acid rain is a huge issue. So here it is!

What Is Acid Rain?

According to Dictionary.com, acid rain is “rain containing acids that form in the atmosphere when industrial gas emissions (especially sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) combine with water.” Basically, it’s rain with acid chemicals in it. So what is acid? Acid is a substance with a sour taste that is characterized chemically by the ability to react with a base to form a salt. Acids turn blue litmus paper (also called pH paper) red. Strong acids can burn your skin.

A pH scale is used to measure the amount of acid in a liquid-like water. Because acids release hydrogen ions, the acid content of a solution is based on the concentration of hydrogen ions and is expressed as “pH.” This scale is used to measure the acidity of rain samples. Here is a picture of a pH scale:

What Can We Do To Prevent Acid Rain?

At home, we can:

In the yard, we can:

While shopping, we can:

Transportation:

Here are some pictures of acid rain:

To learn more about acid rain, CLICK HERE.

*April

Hey =)

Well, I still need to write my other environmental post, and I’ll do it right after this one, but I decided to write this post as kind of a “what’s new” kind of post. So here we go…

Did you see the updates to learnerblogs?! I love them! I especially love how you can change the colour of fonts . I’m not going to change the font colour for my posts for marks, though. Just for the extra stuff I write (like this post for example.) So if you haven’t seen the updates to learnerblogs, I suggest you have a look!

Anyway, moving on. As most of you can probably see, I’m getting some very nasty comments on my blog. Well, it’s just spam, and I get a new one about every five minutes. Since learnerblogs e-mails me whenever I get a comment, I get told when I get spam. So I went online after school and I had 90 emails, all of them being spam. I’m sorry for all the nasty comments on my blog; there’s nothing I can do to prevent the spam. I’m deleting the comments as fast as I can, but I can’t center my life around deleting comments. It’s hard to keep up with it all, considering in a day I get 90 - 100.

So guys, what have you been up to lately?! I haven’t talked to you guys in a while! At least now I am. I haven’t been doing much lately. We have quite a bit of school in the next week or so, so I’m hoping to get more writing in. On Tuesday we were out at 10:30 AM!! I love days like that . Haha. But who doesn’t?! After school I went to Toni’s house. We played volleyball in the snow! It was soo much fun! Haha. Then we went on the computer, played “Sims” on PS2, and blew up balloons…with pictures on them. Haha. That’s pretty much the only thing exciting I’ve done all week! Except for school stuff, that is. Wait, I forgot: I signed up for Frontier Volleyball! Since our team is no more, I decided to play on Frontier considering I love volleyball. I have to work on my skills, though! Today in gym we were playing volleyball, and every one of my serves went out! The sad part is, I used to be good at serving!! Oh well. I’m sure that as soon as I start playing again, it’ll be all good.

We’ve been doing a lot of different stuff in school. Well, not really a lot…but we’ve been doing some new stuff. Like our ABC books. We have to write an ABC book about environmental issues. I’ve got mine typed; I just got to draw the pictures . Haha. We have time to do that tomorrow, though. We’ve also been doing interviews in groups of three about environmental issues: one person is the reporter, one’s the negative, and the other is the positive. I’m with Matthew and Kate. Matthew is reporter, Kate is negative, and I’m stuck with positive. Our topic is global warming, and it’s hard to think of positives for that! Oh well. We managed to get ten questions. Hmm…that’s pretty much it for school, besides math. In math we’ve been doing fractions: adding, multiplying, subtracting, and dividing them. I find it easy. Oh yeah, we’ve also been working on scenarios, but we haven’t worked on them for the whole week! I wonder when we’re going to do those again…

Anyway, that’s my catch-up post. I’ll try and write more often so that you guys don’t have to catch up on so much at one time! All I really have left to say is, again, I’m sorry for the nasty spam/comments. I’ll get rid of them as fast as I can, but it’s not easy when I get so many in one day.

*April

Hey =)

I know I haven’t been writing very much lately…sorry about that. I will try and write more often about home life and school life too, though, instead of just doing posts that are for marks.

So, this week, we have to write another post about the environment. As you can see from the title, this post is going to be about ocean pollution. I got this idea from Toni’s blog. Her post was very well-written and it made me think about ocean pollution and what a huge issue it is. To check out her awesome blog, CLICK HERE!

…so anyways, here’s the information about ocean pollution.

Ocean Pollution

Earth, the planet we live on, is made up of 75% water; 97% of that water being oceans. Pollution in the ocean is a major problem that is affecting the ocean and the rest of the earth, too. Pollution in the ocean directly affects ocean organisms and indirectly affects human health and resources. Oil spills, toxic wastes, and dumping of other harmful materials are all major sources of pollution in the ocea. People should learn more about these because if people know more about pollution in the ocean, then they will know more about how to stop pollution.

To learn more about ocean pollution, CLICK HERE.

What Causes Ocean Pollution?

A main thing that causes ocean pollution is oil spills. Oil spills happen when people make mistakes or are careless and cause an oil tanker to leak oil in the ocean. There are a few more ways an oil spill can occur. Equipment breaking down may cause an oil spill. If the equipment breaks down, the tanker may get stuck on a shallow land. When they start to drive the tanker again, they can put a hole in the tanker, causing it to leak oil.

To read more about oil spills, CLICK HERE.

Other Information About Ocean Pollution And Oil Spills:

Anything can pollute the ocean; oil spills are just one of the main things. Not only does ocean pollution affect the animals, but it also effects the water. Where do you think we get our drinking water from? Oceans and lakes. Any large bodies of water. When we drink that, we are drinking any pollution in our water. This could affect human health majorly. Not only are you hurting innocent animals, but you’re hurting yourself by polluting the ocean. Animals are constantly dieing from ocean pollution.

Imagine yourself as a killer whale. You are swimming around when you decide to stick your head out of the water to take a breath. As you are taking a breath, you see a large stream of thick black oil heading your way. You go back underwater only to find other animals dying one by one because the oil is damaging their bodies. This is not only heartbreaking, but it’s sick, too. It disturbs me that humans actually have the hearts to do this.

Together, we can stop ocean pollution. It needs to be stopped before the water is completely ruined and some species of water animals are extinct. By stopping oil spills and ocean pollution, you can save billions of lives of both people and animals.

Here are some pictures of ocean pollution:

A boat polluting the ocean.

The water being polluted.

A killer whale in an oil spill.

*April

Hey =)

Well, this is my second environmental post. But don’t worry, there will be more coming, because for the next few weeks we’re going to be writing about the environment.

Have you ever stopped to think about air pollution?

As many of you probably already know, or at least, should know, air pollution is terrible for our environment and our health. But what is it, exactly?

According to Dictionary.com, air pollution is contamination of air by smoke and harmful gases, mainly oxides of carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen. That’s a perfect definition. Some things that cause air pollution are mines, gas from cars, agriculture, and many more outdoor things. But some people don’t know that air pollution is inside just as well as outside. Smoking is a big thing that can pollute the air. Not only is smoking bad for our health, but it’s bad for the environment as well.

Coal-fired power plants are neither energy efficient nor clean. Coal is the most carbon intensive fuel, producing 70% more CO2 emissions for the same energy output as natural gas. Electricity generation is the single largest source of CO2 emissions, the primary contributer to global warming.

An average car with a fuel consumption of around 7.8 litres/100 km travelling 16 000 km per year emits almost 3 tonnes of CO2 per year. tThat’s roughly equal to three times the vehicle’s body weight. And you can see it in the air. In 2005, Toronto recorded a record 48 smog alerts - that’s 28 more smokg days smog days than the second highest year.

What are some things we can do to prevent air pollution?

- Don’t smoke. It’s not only bad for you, but it’s not good for the environment either.

- Don’t drive nearly as much. The gas from your car goes into the air and pollutes it.

- Don’t use smoke stacks. Those huge poles put a lot of pollution in the air. industrial is one of the main things that pollute the air.

There’s many other things we can do as well. If you can think of some, please feel free to leave a comment letting me and others know.

Air pollution is one of the impacts that cause global warming. Air pollution is terrible, both to the environment and our health. Air pollution mainly effects the lungs, but it also effects the eyes, too. The thing is, we can stop air pollution. All we have to do is try.

If you want to know more about air pollution, CLICK HERE. It’s a really good site with tons of information about air pollution!

Here are some pictures of different things polluting the air:

A smoke stack polluting the air.

A car polluting the air.

Someone smoking and polluting the air.

If you have any other facts about air pollution, or any other ideas to prevent it, please leave a comment.

*April

Hey =)

This week, Mr. Fisher is requiring us to write two posts about environment issues. I’ve chosen to do global warming as one of them, because I’m really interested in it, and it’s the scariest thing ever.

So what exactly is global warming? According to Dictionary.com, it’s “an increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere, especially a sustained increase sufficient to cause climatic change.” Basically, the earth is getting warmer. Much warmer.

The hottest years have occurred in the past 14 years, the hottest one being year 2005. Glaciers are constantly melting due to the earth getting hotter and hotter. Because all of these glaciers are melting, the water is rising. Soon, Shanghai will be underwater, along with Florida, Calcutta, India, and more places as well. These places are home to many of people. If we don’t do something about global warming, the earth will continue to be endangered.

How do I know all of this? Well, I didn’t really understand global warming at first, until Mr. Fisher showed us a video called “An Inconvenient Truth.” It was by far the scariest thing I have ever seen. PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO! CLICK HERE!

AFTER YOU HAVE WATCHED THIS VIDEO…

Well, what did you think? Frightening, hey? I’ll say. This video shocked me and many other viewers. The scariest thing about this is that it’s all true. Every last bit of it. A lot of people just think to themselves, “Hey, it’s never going to happen. It’s not true.” It is. I’m telling you now, it’s true. People sometimes think that videos exaggerate, but not this one. If we don’t find a way to stop global warming, it’s all going to happen. Low-lying areas will sink. And it’s just going to keep happening if we don’t all work together and figure out a way to stop this. If you care about our planet, you’ll be concerned about this video and you’ll want to find ways to stop this.

Still don’t believe me?

Well, I was watching a commercial on TV, and it showed people camping while a tornado was passing through, people washing their cars in a hurricane, and many other scenes. People just went on with their everyday lives while global warming was attacking their planet. At the end of the commercial, it said, “We can’t just ignore global warming.” Then it provided a link to a website called saveourclimate.ca. CLICK HERE to view it. I highly recommend you do. There’s a lot of excellent information about global warming, and it’s a very well done site. Enter the site, click on “Yes, I want to make a difference before it’s too late,” and if you click on “Learn More,” it brings up a picture of a city. When you put your mouse over it, some spots are blinking. If you click them, it shows what certain things will do to our climate. For example, if you click on the iceberg, it shows it melting. Or, if you click on the trees, all of them disappear, meaning that we’re cutting down trees and causing global warming ourselves. There’s many other things you can click on, too.

I was amazed and shocked at the “An Inconvenient Truth” video and the website, saveourclimate.ca. It really makes you think about what we’re doing to our planet. We’re doing all of this to ourselves. And the scariest part is…it’s absolutely true. Not one bit of it is a lie. This will happen. All we have to do is prevent it. It’s as simple as that. And we can do it.

Here are some facts about global warming:

- Earth’s temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last century.

- The past 50 years of warming have attributed to human activity.

- 46% of the forests in Canada are cut down, contributing to global warming.

- The hottest years have occurred in the last 14 years, the hottest one being year 2005.

- Global warming will flood low-lying areas like Florida, Shangha, Calcutta, India, etc.

…these are just some facts. CLICK HERE to learn more. I looked for “global warming” on Google.ca, and these are some of the sites that came up. They have excellent information for all of you people out there who actually want to prevent it.

Here are some pictures of global warming:

“Did the planet betray us…

…or did we betray the planet?”

*April

Hey =)

I was reading a blog called the Nata Village Blog that I had subscribed to in my Bloglines account, and I found one post that I found quite interesting!

There was a picture of a lady named Noreen. She is a frequent visitor to the Nata Clinic because she was tested positive for HIV four years ago and has been on ARV’s for the past three years. Noreen had no side effects from her ARV’s, but last year she began getting severe headaches. Her blood pressure had been elevated and she went to the clinic because of weakness and cramping. She had been vomiting so the doctor felt she may just be dehydrated and believes that starting an IV and giving glucose will fix her up. Noreen gave permission to be photographed and be part of the Nata Village website. She said there is no reason to hide and that we must face our problems rather than run from them. I thought that this was extremely courageous of her, and I thought that it was wonderful that she decided to be photographed and put on the website. Way to go, Noreen! I hope you’re feeling better soon!! =)

Here is a picture of Noreen.

I continued to read more on the Nata Village blog and I found another post that caught my eye. There was a picture of a child on a bike, but when I read further, it said that most children don’t even have one store-bought toy and they have to make their own toys. When they do get a store-bought toy, it doesn’t last long because there are so many other people using it. I thought this was extremely sad. When you think about all the stuff that we have today, we don’t think it really means anything to us, when really, it does. We have so many store-bought toys that we don’t even know what to do with them all, and we never stop to think how grateful we are to have all of the things we do. We are lucky. And if everyone donated something unwanted by them to Nata Village, think about the changes we could make! Life would be much easier for the people in Nata Village and we would feel a lot better about ourselves. We can make a difference. All we have to do is realize how lucky and grateful we are, and give unwanted items to Nata Village and other less fortunate places around the world.

Here is a picture of a child on a bike.

The Nata Village blog is extremely important and has a lot of excellent information. If you are interested in seeing it, which I hope you are, click here.

*April

Hey =)

As most of you probably already know, Mr. Fisher assigns us to write two blog posts a week about a certain topic that he wants it to be about. This week, like last week, we had to write two posts about something someone said in our Required Readings folders on our Bloglines accounts. I was looking at my required readings and I found one post on the Info Aesthetics Blog that looked pretty interesting!

The topic that Info Aesthetics was talking about was the Colour By Numbers Tower. At first I didn’t really get what this was about, but I re-read it a few times and found it pretty neat!

Here’s some information about it:

The Colour By Numbers Tower is a temporary, 72 meters high light installation built in a tower at Stockholm. The colours of each the windows is determined by mobile phone configuration and results from mixing red, green and blue light. The installation attempts to influence the local debate about democracy and public space.

Here are some pictures of the Colour By Numbers Tower:

Here is a link to the Info Aesthetics Blog. It talks about the Colour By Numbers Tower and many other issues around the world. Check it out; there may be something there that you’d be interested in!

What do you think of the Colour By Numbers Tower?

*April