Post Comments like this:
1. Your Name
2. A Title
3. A short personal commentary what you learned from it or what made you curious about it given the week's class content. However, it doesn't have to be about the week's content, only something related to human-environmental interactions.
4. Then put a long line ('-------------------)'.
5. Then cut/paste the article or topic you found.
6. Then a small line '---'.
7. Then, finally, paste the URL (link) of the post.
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7 comments:
This is a test comment of what to do.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. This is the place to put a new title for the article; it should serve as an introduction for my comment and the article
3. There is something about this following article that interests me, fascinates me, and/or makes me wonder what the article leaves out, etc. I can write as much as I want on this blog about my view on the article and the issues that it discusses. I can write about personal experiences that the article reminded me about. I can write about a different view of the same issues that the article mentions. I can convince people of something, express my intelligence, and express my emotion in this comment.
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[repost article here]
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[URL / web location of the article]
1. Daeyun Park
2. Int'l Group Campaign Against Canal Project
3. I think the issue which whether Mr.Lee's great canal project start or not is important to Korea.
It can break the ecosystem of our river and land and also be influenced to next generators' life.
Therefore, I welcom to this kind of news and worldwide support.
I'd like to watch out this problem during our class period.
-What is real problem of this project?
-How counterforce will solve this problem?
-How defender will build up their logic?
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The Korea Times 03-07-2008 17:29
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
One of the world's most influential environmentalist groups launched a campaign to stop President Lee Myung-bak's cross-country canal project. They warned that the construction will cause ``environmental disaster.''
Friends of the Earth International started an online petition saying that President Lee's plan to construct the canals could ``seriously damage the drinking water of 24 million people and the river's eco-system.''
The group said Korea is not only a signatory of the Ramsar Convention for Wetlands of International Importance, but also host of the Conference of Parties for the Convention in October, and the construction is a shame to Korea's reputation for hosting the event.
``Time Magazine chose you as an environmental hero in November 2007. Your proposed Great Korea Canal Project makes it seem as if the magazine made a mistake. I would like to ask you to show the world your new leadership in environmental protection as an environmental hero by canceling the project,'' the petition read.
The group is one of many publicly opposed to the project. Professors of Seoul National University and many other schools, as well as civic and religious groups have criticized the project.
According to Kyunghyang Daily newspaper research, 55 percent of 1,000 adult respondents opposed the project while 29.8 percent supported it.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
---
[URL / http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/03/117_20304.html.]
[URL / http://www.foei.org/en/get-involved/take-action/great-korea-canal-project]
1. jeoung, se kyoung
2.Damage from China's Push for Economic Growth
3.China has increasing pollution problems on water, air and so on. This article is saying it is not easy to solve these provlems because companies do not follow environmental regulations. Moreover, population growth and corruption of local governments are involved in this issue.
As all we know, China is very close to Korea and this is why we are having been affected by china's pollution problems. For instance, we can think about the terrible yellow storm from China.
I hope every one could do something for solving China's pollution problems.
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Decried by Environmentalists
By Naomi Martig
Hong Kong
29 February 2008
Since economic reforms began in the late 1970's, China's push to become a major industrial power has put a tremendous strain on its environment. Pollution-related problems, from acid rain to contaminated rivers, are now commonplace in China. Authorities in Beijing have taken measures to try to improve environmental protection, but as Naomi Martig reports from Hong Kong, most analysts agree they are not enough.
Visitors walk through the polluted air at Beijing's Tiananmen Square (File)
On a severely polluted day in many Chinese cities, it is difficult to see beyond a few hundred meters. In northern China, drought has left more than two million people without enough drinking water, partly because much of the area's remaining water supply is contaminated by pollutants. And in cities such as Guangzhou in southern China, authorities have been trying to clean up the air for more than a decade.
Air and water pollution in China have reached alarming levels in recent years. Despite having some of the world's largest water reserves, two-thirds of Chinese cities have less water than they need because of overuse and pollution. Many experts say China will soon pass the United States as the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide.
Lo Szeping is the Campaign Director for Greenpeace in Beijing. He says government figures show more than half of China's rivers and lakes are polluted, and air pollution is just as bad.
"According to the World Bank, 17 of 20 of the world's most polluted cities in terms of air quality are in China," he said.
In addition, the country's growing population is contributing to China's pollution problems. Leiwen Jiang is a professor of international and environmental studies at Brown University in the United States. He says China's population is not increasing at an alarming rate, but it is still cause for concern.
"Population growth and the increase in consumption will inevitably generate heavier pressure on the environment and natural resources," he said.
Water reserves, for example, are unevenly distributed with northern China much drier than the south. However, the north still has to cope with a growing population - which means less water per person.
Authorities in Beijing have taken steps to try to improve conditions. The central government has shut down hundreds of polluting factories and put fines in place for companies that do not abide by environmental regulations. But for experts like Paul Harris, an environmental studies professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, those efforts have largely failed.
"At the local and regional and provincial level, the level of corruption and the desire for, to benefit from profit and industrialization is still much too powerful," he said. "Beijing has very little influence at the local level in this particular view."
Harris says many factories would rather pay a fine than follow more costly environmental standards. He believes that only when pollution problems begin to hurt regional economic growth, will local officials enforce environmental regulations.
In the meantime, experts are concerned that the health effects of an increasingly polluted community will soon become a political challenge for the central government.
Social unrest is already emerging around China. People living near polluting factories are protesting the contamination of land and water supplies. Professor Harris says he believes such movements will increase as steadily as China's pollution problems.
"The government is going to have trouble dealing with the protests and the like associated with this," he said. "So I'm suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party and the government more broadly may find that their survival, their hold on power, is at stake because of environmental changes."
Environmental activists say if authorities in Beijing want to maintain social stability, and continue economic growth, they are going to have to tighten regulations and employ cleaner technology.
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http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-02-29-voa22.cfm
Madhabi Bhatta
Noise:A Silent Killer
While I was searching articles on environment-related topics on Google for weekly post of our Environmental sociology class for graduate course at Ewha Woman University, I found an article "Noise: A silent Killer" written by Murassa shamshad. When I went through this article, I felt writer's experience is similar as mine. Although the article provides general information instead of case study of noise pollution, it has a touchy expression. The beauty that lies on writing is the zooming in from personal experience and zooming out with generalizing related information. a
This Article is related a polluted city of conflict blended Kashmir, where vehicles give horn everywhere. The mass production of noise on hospital and school areas are very common. Noise pollution is not only a problem of just Kashmir; all South Asian countries are notorious on it. As an inhabitant of the region, I have felt this as my own problem. But, if article is concentrated on case study of noise pollution, it would be unique and more interesting. Otherwise, if writer includes the people's concerns and awareness' on noise pollution of the area where he suffered, it could be more specific.
And also it would be more informative, if writer mentioned the government’ policy and program towards noise pollution reduction.
Also I had a similar experience while I shifted into Korean general house from apartment last year. Early morning, we have had listen numbers of cars sound and horn that was enough to disturb our sweet sleep. My three years old son used to get up and cried as he had to hear loud and irritating sound each morning. At the time I used to say we can be both the cause and victim of noise as like writer have mentioned on his article. I used to ask myself; how much noise we produce each second?
Now this article has reminded me that experience and feeling of noise pollution which could be readable if I organized on writing. I am supposed to follow noise pollution throughout the semester.
'--------------------'
EXCESSIVE NOISE CAN DAMAGE OUR SENSES TO A LEVEL UNIMAGINABLE. LET’S NOT POLLUTE OUR SERENE
From the last three months I was feeling too aggressive and too irritating. Grown peevish with myself. Though I knew my mood was getting too awkward but I couldn’t help. Friends were avoiding me and work just looked burden on me. Then one of my doctor friends expressed his concern at my condition and examined me. After that he came to conclusion that I was suffering due to high exposure to noise. It startled me! Can noise have such an impact on me? It led me to search for answers. And here is what I found.
The word “noise” is derived from the Latin word “nausea,” meaning seasickness. Noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today. Many of you may have been woken up by the sound of your alarm clock or the music from the radio. We experience noise in a number of ways. On some occasions, we can be both the cause and the victim of noise, such as when we are operating noisy appliances or equipment. There are also instances when we experience noise generated by others just as people experience second-hand smoke. While in both instances, noises are equally damaging, second-hand noise is more troubling because it has negative impacts on us but is put into the environment by others, without our consent.
Noise pollution, human-created noises are harmful to health and welfare. Transportation vehicles are the worst offenders, with aircraft, railroad stock, trucks, buses, automobiles, and motorcycles all producing excessive noise. Construction equipment, e.g., jackhammers and bulldozers also produce substantial noise pollution. Barking dogs, lawn mowers, motorcycles, airplanes, car stereo systems, and traffic generally have combined to such a degree that noise induced irritation, annoyance, discomfort, and hearing impairment have become a significant public health issue, certainly enough of one to motivate a political response.
Subjected to 45 decibels of noise, the average person cannot sleep. At 120 decibels the ear registers pain, but hearing damage begins at a much lower level, about 85 decibels. The duration of the exposure is also important. Apart from hearing loss, such noise can cause lack of sleep, irritability, heartburn, indigestion, ulcers, high blood pressure, and possibly heart disease. One burst of noise, as from a passing truck, is known to alter endocrine, neurological, and cardiovascular functions in many individuals; prolonged or frequent exposure to such noise tends to make the physiological disturbances chronic. In addition, noise-induced stress creates severe tension in daily living and contributes to mental illness.
How damaging Noise can be?
Many people are exposed to dangerous levels of noise without even realizing it whether it be from loud music, a motorcycle, airplane, lawnmowers, or even driving on the highway with your window open. Even if we are sitting outside our homes or going for a walk we are subjected to loud noises which damage our health whether it is the passing of a garbage truck or the sound of a car horn. Many young people listen to their car stereos very loud on their way to school or work, this is damaging to their health not only because of the amount of noise but also because it is done consecutively every day.
Most of the Psychological Effects of noise depend on the pre-existing physical and psychological state of the individual. Some of us, already living in noisy surroundings, may be more tolerant to Noise. While the others, having the privileged of a peaceful neighbourhood, may easily get irritated by the same sound. The ‘irritation threshold’ will also be low for neurotic persons or for someone who is already annoyed or unhappy. From sufferers’ point of view, it is any sound, which they would have stopped if they could. It is undesirable, unpleasant and untimely sound, which can be continuous or intermittent. Besides this, with the vast diversity of human culture and individual preferences, it can be empathized that, One man’s music can be other man’s Noise.
Almost everyone has had one experience of being temporarily “deafened” by a loud noise. This “deafness” in not permanent, although it is often accompanied by a ringing in the ears, and one can hear another person if he raises his voice. Likewise, normal hearing comes back within a few hours at most. This sort of partial hearing loss is called Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS). The human ear is a delicate and fragile anatomical structure on the other hand it’s a fairly powerful physical force. These muscles act quickly but not always. In cases of long term exposure to moderately loud noise, the onset and progress of noise induced deafness is very gradual and by the time the individual is already somewhat deaf, he/she many not be aware of the deafness until the deafness starts affecting the person’s ability to hear normal conversation, telephone rings and doorbells etc.
Although noise is an integral part of civilization, it would appear that unless some definite steps are taken to reduce the present inordinate levels in both industry and community generally, more people will become auditory cripples.
Planners need to know the likely effects on the noise pollution in a community of introducing a new noise source as well as increasing the level of an existing source. Policy makers, when considering applications for new developments, must take into account maximum levels, equivalent levels, frequency of occurrence, and operating time of the major noise sources. If awareness and precautions are not taken to stop noise pollution there will be a future epidemic of hearing loss. Noise pollution is a serious problem that must be taken seriously. '---'
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=16_4_2007&ItemID=2&cat=12
1. Yoonjung Kim
2. Evaluation Method of Wetland in Landscape scale
3. Wetlands have been under big pressure of developement because people thought that they were useless. Though we lost huge amount of wetland due to human encroachment, now we are aware of it's importance and need for conservation.
But in reality, we cannot leave every wetland undeveloped.We have to harmonize the necessity of environmental preservation and the justifiability of development. In order to do this, we need clear definition of wetland and proper wetland health assessment tool.
Goverment of Korea is putting much effort to protect wetland thesedays and seeking proper assessment system for Korea. They are also planning to introduce "no net loss" of wetland system which is about artificailly made wetland to replace unavoidable wetland loss.
This is informative article about developing model to assess wetland health which would be the very first procedure to achieve to protect wetland. I think it will take some time for Korea to develope wetland assessment tool in landscape scale but we are desperate need of it. If goverment enforce Grandcanal construction, many wetland will disappear without appropriate evaulation. That's why I was intersted about this article.
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From: Smithsonian
Published September 14, 2007 02:25 PM
Smithsonian researchers develop models to assess wetland health
Healthy wetlands perform vital ecological functions in a watershed. But assessing their condition and ability to perform those functions is not easy, especially as wetlands are disappearing fast due to human encroachment.
In a special issue of the journal Wetlands, Smithsonian scientists report a promising method of wetland assessment that will help environmental managers quickly take stock of wetlands across an entire watershed. Tools for this kind of rapid watershed-scale assessment�relying on a few easily measurable key factors�have been previously unavailable to managers.
In three papers, Dennis Whigham, Donald Weller and Thomas Jordan of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and their colleagues present the results of a large-scale study that combines field studies and remote-sensing data to assess the ecological functioning of wetlands in a landscape.
The researchers based their study on an approach previously developed for assessing individual sites, called the Hydrogeomorphic (HGM) approach, in which ecological conditions are inferred from readily observable indicators, such as plant species present and the degree of human disturbance.
We took these methods for assessing wetland functions and expanded them to a whole-landscape scale, which is something that has not been effectively done before,� said Whigham, who coordinated the project. �These days, most land managers are not asking how to understand what is going on in an individual wetland, they want to manage resources at a much larger scale.�
Wetlands are important buffers for flood control, can absorb pollutants and excess nutrients and provide critical habitats for many plants and animals, including some threatened and endangered species.
For this study, the researchers focused on non-tidal wetlands in the Nanticoke River watershed of Maryland and Delaware. Draining into the Chesapeake Bay, the Nanticoke system is one of the most biologically important and wetland-rich watersheds in the mid-Atlantic region. Wetlands are found along streams (riverine wetlands) and in poorly drained uplands called �flats.�
During the first year of the project, the researchers visited wetlands of both types, taking field measurements and observations according to the HGM protocol at more than 100 sites. They used the data to formulate models to rate the condition of the sites, which ranged from nearly undisturbed to highly degraded. The sites were chosen according to a statistical procedure developed by the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that they were representative of the entire landscape.
For a subset of the sites, the researchers took a closer look at one important ecological function of wetlands: the cycling of nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Many watersheds are overloaded in nutrients due to runoff from agricultural fields and other sources. The result is diminished water quality. But soils in healthy wetlands contain bacteria that remove excess nitrogen by a process called denitrification and can restore water quality.
We found that you can predict denitrification potential from some fairly easy-to-measure properties of the soil, such as percent organic matter or pH,� said Jordan, who led this portion of the study.
As a final step, the researchers took the results of the field assessments and compared them with digital maps and remotely sensed data, such as satellite land cover images.
The idea was to develop statistical models that would successfully predict what was observed in the field,� said Weller, whose lab performed the analysis. �Once you�ve developed the models, you then can assess additional wetlands without having to go out and sample them,� he added. While the models cannot predict the precise conditions at a given site, they can provide enough information to identify potentially degraded areas and help guide management priorities in a watershed.
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http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/23059
1. Madhabi Bhatta
2. Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail
3In fact, I was reading an article "The Fate of the Ocean". But I was remembering the fate of Mt. Everest. Julia Whitty's powerful and adventures expression on the travelogue under aforementioned title, appealed me to go thorough a similar article written on Mt. Everest. I accelerated all search engine Google, Yahoo and so on. All efforts to get a testy and adventurous article went in vain. I just got pieces of small news related to plastic or bottle pollution in the Mt. Everest. Among them I have selected news 'Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail" for our weekly post.
I had some knowledge about pollution on Mt. Everest. Climbers well wishers and environmentalist are worried on such problem. This news-article pictures the seriousness of problem with some data. And also this news can disseminate the information that the efforts to clean the Mt. Everest. For my best surprise, article says that a group clered 17 tones bottle, plastic and cans.
Here, I want to share why I am being distracted from the Ocean article and attracted to this article. The Reason is that I had grown up nearby Mt. Everest. As a citizen of landlocked country Nepal, I did not get opportunity to experience Ocean on my childhood and also in the teenage. On the other; I had been taught to be proud having located Mt. Everest in Nepal.
There is an environmental problem on the top of the world, where few people can success to scale up. Also the extreme down of our earth, the Ocean also polluted. What a wonderful co-existence of thought on my mind as I was trying to compare two parts of the Earth; the top and the down. I wish if there is another scholar like Julia Witty, ready to climb Mt. Everest and make a similar travelogue like 'The Fate of Ocean.
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Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A Nepali airline cleared 17 tons of empty beer bottles and cans on Friday from around Lukla village, the main gateway for trekkers and climbers heading to Mount Everest base camp, a company official said.
Thousands of trekkers and mountain climbers from around the world go to the scenic Khumbhu region every year, towered by the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) mountain.The trekkers scatter tons of empty beer bottles, plastic packets and cans in Lukla.On Friday, a private airline completed a huge clean up operation.
"This is the last cargo in a series we began carrying in January," said Vinaya Shakya, a senior official of the Yeti Airlines, a private carrier which volunteered to do the clean up job.The bottles will be handed over to breweries for reuse, he added.
The airline said they were hoping the campaign would create more awareness among both the tourists and the locals about preserving and improving the ecological balance in the high Himalayas.
Foreign and Nepali climbers in the recent years have cleared many empty oxygen bottles, plastics, cans, ropes and broken ladders from the slopes of Everest.But the trekking trail from Lukla to the base camp was littered with garbage.
Ang Tshiring Sherpa, a member of the Himalaya Club, a local environmental group in Lukla, explained that garbage like paper, plastic and aluminum cans was disposed of locally, but the bottles had to be brought to the capital."We ran short of space to bury empty bottles," Sherpa, who was involved in the drive said.
Last month, Nepal named the trail from Lukla to the Everest base camp after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who first climbed the Everest summit in 1953.
A small airstrip constructed in Lukla in the 1960s with the help of Hillary has also been named after the pioneering mountaineers.Tenzing died in 1986 and Hillary passed away this year in New Zealand.
(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Sanjeev Miglani)
----------
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/32954
1. Madhabi Bhatta
2 Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail
3. In fact, I was reading an article "The Fate of the Ocean". But I was remembering the fate of Mt. Everest. Julia Whitty's powerful and adventures expression on the travelogue under aforementioned title, appealed me to go thorough a similar article written on Mt. Everest. I accelerated all search engine Google, Yahoo and so on. All efforts to get a testy and adventurous article went in vain. I just got pieces of small news related to plastic or bottle pollution in the Mt. Everest. Among them I have selected news 'Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail" for our weekly post.
I had some knowledge about pollution on Mt. Everest. Climbers well wishers and environmentalist are worried on such problem. This news-article pictures the seriousness of problem with some data. And also this news can disseminate the information that the efforts to clean the Mt. Everest. For my best surprise, article says that a group clered 17 tones bottle, plastic and cans.
Here, I want to share why I am being distracted from the Ocean article and attracted to this article. The Reason is that I had grown up nearby Mt. Everest. As a citizen of landlocked country Nepal, I did not get opportunity to experience Ocean on my childhood and also in the teenage. On the other; I had been taught to be proud having located Mt. Everest in Nepal.
There is an environmental problem on the top of the world, where few people can success to scale up. Also the extreme down of our earth, the Ocean also polluted. What a wonderful co-existence of thought on my mind as I was trying to compare two parts of the Earth; the top and the down. I wish if there is another scholar like Julia Witty, ready to climb Mt. Everest and make a similar travelogue like 'The Fate of Ocean.
------------------
Beer bottles, plastic cleared from Mt. Everest trail
By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A Nepali airline cleared 17 tons of empty beer bottles and cans on Friday from around Lukla village, the main gateway for trekkers and climbers heading to Mount Everest base camp, a company official said.
Thousands of trekkers and mountain climbers from around the world go to the scenic Khumbhu region every year, towered by the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) mountain.The trekkers scatter tons of empty beer bottles, plastic packets and cans in Lukla.On Friday, a private airline completed a huge clean up operation.
"This is the last cargo in a series we began carrying in January," said Vinaya Shakya, a senior official of the Yeti Airlines, a private carrier which volunteered to do the clean up job.The bottles will be handed over to breweries for reuse, he added.
The airline said they were hoping the campaign would create more awareness among both the tourists and the locals about preserving and improving the ecological balance in the high Himalayas.
Foreign and Nepali climbers in the recent years have cleared many empty oxygen bottles, plastics, cans, ropes and broken ladders from the slopes of Everest.But the trekking trail from Lukla to the base camp was littered with garbage.
Ang Tshiring Sherpa, a member of the Himalaya Club, a local environmental group in Lukla, explained that garbage like paper, plastic and aluminum cans was disposed of locally, but the bottles had to be brought to the capital."We ran short of space to bury empty bottles," Sherpa, who was involved in the drive said.
Last month, Nepal named the trail from Lukla to the Everest base camp after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who first climbed the Everest summit in 1953.
A small airstrip constructed in Lukla in the 1960s with the help of Hillary has also been named after the pioneering mountaineers.Tenzing died in 1986 and Hillary passed away this year in New Zealand.
(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Sanjeev Miglani)
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/32954
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