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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Pollution on Colombian Rainforests and more....

Colombia, even though is very small, its the second country in the world with the greatest biodiversity. However many of their rainforests are disappearing, and not only because of cocaine production. Also I researched and found out that the results of pollution can be either physical or biological. Something extra other than the things I promised I was going to research of is how Mongolia is affected during winter because of pollution.

Researching I found Mongabay where I found information about rainforests in Colombia. “Each year Colombia loses nearly 200,000 hectares of natural forest, according to figures released by the United Nations in 2003” tells the same web page. Let’s start by telling the main reasons of how here in Colombia rainforests are affected. One reason is palm oil plantation. Another reason is gold mining. An estimate during the mid 1990’s told that gold-mining by itself cleared 80,000 hectares of rainforests and at the same time it polluted rivers with mercury and siltation. A third way rainforests disappear here in Colombia is by coca plantations, which affects the rainforests in two ways. One is that poor farmers clear a lot of rainforests to grow the plant. The other reason is that drug efforts spray herbicides in areas they suspect there is coca to kill it. However any other plant is also killed. Finally, let’s focus on how pollution affects rainforests here in Colombia. In my country there are gas and oil deposits. “Ongoing instability has somewhat limited potential development”, says Mongabay. Guerillas attacks and installations on Eastern Colombia cause oil spills. Obviously, this oil spills lead to pollution.

Two ways in which the results of pollution are divided are physical results and biological results. One of the physical effects are oil spills. It is cause by ships collisions and other accidents. These oil spills coat everything they touch. Oil spills require expensive clean-up operations. “It fouls boat hulls, pier pilings, and shore structures; spoils the beauty of nature by killing fish and birds; and makes beaches unusable”, tells TPUB about oil spills. Another physical effect of pollution are air pollutants. Burning oil and coal produces sulfur oxides, which causes steel to erode a lot times faster than the normal. Also, when it mixes with other pollutants, sulfur oxide’s particulates cause corrosion at an even faster rate. Particulates by themselves damage soil materials and structures. I some way it destroys art because with some pollutants it erodes faster sculptures and buildings. The biological effects I also found them on TPUB. “The most serious result of pollution is its harmful biological effects on human health and on the food chain of animals, birds, and marine life. Pollution can destroy vegetation that provides food and shelter. It can seriously disrupt the balance of nature, and, in extreme cases, can cause the death of humans”, tells the same web page. Pesticides, that can be herbicides or insecticides, kill vegetation. These pesticides are meant to kill an specific animal or plant. However it isn’t selective so it also kills any other organism. The biological effect of water pollution is a great problem because it affects our water ways. It is caused by the widespread of pollutants such as oil and fertilizers. Since we need water to survive and water pollution put in danger our water ways, we are also in danger. Water pollution puts in danger marine life. Some water pollutants like oil that is a major one, kill surface-swimming organisms and sea birds. Also, when the oil sinks to the ocean floor, it also might harm shellfish and other marine life. The Navy is concerned because somehow they also cause pollution. The ships spill ship-wastes into water-ways. These wastes include oil, laundry waters, sanitary wastes, solid wastes, and different kinds of chemicals.

Mongolia is known because of its clear and blue skies. During winter, however, Ulan Bator, it’s capital, gets covered with smog on the sky. “The smoke can make it hard to breathe and it's affecting the health of Ulan Bator's burgeoning population” tells BBC News. Buildings might completely disappear from view because they get covered in smoke. In airports, international flights get delay or canceled because of the little view there is. Because Ulan Bator is in a valley covered by mountains, all the smoke gets trapped and preserved on the city.

I have some opinions after this research. I didn’t know how coca affected rainforests here in Colombia. Also, this is the first time I ever knew that gold-mining also affected rainforests. I got to know that guerillas here in Colombia also affected my country because it polluted the rainforests. Finally, however, I understood that pollution really isn’t the major way rainforests here in Colombia are disappearing, but it is a way. It cool to know that the effects of pollution are divided in two ways, physical and biological. Its sad to know that even though the Navy is so helpful, it pollutes waterways.

This research leads me to another way. As I’ve researched I found a lot of information, even though I didn’t write all of it. I’ve seen that every time I browse pollution, somewhere there is East Asia, especially China. So now I’m researching about water and air pollution on China and maybe other places in East Asia.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Some More About Pollution



On my last post I talked about two types of pollution which are the ones I'll focus on, water and air pollution. To continue my research about them for the Teen Life Project, here are some information and news about these types of pollution.

If you didn't know, pollution started way many years ago, but it actually did not do a great change on the environment.Wikipedia-Pollution tells that during the Iron Age there could be metal grinding. If this happened then particles of metal would fly into the air, polluting it, but just in a small amount. Also, maybe human wastes could have polluted rivers and other water sources. The same web page also tells, "The first advanced civilizations of China, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome increased the use of water for their manufacture of goods, increasingly forged metal and created fires of wood and peat for more elaborate purposes (for example, bathing, heating). Still, at this time the scale of higher activity did not disrupt ecosystems or greatly alter air or water quality".


BBC News- Polluted river in China tells that the clay wastes of a disused pit in China was poured into Bodmin Moor after a dam was breached. Imerys, which is the chinese clay producers that had to do with the accident, were helping a lot the Environmental agency because of the incident. Temporary measures are been taken to cover the gap from where the wastes were poured. The River Camel Fisheries Association says that this accident happened in a bad moment. A fisherman said that it will be uncountable the number of fish eggs killed.



World View says that Earth hasn't be this hot at least in 1300 years. Pollution can result into global warming. This increases temperature. The fourth report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the only results of global warming aren't only increase in ocean water and in air. It also includes, melting snow, it affects salinity in oceans, changes in precipitation amount all over the world, aspects of extreme weather, and it affects the intensity of tropical cyclones.

In World View- tropics says, "For many years, it was thought that tropical rainforests were essentially unaffected by climate change. Now studies are showing that not only were they changed during past events like ice ages, but some areas are being affected right now by warming". An example this page gives is Monteverde Cloud forest Reserve, located in Costa Rica. There, clouds are forming a lot higher, drying up air. This causes a lot of it fauna and flora to die.

In my opinion, something has to be done about pollution. I already knew that pollution caused global warming which caused sea level to increase, however I didn't know the other facts, like it increases the amount of air, world precipitation and ocean salinity. Something that made me think how bad things are, are the pictures in the top of this post. I can believe that polar bear is actually in an artic area. I imagine he was accostumed to cold weather and snow, but constant pollution caused fast melting of snow. Then is the picture of the man walking in a dry area. Maybe what happened was that hot winds carried land leaving it dry. Or maybe clouds formed higher in the sky drying the surface, like happened in Costa Rica. Finally is the picture of the big wave. I never understood why sea level increasing was bad, not even when I read this information! But when I saw the picture I imagined what could have happened next than the picture. Houses might have been destructed and important objects mights have been carried away by water. This is my opinion about pollution.

Finally, this information leads me to another part. The rainforests here in Colombia may be affected by pollution. I could research about it. Maybe, for the Teen Life Project someone from other country may research about rainforests there too. Another thing is that if I found out more ways pollution affects Earth now than last time, maybe thereare still more effects that I could research about. I'll see what I can find for next week.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Pollution: A Problem for EVERYONE

There are six types of pollutions: air pollution, water pollution, radioactive pollution, land pollution, noise pollution, and thermal pollution. However, I'll focus more in water and air pollution. During my research I learned many things like that pollution affects your heart, specially a woman's heart. I also learned that it affects the lung development of a kid. China's water and air are one of the most polluted ones. Things like one single car accident around all the world may affect the pollution of a river, like happened once in the United Kingdom, by the Cledwyn River.

Let's state better what water pollution is, according to Think Quest-Water. Water pollution is the contamination of water by foreign matter that makes water bad. Water pollution can happen on body of waters like bays, streams, underground water, oceans, and rivers. Pollution in water is involved with release of toxic substances, pathogenic germs, substances that require much oxygen to decompose, easy-soluble substances, radioactivity, etc. that are deposited on the bottom of a body of water. Water pollution can lead to eutrophication: lack of oxygen in a water body caused by excessive algae growths because of enrichment of pollutants. The major sources of water pollution are petroleum products, synthetic agricultural chemicals, heavy metals, hazardous wastes, excess organic matter, sediment, infectious organisms, air pollution, thermal pollution, soil pollution

Think Quest-Air says, "Air pollution is indication of disturbances to the composition of compounds in the atmosphere, as it may be summarized as shown:excess emission of gases/vapors into atmosphere, saturation of chemical, compounds/particulates, rate of dissipation < rate of absorption through various cycles (i.e. carbon and nitrogen cycle), emergence of new chemical reactions of reactive and non-biodegradable compounds". Some results of pollution are global warming, acid rain, smog, ozone, and depletion. Some sources that produce air pollution are motor vehicle exhaust, heat and power generation facilities, industrial processes, auto manufacturing, fertilizers plants, building, demolition, solid waste disposal, solvent evaporation, volcanic eruption, fuel production, roadway construction, electrical components manufacturing, extraction of metals, and forest fires.

BBC News/Health says, "Air pollution increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Researchers studied 66,000 women in and around 36 US cities, finding pollution levels varied between four to nearly 20 micrograms per cubic meter". It's not sure if women’s hearts is more sensible that men's, but women's coronary arteries are smaller so this gives them less defenses. There was a study with women from the Women's Health Initiative ages 59-70. It took about 9 years monitoring them to see which of them went on to suffer a heart attack or stroke, undergo bypass surgery, or die from cardiovascular causes. 1,816 women had cardiovascular problems.

Other things I learned doing this is that pollution affects the lung growth ok a kid. The study is with kid ages 10-18. Kids that live 500 meters away from a main road have much less developed lungs ate 18 years old than kids 1500 meters or more away from them. BBC News/Health-UK tell what the University of California authors warn on The Lancet, "Many children live and go to schools near to busy roads and could be at risk". Also I read that Jilin Petrochemical had to pay a fine of 1m Yuan ($125,000 dollars) because it spilled about 100 tonnes of carcinogen benzene on the Shongua River, cutting water supplies to the city of Harbin and also affecting Russia. One more that I read about is that a truck in UK went to close to a street in development, so a bump made it fall and roll by a slope. That is sad, but at the end it felt by the plain of the Cledwyn River, and it started spilling a lot of oil. It was polluting so much the river that Emergency Services had to work A LOT to prevent more oil to spill. BBC News-Wales even get to say the river was threatened.

Finally, all this leads me to another path. I'm a woman, so I'm really scared. Also, something big is that I live in the city, and I study in one of the very few schools in Cartagena that are in the middle of the city. I've notice that what people are really concerned in school areas is to remember drivers that students might be walking by. But, what about our lungs? I'm also concerned because maybe I might have eaten seafood from polluted waters and haven't noticed it. So, If you are a women, what do you feel after having read this? Aren't you concerned, and even in the deepest, aren't you scared? If you live in the middle of the city, how do you think it affects you? Hope you leave a comment answering these questions and giving you opinion about all this.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Concerns and Free Time ...

In response to Shyla's Blog from Mr. Fisher’s Class, I made this post. She wrote about what kids their age do there but she also wrote about her concerns. Shyla says that there, in Snow Lake, isn't really not a lot of things to do and that most of the time they go to a place called the Youth Center where kids ages 6-12 go there to play air hockey, ping pong, darts, pool, and football. She added that there are also very good magazines and board games. Shyla, there things are great compared to this! There's not a single place in which we can do all or most of the things you said on weekends here in Cartagena. On School we had air hockey and ping pong for school hours but now we don't have them at all. Places were you can play darts and pool must be a lot, but you have to be over 18 to go over there. Club Cartagena, for example, has a little room where adults go play pool but kids can't.

The only thing we can do here in Cartagena is hang out and eat. If you ate at home there's not really a lot to do, if you are a kid our age. The only place we can go and the only thing to do isn't eat and hang out is El Campito. There people play micro-soccer and baseball and people can watch them play. Also very good milkshakes, threshed corn and pizzas are sold there. The following places are places in which we only go to eat and hang out: McDonald’s, El Otoyal, Crepes & Waffles, El Corral, and Club Cartagena. Believe me, we would do anything to have a Youth Center here, or at least a little bowling center!

Shyla said that some of her major concerns affect places all over the world, not only Canada. And it’s true. Garbage and Global Warming. If you have seen other posts in my blog, you might have seen one in which I answer Dustin's question that asks if global warming affects my environment. I said yes and explained that because this city is too small all the pollution from the new and old buildings and the old cars and the new ones that come because of the people that move to new buildings get all concentrated in one place, which increases temperature. So I agree with Shyla because I believe pollution is a major problem all over the world. This might sound stupid because I'm not doing nothing about it, but I thing all humans are responsible for this.

Another issue that Shyla talks about is littering. I hate littering because all the streets are horrible. I feel very bad if even by mistake I litter. By the Paseo Peatonal, a little "street" where you can go exercise and that borders the bay, has a lot of trash cans. However, I think there shoul be more trash cans. Also, I think something that would help and that anyone could help with is that in every 2 corners of every block there is a trash can so people that are lazy going by don't throw their trash on the streets. This takes me to another place. I think one main reason there is so much littering is because people are so lazy to keep their trash until they find a garbage can that they through them anywere. In the bay here in Cartagena people throw strange things. I think everyone that leaves here has found at leats one sandal floating in the water! But the worst is when people throw garbage, putting the lives of the fish in more risk than they are because of the pollution. Littering is bad not only because it makes cities look and smell bad, but because it is dangerous for animals.

In conclusion, I can tell that are a lot of reasons to believe littering and global warming are two major problems here in Cartagena. Also, I can tell that even in the most smallest and remote city in the world, there is something fun to do on your free time. If you son't believe so, ask anyone that leaves here!