Making the environment cleaner can be fun

The Fun Theory–The deepest rubbish bin

 

A world wide known car company Volkswagen created a great way of stimulating people to change their behavior or habits for the better, and they call it The Fun Theory. Any person can make up a fun theory and a group of specialists will bring this idea to life. In the video placed above you can see a great example of how throwing litter in a rubbish bin can be fun, and make people smile. You can see a guy who threw away his own litter, then picked up some other nearby the bin and also threw it away. Would he do that if not for this cool “falling into depth” sound? I don’t think so. So the point is – people like fun stuff and it doesn’t matter whether it’s about throwing litter into a bin or walking up “piano” stairs.

I’m really happy there are people who invent such fun and attractive things, and it somehow changes people’s behavior for the better.

We are sick of ecology!

You certainly know why people leave their cities for some health centers settled in places with clean environment, pure water, and healthy air. It’s no wonder that living in cities and megalopolises we expose our health to various diseases caused by bad ecology. We are more likely to catch some illness then people living somewhere in the country, away from plants and streams of cars.

One of the health problems is intolerant reactions to foods and drinks. Doctors are still not sure whether these reactions can be called allergies, but the symptoms are very much alike. They call it ecological illness that caused by chemical or food sensitivity.

Doctors are not sure about the causes of the Ecological illness either. A few ecologically sick people were interviewed and they suppose the causes might be: fast foods, artificially-preserved foods, pre-packed and frozen foods; various drugs and medication taken daily and of course pollution of the environment with such harmful chemicals as fertilizers, hydrocarbons and insecticides.

Ecologically friendly products

In our everyday life we rarely think about the damage we make to the Earth and environment. We also don’t pay much attention to the products we choose although there is a great range of them. There are ecological products, which are now becoming popular among those people who prefer greener living. When choosing ecological products we preserve our planet from water pollution, air pollution, toxic chemical substances. There are some common categories of green ecological products:

1) Environmentally friendly – not damaging the nature and minimizing the harm to it.

2) Organic certified – produced without the use of harmful fertilizes.

3) Recycled – new things made of the old ones by processing those. Materials that can be recycled are glass, paper, cans, plastic bags etc.

4) Sustainable Forestry – in this case the care of the forest ecosystems including rivers, lakes, wildlife habitats is taken.

There is a great variety of green ecological products but they all imply the reduction of the damage made to the environment. You can either buy recycled products or provide your individual recycling service with composers. Considering the importance of reducing methane gas production certain companies manage to harness the methane output and manufacture ecological products.

Live Earth concert against climate change

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Live Earth will reach this worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels.

Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth.

Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, the Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8, an event that brought together one of the largest audiences in history to combat poverty. Wall formed a partnership with Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection to ensure that Live Earth inspires behavioral changes long after 7/7/07.

Live Earth will stage official concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London; Aussie Stadium in Sydney; Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg; Makuhari Messe in Tokyo; the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai; and HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg.

Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to a live worldwide audience by MSN at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com.

Live Earth is a project of the SOS campaign , which is using a powerful multimedia platform - films, television, radio, Internet, books, wireless and others - to move people to combat the climate crisis.

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The pros and cons of chlorine

Chlorine is a highly efficient disinfectant, and it is added to public water supplies to kill disease-causing bacteria that the water or its transport pipes might contain.

“Chlorine has been hailed as the savior against cholera and various other water-borne diseases, and rightfully so,” says Steve Harrison, president of water filter maker Environmental Systems Distributing. “Its disinfectant qualities…have allowed communities and whole cities to grow and prosper by providing disease-free tap water to homes and industry.”

The Pros and Cons of Chlorine
But Harrison says that all this disinfecting has not come without a price: Chlorine introduced into the water supply reacts with other naturally-occurring elements to form toxins called trihalomethanes (THMs), which eventually make their way into our bodies

THMs have been linked to a wide range of human health maladies ranging from asthma and eczema to bladder cancer and heart disease. In addition, Dr. Peter Montague of the Environmental Research Foundation cites has made several studies linking moderate to heavy consumption of chlorinated tap water by pregnant women with higher miscarriage and birth defect rates.

A recent report by the non-profit Environmental Working Group concluded that from 1996 though 2001, more than 16 million Americans consumed dangerous amounts of contaminated tap water. The report found that water supplies in and around Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and the Bay Area in California were putting the greatest number of people at risk.

“Dirty water going into the treatment plant means water contaminated with chlorination byproducts coming out of your tap,” said Jane Houlihan, EWG’s Research Director. “The solution is to clean up our lakes, rivers and streams, not just bombard our water supplies with chlorine.”

Alternatives to Chlorine
Eliminating water pollution and cleaning up our watersheds are not going to happen overnight, but alternatives to chlorination for water treatment do exist. Dr. Montague reports that several European and Canadian cities now disinfect their water supplies with ozone instead of chlorine. Currently a handful of U.S. cities do the same, most notably Las Vegas, Nevada and Santa Clara, California.

Those of us who live far from Las Vegas or Santa Clara, though, do have other options. First and foremost is filtration at the faucet. Carbon-based filters are considered the most effective at removing THMs and other toxins. The consumer information website WaterFilterRankings.com compares various water filters on the bases of price and effectiveness. The site reports that filters from Paragon, Aquasana, Kenmore, GE and Seagul remove most of the chlorine, THMs and other potential contaminates in tap water.

Concerned consumers without the money to spend on home filtration, can just rely on good old-fashioned patience. Chlorine and related compounds will make their way out of tap water if the container is simply left uncovered in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

by Larry West

Where the nature sings

The Alps is the name of one of the biggest and gorgeous mountain chain systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east, through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west. They are divided into the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps.

Mont Blanс is the highest mountain in the Alps chain - 4,808 meters (15,774 ft).

As we rise from the sea level into the upper levels of atmosphere the temperature decreases. What is interesting, there are eternal glaciers in the top of alps, the temperature is low; going down it begins to increase, that's why the lowest areas of the Alps are full of rich flora. Furthermore the weather forecast in the Alps is really unpredictable.

The Alps are considered to be attractive for tourists and especially Alpinists. Clean snow and at the same time wonderful forests, wide meadows, which you can smell amazing fragrance from, the cleanest air. What a place for chilling! Such nature is needed for people and their health to be strong, for getting some positive emotions, which people usually have a lack of. And the air is so clean, that some people might collapse, because they didn't get used to that clean air.
What is most wonderful about The Alps is its extremely rich and diverse nature : vast meadows, forests, lakes…

Great deal of herbaceous vegetation is very common in the Alps. There is a great variety of meadow flowers: rusty-leaved Alpenrose, Edelweiss, stemless gentian, Alpine pasque-flower, glacier buttercup etc. Wildlife still charms us: Alpine Ibex, Chamois, Alpine Marmot, Mountain Hare. Birds: Golden Eagle, Alpine Chough, Alpine Accentor.

Ptarmigan, Tengmalm's Owl, Capercaillie, Alpine Salamander. These species are found in 15% of the Alps protected in parks and reserves.

See The Alps location on the map.

Some gorgeous pictures of The Alps:

Learn more about The Alps in Wikipedia.

What's wrong with the Earth ?

Some of the global environmental problems you should know.

Global environmental problems are much spoken nowadays. The ecology of the Earth is becoming worse and worse each year. Scientist are making predictions about the future of the Earth that are closely linked with such global problems as global warming, greenhouse effect and gases, ice melting. I want to inform you and to give you an idea of them.

So, here we go:

Greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by an atmosphere warms a planet's surface.The main problem is a raise of carbonic dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. In a common usage, "greenhouse effect" may refer either to the natural greenhouse effect due to naturally occurring greenhouse gases, or to the enhanced (anthropogenic) greenhouse effect which results from gases emitted as a result of human activities.On Earth, the major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%.

The increased CO₂ in the atmosphere warms the Earth's surface and leads to melting of ice near the poles. As the ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both land and open water are on average less reflective than ice, and thus absorb more solar radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and this cycle continues.

Look the process of the Greenhouse effect

The green house gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the Greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Certain human activities add to the levels of most of these naturally occurring gases.

The Antarctic ozone hole is an area of the Antarctic stratosphere in which the recent ozone levels have dropped to as low as 33% of their pre-1975 values. The overall cause of ozone depletion is the presence of chlorine-containing source gases.

In the presence of UV light, these gases dissociate, releasing chlorine atoms, which then go on to catalyze ozone destruction. The Cl-catalyzed ozone depletion can take place in the gas phase, but it is dramatically enhanced in the presence of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs).

The role of sunlight in ozone depletion is the reason why the Antarctic ozone depletion is greatest during spring. During winter, even though polar stratospheric clouds are at their most abundant, there is no light over the pole to drive the chemical reactions. During the spring, however, the sun comes out, providing energy to drive photochemical reactions, and melt the polar stratospheric clouds, releasing the trapped compounds.

The Antarctic ozone hole

Where is a Blue Eye of Siberia?

Lake Baikal, which is also known as Blue Eye of Siberia, lies in Southern Siberia in Russia. It is the 2^nd largest lake on the earth by volume. It contains over one fifth of the world's liquid fresh surface water and more than 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the second largest lake-bound island in the world.

Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world. Its max depth is 1741, but in some places it's even deeper. Lake Baikal is not only the deepest, but also the biggest one between all freshwater lakes of the world. Its area is 30 500 km ² and the volume of water mass is 23 000 km ³ .

The lake is the huge water reserve of freshwater, inexhaustible resource of water-power. Scientists have found out that there's oil and gas in the Lake Baikal. Oil was noticed in some cracks of ancient crystalline rocks. However the source of these mineral resources is a big riddle for scientists.

The nature of the Lake Baikal is picturesque and gorgeous.The lake is surrounded by forests and big mountains. More than that it's opened for tourists that come to the Lake Baikal to relax and get stronger, during all seasons. From ancient times water of the lake Baikal has been considered as curative and healthy.

Lake Baikal is rich with wildlife and flora. There are more that 2600 kinds of animals and plants. Forests are full with different species of fur bearing animals (minks, squirrels, red foxes, muskrats and others).

The ecology of the lake is under a risk. The greatest threat of pollution is Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM). It was constructed in 1966 directly on the shore line. The BPPM bleaches its paper with chlorine and discharges the waste into Baikal. Despite numerous protests, the BPPM is still in production. Environmental activists are now in a struggle to make the pollution less harmful rather than end BPPM's production, since a plant shutdown would be problematic due to local socioeconomic issues. Also harmful chemical substances that are used in agriculture get into the lake and pollute its value and damage its inhabitants.

Lake Baikal on the map

See also:

About the Lake Baikal, its ecology, wildlife.

Ecology of my town

My native town Novotroitsk is industrial. A big metal work plant the "Ural Steel" gives work to a half of the population, produces steel things (i.e. for bridges, ships) but a lack of good modern cleaning equipment leads to the damage of our beautiful nature and the environment. So look at my town and its nature.

A view in the town:

















The factory is smoking:





























How looks our town:

















What is really being polluted:

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how the distribution and abundance are affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment. The environment of an organism includes both physical properties, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as insolation (sunlight), climate, and geology, as well as the other organisms that share its habitat. The term oekologie was coined in 1866 by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel the word is derived from the Greek οικος (oikos, "household") and λόγος (logos, "study"); therefore "ecology" means the "study of the household [of nature]". The word "ecology" is often used in common parlance as a synonym for the natural environment or environmentalism. Likewise "ecologic" or "ecological" is often taken in the sense of environmentally friendly.

Well, the ecology of our planet is undoubtedly getting worse and worse.

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