...Paulina...

This is my own web page from Cartagena, Colombia that Mr.Hide made me make in the seventh grade english class. I really liked it and it was very fun to learn something new. You will find many interesting things in this blog. Bye!!!

Friday, March 23, 2007

Teen Life Project Reflection

Now that I have finished working on the teen life project I feel very relieved. It was a lot of hard work to make our posts: the introduction post and the research posts. We needed to find many sources for our research posts which indeed were very difficult to find. Because we didnt have much time to work on our research posts and I had other things to do, most of the time I stayed after midnight working at my posts which needed to be done by Sunday morning. Sometimes you needed to regret invitations with your friends because you needed to do the posts and believe me that it was very depressing. Maybe some people wont think this but I thought that the easiest part was putting all the research together and making the actual documentary.

I thought that the teen life project was a great experience to all of the students that have been participating. It was a fun way to learn to work with partners or groups and it was specially fun to work with people from other countries all around the world. We got to know each others and we even become friends. It was also very cool to express our beliefs and thoughts, and to hear and learn from others.

The teen life project inspired me because now I know that if every child in the world is consious of what is happening in present day Earth, these childs could come over with all the problems that we are facing. For this reason we need to train children so when they grow up they dont follow the problems. It would be great to also make adults consious about all these issues so that they would begin the process of overcoming all these problems. The teen life project taught me that if I propose something and I work to accomplish it, I would accomplish it.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Campaigns and Organizations

On this last post I am going to focus on other smaller groups that are trying to prevent and/or reduce global warming specially in Australia and the United States which are the only countries that haven't signed up for the Kyoto Protocol. An organization in the United States that I found interesting to research on is called the Environmental Defense. This are the links to two of the web pages where I got some of the information. The first web page is called Can You Prevent Global Warming? The second web page is called Barbra Streisand.

The Environmental Defense campaign is a public service campaign made to aware people about global warming and to teach people what they can do to prevent it and help. This campaign has focused on Global Warming for several years and also on it's objective that is the Kyoto Protocol.
Barbra Streisand is an actress and a singer too. She has a foundation called the Streisand Foundation which supports the Environmental Defense campaign. This is what the executive director of the Streisand Foundation, Margery Tabankin, said: It is very rare in philanthropy that a foundation is able to start with something from the beginning stages and get to see it accomplished. How rewarding to see this go from a scientific theory to a concern of every government in the world. The whole planet has a vital stake in the Environmental Defense Fund's accomplishing its objectives in Kyoto.

The Environmental Defense Fund is also trying to make the United States to have a smaller population. Members of the campaign say that with a smaller population they can keep growing and having a more efficient economy but without harming the environment.

The United States sends 21 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person to the atmosphere. Most of this carbon emissions were because of the combustion of energy fuels. It is predicted that the average emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases send by the United States will continue rising by 1.5 % a year. it is also estimated that there would be 1,803 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2010. Bush says that he wont sign up for the protocol but that he would encourage citizens to reduce 4.5 % of the emissions by 2010 and his goal is to make 70 million cars off the road. The Senate and Bush say that the signing up for the Protocol will result in great harm for the United States economy.

In Australia, there is a campaign against Global Warming that is called GetUP! Action For Australia. I found this cool web page in Google; There are more interesting things that you could find here. This is what they say about global warming: "It is bigger than party politics, bigger than special interests and more important than short-term economic gain." "I want my government to take sweeping action to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution, shift to clean energy and solve the climate crisis now." I think this is very true but I don't understand why the governor of Australia don't accepts the Kyoto Protocol. Australia's farmers are in a big problem because they are in a drought, bush fires are happening every year, there are many heat waves that are the cause of water scarcity and storms and cyclones. I keep on don't understanding, they are having so much problems but they don't act. Australians say that they need to act now but they don't do a thing! The Federal Government doesn't want to sign the Kyoto Protocol, they only worry about their coalmines and coal.

In Australia, 27 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person are released into the air. In Australia one of the main problems is the coal beds because it stores many carbon dioxide. Australia has one of the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capital in the world. Some researchers say that they could use the methane in coal beds to generate power. I think this is a good idea because the methane will be used for something and it would not be wasted; it wont harm the environment either.

I think that all this information that I researched in this post is very important for the making of the documentary. I needed to know why did Australia and the United States haven't sign up for the Kyoto Protocol. Now I know that Australia has a great production of coal so it's governors think that if they sign up for the protocol the production of coal will be smaller and they would lose money. I also know that the United States has a lot of population and industries that release a lot of carbon dioxide emissions but they don't want to sign up for the Kyoto because of it's industries and the harm that it will make to the economy.

This is my last research post and that's why I cant write about how I am going to expand my topic. I will use all the information that I have researched earlier to film a wonderful documentary. I hope that the students from the United States and Malaysia do a great job in the poems and the effects.