Skip to main content

Blue Planet

Imagen relacionada



So I haven't written on here for a while but the last few weeks something has been frustrating me more than usual. Climate change, the polar bears, they way we use plastic, and well the list could go on but you probably get the point. 

Then to top this, last night I watched blue planet II on BBC, it was the final episode of the season and I have to admit I haven't watched any other episodes because well, we just don't watch much TV in my house. You have probably heard of this, especially if you live in England, with the 13 million viewers in the UK, smashing X-factor viewings over the past few weeks. 

So it is obviously about the planet, mostly about our oceans. The one I watched last night was called 'Our Blue Planet' and it was the 7th and last episode of the series. David Attenborough takes us through a journey to uncover the impact our modern lives are having on our waters, home to all our friendly (or not so friendly creatures). 

The message you take home from this is obvious: we are ruining our marine ecosystems, we are killing our corals, polluting our waters and eliminating creatures that have been on earth for centuries. We are the ones doing that. Us. And the solution to stop it is pretty simple in fact. Climate change, despite what Trump may say, exists, it is also a phenomenon that can be easily reversed by reducing our carbon footprint, that's right, just by reducing our CO2 emissions we would help protect this wonderful world only a few have had the opportunity to experiment themselves to come back and tell us the story about what is down there. I guarantee you though that if you watch it, you will go the sleep wanting to save the world, more than you might already. 

Did you know we produce around 300 million tons of plastics a year? Did you know half of that is used for single use purposes? Maybe not. But I bet you did know that more than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans every year. Of course you did. But what if you think about that number as the equivalent in numbers of elephants. That's about 1.777.777 elephants. (I say elephants but it could also be 8 million small cars). It's a big number and yet we all seem to be aware of how much plastic we use and how little we do to stop it. 

Ask yourselves: Do you buy plastic bags when your at the supermarket? Do you often purchase a plastic bottle of water from a supermarket? Do you often check how much extra packaging something you bought at the shops has? Do you recycle this? 

Plastic is cheap, it's convenient and incredibly versatile. It is ideal for many applications and super useful for many things but this also means that it is a problem for the environment. I'm not here to tell you what to do or not to do. Just simply ranting on about how this is frustrating me. 

Even in the most remote parts of the world, there is plastic waste. There is no escaping it. The animals have no escaping it. 

Another major threat all this brings is the melting of the ice caps. Some scientists predict the Artic could be ice free by as early as 2020 if we do not change our habits fast. So maybe this year when you're thinking of your new years resolution, it could just be something simple you commit to doing to prevent this from happening and helping one of the most endangered species in the North Pole, the polar bear. It is thought there are just 26.000 of them left. (estimation of course). The polar bear had no other animal predator than the human (and the odd act of cannibalism where one attacks the other). We are doing this to them. We are melting their homes. Two thirds of the polar bear population could be gone within the next 30 years. You can visit polarbearinternational.org to get real life images of how much ice we have melted over the years. 

What can you do to reduce the impact your life is having on these ecosystems? There are so many things we can do that take us less than a minute to do and if we all did this together we can rebuild the natural beauty of our waters, reduce the acidity that is killing off the corals and prevent further pollution to our planet. 

You can greatly reduce your energy consumption by turning off the lights, using wood instead of coal, walk, bike or carpool, buy local or try growing your own foods, use renewable energy, buy a good water bottle and refill it as much as you want, eat less meat (at least red meat to reduce the produce of methane), walk along the beach or the park and pick up a few bits of plastic you see. Also, learn from where your food is coming from, whether or not it is sustainable fishing or farming. Choose organic. 

And most importantly; recycle, reduce and reuse. Imagen relacionada
Source: abc.net.au

Imagen relacionada
Source: Francis PĂ©rez
Resultado de imagen de plastics in the ocean
Source: green-mom.com

Resultado de imagen de polar caps melting
Source: Google sites


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Who's the strange one?

I'm a very curious person, the sort of person who, if interested in something, will research every last details of this. Next week is the deadline for 'erasmus' applications to study a term (or more) abroad and I have found myself surrounded by people asking me all about it. I seem to be the only person with a basic knowledge on the subject in my circle of friends. As me and some friends have been preparing a presentation for one of my university subjects, we have been talking about 'known' bloggers here in Spain, I am supposed to give examples in my presentation and my friends have given me loads of names of people with 'funny' blogs or 'funny you-tubers', when I told them I had no idea who any of these people are they were shocked. They may know everything about insignificant matters such as funny videos but at the end of the day none of them have a clue about what they are actually interested in, for example, studying abroad. Some say I take...

Are university degrees worth it?

It's exam time and I have decided to write a little piece on a university degree from a current student's point of view. A survey taken place in the UK in 2015 says half of all students agree their university degree was not worth the thirty something thousand pound debt it left them with. However, records show that over ten thousand more students applied to university last year.  A similar study was done in Spain, in 2015 there was a record of 1.361.340 students inscribed in university, public and private. Again, the number of college applications has increased while over half or the recent graduates regret their decisions on course or university.  Sixty percent of graduates in Peru said they regret getting their university degree. Many of the surveyed pupils say they regret their past decisions due to either they didn't get enough orientation or the course wasn't structured properly. Students today are demanding more than what they expected when un...

Think about your brain.

Have you ever noticed you are constantly thinking? Have you ever realised your brain, whilst awake, does not shut off? Probably only half of you have thought about this, probably the other half is now trying to think about it.  The reason our brains are constantly having thoughts is mainly due to our ancestors, we don't live in the world they lived in, they had to be prepared for anything. They didn't see the grass as just a bit of green flooring, they saw it as a possible hiding space for a predator or possible danger. They had to be alert, constantly.  Another explanation is that we are social animals, we have to be aware of our surroundings and the people we interact with, this is why our brain tends to create 'what if' scenarios, it has to be prepared for whatever case necessary.  You probably didn't even think about thinking but our minds are strange little machines, restless and constant. But of course, we can not think about everything,...