fear #3: the fading of our atmosphere

1. Global Warming, Greenhouse Effect, Climate Change. Undoubtedly, these words sum up the single biggest threat to humanity.

“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients of delay are coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.” Winston Churchill

Source found in: http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/

 Atmosphere…. Honestly, if you gave me a test about atmosphere, I would flat out get a zero. I don’t know much about this…this topic but one thing I know is that when our atmosphere starts to get thinner and thinner, we’ll all be in big trouble. From what I searched up in Wikipedia, the Earth’s atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding our planet and retained by Earth’s gravity. From a rough estimation, the earth’s atmosphere contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, some other gases, and around 1% of water vapor. As said in Wikipedia, this mixture of gases is commonly known as air. Now the most important thing about atmosphere is that it protects life (as in which humans, animals, and all living creatures) by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night. First if we want to know why the earth’s atmosphere is important, then we’ll have to find out what UV radiation is.As I have learned in my science class, UV radiation (aka Ultraviolet Radiation) is a radiant energy emitted by the sun that is harmful to our body. Scientifically speaking, UV light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than visible light, but longer than X-rays. We humans mostly know UV radiation through the sunburn, but it also has many other effects that are both beneficial and harmful. Here is a list of the beneficial effects and harmful effects (source found in Wikipedia): BENEFICIAL EFFECTS

1. Gives vitamin D to the skin
2. Treats skin conditions such as psoriasis and vitiligo.

HARMFUL EFFECTS

1.  Cause sunburn and some forms of skin cancer
2. “Prolonged exposure to solar UV radiation may result in acute chronic health effects on the skin, eye, and immune system.”
3. Can cause direct DNA damage

So, as you can see, UV radiation is both good and bad. But no matter what, if our atmosphere thins away, we won’t be protected from the bright and strong sun and be harmed by the UV radiation. Truly speaking, although with farther research, I am still confused. What do greenhouse gases have to do with the atmosphere and why is the atmosphere thinning anyways? This is what I found: increasing greenhouse gases lead to dramatic thinning of the upper atmosphere.“The highest layers of the Earth’s atmosphere are cooling and contracting, most likely in response to increasing levels of greenhouse gases, according to a new study by scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory.” First, what is a greenhouse gas? A greenhouse effect (scientifically speaking) is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet’s surface. So basically it means that radiation warms the planet’s surface. And this is NOT a good thing. The greenhouse effect would change climates and weather patterns, our sea levels are rising, melt ice caps, and it’d be too hot to live in Earth. We are experiencing more water shortages and we see more and more of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones then before. It is also possible that the deserts will expand and the world will have difficulty growing food.  We have to, no, we MUST change the way we live. How? I am not so sure. But I will research more about the greenhouse warming and get back to you later.

fear #2: animal extinction

Like I said in my previous blog, everyone has a fear. Take me for instance. Although I’m still young and should see the world as a wonderful place, I cannot. To me, Earth is scary. I have to admit that our Earth is strikingly beautiful—when it is not filled with manmade creations that now fill our world today. It isn’t that I can live without buildings, computers, TVs, and all sorts of materials that come handy in our daily life—I can’t (live without them that is)—the scary fact is that we can’t live without them. We are all used to the fact that computers, TVs, microwaves, refrigerators, etc. are materials that help us everyday. But the more we use these materials, the more we are endangering our planet. Although this hasn’t been a serious problem to me when I was younger (actually I couldn’t have lived without these gadgets), I suddenly realized how much of an impact we are causing to our environment when we did our paper about ‘how humans have affected the world today.’ For my research paper, I chose to do animal extinction; the main reason why animals were extinct faster than its normal speed and how to stop it. The answer I got from my research was that our livings and ways that are helpful to us are helpful to neither the animals nor the environment. While we live comfortably with the civilization we have created, the animals lose homes, families, and food because of us. Some of us don’t realize that animals are one of us and have a part in our world. Animals are living creatures: they eat, they move, they live, they communicate but because they look different from us, we prefer to ignore and abuse them. But if we do ignore and abuse them, wouldn’t that be similar to when we had slavery? For me, the definition of slavery is ‘when a person kidnaps another person and uses him/her to do their dirty work without having to pay.’ Abusing animals is the same as white men (I am referring to the U.S. because this is the best slavery subject I know. It doesn’t mean that U.S. was the only country who had slavery) treated black men called slaves at the time like dirt. Of course, slave owners were responsible to give slaves a home (preferably a dirty cottage) and some food. However the owners also whipped slaves and punished them. This is sort of similar to my animal ‘theory.’ For example, we use horses and cows for farm work. Farmers feed them and give them a barn to sleep in, but farmers will whip them (horses and cows) if they don’t work hard enough or aren’t listening to them. So these animals are not free, as slaves weren’t. I am not saying that all animals are like these horses and cows. But wherever animals are, they are not free. Animals in zoos—are they safe from hunters? Yes, they are, and they are also protected from starving and living in a bad environment. Still, no matter how much they are treated better than they would be in the wilderness, they are still in a cage. Humans can come up to the animals and look, take photos, and observe them as much as they like. Although I am not sure, since I have never actually communicated with animals, I am pretty sure that animals don’t like to be stared as much as we do. If you think about it, zoos are pretty much the same as prisons except the population in zoos aren’t there because of criminal actions, but because they were forced and captured. Personally, I don’t hate zoos at all. I have always enjoyed the trip to a zoo to look at all the different animals and study them close-up. I guess I’m just having a mixed-up feeling of whether a zoo is good or bad. I believe that the main reason we prefer to ignore and abuse animals are because it is easier than trying to understand them. It is true that animals will never learn to talk like us; understand our languages, and behave like us. We all know that they can never learn how to act ‘human’ even if they live with us for forever. But we can always try. Try to communicate and understand and no matter how frustrating it can be, to never give up trying. I am glad that there are people who don’t give up in protecting animals’ rights. Environmental groups and people who feel the way I do are helping animals feel right in our world. But I am confused. Are environmental groups really helping the animals? There are scientists who specialize in animals that say they help in understanding animals, but is it true? These scientists observe the way animals live and sometimes they make animals sleep with their guns (I don’t know how it’s called). I mean, how would you like it, if our situation was reversed and animals were owners and humans were pets that were referred to ‘wild, dirty, and stupid’? If we humans were pets, would we like it if animals shot us with their guns and studied us or ate us? I sure wouldn’t. So I think that we humans need to be in others’ shoes—or in this case, paws—and be considerate and understanding. So, this, animal extinction, is what I fear amongst other things. I fear of a day when we kill all the animals in our sight and there isn’t any animal anywhere. I fear the day when I won’t feel the tickle of a dog’s tongue on my hand, or the softness of a rabbit or the elegant ways a cat walks. I am sure that there are people who don’t agree with me and that’s fine. Because this is only my opinion, my thought, my ideas. I just hope everyone remembers the freedom of speech and don’t go out of their way to tease or insult me of what I think of the current rank that animals are placed in nowadays.

fear—it’s in everyone, everywhere

Everybody, all around the world, has fear. It doesn’t matter how old or young, how strong or weak you are, you still have fear. There’s always something or someone you fear—either it’s a bully or an octopus, fear is in everyone in every form. So the question is, why do we have fear? Why are we all scared of something? Wouldn’t it be a better world if we aren’t frightened by others and things. Take a bully, for example. I’m sure that everyone is scared of a bully—the one that teases, insults, and makes fun of. But why are we scared of one kid (or adult)? A bully is just a word for someone who is mean. If we look closer to the bully, he/she is scared of us too, except they are good at hiding it. Fear gives us the emotions of anxiety and causes us to sweat so much that the 80% of the water in our body decrease to 0%. Fear makes us do foolish things that we shouldn’t do. We all react to fear differently. I don’t know how everyone else acts, but I know how I act and it’s definitely not something to be proud of at all. I should be able to face my fear and fight it. Tell it that I am NOT afraid of it and that I will fight it (figuratively speaking, of course) if I have to. But I cannot. Because the reason we have fear is because we are too scared to face up to it. And if you think about it, if we don’t have fears, where’s the fun in our life? If we didn’t have fear, we wouldn’t be growing, characteristically speaking. We all learn and grow from our fears (once you get over it I mean) so if we didn’t have fear, what would we learn and grow from? Besides, if we didn’t have fear, we wouldn’t learn from our foolishness and we wouldn’t grow stronger. Here is my list of top five fears:

1. Death
2. Animal Extinction
3. The fading of our atmosphere
4. Guns and Wars
5. ???

I haven’t decided my fear #5, but I am pretty sure it’s bugs. Bugs pretty much scare the soul out of me. They are so gross and creepy that I shudder whenever I see one crawling my way. All my fears are pretty much based up on our planet. I guess it’s because they all are part of my number 1 fear: death.