CLEAN WATER

CLEAN WATER

Water is a basic requirement to sustain any life form. Humanity's livelihood revolves around water. It is utilized everyday whether to water your garden roses or to hydrate yourself after a long football game. We rely on water to cook food, to fill your tiny backyard swimming pool, or even to generate electricity through damps. Heck, 60% of our bodies is made of water. However, the changing climate patterns and human's factors have put the Earth's clean water reserve at risk.


Today, "780 million people lack access to an improved water source, approximately one in nine people." Dirty water is one of the world's biggest health risk. Water from rain travels down your roof, carrying all the trash, chemicals, and other disease-carrying organisms along the way.

In many industrial region, factories neglect their obligation to protect the water supply and prevent from contaminating it. Toxic waste from industrial production is dumped straight into rivers or stream nearby. Big corporations spend million covering up their illicit pollution (Ex: watch "A Civil Action" with John Travolta).




Other activities such as fracking, or the process of producing natural gas, also contribute to the contamination of our drinking water. Moreover, with the lack of efficient sanitation systems, human wastes are processed perfunctorily and our reserve of clean water keeps plummeting.

In many areas, bodies of water are polluted. Here's an illustration:



1. Disease: drinking polluted water can make you sick. No kidding... Eating fishes that are poisoned by certain artificial chemical can cause Heppatietis. In isolated areas, locals would produce excrement at rivers and lakes. The consumption of this contaminated water can cause cholera and other fatal conditions.

2. Destruction to the ecosystem: in 2002, the Prestige Oil Spill off the coast of Galicia caused by the sinking of an oil tanker "polluted thousands of kilometers of coastlines and more than one thousand beaches on the coast of Spain, France, and Portugal".

Seabirds are affected most heavily due to their frequent contact with the water surface and  the coast lines, where many bird species congregate to breed. Seabirds' exposure to contaminated sediments or preys would cause many psychological conditions and in many cases, death. The long term effect is the decrease in the food supply, which are eradicated by the oil spill.


SINCE WATER IS SO IMPORTANT FOR EARTH'S EXISTENCE, WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

Many technologies are being develop to help recycle the heavily contaminated water for non personal uses, such as irrigation or usage for industrial productions.



Laws prohibiting the polluting of any water supply must be made and enforced on any individual, any factory, or any big corporation. No exception. Once the source of contamination has been drastically reduced, then will any effort toward water purification be effective.

YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS WATER SAVING CAMPAIGN AS WELL!!! 

By reducing the amount of water being wasted on unnecessary activities, you are helping to conserve our limited water supply. Stop taking baths, and shower instead. Turn off your faucet when you are brushing your teeth. Try and limit the water needed to wash your dishes everyday. These little things can be quite influential when every single individual on Earth is participating in this campaign.
TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE!!!






BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/
http://www.nrdc.org/water/
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9142.aspx
http://eschooltoday.com/pollution/water-pollution/effects-of-water-pollution.html
http://enviropol.com/index.php/effects-of-water-pollution
http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/library/archives/water-crisis/
http://www.drinking-water.org/html/en/Overview/Why-Is-There-a-Problem.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/biggest-oil-spills-in-history#slide-1

Deforestation

DEFORESTATION

What is deforestation? Deforestation is the removal trees and other plantation from a designated area for other purposes. This phenomenon is more common comparing to contemporary beliefs. Brazil has the lead in the "Top Ten Highest Deforestation in The World" competition, with a surprisingly high 3,466,000 hectares of forest cut annually.  Worldwide, we are losing 80,000 acres of rain forest daily. What an alarming rate, considering the world's total forest takes up only 31% of the total land area, amounting to 4 billion hectares.




Whether There are 3 top causes of deforestation:

1) Commercial Agriculture: With a growing demands of food from a growing 7 billion population, huge amount of trees are cut down for crops. In Brazil and many Latin American countries, soy beans and other cash crops account for 68% of deforestation.



2) Logging: Apart from a growing demand of agriculture products, industries today need a substantial amount of wood supply for simple, everyday-live products, such as notebook paper or even coal for your fireplace in the winter. It wouldn't be Christmas without a warm fireplace where your family gather around for hot chocolate right? Well, trees are dying for your moment of joy.



3) Urbanization: With the growing population today, cities are in constant need to expand for the construction of condos and apartments buildings. Roads to be build; forests are transformed into mini parks for children to run around nagging for ice cream.


IS IT WORTH IT?

The answer should be "No". Plants are our oxygen factories. They create oxygen which is a basic of human existence. Without it, not one form of wild life would survive, including us. Without trees, green house gases such as CO2 would not be recycled into O2. In other words, deforestation helps worsen global warming.



A direct effect of deforestation is wildlife extinction. In 1962, Rachel Carson moved many environmentalists on the noxious effect of pesticides on wildlife. Now, our "pesticide" is deforestation and it is more severe than what Rachel Carson had faced, since the threats of deforestation are still dormant. When trees are being cut down, organisms that reside in these plants are left without a living habitat. A sudden change in living habitat without generation-and-generation of evolution would mean only one thing for these organisms - EXTINCTION. Our Earth has lost so many species of animals and plants over the last 50 years.

  

SO WHAT ARE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS CONCERNING DEFORESTATION?

We should deal with the problem at hand directly. Governments must employ a set of laws to reduce the amount of trees that can be cut down. Yes, the bourgeoisie of the illegal wood industry is obviously going to try to keep their illicit business alive. Therefore, any kind of illegal depletion of forest should be banned and punished severely. The governments must commit to protecting our forests in order any kind of effort to be efficient.
Additionally, if any tree is to be cut down, a young tree must be planted in its place. This is the long term solution for deforestation.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-deforestation.php
http://knowledge.allianz.com/environment/climate_change/?665/ten-causes-of-deforestation-gallery
Commonapp.org/ca4app#!d/Status
http://www.slideshare.net/coralteach8/causes-of-deforestation

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking

What is Human trafficking? It is the trade in human that provide the "human demands" for sexual slavery, force labors, and even coerced marriage. Victims are exploited emotionally and physically. Victims could be utilised as surrogates or even as organ "donors". Human trafficking violates basic human rights that involves coercion and exploitation. 

Unlike mainstream beliefs, human trafficking is every prominent today. "In a International Labor Organization Report from 2012, a staggering three out of every 1000 people worldwide are in forced labor. That's nearly 21 million \people." - (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-human-trafficking-20140819). 

Migrants from Guatemala stream into the United States by way of human trafficking networks through Mexico.

The main victims of human trafficking are young women and children. Young women are often exposed to sexual slavery. These women are often runaway teens, homeless individuals, tourists (Ex: “Taken” with Liam Nelson), and refugees. Trafficking of children includes the transportation and harboring of children for exploitation. They are coerced into prostitution or child pornographies or sexual activities. It is tempting to believe that these victims are mostly minorities in a region. However, people from any kind of ethnicity and social background are all subjected to human trafficking.

 

The main tool to lure victims into human trafficking is a job opportunities. Young women searching for jobs are offered beneficial opportunities for herself and her family. These women usually travel alone and have certain economic freedom.

According to UC Irvine law professor Jennifer M. Chancon, due to insufficient protections for workers, victims end up performing forced labor mostly as domestic workers. Some could even end up in the restaurant industry.

Another gruelsome form of human trafficking is trafficking for organ trade. Victims are forced to give away their organs. In other cases, they end up selling their organs for money, but most are not paid or paid less of what they are promised. In extreme cases, victims are sedated and have their organs removed without the victims’s knowledge. Traffickers often seeks kidneys due to their high demands.

Even when rescued by authorities, victims are often traumatized, due to their language barriers and knotty legal status. Besides experiencing physical violence, these victims also experience social alienation from their home countries. Assimilation back to local communities proves to be difficult because of stigmalizations, and social exclusion.

The governments offer little or no help to assist victims of human trafficking. In the US, only 3000 visas are offered for victims of human trafficking. Where would the rest of the 21 million victims turn to?

These are organizations that promote anti human trafficking: