A GREENER FUTURE Is On The Horizon.: The Atractosteus spatula

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Atractosteus spatula

Hiya people! Today i'm gonna be talking about...(drumroll please)...the Atractosteus spatula. Then again, you would know that if you've read the title. And no, the Atractosteus spatula is not a spatula. (You know,the kitchen utensil?!) It is, in fact, an animal, more commonly known as the Alligator gar. Surprising, isn't it? Well, so is the animal. It is by far the strangest creature I have ever seen.
Ha, now I bet I've got you bursting with curiosity, just dying to find out how strange this animal is. Well, the Alligator Gar is...a weird sorta carnivorous fish.
Now, I don't mean to side track you here, telling you about some weird creature instead of global warming and stuff. But I was just surfing the web when I chanced upon this fascinating creature, and thought you guys might wanna take a look. How? Simple. Here's the link: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/alligator-gar.html
Go on. Have a look.
P.s. I'm not going that off-track, right? I mean, this mystifying creature can tell you that there is a wide variety of animals on earth, and...and we should protect them all! Yup, that's the earthy message in this post.
P.s.s. Sorry you're gonna have to copy the link onto your website thing on top of the screen to get to the page. I tried to make it a link, but then it wouldn't appear at all. Sorry people!

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GT094&TGC

(no, that is not some kind of code)

THE GREEN TEAM 094 (GT094)
Samantha N a.k.a. Sammy-Rae (which is one of her numerous nicknames), a complete bookworm who also LOVES writing and the Earth.

Rachel K a.k.a. art-drama-and-music-loving, chocolate-obsessed tree-hugger (but you can call her Rachel too)

Ankita M a.k.a. Anki M a.k.a an utterly obsessed arts-freak who loves saving the earth, animals and helping people. Beware if you let her try good food; she'll never stop wanting more!

This is The Green Team 094, a group of 12-year olds, ready to do our part to save the Earth.

Early in 2008, we joined a competition called "Learn@1ºN", a competition based on climate change. After the competition, we were motivated to do more to stop global warming, so we started The Green Team 094 and this blog – Mission: Save the Earth!, where we spread the word about climate change and the increasing danger of global warming. Now we need your help too... after all, it takes a world-wide effort to stop climate change.

THE GREEN CLUB (TGC)
Vanessa [president]
Afrein [vice-president]
Clarissa
Julia

Hey everyone! We're looking for tree-huggers like ourselves to contribute to this blog and help spread the word. So if you want to join The Green Club, just email us at thegreenteam094@gmail.com, with your name, email address (duh) and why you want to join The Green Club. Any additional info is fine too :) Thanks. loads!

Our Mother Earth

Do us a favor now: think about your mother. Visualize her in your mind like she's right there next to you now. What does she usually say upon seeing you? What does she do?

Think about her: the one who cradled and caressed you when you were too young to remember it now. How gentle she must have been, handling her own flesh and blood. Do you ever stop to think how much she loves you? Cares for you?

Now come back to these words. Read them and reflect. Mother. Your mother. Mother Earth. Have you taken care of the planet that you call home, the mother that has been there all along? Have you loved her like you love your own mother?

You live on this planet. You use its resources daily and never give back. We could have just stayed in our normal lives, sheltered, blocked from what is the real truth. But we can't. What is happening now is far too important to do that. And we know that really, if by doing little things like posting our feelings and information on a blog for our home, our planet, will help save it, we will do it no matter what other people do, say or think. That's all that matters to us, not anything else that comes along with it.

What else could we do?

Every day, we come across situations where we can actually help protect the environment - but we don't, 'cos we don't know that there is a better alternative in the first place. So here's a list that we've compiled of what you can do instead! Keep a watchful eye on this space for more updates!

{BOOKS}

•Try to make sure that the paper used to make the book you want to buy is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified. This means that the paper is sourced from responsibly managed forests.

•Watch out for printers like DK*, which has less environmental impact.

*DK has reduced its carbon footprint by 52% since 1994 and generates 100% of its own electricity. Why don't we give DK a nice big round of applause?

•Check the type of ink used to print the book in. Inks are sometimes made from petroleum products, which do the environment no good. The better alternative is vegetable inks, which are environmentally friendly and virtually impossible to tell apart from inks made from petroleum products.

•Feeling particularly like you want/need to help today? Don't buy any book with a dust jacket on it. Dust jackets use up paper and electricity that would otherwise be used on something more important.

{STATIONERY}

•There are actually some pens that are made of other pens that have been recycled. Why not use those? (Or you could buy refills. That's yet another better alternative)

•Pilot BeGreeN series – Pilot has a new line of stationery in which they use recycled materials to make the stationery. You can the aforementioned stationery, probably, at any bookstore!

Turtle Alert!

DID YOU KNOW? Cool turtle fast-facts!

•The Hawksbill turtle is the source of that traditional 'tortoise shell'. Its carapace (shell) is marbled with amber, yellow, or brown.

•The Leatherback turtle is one of the largest living reptiles. The biggest ever recorded was nearly 3m (10ft) from nose to tail and weighed 916kg (2,020lbs)!

Of course, while every cloud has a silver lining, every cloud also has a... uhh, black lining?

•The temperature of a turtle's nest determines the sex of the young. Turtles thought to dig their nests at different depths to affect the temperature. (So what will they do, now that the oceans are warming up? Will they go higher, lower, or get confused by the temperature difference and end up producing only one sex of turtle? Imagine what could happen...)
•Kemp's Ridley turtles are the most endangered of all. Why? Because they nest in broad daylight along only one small stretch of coastline in the Gulf of Mexico.

QuickQuotes

"One person can make all the difference in the world. For the first time in recorded history, we have the fate of the whole planet in our hands."

- Chrissie Hynde, musician.

"We have a very small number of years left to fail or to succeed in providing a sustainable future to our species."
- Jacques Cousteau, explorer and marine conservationist.

"Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion movements of immense majesty, emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth... home."

- Edgar Mitchell, former NASA astronaut, commenting on the view of Earth from space.
"We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

- Native American Proverb

(SO SAVE THE EARTH FOR THEM!)

"Think about it."

- Sammy-Rae, (me!); this is my favorite phrase/thing-to-say, on this blog, and in real life. Don't know if this counts, but really, just wanted to say it again.

Trash Can

Here are some facts about that stinky, smelly trash that you throw out every day –

•In rich countries (ours is considered considerably rich, mind you) each person produces five to ten times their own body weight in rubbish every year! (and we haven't even mentioned the rest of the world! YUCKS)

•About 40% of what we all throw away, put together, is composted, burnt, exported or dumped in landfills! That's a whole load of stuff! And the sad part is that probably a lot of that stuff could be recycled!

At least, though, 60% of what we throw away is recycled. It's a majority, but only by a bit. It's what you call a minor majority, if you want to be fancy.

So how to be more eco-friendly by recycling more? Check out the 'Website To Visit' section on this blog - we've searched and found a website on it! Loads of handy tips right at your fingertips! (Sorry, no pun intended!)

El Niño

(No, not that song by Tata Young!)

Every 3-5 years, the cold current off the coast of South America is replaced with unusually warm water at the sea surface. The event is called El Nino (the boy child) as it happens at Christmas.

Although it arises off the coast of Peru, its effect is widespread in the Pacific. In Central America, the winds off the sea die away, so no clouds form over the mountains. This means that all the toads and other wet-loving animals suffer from the dry conditions. The wet season becomes drier and shorter, many plants cannot flower, and animals fail to reproduce.

El Nino is a natural event and the forest survives, but climate change is making El Nino events more severe and more frequent. Note: El Nino causes bio-erosion too - that is, it damages reefs. This is just another way El Nino is dangerous, especially because of its increasingly common occurrences.

Giant Pandas

Giant pandas live in mountain forests in China, near Tibet. (They like these forests because their favorite food grows there - bamboo. You see, pandas are different from other bears, which eat meat.)

Bamboo growth is incredibly lush in these mountain forests, which is a good thing because pandas eat vast amounts of it - the bears eat at least 8kg a day - because there isn't much energy in a bamboo shoot.

One of the reasons panda numbers depleted (there are only a few thousand left) is that each area of bamboo dies spontaneously ever 40-60 years.

To make things worse for pandas, many of the mountain forests have been cleared. Lots of pandas die when the bamboo in their small patch disappears.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

•Other names for the GPGP include: Plastic soup, the Eastern Garbage Patch, and the Pacific Trash Vortex. Do those names conjure up a good image in your mind? Yeah, didn't think so.
•It's estimated to consist of 80% garbage from land-based sources, 20% from sea-based sources.
•Its size isn't exactly the size of the state of Texas - that's just an estimate. In fact, estimates range - some say that it's the size of Texas, yet some say it's as colossal as double the size of the continental United States.

Yes, it's obviously big, and is evidently going to get bigger. So you should get the big picture by now: cut down on plastic, and nobody gets hurt.

How does that lightbulb light up?

In this time of high-tech appliances, machines and electronic devices, practically nobody notices how much we rely on energy to keep our daily lives at that standard we see as normal (a standard so high, it would have been totally impossible several centuries ago! Maybe even just a few decades!) So where exactly does this energy come from? Below are some examples of non-renewable resources of energy:

1. Coal

Source: Coal is burned to create heat or, in power stations, to drive steam turbines that generate electricity.

How much is left: There is enough coal in the ground to power the world for more than 1,000 years. Even now, developing industrial countries like China and India are busy building new coal-fired power stations. But it might not be so anymore if we keep on consuming like it's nobody's business.

2. Oil

Source: Large reserves of oil were found in the early 20th century. Because it's a liquid, oil is easier to work with than coal. It can be refined into fuels like petroleum and diesel to run cars, trucks, and heating systems on. (It's also used to make products like plastic, medicines, and washing powders)

How much is left: Some experts think there is still enough oil underground to power the world for the rest of this century. Others believe oil production is close to its peak level now, and will soon decrease. But be warned: oil prices will soar as the oil is depleted. That should have sent you a message, eh?

3. Natural gas

Source: Natural gas is actually methane that has collected above oil reserves. It's the last fossil fuel to be exploited and was first used widely in the 1930s and 1940s. Like coal, it's burned for heat or electricity.

How much is left: Experts believe there is enough natural gas to last out the century, but beyond that, it's likely to become very expensive and difficult to extract.

A hole of mass destruction!

Scientists expect the ozone layer to close up around 2050. But that won't happen if we continue to sit around and watch the world wilt around us. That's why you should play your part to protect the Earth. Don't leave saving the Earth to everybody else. Because the Earth belongs to you too. Didn't your mummy teach to clean up after yourself? Now's your chance to be the big hero.

Our aim is to help the ozone layer to close sooner, so less harm will be done from now till the time when it closes.

Less time = less harm. I don't think I need to say what you should do any further than that.