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SAVE THE EARTH BY SHUGE LUO
P.S.: This magazine is eco-friendly because we don’t print it which saves paper and ink. However please email it around to spread the message. P.P.S.: Don’t spend too much time reading it ‘because you’ll be wasting electricity and that uses fossil fuels and emits pollutant. Go green!
Would you like to kill a few more innocent lives? Trees may not be able to protest for them selves; but they sure do have a live! So why use the excess paper? Humans have been depending on trees for ages. However we’re over-doing it. In the prehistoric age, three fifths of the earth surface is covered in forests, however now it is shrunk to 30% and gradually decreasing. An alien once quoted that humans are weird; they kill the trees, make it into paper and write save trees on the same thing. Imagine on a sunny day, you went out to the park. Ahhh! Nice and refreshing... However, you feel very hot, so you walked under a shady tree and sat down. You took out your sketching pencils and sketch book. Looking at the beautiful blossom, you lightly and gently sketched them. Observing carefully, you see an apple tree. Delighted, you picked a plum and red apple. Suddenly, you see some children coming. The frolicsome kids started climbing trees, giggling non-stop. From the above paragraph, you could see that trees have many uses: Shade, Paper, Wood (pencil), scenery, fruits. The two major uses of trees are paper and wood. However, there are two more things that trees do: trees also help decrease global warming and provide oxygen for us. Maybe not very significant, but a little is better that nothing. How? We human breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon, while trees breathe in carbon, and using the process of photosynthesis, they combine sunlight, carbon and water to create sugar, which is food for themselves. Then, they breathe out oxygen. However, how does this help global warming? Global warming is caused by greenhouse effect and carbon is the most prominent type of greenhouse gases on Earth. Every year humans add over 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by these processes, and it is up thirty percent since 1750 . SO the trees absorb carbon. Win=win. Also, the trees reflect green visible light, which is not as easily absorbed by infrared radiation, which also helps global warming.
Awesome Trees
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On the previous page, we talked about the how trees benefit us, here; we will go deeper into it. Imagine with no trees, you’ll never be able to taste that crunchy apple, cute orange, refreshing coconut... Can you enjoy life? Without trees, there would be no sakura blossoms, no succulent cherries. So sad. No beautiful flowering trees. Without trees, the carbon dioxide would not be reduced and could cause to warm up the earth. Without trees, the amount of oxygen will decrease. Wanna breathe plant trees and live! Also, trees decrease global warming by reflecting green visible light. At this wavelength, light is not as readily absorbed by greenhouse gases as co2. Without trees, there would be no paper... No origami, collage, paper-cutting, sanding...etc Without trees, there would be no wood for carpenters. Let’s go deeper into exploration: Paper uses: money, check, books, diary, letters, packaging, construction and many other uses such as sandpaper...etc So why are these paper products important? Money- Without money, you can’t live. Of course, you could use credit card, but you never know when you could get into a huge debt. Art paper- Construction paper offers us uses for paper collage. Newspaper makes paper mache. Cute paper developed origami. Cardboard are perfect for card. Letters- An old fashioned letter is always sweet. Packaging- upon Christmas, don’t you just love the freshly wrapper presents. Very nice. No smooth wood with sandpaper unless you are an expert at sawing and everything.
Why does making paper harms? 1) It kills trees-the carbon absorber, oxygen giver, and green light giver aka reflecting green visible light. 2) There are negative impacts in the paper-making process. I will explain that later. 3) It fills up landfills. 4) Most paper aren’t reusable
Bad impacts take place in 3 stages of processing paper, starting with the harvesting of trees, then the process of turning wood fiber into pulp, concluding with the throwing away of paper products. The below diagram shows how paper recycles. Not only it is eco-friendly, it reduces waste in landfill. We will talk about the impacts later. Now, let’s focus on why we should recycle paper. Paper, similar to any organic material left to decompose in the landfill, gives off methane. It is a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If you remember that about one third of the landfill is filled with paper, it is very clear that the 85 tons of paper will emit a remarkable amount of methane. When you recycle, there are also other good things such as the number of trees harvested, energy used to make pulp in paper mill, greenhouse gas emission for paper decomposing‌
The awesome solution Common FAQs: How does it work? You recycle all of your current replaceable paper products and recycle them into un-replaceable paper products. Then, you buy digital products and go digital. Simple, right. How to Ditch paper and go digital. By ditching paper, you will eliminate the need of buying paper. You could read books on digital e-books; light, easy to read, portable, many choices, cheaper since it doesn’t requires publication. Many e-books are free as well. No more heavy textbook carrying, YAY! Write notes easily by typing, no more bumps on index finger because of writing too much. Practices hand-eye coordination skills. Looks more stylish. Good, good, good. Ditching paper also means not as much environmental impact, yay! Why should you follow it? Since paper is one-time use, while digital is not, it saves you money. Second, it’s convenient. Emails are so much more convenient than letters. For letters, you have to buy paper and pen, spend time writing and that causes the ugly bump on your index finger. Then, you have to drive (using gasoline and emitting pollutants) to the stamp office. Then the stamp office would either use air mail which causes planes to emit Co2 or vehicles. Meanwhile, for email, all you have to do is to type and send. Easy peasy lemon squeasy. If you don’t want to hurt your eye, just don’t stare at the screen while typing and stare at it for a few seconds when clicking send.
Scientific facts that it will work: CO2 is measured per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. It all depends on the source of the electricity. If your supplier uses wind, solar, hydro, or nuclear power, then the CO2 impact is very small. If they generate using coal, natural gas, or diesel, then the output of CO2 per kWh is much higher. Here are some typical values in grams of CO2 per kWh for various generation technologies. Coal = 950 Oil = 900 Natural Gas = 600 Gas (combined cycle) = 450 Solar photovoltaic = 50 Nuclear = 6 Wind = 4.5 Hydro = 3 Now, most likely to use coal. and about an hour of computer a day. 365*1*950=346750 g= 346.75kg US population= 307,006,550 * 346.75= 106454521200-kg= 117346022 ton= 0.1 billion ton Now, let’s compare it to the impact of producing paper: When they harvest trees, paper-making industry often uses old growth and environmentally sensitive trees. That is logging. What happens after logging? All the tons of carbon get released. making the pulp and paper require large amounts of water and toxin chemicals to make the paper look whiter. The industry also releases 212 tons of harmful substances to the air per year. It is also ranked third in using industrial water. The destruction of tree adds approximately 2.2 billion carbons each year, which is equal to what US emits every year. If this is what 1 billion dollar (each is 100 dollars note) look like, imagine 1 billion carbons. P.s. these notes are made of paper which we don’t want to use.
Now, let’s wow you with some facts: 1) The normal office employee produces about 120-150lb of recoverable white paper a year. 2) Each year, Americans dispose 4 million tons of paper—enough to build a 12-foot great wall from California to New York. 3) Paper is thrown away the most; 35% of trash we throw is paper. 4) When paper decomposes or burned in incinerator. Chemicals from ink is emit into atmosphere. 5) Deforestation is happening really fast, only 20% of old-growth trees were undamaged, and almost half face threats from logging. 6) American consumes more than 850 million trees; use more than 50 million tons of paper every year. 7) It takes about 17 trees and 390 gallons of oil to make a ton of paper. When it is disposed, it takes up 8 cubic feet of public landfill. 8) Every 1 million pieces of paper not produced saves 85 trees. 9)8.5 million acres of trees is an area bigger than Belgium and also the amount of trees needed for 1 trillion pages of paper.
Funny fact: In 2000, people said that: “Soon, it’ll be a paperless world.” Now is 2011, doesn’t seem like happening now.
Examples of my awesome solution already taking place Online Newspaper, Independence UK has quoted that “It is time to ditch paper and pen and go digital. Students now are forced to do something they will never do in real life: write non-stop for 3 hours in a test. Nobody does that now Now, we use computer.” According to East Valley Tribune, “For decades, cities wasted much money printing brochures, with each one taking up lots of writing, every city council meeting. However, East Valley cities ditched paper and go green---go digital. Mesa was latest switching and Scott Somers is the first councilman to swear paper off. He said that 4 years of reign, they used up a forest their children will never see. For every 2 meeting held a month, Mesa prints about 20 brochures, a.k.a. 10,000 sheets of paper every time. If they were stacked up, it would be about 3.5 feet tall.” A Christian private school in Scotland has decided to use Ipads to educate their students instead of paper and pen. Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, Scotland has said that it costs approximately £14.50 per user per month. IT head Speirs has decided that this was the ideal thing and student’s improvements have been significant. Students were more engaged in this new teaching method. It also trains the youngsters to be more followed up with the technology.
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As you can see, many have already started working to make a difference. Together, we could make a difference.
Bibliography:
Microsoft Word: Word Art, Text boxes, Clip art Issuu: Magazine Google images: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRj7XCljM6gTY3huYkik32yTK3uKkAbkY Ij7kBLH5rmQZ-vQd2g http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbZ55JsIEI8HNMh5eYnbAb_zMRCEcVv FeALd4FDWAz8uvC_hM7 http://www.ifood.tv/files/images/Apple_Orchard.jpg http://newslincolncounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/logging2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_11-nzoYFuQU/TKyAZhzY7TI/AAAAAAAAHfE/WdR_Um WS3jA/s1600/origami.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/26/61056391_31343afdc6.jpg http://www.extravaganzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/billion_dollars_cash_4.jpg
All information are paraphrased, here are my sources: http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/aboutme/paperusage.html http://www.secret-life.org/paper/paper_environment.php http://www.topicsites.com/save-environment/paper-usage-statistics.htm http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/brandon-robshaw-its-time-to-ditc h-written-exams-for-students-and-go-digital-1866055.html http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/article_81733782-1857-11e0-9db3-001cc4c002e 0.html http://www.woodconsumption.org/products/paper.pdf