parachute jump with my elder sister

When my sister and I were very young, we lived in a bungalow. There were no children at the similar ages of us in our neighborhood. As a result, we had no choice but to play with each other and we became bored of many games and we tried to think of more new games. One day, we watched a TV show about the parachute jump and we came up with a new idea: using umbrellas as parachutes, we could do the parachute jump on the roof of the bath room. At first, I felt scared and refused to jump before her, so she encouraged me and suggested jumping together. Gaining more courage, I climbed up to the roof with my sister. Then we were standing on the verge of the roof, both holding an umbrella tightly in hand. “So I say 1, 2, 3, jump! Then we jump, ok?” said my sister. “All right.” I promised. I took a deep breath and jumped down the moment my sister shouted 3. However, she didn’t. At the beginning the umbrella could still support my weight but as I speeded up, I suddenly felt it break down. The wind blew heavily beside my ears and my mind became blank. Finally I reached the ground and managed to stand steadily. I could feel a sharp pain in my ankle. And then I turned my face up to my sister,smiled and said, “It’s really exciting, try it!”

Causes of more frequent sandstorms in China

"Between Ad 300 and 1949, northwestern China experienced a sandstorm on average every 31 years, but after 1990, the average increased to one sandstorm per year, while by 2006, the average rate of sandstorms for the Beijing region was five or six a year" (Visible earth, 2006). According to the dictionary, a sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds (Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary). Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines resulting in grasslands degenerating into deserts as well as climate change accelerating the wind strength together lead to more frequent sandstorms in China.
First of all, overgrazing and overharvesting are creating more sand sources these years that directly caused more sandstorms. "Grassland Sustainable Development Research of China", which was done by Development Research Center of The State Council of China in 2003, indicated that the overgrazing was an acute environmental problem: by 2003, the average overgrazing rate of the grassland in Northern China was above 36%. In other words, when the amount of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland, the growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the descending of grassland. As a result, the soil is exposed to the air causing degeneration of soil. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is ideal herb. Liu and Diamond (2005) argued that because of overharvesting, the grass production in a unit hectare has been decreasing to about 60% since the 1950s. Taking liquorice: as an example, people are digging out liquorice blindly for tiny economic benefit, which may not only make the liquorice extinct but also break the balance of living conditions of other ground flora. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. So more frequently, the sand storm is created.

Furthermore, sand sources are being made by illegal or bad-planned mining. As stated by Farndon (2007), China is comparatively short of oil and gas resources. Thus, 70 percent of its energy comes from coal. A large number of coalfields are distributed over northwest China. For the sake of profits, many nonstandard and small-scale mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. Just like millions of the rabbet dens under the Australian ground surface, these mines in China are usually improperly developed, which leads to large segments of exposed ground and ruined plants' roots. The waste is disposed without consideration of decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil which is, in other words, bringing about more sand storms to our lives.

In addition, the accelerator of sand storms, namely wind, is changed by overall climate change. According to Zhang et al. (2005), analyses and researches have already indicated that apart from the phenomenon of El Nino, greenhouse and the abnormality of the climate, the Northern Hemispheric Polar Vortex has changed the Asian West Wind Index (AWWI) partially. Therefore, more gusty days will appear in spring season which generate higher probability in blowing tons of sand into the atmosphere. Degenerated grassland has no power in keeping the soil from blowing away and scattered trees cannot slow down the strong wind. As a result, the change of wind power also causes more sand storms.

In conclusion, the increasing number of sand sources and the growing power of wind are the two main reasons for more sandstorms. Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines are the three main causes of degeneration of grassland in China and the source of more sand. At the same time, the climate change has a profound influence on changing the wind power. To reduce sandstorms, Chinese government has implemented many methods including policies to control overgrazing and overharvesting, legislation to normalize the nonstandard mines and building up the Green Great Wall. With all these methods which are directly pointing to the main causes, sandstorms can be reduced by the efforts of China.
References:

Development Research Center of the State Council . (2003). Grassland sustainable development research of China. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from www.ccag.com.cn/downloads/c_SADPII/strategy_workshop/eng/DRC.ppt

Farndon, J. (2007). China rises: How China's astonishing growth will change the world. London: Great Britain.

Hornby, A. S. (2004). Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary (6th ed.). Beijing: ShangWu Yin Shu Guan.

Liu, J., & Diamond, J. (2005). China's environment in a globalizing world. Nature, 435, 1137-1286. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from nature.com.

NASA. (2006, April 19). Dust over Japan. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=17521
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Zhang, G.F., Zhao G.P., Na, L., Hu, W.D., Sun, Y.C., Wang, W.D. (2005). Analysis on the trend and reason for spring sandstorm in Ningxia. Journal of Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, 18, 410-415. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from www.cabi.org.

The zero waste system is more suitable for China than landfilling

Question: Briefly compare and contrast any two waste disposal schemes and decide which one might be more suitable for you country.

The zero waste system is more suitable for China than landfilling
Zero waste is a system in which everything we buy is “made from materials that can be repaired, reused or recycled” (Collins, 2002). Landfilling is a way to dispose waste where all the waste is just dumped together. It seems that for China, the difficulty in adopting the zero waste system is the huge expense in making the materials repairable, reusable and recyclable; the huge expense would raise the price of zero waste products and people would be unable to afford buying them. However, in the long run, keeping carrying out landfilling can be more “expensive” than adopting the zero waste system.

The zero waste system could save money in terms of three aspects. The zero waste system would save money for the consumers. Zero waste products are repairable, which in a way extends the average lifetime of the products. Zero waste products are recyclable, which enables the owners to sell the broken devices and to get back some money. Furthermore, the zero waste system would save resources for the society. Implementing the zero waste system, manufacturers would rather recycle their own products than buy new materials because of the low price, which would save the material resources. Since the recycled materials are already purified and refined, energy sources are saved by using recycled materials than mining and processing new materials. Moreover, the zero waste system could generate job opportunities as society needs labor to repair the broken devices and to collect those recyclable products. Consequently, the zero waste system would not add heavy burden to the society.

In contrast, landfilling would be expensive regarding the cost of keep making new products and the cost of land. The lifetime of normal products is relatively short and they become worthless immediately after they break down, which costs the consumers buying new ones and wastes the resources of the society. Besides, landfilling significantly does harm to the land resource. Firstly, landfilling requires land where the waste can be buried or dumped. Obviously, not only the land occupied by the garbage heaps but also large area beside the heaps is not suitable to be utilized because of the bad smell and low sanitation quality. Secondly, when the waste rods, it releases poison to the fields and further to the underground water. The poison spreads all the way along the underground river and erodes the soil. When the soil becomes unfertilized, the crops cannot grow well. It is a common sense among Chinese that China has raised up 21 percent of the world’s population using 7 percent of the world’s land. We cannot afford any more loss of fertilized land.

Compared to landfilling, the zero waste system would save money, save resources and create job opportunities for society. As a conclusion, China should implement the zero waste system to replace landfilling in order to obtain a sustainable way to deal with the waste.

Reference:
Collins, J. (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean up. The Grardian Weekly. P. 25.

Causes of more frequent sandstorms in northeast China (edited)

According to The Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, a sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds.10 years ago it was considered very rare to see sandstorms in northeast China. However, in recent years, sandstorms have become common spring weather there. Overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines are the three main causes of more frequent sandstorms in China.

The Grassland Sustainable Development Research of China which is done by Development Research Center of The State Council of China in 2003 indicates that the number of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland. The growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the descending of grassland. As a consequence, the soil is exposed to the air immediately, causing the soil to degenerate into sand. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is good herb, for example, liquorice. For economic benefit, people dig out liquorice without limit, which affects the growth of other ground flora as well. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. Furthermore, a wide variety of minerals are distributed over some parts of northwest China. For the sake of profits, many nonstandard mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. The construction of these mines is usually improperly developed, which leads to large segments of exposed ground. The waste is disposed without consideration of decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil.

In conclusion, overgrazing, overharvesting of ground flora and nonstandard mines damage the plants and degrade soil into sand. Every spring, wind blows the sand up and it travels east without the block of trees. Consequently, sandstorms become more frequent in northeast China.

References

Hornby, A. S. (2004). Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary(6^th ed.). Beijing: ShangWu Yin Shu Guan.

The dimension of the selfishness in protecting the environment

In the article “Saving Nature, But Only for Man”, the author’s thesis seems quite reasonable and his viewpoints seem very convincing. However, I feel if he based his thesis on human’s concern for themselves, he should have taken the dimension of the selfishness into consideration, namely, as he encouraged people to take action to protect the environment only when it benefits we human, this principle may lead people to preserve the environment only when it directly benefits himself. As a fact, most of the environment problems will immediately threaten the living quality of the poor, by contraries, the rich can still live without big influence. Take water pollution as an example, the polluted water which is smelly and poisonous will significantely undermine the living quality of people nearby. The poor have to bear the condition while the rich could easily move to somewhere else. Moreover, the rich are actually the group who are in charge of the projects that are harmful to the environment and who are able to support the projects that are helping improve the environment. Obivously, letting people take their own profit as the motivation of perserving the environment is not a wise suggestion as the dimension of selfishness is not controlable.

Recycling in my hometown and Singapore

My hometown is a small county in China. Since I came to Singapore, I have found several differences between the recycling in my hometown and that in Singapore, in terms of how people deal with spoiled household appliances, how people sort garbage and how recyclable garbage is collected.

In my hometown, if a household appliance breaks down, most people will take it to a repair shop to fix it, because this costs much less than buying a new one. Only when it is not repairable, people will treat it as garbage, and this is when the garbage sorting will take place. To people in my hometown, garbage can be divided into two kinds. One kind can be sold to a rag man from a recycle center while the other kind cannot be sold. People always sell the recyclable garbage such as paper, cans, bottles and spoiled machines and throw the rest away. Consequently, some recyclable garbage is collected by rag men. However, sometimes recyclable garbage is thrown into dustbins beside the streets by people who do not sort garbage. A few people, who are called bag ladies, live on the garbage that is thrown away. They collect recyclable garbage from dustbins and sell it to recycle centers to earn a living. As a result, most of recyclable garbage goes into recycle centers.

In Singapore, unlike in my hometown, people usually throw spoiled household appliances immediately since the repairing fee is quite high compared to the price of a new one. In Singapore, the recycling system works more simply since recycle bins can be found everywhere. So, people in Singapore can just throw their garbage according to the types of garbage and garbage collectors will carry the sorted garbage to where it is supposed to be.

I feel the differences are caused by the disparity of wealth between the two places which appears in terms of social facilities and government policies.

My blog buddy was: guo qi.

We could have avoided the blue-green algae bloom in the Tai Lake in 2007

28 May, 2007, blue-green algae bloom took possession of the Tai Lake in one night. The tap water in Wuxi City immediately became smelly and undrinkable, which brought a lot of trouble to Wuxi citizens’ daily life. The essential reason of the disaster was the superabundant nitrogen and phosphorus in the Tai Lake, which was poured into the lake with industrial wastewater. Since people had realized the reason for years, we could have avoided the disaster by preventing more nitrogen and phosphorus from going into the lake and decreasing the existing amount. The government should have enforced policies on the treatment of wastewater before it was sluiced. The factories should have obeyed the policies to set up facilities to decontaminate their wastewater. However, these basic controls of water pollution were not executed strictly. Blue-green algae bloom burst out several times previously, and people had already known the condition of the Tai Lake. The government should have taken the issue seriously while they only tried to kill the blue-green algae only after a terrible bloom for a short time. Actually there are several efficient ways to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus as long as they are conducted continuously, such as organizing people to fish out the blue-green algae which is natural fertilizer for soil, introducing chubs, who eat blue-green algae, to the lake. If we had faith and patience in improving the water quality of the Tai Lake, the unprecedented blue-green algae bloom should have been avoided.

My blog buddy was: Xue Jie.

Causes of more frequent sandstorms in northeast China

By the definition of Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, sandstorm is a storm in which sand is blown into the air by strong winds. 10 years ago it is considered very rare to see sandstorms in northeast China. However, in recent years, sandstorm has become common spring weather in northeast part of China. Overgrazing, overharvest of ground floras and nonstandard mines in northwest China are three main causes of more frequent sandstorms in China.
Researches indicate that the number of livestock in northeast China has exceeded the capability of the grassland. The growth of grass cannot catch up with the rate of abatement, which results in the imbalance of nature. As a consequence, the soil is exposed to the air immediately. Moreover, some of the ground flora in northwest China is good herb, for example, liquorices. For economic benefit, people dig out liquorices unlimitedly, which affects the growth of other ground flora as well. Without the ground flora keeping nutrition and water in the soil, the soil degenerates into sand. Furthermore, a splendid amount of minerals distribute over some parts of northwest China. Many nonstandard mines are set up illegally on the area that was forest or grassland before. The constructions of these mines are usually improperly arranged, which leads to large pieces of exposed ground. The waste is disposed without decontamination, resulting in the degradation of soil.
In conclusion, overgrazing, overharvest of ground flora and nonstandard mines damage the plants and degrade soil into sand. Every spring, wind blows sand up and travels to east without the block of trees. Consequently, sandstorms become more frequent in northeast China.

My blog buddy was: Saw.

A lie i told

“Toot. Toot. Toot…”I held my mobile phone clinging to my ear, hand trembling. I did not know whether I hoped the call would be connected or not.
“Hello?” finally it was connected. A familiar silvery voice came into my ear.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak normally, “Hello. How are you these days?”
“Sister!” my cousin shouted, full of excitement. “I’m fine. So what’s the matter?”
My heart beat faster and faster; my perspiration was running down my checks; my breath paused. Finally, I told a tie, as I had planned. “Nothing, I just want to call you.”
Actually, there was something. I knew she was seriously ill. I wanted to ask her how she felt, I wanted to encourage her and I wanted to tell her I am concerned about her. However I could not do these, because her illness was a taboo in our family. I occasionally got to know it when my mother leaned it out unintentionally. The reason why it was a taboo was that she did not know her state of illness exactly. What she knew was only that she fainted few days ago.
“Now I am in your home. We are having dumplings!” her laughter pulled me back to the reality. “Today is Thursday. How can you be in my home?” “Err, I have a fever.” It was her turn to tell a lie. What I could do was just to let our lies go on. Perhaps the lies would last until her surgery. Fortunately, through the simple lies, at least I found her condition was much better than I had thought.
I understand profoundly it is painful to tell lies to our beloved ones. However, more or less we will get some comfort since the cause of the lies is love.

The birth control policy helps China to protect its environment better

China has executed the birth control policy since 1970s'. Through these years the benefits of the birth control policy are taking place in China. One of the main benefits is that the policy helps China to protect its environment better. It is well known that desertification, industrial pollution and household garbage are all vital environmental issues. In fact, the essential cause of these problems is the increasing of population.

People need food to survive. To grow more crops and to raise more livestock, forests are being cut down and grasslands are degenerating. Desertification in northwest China becomes more serious day by day. Every spring, sand is blown up by wind and form sandstorms. Without the block of forests, sandstorms travel from northwest all the way to the east coast of China. People in this area suffer a lot from sandstorms. Furthermore, these sandstorms even indicate a kind of horrible change in climate.

The developments of industries are driven by the demand of marketing while the demand of marketing is the consumption of the population, so the increase of population stimulates all the industries including some nonstandard factories which participate a lot in the industrial pollution. The industrial waste endangers water, air and soil which are all colsely related to the survival of plants, animals and human beings.

Household garbage, which seems normal to us, is actually polluting China’s environment with an incredible quantity. In China, people use up 30 million disposable lunchboxes and 3 billion plastic bags per day. Perhaps people can still say that it is reasonable for a country with a population of 1.4 billion. However, it takes several years to decompose a disposable lunchbox naturally. More terribly, the environment needs hundreds of years to “digest” a plastic bag. By the day when a year 2008 plastic bag decomposes, probably the whole planet is already covered by plastic bags.

According to scientific statistics, if China did not execute the birth control policy, China’s population will be 400 million more than the real population by the year 2008. China successfully controls its population by the birth control policy, which saves land, reduces industrial and household waste, namely, protects its environment. In addition, through this policy, people in China are educated that to live a sustainable live but not to use up all the sources is the correct way to live hamoniously with our planet.

My blog buddy was Tiffany.

A question about environment

Does China's birth control policy help China to protect its environment better? If yes, how does it help? If no, why does it not help?

Edited version:
How does the birth control policy help China to protect its environment better?

The meaning of life

I always feel that the meaning of life is continuity. The continuity of life enables human to learn from the past, to make improvement and to pass knowledge and technique to the next generation. And this is how the world runs. Isaac Newton once said “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Without all the efforts that the predecessors made, it is impossible for him to make such extraordinary breakthroughs in physics and mathematics. Perhaps unlike Newton, what we can do is little and normal, like a drop in the sea of human history. However, in the long run, indeed these small drops structured our society. Furthermore, what we learnt and passed on is not only knowledge but also questions and dreams. Those are the impulses that always push our society forwards. We have been dreaming about flying to the sky for thousands of years. Step by step, we are making the dream come true. People live, people die. What is the end? But I think the end is not important. What really matters is the process. As a part of human continuity, we learn, we teach, we enjoy and we live a meaningful life.