Main Project

I would like to give a short overview on our main project for the Anugerah Hijau Competition. Our main project is actually the Herbs Garden which was established early this year. The Herbs Garden has different type of herbs which definitely have a high medicinal value. Among the Herbs which can be found in our garden are, selasih, limau kasturi, kemangi, bunga butang and kaduk. We have done research on these plants as well as established our very own eco-ranger corner which contains all the information of our herbs.

Our project works together with the compost, the 3R team and rainwater harvesting team. We use the fertilizers from the compost team for the betterment of our plants. We water our plants using the rainwater harvesting water while the 3r team plays an imporatant role in helping to create awareness among students and carrying out recycling activities.

Our project falls under the Active Category as we have meetings every week to ensure that our garden is in a good condition. We hope that our project will be a huge success.

For more information on our Herbs Garden, please visit the Eco Ranger link.

Solar Cooking Competition

On the 26th of June, 3 of our school students participated in the state level Solar Cooking Competition. And, we the members of the Environmental Club are proud to say that they won the first place in the competition. So, now, they will be representing Selangor to the National Level competition which will be held in Perlis next August. We wish all the participants, good luck!! Make Sri Aman proud once again!!

Well, for those of you who do not know what solar cooking exactly is, it is actually the use on the sun's energy to cook. Interesting, huh? This project will help to save the environment as it does not need the consumption of electricity to cook. If the solar cooker is really effective an efficient, it can be used to even cook rice, sausages and boil eggs. With an understanding of basic principles of solar cooking and access to simple materials such as mounting board, plastic and poly foam, one can build an effective solar cooker.

I will post a few pictures on solar cooking asap. Byee!!

A Quote A Day!

Here are some environmental quotes that can be associated with our daily lives:

• Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. ~Henrik Tikkanen

• I'm not an environmentalist. I'm an Earth warrior. ~Darryl Cherney, quoted in Smithsonian, April 1990

• I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend? ~Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985

• Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we. ~Michel de Montaigne, translated

• We never know the worth of water till the well is dry. ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

• Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible - or even sinful - that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes! ~Paul MacCready, Jr.

• We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~Native American Proverb

• There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew. ~Marshall McLuhan, 1964

• Newspapers: dead trees with information smeared on them. ~Horizon

• "Electronic Frontier"They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers. ~James G. Watt, quoted in Newsweek, 8 March 1982I

• I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. ~Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973

• The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. ~Ralph Nader, quoted in Linda Botts, ed., Loose Talk, 1980

• We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

• The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future. ~Marya Mannes, More in Anger, 1958

• I am the earth. You are the earth. The Earth is dying. You and I are murderers. ~Ymber Delecto

Save Our Penguins!!

The earth has a bipolar disorder. Global warming threatens the wildlife of both the north and south polar regions. In the north, the polar bears are dying off because the ice shelves they depend on to reach their prey have been melting. In the south, melting ice and snow create huge cracks and caverns which trap penguins and make it difficult for them to travel to breeding and feeding areas.
Skeptics of global warming can point to areas such as the center of Antarctica where there has been no warming, but the evidence is clear now that average global temperatures are rising, and the visual evidence of melting glaciers is there for anyone to see. In the U.S.A., Glacier National Park will have to be renamed Park Meltdown.
In 1998 I wrote on the threats to the survival of the penguins. At that time, oil spills, pollution, and predators were killing many penguins. Now warming is the main problem, as it could destroy the habitat of the penguins in Antarctica.
The various types of birds are classified as “orders,” and the penguin order is called Sphenisciformes. This order contains aquatic flightless birds which live in the Southern Hemisphere. As only penguins are in that order, penguins are quite different from all other birds in walking upright and in some of them being able to live in extremely cold climates.
Penguins are dying throughout the Southern Hemisphere. In the Prince Edward Islands by South Africa in the Indian Ocean, penguin populations are shrinking. As the oceans warm up, the prey eaten by penguins move south to cooler waters.
The 900-mile-long Antarctic Peninsula which sticks out from the main continent is warming up at a greater pace than the world average. There the ice is melting rapidly, and huge chucks of ice sheets are braking off. The Adelie penguins there have to swim ever longer distances to get food, and there is also less food, especially krill, small shrimp-like animals that depend on the sea ice. If the warming continues, they will be unable to survive there.
In the Ross Sea by Antarctica, two huge ice sheets have broken away from the ice sheet and block the passage that penguins use from feeding to breeding areas. They have to walk 30 miles (50 kilometers) more to get to the feeding waters. This creates an extreme hardship for penguins as they waddle on land at only one mile per hour. The population of the impressive emperor penguins in Antarctica has been cut in half during the past 50 years.
The penguin order is not overall threatened with extinction, as some species can live in warmer climates. Nevertheless, penguins everywhere are under pressure, as while there are no predators on Antarctica, penguins further north are threatened by predators such as cats, dogs, and rats.
The warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and decline of the penguins there is a warning to humanity about the looming global threat for humanity. Many people world-wide have viewed the documentary film by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth.” It is unfortunate that this persuasive film dwells almost entirely on the problem, with very little on solutions. It’s fine to replace old light bulbs with new ones that are more energy efficient, but there is no good substitute for economic policies that make people pay the social cost when they do damage to the planet.
In a speech at the New York University School of Law on September 18, 2006, Al Gore, proposed replacing payroll taxes with a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Gore has advocated “the elimination of all payroll taxes -- including those for social security and unemployment compensation - and the replacement of that revenue in the form of pollution taxes -- principally on CO2. The overall level of taxation would remain exactly the same. It would be, in other words, a revenue neutral tax swap. But, instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees, it would discourage business from producing more pollution.”
Some Green parties and environmentalists and geoists (Georgists) have gone further and propose a complete green tax shift that would replace all punitive taxes with levies on pollution and land value. By shifting public revenue to land rent or land value along with pollution, the shift to efficiency taxes would benefit both the economy and the environment, as it would eliminate the deadweight loss of the punitive taxation of wages, profits, and trade.
A rapid green tax shift would stop the human contribution to global warming and help save both the penguins and human beings from the looming damage of rising temperatures. The bonus is that there is a great economic benefit from this shift even if human activity is contributing little to global warming.
In cost-benefit analysis, the probability of an outcome has to be multiplied by its estimated cost. The potential cost of runaway global warming, of reaching a tipping point followed by an exponential increase in global heat, is colossal, so even a small probability warrants quick action. So Al Gore and those properly alarmed by global warming should focus on the green tax shift. Anything else, whether greener light bulbs or pollution permits, will only help a little. Regulations and permits impose economic costs, while the green tax shift provides big benefits. Only a global green tax shift will save the penguins, humanity, and the planet from a possible global catastrophe.