Hey, I neglected to mention this. Avatar stole my idea!
Back in my story "Dragons of Element" that is so bad, there was an idea I wanted to salvage for use in a different book. The idea was these huge trees. They were hollowed out, though leaving the cambium layer intact, ex, so that the trees remained alive. And the people lived in rooms that were inside the trunk of these massive trees.
Through the very center of the trunk, there was a spiral staircase going all the way up to where the branches first leave the trunk, high high in the air. Those branches are so big that the dragons make their homes in them. And people can ride the dragons up to the branches and then go into the tree trunk and descend to their rooms.
Then there's Avatar. The Na-vi live in a giant tree with a spiral structure in the center and the banshee creatures live in the branches of the tree...
That's kind of scary how similar they are. Great minds think alike? Maybe we were operating on the same wave. I mean, my story was written a long time ago, and Cameron started work on Avatar a long time ago...
~*~
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Milgram Experiment
Despite the fact that no one reads this blog, I feel it my duty to inform the public of things. Scary things that should be avoided.
It's something we watched in Humanities class a couple weeks ago. The experiment is based off one done during or after WWII.
Those that were in charge of the mass slaughter and the death camps, for the most part, were not evil geniuses. They were NORMAL PEOPLE. So this person wanted to find what it was that made normal people commit such horrible acts against other humans.
They were told to do it.
This is a remake of this experiment. I"m showing it to you because it terrifies me. People shouldn't be like this... please watch it and don't repeat these mistakes. Just because someone "above" you tells you to do something, doesn't mean that you have to do it if you feel it's wrong.
Let me show you . It's in 3 parts.
It's something we watched in Humanities class a couple weeks ago. The experiment is based off one done during or after WWII.
Those that were in charge of the mass slaughter and the death camps, for the most part, were not evil geniuses. They were NORMAL PEOPLE. So this person wanted to find what it was that made normal people commit such horrible acts against other humans.
They were told to do it.
This is a remake of this experiment. I"m showing it to you because it terrifies me. People shouldn't be like this... please watch it and don't repeat these mistakes. Just because someone "above" you tells you to do something, doesn't mean that you have to do it if you feel it's wrong.
Let me show you . It's in 3 parts.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Real Life events from "Of Spirits"
So, first of all there's a few events in "Of Spirits and Demons" that are based off actual events.
The first one is the lizard incident. I was at a camp and there was a group of boys there and most of them were terrors. Really. One of many events was the lizard event. It was several years ago, so I'll say what I can remember. The boys got a hold of a lizard. We were about to leave somewhere so they obviously couldn't bring the lizard. So they put it under the wheel of the car we were about to leave in. If the car had backed up, it would have smashed the lizard. I went to reach down to get the lizard, and one of the boys hit my hand and makes me hit the lizard.
I get the lizard out of there, though he might have been injured, I'm not sure. I hope he was OK. Anyway, there was one instance in that camp where one of the boys in my story throws something at me. There's a lot more to this half of this story, but sufficient to say that this was the last straw. I hauled off and smack him as hard as I can on the shoulder. He sure wasn't expecting that. He and the others fled. I'm not one to be messed with. Trust me. And get this. I told one of the counselors that I smacked him, and she said "good job." That's how bad those boys were. The counselor praised me for smacking him.
Yeah. I think that's the only time I've ever gone and hit someone. That's pretty much the only time that people have made me that mad. (By the way, not all of the boys were bad. One of them was quite nice. I'm just not mentioning any names here. I doubt any of them will end up reading this anyway.)
I do think that if we met again, we wouldn't be hateful of each other. Probably neutral. That was a long time ago. They were around 10 years old, maybe 11 and 12, or something.
OK. Event number to. When Master Minlton blames Briena for not showing up for the meeting. True event. That was my least favorite teacher. I mean, he's not as bad as they come. I've had a lot of great teachers. Compared to them, this teacher was my least favorite. And what do you know. That was my least favorite class too. Not a good combo-bad teacher, bad class. So, I wanted to talk to the teacher about something, so he told me to meet him after school. I wait for fifteen minutes in front of his classroom and he never appears. I go home in a huff. The next morning I happen to run into him in the hall before school starts.
"Where were you?" he says. "I was waiting in the printing room."
Why the $@%&$@^@$%* was he in the printing room when we were supposed to meet in the classroom, and how the hell was I supposed to know that he'd be there when he never told me? And the way he spoke, he blamed ME for not knowing where to find HIM. So, that was the event that made me pretty much... yeah. And before that, Nicole was murderous to him for something he did to her too. The funny thing was that I was telling her to chill out about it. And then I started behaving the same way that she was.
This is one of those instances where I really hope the subjects of my post never end up reading my post.
Yeah.
I think I was going to write something about the magic tea that Briena uses... but I don't remember what it was. The tea was my way of simplifying spells so they don't need to use herbs as much. But I established the use of herbs in Brenor's legend, and I wanted to keep them around while Briena was learning magic. So I started thinking about making magic tea... Tea absorbs the flavor of herbs. So maybe hot water can absorb the magic essence of herbs too. Yeah. I'm sure you get the picture.
Rosemary bread. We got a loaf of that once. It was really good. I ended up eating almost the whole loaf. We should get that again.
Oh, the part where Briena, Kimi, Teri and Romka are chasing Darien? That's actually based off of a dream I had a long time ago. I started writing a story based off of that dream back in middle school. It was never finished and ended up being a piece of garbage, as old stuff tends to be. The original dream was that a famous guy runs away because someone was after him and he didn't want to cause danger for the people around him. So he ran away. And in the dream, people were following him to try to bring him back. They didn't want him in danger and they hadn't wanted him to leave. They traveled through a dry lake-bed that was full of these strange, contorted pillars and limps of sand and rock. And they traveled across the top of a sand dune during a sand storm.
Yep.
The spider. Spiders always seem to be evil . Except Charlottes Web. But big spiders, like in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and Harry Potter and stuff, they're always monsters. See, for Halloween a few years ago, I got this great big black spider plushie for a decoration. That's what my spider is based off of. And because I felt bad for the giant spiders, I made this giant spider a good guy. FYI, Crystal loves that giant spider plush. She came over for halloween. She says she wants to make boots for it. I should make her post about it. She writes stories too, though her style tends to be a bit darker than mine. SHe has a good writing style though.
Again, I was gonna write something about the bad guy, But I don't know what. Some of my notes for what to write about on the blog are a bit non-specific. Well, Ellen's writing a story from his POV. She said she wanted to write a story from a good guy's POV and then from the bad guy's POV, but she was too lazy to do the story from the good guy's POV, so I told her she could use Kyrus. Did I write about this already? Probably. I tend to repeat things on occasion.
Did I mention that I tend to repeat myself?
Oh, the Soul Water. I came up with that idea a really long time ago. I had a plot that went with it. Actually, I had 2 ideas for a plot that went with it. Both of them fell through. So poor Briena ended up having to face it. Sorry, Bree. If it hadn't been you, it might have been Fern, or the guy character that was going to be in one of my old stories that I had planned. From what little I remember of that old plan, it was a bit like James Bond. Hmm.
Here we go again. I was gonna write something about the final battle between Darien and Kyrus. But what? I don't know why I wrote some of these notes down! I probably had some vague notes, and knowing me, they're probably the vague things that I ended up writing in the end.
So, the final battle. It's kind of tricky coming up with spells for two warring mages to shoot at each other-without getting repetitive at least. Harry Potter had to do that too. But those battles can end up being so cool! Heheh.
OK! Aren't you excited? This is my last note for the tidbits for "Of Spirits and Demons!" That means I can finally get rid of this note paper that's been sitting on my desk for weeks!
OK. The story ends with graduation. And Briena gets pretty major applause. There have been a couple instances when I've got major applause from an audience. Once when I had a big solo in a high school band piece. And the other two times were when our band performed the pieces of music that I prepared. Getting applause that's just for you... it's kind of embarrassing in a way... "embarrassing" isn't the right word, but you get it. It's kind of exciting in a way too. Heheh.
And Briena makes peace with Shotah and Haray. I think that's important.
The first one is the lizard incident. I was at a camp and there was a group of boys there and most of them were terrors. Really. One of many events was the lizard event. It was several years ago, so I'll say what I can remember. The boys got a hold of a lizard. We were about to leave somewhere so they obviously couldn't bring the lizard. So they put it under the wheel of the car we were about to leave in. If the car had backed up, it would have smashed the lizard. I went to reach down to get the lizard, and one of the boys hit my hand and makes me hit the lizard.
I get the lizard out of there, though he might have been injured, I'm not sure. I hope he was OK. Anyway, there was one instance in that camp where one of the boys in my story throws something at me. There's a lot more to this half of this story, but sufficient to say that this was the last straw. I hauled off and smack him as hard as I can on the shoulder. He sure wasn't expecting that. He and the others fled. I'm not one to be messed with. Trust me. And get this. I told one of the counselors that I smacked him, and she said "good job." That's how bad those boys were. The counselor praised me for smacking him.
Yeah. I think that's the only time I've ever gone and hit someone. That's pretty much the only time that people have made me that mad. (By the way, not all of the boys were bad. One of them was quite nice. I'm just not mentioning any names here. I doubt any of them will end up reading this anyway.)
I do think that if we met again, we wouldn't be hateful of each other. Probably neutral. That was a long time ago. They were around 10 years old, maybe 11 and 12, or something.
OK. Event number to. When Master Minlton blames Briena for not showing up for the meeting. True event. That was my least favorite teacher. I mean, he's not as bad as they come. I've had a lot of great teachers. Compared to them, this teacher was my least favorite. And what do you know. That was my least favorite class too. Not a good combo-bad teacher, bad class. So, I wanted to talk to the teacher about something, so he told me to meet him after school. I wait for fifteen minutes in front of his classroom and he never appears. I go home in a huff. The next morning I happen to run into him in the hall before school starts.
"Where were you?" he says. "I was waiting in the printing room."
Why the $@%&$@^@$%* was he in the printing room when we were supposed to meet in the classroom, and how the hell was I supposed to know that he'd be there when he never told me? And the way he spoke, he blamed ME for not knowing where to find HIM. So, that was the event that made me pretty much... yeah. And before that, Nicole was murderous to him for something he did to her too. The funny thing was that I was telling her to chill out about it. And then I started behaving the same way that she was.
This is one of those instances where I really hope the subjects of my post never end up reading my post.
Yeah.
I think I was going to write something about the magic tea that Briena uses... but I don't remember what it was. The tea was my way of simplifying spells so they don't need to use herbs as much. But I established the use of herbs in Brenor's legend, and I wanted to keep them around while Briena was learning magic. So I started thinking about making magic tea... Tea absorbs the flavor of herbs. So maybe hot water can absorb the magic essence of herbs too. Yeah. I'm sure you get the picture.
Rosemary bread. We got a loaf of that once. It was really good. I ended up eating almost the whole loaf. We should get that again.
Oh, the part where Briena, Kimi, Teri and Romka are chasing Darien? That's actually based off of a dream I had a long time ago. I started writing a story based off of that dream back in middle school. It was never finished and ended up being a piece of garbage, as old stuff tends to be. The original dream was that a famous guy runs away because someone was after him and he didn't want to cause danger for the people around him. So he ran away. And in the dream, people were following him to try to bring him back. They didn't want him in danger and they hadn't wanted him to leave. They traveled through a dry lake-bed that was full of these strange, contorted pillars and limps of sand and rock. And they traveled across the top of a sand dune during a sand storm.
Yep.
The spider. Spiders always seem to be evil . Except Charlottes Web. But big spiders, like in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and Harry Potter and stuff, they're always monsters. See, for Halloween a few years ago, I got this great big black spider plushie for a decoration. That's what my spider is based off of. And because I felt bad for the giant spiders, I made this giant spider a good guy. FYI, Crystal loves that giant spider plush. She came over for halloween. She says she wants to make boots for it. I should make her post about it. She writes stories too, though her style tends to be a bit darker than mine. SHe has a good writing style though.
Again, I was gonna write something about the bad guy, But I don't know what. Some of my notes for what to write about on the blog are a bit non-specific. Well, Ellen's writing a story from his POV. She said she wanted to write a story from a good guy's POV and then from the bad guy's POV, but she was too lazy to do the story from the good guy's POV, so I told her she could use Kyrus. Did I write about this already? Probably. I tend to repeat things on occasion.
Did I mention that I tend to repeat myself?
Oh, the Soul Water. I came up with that idea a really long time ago. I had a plot that went with it. Actually, I had 2 ideas for a plot that went with it. Both of them fell through. So poor Briena ended up having to face it. Sorry, Bree. If it hadn't been you, it might have been Fern, or the guy character that was going to be in one of my old stories that I had planned. From what little I remember of that old plan, it was a bit like James Bond. Hmm.
Here we go again. I was gonna write something about the final battle between Darien and Kyrus. But what? I don't know why I wrote some of these notes down! I probably had some vague notes, and knowing me, they're probably the vague things that I ended up writing in the end.
So, the final battle. It's kind of tricky coming up with spells for two warring mages to shoot at each other-without getting repetitive at least. Harry Potter had to do that too. But those battles can end up being so cool! Heheh.
OK! Aren't you excited? This is my last note for the tidbits for "Of Spirits and Demons!" That means I can finally get rid of this note paper that's been sitting on my desk for weeks!
OK. The story ends with graduation. And Briena gets pretty major applause. There have been a couple instances when I've got major applause from an audience. Once when I had a big solo in a high school band piece. And the other two times were when our band performed the pieces of music that I prepared. Getting applause that's just for you... it's kind of embarrassing in a way... "embarrassing" isn't the right word, but you get it. It's kind of exciting in a way too. Heheh.
And Briena makes peace with Shotah and Haray. I think that's important.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Song of the Violin
Back in high school, we had to read Night by Elie Wiesel. Only a few scenes stuck with me. Now in college it's assigned reading again. I had to analyze a passage from it. I picked one of the ones that I remembered. The scene with the violin.
It's a room of holocaust prisoners. They're packed to tightly that they're piled on top of each other and suffocating. Elie's friend had carried a violin with him all that way. And he begins to play to that room of the dead and dying. Oh, God. I don't cry that much. But my heart sure was crying. Just ti imagine locked in a room that horrible and then to suddenly hear a beautiful violin singing out? The musician died and his violin was crushed.
Jeez, I need to go to sleep. But I had to write somethign about this. I can't even begin to describe this so I"m loking for the block of text to show you myself. You musicians can probably understand this best.
Ah, found it.
A passage from Night.
“Father, are you there?” I asked as soon as I was able to utter a word.
I knew that he could not be far from me.
“Yes!” a voice replied from far away, as if from another world. “I am trying to sleep.”
He was trying to sleep. Could one fall asleep here? Wasn’t it dangerous to lower one’s guard, even for a moment, when death could strike at any time?
Those were my thoughts when I heard the sound of a violin. A violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living? Who was this madman who played the violin here, at the edge of his own grave? Or was it a hallucination?
It had to be Juliek.
He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence.
How had he succeeded in disengaging himself? To slip out from under my body without my feeling it? [Note: they, the prisoners, were piled on top of each other in a crowded barracks.]
The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again.
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.
I don’t know how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke at daybreak, I saw Juliek facing me, hunched over, dead. Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.
It's a room of holocaust prisoners. They're packed to tightly that they're piled on top of each other and suffocating. Elie's friend had carried a violin with him all that way. And he begins to play to that room of the dead and dying. Oh, God. I don't cry that much. But my heart sure was crying. Just ti imagine locked in a room that horrible and then to suddenly hear a beautiful violin singing out? The musician died and his violin was crushed.
Jeez, I need to go to sleep. But I had to write somethign about this. I can't even begin to describe this so I"m loking for the block of text to show you myself. You musicians can probably understand this best.
Ah, found it.
A passage from Night.
“Father, are you there?” I asked as soon as I was able to utter a word.
I knew that he could not be far from me.
“Yes!” a voice replied from far away, as if from another world. “I am trying to sleep.”
He was trying to sleep. Could one fall asleep here? Wasn’t it dangerous to lower one’s guard, even for a moment, when death could strike at any time?
Those were my thoughts when I heard the sound of a violin. A violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living? Who was this madman who played the violin here, at the edge of his own grave? Or was it a hallucination?
It had to be Juliek.
He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence.
How had he succeeded in disengaging himself? To slip out from under my body without my feeling it? [Note: they, the prisoners, were piled on top of each other in a crowded barracks.]
The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again.
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.
I don’t know how long he played. I was overcome by sleep. When I awoke at daybreak, I saw Juliek facing me, hunched over, dead. Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
More Tidbits from "Of Spirits and Demons"
So, At the mage temple, they don't eat much meat. Mages talk to animals and most of them don't feel comfortable eating much meat because of that. Wouldn't you feel uncomfortable eating someone you might have known at some point? And honestly, people don't need that much meat anyway.
The alarm clock along with the bell that rings to signal the end of classes is a bird call. There's a reason for that. My alarm clock does bird calls. It has several to choose from, but it always starts with the same call. Now every time I hear a note that sounds like the beginning of that bird call, I start freaking out and thinking that have to get out of a warm bed to go to school... Man, I hate alarm clocks. Though I suppose I could always go to sleep at 10:00 instead of 11:00.
Teri. He's an obnoxious guy. Yet Briena doesn't mind being his friend. Obnoxious people need friends. I'm not mentioning names, but I never mind hanging out with people who are a bit obnoxious. THey need a friend, and really my friends are so weird anyway that most obnoxious people are quite tolerable. Haha! You weird friends know who you are! I'm not saying I'm not weird too.
The mages meditate. It's a great way to get focused. Honestly, I suck at meditating. I can never clear my mind. It's always buzzing. I need to learn to relax it.
Ah, Briena's braid. I made one just like it a LOOOOONG time ago. I started thinking about this school (that was quite like the Jedi school) where all the students make braids of string from one color. Except one girl makes her braid out of three colors cause she's special. Wow, old ideas can be really corny.
Kimi brings inanimate objects to life. Wouldn't that be SOO AWESOME! There's a ton of statues and figures I have in my room that I would love to come to life!
My uncle bought me a pair of double pipes a few years ago. Not like the ones in the story. They're parallel to each other and one pipe plays one constant sound and you can change the notes of the second pipe. I should play that some more. Playing two melodies on the same instrument would be REALLY hard... But that's the instrument Breina and Brenor have.
The alarm clock along with the bell that rings to signal the end of classes is a bird call. There's a reason for that. My alarm clock does bird calls. It has several to choose from, but it always starts with the same call. Now every time I hear a note that sounds like the beginning of that bird call, I start freaking out and thinking that have to get out of a warm bed to go to school... Man, I hate alarm clocks. Though I suppose I could always go to sleep at 10:00 instead of 11:00.
Teri. He's an obnoxious guy. Yet Briena doesn't mind being his friend. Obnoxious people need friends. I'm not mentioning names, but I never mind hanging out with people who are a bit obnoxious. THey need a friend, and really my friends are so weird anyway that most obnoxious people are quite tolerable. Haha! You weird friends know who you are! I'm not saying I'm not weird too.
The mages meditate. It's a great way to get focused. Honestly, I suck at meditating. I can never clear my mind. It's always buzzing. I need to learn to relax it.
Ah, Briena's braid. I made one just like it a LOOOOONG time ago. I started thinking about this school (that was quite like the Jedi school) where all the students make braids of string from one color. Except one girl makes her braid out of three colors cause she's special. Wow, old ideas can be really corny.
Kimi brings inanimate objects to life. Wouldn't that be SOO AWESOME! There's a ton of statues and figures I have in my room that I would love to come to life!
My uncle bought me a pair of double pipes a few years ago. Not like the ones in the story. They're parallel to each other and one pipe plays one constant sound and you can change the notes of the second pipe. I should play that some more. Playing two melodies on the same instrument would be REALLY hard... But that's the instrument Breina and Brenor have.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thought Speech
OK, so in a lot of my stories, both humans and animals use a sort of telepathy called The Language of Thoughts, or Thought Speech.
OK, time to get this out of the way. Lots of stories use this. Eragon, the Dragons of Pern, The Immortals, etc etc. I'm not really stealing from them. I like to research interesting topics for use in my stories. OK, I don't like using this term, but you might recognize it better. Pet Psychics AKA Animal Communicators. Whether or not you want to believe in that stuff, I'm following their guidelines for my stories. So even if you don't think that animals can talk on our planet, they sure as heck can on Magic-Earth and Soreina,
So, reasons? Well, ever since I was a little kid I've wanted to talk to animals. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Heheh. I remember the WIld Thornberries.
(One last not, I kid you not, "Kinship with all Life" by J. Allen Boone changed my life. I'm not the only one either.)
OK, time to get this out of the way. Lots of stories use this. Eragon, the Dragons of Pern, The Immortals, etc etc. I'm not really stealing from them. I like to research interesting topics for use in my stories. OK, I don't like using this term, but you might recognize it better. Pet Psychics AKA Animal Communicators. Whether or not you want to believe in that stuff, I'm following their guidelines for my stories. So even if you don't think that animals can talk on our planet, they sure as heck can on Magic-Earth and Soreina,
So, reasons? Well, ever since I was a little kid I've wanted to talk to animals. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Heheh. I remember the WIld Thornberries.
(One last not, I kid you not, "Kinship with all Life" by J. Allen Boone changed my life. I'm not the only one either.)
Monday, April 5, 2010
Speech
OK, I'm still having computer problems. This time if anything goes wrong, I have most of my speech online so I can access it whenever I need to! Take that computer demons!
I was supposed to give my speech 2 weeks ago, but 30 minutes and 4 laptops couldn't get my images to show up. So I redid the whole thing in a different format. But my email won't save it. So I have it on a USB thing. And in case that doesn't work, I now have it in my blog (though I cut a couple pictures out).
I was supposed to give my speech 2 weeks ago, but 30 minutes and 4 laptops couldn't get my images to show up. So I redid the whole thing in a different format. But my email won't save it. So I have it on a USB thing. And in case that doesn't work, I now have it in my blog (though I cut a couple pictures out).
Environment Speech
A Few of Our Problems:
• Overpopulation
• Over consumption
• Over harvesting (wood, fish, ex)
• Non-renewable energy
• Toxic waste
• Greenhouse gases
• Ozone depletion
• Landfills and leaching
• Plastic, Styrofoam, non-biodegradable stuff
• Water pollution
• Over-using ground water (and all water)
• Polluting ground water
• Desertification
• Invasive species
• Too much meat
• Treatment of animals
• Deforestation
• Habitat Loss
• Biodiversity loss
• Genetic engineering
• Monocultures
• Pesticides
• Poverty
• Poaching
• Illegal animal trade
• Humans
Global Warming:
You think there’s nice weather?
Maybe here there is.
• But what about the hurricanes?
• What about the droughts and floods?
• What about the melting ice caps?
• Melting Ice caps means more fresh water in the ocean, which alters currents and messes up climate.
• More water in the ocean means rising sea levels.
Coal: The biggest polluter and the widest-used source for electricity in America.
If it’s so bad, why do we keep using it?
Because it’s easy to find!
We’re just too lazy to change…
Invasive species are a huge problem
Pampus grass
Star thistle
Scotch Broom
Kudzu
Climbing ferns
Eucalyptus
Zebra mussels
Cane toads-Austraila
Wild Boar
European Starling
Humans
We are in the 6th mass extinction ever recorded! Remember the dinosaurs? Well, humans are about as destructive as that comet, it seems.
30,000 species are lost every year
That means three species per hour
And honestly, though these species have their benefits to humans, they all have a right to live.
Maybe this will put you in perspective. If all the humans on the planet suddenly disappeared, the planet would go on living. It would probably be better off considering what we’re doing to it. But if all the bugs went extinct, the planet would go into shock and die. Not even all bugs, but something as simple as ants. We can’t live without them. They can do just fine without us.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Turn off lights and computers and everything when you’re not using them.
• Unplug stuff. Even when they’re turned off, computers, TVs and everything is slowly draining electricity (hey, it helps your wallet too).
• Buy Energy Star Appliances.
• If you’re remodeling your house, go with a green plan.
• Carpool, bike, or take the train.
• Don’t eat so much meat. If you feed 12 pounds of grain to a cow, you get 1 pound of beef back. All that food could be put to a better use. And the conditions these animals are raised in is absolutely dreadful. And Americans eat way too much meat. That’s one of the main causes of clogged arteries, heart attacks, and obeseness.
• Buy sustainably harvested fish, etc.
• Buy organic food.
• Buy re-usable grocery bags
• Overpopulation
• Over consumption
• Over harvesting (wood, fish, ex)
• Non-renewable energy
• Toxic waste
• Greenhouse gases
• Ozone depletion
• Landfills and leaching
• Plastic, Styrofoam, non-biodegradable stuff
• Water pollution
• Over-using ground water (and all water)
• Polluting ground water
• Desertification
• Invasive species
• Too much meat
• Treatment of animals
• Deforestation
• Habitat Loss
• Biodiversity loss
• Genetic engineering
• Monocultures
• Pesticides
• Poverty
• Poaching
• Illegal animal trade
• Humans
Global Warming:
You think there’s nice weather?
Maybe here there is.
• But what about the hurricanes?
• What about the droughts and floods?
• What about the melting ice caps?
• Melting Ice caps means more fresh water in the ocean, which alters currents and messes up climate.
• More water in the ocean means rising sea levels.
Coal: The biggest polluter and the widest-used source for electricity in America.
If it’s so bad, why do we keep using it?
Because it’s easy to find!
We’re just too lazy to change…
Invasive species are a huge problem
Pampus grass
Star thistle
Scotch Broom
Kudzu
Climbing ferns
Eucalyptus
Zebra mussels
Cane toads-Austraila
Wild Boar
European Starling
Humans
We are in the 6th mass extinction ever recorded! Remember the dinosaurs? Well, humans are about as destructive as that comet, it seems.
30,000 species are lost every year
That means three species per hour
And honestly, though these species have their benefits to humans, they all have a right to live.
Maybe this will put you in perspective. If all the humans on the planet suddenly disappeared, the planet would go on living. It would probably be better off considering what we’re doing to it. But if all the bugs went extinct, the planet would go into shock and die. Not even all bugs, but something as simple as ants. We can’t live without them. They can do just fine without us.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Turn off lights and computers and everything when you’re not using them.
• Unplug stuff. Even when they’re turned off, computers, TVs and everything is slowly draining electricity (hey, it helps your wallet too).
• Buy Energy Star Appliances.
• If you’re remodeling your house, go with a green plan.
• Carpool, bike, or take the train.
• Don’t eat so much meat. If you feed 12 pounds of grain to a cow, you get 1 pound of beef back. All that food could be put to a better use. And the conditions these animals are raised in is absolutely dreadful. And Americans eat way too much meat. That’s one of the main causes of clogged arteries, heart attacks, and obeseness.
• Buy sustainably harvested fish, etc.
• Buy organic food.
• Buy re-usable grocery bags
Sunday, April 4, 2010
How To Train Your Dragon
Now, I'm not usually a fan of Dreamworks. They have a cool logo. And they've done a few movies that I like. Seabiscuit was really good. And I liked Spirit (the horse cartoon). But I never liked Shrek and Madagascar looked really bad, and so on.
So,How to Train Your dragon looked interesting, so I gave it a shot. I went to see it earlier today. I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it a lot, actually. The dragons were a bit goofy (except for toothless-I really liked him). And honestly, they needed work on the names (Even if they were supposed to be goofy). BUt yeah. I liked it! Good graphics, good plot, good dragons, and a cool ending!
You know me. I found pictures!
So,How to Train Your dragon looked interesting, so I gave it a shot. I went to see it earlier today. I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it a lot, actually. The dragons were a bit goofy (except for toothless-I really liked him). And honestly, they needed work on the names (Even if they were supposed to be goofy). BUt yeah. I liked it! Good graphics, good plot, good dragons, and a cool ending!
You know me. I found pictures!
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