Released in Seoul Korea on March 18th 2015, WWF-Korea produced a children’s environmental educational cartoon called, ‘Our Beautiful Earth’. Through ‘family friendly’ messages and through the voices of a Panda, a Bear and a Crane, this unique cartoon, tells a story about the critical threats to our natural environment and the future of our Earth, if we do nothing to change our patterns, as humans.
This cartoon is designed to simplify the important summary of the 2014 Living Planet Report, for children and early childhood educators.
Celebrities in the video:Daryl Hannah, Lance Bass, Frances Fisher, Francesca Eastwood, Malin Akerman, Emily VanCamp, Sara Gilbert, Rachelle Lefevre, Dawn Olivieri, Bryn Mooser, Ed Begley, Jr., and Darby Stanchfield TransCanada is trying to build the Keystone XL (KXL), an 875-mile pipeline that would transport up to 830,000 barrels of dirty tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada. This pipeline is part of an effort by the oil industry to export millions of barrels per day of tar sands from Alberta through the United States to international markets. Extracting tar sands is one of the most destructive projects on earth. Reliance on tar sands oil hinders our ability to avoid climate disaster.
The US now faces a clear choice: promote the oil industry's interests by green-lighting the most carbon-intensive, destructive oil on the planet, or demonstrate a bold commitment to addressing climate disruption and promoting clean energy solutions by saying NO to Keystone XL.
Now in 2015, ice in Antarctica is melting faster than ever. This shocked a lot of scientists because they didn't expect ice melting proceed so fast like this. Now melting all the ice doesn't just melt in a day. Scientists estimate that it will take 200 to 100 years for all the ice to melt. However, a small amount of ice melting can cause the melting rate to increase. So even a bit of ice loss can lead to further warming of the ocean surface, which can lead to even more ice loss.
Since 1975, the ice melting over the world especially Antarctica has been growing at an amazing rate. This can affect a lot of people in this world. Since there are many citizens living in coastal areas, there is a possibility that there can be more floods. Agricultural areas will also be harmed due to this ice meltdown. In addition, the sea creatures in Antarctica will affected very badly. Lastly, the biggest reason that this is such a huge problem is global warming and climate change. The thinning of the ice and the water getting warmer is transferring the temperature into the air. Antarctica is supposed to be a very cold place but with this meltdown, the climate going up every year. These animals such as penguins are adapted to the cold weather and ice but if that goes away, they will eventually perish.
The Eiffel Tower’s iron-clad frame turned slightly greener last week, with the installation of two new wind turbines along its lower deck. Perched some 400 feet above the ground, atop a ritzy, second-level restaurant, the slender turbines are part of a broader effort to make Paris’ most iconic monument more eco-friendly — even if only slightly.
When they go into operation next week, the 17-foot structures will provide enough electricity to power the tower's first-floor commercial areas — about 10,000kWh per year. Jan Gromadzki, an engineer who oversaw the project for New York-based Urban Green Energy (UGE), says that's enough to power an average American family’s home for one year. But for the Eiffel Tower — which consumes an estimated 6.7 GWh a year — “it's just a small drop in the ocean."
Paris has also embraced greener policies in recent months, ahead of hosting a global summit on climate change in December. The city recently called for all municipal buildings and public lighting to exclusively use electricity from renewable sources by the year 2016, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants to ban all diesel vehicles from Paris by 2020, in the hopes of easing its smog problems. The hope is that planting discrete wind turbines on the city’s most recognizable building will not only reaffirm Paris' eco-friendly agenda, but spur others to adopt similar technologies, as well.
"It really does represent this big leap forward for renewable energy as a whole, to have this technology to the point where it can be easily adopted by consumers like the Eiffel Tower," Gromadzki says. "And I think that was something that, five years ago, no one would've been ready for. It demonstrates that we’ve come this far to create renewable energy technologies that can be easily integrated into the daily lives of people around the world."
Last week I was in New York, where policy makers and the public alike spoke out about climate change. None of us are strangers to the realities of climate change -- steadily climbing temperatures and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, melting ice and rising sea levels. However, fewer people are aware of how they can help to tackle the problem.
While we often think about the effect of climate change on our lives and on the land we inhabit, it's also important to focus on the blue spaces that make up so much of the Earth.
The ocean covers two thirds of the planet, produces almost half of all the oxygen we breathe and sequesters more than a quarter of the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere. It is, in essence, the kidneys of our planet, keeping systems healthy, giving life -- and there is no way to put it on dialysis.
The ability of this life system to continue to provide these essential ecosystem services is being compromised. As rising temperatures reduce the oxygen carrying capacity of the ocean and the amount of CO2 being absorbed causes acidification , marine organisms and ecosystems are suffering. Habitats are being destroyed, fish stocks are over exploited and marine predators are becoming extinct at an alarming rate.
In the Arctic, the problem is particularly clear: it's melting. Beyond the four million people living there who are affected every day by rising temperatures, we all face the consequences of the changes in the Arctic. Extreme weather, rising sea levels and food insecurity, particularly in the most impoverished parts of the world, are all growing problems. As the ice is melting, a new ocean is being born -- one that some may try to exploit through fishing and oil and gas drilling, which is fraught with uncertainty and has the potential for devastating harm.
So where do we go from here? There is an extraordinary opportunity to rescue this new ocean, 'refreeze' what we can by establishing structures to protect this beautiful place before it's even fully born and understood. Just as a healthy body is more resilient to disease, a healthy ocean is more resilient to harmful change.
The International Declaration on the Future of the Arctic is a charter for Arctic protection being spearheaded by our friends at Greenpeace. I have signed the declaration and look forward to working with the leaders of the Arctic States and representatives from the United Nations to ensure that the Arctic is fully protected before it's too late.
In this time where we feel paralyzed by messages of doom and gloom, let's remember that we can change things. We can make a difference and we have a responsibility to future generations to ensure that our actions today don't destroy their future.
Millions have already declared their support for protecting the Arctic. Join us - sign the pledge here.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’m honored to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen, one of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.
As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.
I believe humankind has looked at Climate Change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, happening to someone else’s planet, as if pretending that Climate Change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.
But I think we know better than that. Every week , we’re seeing new and undeniable Climate Events, evidence that accelerated Climate Change is here now. We know that droughts are intensifying, our oceans are warming and acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from beneath the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events, increased temperatures, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections.
None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it, Industry and Governments know it, even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that Climate Change is our single greatest security threat.
My Friends, this body - perhaps more than any other gathering in human history - now faces that difficult task. You can make history...or be vilified by it.
To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action.
I am not a scientist, but I don't need to be. Because the world’s scientific community has spoken, and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish.
Now is our moment for action
We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for coal, gas, and oil companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy, they don't deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our eco-systems collapse.
The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100% of the world’s energy needs using EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES, and it would create millions of jobs.
This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation - if, admittedly, a daunting one…
We only get one planet. Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home. Protecting our future on this planet depends on the conscious evolution of our species.
This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages.
Honored delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living.
But you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop. And now it’s YOUR turn, the time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet... is now.
I beg you to face it with courage. And honesty.
Thank you.
