Household air pollution

Around 3 billion people would rely on sources like wood, charcoal, and coal to produce heat. These people suffer from the hazardous pollutants that emerges from these unreliable sources of fuel. Poor indoor air qualities could trigger health problems in the lungs of the exposed. Some symptoms might include: headaches, fatigue, asthma symptoms, dizziness, and allergy. According to WHO, it is estimated that around 4.3 million die each ear from indoor air pollution. Since we spend a lot of time indoors, we should be aware of the pollutants that may be in our surroundings.

posted by: Daniel Kim

http://www.who.int/indoorair/en/
https://www.lung.ca/lung-health/air-quality/indoor-air-quality

Pope Francis' latest encyclical on Environment

There are many fine things about Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si,'" not least because it adds poetry to an issue that is saturated with technocratic and political heaviness. His opening paragraph immediately puts the reader in a different space, reminding us of our interconnectedness with all of life on earth. By quoting St. Francis of Assisi, he describes the earth as our sister, "with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us." Not the normal terminology in a document on climate change. He goes on to evoke an image of our small blue planet, whirling in an infinite blackness as a common home. No matter what color, religion, nationality or gender, we are all in this together. 

The drama of a warming world unfolding before us requires us all to act now and face the future with honesty and determination. The content and its directness is refreshing and combines anger at injustice with hope that we will find a solution.

The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.

"The Roman Catholic Church is global, it is unified and it has one figurehead who is respected as a statesman. There is no other institution in the world like it."

The first thing to understand is why this intervention is important. The Roman Catholic Church is global, it is unified and it has one figurehead who is respected as a statesman. There is no other institution in the world like it, religious or secular. It speaks to its billion members distributed around the globe with a unified voice through a regulated network. Go anywhere and attend a mass and you will be able to follow the ritual, despite language and cultural differences. 

Yet there are distinctive local flavors that anchor the faithful to church that is at once universal and parochial. It is a unique institution, with a leader who has the pulling power of a superstar. Love it or hate it, the Roman Catholic Church is a phenomenon.

There are other important considerations. The Roman Catholic Church shares with other faiths the ability to galvanize people to act from a spiritual well founded on love of God and neighbor rather than political doctrine. When an issue is viewed through spiritual eyes, it is seen differently. 

A new dimension comes into play that touches deep recesses, demanding we bring our humanity into play, not just our intellectual or political affiliation. It seems a cliché to quote Gus Speth, the former dean of forestry and environmental studies at Yale, but no one has really put it better:

I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.

In walks Pope Francis onto the climate change stage.

The messages of the encyclical are stark. Climate change will have "grave implications" for all of humanity, rich and poor, but mainly the poor who are already struggling to cope with the inequalities thrust on them by over consumption and indifference of the richer nations: 

Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.

He blasts those who deny the evidence before their eyes and has no patience with apathy or inertia. When it comes to acting for "the common good," (that deeply Catholic phrase that is at the heart of the church's social teaching), there is no get out clause. Members of the Catholic hierarchy who have denied climate change arecastigated:

The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.

The Sin of Wastefulness

The encyclical doesn't stop at just climate change though. Refreshingly we are reminded of the sin of wastefulness, greed, pollution and, joyfully for me, loss of biodiversity. 

Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.

In some ways the most important thing "Laudato Si'" has done is turn the scientific, opaque and frightening climate change issue into something three dimensional and human. The simplicity of the language appeals directly to the moral center of a loving, complicated, chaotic yet broken humanity. Quite simply it says look around, grieve for the damage, reach out to those who are in need, love the earth and all its wonderful life forms and change for the better. He sees our response to the destabilizing of a warming world as a journey which will challenge us to our core but will ultimately bring about peace and justice. 

Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.

If only such poetry were more commonplace in this very disturbing debate.

By Mary Colwell Author, “John Muir: The Scotsman Who Saves America’s Wild Places.” and Producer, BBC’s “Shared PlanetOriginal article from the "Huffington Post"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-colwell/pope-francis-climate-change-poetry_b_7615558.html

Overfishing

   Overfishing is a reoccurring issue that affects the ecosystem negatively. The seas were considered to be filled with an unlimited supply of food. However, a lot of significant commercial fish species are in danger of being extinct. There must be actions taken to restrict fishing for some species in order to maintain the balance in the ecosystem. For example, if we keep on fishing larger fish like tunas, we will be receiving a larger population of small marine creatures. 

Resources: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing

By: Daniel Kim

Waste affecting marine wildlife

     Plastic waste entering the marine life has been a huge factor to the injuries and deaths of many ocean wildlife. As human daily lives are made more convenient by the use of plastic, more plastic waste has been discovered in coastal towns all over the world. Plastic is usually not visible right on the surface of beaches or rivers, but tons of it are found down underneath where most fish, dolphins, and other sea creatures live. Some plastic materials that are found in oceans are plastic bags, straws, and bottles. Unfortunately, lots of creatures get tangled up in things like plastic bags. They also consume plastic waste that can result in suffocation or a false sense of being full which can lead to starvation. In long term, these plastic pieces can break  down into smaller particles which are eaten by smaller species and is passed down onto the chain cycle. So in a sense, we’re eating our own waste.

     Plastic is not the only material that creates and issue in the oceans. For example, millions of balloons that reach the ocean are consumed by various sea creatures and bring great harm to them. Recently, pieces of a balloon was found in the stomach of a turtle. This is why most environmental organizations are making an effort to prevent mass balloon releases. There are a variety of ways that these wastes reach the ocean but it is mostly there due to human’s lack of concern for marine life. If more people take their time to think about how their actions can greatly affect the lives of animals, there would be less endangered animals.

Posted by Justin,Chung

If you are visiting Korea at this time, you will spot very cute paper made pandas-even 1,600 of them-at various places.

WWF(World Wildlife Fund) has invited 1600+ pandas to Korea. 

This event has been launched as a part of public art project to raise awareness on endangered species, panda.

The papier-mache work was created by the french artist, Paul Grangeon. The pandas have been traveling all over the world.

Now, the pandas will visit various cities all over Korea, then in early August, they will be auctioned in public, raising money for the conserving endangered species, according to WWF-Korea people.

Images: Google images

Reported by Alberta Yoo

Crying Babies Are Latest to Demand China Fix Its Smog Problem

Hunger, a wet diaper, wanting to be held, being tired—spend some time taking care of babies and you’ll know those are just some of the reasons they might be inclined to cry. Well, now you can add another item to the list: not being able to suck fresh oxygen into their lungs thanks to clouds of air pollution pouring from factory smokestacks.

At least, that’s the idea behind “Breathe Again” a clever campaign from Chinese air purification company Xiao Zhu. As you can see in the video above, the effort turns the spotlight on the harmful effects of chemical emissions on defenseless babies and small children by projecting their faces onto rippling plumes of industrial air pollution. The kids’ faces are contorted as if they’re crying out in pain because they’re being suffocated.

So, Why Should You Care? In recent years, China’s epic smog problem has obscured Hong Kong’s stunning skyline and caused officials in Beijing to put up billboards of a fake sunbecause the real one was no longer visible. But smoggy air is more than a visual nuisance. In some Chinese cities, 10 percent of the population suffers from asthma, and according to the Asia Asthma Development Board, China has the world’s highest mortality rate from the disease. On the video’s YouTube page, the project’s creators note that an estimated 500,000 people in China die every year due to air pollution–related diseases such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—and many of them of are children.  

Residents in the Asian nation aren’t the only ones suffering. About 7 million people die every year from the ill effects of airborne particulate matter, according to the World Health Organization. A study released in May from Columbia University found that inhaling air pollution may lower IQ in kids, and researchers at Harvard believe it may be a contributor to autism.

The Xiao Zhu video ends with a simple message: “Clean the air. Let the future breathe again.” Maybe babies struggling to inhale won’t cry anymore if their parents buy an air purifier? Of course, the solution isn’t quite so simple. Kids—and everybody else—will breathe easier when China gets more pollution-spewing cars off of its streets and highways and curbs emissions from power plants, steel mills, and other factories.

To that end, last year the Chinese government yanked millions of cars off the roads and began requiring 15,000 of the country’s largest manufacturers to publicly report air emissions every hour. To prevent companies from faking the data they report, residents can take advantage of a free air-quality measuring app to blow the whistle on egregious polluters in 190 Chinese cities.

The rest of us should certainly hope those efforts are successful. After all, given that 30 percent of San Francisco’s air pollution has blown across the Pacific from China, there might be plenty of babies on U.S. shores crying from inhaling secondhand smog.

Original Article by Liz Dwyer

Reported by Alberta Yoo