Nature depletion

Today is my Mum's birthday! She told me not to spend money on her birthday present or whatsoever days before today.. I asked her what could I do to make her day special.. Well, she just told me to be a good girl.

A good girl.

What a short and simple request I can fulfil her. On the contrary, it is actually the hardest thing to do. How good can I be? Well, I have doubts in my mind..

Have been reading recent news the whole afternoon, and I realise that one third to half of the news aren't good news. Instead, most of them are bad. I think news in the past were more positive but now they are so bad that if you're always keeping track of what's going on around the world, it really seems like the world is going to end soon.. Anyway, it is still better to know what's going on than being shrouded in oblivion.

So much for improving our lives. That's human. But it seems like we are exterminating ourselves in a long-term effect.

Got this from Nationalgeographic news website.

[ June 11, 2008—Satellite images from 1972 (left) and 2007 (right) show water-level decline in Lake Chad, once the world's sixth largest. At the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, the lake is now one-tenth its former size, due to declining rainfall and diversion of water for human use. The images are part of Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, a new UN book unveiled today to illustrate how climate change is affecting the continent. "It is an indication of how serious the situation has become," said Achim Steiner, the agency's executive director, at a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. ]

[Africa's most populous urban area, Cairo, Egypt, is shown in 1972 (left) and 2005 (right). An exploding population has driven the city's expansion, encroaching on much of the precious arable land surrounding the Nile River, according to a UN atlas released June 11, 2008. A survey published this week by the conservation organization WWF put Egypt, Libya, and Algeria at the head of a list of African nations already living beyond their ecological means. ]

[1978 (left) and 2004 satellite images show the roughly 500-square-kilometer (190-square-mile) reservoir formed by the Manantali Dam in Mali. Below the dam, loss of the annual flood cycles have reduced agriculture substantially, according to a UN atlas released on June 11, 2008. ]

[ The depletion of Guinea's resource-rich coastal zone is illustrated in satellite images from 1975 (left) and 2007. The population of the Kaloum Peninsula (lower left in both images) tripled between 1963 and 1996, according to a UN atlas released June 11, 2008. Guinea's coastal zone is home to one-fourth of West Africa's mangroves. But spreading cities are destroying the trees, which help keep shorelines stable and serve as nurseries for fish. ]

[ Mali's Lake Faguibine (top in both images) virtually disappeared between 1974 (left) and 2006. The lake's water levels have varied widely over the last hundred years. But an extended dry period in the 1980s caused the lake to disappear completely in the 1990s, according to a UN atlas released June 11, 2008. The lake has not been able to recover, despite normal rainfall in recent years, according to the atlas.]

[ Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro has seen dramatic glacial retreat between 1976 (left) and 2006. The mountaintop glacial area has decreased 80 percent since the early 20th century, says a UN atlas released on June 11, 2008. Although glaciers are melting around the world as temperatures rise, Kilimanjaro's ice is likely melting because of decreasing precipitation, the report says. The melting ice, however, provides little relief to lower areas, because it evaporates too quickly, the atlas adds. The drier conditions are leading to increased burning. "The upper limit of the forest zone has descended significantly, as nearly 15 per cent of Kilimanjaro's forest cover has been destroyed by fire since 1976," the atlas says. ]

[In 1973, Namibia's Walvis Bay salt evaporation ponds were still relatively small (pictured on the left as red and blue rectangles in the centre of the lagoon), says a UN atlas released on June 11, 2008. The pondswhich produce more than 400 thousand metric tons of high-quality salt each yearhave grown to cover nearly the entire lagoon (as the 2005 satellite image on the right shows). The bay's tidal channels, mudflats, and sandbanks support roughly 150,000 birds, including the African black oystercatcher, lesser and greater flamingo, chestnut-banded plover, and blacknecked grebe, according to the atlas. ]

[June 6, 2008—Satellite images show Papua New Guinea's Gulf Province rain forest intact in 1988 (left) and laid bare by logging in 2002. The images were released this week as part of a new study.
At the current rate of destruction, 53 percent of the country's rain forest—said to be the world's third largest—will disappear by 2021, according to the study of three decades of satellite imagery. Between 1972 and 2002 alone, 19.8 million acres (8 million hectares) were lost.

Along with trees, unique animals and plants are expected to vanish. And because trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the deforestation could encourage global warming.
Twenty-two million tons of carbon will be released from Papua New Guinea's forests this year as a result of logging-industry action—approximately the equivalent of the annual output of all carbon from the cars in Australia, the report's authors said.

Lee Tan of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said, "We can very confidently predict that if more of the forests are cut, there will be erosion, there will be landslides, lives lost and other calamities"—not to mention the potential loss of species diversity.
"We fear logging and other forms of degradation are wiping out the forests before we even know what is there," Tan said.

Papua New Guinean officials have proposed that the international community pay the country for preserving the forest and that loggers plant three trees for every one they remove. ]

North Pole May Be Ice-Free for First Time This Summer
[Aalok Mehta aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen National Geographic News
June 20, 2008
Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer, report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field........ ]

By MICHAEL ASTOR, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 18, 9:06 PM ET
[RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.

More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.

Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat "and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents."

"Aside from the oil in the Campos basin, the pollution is lowering the animals' immunity, leaving them vulnerable to funguses and bacteria that attack their lungs," Pimenta said, quoting biologists who work with him.
But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro's Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.
"I don't think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we're seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher," Costa said.
Costa said the vast majority of penguins turning up are baby birds that have just left the nest and are unable to out-swim the strong ocean currents they encounter while searching for food. ]

Anyone heard of Mr. Juseleeno who made predictions? Well, I do believe in such predictions and that things can be fated. But I also think that accidents or disasters can be avoided or postponed if we pray hard to god or we make changes now.

Anyway, one of his predictions stated that in 2010, the temperatures in some countries of Africa could be as high as 58 degrees Celsius, and there will be a serious shortage of water. I strongly believe that it will come true by looking at the current situations around the world now...

Everything seems so disastrous. Can we make a change for the better?...