Thursday, May 15, 2008
Why was the movie called " an inconvenient truth "
I think it was given this name because it is the scaring truth that nobody would like to hear about or believe.It is also an attractive name that will catch people's attentions and make them want to know about this truth.
What can be done AbuDhabi to make people more aware of global warming??
Many things can be done to reduce causes of global warming in AbuDhabi.The most important role can be taken by the government and educational organisations to teach everybody about the dangers of overuse of power. Also media is a fast way of motivating people to work on against global warming.
Inconvenient truth
The movie “An Inconvenient Truth”:
An inconvenient truth is an American Academy Award-winning documentary film about global warming, directed by Davis Guggenheim, and presented by Al Gore (ran against G. Bush in the 2000 elections). It focuses on Al Gore when he traveled to educate the people about the problems of global warming. It follows the presentation that Al Gore used around the world, and the data he used and the effect of it on climate change. It talked about his life story as well as showing as Al Gore “as never seen before in the media funny, engaged, and open.” The film tries to show us how dangerous this “planetary emergency” is, and how we should act quickly.
What is Global Warming?
The film also explains what global warming is, it is when the heat from the sun is stuck in the earth’s atmosphere because of pollution. Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the planet by trapping this heat in the atmosphere. These “greenhouse” gases increase and come from burning fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and cutting down forests and trees. This is good in only one way because it allows us to be able to live in this planet. But, if we keep on burning these fossil fuels the Carbon dioxide will increase in the atmosphere and make temperatures increase also, that is why it is called ‘global warming’. The film also shows us that now there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than 650,000 years ago.
What are the effects of Global warming?
Gore starts talking about the greenhouse effect, and its problems. The problem is because greenhouse gases let solar radiation come into the earth’s atmosphere but don’t let the infrared radiation leave the atmosphere into space. Gore explains how people that believe that this will not affect us because the Earth is too big are wrong. He explains this by showing photos of the thin Earth’s atmosphere, and how this thin layer is becoming thicker because of a lot of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Gore also explains how this affects glaciers, he shows us before and after pictures of glaciers and how they have melted over time. He also show pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, where 11,000 year old glaciers are melting and almost gone. He explains in fake pictures of what could happen to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China if Greenland and Antarctic “ice-caps” would melt. This would cause the sea level to increase almost 20 feet.
Gore also explained that global warming and climate change could cause dryness to increase “drought” and less water supplies. He explained this by the “heat wave” that affected Europe in summer 2004. Another effect is that it would cause hurricanes to get stronger, like Katerina became stronger when it passed on the Gulf of Mexico that was hotter because of global warming. Graphs also showed that this would affect insurance companies, because of natural disasters. Global warming also caused natural disaster to increase in 2004 like 10 typhoons happened in Japan, more tornadoes in the U.S., and the firs hurricane in Brazil. Climate change also leads to closing of the “Gulf Stream” current, more insect problems, more diseases, losing “coral reefs”, losing ice in the “polar ice-cap”, and even more scientific problems.
An inconvenient truth is an American Academy Award-winning documentary film about global warming, directed by Davis Guggenheim, and presented by Al Gore (ran against G. Bush in the 2000 elections). It focuses on Al Gore when he traveled to educate the people about the problems of global warming. It follows the presentation that Al Gore used around the world, and the data he used and the effect of it on climate change. It talked about his life story as well as showing as Al Gore “as never seen before in the media funny, engaged, and open.” The film tries to show us how dangerous this “planetary emergency” is, and how we should act quickly.
What is Global Warming?
The film also explains what global warming is, it is when the heat from the sun is stuck in the earth’s atmosphere because of pollution. Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the planet by trapping this heat in the atmosphere. These “greenhouse” gases increase and come from burning fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and cutting down forests and trees. This is good in only one way because it allows us to be able to live in this planet. But, if we keep on burning these fossil fuels the Carbon dioxide will increase in the atmosphere and make temperatures increase also, that is why it is called ‘global warming’. The film also shows us that now there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than 650,000 years ago.
What are the effects of Global warming?
Gore starts talking about the greenhouse effect, and its problems. The problem is because greenhouse gases let solar radiation come into the earth’s atmosphere but don’t let the infrared radiation leave the atmosphere into space. Gore explains how people that believe that this will not affect us because the Earth is too big are wrong. He explains this by showing photos of the thin Earth’s atmosphere, and how this thin layer is becoming thicker because of a lot of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Gore also explains how this affects glaciers, he shows us before and after pictures of glaciers and how they have melted over time. He also show pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, where 11,000 year old glaciers are melting and almost gone. He explains in fake pictures of what could happen to Manhattan, Florida, India, and China if Greenland and Antarctic “ice-caps” would melt. This would cause the sea level to increase almost 20 feet.
Gore also explained that global warming and climate change could cause dryness to increase “drought” and less water supplies. He explained this by the “heat wave” that affected Europe in summer 2004. Another effect is that it would cause hurricanes to get stronger, like Katerina became stronger when it passed on the Gulf of Mexico that was hotter because of global warming. Graphs also showed that this would affect insurance companies, because of natural disasters. Global warming also caused natural disaster to increase in 2004 like 10 typhoons happened in Japan, more tornadoes in the U.S., and the firs hurricane in Brazil. Climate change also leads to closing of the “Gulf Stream” current, more insect problems, more diseases, losing “coral reefs”, losing ice in the “polar ice-cap”, and even more scientific problems.
My reaction to the movie " an inconvenient truth "
This movie is useful and easy to understand, therefore it should be seen by everyone. Unfortunately it made me feel bad about many things i've been doing throughout my life, which i found out are main causes to global warming. Now i am working on reducing my CO2 emmisions which cause the global warming and find alternatives which are friendly to the enviroment.
My Profile
My Life as a child:
My name is Faisal Al- Mahri, and I come from the United Arab Emirates. I was born on the 20th of January, 1984. My family consists of 6 people, my father and mother, myself and three other siblings. Two of whom are girls and the other a boy. Although I am the 3rd child, there is a very small age gap (of only 1 year) between my brother and I. This has contributed to the strong relationship between us.
My mother and father were very caring and supportive parents. That is why I believe I had a great childhood full of beautiful memories. I started going to primary school at the age of 4, where I started to mix with more children and made more friends some of whom I keep in contact with to this day. My teenage years:As a teenager I was naughty. When I think about it now it makes me laugh, as I see how much I have matured. I went to Choueifat, an international school. My friends and peers were all from very different background and nationalities. This made me aware of differences in cultures, religions, and backgrounds at a very young age. Unfortunately, my classmates were also somewhat naughty, we used to skip important classes. This sometimes caused us to fall behind in school.
My trips abroad:
Due to my father’s job as a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I have traveled and lived in many places overseas. In 9th grade I moved to Turkey with my father and lived there for three years. I was able to interact and learn many things about Turkish culture and traditions. It helped me improve my communication skills with foreign people, as well as learning the language and making more friends. During my stay there I traveled to other Arab and European countries. I then lived in Spain for three year, and also benefited a lot from being there. One country I enjoyed traveling to most was Lebanon. I went there with my mother and younger sister. The people in Lebanon were very friendly and welcoming. We had a nice programme of leisure activities. We went skiing, as well as riding snow buggies (skidoos). I enjoyed skiing very much because it is one of my favourite sports along with camping in the desert. My interests:I have many hobbies and interests. One of my favourite pastimes is going to the beach with my friends. It makes me very happy because I really love being around my friends whenever I am free. I see it as a way for me to relax whenever I feel stressed out about college assignments and exams. When we have long weekends I usually like leaving Abu-Dhabi to go camping in the desert with my friends or my family. We either go hunting or we ride buggies on the sand dunes. I really love to be around nature and beautiful landscapes, whether mountains or deserts.
Something which has influenced me:
(a/an experience...)When I lived in Spain with my father during my final year of high school I was still a very irresponsible and ignorant person. I always used to speed in my car, even if I wasn't in a hurry. While I was out late with five of my friends, I was speeding and happened into crash into another smaller car. My car flipped over three times and landed back on its wheels. So it was a miracle that neither I or my friends lost their lives. Since that day I have thanked god for the gift of life and believe that we should do something with it.
I now realize how precious life is and how careful I should be. This experience has made me attend and join many conferences and talks in order to warn young males against the dangers of speeding. The future:In the future I want to travel to many more countries to learn about all of the world’s different cultures. I would also like to become an engineer who can start a change by connecting the Arab countries together in an easier way, such as by way of a railway system, in order for people to move around,. I would also like to change the way foreigners sometimes perceive us as backward people.
My name is Faisal Al- Mahri, and I come from the United Arab Emirates. I was born on the 20th of January, 1984. My family consists of 6 people, my father and mother, myself and three other siblings. Two of whom are girls and the other a boy. Although I am the 3rd child, there is a very small age gap (of only 1 year) between my brother and I. This has contributed to the strong relationship between us.
My mother and father were very caring and supportive parents. That is why I believe I had a great childhood full of beautiful memories. I started going to primary school at the age of 4, where I started to mix with more children and made more friends some of whom I keep in contact with to this day. My teenage years:As a teenager I was naughty. When I think about it now it makes me laugh, as I see how much I have matured. I went to Choueifat, an international school. My friends and peers were all from very different background and nationalities. This made me aware of differences in cultures, religions, and backgrounds at a very young age. Unfortunately, my classmates were also somewhat naughty, we used to skip important classes. This sometimes caused us to fall behind in school.
My trips abroad:
Due to my father’s job as a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I have traveled and lived in many places overseas. In 9th grade I moved to Turkey with my father and lived there for three years. I was able to interact and learn many things about Turkish culture and traditions. It helped me improve my communication skills with foreign people, as well as learning the language and making more friends. During my stay there I traveled to other Arab and European countries. I then lived in Spain for three year, and also benefited a lot from being there. One country I enjoyed traveling to most was Lebanon. I went there with my mother and younger sister. The people in Lebanon were very friendly and welcoming. We had a nice programme of leisure activities. We went skiing, as well as riding snow buggies (skidoos). I enjoyed skiing very much because it is one of my favourite sports along with camping in the desert. My interests:I have many hobbies and interests. One of my favourite pastimes is going to the beach with my friends. It makes me very happy because I really love being around my friends whenever I am free. I see it as a way for me to relax whenever I feel stressed out about college assignments and exams. When we have long weekends I usually like leaving Abu-Dhabi to go camping in the desert with my friends or my family. We either go hunting or we ride buggies on the sand dunes. I really love to be around nature and beautiful landscapes, whether mountains or deserts.
Something which has influenced me:
(a/an experience...)When I lived in Spain with my father during my final year of high school I was still a very irresponsible and ignorant person. I always used to speed in my car, even if I wasn't in a hurry. While I was out late with five of my friends, I was speeding and happened into crash into another smaller car. My car flipped over three times and landed back on its wheels. So it was a miracle that neither I or my friends lost their lives. Since that day I have thanked god for the gift of life and believe that we should do something with it.
I now realize how precious life is and how careful I should be. This experience has made me attend and join many conferences and talks in order to warn young males against the dangers of speeding. The future:In the future I want to travel to many more countries to learn about all of the world’s different cultures. I would also like to become an engineer who can start a change by connecting the Arab countries together in an easier way, such as by way of a railway system, in order for people to move around,. I would also like to change the way foreigners sometimes perceive us as backward people.
Carbon footprints
What is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint is one way to measure the amount of greenhouse gases our activities cause. These greenhouse gases impact the climate and are usually measured in pounds of carbon dioxide (CO²) emissions. Two major components that mostly cause this footprint are transportation and electricity, because they use most energy. We get energy from burning fossil fuels (like coal, oil, propane, natural gas), which emit greenhouse gases that cause the planet to get warmer.
Daily activities impact our carbon footprint:
Even our daily simple activities require energy. The food we eat, like meat and wheat needs nitrogen fertilizers and cause methane (N²O, CH4 green house gas) to plant and produce them. The use of equipment, transportation of food, processing and packaging of frozen foods (use of plastic) all produce CO². Clothing we wear requires energy to make it, and for transportation and electricity. We must understand that higher income countries have a higher carbon footprint, while poorer lower income states cause less CO² emissions because they can’t afford expensive fossil fuels.
How can se reduce this carbon footprint?
We need to be aware of how our daily choices impact this carbon footprint, and try to reduce this large footprint we leave behind. There are many ways in which we can try to emit less CO²: reducing energy use (finding ways to reduce and save energy like turning off lights, eating organic food), reuse (reuse books instead of buying new ones), recycle (recycle paper, plastic, cans instead of buying new ones that will require more energy to make), and try to walk and plant more trees instead of having concrete in college.
What do we gain from this?
Reducing the carbon footprint has many advantages like improving our quality of life, and stabilizing climate change for us and for future generations. We need to make clever choices that use less energy in order for us to help in creating a better environment.
A carbon footprint is one way to measure the amount of greenhouse gases our activities cause. These greenhouse gases impact the climate and are usually measured in pounds of carbon dioxide (CO²) emissions. Two major components that mostly cause this footprint are transportation and electricity, because they use most energy. We get energy from burning fossil fuels (like coal, oil, propane, natural gas), which emit greenhouse gases that cause the planet to get warmer.
Daily activities impact our carbon footprint:
Even our daily simple activities require energy. The food we eat, like meat and wheat needs nitrogen fertilizers and cause methane (N²O, CH4 green house gas) to plant and produce them. The use of equipment, transportation of food, processing and packaging of frozen foods (use of plastic) all produce CO². Clothing we wear requires energy to make it, and for transportation and electricity. We must understand that higher income countries have a higher carbon footprint, while poorer lower income states cause less CO² emissions because they can’t afford expensive fossil fuels.
How can se reduce this carbon footprint?
We need to be aware of how our daily choices impact this carbon footprint, and try to reduce this large footprint we leave behind. There are many ways in which we can try to emit less CO²: reducing energy use (finding ways to reduce and save energy like turning off lights, eating organic food), reuse (reuse books instead of buying new ones), recycle (recycle paper, plastic, cans instead of buying new ones that will require more energy to make), and try to walk and plant more trees instead of having concrete in college.
What do we gain from this?
Reducing the carbon footprint has many advantages like improving our quality of life, and stabilizing climate change for us and for future generations. We need to make clever choices that use less energy in order for us to help in creating a better environment.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
An eye on Lebanon
Introduction:
Lebanon is a country situated in the heart of the Middle East; it is a very young nation with 60% of the population under 25 years old. Its capital city Beirut is very cosmopolitan, it was even nicknamed “the Paris of the East”. Lebanon is surrounded by many countries like Syria, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Turkey and Cyprus.
Lebanon was colonized by the French but gained its independence in 1943. It is a very small country, about the size of Yorkshire. The people of Lebanon come from many different backgrounds, and religious groups. The majority are Muslims, Christians, and Druze; it is the only country in the Middle East with almost equal amounts of both religions. Although there are about 17 different sub-groups with various beliefs. It is famous for its cedar trees that even in ancient times the Pharaohs of Egypt used this timber to build their palaces and pyramids.
Modern History:
Lebanon has been plagued by civil war, especially its capital Beirut that has been destroyed and rebuilt seven times in its history.
Beirut during the civil war
Tension first started in 1943 after independence when the Christians held the balance of power and Lebanese Muslims barely managed their own country, causing conflict between these two religious groups for years on. Although tensions reached their peak in 1975 when Phalange (Christian radical group) attacked a bus full of Palestinians (that were expelled in 1948 in the Arab-Israeli war and came to Lebanon as refuges.) and killed them all. This caused the Moronite- Christian government to allow Syria to send 20,000 troops to root out the radical Muslim groups; that caused even more tension in Lebanon. In 1982 the Israeli army invaded Beirut, and fighting and violence carried on between Muslims and Christians until a peace agreement was set between Lebanese leaders in 1989. From then there still was continued fighting but most militias disappeared, and there was more peace in Beirut. The social and economic costs of this civil war were great, to the extent that the economy was really bad. This got better by re-building the country again.
Lebanon now:
Today many of the young people of Lebanon are living in a constantly changing city having new hopes, and meeting new challenges. One challenge they got over was that they were able in March 2005 to take out all remaining Syrian troops in Lebanon. Till today the city is being reconstructed and many buildings are still being restored.
The reconstructed Down Town Beirut
The people are trying to revive its reputation and making it a tourist destination, by massive re-building programs like that of the Solidere Company.
Reference:
"Eye on Lebanon." 11 Mar. 2008
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