Nature Girl

Vote Earth!

Did you participate in Earth Hour? What's that, you say? Shame on you! Earth Hour was an event organised by WWF earlier this year. The basic concept was to turn off all your lights for an hour. Everyone in your timezone who participated would have had their lights turned off at the same time. The next morning, there were photos all over the news, depicting everything from normal suburbs to famous buildings with their lights turned off. Now, WWF have a new campaign. It's called Vote Earth.


Here is the breakdown given on the website, http://www.earthhour.org:
Earth Hour’s Vote Earth campaign gives you the chance to be part of a global mandate for action on climate change. It’s a chance to vote for ‘Earth’ over ‘Global Warming’. Hundreds of millions of people already voted with their light switch during Earth Hour. These votes – plus yours – will help create the mandate world leaders need to deliver the right climate deal at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen this December. The Copenhagen summit presents the world with a black and white choice – either we secure a future for the Earth, or we choose Global Warming, it’s that simple. We believe the people of the world should have a say on the future they want. We believe it’s time to show where you stand. We’re asking people, companies and communities to cast their Vote for Earth in the lead up to the Copenhagen summit.

Go to the website, sign up and show people (via photos, videos etc) how you are Voting Earth!

1) Download the Vote Earth symbol from http://www.earthhour.org

2) Get creative. The Vote Earth symbol is there for you to take and incorporate into whatever positive action you do for the planet. Plant an organic garden, design and wear a Vote Earth Tee shirt, switch to 100% Green Power, cycle to work, write a song – your vote is limited only by your imagination. Don’t forget to tell people what you are doing!

3) Communicate Vote Earth to your family, friends and
neighbours. Provide information about your Vote for Earth to family, friends and neighbours. Display the Vote Earth symbol on your letterbox to show your household Votes Earth.

4) Get online. Use your personal website, blogs, social media friends to tell the world how you are ‘Voting Earth’. Video your Vote Earth activity and put it on YouTube. Take a photo of your Vote Earth project and upload to Flickr. Don’t forget to tag your stuff with #voteearth.

5) Host a Vote Earth street party. Vote Earth brings people together. Select a date, and send out invitation for a Vote Earth themed party. Serve locally produced food and drinks.

6) Ask your boss to Vote Earth. Work places are a great place to spread the word about Vote Earth. Ask your boss if the company can support Vote Earth. Encourage colleagues and their families to take part in Vote Earth and do something positive for the planet. It’s good for business.

7) Promote your Vote. Let your local newspaper editor know how you are Voting Earth. Editors like to know what people are doing in the local community. You may just get your 15 seconds of fame, but more importantly, your story will encourage others to get involved.

Over the next few months, I will upload photos showing what my friends and I are doing to Vote Earth!

Tags: wwf, earth hour, vote earth

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Lyrics And Poetry Related To The Environment

I found a song and a poem that I wanted to share with all Nature Girl readers, as I found both very thought provoking.

Lyrics

This song is called Dawn Patrol, by Megadeth.

Thermal count is rising
In perpetual writhing
The primordial ooze
And the sanity they lose

Awakened in the morning
To more air pollution warnings
Still we sleepwalk off to work
While our nervous systems jerk

Pretending not to notice
How history had forebode us
With the green house in effect
Our environment was wrecked

Now I can only laugh
As I read our epitaph
We end our lives as moles
In the dark of dawn patrol

Poem

There Will Come Soft Rains is a 12-line poem by Sara Teasdale written in 1920. The subject of the poem imagines nature reclaiming the earth after humanity has been wiped out by a war.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Tags: nature poem, nature lyrics

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Rising Water Levels Could Spell Disaster

The Situation

So I came across some interesting information recently and I thought I should share it. Due to global warming, water levels are rising twice as fast as originally anticipated. This puts many homes, jobs and lives at risk.

The Maldives is an island state known for its stunning white beaches and crystal clear waters, but now the idyllic islands are under threat as those waters rise and the possibility of the islands disappearing under the sea become a genuine threat.
The new president of the islands, Mohamed Nasheed, has told “The Guardian” that the State of the small islands that lies on the equator could be lost under the waves if the sea level to rise due to climate change.

The President went on to state that it was not possible to stop the effects of climate change and his nation will now have to seriously consider the purchase of land in another country in case there is no choice but to abandon the tropical paradise.
As a possible replacement home Nasheed sees Sri Lanka and India as viable alternatives, because the climate and culture are similar, but Australia may also be possible because of its vast sparsely populated areas.

The President said he did not want his people to become the latest climate refugees who would spend unknown years living in tents in some other nation.
Following the predictions of the United Nations that the sea level will rise by the year 2100 by nearly 60 centimetres, the President states that this would mean large parts of the 200 inhabited coral islands would be underwater.
Overall, there are approximately 385 000 inhabitants living on 1190 islands. Tourism and fishing are the main sources of income for the residents.

Not Bad Enough?

Okay, so that’s probably not making you sit up and pay attention. So, what if I brought it closer to home? Say, Britain?
The Scilly Isles in Britain is so exposed that a combination of rising sea levels and more frequent and violent storms could make it uninhabitable.
A conference of global scientific experts has predicted a one metre-plus rise in sea levels this century and, according to experts, because the Scillies are perched precariously 28 miles out in the Atlantic they could be the worse affected place in Britain.

The combination of the two factors could spell disaster for the islands which feel the full brunt of Atlantic storms more than any other.
Craig Dryden, Scillies chief planning and development officer, said: "We are the Maldives of the Atlantic Ocean.
"Rising sea levels will certainly hit these islands -which is nothing new, they've been through it before."
The islands are surrounded by submerged ancient trackways and field patterns stretching across a now-submerged landscape that once joined four of the five inhabited islands.
"The archaeological remains on the islands tend to be burial chambers and other ritualistic sites - and what you are looking at are hilltops that once rose above a much bigger landscape," said Mr Dryden.
"Large parts of the Isles of Scilly were drowned by rising sea levels many, many years ago."
"Clearly climate change is a fundamental issue here and what we need to do is commission some research for the Isles of Scilly, and then think about mitigation," said Mr Dryden.
"Two of our key settlements, both Hugh Town and Old Town, are at sea level and obviously we are going to have problems in tackling rising seas. Ultimately, hard engineering solutions might not necessarily be cost-effective and we will have to think of something else."

The rest of the West Country is also facing a bleak scenario.
The threat has been outlined by the Environment Agency whose job is to protect communities from flooding.
"As many as 14,700 properties in Devon and Cornwall are currently known to be at flood risk from the sea," said coastal engineer Neil Watson.
"And the numbers of properties at risk from flooding, inundation and erosion will increase due to the expected impacts of climate change.
"These include sea-level rise and an increased frequency and severity of storms causing storm-surges, which are higher sea levels caused by a combination of low pressure and wind action along with the waves generated by these storms."

The National Trust, the region's largest coastal landowner is also taking the threat seriously.
"The bottom line is that we mustn't bury our heads in the sand," commented Andrew Davey, an expert on coastal matters for the National Trust.
"We are all in this together. It's not about us alone, or the Environment Agency, or Natural England, but about whole communities working together to find the optimum changes we can all live with."

Already some South West communities are calling for urgent action.
Anthony Gibson, chairman of the Bridgwater Challenge Project, said: "The news from Copenhagen reinforces the need to protect Bridgwater and its 11,000 homes from flooding.
"At the moment, this has been put at a 1-in-200-year risk - but the odds on it happening are shortening all time."

Still not scary enough? Alright, what if we put California under water?
Energy Secretary Steve Chu said in a recent interview that global warming may lead to California being abandoned. "I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going either.”

So, the situation looks bleak. The only question that remains is: Why don't we care?

I found all the information on the folowing sites:
http://www.fairhome.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
http://www.usnews.com

Tags: disasters, global warming, rising water levels

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