Trees are “juvenesced”

Walked in Manjiatan , I still remember the cool and comfortable enjoyment that walked in the shade of big tree beside the road in summer. Like our friends, these trees brought a lot of convenience in people’s life in Manjiatan. In normal days, they lived beside the road like soldiers that help the resident who live near the road to block the noise and dust of traffic. In summer days, they offered people a cool shadow to enjoy their leisure. The leaves on the tree also absorbed the CO2 and produce pure oxygen to enhance the air quality. These trees were not only contributing to people’s life, but also offered birds some suitable habitats to live. Many times when I passed these big trees, there were numbers of birds singing on the branches.

Unfortunately, when I went to Manjiatan this week, to my surprise that all the big trees that located beside the roads were gone! Instead of them, people planted some small slender and weak trees beside the road disharmoniously. The old trees were planted here at least 5 years, why they changed these trees? Where have the old trees gone? I did not think that is a good idea to change these trees and replant these young trees. It is a kind of challenge that these young trees can grow healthily in a new type of soil. Also, these trees still need a long time to grow up; I did not think they have ability to block the noise and dust from the road just as the old trees. These several years the residents live beside the road may suffer the noise and air pollution, birds also lose their suitable habitats to live. I did not think that is a good idea to change the trees.

(Photo by Dorothy)

Sea level is dropping!

When we talk about the sea, what is the first impression in your brain? Is that deep, vast or never vanish?
To be honest, I always insist that the ocean in the world can never disappear and it will last forever. However, when I saw this informational text in magazine, I have to face a serious issue that the sea level is dropping century by century, and it may disappear one day.
“Computer models suggest that sea level them was about 170 meters higher than today. Many areas that are now dry, including northern Europe. If, overall, ocean basins continue to drop as expected, 80million years from now sea levels will have dropped another 120m.”, said by R.Dietmar Muller, a geophysicist in the University of Sydney. ( March 8, 2008 VOL.173 P150)
This serious information leads us to have a reflection, what is the main factor to cause this problem? How to improve this risk? What should we do to control this tension situation? In my opinion, I think one of the reasons to cause this issue is the mass of heat in urban areas. The heat in urban leads the temperature increase and cause the water evaporate quickly. This problem can be solved by limit the air pollution. But this stills a little part of the factor to lead this issue. Try to image that, as time goes by, if we do not care much about this risk and keep this issue developing, there will not have any sea in the world. Without the water in the earth, how can people survive?

(Photos from internet)

The Story of “The North Face”

You may feel a little bit confuse when you see this topic of my portfolio. “What is the relationship between this outdoor product company and geography?” “Why this company chose this strange name as their brand?” Following my text, you will get the answer in the end.
Typing “The North Face” in Wikipedia, it explains the reason why they chose this name briefly. “This name was chosen because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is generally the most difficult face to climb.” Absolutely, as a geographer, I can explain this common phenomenon in geography proudly.
This phenomenon connects to the theory of aspect, one of the main factors that affect the temperature. In the northern hemisphere, the south aspect can receive the sunlight directly, as a result, this aspect can receive most of the sunlight and energy, the growing season is longer and the temperature is more suitable for people to climb. Inversely, the northern face of mountain receives much less sunlight in daytime, it cannot receive the energy directly, and the temperature is colder than the other side. Due to the different temperature, the northern face of mountain is harder to climb.
This outdoor product company just uses this special geographic character as their name and advertises their product as a theme that “Wearing ‘The North Face’, you will feel warm even you are standing at the north face of a mountain in hemisphere!” So, you see, geography is everywhere!!!

Wind turbine and Wind power

My grandma lives in the countryside where is located under the mountain, this winter holiday, when I went to the rural to visit her, to my surprise that numbers of new friends came and located at the top of mountain, yes, these are called wind turbines and bring a new type of energy to our city. It not only changes the old method of electric production, but also save the nature energy such as coal and petroleum. Furthermore, these new friends make a great contribution to the environmental protection and advanced the air quality.

Before wind turbines came, the main source of electricity was burning fuel for continuing operation. Numbers of smoke that include carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and particulates came out of chimney and cause the air pollution. However, after wind power instead of the fuel consuming, it enhance the air quality of our city. This kind of new power solved the issue of air pollution, no more smoke came out of chimney and improve the environment.

Although wind produces only about 1.5% of worldwide electricity use,it is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008. In China, the use of wind power is developing every year with 0.2% increase. As a country that is just start this energy production, in my point of view, China still have enough potential to develop this new type of method.

(photo by Dorothy)

Firework

As one of the most famous festival in China, spring festival is not only means the beginning of a new year, but also represents the tradition and culture of China. The most common celebration way during spring festival is play the fireworks. Thousands of beautiful fireworks cover the sky during the night and offer people much joy. However, under the fireworks’ colorful appearance, the issue of air pollution also causes the obviously damage of atmosphere.
The use of fireworks creates an unusual and distinctive atmosphere event. The firework can produce the harmful particles such as NO2 and SO2. SO2 may cause the forma of acid rain, which can cause metal corrosion of industrial machine and architecture. In addition, NO2 may form a kind of eye irritant, which is harmful for people’s health.
Except the atmosphere pollution, the firework also causes a serious noise pollution. The normal noise that people can adapt is under 60db. However, firework may produce about 1000db noise pollution, which is far more harmful for people's ear.
So, we need to think of some other we to celebare the festival, or we need to limited the time of play firework.

(photo by Dorothy)