How Good Eating Habits Can Save Our Environment

While browsing the website,i have found the article about saving the environment by good eating habit. Honestly, this issue never pop out in my mind, maybe because it was really too simple to my mind, so that i never realised about the consequences of our eating habits to our environment.But when we look it deeply, yes, we can save our environment by practice good eating habits. Make a good decisions about what we eat has both positive effect on the environment and also our health.Lets check this out!

1. Buying locally grown produce

Saving the environment by watching what you eat? Yes. Many people do not realize what an impact their food choices have on the environment. Something as simple as buying locally grown produce can reduce truck emissions, put more money into the locally economy, and have a positive health impact for those that consume the produce.

2. Purchasing meat that is hormone free

This is another effective way of saving the environment. Cattle and pigs that are injected with hormones pollute the water supply which can lead to health problems. A recent study revealed that children are reaching puberty at a much younger age and it can be directly attributed to the increase in hormones from the food they consume.

3. Buying fruits and vegetables that were grown without the use of pesticides or growth chemicals

It is also a good step towards saving the environment. While it is true that farmers may have a reduction in their crops when they do not use pesticides, the damage these chemicals cause is reason enough to accept this minor reduction. Anyone that is older than 20 years old can remember DDT and the problems this pesticide caused the environment and the people that consumed the foods sprayed with the chemical.

4. Select grocery stores that purchase locally as well as ones that practice power saving techniques

A new trend in stores has been lights that only come on in the frozen isle when a motion detector detects someone walking past. These simple measures can mean a lot to the consumer as well as the area the grocery store is in. Stores that take the initiative to be environmentally conscious develop a strong customer base.

5. Handle your food properly

Storing food correctly in your home will reduce waste and this waste reduction will ease the burden on farmers and suppliers. As the burden is eased, the impact on the environment is also eased.

Saving the environment does not have to be a radical, life changing experience. It can be done simply and without notice, by changing your purchasing and consumption habits. And in this case, changing your bad eating habit to a good eating habit looks like one of the easiest ways to save the environment.These fresher foods will taste better as well as reduce your impact on the world around you. Creating a healthier lifestyle for yourself as well as a sustainable future is a good step towards saving the environment.

Palm Oil Dilemma

Palm oil, one of the world’s leading agricultural commodities, is widely used as a food ingredient and cooking oil. As the world is looking for fossil fuel alternatives, palm oil fits the “green oil” perfectly as biofuel. But how “green” is actually palm oil industry has to the environment? Further reading has lead to discovery on few environemtal studies on the palm oil “green fuel” impact to the environment.

The palm oil industry is forecast to be the world’s most produced and internationally traded edible oil by 2012. Our country Malaysia and neighbour Indonesia account for 83 percent of production and 89 percent of global exports (but ironically, at least once a year we will have cooking oil supply shortage). Oil palm is grown as an industrial plantation crop, often (especially in Indonesia) on newly cleared rainforest or peat-swamp forests rather than on already degraded land or disused agricultural land. Since the 1970s, the area planted with oil palm in Indonesia has grown over 30-fold to almost 12,000 square miles. While in our mother land, the area devoted to oil palm has increased 12-fold to 13,500 square miles. That is 11 percent of the total land area (about 62 percent of the total agricultural land). Companies sometimes profit from selling logs from the rainforest and then burn the area to make way for oil palms (this is when we have our annual haze episodes).

A study had reported that associated with the destruction of enormous tracts of tropical rainforest, are some of the world’s longest lists of threatened wildlife. Of the more than 400 land mammal species of Indonesia, 15 are critically endangered and another 125 threatened. Of Malaysia’s nearly 300 land mammal species, 6 are critically endangered and 41 threatened. The numbers of threatened species climb higher when terrestrial reptiles, amphibians, and birds are included. Among the these animals are the Sumatran tiger, Orangutans (the only great apes that exist outside of Africa), Asian elephant and the Sumatran rhinoceros. The associated road-building, soil erosion, air and water pollution, and chemical contamination also have contributed to the loss of wildlife habitat and the displacement of indigenous peoples.

Looking at these facts, i realised that being a consumer, i had (in a way) contributed to these unfortunate situation. By buying products that uses palm oil (almost all of it), i had generated more market and demand. But do i really have alternatives? Products that is really “eco friendly” can be not so friendly to my wallet instead. So in the end, its back to square one. In the name of rights for development and poverty, major companies ravages our forest and ecosystem for their own profit and growth while we busy thinking ways how to be eco friendly in a cheap way.

Here is a video from Greenpeace for some insights about the palm oil industry impact to the environment. Cheers

Eco-friendly City

Ecological friendly (or ecologically-friendly) refers to activities or products that are not harmful or affecting the environmental quality. This concept also known as ecologically and environmentally friendly. Using the same definition, an eco-friendly city is the city that is designed and built properly for the activities carried out in the city will minimize waste generation and not affecting the quality of the environment.
Now, there are initiatives around the globe to build an eco-friendly city. This includes the construction of a new eco-friendly city and improves the existing situations to be more ecologically friendly.
In designing and building a city that is ecologically friendly, there are several components which should be considered:
Minimal environmental pollution
- Air pollution can be reduced by reducing road congestion and increasing use of high technology in manufacturing factories.
- Water pollution can be prevented by locating waste-generating activities far from water sources.
- Noise pollution can be reduced by taking steps such as planting more trees and provide the sound barrier in the area.
Solid waste management
- Good solid waste management should be implemented, this includes reducing the generation of solid waste and increase recycling of waste materials. Waste disposal sites should be designed and placed in suitable locations for hazardous waste, to prevent the soil and underground water resources contamination.
Efficient transport system
- Traffic congestion is among the highest contributors to pollution in the cities. Therefore, the efficient transport system should be provided in the urban areas in which the priority is given to public transport over private transport.
Sustainable energy use
- Buildings should be designed in a way that electrical energy usage can be reduced. For example, the use of automatic lights, increasing the flow of natural air to reduce the reliance on air-conditioning system and the use of diesel to generate power board from sunlight.
Provision of green spaces
- Preparation of green areas such as landscaping parks and street for screening purposes pollution, improve local climate and as the recreational areas in the city.

Primate- Human Conflicts

Crop raiding by wildlife is neither a new phenomenon nor a rare one. Crop raiding is one of the primates-human conflicts happened in Malaysia. Not only Malaysia, the crop raiding problem happened throughout the world.
In Malaysia, the primate conflict had reached the climax which they had tried several of mechanism to move out the wild macaque to another place. The primates will create lots of disturbance to residents. But in fact, No one are allowed to trap or export the primates unless succeed in getting permission from the Malaysia Department of Wildlife and National Park.

Many might get curious why “they” are so successful in the crop raiding? Why??
a)Intelligence
Primates are being recognized as being highly intelligent animals. Their intelligence helps them to overcome deterrents such as fences, scarecrows. They have ability to quickly learn new behaviors to reach success of their crop raiding activities.
b) Adaptability
Primates can be quickly adapted to new circumstances and environments. In areas under serious ecological change and habitat modifications, many herbivores are unable to adapt and eventually they are disappear. Primates are among the most adaptable of all animals and a few species.
c) Complex social organization
Primates often live in large groups with an extensive of co-operation behavior. This gives them an advantage when crop raiding as they can work together to maximize their gain.
d)Protected by wildlife laws
Traditionally farmers would have set snares and cage traps to capture crop-raiding primates, and would also have hunted in their fields. But now, with wildlife laws and hunting prohibitions protecting many primate species these control methods are no longer available to farmers.

From human perspective, primary conflict start with non human primate arises from agriculture field. In many parts of the tropical world, humans rely on garden plots to satisfy their basic nutritional needs. When their garden raided to other non human primate habitats, which can become an easy and favored food source for the monkey and apes, they will have some trouble. In Asia, both macaque monkeys and leaf monkeys normally raid human gardens. In some areas of central and western Africa chimpanzees and gorilla have using human crops as food sources. Changing with the human social, economic, political and associated with deforestation result in nonhuman primates coming into increasingly regular contact with humans.

But problem having now, there are many primates in the danger zone, headed for extinction, known as critically endangered species!! Of the 394 primate species in the world, 114 are classified as threatened due to habitat destructed, trade in live animals or their body parts, and the sale of their meat for human consumption. In the Unites State and Europe medical research relies heavily on the use of nonhuman primates as test subjects. The research crab-eating macaques, pig-tailed macaques marmosets, squirrel monkeys and tamarins are the common used in researcher at all in the U.S. As a food source, it is not uncommon for nonhuman primates the bush meat, which known as meat of wild animals for sale at markets in Africa. In Asia, and South America, nonhuman primate meat is less likely to be sold in markets, but it is quite likely to be a part of dweller meals.

How do we solve this problem for sustainability live between primates and human? I think we have to carefully evaluate park boundaries to minimized primate human conflict. In order to reduce such conflicts, it is critical that in some regions, detailed studies of primate community’s home ranges, ecology and diet are carried out before establishing boundaries of new reserves of national parks. It will provide essential refuges for the population of primates and assurance for their future and present conservation. And what do u think?

Solar Cooker

New way for cooking food is through this new explored technology. By using 'fuel' from the sunlight and by promoting using the solar cooker, it help to slow of deforestation and desertification by less use of coal or methane as fuel for cooking. Quite interesting when no cost incurred and in Malaysia, we have enough source over the year just by 'harvesting' the sunlight out of your home. New cost-free method that absolutely need to implement in our home!

Belows are some info on type of current solar cooker and some principles on how it working.

Types

The most common types of solar cookers are as below:

1. Box cookers

This box cook at moderate to high temperatures and often accommodate multiple pots. This is the most popular type of solar cooker.

2. Parabolic cookers

Curved concentrator cookers, or "parabolics", cook fast at high temperatures, but require frequent adjustment and supervision for safe cooking. They are very useful for large-scale institutional cooking.

3. Panel cookers

Panel cookers incorporate elements of box and curved concentrator cookers. They are simple and relatively inexpensive to buy or produce. The most popular brand for this panel cooker is "CooKit".

Principles

Basicly, the solar cooker is using this basic principle; sunlight is converted into heat energy that is retained for cooking. It work best when in dark, shallow, thin metal with dark surface, tight-fitting lids to hold in heat and moisture.

Sustainable Fashion

Sustainable fashion, also called eco fashion, is a part of the growing design philosophy and trend of sustainability as well as environmentally friendly. It is also a part of the trend of “ethical fashion”. According to the May 2007 Vogue appears not to be a short-term trend but one could last multiple seasons. Nowadays, fashion designers have adopted the ides of sustainability where they were using more environmentally-friendly materials such as organic cottons and methods in clothing production. They were some designers said that they are trying to incorporate these sustainable practices into modern clothing, rather than producing “dusty, hippy-looking clothes.” However, sustainable fashion is typically more expensive than clothing produced by conventional methods. There are many factors when considering the sustainability of a material in sustainable fashion. The renewability and source of a fiber, the process of how a raw fiber is turned into a textile, the working conditions of the people producing the materials, and the materials total carbon footprint. All of these factors are needed to be considered when practicing the sustainable fashion. In my point of view, although sustainable fashion is expensive but the idea of sustainability practiced can be promoted through out the world due to sustainable fashion and it is worth.

There are several celebrities and designers like Bono and Stella McCartney have recently drawn attention to socially-conscious and environmentally-friendly fashion. Besides that, Portland Fashion Week which has featured sustainable designers and apparel since 2005 has also attracted international press for its efforts to showcase sustainable designs in a 100% eco-friendly and sustainable production. Furthermore, there are also some organizations working to increase opportunities for sustainable designers. The National Association of Sustainable Fashion Designers is one of those organizations. Its purpose is to assist entrepreneurs with growing fashion related businesses that create social change and respect the environment. Well, fashion is now going to idea of sustainable and we shall do our part to promote sustainable as well. Small step of practicing sustainable method in your home can make the change to better environment. ^-^

Organic cotton which from non genetically modified plants and being grown without the use of any synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.

Amazon Rainforest…

A movie named ‘Piranha’ was screened around August… well, I not really interest on this kind ‘meat feeding’ fish… ^^ the things I wanna let u guys know is some facts about piranha hometown – the Amazon forests... I’m sure everyone got heard a pieces of news about this famous rainforest directly or indirectly… Amazon river, Amazon rainforest, new species found in Amazon and so on and so forth… so, I gather some information from the web… lets look at some fun facts about this.. relax before we start our final exam and thesis presentation for those final sem coursemate… XD

1st… Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world… how large is it?? The rainforest spread over eight South American countries, i.e. Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. If Amazon is a country, it will be the ninth largest in the world… they cover 6 million square kilometers of land (for your information, Malaysia is only ranking 65 for land area coverage^^)…

2nd… Nile is the longest river in the world… Amazon River is the second… The length of the Amazon River is more than 4000 miles where it is originated from Andes and end up at Atlantic Ocean. The water discharge rate is around 3.4 million gallons per minutes… the Amazon has more than 1100 tributaries and 17 of them are longer than 1000 miles… 2/3 of the fresh water in the world can be found in the rivers, streams and tributaries associated with Amazon River...(Malaysia longest river – Rajang River is approximate 350 miles)…

3rd… Amazon Rainforest has been described as the ‘Lungs of Earth’ because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20% of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon rainforest… but now, deforestation is getting serious… this cause a lots of scientist , environmentalist, biologist etc started panic… :(

4th… fauna… Guys, how many species of ant can you found in your home?? In Amazon, 43 species of ant can be found in 1 single tree.. amazing is it?? Haha :) More than half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforest. The bird species native to the Amazon rainforest constitute approximately 1/3 of the total bird population on the planet. Some of the animals native to this rainforest include Jaguar (a bit look like leopard, but definitely different^^), spider monkey (this creature has long limbs and tail, live in the upper layer of rainforest and forage of the canopy, from 25 – 30 m.. wow~~ sort like living in high rise condos… haha), Anaconda (another favourite topic for movie >.<), Amazon pink river dolphin (personally, I love this… thinking is it they stay together with piranha… @@) and many others… 2500 species of fish… 1500 species of birds… 1800 species of butterflies… 4 types of big cats… 200 species of mosquitoes…

5th… flora… Estimate more than 40,00 plants species in the Amazon… 50 – 200 different trees species per hectare can be found in Amazon… Those plants have numerous medical uses with many of the possible medical uses are still undiscovered (around 90% of the plants used by native tribes have not been studied by scientist for more possible medical purposes)... Besides, more than 3000 fruits growing in the Amazon; native tribes use more than 1500 of them, but only 200 are grown for outside use…

6th… well.. not only flora and fauna… human also… around 250,000 Amazon natives are believed to be living in the rainforest and they comprise 215 ethic groups speaking 170 different languages… about 50 native Amazon tribes living deep in the rainforest have never had any contact with civilized world (sort like the lost world… haha^^)

Thought of just end the article here… but I think should share this pieces of info also…

As I said just now.. deforestation is getting serious in Amazon rainforest… between 2004 and 2005, the mean annual deforestation rate in the Amazon had increased up to 13,900 miles per year.. If this rate is continues, the forest cover of the Amazon will reduced by almost the half in the next 2 decades around 2020… this means that numerous of flora and fauna species will be invariable driven to extinction…. The rainforest covered around 14% of the surface of the earth at one point of time, now have been reduced to a 6%... within this 6%, the Amazon rainforest holds more than half of the 10 million species in the world… it took millions of years for these rainforest to evolve… but at the rate at which we are destroying them… they will not last for more then a few decades… how sad of this… haizz….

check this for more information…
http://www.ehow.com/about_5431539_funny-amazon-rain-forest.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/amazon-rainforest-facts.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/20_facts_about_the_amazon_rainforest
http://www.rainforest-facts.com/amazon-rainforest-facts.html