"Japan's Lessons on the Economy and the Environment: Our Pollution Experience"

Last meeting in our Environmental Engineering class, our professor made us watch a documentary entitled "Japan's Lessons on the Economy and the Environment: Our Pollution Experience". It was a 4 part documentary about the history of how japan learned and answers their problem on economy and pollution in the environment.

WWII leaves japan devastated because of the attacks from other countries and the atomic bombing of the United States in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But Japan pick herself up after the war and rise as a developing country. Due to the needs for economic development, japan build many factories in order to produce more products in order for its GNP to kick up high so they will have a big economic growth. But they didn't notice something important because they focus on producing more products which result in more consumption. They didn't notice that they're producing more and more pollution. At first it doesn't affect them because of its long term effect, but after several months several horrific diseases spread through to those people who are near factories, imagine this, factories are just in the back of your house producing pollution, chemical dangerous pollution. While watching the documentary and this diseases part came up, it feels like it became a horror movie because the effects of the disease is really scary. Then the people took action and protest in order for the factories to be closed. But the CEO's and other higher ups in the corporation who owns these factories is denying that the cause of these diseases are the pollution that is coming out from their factories because they said that this kinds of factories are all over the world but in other places people near the factories are not experiencing problems like this. Japanese people became angry because many of them are dying because of these diseases so they didn't stop protesting, and it became a people power act. They sue the corporations and won the case. The Japanese government amends it's constitution regarding the environment acts and laws that is needed to secure the health of the people. 

After this horrific experience, learned their lessons regarding economy, environment and pollution. Today they are assuring that every factories have a filtering system that cleanse the pollution that they are producing before getting it out to the air and environment. Because of the mistakes Japan did, and because of the people who have concern for the environment and the people around them, Japan really did learned its lesson.

Ursula Island

The Ursula Island Game Refuge and Bird Sanctuary is located in southern Palawan, near the municipality of Brooke’s Point. The barangays of Rio Tuba and Buliluyan on the mainland of Palawan are also nearby. Bugsuk Island is about an hour and a half away by boat. The island is about 17.2 hectares in size. The landscape has a lush growth of lowland forest cover consisting mainly of old tress.

This island is declared as a protected site because numerous species of birds that nestle here. There are about 20 species of birds have been recognized on the island, including them are the threatened imperial gray pigeon and the pied imperial pigeon, which is locally known as kamaso, which form the largest part of the insland’s bird population. Other species found here are the white-collared kingfisher, the macklot’s sunbird, the pygmy flowerpecker, the Chinese egret, the scops owl, the Tabon bird also known as Tabon scrubfowl, and several eagles. The island is a winter migration site for both shore birds and sea birds from the north, as well as a haven for various endemic bird species. Other types of wildlife are also found in its forests. The island’s beach is frequently used by sea turtles to lay their eggs. Of the 10 protected areas in the province of Palawan, Ursula Island is one of the least known and less frequently visited.

"The Meatrix"

On our last meeting our professor told us about the changing cultures of hogs and farms. She told us that now a days farming and hogs are very different from the traditional ones that we used to. In order for us to further understand about this changing cultures about hogs and farms, she encourage us to watch the documentary entitled “The Meatrix”. She told us that it’s a discussing about how big corporations implements this economic farming and hogs.

I go online and search for the documentary, luckily I found a full version of it in Youtube.com. It’s an old documentary, well not that old, that is a parody of “The Matrix” movie. The main character is Leo which is a pig that lives in a normal farm. One day he is approached by Moo-pheus, and ask him if he wants to know about the true reality that he is not aware of, then Moo-pheus show Leo two pills and ask him to choose, if he choose the red pill, he will know reality and if he choose the blue pill, he will stay in the farm and will never know about the true reality. Then Leo choose the red pill to know reality. Then Moo-pheus showed him everything that he is not aware of. About the companies that is economically farm and hogs. Moo-pheus showed him how cruel is the situation of the animals, they’re confine in a really small space that they can’t even move or make a turn, the beak of the chickens are cut to avoid cockfight and the cow’s tail is cut. The cow’s newly born baby is separated from the mother, and is being fed processed milk that has the blood of the dead cows. They infect artificial hormones in the cow in able for it to produce more milk. Even though the whole documentary is cartooned, I feel a lot of mercy for those animals, because they cannot enjoy life, they are just there to give us milk and meat. The documentary also show the germs that and viruses that grows within the animals. These germs become stronger because of the everyday intake of antibiotic of the animals and because of these the germs became resistant to antibiotic. It also causes massive pollution, the feces and piss of the animals were thrown out to the rivers and it also pollutes the air, that’s why nearby communities is affected by these factors and destroyed communities.

Overall the documentary is good and enjoying to watch because of its humor and because it is cartoon, but it also opens our eyes to the cruelty to the animals and their grave condition. This documentary greatly affects me because of the reality it shows, just like Leo, my eyes were opened to the reality and cruelty of these companies.

Zero-Waste Christmas Party

      

            In our Environmental Engineering subject, our professor tell us that we will be having a Christmas party. Zero-waste Christmas party. I was confuse first on how are we going to conduct a Christmas party that will not produce any waste?

            If we are going to order in a fast food, that will produce waste because it will include styrofoam which will be the container of the food and plastic spoon, fork and cups. So me and my classmates think of a way where we will not produce any waste. So beforehand we brainstorm and prepare for the Christmas party. We think of games that doesn't need any tools or equipment that will produce waste, we come up to a couple of games including trip to jerusalem, group yourselves and the national game for any party here in the philippines which is "Pinoy Henyo". During the first game trip to jerusalem which need music for the participant to dance before the the music stops and sits on the chair that is available, instead of using stereo or any speaker, we think of a way that we will not produce any waste even electricity waste, so what we did is, we sing the songs, which is really fun and is being enjoyed by everyone. The other games were as fun as the other games and we all did enjoy the competence of everyone. In every Christmas party, the food is always the highlight of the party. as I said earlier its hard to think of what food that will not produce any waste. So one of my classmate suggest that, we will just bring fruits, all of us agree to this because the idea is excellent, basically it will still produce a waste because of its skin and seeds. But if you will think it through, before the fruit became a "fruit" it doesn't undergo process that will produce waste. For example, a plastic cups, factories that produce plastic cups produce so much waste to the environment specially in our atmosphere, but the fruits is just being pick up on a tree and doesn't produce any waste or harmful agents to the environment. Overall I can say that our party is a success because all of us enjoyed and happy including our professor, and we did achieve "Zero-Waste Christams Party"

The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour is one the greatest documentary about nature and environment that I watched. It is packed with knowledge and facts about the current condition of our world. It discuss past and future problems with all its details that awakens me about the current situation of environment and how grave it is. It is an eye opener for all of us, I recommend watching it for better understanding and awareness in the situation of our world.

1. Describe some of the emotions you felt during the film. Which aspects of the video had the greatest impact on you and why?

While watching the video, I feel some emotions like sad and shock. The part in the video that has the greatest impact on me is when they discuss that people think that they are superior to all species and living things in the world.

2. What information contained in the video was new to you?

The part when they presented the urban eco environment, where some of the buildings have an eco-environmental friendly system, and some of it works like trees where they cultivate sunlight and generate it as electricity.

3. What topics presented in the film would you like to explore further? Do you know that you need to know in order to continue learning about environmental issues? If the answer to that question is no, how can you find out what you need to know?

I want to explore further about the urban eco environmental friendly system, because I’m an engineering student and it interest me. No, but with the help of the internet I think it can help me by researching further about this particular topic and the organization here in our country that focus in this kind of matter.

4. Discuss the ways that eating locally produced food is an environmental issue. What can individuals do to support local production and consumption of foods?

Because eating and patronizing locally produced food helps lessen the global warming, why? Because let’s say a banana that is from from china or hongkong, it travels so much longer with the fuel guzzling transportation than bananas that are produced locally. We can help by buying and patronizing locally produced food, that it will not get a high demand in the market and lessen the demand for imported foods.

5. Who should see this film and for what purposes? Who might be unreceptive to the ideas in the film and why?

People in the Government and those who are in power over this matters for them to see that the problem is worse than what they think it is. They themselves are the unreceptive people about this ideas in the film, because they are well aware about this problem and still do nothing.

6. Share one issue or item that you wrote on your index card while you were watching The 11^th Hour.

One issue that I wrote is about improper waste disposal and how it greatly affects us and our environment.

7. As a result of your having seen this film, what, if any, specific actions do you think you will take?

As a student I can’t do something major that will turn around all of this, but by making little steps like spreading the knowledge, advocating what has to be done and the issues at hand, I think that is the action that is realistic to what I can do for now.

Root Cause Analysis

In our last meeting in this subject, our professor asked us to group ourselves into three and discuss our own blogs in the group that we did in the first meeting of this subject. After discussing our blogs, we did an activity called "Root Cause Analysis" where we list down the problems we include on our blogs and track down its root cause. After listing numerous problems, we came up to one problem that caught our attention. We decided that we will pick Scarcity of Oil as our main problem. Then we proceed to track down its main cause.

Discussing our main problem we all agreed that the cause of scarcity of oil is first, increase in the demand, because in our world today, the demand keeps rising and never decreasing, second cause is oil is limited. The cause of the increase in its demand is the continuous consumption, and the cause of its being limited is that oil is a non-renewable resources unlike others. The cause of the continuous consumption is that many industries use oil as its main source of power. Cars is one of the main consumer of oil, imagine how many thousands or millions of cars use oil daily. Factories and Power plants also use oil as their main power. We come up that the cause of the things I mentioned above is that it is a human necessity, we need it in our daily lives and it’s really important for humans to keep moving forward through tomorrow.

So what are the possible solutions in these two main causes? For the Non-renewable our group thinks that we cannot do something if the oil is really non-renewable, so we think that developing alternatives to oil that is renewable and will give us the same power and effect we need. As for the Human Necessity, our group thought that catering to human needs is the only answer to this one.

How can I as a student contribute to sustainability?

What if one day, we come to a point where, all the trees in the world are cut down, there are no birds flying in the sky, fishes vanished from the seas and oceans. What if it comes a day when clean water became rare and oxygen is not free anymore? The environment, and the earth itself is deteriorated and its beauty and life has gone away. What are you going to do? Ask yourself, what things that I've done that destroyed my environment? What are the things that I didn't do to preserve it?

Sustainability is one of the key methods in preserving the life of the environment and also our own life. Sustainability implicates making decisions and taking action that are in the interest of protecting the natural world, with particular focus on preserving the capability of the environment to support human life. We as the main tenant here on earth, should take care of the place we live in, and sustainability is one of the things we should practice. We must make responsible actions that will reduce our negative impact on the environment, it is not only reducing volume of the waste we produce but also developing methods that will sustain life to the environment.

How can you as a student contribute to sustainability? Students now a days rarely care about his/her environment or his/her surroundings, they are often consumed by social networking sites, video games, partying, and laziness. With all these time consuming activities around us, we students often don’t care about the environment because of our own business, but we can’t ignore it for all the time. Students think they are too busy, but got a lot of free time in their hands if they only manage their time wisely.

We can contribute to sustainability by taking time off our hand and joining environmental friendly organization and activities, you may be one but combine the work you done with your group it’s a big amount. You can take role in planning trees, cleaning up certain areas of the society where the waste is obviously harmful to the environment, join protest or movement against big company that is a waste machine in disguise. And lastly, the little things, this one is probably a cliché, and you heard it since you were like 8 or 9 yrs. Old but I think if we do this so called “little things”, this will actually lessen the waste or improper waste we produced. Segregate waste from biodegradable and non-biodegradable, waste management can really be helpful in dispatching our waste from home or even from schools and offices. If you have a candy wrapper, cigarette buds or any waste on you, don’t throw it on the streets or anywhere else, it is not a big trash can, keep it to yourself or put it in your pocket and when you get home or see a trash can, put it there. Plant a tree in your backyard or terrace, trees or plants is now rarely seen in the city so it would be a big help if each one of us got plants on our home. And lastly, advocate or encourage others to care for the environment, every one of us got our own business to do, but caring for the environment is a business for everyone. Let’s not wait for the day that the things we imagine at the start of this blog will come, let’s start now as you come to the end of this blog, and see that trash? Yes pick it up and put it where it should be, that’s should be a great start.