Leaf to Live: for a better future and nature

BEDTIME STORY

2011-04-26T20:00:00.000+07:00

hey readers! how's it going? I hope you all a very good day.
I'd like to share and tell a short story. As you might all know already, our blog is about nature, thus I'll tell you a nature themed story. I hope this story will wake you up and you'll realize there's still many souls out there waiting for us to give them a helping hand. I hope, after reading this story you will realize that our earth is in danger.
So here it is, are ye ready?

Field O’ Daisies: The Drought

April 24 2050
"mommmm, would you pleaseee tell me a bed time story? I'd like to hear one, mom... pretty much pleaseeee, with cherries on top?"
"hahaha, all right all right Kira. I'll tell you a good one. Now listen carefully..."

***
Once upon a long time ago there was a pleasant field of daisies. They bothered no one and were bothered by no one. They enjoyed their peaceful life.

They were often visited by their close friends the butterflies. Together they would play, laugh and even cry. The daisies were a little jealous of the butterflies because the butterflies could fly around and see more of the world, while the daisies were stuck in one place. The butterflies would tell great stories of the world beyond the field.

One season something terrible happened. It was during summer, where the days are long and sunny, which the daisies loved. However, there was starting to be an increase in long sunny days, and a decrease in rainy days. The daisies were starting to get thirsty, but werent too worried about it. Little did they know, but a drought was coming.

There was one daisy that everyone called Grandpa Daisy. He had been around for many seasons and it was way past time for him to wither and die. Everyone knew that he had slipped into senility some time ago. He was always mumbling stuff to himself.

One day a pretty, young butterfly named Danya flew in with terrible news.

“Guess what guys!”

The daisies all turned to her, startled.

            “I was just flying through the woods a few breezes ago and I heard something awful!” A breeze is the butterflies way of keeping time.

            The head daisy, Elor, spoke up.

            “What is it?”

            “Well, the trees are saying that a drought is upon us and that other fields to the south have already started dying!” Danya flew around in panicked circles.

            “What? A drought? But droughts are only made up stories that are told around campfires. They never really happen.”

            “But..but.really? The trees are so wise though, theyve lived many more seasons than we have.”

            “True. Are you sure they were serious about the drought and not just starting rumors?”

            “Well, Im pretty sure they were serious. But I guess I could go back and ask them again.”

            “Yeah, that would probably be the best thing to do right now. We dont want a panic to break out among the daisies over something thats not true. Weve been through dry times before.”

            Suddenly, before Danya could fly away, an aged voice came from the back of the group.

            “The trees dont lie. There is a drought coming and there is little that can be done about it. Many a soul will not see the next season.”

            “What? Who said that?” asked Elor.

            “I did,” said a certain daisy, straightening himself up. It was Grandpa Daisy.

            “Grandpa? Ha, you scared me there for a second.” The group started to laugh, helping ease their nerves.

            “Im not joking. You people think Im out of my mind and dont know what Im saying, but Ive survived a drought before and I know that we’re about to face another one.”

            “You? When did you ever experience a drought?”

            “Many seasons before any of you were around,” Grandpa coughed and cleared his throat, “It was very hard, only a few of us survived. Be warned, there is no mercy during a drought.”

            By this time the whole group was scared and making funeral preparations. Danya was flying in circles fast enough to make the daisies dizzy. Say that ten times fast. Elor tried to calm everyone down.

            “Please stay calm, folks! We must think this through!” But no one was listening. Everyone was trying to figure out how to get away from the field and find some water. Elor turned to Danya.

            “Danya, stop flying in circles. Now, go into the woods and see if the trees know of anything we can do to help us prepare for the drought.”

            “Ok!” Danya fluttered off into the woods. Once reaching the woods she started yelling at the trees for help. Meanwhile, back at the ranch..

            The daisies were clustering around Grandpa Daisy, seeking advice. But all he wanted to do was tell stories of his childhood, which didnt help at all. Eventually the daisies got tired of him and he was left to talk to himself, as usual.

            Danya didnt return the rest of the day, and for some reason the sun seemed a little hotter the day a little longer than usual. The night proved to be very restless for the poor field of daisies.

            The next day Danya returned with a few of her friends and little bad news.

            “The trees said theres nothing they can do about the drought. Theyre storing water in their roots and keeping it for themselves. They expect to lose a few trees before this is all over too.”

   "Oh no. So, this is really happening. Were facing the drought. Grandpa daisy was right all along. What should we do?"
***

"mom, please. I want a real bed time story. Not like this. I mean, I dont even know what a daisy is. Is that a fruit?"

"Kira, no. Daisies are not fruits. They're flowers, the beautiful ones. See, when I was at your age, it blooms everywhere around the park. But since the drought, I think most of them extinct"

"so the drought really happened? but but why?"

"because of the global warming, Kira. Quick fact; 37% of droughts are caused by global warming. but, anyways, I will tell you more by tomorrow morning, okay sweet heart? you have to go to sleep now. It's already 9.30 PM now."

"aaaaaw, mommyyy but I want to heaaaaar"

"tomorrow, Kira. I promise. now, off you go to sleep!"

"OK, love you mom"

moral of the story: in this story, the species which apparently is going to be extinct is daisy. of course, this is a fictional story. but imagine, if the climate is not getting better, what kind of other species that is going to be extinct? banana? so, if you still want to eat banana 50 years from now, turn off that light, reuse that plastic bag, and love this one and only one mother earth.
P.S: LOL. that "banana is going to be extinct" was only a joke, all right? ;p

written by Kartika Dwi Baswara
GO BANANAS & SAVE THE WORLD
now, hush hush, go back to sleep...

Plastic Earth

2011-04-21T20:51:00.001+07:00

Tomorrow, April 22^nd, is the international Earth Day. We have so many challenge this decades, we have (the biggest one) global warming issue, we continued our never ending battle with illegal logging, our forest are burned, and we do have problem with garbage. If we don’t start recycle it. Especially because tomorrow is Earth Day (thought this is important to be remembered every day) I want to write a little article about the plastic bag we used, that later will be garbage if we don’t use it wisely.

Every time you go to hypermarket or supermarket, you will see (or you will use) many plastic bag are used by the customers. Not all of them are full, even some of them are not half-full. It’s maybe because the market’s policy to not combine the different category things into one plastic bag. Like fruits are not allowed to be placed in one plastic with tissues. But as my favorite writer, Dee Lestari, once said in her blog “as long as the things are not shaken in cement truck, seriously, what harm can possibly be done with those stuffs?”

Nowadays, the supermarket/hypermarket did the policy to produce and offer a polyethylene bag or plastic-that-can-be-recycled bag to change the normal plastic bag. But, it takes charge. Isn’t it a little confusing that to do something eco-friendly thing, you have to spent more money than doing the opposite, to pollute the earth? Isn’t it should be, you have to pay charge if you want to use normal plastic bag? The only grocery store that I know used this policy was Makro. They used to take charge from the consumer if they want to use the plastic bag. And their plastic is big enough to accommodate your groceries into only one or two plastic. After all, the plastic only used to bring the things to your car and then from your car to your home. But it only used to be because it was now changed to different names, and I don’t think this policy is still legitimate in the new directing.

So, why don’t we, start from now try to reduce the plastic bag we used? Yes, it is hard because some of our people still have the thought that “it doesn’t really effects the nature” but it is! Here are some facts about the plastic bag: (from: somedaysdreamer.wordpress.com)

- Plastic bag are made out of polyethylene which is one product of oil.

- The production process itself pollute the air and waste much energy

- 4 until 5 trillion plastic bag are produced each year

- From 100 billion of it using, only 1% are recycled

- It takes 1000 year for polyethylene to recycled, and it pollute the ground and water in its process

- About 1 million death each year because they consume plastic bag, which they thought as their foods

Now you see the dangerousness? If you have to use it, please, please, reuse it next time. It’s even better if you bring your own shopping bag. You don’t have to be afraid of inconveniences. You always can put the shopping bag later at trolley then push it to your car. Same thing happened in the mall. If you don’t bring your own shopping bags, at least pick the biggest one and use it for all your needs.

I am too still trying to reduce the use of plastic bag in my life. But let’s try our best to save the mother earth, for the sake of our future, shall we?

by Kasandika Ganiarsa

do you know something about anti pollutan plant?

2011-04-19T21:17:00.002+07:00

I think anyone in would agree about this: Jakarta is full of vehicles. And as the result, traffic jam is not a rare thing here. Beside of reducing time effectiveness, the gas from the vehicles also pollutes the air, which make the temperature here, in Jakarta, sometimes is really hot. But do you know? There are some plants who can absorb the pollution and cleaning the air around them. Curious aren’t you? Here they are:

- Sansevieria (Sansevieria trifasciata P)

Sansevieria, often called as Snake Plant or Lidah Mertua (mother’s-in law-tongue) has the ability to absorb about 107 pollutants in traffic jammed road or the room full by smoke gas. There are more the 100 species of Sansevieria in Indonesia which commonly comes from Africa, but there is one species that originally grow here in Pulau Seribu, Sansevieria javanica.

In every leaf blade Sansevieria has pregnane glycoside, substance that able to decompose another toxic substances in the air into glucose, amino acid, and organic substances. The example of toxics is carbon dioxide, benzene, formaldehyde, chloroform, etc.

In the room, this plant can reduce the sick building syndrome, a syndrome because of high carbon dioxide concentration, nicotine from tobacco, and the effect of too long at using the air conditioner. An adult snake plant with 4 or 5 leaf can refresh the air in 20m² room.

- Devil’s Ivy (Epipremnum aureu)

This vine-plant with green-yellow leaf can absorb 53% of total benzene 0.156 ppm/day, 67% of total 18 ppm formaldehyde and 75% of total 113 ppm Carbon Monoxide.

- Samanea Saman

Also call rain tree, or trembesi in Indonesia. This tree comes from south America and grom naturally in tropical climate. The tree can grow up to 25-30 meters high, so it’s a perfect choice to plant them at city parks. This tree also has the ability to absorb 28,5 tons carbon dioxide each year, compare it to the other plants which only absorb 1 ton carbon dioxide in 20 years. But it’s not that simple to plant this tree. Beside that it needs big location, it also absorb much ground water, so it is feared to make groundwater drought. But as long as it is planted wisely, this tree has so benefits to be planted.

This plants are only 3 examples of the plant who absorbs pollution. There are much more plants who can do the same. Among them are the yellow palm (Chrysalindocarpus lutescens) the Paris lily (Cholorophyllum clevelandii), blanceng, or Chinese evergreen (Araceae), Aloe Vera.

Now, imagine if you plant these plants in your garden. Of course the air in your house will be more cleaner and fresh. Clean air makes your mind go clearly and of course it was healthy. So why don’t you try to plant these plants? After all, plants are super effective to fight the global warming. and there are nothing wrong with trying right? :D

Written By, Kasandika Ganiarsa

What do our friends think about global warming

2011-04-12T23:30:00.000+07:00

We did a little survey about our friends thought of global warming which recently become the headline for the year. Why do we choose this topic for the survey? Because it’s really important for us to know how to save our sacred planet which we are certain that it is never going to get older. Obviously, if we don’t do something from now on, how do we expect things to change?

So, here’s for the survey:

20 out of 20 people said that they are concern of global warming. They know and believe that global warming is happening and I not only a myth. This means that our friends are aware of global warming. But, 20 is not enough. Thus we have to work harder to spread the news! 50% of our friends said they are often do some eco-friendly activities in order to save our planet. The examples are: biking, turning off the electricity when not needed, etc. the most effective ways to grab people attention to do something about environment is via discussion or seminar. Because with discussion, we can change our thoughts and opinions. We can expand our knowledge, even we own meet some new friends! That is why, 40% of the correspondents choose discussion. Unfortunately, 30% of our correspondents don’t think that our blog is helpful to spread the global warming issue. Which is actually make us quite sad. However, this will not bring us down. This will increase our spirit to make our blog better

So, that’s the survey about what our friend opinions about global warming. Maybe we will make some survey like this another time. Anyway, what do you think about our blog? Share your comment on the comment box ok? For a better future and nature!

Whose sides are you on?

2011-04-07T11:04:00.001+07:00

Ha! this is my first post errbody ;) and I'd like to give some personal thoughts about just the exact previous post. Yes it is, Lads, it is about EARTH HOUR.
First off, let me give you guys some brief description about how mad I was when I wrote this post. See, I was just surfing the net (like usual, lol) until I found this:

"Climate-change deniers are like the person who goes to the doctor for a diagnosis, and when the doctor tells him, ‘If you don’t stop smoking, there is a 90 percent chance you will die of lung cancer,’ the patient replies: ‘Oh, doctor, you mean you are not 100 percent sure? Then I will keep on smoking.’”

—

Thomas L. Friedman. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America.

It speaks for itself. Oh how true these deniers are, and yet so pathetic. of course of course, this is just a quote, which could be imaginative one. but, for me this seems real. For that I am sure, there's a lot of people out there who just don't care about the existence of our lovely place to live; Earth.
Not to mention, I see a lot of hate against Earth Hour. And I don’t get it.
People are like - What’s the point? Alright, I’ll turn my light off. My friends will turn their lights off. My neighbors will turn their lights off. But what’s the point, if everyone else in my town during this hour has lights, TV, computer, toaster and other electronics on?
The answer is simple - Earth Hour isn’t about saving the energy. Well, it is, kind of. But that’s not the main reason. You obviously can’t save energy by turning your lights off for one hour, once a year. But by doing this, you’ll show your support against Global Warming!
And that what it’s about! It’s about either you want Global Warming to stop or not. It’s about showing your support. It means that you care for your planet. And that what’s important. Remember that.
P.S. If you don’t know what Earth Hour is, and how do you participate - go here
P.S #2 for those who still don't believe global warming is happening... gosh, go check whether you brain is still inside your head or not. which I doubt if it is still there.

Before you leave, (in accordance with the title above) ask yourself this question first; Whose side are you on?

written peacefully by Kartika Dwi Baswara
no hard feelings, yeah

Earth Hour 2011

2011-03-26T12:18:00.000+07:00

Don't forget! This March 26th is Earth Hour Day. Turn off your lamp from 8.30 pm until 9.30 pm

Slip a Banana Peel in Your Drink For Purity

2011-03-24T20:37:00.000+07:00

Banana peels may be than more just trash. They could help in the struggle against contaminated water.

Banana peels can bind to trace amounts of copper and lead.
The peels could be a cheap new way to more easily detect heavy metal contamination in drinking water.
Don't try this at home! If banana peels do end up in real-world applications, they will probably show up in industrial settings.

Brazilian researchers have found an unexpected helper in the struggle against contaminated drinking water: Bananas.
In a new study, minced banana peels were able to bind and accumulate trace amounts of lead and copper in river water, making the toxic metals 20 times easier to detect with crude equipment. The findings offer a new source of hope to people in developing countries, where water quality can be poor and the latest water-screening technologies hard to come by.
No one should rush out and put mushed bananas into dirty water to make it potable, the researchers say. Instead, the technique might some day find its way into industrial settings as a cheap and non-toxic helper in the effort to ensure clean drinking supplies.
"The surprise came when I found its extraction capacity, which is higher than other similar materials constructed under chemical reactions, such as modified silica, alumina and cellulose," said Gustavo Castro, an analytical chemist at the Biosciences Institute at Botucatu, Brazil.
"All these materials are produced in the laboratory with the same objective -- to remove metals from water," he said. "However, they present high costs, and in their preparation, some toxic residues are produced."
Heavy metals like copper and lead are common contaminants in industrial and agricultural run-off. Even at extremely low concentrations in drinking water, the metals can be toxic to human health, with effects ranging from nausea to liver and brain damage. But they can be hard to detect at such low doses.
In the search for greener ways to both find and remove metals from water, research groups have been working with sugar cane, coconut fibers, apple peels and more. Castro and colleagues were the first to test banana peels, which contain proteins that are known binders of metal.
The researchers started with flasks of water that contained pre-determined levels of positively charged copper and lead ions. They added dried and ground banana peels. Then, they stirred. After a few minutes, Castro said, there was less metal in the water than there was at the beginning of the experiment. That showed that the peels had bound the metals.
The technique worked even at high levels of pH, which would be useful in waste flows from industrial sources. And the banana peels retained their metal-binding powers for more than 10 cycles of testing.
Banana peels can't actually be used to remove metals from water or to clean up contamination, said Ashok Gadgil, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. Instead, their value lies in their ability to gather together trace amounts of copper and lead and make the metals easier to detect.
The maximum allowable level of lead in drinking water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is just 15 parts per billion. Levels so low can easily escape many kinds of equipment. In the new study, banana peels increased the concentration of both metals by a factor of 20, making them far easier to sense, even with basic tools.
"Anybody who has a relatively insensitive instrument will be happy to find a 20-fold improvement in the concentration of something they want to look for," Gadgil said. "This is something that is interesting for people who have limited access to highly sophisticated instrumentation. They could use this as a pre-concentrator so that they could then detect minute quantities of metal, even with equipment that has high detection limits."
Before applying banana peels to the task of water monitoring in the real world, however, Gadgil urged more tests on a wider range of banana types at various levels of ripeness.
"I would want to know if a banana in Bangladesh works the same way as a banana in Brazil," he said. "Chemistry is tricky. I would want to be damn confident of a method of analysis before jumping on an action plan."
Source : Discovery Channel

World Water Day 2011

2011-03-22T12:19:00.001+07:00

Today, March 22nd , is the world water day. the 2011 theme is WATER FOR CITIES: RESPONDING TO THE URBAN CHALLENGE

you can find more fact and info about world water day in:

http://www.worldwaterday.org/

and

http://www.worldwaterday2011.org/ or click the button on the right side

Happy World Water Day guys!

Depends on What You Throw

2011-03-20T20:59:00.000+07:00

One day, my uncle throwing garbage onto the sidewalks. Of course I didn't let him doing that, but then he said,

"If there's no garbages on the sidewalks, then lots of people will lose their job"

(the street cleaner or cleaning service -red)"

Well not to be a hypocrite, I agreed with that because that's actually true. But, that is not right! Even though there are lots of unemployment here in Indonesia, but it can't be an excuse for people to do wrong, right? If we start to dispose garbage to the trashcan, then there will be nothing to be cleaned up on the sidewalks and lots of people could find better job than be a cleaning service. Moreover, it's not that hard to throw garbage into the trashcan. Even if there's no trashcan near the place you stand, you could put your garbages in your pocket and just keep them until you find a trashcan. It's really effortless, right?
Now, let's talk about what trash you dispose. Mostly there are two kind of trash cans. One for organic trash, and the other one for unorganic trash. But for me, and maybe for some others, it's quite hard to distinguish the organics and the others. So that, here's the example for the organic and the unorganic trashes,

Organic Trash : Recyclable trash, such as leafs, residual foods, papers, etc.

Unorganic Trash : undegradable trash, such as plastics, cans, residual mines, etc.

Then, why we should distinguish garbages? It's to ease people for recycling the garbages. Because, you don't want your grandchildren living in the earth full of garbages, right? And that's supporting the 3R campaign namely Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
We've have discussed about Recycle, now live the rest, Reduce and Reuse. If we could recycle the organic trashes then we have to reduce the unorganic ones which we couldn't recycle. it's that simple, but the next question appeared is "how?". How to reduce the unorganic trashes? The answer is, reuse what you got. Let's start to the simplest thing like, start using your tumbler to bring mineral water than buy the mineral water in plastic bottle. Or you could bring your own canvass bag when you go for shopping than recieve plastic bags from the store.
Plastics, or the unorganic trashes, will not just fulfill our earth but it could pollute the air by the metane gas it produced. And yes, metane gas is dangerous for our body. Those are lots of causes, why we should stop producing plastic and start reusing what we already got. So, what are you waiting for? Let's start from NOW!
Then, besides we have to stop throwing the undegradable trashes, we also have to stop throwing away the useful energy. Inconceivable if the world is already running out of energy. So that, we have to reduce the energy we use. It becomes the most crucial, but also the easiest way to go green. Why is it become the easiest? Because even by using shower to bath is reducing energy. Or turning off the lights when you sleep is also reducing energy. So let's turn off the electricity while we're not using it, as our act to save our planet.

Written by,

Wimala Puspa Enggaringtyas

this century nature issue: global warming

2011-03-18T22:40:00.000+07:00

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface temperature increased by 0.74 ± 0.18 °CF) during the 20th century. Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century has been caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which result from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation.Global dimming, a phenomenon of increasing atmospheric concentrations of man-made aerosols, which affect cloud properties and block sunlight from reaching the surface, has partially countered the effects of warming induced by greenhouse gases. (1.33 ± 0.32 °

Climate model projections summarized in the latest IPCC report indicate that the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the 21st century. The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions. An increase in global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropicaldeserts.Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic and would be associated with continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely effects include more frequent and intense extreme weatherspecies extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields. Warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe, though the nature of these regional variations is uncertain. As a result of contemporary increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, the oceans have become more acidic, a result that is predicted to continueevents,

The scientific consensus is that anthropogenic global warming is occurring.Nevertheless, skepticism amongst the wider public remains. The Kyoto Protocol is aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration to prevent a "dangerous anthropogenic interference".As of November 2009, 187 states had signed and ratified the protocol.

Proposed responses to climate change include mitigation to reduce emissions, adaptation to the effects of global warming, and geoengineering to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or block incoming sunlight.

source: wikipedia

image source: google