To bar or to liquid? That is my question.

For as long as I can remember, I always used a bar of soap. Then it would get down to a little tiny piece. I would try to use the rest of it only to fail. The little piece would slip out of my hand or just break in half, running down the drain. What a waste. I thought, if all the little pieces of all my previous bar soaps came together, I’d have one whole bar soap. Probably.

Then a few years ago, the answer to my problems came in the form of liquid body wash! No more dropping my bar of soap. No more wasting what bit of soap I had left. I wouldn’t feel guilty about bar soap leftovers being unusable because now I could use the soap down to the very last drop. The soap god heard my prayers.

I have a problem now though with my new found friend, the plastic bottle of liquid soap. With the bar of soap, I only had to throw away the paper. I could have even burnt the paper if I wanted to then it would have gone into the air. With the liquid soap, there’s this big imposing plastic bottle. Of course, some liquid soap bottles are made from recyclable plastic. However, it doesn’t make me feel less guilty that I have killed enough plastic trees what with all the other plastic containers in the house.

Maybe if I revert back to the bar soap in it’s more environmentally friendly paper box, I could save one little plastic tree in my lifetime.

Horseshoe Crab

This is a horseshoe crab. Doesn't it look kind of scary? A few years back I saw this scary looking crab on some random bands video diary.

Random band guy picked it up and said, " What is this thing!? I don't even wanna f****** know what that is! All I know is those are fangs and teeth!"

The crab scared me. Even looking at it now scares me. It might be the army helmet with spikes looking exoskeleton it has to protect it's fragile insides...


However creepy it might look, it is apparently quite harmless and endanger.

Yesterday while eating my yummy Vietnamese noodles, I was watching the Nature program on KCET entitled, 'Crash: A Tale of Two Species'.

The horseshoe crab have been living on earth since 350 million years ago. It has 10 eyes spread around its body. This includes near its mouth, on its tail, and on top of the shell.

Besides it's odd appearance, it has odd insides too, for example, it's tube-like heart. Going through the heart would be it's blue blood.

The blue blood actually is quite beneficial to humans. Scientists use an extract of the blue blood, lysate, in labs for cancer research and testing for bacterial contamination.


According to the program, a quart of the blue blood costs up to $15,000!!!

I learned that this species is endangered because it is being over fished. Fisherman's use the flesh as bait for conch and eels. The high demand for conch and eels has caused an over harvest of the horseshoe crab. Scientists are trying to create a new bait that tastes like the horseshoe crab, but in a form of gelatin.


Program website:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/crash/anatomy.html

I hate smog.

All I see is gray. Gray buildings and gray streets. Eventually, the world won’t be painted anymore. The blue skies will be filled with ugly tall buildings against a backdrop of smog. At least that’s what I see when I get into Los Angeles.

When I went to the Getty Museum a few years ago, I remember looking out at Los Angeles and being able to see the buildings on the left and the ocean to my right. The view was spectacular. The ocean blue was sparkling and I could see the mountains. It was great until I started focusing on the layer of smog.

Smog almost always ruins my view. Whenever I look as far as I can into the sky, I always see smog. And it depresses me.

One time last semester when I was driving up the 57 freeway to school, I actually saw the snowy mountains in the background. I was truly surprised. I never ever noticed it was there so on that one clear, cold day, everyone was lucky to see it, but probably not a lot of people noticed it. The mountains looked close enough for me to drive to. The snowy mountains were enticing.

Unfortunately, on a warm day like yesterday, the smog completely covers it up. The mountains disappear. It was as if it never existed there before. It is frightening to know that there is a huge possibility that one day the smog will never clear up and unveil those mountains to me from where I live anymore.

No to synthetic turf?

Can you tell the difference between the grass and the turf?

A few weeks ago I saw on the news about a dispute over fake grass. A few residents in Newport Beach thought that it would be wise to save water and money by going green, albeit fake green.

According to the article in the OC Register, half of the water used by an average house in Orange County goes to irrigation. Putting synthetic grass can save up to 20,000 gallons of water annually. That makes me want to put in fake grass right now. Especially since my mom just nagged to me last week about the high cost of heating and water bills in my house.

To me, and to those residents, it seems logical money wise and environmental wise to put in the grass, but board members of the Newport Hills Community Association hate it. They say the grass is ugly so the three residents are being fined up to $1,000 and maybe more later on.

I think that's lame. These people did what they thought was sensible. The residents spent $10,000 to put in synthetic turf to save money and save water. If those three residents each use 20,000 gallons of water annually, with the turf, they would be saving 60,000 gallons of water together!

The article also says, "Imitation grass has slowly popped up across the county in recent years as policymakers fret about degraded seawater health and the potential for water shortages."

Saving water is very important. Just last week, my mom has been hearing rumors that Orange County has such a shortage of water that there is a possibility we will be using recycled toilet water. Days after, I overheard my dad telling her he read somewhere that an anonymous city in Orange County is already using recycled toilet water.

I don't know if the water shortage is that bad, but if it resorts to me using toilet water for anything other then toilet water, I am in favor of everyone putting fake grass in their yards.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/housing/article_1963397.php

Why I am interested in environmental reporting

The environment is important. It is life. People have to remember that before humans graced this earth, there was Mother Nature. Mother Nature takes care of us and we should take care of her. Animals lived on this planet before we did, but we take worse care of it then animals ever did. We as humans are practically ruining our own home.

I think until recently, a lot of people didn’t know about conserving energy or how to reduce pollution. I did not know until I saw reports on it.

The world needs someone to inform the public about the world they live in. Whatever it is whether people, animals, or the environment, people should not be ignorant about the world they live in. If it wasn’t for someone going out researching how would anyone really know what was going on with the environment. Of course, there are environmental journalists but not a lot.

I am not a scientist. I just love nature. Even if I don’t always think about it, I truly enjoy nature. When I get a chance to be outdoors, I relish in the feeling of seeing green and feeling wind in my hair. It is usually better when there aren’t a lot of people around. It is the best feeling regardless. However, whenever I am enjoying it, I can’t help but wonder how long the green will really last.

Maybe this class will help me help inform people about the environment. That is why I want to learn environmental reporting.