Everything is connected

I believe that everything on Earth is connected. What affects one person/animal/plant will affect another.

"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Ties into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Climate change can affect human health directly (e.g., impacts of thermal stress, death/injury in floods and storms) and indirectly through changes in the ranges of disease vectors (e.g., mosquitoes), water-borne pathogens, water quality, air quality, and food availability and quality."

- World Health Organization

I have an example of how some peoples' actions can affect others' quality of life. In my book You Can Save the Earth: 7 Reasons Why & 7 Simple Ways published by Hatherleigh it says, "In the United States, 6 billion pounds of phosphorous and nitrogen fertilizers from Midwestern farms leach into the Mississippi and its tributaries every year, causing massive algae blooms. Bacteria consume the algae, depleting the oxygen in the water and literally suffocating all marine life. Then, this toxic soup flows down to the mouth of the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico, where it has created a "dead zone" that now measures almost 7500 square miles, an are nearly the size of New Jersey. American farm runoff has become an international environmental hazard." Knowing this kind of information really disturbs me. This situation is very overwhelming to think about, so to help myself and the environment step-by-step I can keep spreading my word and do what I can to minimize my carbon foot print.

"Soil is a resource, a living, breathing entity that, if treated properly, will maintain itself. It's our lifeline for survival. When it has finally depleted, the human population will disappear."

-Marjorie Harris

Media English

I wasn't very clear on my first blog what I really meant about my "message." I am in a grade 11 class in Collingwood, On called Media English. The course teaches understanding of how we interpret media, how the media want us to interpret their message, and how to determine the hidden messages beneath just what we see. Media includes all forms of text, such as books, magazine articles, magazine ads, and even this blog. Other media includes music videos, TV shows, movies, television commercials, news reports, newspapers, billboards, radio, and the list goes on and on.
I want my message to be very simple. And I do not want it to be a hidden underlying meaning that you have to search for. I want my message to be easy for everyone to understand, although it may take some convincing.
I believe that You Can Save The Earth. It all starts with one little person. Myself, all on my own, have taught friends to throw their garbage in the trash can, or (an easy one) put recyclables in recycling bins, and to use that Green Bin that we have all been provided with! It is easy to make these changes and the sooner you start the bigger difference you will make. I have a magazine, a National Geographic Green Guide issue from Winter 2009, which has an article called "Green Myths" by Paul McRandle and Mary Logan Barmeyer. One myth that many people believe (that I just can't understand that they'd believe it) is that "Recycling wastes more energy than it saves." Some may say that "More energy is used to send out recycling trucks all over the county just to pick up cans and bottles and plastic containers than is used to dispose of these items." Of course, this is false. According to a 2004 study published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, overall, the energy consumed to develop new products from raw materials is at least 10 times more than the energy used by recycling collection, the actual recycling, and the transportation of the recycled goods to retailers.
So, please recycle what can be recycled and we can all help, one by one, to clean up the earth.

What is my message?

This is my first blog. I have many message ideas, all related to one main theme - the environment.

These are my ideas so far:

• Be environmentally friendly. (this ties into all my message ideas)
• Do not litter.
• We can stop pollution!
• You can save the earth.
• Everything is connected
• Appreciate and respect nature.
• Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. We all concentrate on recycling. What about reusing and reducing?