A Dream for a Better World

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest coral reef organism in the world. It is commonly considered that those reefs and islands are consisted of rocks. Actually, it comes into being because of a large amount of corals tracing to ancient times. Corals can bring much convenience to human beings. People can live on corals which can be used for building houses and they also play an important role in exploiting oil underground. However, corals have died of “black illness” and “albinism” in a large number since the end of the 20th century due to human unreasonable activities and warming globe.
The Great Barrier Reef, located along Queensland coast in Australia is the largest coral reef organism in the world. It extends about 1430 miles along the east coast in Australia. The acreage of National Marine Park around the Great Barrier Reef is up to 128960 square miles with the similar size as that of Japan. Great Barrier Reef not only provides habitat for millions of fishes, whales, sea birds, sea turtles etc but also for dolphin.
In recent years, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered from damaging. More than 12% corals on the land are protected in the world but less than 1% corals in the sea are under protection. In1970s, when the Great Barrier Reef Park was set up, people thought that fishes and other marine creatures were inexhaustible and they could decompose waste from mainland. But the fact showed the opposite side. At the end of the 20th century, the Great Barrier Reef crisis appeared and fishes, corals were on the edge of extinction. Waters near to the sea was also terribly contaminated. Corals are seriously suffered from overfishing, pollutants, pesticide, warming globe etc. More than 11% corals in the world have been destroyed and 20% are destroyed terribly and scientists have estimated that 32% more corals will disappear in the next 30 years.
“Black illness” and “albinism” are the two main causes for corals death. In many regions of the world, daily pollutants are discharged into the sea without any purification steps and scientists have found that some microbial from human body would bring illness to corals. Such microbial would cause dysentery only when they exist in children’s body with a large number. But when they mix with other microbes, they would do great harm to corals. Scientists also have found that “black illness” is caused by the reaction among various bacteria. As for “albinism”, it is also cause by bacterium from people’s body though it cannot damage people’s health and life. Since 1990s, more and more coral illnesses have been found because of increasing pollutants and warming globe.
Some researchers have said that if Australian government cannot take pressures to protect the Great Barrier Reef, it would be extinct in future. At present, the government tries to seek for solutions to coral protection and it forbids economic development on 1/3 area of the National Marine Park and such provision would help the Great Barrier Reef become the largest marine protected area.

Chiru is one the precious animals in China and is categorized as an animal under China’s level one protection. Chiru and Mongolian gazelle look the same with the weight up to 45kg to 60kg. Chiru mainly live in desert, plateau and meadow with altitude up to 4600m to 6000m. They like to go out and hunt for food during the morning and nightfall and they are good at running. As for the lifespan, they can live about 8 years. The behavior chiru is complicated. Some chirus like living in an area for a long time but some other prefer migration. In addition, male and female chirus have different habits in their lifetime. The area where the chirus live expands 1600km from east part to west part. Seasonal migration is an important feature for chirus. Female chirus mainly produce babies in Ulan UI Lake, Zhuonai Lake, Hoh Xil Lake and the Sun lake etc. when the end of April comes, male and female chirus start to separate and female chirus also leave male baby chirus less than 1 year. When May and June come, female chirus will move to the place to produce babies. After they finish production, they go back again then the migration completes. Chiru is mainly distributed in Qinghai, Tibet and Xinjiang and sometimes, a small number of them move into India.
However, at present, the quantity of chirus has decreased too much. In 1990, the number of chirus was about 1 million and in the year of 1995, the number became 75,000. In previous time, it was easy to find a chiru group with more than 15,000 chirus but it is difficult to find them now. Since 1980s, as the illegal international trade expanded, a large number of chirus was illegally killed. In the past, people from Tibetan also hunted chirus but they just wanted to support the family. On the contrary, people kill chirus for the purpose of obtaining the velvet which can be made of the most beautiful and soft shawl in the world. Although Chirus live in remote area with dick climate, hunters with weapons have never stopped hunting them during recent 10 years. According to the remains left in their habitats, people estimate that about 20000 chirus are killed every year. The survey in 1980s and 1990s displayed that in 1986, 0.2 or 0.3 chiru could be found per square kilometer in southwest part of Qinghai province. In the year 1991, 0.2 chiru could be found in east part of Qiangtang Natural Preservation Zone. In 1995, the total number of chirus has decreased 50,000 to 75,000. In recent years, no people can find a chiru group with about 2000 chirus. Nowadays, it is still hard work to prevent chiru hunting. The velvet of chiru can bring much benefit for people and they can take great risk to hunt chirus. In addition, it is easy for hunters hide the velvet when they make custom clearance. Hunters always make use of various means to hunt chirus and their natural enemies also increase. The existence of chiru indeed makes people be anxious.

Whale shark, also called rhincodon typus, is the largest fish in the world at present. Whale shark is a kind of shark but not whale. In Vietnam, whale shark is considered as the God and people call it Ca Ong. Whale sharks in Mexico and most middle American area have spots on the body so they are called pez dama or dimino in local region. Some other whale sharks often appear in Belize Barrier Reef which is near to Sapodilla Cayes so people call them Sapodilla Tom. In Kenya, it is called papa shilingi because people believe that when the God pour shilling on its body, then it has the spots. In Madagascar, people call whale sharks marokintana. In Philippine, people call it butanding. The length of common whale sharks is about 10m but some can be up to 20m. the weight of whale shar is about 10 to15 tons. Whale sharks mainly live in upper part of warm ocean and they are very mild and do not attack human beings. A unconfirmed report demonstrates that even people turn over the body of whale shark to clean the parasite, it will keep still. In addition, people can swim with the mild animal together without any danger. Whale sharks swim not very fast and they often float on the sea to enjoy warm sunshine. But recently, scientists have realized that whale shark is not the animal which swim slowly but it can dive into the deep ocean with high speed like eagles. Plankton, crustaceans, molluscs and small fishes are the delicious food for whale sharks.
Whale sharks almost do not have natural enemies. Human hunting is an important factor for the quantity decrease. Whale shark is a kind of economic fish along coastal regions. The liver can be made of cog liver oil, industrial oil and the material for soap, paint and candles etc. the skin can be made of leather and the fresh, bone and visceral can be made of fish meal. When whale sharks gather in some season, people will hunt them for aquaculture development. Southeast Asia, especially Taiwan, is the main hunting area for whale sharks and people often eat the fresh when they get a whale shark. In Fujian which is near to Taiwan, local fishermen ever hunted a whale shark and it was bought at 85,000 RMB very soon. Then it was killed for selling. In other regions, people do not hunt it deliberately but sometimes also hunt it for mistake. At present, scientists are not able to estimate the quantity in the world but they consider it as endangered animal. Consequently, some countries also formulate some laws to protect whale shark. For example, in Philippine, the government started to forbid commercial hunting, selling and importing and exporting for whale sharks in the year 1998. But in China, the government has not formulated any laws to protect whale shark and the hunting is completely free. Maybe people are lack of survey for whale shark distribution and they think that there is no whale shark in China so law-makers seems to neglect the protection for whale sharks.

As technology develops rapidly and the environment is terribly polluted, people have put forward 10 technologies for environmental protection.
First, change organic waste into petroleum. Organic rubbish can be found all over the world. People can produce a large number of organic rubbish from daily life and industrial and agricultural production. That organic rubbish is land filled and also has polluted the environment. Actually, the best way to deal with the organic waste is to explore new energy. The traditional way is to burn them and generate electricity. At present, people change them into petroleum though pressure and catalyst. Second, desalinate the sea water. Fighting for freshwater has become another hot topic in the world. Most parts on the earth are ocean but the water in the sea is not edible. If people can remove the salt contained in the sea water, human will never worry about water shortage. That sounds very easy. Seawater desalination requires high-tech to reduce cost and improve efficiency. Actually, nanotechnology has also been applied in sea water desalination. Third, use hydrogen fuel cells which can be seen by most people. This technology is considered as the tech which can cleanse the world in the future. More importantly, hydrogen can be obtained from water and after it burns, it becomes water again. Therefore, it is inexhaustible. But we should know that hydrogen is not the original energy and it comes into being by electrolysis of water though solar energy. Fourth, make use of solar energy which is the most important green energy in future. At present, people have used some solar energy but it still has some disadvantages due to people’s limit knowledge and ability. Fifth, make use of ocean temperature difference to generate electricity. According to statistics from US Department of Energy, the ocean on the earth can obtain much energy which is equal to 2500 billion barrels petroleum from the solar radiation every day but the whole USA just consumes 75 billion barrels petroleum every year. How to make full use of the burnt sea water is still a problem because of technology shortage for solar energy. Sixth, make use of tidal energy to generate electricity. Tide contains huge energy which can produce electricity but how to use it is a difficulty. Seventh, build green roof. In fact, green wall, yards and balcony also can be built. The technology is not a difficulty for human beings any more but it plays an important role to save energy and reduce pollutants. At present, many countries have adopted the technology. Eighth, use plants to reduce pollution. Some plants can absorb pollutants and toxic substances. For example, cannas planted on the river can make dirty water clean. Scientists need to find those plants as many as they can. Ninth, landfill carbon dioxide. As we all know, carbon dioxide is the source for the global warming, if people can extract it from the air and change it into liquid then pour it into the abandoned well underground, that is really cool. But maybe it will come out after being land filled. So the technology is still under research. Tenth, promote paperless technology which can prevent forest degradation. But it cost much and it is also not convenient.
When can these problems be solved? We are waiting.

As we all know, 15th, March is the International Day for Protection Consumers’ Rights. The international day is first defined by the International Consumers Union Organization in 1983 to enhance propagation of consumers’ rights to which should be paid more attention and promote communication and cooperation of consumers all over the world to protect consumers’ rights more. Consumers’ rights mean that consumers enjoy rights during the time they purchase goods or service and within a certain period after purchase.
15th, March is the only day for consumers’’ rights protection but we ought to maintain our rights every day. After all, all of us are consumers in the society. As the economy develops rapidly and many enterprises are set up every day, more and more goods can be provided for consumers. However, consumers’ rights are often damaged because some manufactures supply fake and inferior products or can not offer after-sale service as what they have promised. Here take a few examples. HP is a famous brand all over the world and they supply laptop, printing machine, scanning and other consumables. Recently, some negative news about HP laptop was reported frequently on TV. Some buyers have bought laptops from HP but they are broken in a very short time. Ironically, leaders from HP said that cockroaches in the dormitory were too many so laptops were broken. In addition, some consumers asked for changing certain broken part or repairing for free but staff from HP told them that the broken part was not in maintenance range. As for LCD TV, Sony, Samsung, Sharp etc are well-known brands. One customer told journalist that her new Sony LCD TV was broken and the broken part was the monitor after 10 months. Then she asked for change. Unfortunately, the monitor was broken again 10 months later. When she went to Sony for change, the staff told her that they couldn’t change because the monitor was beyond the period of maintenance. Actually, Sony promised they can provide maintenance of main parts within 3 years. However, they said that monitor was not the main part. As we know, if TV can be considered without monitor, what can TV supply for consumers’ entertainment? So it is never overstated to think monitor as a main part. Other famous brands such as Samsung, sharp etc also play the same trick. Last year, many babies were killed by poisonous milk powder because manufacture seek for high profits and put Melamine into milk powder. In order to save cost, some decoration companies supply inferior decoration materials which are harmful to people’s health.
From examples above, we can see that consumers’ rights are ruthlessly trampled. Government ought to formulate laws to prevent and resist fake goods and seriously punish those counterfeiters. In addition, in order to protect their own rights, consumers should know that they own the following rights: safety rights, rights to know, option rights, fair trading rights, rights of indemnity, rights of education, rights of association, rights for respect of dignity and national customs and habits and rights of supervision.

Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society conducting a recent census in the northern part of the Republic of Congo discovered a vast population of western lowland gorillas alive and flourishing.  The new population number of 125,000 gorillas doubles the amount of gorillas previously estimated in the 1980’s.  Scientists attribute the population numbers to the remoteness of their location which naturally sheltered the gorillas from threats such as habitat loss and hunting.  Another attributing factor to the high gorilla numbers is the conservation efforts that were instituted in Northern Congo years ago by the government.  The Congolese government established the Nouabale-Ndoke National Park and the Lac Tele Community Reserve to help protect the fauna and flora of the region and they also worked with logging companies to decrease illegal hunting.  To ensure the continual survival of these lowland gorillas, the region needs to vigilantly apprehend illegal logging trucks and establish anti-poaching squads throughout the area.

However hard we may try to wish them away, stupid laws seem to stay with us. There are an umpteen number of stupid laws that may seem to have been formulated by the concerned authorities without any rhyme or reason, but may actually be having one. Take the laws governing the sale of pharmaceutical drugs in many countries. The laws clearly mention that one can purchase such drugs only on producing a physician’s prescription. Although this law may seem stupid for some, it actually offers protection against potential harm through self-medication. Similarly there are many other laws which may look stupid but would be serving a purpose that would be actually beneficial to us.