CORAL REEFS

 

What do you think about coral? Is it just for decoration? Or one of our ecosystem that living and has to be protected? Coral reefs are massive structures made of limestone that has been deposited by living organisms, primarily by coral polyp. It is a small, fragile tubular animal that secretes calcium carbonate to create a hard exoskeleton. The polyps reproduce thousands of times to form coral colonies of various shape, depending on the species, wave action, currents, and sunlight in the area.

For your information, Coral reefs cover an area of over 280,000 km² hand support thousands of species in what many describe as the “rainforests of the seas”. Coral reefs benefit the environment and people in numerous ways. Apart from helping to sustain a crucial ecosystem within the ocean, and acting as an important source of biodiversity, coral reefs are useful in a variety of other ways. Corals remove and recycle carbon dioxide from the air. The reefs themselves also shelter land from harsh ocean storms and floods, and provide resource for fisheries. More than that, they attract millions of tourists every year.

They have many benefit that our communities doesn’t care too much about it. Based on  global report while focusing more specifically on the countries of the Coral Triangle—Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste.

Coral Reefs :

• Protect shores from the impact of waves and from storms
• Provide benefits to humans in the form of food and medicine
• Provide economic benefits to local communities from tourism

All around the world, much of the world’s marine biodiversity face threats from activities and events such as coastal development, overfishing, inland pollution, global climate change and ocean acidification caused by some of the excess carbon dioxide emissions absorbed by the world’s oceans. If climate change is not stopped, coral bleaching is set to steadily increase in frequency and intensity all over the world. The loss of these fragile ecosystems would cost billions of dollars in lost revenue from tourism and fishing industries, as well as damage to coastal regions that are currently protected by the coral reefs that line most tropical coastlines.

  Also found that coral faces challenges even if global warming is restricted to a 2 degree Celsius rise which many countries are struggling to agree to meet on given the way climate negotiations have been going for the past decade or more. There are also concerns that some current assumptions may underestimate the future impact of climate change on corals.

What we can do to save this ecosystem? According to the Coral Reef Alliance, the international community should create effective marine protected areas, and make sure that reefs have less stresses on them so that they have the opportunity to recover from bleaching and adapt to increasing temperatures. Efforts should include enforcing laws against coral destruction, controlling pollutants, and controlling coastal development.

There are many living things that live around us. They might be non motile. But they are live. Why don’t we support our biodiversity as we living together in the earth as one community? We have to know and care to each other because we have our own benefit to this earth.  Let’s give and take and together save our planet.

Climate Change

	CLIMATE CHANGE

 

      

When  talk  about  climate  change,  usually  people  do not  take  this issues  seriously.  But,  it  is  very  important  to  environment  and  play  their  own  roles  as  this  changes   can  affect  almost  all  aspects  of  our  lives.  Climate  change  may  refer  to  a  change  in  average  weather  conditions,  or  in  the  time  variation of weather  around  longer-term  average  conditions.  There  is  certain  amount  of  human   activities  that  causes  climate  change  often  referred  to  as  “global  warming”.  Other  than  that, climate  change  can  involve  both  changes  in  average  conditions  and  changes  in variability. 

    There  are  many  different  effect  of  climate  change  around  the  world  that  lead  to  different  experience  of  different  climates.  For  your  information,  climate  changes  can  give  big  impact  to  forests,  wildlife,  water,  polar  region  and  others.  Forests  is  very  important  things  in our  life  as  there  is  changing  oxygen  and  carbon  dioxide.  And  the  main  greenhouse  gas  responsible  for  global  warming  and  help  regulate  the  world’s  climate.  Other  than  that,  climate  changing  give  serious  impact  to  oceans  and  lake  which  supply  water  to  our  daily  life  and  resources  for  farming  and  industry.  It  is  unpredictable  impact  to  the  world  through  more  flooding. 

   When  climate  changes,  sea  level  will rise  due  to  ice  melting  at  Arctic.  One  of  this  issues  were  mostly  that  gives  attention  to  media. For  example,  Polar bears  have less  space  to  share,  and  food  is  harder  to  come  by  as  they  hunt  on  the  sea  ice, this affects  breeding  patterns  and  numbers.  The  effect  of  climate  change  on  the  poles  is  very  serious  for  people  and  wildlife  across  the  world.  For  endangered species  such  as  orang-utans  in  Borneo  and  Indonesia,  which  are  already  at  risk because  of  deforestation  and  illegal hunting.  The  effect  of  climate  change  is  food shortages  that  caused  by  unusual  rainfall  patterns.  They’re  just  one  of  the  many species  that  will  be  affected. 

   Evidence  of  climate  change  can  be  describe  in  two  ways  that  is  physical  evidence  and  biological  evidence.  For  physical  evidence,  it  will rise  in  atmospheric  temperature  and  carbon  dioxide  level. Next, depletion in  rainfall.  Shifting  and  shrinking  of  cooling  period.  Also,  it  will  change  the  pattern  of  monsoon.  Lastly,  occurrence  of  natural  disaster.  For  biological  evidence,  the  appearance  of  grasses  in  Antartica,  early  blossoming  of  trees  and  changing  the  cropping  pattern. 

   Factor  that  causes  climate  changes  is  greenhouse  gases  where  certain  gases  in  the  atmosphere  allow  the  sunlight  to  enter  but  absorb  heat  radiation.  The  increased  amount  of  heat  will  lead  to  increasing  temperature  that  effect  climate  system.  Next,  land-use  changes  that  cutting  down  forests  that  changes  in  amount  of  sunlight  reflected  from  ground  back  to  surface.  During  industrial  era,  half  of  the  land  is  use, much  of  it  due  to  replacement  of  forests  by  agricultural  cropping  and  grazing  lands.

So,  what  we can  do  to  control  climate  changes?  Firstly,  turn  off  appliances  at  night.  We  might  think  this  is   oldest  energy  savings  method  but  it  is  also  the  simplest  way.  Next,  walk  to  the  school  or  work.  It  is  not  also  improve  your  health  but  it  also  emits  no  pollution  and  is  totally  carbon  free.  Otherwise,  you  can  reduce  climate  change  by  insulate  your  home,  clean  your  air  conditioning  filters  and  install energy  efficient  showerheads.  Or  buy  food  and  other  products  with  reusable  or recyclable  packaging  instead  of  those  in  non-recyclable  packaging.

 For  conclusion,  climate  change  is  reality.  It  is  likely  suffer  losses  due  to  heat, erratic  weather  and  decreased  irrigation  availability.  Costs  of  adaptation  and  mitigation  are  unknown  but  it  is  like  using  high  costs.  But  both  of  adaptation  and  mitigation  is  very  important  to  make  the  problem  less  worse  and  help  us  cope  better. 

More information :

Mitigating climate change means dealing with the causes so that we can limit the extent of change. An example is reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Adapting to climate change means dealing with its consequences so that it is easier to live with the effect. An example is building better flood defences.

Recently,  there  is  a  news  about  climate  change  on  12  November  2015.  If  you  want  to  knows  more  about  this : 

  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151112155930.htms

Together Save Our Planet