Global Awareness in Zurich

Environmental Ethics is an environmental philosophy that explores the ethical relationship between humans and nature. It has raised many questions, such as do humans have rights to take the Earth’s resources to utilise for their own benefit? Does the World exist purely for humanity? It is said that human beings ignore the fact that plants and animals arguably have the same rights and purpose to be on Earth, and by ignoring this humans are being disrespectful and defying environmental ethics.

Is using trees for things such as furniture ethical? Humans are destroying forests, a very important aspect of all ecosystems, for something that is not even required for basic living. On the other hand, the way human society has developed it would be extremely difficult for humans to live to their full potential. So this leads to the main question of does Earth exist for the benefit of humanity?

Of course civilisation needs to act respectfully to the environment in order for the environment to provide a habitat for their survival.

There is a very important lessons that we can take from agriculture farming and apply it to aquaculture. Variety.

In order for agricultural farming to succeed, there needs to be a variety of crops and nutrients. For example, in order for it to it to rains to improve the crops, to make sure the soil has lots of nutrients to improve the crops there has to be a variety of biomass. This is exactly the same in aquaculture as well.

In an ecosystem in the ocean there needs to be vegetation, bacteria, plankton, fish, mammals, etc so the ecosystem is successful. If one of these very important species were to be taken out of the ecosystem, it would be imbalance and eventually none of the other specie would die.

‘Kiva’ is a non-profit organisation that passes on the money that the public lends to the people who need it the most but will be productive with it. The people that lend the money will get it back, there is only 1.29% of people you did not receive there money back and this is a very low percentage. There is a variety of nationalities on there (60 in total) so it is possible to lend to wherever you like. Overall, Kiva have raised $209 million from the lenders and have helped over half a million entrepreneurs achieve success.

There is some controversy regarding Kiva as it is lending your money to people you don’t know and there is a slight possibility that the lender will not receive their money back. However, all of the ‘Borrowers’ have legitimate reasons for receiving the money, as it is either to create a business, continue and improve a business, improve living conditions, etc. Kiva then rates the chances of the lender getting their money back so the lender can make a well-informed decision.

Kiva has many well-known sponsors such as Google, Visa, Facebook and Yahoo! all for various reasons such as for financial contributions or free advertising which appears to have helped Kiva a great deal. Kiva is a great non-profit organisation that provides entrepreneurs without the right equipment to flourish.  

Biodiversity is constantly changing and the interference of humans with biodiversity is causing global issues. Bascially, the main global issues that this is causing is:

- Extinction. Due to the constant changing of plants and animals (evolution) flora and fauna are becoming extinct.

- Desertification. Beacause the cycle of animals not fertilizing the ground, therefore not providing nutrients to the plants which will then transpire and cause rain, which will provide water for flora and fauna. Is why this is causing desertification.

- Deforestation. Human beings are taking away the biodiversity for personal gain.

- Global Warming. There are no trees to intake the greenhouse gases.

- Pollution. (same as above)

- Erosion.

- Genetically modified produce is being created.

Please note that these are only a quick summary. After I have found out more, there will be a more detailed and informative blog.

Are War toys leading to rising crime rates and violence?

In my opinion, this answer is no. Many people say that if you give children war toys, such as violent video games, swords and toy guns, this will lead them into a violent and perhaps murderous future. There are occasions when this seems to be the answer to bullying in schools and playgrounds, however I do not belive this to lead to prison-sentence type crime.

If you give a child a video game for example, do they already know the rights and wrongs? I think there is a good reason for the age restrictions on video games, if the child already knows the basic right and wrongs, they can be easily influenced. But if they have been educated and do know details behind real-life conflicts such as war, they should know that the violent game they are playing cannot be re-created in reality.

What about if you give the child a toy sword or toy gun for their birthday, they should already know that this is only a game and cannot be simulated in real-life or there will be serious consequences.

So should video games and other ‘War toys’ be allowed to be given to children? My answer is yes, if they know that they should not do this outside of play-time.

The League of Nations was created after the first World War, in hope that it would be the source of peace for the World. Ironically, the spark of idea for the League of Nations came from the American President Wilson, chose not to join the League of Nations, Wilson’s own idea. Whether this was a question of Power or many other arguable questions is another matter.

The League of Nations did not manage to maintain World peace for very long, ending during the start of World War 2. Why did the League of Nations end? Mainly because after Italy and a few other countries dropped out, the League just faded away. Countries gradually realised it failed and when Nations started preparing for World War 2, the League of Nations stopped. There was never any question of whether it would start again.

This was when the United Nations was founded, after World War 2. However the United Nations was not always successful despite what the majority of the public appear to think. During the biggest conflict the UN had ever faced at that time, 1947-1948 in Palestine, they were extremely unsuccessful. Perhaps this is why they are so successful now, they have learned from their mistakes.

In England, the bin collectors come once a week to pick up the rubbish bags in the wheelie bin outside your house. They do not take your rubbish if the wheelie bin lid cannot close due to too much garbage.

Even with limitations like this, there is still too much rubbish going into landfills so much so that they have to either be extended or new ones have to be built. For example, in Hong Kong many land fills are having to be increased. What about the people that have to live next to these sites? The constant stench and pollution would cause health problems that may lead to life-threatening diseases.

On a larger scale, old landfills did not have thick plastic lining on the bottom so the toxins would get into the soil and water. Landfills now have plastic lining on the bottom to prevent this, but what about when the plastic disintegrates? Will the soil and water then be infected with dirty, polluted plastic?

On top of this, once landfills have been covered over once they are full, no agriculture is allowed to grow on top of the area. After a certain period of time buildings are allowed but with no gardens or greenery. There would also be a high chance of infected waters.

Scientists have worked out, that in order to fill all of America’s waste for the next century, there would have to be a landfill the size of 28km squared. This is only for America.

Is the rule of only having one wheelie bin full of rubbish per household still too much rubbish?

The PET recycling bin is closed, meaning you have to get up and shove the plastic bottle in. Whereas the bin is open, you can throw your bottle into the garbage.

This could be why there is a higher rate of plastic bottles, that could potentially be recycled, going into the trash and damaging the environment and people around them. People like throwing their garbage, whatever it is, into the open bins because its both 1. fun, and 2. slightly more convenient.

What would happen if the PET was open, like a bin? Then would there be a higher rate of people throwing plastic into the PET, recycling and doing the right thing? A friend and I will conduct an experiment to test whether this theory is true.

To some people living in another World may dismiss malaria. ‘Oh no, it only affects people who live across the ocean… who live a couple of countries away. It doesn’t matter, there’s nothing I can do.’ This may be what some people think but it’s far off the truth.

Malaria mainly affects children and pregnant women in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs). Mosquitoes, who breed in stagnant (still) water, are the vectors of this feared disease. Out of 400-500 million cases annually, 1 million children and adults die.

Solutions:

• Local Knowledge and Science - First of all, many victims cannot determine once they get malaria, whether it actually is malaria. The majority marely pass it off as the flu. Local Knowledge would teach them the symptoms of malaria so once they recognise it they can go and get treatment straight away. Communities would also be taught how to destroy breeding areas for the infected mosquitoes. They would learn, after each rainfall, to tip water out of old tyres, rubbish, buckets and anything else left lying around. Locals will also be taught how to cover over water tanks and wells where mosquitoes are most likely to breed.
• Bed Nets - Mosquitoes mostly breed after dusk and before dawn = nighttime when families are asleep. Standard bed nets can be given to communities but now there are insecticide bed nets being handed around. This is a chemical (not harmful to humans) that is sprayed onto the net, it ends up being like a ‘force-field’ so when the mosquitoes so much as get near the nets the will be immediately repelled. The only downfall is that these nets have to be re-sprayed and re-treated every 3 years or so.
• Nile Tilapia- Nile Tilapia or any other larvae-eating fish would be put into stagnant water such as rice paddies and eat the malarious mosquito larvae. This would stop the mosquitoes from coming into existence. They breed really quickly and can be eaten so they are a multi-purpose fish. A downfall about the Nile Tilapia in particular is that they can get rather aggressive. It would take a lot for these fish to wipe out the other wild life living in the same body of water as them.
• DDT - DDT is sprayed onto walls, where it has to be done by professionals and the area has to be completely cleared. It is very effective and very strong, however it is poisonous. It obviously lingers on the walls, so if there happens to be a two-year-old clambering the walls with their hands, they will be in serious danger of poison.¨

These solutions have been tried and tested and not one has proven to be the most or least effective. If these solutions were combined in some way perhaps malaria would be eradicated altogether.

So you’ve drank the liquid inside the plastic bottle. You’ve thrown the bottle into the PET, well done. But do you know where it actually goes?

The plastic bottle which you have just thrown away could go to any recycling plant in the World, probably the nearest or cheapest one to you. It gets washed, cleaned, groomed and spruced. Once its here and fresh as a daisy, it joins the other lucky bottles that have been recycled and landed up in the same plant, they’re sorted out. Either divided up into colours, types of plastic or anything. They then get shredded :S After the shredding process they’re chopped into smaller pieces.

From this point onwards anything could happen to the shreds of your bottle, they could be sewn in to make a woolly jumper; they could be created into yet another plastic bottle.

I was recently (yesterday) informed that scientists living a few kilometres away from me conducted an experiment. They decided to see how much pollution was given off when they burned a plastic bottle. I’m not sure what the exact amount of pollution was, all I know was that from just one, practically insignificant plastic bottle, there was a giant black ring on the ceiling. Imagine if that, on a massive scale was polluting the atmosphere.

Recycle.