Tuesday, June 3, 2008

We’ll save the planet only if we’re forced to

Johann Hari: We’ll save the planet only if we’re forced to.


The writer encourage people to check items they buy and be honest with green consumerism. The reaction of people to the global issue which is Global Warming is waving like the sea. What’s more, that people are harming themselves by making the global warming issue bigger nowadays because they are not seeing the problem.

The planet’s climate would fluctuate and would reach 12 degree in a decade. Given this, it was impssible to develop agriculture. So people couldn’t get the food they want. However, the climate settle down and so the human. Again, people were able to develop farming.

In order to solve this problem, people tried to control the amount of warming gases in to the weather. They try to turn down the thermostat a few degrees and they buy products don’t deal with electricity burning standby. But this is not a good solution to the problem we are facing.

The only way to solve this issue is by making the government force people to change their behavior. For example, people should start eating less meat, fly less and use public transportations to solve the situation. Reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere is easy if people listen to the law and burn fewer greenhouse gases.


I think the writer is so right what all the things he have wrote in his article. I agree with him that government should put some rules and laws and force people to follow them in order to reduce greenhouse gases and make us live in a better and safer place

Monday, June 2, 2008

One Plant Living and Masdar City

If everyone lived like an average North American we would need 5 planets.

If everyone lived like an average European we would need 3 planets.

If everyone lived like an average Emirati we would need 7 planets.

Our global footprint grew by 150 between 1961 and 2003. It is now 25% above the planet's biological capacity to support life on earth.

The WWF has developed an initiative called One Planet Living. It has ten guiding principles.

Masdar is going to be developed using these principles.


Explain the ten guiding principles using your own words.

Which principles do you think will be difficult for Masdar City to maintain?

What are the three goals of the One Planet Living programme?
10 Principles


Zero Carbon: Human activities affect the climate and creat Co2 in the atmosphere. Hence. zero carbon will be achieved by watching people’s activities like building.


Zero Waste: Getting rid of factory products waste and the products packaging. Some factories tend to throw its waste in the sea. This principle is against this and will try to stop it.


Sustainable Transport: Using transportations a lot cause climate problems such as air, water and noise pollutions. Hence, having sustainable transportations will help in decreasing the pollution.


Local & sustainable materials: Environment damage happen because of manufacturing & construction. Using also non-local material would damage reduce benefit to local community.

Local & Sustainable food: Consumption of non-local food has an impact due to transportations which affect the climate. This happens due to the food quality in local food industry.


Sustainable Water: Because of pollution, offering fresh water to meet human needs became hard. Protecting water to offer good quality and non pollution water to people is one of the principles.

Natural Habitats & wildlife: Animal as well as plant has change in particular habits due to the growth & development that are happening in natural resources such as forest & natural resources such as waterfall.

Culture and Heritage: The change in culture and past traditional practices are lost due to many things like technology. As a result, local identity is loss.


Which Principle do you think will be difficult for masdar city to maintain?

Natural Habits wildlife


What are the goals of one planet living?

Creating a healthy living environment
Decreasing human’s footprint
Make people seek other sources of energy