EARTH NOW

Last Monday (15/11), Mr.Ken showed us one documentary film about the earth we are living now. It relates to the subject we are covering now which is sustainable development.

Sustainable development in simple definition is a development that causes damage for the earth. We cannot avoid that every single development happens in this world causes some negative effect for the earth as the main resource of our life. The truth is we could not survive if we had not damaged the earth until it is left with nothing. Man is supposed to take care of earth and not spoiled it for his own satisfaction but now people do not care about other things as long as they satisfied with what they can get. One quote that I got from this film is “Earth does not belong to man but man belongs to earth”.

One of the biggest impacts for the earth is US. Without realizing that actually we are exhausting world’s resources. Another quote that I got from the film is “Like Titanic, we cannot see the iceberg and by the time we see it, it is too late”­

The film highlighted some environmental issues as well such as deforestation, global warming and soil degradation. What we meant by deforestation is the loss of naturally occurring forests from logging and burning. Nowadays, there are hazes everywhere, the average temperature increases. It is all because the logging and burning of forest in order to “use” the trees for “better” use. They cut the trees in order to produce paper, tissues, etc. They burn the trees in order to clear the land and use it for agriculture.

One real example is in Brazil, they use sugar cane known as ethanol to fly the plane. It is a good thing that we could finally invent another source of fuel without feeling worry that petroleum is coming to scarcity. But actually there are still some negative effect that sugar cane brings to earth and man. There are some other facts that I got from the film about sugar cane plantation:

1. Deforestation caused by sugar cane plantation, because more more land is being used to produce fuel.

2. People who work there in sugar cane plantation are being poisoned.

3. Carbon monoxide in the atmosphere because they have to burn the leaves before they harvest them.

4. Surprisingly, sugar cane needs a lot of water.

Global warming is no longer a new word for us, and it is seriously threatening the existence of us and earth. As we knew that global warming is the increase in temperatures around the world. One of the causes of this increase is what we called “Green House effect”. I will not go in depth about this global warming since we knew quite well about it. But what I will highlight here is the use of CFC by using refrigerator, hairspray, and air-conditioner. Personally, I cannot live without air-conditioner and I do feel guilty about this issue. I feel like I cannot do much about this and just waiting until the day comes when earth that we knew will not be the same anymore.

Soil degradation is one of the issues which rarely spoken but it plays role in the existence of our life as well. Soil degradation is the decline in the quantity and quality of soil. This happens because the overuse of soil itself. It causes health risk from direct or indirect contact of contaminated soil.

There are some facts that I quoted from the movie watched. Some of them are really surprising, here they are:

- If everyone consumpts like French does, we will need 3 earths.

- In 30 years, 30% of resources are disappearing.

- 200 years ago, there were about 7million bison but now there are only 300.000.

- One species in the world disappear every 18minutes.

- In 50years time, meat consumption has multiplied by 5.

- US produce 60% of world’s corn. In US, 10% of corn produced is used to make biofuel.

- 80% of cereal goes to animal feed in France.

- In Brazil, they use sugar cane known as ethanol to fly the plane.

- In Los Angeles, 4 and half million people died because of air pollution.

- In 20years time the world will not be as the same as it today.

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH is a television mini-series dramatizes the tsunami event happened in Thailand on 26^th of December 2004. It was filmed in Phuket and Khao Lak as two of the worst hit areas when tsunami happened.

It begins in Oasis hotel in Khao Lak where two families spent their holiday in Thailand. Everything was fine and peaceful until this disaster came and tore the members of family apart. Fortunately, the young couple Ian and Susan Carter survived their lives, as well as Kim and Adam Peabody. However, the Carters couldn’t find their 6years old daughter. She was last seen with her father when the tsunami suddenly hit them and tore them apart. At the end, they thought they finally found their daughter in one of clinic in Thailand where all the sufferers are because they saw Martha’s name in the survivor’s list in website. Once they arrived, it was wrong that actually the girl was someone else who looked exactly like Martha. Susan as the mother who couldn’t take the traumatic feeling turned foolish and decided to take whoever is that girl as her daughter replaced Martha. Ian couldn’t do anything much about the situation happened to his wife beside he finally had to accept the reality that they couldn’t find his daughter Martha.

While in Peabody, Kim and Adam his son survived because when the tsunami came they wasn’t there in hotel. They went diving while her husband James and her oldest son John stayed at hotel and played around in the beach. Ian was happened to see James who was terribly injured with blood all over his body and he was dying. But at the time they tried to take James to clinic, he couldn’t hold on and he was dead. At the same time, Kim and Adam were in British embassy and tried as they could to find their family without knowing that James was already dead. However, when Ian was about to go to clinic, he saw Kim and he remembered that both of them stayed in the same hotel. He approached Kim and told her that her husband James was already dead on the way to clinic. Kim was so sorrow but she could hide it in front of her son Adam. By the time she finally knew that her husband was dead, Adam brought a good new that John was hospitalized in one clinic. They rushed to the clinic and found that John was dying. As a mother, Kim couldn’t guarantee John’s life on the medical in Thailand because that time everything was so minor. Then Kim went to British embassy and asked them to take John back to UK to get proper medical helps.

There are some other players in this movie that I won’t cover on, because I focus more to the victims such as Carter and Peabody. After watched this movie, I could feel how pathetic and shocking disaster is. Personally, I never experienced such disaster before beside I ever experienced earthquake but it wasn’t in my city. I just experienced the shakes so I will never know how traumatic that is if I happen to experience disaster.

One thing I learned from this movie is that family is the most important thing in life. Even though we are survived from one disaster, if one of our family members is gone life will not be the same anymore and move on is the hardest thing to do. Family is a part of me and if one part of me is gone I cannot live my life as normal anymore. This lesson teaches me how I should cherish every moment when I am with my family because that moment may not come for the second time. It also teaches me how I should prioritize my family than any other. Because regret always comes too late and there is no point regretting things we have done, but we should regret the things we have never done when we had a chance.

WHAT IS GEOGRAPHY?

Geography comes from Greek word γεωγραφία - geographia. 
Basically, Geography is the study of the earth's surface and landscape includes people's responses to topography, climate, soil, and vegetation or else we say man-land relationship. In modern geography, we learn about human and earth complexities. Its not anymore about what it is but its about how we have changed and come to be. 
Geography is divided into 2main branches which are human geography and physical geography.
Human geography is a branch that focuses on the study of pattern and processes of human interaction, the study of human use. It includes most aspect of social science such as politic, economy, culture, development, etc. 
Whereas, Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth's science. There are some sub fields of physical geography such as climatology, biogeography, pedology, hydrology, oceanography, glaciology,etc.