Air Pollution

"Two million people a year killed by air pollution, says WHO"

http://www.naturalnews.com/020666.html

According to a new study of the WHO (World Health Organization), air pollution causes roughly 2 milion premature deaths each year.

Air pollution is of the most known forms of pollution, since the problems that are caused by it are very grave and actual, such as respiratory diseases.
Air pollution comes in many types, like, for instance, smog, which results from the mixture of smoke and sulfur dioxide; acid rain, which comes from the reaction of primary air pollutants, primarily sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides; temperature inversions and soil contamination.

The sources of this pollution are:

- Power plants, manufacturing facilities or municipal waste incinerators;

- Motor vehicles;

- Marine vessels;

- Burning wood;

- Waste deposition in landfills, which generate Methane, a non-toxic but flammable gas.

It is to our best interests that we protect our community from these sources.

Leonardo Campos

Light Pollution

"Our desire for night-time lighting in a 24-hour society seemingly justifies any amount of wasted light"

I stumbled across an interesting article regarding light pollution. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4794249.stm)

This article enlightens most of the causes and consequences of wasting light.
Altough light pollution is ignored by many many people, it is a problem as grave as water pollution or air pollution. Not just to our health, but to our pockets as well. Every year millions of dollars are wasted in light pollution, which has no purpose whatsoever. Even the most modern streetlights shine directly into the sky, and serve no purpose.
Salesmen don't help either, since most stores sell bulbs from 150 to 500 Watts. A 5-watt bulb used in lighthouses can be visible for more than 21 miles.
It is everyone's job to prevent this, even if just by turning down the lights in our houses, or buying new bulbs with less wattage.

Leonardo Campos

Some of the Causes

-> The chemists used for the conservation from the wood of the granaries;

-> Illegal slaughtering and generalized pursuit

-> Lacking of natural preys and perturbation of the habitat;

-> Perturbation of the places of nidification;

-> Captures for commerce;

-> Species threatened by the intense and indiscriminate hunting;

-> Destruction of foods;

-> The last inquiries point which thousands of animal species were extinguished in the last hundred years. A great deal of these species never will be known by future generations. We know that, a great deal of them, they might reveal to humans important information on the environment and even the cure for determined types of diseases.


By: Stephanie Sales

Rhinoceros

Name: Rhinoceros
Geographica distribution: Asian south-west: Indonesia and Vietnam.
Natural habitat: It lives in tropical dense forests. These animals prefer zones with much water and mud.
Food habits: They eat berries, seeds, leaves and fruits.
Size: Height: 1,50 m – 1,70 m. Length: 2 m – 4 m.
Weigh: of 900 kg up to 1400 kg.
Gestation period: 16 months
Number of broods: 1
Life expansion: 35 years.
Conservation state of the specie: rhinoceroses are threatened extinction, due to the fact of not being so fertile – each female only has a brood of two in two years – and, so, they are very vulnerable to hunting, besides they suffer from the destruction of its habitat. They have been hunted intensively because practically all its parts are used in the traditional medicine. The most valuable part is the horn, which has been used like aphrodisiac, to cure fevers, or to prepare a potion that supposedly allows to detect poisons.
By: Stephanie Sales

Lynx-Iberian

Name: Lynx-Iberian
Geographica distribution: Portugal and Spain.
Natural habitat: the main habitats are the woods and Mediterranean thickets where it looks for shelter.
Food habits: Feed almost exclusively of brave-rabbits, however, its’ diet can be complemented by rodents, birds and broods of cervidae.
Size: Length: 80 cm up to 110 cm; more tail from 11 to 13 cm.
Weigh: 10 kg up to 13 kg.
Gestation period: It varies between 63 and 74 days.
Number of cubs: 1 to 4
life expansion: Up to 13 years.
Conservation state of the specie: The lynx-Iberian is considered now the most threatened feline of the world and is classified one of the species in danger of extinction by the Red Books of Portugal, Spain and UICN.
Also it is protected by Berna's Convention and by the Convention that regularizes the Commerce of Wild Species, being considered by the Directive Habitats as priority specie. The biggest threats to its survival are the decreasing of the brave-rabbit and the destruction of the Mediterranean habitats.
By: Stephanie Sales

Panda

Name: Panda
Geographica distribution: South of China and Tibet.
Natural habitat: Bamboo forests of th mountainous region of china, in altitudes of 1500 up to 3000 meters.
Food habits: They are fed almost exclusively of tender leaves and buds of bamboo.
Size: up to 1,50 m
Weigh: up to 160 kg.
Gestation period: 7 to 9 months.
Number of broods: 2
Life expansion: from 10 to 15 years in his wild habitat and up to 30 years in captivity.
The status conservation of species: The Deforestation of the Asian forests, the slow reproduction of bamboo (base of the food chain of the Pandas), the excess of bureaucracy, inefficiency and voracious hunting put the panda under serious risk of extinction. Making it harder for the preservation of the species, their ability to procreate is minimum.
By: Stephanie Sales

Endangered animals

Extinction is a natural process. Depending on it’s extinction, the species are substituted by others more adjusted for a determined environment. Sooner or later, all the species are going to extinct one day. It’s even possible that one day humans will be extinct.
Plants and animals are developing (it means they are modifying gradually) for new species. The continuation of this process sometimes means the extinction of some species. A millions years ago, our world was habitated by very different species.
Of these species, the most known were the dinosaurs.
They were on the Earth tens millions years ago, but, eventually, they were extinct and were substituted by different species, including birds and mammals.
During the last five thousand years the human kind became more and more destructive. They pursued some species even to the extinction and, in present, they are destroying habitats.
Animals and plants are extinct in almost all the parts of the world and they exist species close to extinction practically all over the world.
Due to the density and quick growth of the human population, many species of great mammals are being threatened, like elephants, lions, rhinoceroses and the tigers.
The only solution is making more parks and reserves.
By: Stephanie Sales