Last night was the most beautiful night, that I can remember ever in Melbourne. It was comfortably warm at 26 degrees and the night summer breeze seemed to have been so strangely familiar like we never had any of those cold depressing nights before. I could never be of a much delighted spirit than last night. And I thought, how much influence the weather could have on my mood and well being.
We watched a late night Spiegeltent show - La Burlesque - at the Vic Arts Theatre at nine in the evening. The show girls were absolutely fabulously entertaining - there operatic voices reverberated inside the circus tent amidst laughter and chuckle among the audience which were mostly women. I hoped the show would go on and on but it was short and sweet, and sufficient the most.
Walking back along the Yarra River, we passed by a lighted phletora of enlarged photos that were really attractive from afar. These exhibition by a famous photographer Yanna Arthus-Bertrand along the river bank had been on show for some quite now but I did not have the chance to have a look. There were a hundred photos and all of them were breathtaking views of the earth from above.
These were beautiful photography with reserached statistics and data that would arrest our attention to save the earth.
The following were suggested ten tips on what we can do to help the planet:
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Walk, cycle or use public transport – and leave your car at home.
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Avoid plastic bags and take reusable ones shopping. Every person in Australia uses an average of 300 plastic bags per year.
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Turn off lights and appliances when you don’t need them. Switching appliances off at the power point when not in use can save an average household $100 a year.
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Plant a tree or a native bush in your area. Each tree planted provides oxygen for 2 people for the rest of their lives.
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Put your food scraps and plant scraps in a worm farm or the compost.
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Take four minute power showers.
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Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth. Leaving the tap running wastes up to 9 litres of water a minute or 26,000 litres of water per family per year.
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Buy the most energy and water efficient appliances you can afford.
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Choose products with the least amount of packaging, or packaging made from recycled materials.
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Switch to Green Power by calling your electricity retailer. *
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I have also found four photos of the Philippines. One was about the Pinatubo disaster. Some of these facts are unknown to some of the Filipinos and I thought that these should be shared and spread around for awareness and some conservation movement.
Villlage on stilts in Tongkil, Samales islands, Philippines
The southern Philippines, particularly the Sulu Archipelago that shelters the Samales Group, is the home of the Badjaos. Known as Sea Gypsies,” they fish and harvest shellfish and pearl oysters, and they live in villages on stilts. A channel carved out of the coral reef allows them to reach the high sea. The Badjaos belong to a Muslim minority, the Moros, who make up only 4 percent of the Philippine population and are concentrated mostly in the southern part of the country. In this predominantly Catholic country, these populations feel marginalized and disfavored. Separatist religious conflicts have caused 120,000 deaths since the early 1970s, led by various protest movements that use Islam as a lever to free themselves from the pressure of the Philippine government. They include the extremist group Abu Sayyaf, responsible for several kidnappings of hostages for ransom, including in Jolo in July 2000. As elsewhere in the world, this guerrilla movement, which mixes economic and religious motives, hurts development in the region.
Islet in the sulu archipelago, Philippines
More than 6,000 of the 7,100 Philippine Islands are uninhabited, like this islet in the Sulu Archipelago, a set of 500 islands that separate the Celebes and the Sulu seas. Their extraordinary biodiversity is under threat, not from distant industrial sites but from the effects of global pollution. These islands, which barely rise above the surface of the water, are among the first potential victims of global warming and are certain to disappear when the sea level rises. The oceans, which maintain our planet’s equilibrium, play a major role in our climate, storing up heat from warmer times and releasing it later, transporting it in its currents, providing the water for rainbearing clouds through evaporation, and trapping and absorbing carbon dioxide. This vast mass of water is inhabited by fauna whose diversity is scarcely imaginable and which, through the food chain—from plankton through fish to the marine mammals—plays an enormously important role in human subsistence
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