Author Archives: Jolean Rizelle Endique

WHICH ONE IS BETTER: TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICES OR PRINTED TEXTS?

Posted on November 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

This is an image of the most commonly used media for educational purposes: technological devices (laptop on the top left and tablets on the top right) and printed books (bottom). (Source of compiled images (by Jolean Endique): Wikimedia Commons)

I am a student myself and I know the struggle of bringing a 1000-page textbook every day. However, no matter how heavy my textbooks are, I would still prefer using them over any technology on any day and here are the reasons why.

Most university professors specifically mention how laptop usage is prohibited in class. You might want to know why. Studies show that students who type their lecture notes instead of writing them, have shallower thought processing and have the tendency to types notes verbatim without understanding them. Students who read printed texts have better comprehension, better understanding, and better memory than those who use any handheld technological devices.

Handheld devices also offer a lot of distractions to students. You see those hyperlinks on the texts that you are reading? How about those advertisements that spark your curiosity that it makes you click on it? You hear a “ping” and you decided to check your email “quickly”. Traditional textbooks clearly do not pose this problem to students. If a student is still distracted otherwise, then that student has concentration issues that need to be dealt with.

Manufacturing tablets are bad for the environment and are harmful to our health. As stated by the New York Times, “adverse health impacts from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those from making a single book”. Apparently, manufacturing one tablet produces 66 lbs of carbon dioxide and requires 33 lbs of minerals, 79 gallons of water, and 11-kilowatt hours of fossil fuels. The extraction of those minerals is costly. Those 79 gallons of water can be supplied to families in communities that do not have clean drinking water. Fossil fuels are limited and could better be used to provide electricity in Sub-Saharan, Africa area where 600 million people lack access to electricity instead. Oh, should I also mention the continuous burning of fossil fuels to charge these tablets and laptops as a downside?

Electronic waste (e-waste) has now increased to about 63% in east and southeast Asia according to National Geographic. What do you think about this image?

This image is a representation of the increasing e-waste in the east and southeast Asia. (Image source: https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2017/01/17/e-waste-skyrockets-in-east-asia/)

E-waste is often burned or washed with acids to extract precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, and copper. Washing e-waste with acid could contaminate the air and water which can alter thyroid function and lung function and can also affect growth and cognitive health.

In an economic perspective, tablet and laptop maintenance can be really expensive. This often requires constant software upgrading, anti-virus software installation, frequent battery, broken hardware or accessory replacement, and constant demand for battery recharging. Books, on the other hand, require none of these.

Technology is greatly helpful useful when used moderately. However, for health, educational, and environmental purposes mentioned above, there is no doubt that printed textbooks are definitely more preferable.

 

 

 

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Is a bowl of soup really worth a shark’s life?

Posted on October 29, 2018 | 2 comments

Figure 1: shark fin soup (Source: Wikimedia Commons [accessed October 29, 2018])

Have you ever tried shark fin soup? A lot of people say it is very tasty but you know what, killing sharks for some delicacy? That does not really sound appetizing to me. Shark fin trade is the most common cause of shark population decline throughout the years.  It is no surprise that sharks are now considered endangered and we need to do something as soon as possible.

Sharks are at top of the food chain and are considered “Kings of the Ocean”. They help control growing populations of invasive and potentially harmful species. Dr. Stuart Sandin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues concluded that the decline in shark population may result in an ecological cascade that disrupts the marine food chain.

Sharks are natural predators but what makes them so important? They maintain the species below them in the food chain. Their predatory behavior attribute to the movements of different preys allowing variation of diet in the ocean. The decrease in shark population also resulted in the decline in seagrass and coral reefs, affecting many local fisheries.

Sharks mostly feed on rays. According to a North Carolina study, the decline in shark population increased the ray population. This resulted in a higher demand for scallops. The consumption of all available bay scallops forced the rays to find other bivalves for food. Local fisheries were forced to close as supply fails to meet  demand.

Dr. Julia Baum and her colleagues were collecting data on swordfish and tuna from the United States open-ocean longline fleet. While conducting their study, they often caught sharks and recorded the data into their paper: ‘Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic’. This paper is cited more than 500 times and it summarizes the percentage decline of different shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean since the 1950s. This is shown on the table below:

Figure 2: Graph showing relative percent decline of shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (Figure by Jolean Endique; Data source: Collapse and Conservation of Shark Populations in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean by Dr. Julia Baum and her colleagues [accessed October 29, 2018])

According to the data presented, hammerhead sharks turn out to be the most vulnerable and is declining most rapidly than the other types.

[Note: The following image may be of sensitive content]

This image shows dead bodies of finless sharks laying across the ocean floor. Figure 3: Image showing dead finless shark bodies laying across the ocean floor (Source: The Oceana Youtube Channel)

Who would leave these “Kings” lifeless at the bottom of the ocean? All this for a 100-dollar bowl of soup? Where did justice for these animals go? Shark fin soups must not be disguised as “fish wing soup” to raise awareness on shark fin trade. We need to start considering the impacts of harming these wonderful creatures. Those who are responsible for such cruel acts must realize that $100 is not worth a shark’s life. Shark fin trade must be officially banned for the sake of our marine ecosystem. Stricter fishing policies must be urgently implemented. Knowledge on shark fin trade must be disseminated especially to those who are uninformed.

 

 

 

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Climate change, the one to blame for the reduced oceanic oxygen levels due to rising global temperature

Posted on October 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

Climate change, the one to blame for the reduced oceanic oxygen levels due to rising  global temperature

You may be thinking, “Here we are again, talking about climate change”. Yes, I will be one of those people who will be talking about this issue again, and again, and again, until we all see some actual progress regarding this issue. I am not here to convince you that climate change is real. Climate change is indeed a real problem and it is causing a decrease in oceanic oxygen levels. We need to start talking about this.

Dr. Ralph Keeling and his colleagues at the University of California found that with rising temperature levels, a reduced solubility of oxygen molecules is observed in the ocean. Dr. Keeling and his team’s ocean models predicted that there will be about 1-7% decrease in oceanic oxygen levels in the next century.

How does this affect us and the aquatic life? Most marine organisms use cellular respiration, a process that converts organic molecule and oxygen to a sustainable form of energy and carbon dioxide as a by-product. The equation for cellular respiration is shown below:

This image shows cellular respiration: a process that converts an organic molecule to energy (ATP) (Image by Jolean Endique).

Algae and planktons are the most abundant photosynthetic organisms in the ocean. They need both light energy and nutrients to produce oxygen and capture CO2  in the atmosphere. With decreasing oxygen levels, cellular respirators may be unable to provide a sufficient amount of nutrients for photosynthetic organisms. As you may have thought, yes, our chance of increasing our oxygen levels and decreasing our atmospheric CO2  may be very slim. In addition, a decrease in marine productivity may also take a toll on fisheries and coastal economies that solely depend on aquatic fauna. As phrased by Dr. Breitberg, a marine ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, about coral reef bleaching as a result of low oceanic oxygen levels, “As seas are losing oxygen, those areas are no longer habitable by many organisms”.

Coral reef bleaching is another consequence of reduced oceanic oxygen levels. The sensation it gives to coral reefs is like “ripping your guts out” as described by Mark Eakin, coordinator of the Coral Reef Watch program for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This occurs as the very crucial microscopic algae living inside the coral reefs are being affected by bleaching the most. Coral bleaching is caused both by ocean acidification and reduced oxygen levels. However, when the temperature rises 2 degrees above the normal highest temperatures of a certain area, coral bleaching then becomes completely caused by warmer waters. This is also the reason why most coral reefs nowadays are not as colorful as they were.

This image is a snapshot from a video showing a comparison of how the same corals used to be a year ago at Iriomote, Southern Japan and how they look now due to coral bleaching (Source: The Hydrous Youtube Channel).

We now know some of the drastic effects of reduced oceanic oxygen levels due to climate change. But, how long will it take for us to take action against climate change? How long do we have until we call Earth inhabitable? We need to stop the factors that contribute to climate change as soon as possible. We need to be better at segregating our wastes, biodegradable from non-biodegradable from plastics. We need to find better alternatives to fossil fuels, some better source of renewable energy, to reduce our carbon emissions. We need to stop hurting our forests and taking the life out of them. All of these will slow down global warming and prevent climate change from ruining our beautiful world. Let’s save our planet from dying. Not only the ocean is affected, each and every one of us is.

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