Boopy, the eco-detective sparrow, answers your questions:
Is the ECO-PEN just another typical pen to put in my pencil case?
The ECO-PEN is more than a simple projector pen; it’s a fantastic communication tool and can help you safeguard your planet.
How?
You must become an eco-detective like me and investigate four enormous problems we are all facing:
You will need to carry out your own investigations and understand the problems by yourself. If you want to be an expert much sooner, then you can do research on the Internet and type the above keywords in a search engine. You can also study at your local library and get together with some friends of yours who are also devoted to saving the environment.
And then?
You should share with others everything you’ve learned. This is the most important. With the ECO-PEN, you can tell people about our planet’s problems by projecting these “inconvenient truths” on a giant screen. It’s up to you to prepare the text to explain the ECO-PEN’s eight slides.
How should I organize my lecture?
It is up to you. You need to explain what is happening, why the problem in growing, and what will happen if no one takes action. But more importantly, you need to show what everyone can do every day to fight those problems. The global message is that everybody can help save our planet. What kidz will do today will greatly influence tomorrow’s world. Kidz Power, remember my adventure trip to Africa!
To whom should I show my findings?
To your friends, your school, your parents and whoever you would like to understand those things—because YOU can make a difference. You can also send them to me and we will upload them to this site! And don’t forget to tell me how many persons you were able to deliver your lecture to.
Can I get some more hints that can help?
You can go and check some actions here that I recommend.
Here are also some information that will help you and make you think how bad the state of our planet is and why we must act as quick as possible.
For the past few years, global warming has received a lot of attention, and more and more people are taking action and doing their best to reduce their energy use in an effort to stop the effects of global warming.
What is global warming anyway? Simply put, this means that there is a significant increase in the Earth’s temperature. For the past century, our planet has been growing increasingly warmer, with the temperature rising by as much as 0.25 °C every decade. The heat has that lakes are shrinking and glaciers are melting. Just recently, an ice shelf collapsed from a glacier in Western Antarctica. Winters are also getting shorter and warmer, affecting even the hibernation habits of bears and other animals.
Polar bears see their ice getting thinner every day. It’s harder for them to find their food and they sometimes need to swim for extra long distances, sometimes drowning on the way to reach ice banks.
Global warming is worsened by the amount of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere, and these greenhouse gases come from things like the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. Now more than ever, it’s very important to find alternatives to typical energy sources, or at least do all that’s possible to reduce their use.
What you can do
Animals are one of the most valuable beings on our planet, and they help us see how diverse the Earth really is, giving us a wealth of animals that vary in appearance, characteristics, and habits. But sadly, there are people out there who think that animals are simply a source of products which can be sold at a high price. Elephants are being killed for the ivory in their tusks. Rhinos are being hunted down for their horns. And a lot more animals are being killed for their furs and pelts.
Poaching or illegal hunting is a serious problem all over the world. Many hunters exploit animals in order to make money, and their activities can bring about the untimely extinction of hundreds of species. Endangered animals in particular are especially at risk.
Fortunately, there are many organizations devoted to fighting poaching, and the world’s governments have also put in place many strict laws to stop poaching activities but it is not enough and laws are not always enforced.
What you can do
Trees are a vital part of our planet’s ecosystem. Not only do they provide shade for us and protect us from floods and soil erosion, trees are also “carbon sinks,” meaning they help reduce the amount of pollution in the air. They also provide valuable homes for numerous animals.
Sadly, deforestation, or the widespread disappearance of trees, is on the rise all over the world. Most of the world’s forest cover is being chopped down to give way to urban development, ranches, and plantations, and industrial logging is also responsible for the disappearance of the world’s forests.
This isn’t just happening in one part of the world. In South America’s Amazon rainforest, the trees are being torn down at a rapid rate to make way for cattle ranches and soja plantation. In Cambodia, the forest cover went down from 356,000 hectares in 2000 to 322,000 hectares in 2005. And in the United States, 215,200 hectares of forests were lost from 2000 to 2005.
If we’re not careful, pretty soon, the world’s forests will be completely eradicated. Without these forests, the environment will suffer. Animals will lose their homes and the area’s biodiversity will be diminished too. It may then be the end of lemurs and apes all together.
What you can do
Pollution is a problem the entire planet has been grappling with for years. Everything from the air to the water is affected, and you can see the effects of pollution from the dark smog hanging over cities every day and dirty rivers, seas, and lakes destroyed by people and companies dumping their household and chemical waste in the world’s waters.
It’s not just the planet that is affected by pollution. Even we humans bear the brunt of its effects. Air pollution causes breathing problems and at the very worst, inhaling polluted hair can cause cancer. Air pollution also produces acid rain, which kills plants and harms wildlife; it also worsens global warming.
Water pollution, on the other hand, can kill marine life; some bodies of water that have too much acid and chemicals in them can no longer support its marine population, which eventually dies off. Every year, outdated ships sink and spill their oil onto fragile coasts and beaches, killing hundred of thousands of animals and wrecking the local fishing industry. There was the Exxon Valdez (Alaska) and the Erika (France) disasters, and more recently the oil spill caused by the Hebei Spirit in Korea.
What you can do