Would I like to live in Masdar City?

Living in Masdar city is now becoming the dream of many people in the world who wants to live a healthy life without thinking about any pollution problems. I’d of course like to live in Masdar city for some reasons that I’ll mention in my next lines.

There are many reasons why I would like to live in that city. First, this city will guarantee the future of my children and the next generations. Having almost no pollution is just like a dream to anyone because everyone cares about his children and how they going to live their life. The second reason is it will reduce the emission of CO2. The reducing of CO2 will help to increase the global warming effect on the earth. The last one is a healthier life style. The people who live there will sure have a better life style because they generally going to depend on walking and cycling around the city of course beside the public transport.

To conclude, I think the idea of Masdar city will introduce Abu Dhabi for the whole world as a leading city against the earth’s problem. I hope this project isn’t the end of Abu Dhabi’s creative plans.

My recording about Global Warming

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USA Cool cities

Most of the USA cities turned to be a cool city without the government's help.
They did quite a good work and here are some examples of it:

Iowa - first municipal utility to install its own wind Turbines.

In Klamath Falls, Oregon, a geothermal district heating system keeps the sidewalks clear and dry.

Seattle - reduced its own global warming pollution by more than 60 percent by constructing green buildings and operating alternative fuel vehicles.

Washington, D.C - replaced 414 of its polluting diesel buses with cleaner burning, compressed natural gas buses.

Houston, Texas – all vehicles will become hybrid by 2010.

Salt Lake city, Utah - saves over $32,000 a year on its energy costs as a result of installing 861 light emitting diode (LED) traffic signals.

Columbia. Missouri – working to produce 10% of their electricity with clean energy like wind and solar power by 2015.

Twin falls. Idaho – schools increased their energy efficiency which caused to reduce the cost by $3.5 million.

St. Paul, Minnesota – Warm the buildings using District Energy’s energy-efficient combined heat and power (CHP) system.

Fort Collins, Colorado – use renewable energy such as wind and solar which is now producing 15% of the city’s electricity.a

One Planet Ten Principles

Zero Carbon: The temperature is rising up because the increase of CO₂ percentage which is caused by human daily uses.

Zero Waste: The items people use are left and thrown away without thinking about how useful it is to recycle it and also how hard it is to disappear.

Sustainable Transport: Using the vehicles causes air pollution by all the gases it rejects and a noise pollution also with the engine sound and horn.

Local and sustainable materials: The over use of a foreign source of materials for our usage is threatening the earth and weakening the country’s economy.

Local and Sustainable Food: Not knowing the source of an agriculture product could lead to bad effects and also to import it from another country will cause the CO2 to rise up because of transport.

Sustainable Water: Not using too much water and also re-use the wasted water to match all the peoples’ needs.

Natural habits and wildlife: Killing so many animals could cause some species to extinction which is something we sure don’t want it to happen.

Culture and Heritage: The culture and some old items are being lost with all the development the country is having now, so we should prevent all that from being lost.

Equity and fair trade: A lot of countries around the world suffer from poverty because they don’t have enough food or items to get for the people.

Health and happiness: The increase of living standard made people healthier and happier than before, medical care could be found now easily.

Critical Thinking

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My Carbon Footprint: Problems & Solutions

Carbon footprint is something related to global warming. It’s the measurement of person’s activity which effects on earth’s climate and it’s weighted with the carbon dioxide emitted. There’s a test you can try to know your carbon footprint, I got 2.7 in this test which means that I’m living in 2.7 earths.

I’m going to outline some problems and solutions for this dilemma.

My problems related to this topic are many. The first issue is the overuse of car. I used to depend on walking too much but after I got my driving licenses I rarely walk. The second one is turning on lights even I don’t really need it. Sometimes I just turn it on to make the room brighter. Final problem is that I don’t recycle the things I use. Whenever I finish eating opening a new tool I just throw the box in the trash can without thinking about the consequences.

Turning to solutions, the first answer is that I could use public transportation more and also walk if the destination you’re going to isn’t that far. It’s also a good way to remain in a good shape and keep healthy. Another solution is to turn off the light and any electrical item when I don’t need to use it. If all of us think about the enormous amount of electricity we waste then they will change their life style for real. The last answer is to recycle all the boxes, papers… etc. The fact is that recycled items needs less energy compared to the new items factories make.

To conclude, the first steps the world has taken are very important and also has a promising hope. It’s should be our priority to save the earth we live on for the next generation.

What should be done in Abu Dhabi

Many procedures can be taken to make the people aware of this problem.

I'm going to outline some in the next lines::

- Do more campaigns about the global warming issue.

- More Events regarding this topic should be taken place in public places.

- Teach our children about the danger of this phenomenon and the right way to deal with it.

- TV & radio shows could have a greater effect on people.

- Encourage people to be a part of the solution.

Hopefully, by taking those steps in consideration maybe it would make some change in people's

view regarding the global warming problem.

Why is it called “An Inconvenient Truth”?

In my view, the reason why it's called an inconvenient truth is that it's an annoying fact for people

around the globe because they don't want to believe that they have anything to do with this issue.

Taking responsibility sometimes just isn't humans nature so all the things we do now has a great

effect on our planet. The people don't want to hear anything which don't make them feel satisfied.

My Reaction to the Movie

After watching this movie I realised how big this problem is and how were we are a major part of it. We really should consider our actions on earth because every thing we do to her has a good or bad effect that will have a consequence in the short or long term. Al Gore had every right to do all this after what he saw that mankind doing to earth. I think the world now will take global warming more seriously after watching this movie.

I can see that some countries have already made some moves in order to find a permanent solution for the global warming problem. Even small things could be a part of the solution like recycling things we use in our daily life.

Summary of An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore, the one who was going to be the next president of the United States of America has dedicated his life to let the people around the world to be aware of the problem which threat life on the earth. In the next lines I’m going to outline a brief summary about his movie “An inconvenient truth”.

Global warming is the catastrophe which threats life on earth. Al Gore explained how the atmosphere works; sun ray comes from the sun everyday then some of the rays stay inside the earth with the help of ozone layer to keep it warm. The crazy increase of carbon dioxide ratio has made the layer thicker so more rays are trapped more than we normally need. As a result, a lot of temperature changing can be seen around the world such as heat wave. Another problem the global warming is causing is that the ice is melting which is a very serious danger. The level of the sea, constructions and the weather itself all can be affected if the ice or permafrost starts to melt down because of the increasing of heat. At the end of his discussion, Al Gore confirmed that most of the scientists around the world agree that we are the main reason for the global warming. What will the future generation think of their parents if this problem gets more and more serious?

Blood Diamond -Voicethread-

My Favorite Video

Lebanon's Social Issues

Lebanon is a very beautiful country and an important destination for tourism. Lebanon or as the bible called it once “The land of milk and honey”. Beirut is the capital of the country and it’s also nicknamed “Paris of the East”. Famous people are originally half Lebanese such as the well known Columbian artist “Shakira”. There are five countries which surround Lebanon which are: Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus & Palestine (Israel).

Several problems started to appear in Lebanon. In 1943-1948 after France got out from Lebanon the Christians took the balance of power in the country while Muslims haven’t much of a power back then, this caused some tensions between those two. The tension reached its limit in 1975 when a radical Christian group attacked a bus full of Palestinians and killed them. After this incident, some vengeful attacks were made as a respond for the Christians actions which led to more hate and no trust at all between Muslims and the other group.

After seven years, exactly in 1985 The Israeli army invaded Beirut to remove the Palestinians Liberation Organization as they said. All those wars and conflicts and wars in the city and in the country in general led to very serious and sad results. Between 150-200 thousand people were killed while 300 thousand were wounded, that goes for the human cost but as for the economic cost was very heavy and it actually was paralyzed for many years which stroke hard to the whole country. The peace has finally come in 1989 which put off the furious flames of war.

In the recent days, Lebanon began to recover from that savagery conflict which led to nothing but destruction and sadness. People came back to their homes after they left it because of the war. The buildings which were affected by the conflict are restored by the help of some other countries. The most important thing that tourism is finally revived and people now can enjoy everything in Beirut after the horror the city lived in the past several years. Tourists can relax and enjoy Skiing on the mountains, taking sunbath on the beach and also swim in the blue sea.

The problem that the country is handling now is there are some people who were born in Lebanon but they are not Lebanese, so they don’t have any citizen’s rights in the country which is a serious issue to them at least.

Conflict Diamond

Conflict Diamond power point

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My Profile

Name: Khalid Ali Al Ameri ID: H00049471 Section: CYM

In the beginning, I’m 19 years old and going to turn 20 on the 28^th of May. I’m an Emirati who was born and live in Abu Dhabi which is one of the most beautiful cities of the world for me. My whole family was born in Abu Dhabi except for my father who was born in Al Ain.

I’m the eldest child beside the 3 sisters so that makes me kind of responsible for all the three of them and their action, I should advise them if I saw something wrong from any one of them. First I found this not fair to be blamed for something my sisters have done but with time passing I learnt to be patient and show some respect with my attitude.

When I was young, I lived in an apartment in Abu Dhabi, Al Salam St. to be specific. I can’t remember exactly how many years my family stayed there but what I do remember is that I had so much fun there especially when my cousin were around. We used to go out to play in gardens and also enjoy playing football. That was all my childhood was about.

I used to have good time spending time with my family. My father used to take us to the garden to play there and have a nice picnic; however, I don’t have the same fun as I used to have when I was a kid. Now, I enjoy going out with my friends because they are at the same age as me so we have a lot of things in common. Every weekend we go out to watch a movie at the cinema and just enjoy our time.

I remember once we went to Ski Dubai in Emirates mall, by that time I had just got my driving license so I was quite exciting. I and my friends left Abu Dhabi in the morning to Dubai. The best thing about going on a long trip with friends is that u don’t feel the time passes because of the nice talking and the laughter, so we just spent the 2 hours way like 10min. We had lunch and went to try Ski Dubai in the afternoon. We had a lot of fun there and spent a lot of time in there, we didn’t get out until 11pm. We returned home tired but happy with all the excitement we had.

The most thing I enjoy now a days is the family gathering. When I was young my father used to take me to that kind of gathering and his excuse was that I have to know my family, for me the only reason I went there is just to play with the other children. Now I got my father’s point about knowing my family because all my relatives know me very well while most of my cousins don’t know our extended family members. I’m glad that my father took me to those gatherings because my uncles always tell their sons about me and how all the family members know me well.

The World Diamond Trade

As some people say “Diamond girl’s best friend”, that’s kind of true but I can’t really say the same about men. Africa is the biggest continent producer for this rare material. This stone is so unique because it needs a very special conditions and also very long time to turn into the diamonds we know.

There are a lot of diamond mines in Africa so it’s normally a good place to set a diamond mining company. The biggest company in Africa is De Beers Consolidated Ltd. They got most of their diamonds from South Africa’s mines and they control about two thirds of the world’s rough diamonds trade. In the early 20th century this company kept the diamond’s price high because they controlled most the of the world’s supply.

Antwerp which is a city in Belgium was considered a diamond center for 600 years. The Jewish are the main dealers there beside also Indians. Recently, most of the polishers had left Antwerp to work in India because it’s much cheaper and they get 40cent per gem so now there are only 1500 left. In this city 80% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through this city. Rough diamonds come from several places such as Antwerp and Tel viv.

Now Dubai has a growing Reputation as a diamond hub. It gives the world diamond dealers a great chance to have zero tax for the next 50 years so that should attract a lot of people. The business in Dubai now is worth nearly 1 billion Euros so it’s really a growing force.

Pop stars in USA buy a lot of diamonds especially the African American ones, to show off in front of the people or just to create their own style as they say.