Thursday, August 20, 2009

How stupid was I ?

The above mentioned question or “statement” is one of the consequences of the “facebook” flu, More precisely the “school promo facebook flu” that can haunt you 11 years after your recovery from its last symptoms.

It’s amazing how many times this question pops into my head when I’m engaging in any of the group’s events or discussions!

-checking the tags of old photos , witnessing the hideous wardrobe of my childhood ,(thanks mom), btw mom, no boy , even a 7 year old, wears “collant” under his shorts for the “sports” class, even if it was cold , believe me I have checked all the classes’ photos , not only my class , no one, no one I tell u , wears that!! I browse and I browse asking myself ....How stupid was I??

- when leaving school I kept a specific image stored in my head of every single schoolmate, stamped by the attitude at the time of our last goodbye, and one decade later, in a reunion, I find myself impressed by the maturity and the amazing character of some that I didn’t even consider their friendship back then, and get astonished by the fact that some of the closest people to me during my childhood are still 12 year olds, still bullying the previously mentioned people, dying for attention, inviting you to join the parade! And I ask myself ….how stupid was I???

-and of course, many of the girls that I kind of dated at school wrote notes for, drew their portraits, made them compilation K7s (this alone deserves a “how stupid was I?”) played the whole teenage charade with, I watch them a decade later in disbelief (what was I thinking???) and in relief (thank god that’s over) and I ask myself …How stupid was I?

-On the other hand, that one girl , that I used to spot in the shades of the familiar trees in the playground, very different , very mysterious … I lacked of courage , didn’t let her know , days passed by , always spotting her among all the crowds , years passed by , still I spotted her , a decade later , in our reunion, among everyone, shining more than ever, I spotted her and I asked myself … How stupid was I ??????

-and above all, the flashbacks, the silliest details, the smallest jokes, the conversations with a friend, a friend that asked for my friendship at an age when we didn’t understand grown ups' words like “benefit’ and “interest”, a friend that now is gone, gone for good … a decade later I look back at these fragmented memories and notice that I took them for granted and ask myself … How stupid was I ?????????

At the end of this post , I think for a second and realize that I have just written a Post about a group on facebook and I ask myself : .........

Monday, August 10, 2009

posted by lilo:not so personal "Climate Change v/s Global Warming, What is Climate change?"

-P.S: as a way of spreading the word and contributing in a global cause that transcends over all divisions, I'll be posting about this subject and re-posting original posts by fellow bloggers, in this case from "Lilo:not so personal" blog LINK who has been dedicating quite a time for the issue that is global climate change . more posts updates and links from Lilo and others adressing this theme will be posted later .
the post by its original author is as follows :




In this post, I will be talking about what Climate Change (also referred to as Global Change) is, what Global Warming is, and the difference between them.

Global Warming

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the last century.

The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in the atmosphere warm a planet's lower atmosphere and surface.

So in summary, with the greenhouse effect, the more the CO2, the more the absorption of the sun's radiation by the Earth, thus the increase of the global temperature. (See Photo)

Climate Change

Climate change is any long-term change in the statistics of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. Climate change may occur in a specific region, or across the whole Earth.

Lately, a change in the climate is occurring fast, and we can see those changes today. To name a few, increase in the sea water level (see previous post about the Maldives Islands to disappear, causing what we call Climate Refugees), increase in the spreading of diseases (e.g. the Dengue fever in Bangladesh), increase in the number of cyclones (e.g. in Oman), bleaching of coral reefs, glaciers melting, etc...

As now climate change will be affecting the whole Earth, it is also being referred to as Global Change.


Difference between Global Warming and Climate Change

Put in simple words, we can say that Climate change (the recent of course) is the consequence of Global warming. Global warming already happened, climate change is happening as we speak, and the target of these NGOs by December 2009 in Copenhagen is to introduce a treaty that will let the countries work on mitigating (decreasing) the effects of climate change on Earth as much as possible, by setting the goal of decreasing the gas emissions by 80% by 2050, to reach the 350 ppm (parts per million) CO2 in the atmosphere (it's around 378ppm now), to prevent from letting the temperature of the earth increase by 2 degrees Celsius (more details on this in future posts) which if they don't, it will have catastrophic and disastrous effects on Earth.

In future posts, I will be telling you about the effects of Climate Change on Lebanon directly, the difference between Mitigation (increase in gas emissions activities) and adaptation (in case the tipping point in climate change is reached, what will we do then), the science and the politics behind Climate Change and the most common words and expressions you will be hearing that are related to Climate change.