Issues: Earth hour

Hello readers,

Yesterday (Saturday, 28/3/09), from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, was Earth hour. Last year, about a billion people from approximately ninety countries switched off their lights for an hour to play their part in saving the Earth.

Yesterday, I took part in this event for the first time. My family and I huddled together in one room and switched off all the other lights. When any of us went out, we relied on torches as our source of light, for it was pitch dark outside. Despite the inconvenience, I was glad that we had switched off our lights for that one hour, for by doing that, we have contributed to the fight against Global Warming.

However, even if one billion people switched off their lights for an hour, it would only be equivalent to stopping China's emissions for a mere six seconds. That is a sad fact. Our never-ending need for energy is slowly but surely, destroying our planet's life. 2008 was the year of the frog as many realised the terrible danger amphibian species were in, not only from chrytid fungus but also from global warming.

We all share only one planet: Earth. It will require an international, transboundary effort (and also green technology) to reverse the damage done.

Events: A trip to Pulau Semakau (the wildlife 2)

Hello all,

Besides those two organisms I mentioned earlier, there is definitely more than meets the eye in these seemingly lifeless mudflats. Scuttling on the mudflats and darting away once we got too close for comfort were a few fiddler crabs. Fiddler crabs are well known for their enormous right claw, which dwarfs the left claw in size, is loudly coloured (usually red or orange) and is grossly large in comparison to its body. Actually, this enlarged claw is only present in males, which use their gargantuan claws to wrestle against each other to fight for the right to mate. They live in burrows under the sand and emerge to feed during the low tide. Once danger is imminent, they scuttle back to the safety of their minute hiding holes.

As the group ventured out to sea, we saw numerous tiny hermit crabs and mud-brown gobies in the tide pools. We also saw more types of small crabs, sea snails and shells in the vicinity. The picture on the right shows one of the many shells we saw in the mud, whereas the picture on the left shows a sea snail in a tide pool.

Further out, we saw a large stretch of seagrass before us. The tour guide told us some facts about seagrass and proceeded to show us sponges among the seaweed. Unfortunately, I am not very educated or interested in sponges or seaweed, so I know very little about them and have hardly any information about them to share with you. However, I learnt from the tour guide that you should never touch a sponge, as the consequences would be dire should you foolishly do so. If I remember correctly, many miniscule "splinters" would lodge themselves into your skin, just like fragments of broken glass. The lesson learnt? Never ever anyhow touch things that you are unsure about.

My brother spotted something round and brown in the water which he initially suspected to be a sand dollar. However, it was later revealed that the organism was in fact an upside-down jellyfish, a jellyfish species which I had never known before. The jellyfish carries algae in it and breaks down the algae's cell wall to let the sugar in it flow out. The sugar is in turn used by the jellyfish as a source of food.

Okay, this is enough for the time being.