Keeping Up With Juliette

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  Today, I wanted to publish another one of my journal entries for TOK. I thought I would make this a fairly regular occurrence since this is something that I have to write every 2 weeks so I might as well share a couple with you. I won't share everything I do since it is all my own work and I would prefer it to stay that way but I figured that I might as well do this since it is kind of fun to post. Here I'm talking about the ivory trade and the unethical practices that go on in many countries across the world and Asia in particular. I talk about how we can change the knowledge and cultural understanding of the next generation of young people so that they consume less into this illegal industry. I hope you enjoy reading it and find it interesting.  - A topic that's always been of particular concern to me is the trade of elephant ivory, amongst other animal products that are considered valuable, to many people across dif...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As I've briefly talked about recently, I have been considering going on this amazing trip with my school to Northern Tanzania in the summer of 2022 and I've just spent 2 weeks consolidating my decision. Well, long story short, I've decided to take the plunge and go for it since there's probably not going to be many other opportunities like this in the future. This trip will count towards, hopefully, many parts of my CAS experience (school enrichment programme) so it's an important part of my education and my overall IB qualification. I was a little bit unsure as to whether or not I should do this trip because it is such a big commitment. The preparation for this trip is a lot of work as you have to attend weekly meetings, organise fundraising, and probably work to earn some money but after attending one of the virtual meetings on Microsoft to find out more about this trip, I realised that there was a lot to gain...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  I watched Steve Backshall's Blue Planet Live, with my family on Monday evening. I wasn't sure what the documentary would be about but I found it quite interesting because in this episode of the series, Steve was talking a lot about Sharks and why we should respect them. Respect means that we shouldn't fear sharks even if they're a top predator in the ocean and it also means that we should protect their population and the habitat that they live in. Since some of my family are Japanese, I understand some of the traditions there are with eating sharks in countries like Japan and China and it does sadden me a lot. Sharks are a vital part of our coral reefs because without them, there would be no balance of species below them and no diversity of species would be maintained as there would also be nothing to balance out the competition. These apex predators are also vital to us because they are indicators of healthy ree...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  Mass production, fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, climate change. These are all things that reign in on our conscience in the media. If we think about where we get our food, the first place our minds seem to go to are the shops. We don't ever think about the factories or the farms or the fields and the millions and millions of trees, acres and acres of land that all get consumed by our need meat, vegetables, grain, wheat, and fruit. When we think of fossil fuels and our greenhouse gas emissions, we pity our daily use of our cars to go to work and school, as well as the simple heating that protects us from the bitter cold or the switch of a light that brightens up the darkness. We don't ever think about how dependent we are on our cars, gas, and electricity. We don't question what's perhaps causing this dependency on food and transport. Because, whilst we're dealing with these problems as separate issues we...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Funnily enough, I watched yet another documentary with my family. I feel like many people watch a TV series with their family but for me, it has become a trend to watch documentaries. Yes it's boring; I prefer educational programmes over stuff that's actually entertaining but everyone has their different tastes. This documentary was really interesting because it was about this couple who rescue chimpanzees in Liberia. I already didn't know much about Liberia so it was interesting to learn more about the culture and way of life there. Unfortunately, it was quite sad because the people just had a civil war there so the country was already quite unstable and the people are very uneducated on how they should treat chimpanzees. I don't condone their behaviour but in a way I can understand it. Many people in Liberia are known to kill mother chimpanzees and sell the babies as house pets. In the past, people probabl...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, We are fast becoming the age where blame is a common occurrence. We blame each other because when we face up to the actual problem, it seems like a big mountain that we have to climb. A prime example of this is when we blame others for their acts on allegedly doing nothing for the environment. When the general public looks at the fast-growing fossil fuel industry, the first thing most people think about is how bad it is for the environment. When people look at the pressures that face the meat and dairy industry, they think about how terrible it is for the environment. When people think about the growth of capitalism, they think how bad it is that they're are supporting something that destroys the environment. I can go on and on about these things where the environment is talked about but we'd probably be here a long time. The basic fact of the matter is, we've been putting blame on others since the 50s, when people st...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, You may or may not agree with what I'm about to write about but that's honestly okay. I just feel the need to talk about what I'm about to now because I feel as though we're buying into something that is really not beneficial to us as a whole. Formulate you're own opinions because you have the right to do so but I felt that it was important to talk about one of the biggest topics that has been on the news recently.  I really want to help the environment in the future and I hope that I will come up with something that might help with that. It makes me upset seeing all the destruction of our natural world, even right on our doorstep. I was driving to dance today and one of the main roads leading into Cambridge was being built on, in order to install a new road because of all the traffic that comes in from the big ports in Felixstowe. However, in order to do so, the builders have had to cut down masses of trees...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, I recently went shopping to Tescos with my family, after going out for dinner and I was surprised to find a big billboard in the entrance way, which showed various photos of plastic pollution in our oceans. Admittedly, none of the plastic bags that you could see the fish and the turtles eating were Tesco branded but at least it showed that something is about to change and in some respects, Tesco want that change to happen. I also saw various plastic recycling bins where people can recycle plastic that the council cannot such as plastic film and laminated plastics. I don't quite know what makes their bins better than the council's but at least it shows that they're aware of the problem and are trying to take action to make our environment better. Also, Tesco has allowed refills for hand soap and I'm hoping shower gels and dish soap in the future since that's what we seem to be using most often. However, I ackno...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently I've been re-watching the hit documentary series, Blue Planet, by David Attenborough. I personally find this documentary series really amazing because it highlights how animals act and behave towards our ever changing environment. However, what I find most shocking is that this documentary was filmed 4 years ago and if we look at all the things that have been achieved in those 4 years, there would be very little to talk about. Sure, the government has been shaken slightly by the warming of the planet and plastic has been a hot topic but apart from that, nothing has really happened. To me, this is really frustrating. There is so much to be done and people are choosing to sit down and do nothing because it's the easiest option. Well, it may be the easiest option but it's certainly not the most effective what so ever. People are going for the easiest option of telling people what the world's problems are on ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently, as more and more people are becoming aware, the public have been standing up for change in the way in which we are handling this climate change crisis. It's always been a worry for a lot of people to ensure that we are being as environmentally friendly and kind to our planet as we possibly can be. However, in the last few years, as many scientists have been predicting that we may only have 10 years left to truly make a difference to our environment, people as young as youths have been passively revolting for change in the way their parliament deal with this issue. The famous Youth Strike for Climate Change, founded by 16 year old environmental activist Greta Thunberg, got children and teens all over the world  gathering together to give up a day of school to protest against the way things are currently done. I personally really like this new initiative and I think that it's really refreshing to see people of a...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, I've been asked about this a lot. I did a blog post a while back on trophy hunting and I received about 4 comments from someone who questioned my opinion. They asked, well if you are not okay with trophy hunting, why are you okay farming? I also had a small debate with another user on Instagram after I commented on a post informing people about hunting in Africa, saying how bad it was that we treat animals like objects instead of living beings. The user asked a similar question, well if you are not okay with hunting animals in Africa, why are you okay farming? Understandably, this is a question people want to ask and perhaps I didn't explain myself properly before hand, so I'm going to explain my opinion now. To be honest, we can technically farm animals in Africa and kill them for their meat or for their ivory. That way, we get what we want and we dont kill off the species. However, we're farming enough meat as i...