The Ghost Festival (中元節; zhōngyuánjié) is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. My family usually called it as “Cengbeng”. Chinese people believe the ghosts and spirits are emerged out from the lower world to visit earth during this festival’s month. Activities of the festival include preparing ritual offerings of food, burning ghost money (or paper money), burning clothes and other properties to please the visiting ghosts and spirits as well as deities and ancestors. Other activities include burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies “giving directions to the lost ghosts.”
The activity that related with Global warming is burning ghost money. Ghost money was made from a paper. The color and the shape determine the amount of the money. My family always makes around 5-6 sacks ghost money. It means we used around 5-6 ream of folio paper (roughly). Besides that we still bring more paper to the cemetery to makes more ghost money, so totally around 7 ream folio paper was used only for my father, my aunt and my uncle make the same amount for my grandparents, it means around 21 reams was used by my family. And then all those 21 reams of paper was burnt for our elders. So how if we calculate all the ghost money which has been burnt all over the world every years ( 2 times/year). How many pounds or ton paper we have burnt?
This is information that I got from internet. If we try to recycle 1 ton papers, we can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4 000 kilowatts of energy, and 7 000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution! The 17 trees saved can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide. It takes 40% less energy to recycle newspaper than it does to make it from raw materials. Carbon dioxide is one of greenhouse gasses that makes 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. An increase in global temperature will cause sea level to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with warming being strongest in the Arctic. Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields (Wikipedia). Right now, we had already felt the extreme weather. Nowadays. tornados that killed many people is more often happen. So if we trace the effect of burning hundreds pounds of paper, it will lead us to the end of the world (For the worst and long term effect) .
This article doesn’t mean I don’t respect my elder especially my father. This article just want to remind us about the world condition. This world is not ours. God loans this earth for us and our descendants. We need to be responsible. The second reason I wrote this article, because I got scolded if I talk to my aunt and uncle about these things, and they will judge me as a rebellious child. I hope with this article many people will understand the effect from burning paper.
References :
- http://www.religionfacts.com/chinese_religion/holidays/ghost_festival.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival
- http://www.help-stop-global-warming.com/global-warming-recycling.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
- (Wikipedia is really a great source if you lazy to read journal)..Hahaha..X)
