Task 4 Reading Assignments

Marketing Materials for Photographers

Photography is an artistic style of business, those little details are very important in photography business which constructs the marketing materials for photographers, the more thoughtful we are, the better business we get. I've been reading different and various online photography blogs and websites, which was very interesting to me; in the last semesters, I had thought about how to start my own photography working path, and to begin with some freelance work as an "entership" for myself, as well as a life/working experience for myself. I had actually thought of some materials during the last semester's studying, such as name cards, calendars with my own artwork on them to help promote myself, I also had even thought about making postcards of my own artwork on them and go to the streets and sell them. 

After this reading task, I think I've gained much more than just making postcards and calendars. It is all about being thoughtful in photography business.

"Going Pro"

There's this photography tutorial video that I've found on Youtube, this guy talked about "how to be professional in photography business. There are 5 elements to help photographers improve their photography skills.

1, Passion: have a great passion on what you do is very important for everyone in the world, to chase it and want more from it.

2, Focus: focusing on what we do helps to have a better and essential final work.

3, Unique-creative: Try to be unique and creative to attract the clients attention.

4, Take action: take action on what you always have such as an idea and experimenting on different things

5, Support-inspired: Supports from friends, family is a friendly support, but as a photographer, you need to find your own support such as inspirations, seek more of other photographer's work to find your own inspirations to develop your artwork.

Must-have Photography Marketing Materials

- Business cards: no matter where your photographic expertise lies, you stand to gain a great deal of business through networking with others. Business cards are the premier social leave-behind that helps forge relationships that lead to sales.

- Postcards: direct-mail postcards are proven to be incredibly efficient at landing sales when mailed to a highly targeted mailing list. If you are an even photographer, targeting the time of your direct-mail postcards is as important as targeting your customers.

- Posters: perhaps you've never considered posters as a way to market your photography business, when you consider they're a cheap yet striking way to reach the masses it should be easy to see how posters can help brand your company and even reture direct sales.

- Flyers: like little posters, flyers can be distributed almost anywhere, bulletin boards, doors, windows, under windshield wipers, in hallways, slipped in retail bags and passed out on campuses and in business directs.

- Calendars: distributing free calendars to potential customers is the perfect to showcase your photography skills with your new artwork featured every month.

- Website: your website should include a list of your services offered, your credentials, a portfolio and of course contact information.

(Resource comes from Ps Print) www.psprint.com

Marketing Materials for Your Photography

Business Cards

Letterhead

Envelope

Tri fold brochure

Single CD case

CD/DVD labels

Gift cards

4x6 100 prints image box

Marketing postcards and stickers

A thank you card template

(Resource come from Couture Collection) www.ewcouture.com

(Images come from Google image search engine)

Blog Reading

There's this blog I read, Jenna Mayer Photography http://jennamayer.wordpress.com

She has this post "Jenna Mayer Photography Marketing Material" and in this post, she mentioned about the materials that she uses, listed down below:

1, Gift vouchers

2, Thank you notes

3, Business cards

4, Sticky notes

5, Magnets

6, Flash drives

From these materials that she uses, I can tell she must be a very thoughtful photographer.

Self Promotion

Top Tips for Self Promotion and Why Its So Important

For a photographer, the thing they want to spend most of their time doing is photography, but if you take yourself seriously and want to progress in the world of photography, then time needs to be dedicated to raising your profile and promoting your work. This, admittedly, is no where near as fun as the actual photography, but with regards to furthering your career, it’s almost as important.

It’s essential to know how to promote yourself and your work effectively. Hopefully with the help of these simple tips, you’ll have a greater grasp of what is required to get your work seen and begin building a career as a photographer.

1. Get your work online

Having an online presence is absolutely vital in this day and age. It’s the easiest place for you to showcase your work and it’s the easiest place for people to access it. The difficulty here is getting your work seen amongst the thousands of other photographers out there, but to begin with, you need to have an online portfolio where interested parties can view your work, then it’s up to you to direct people towards it.

It’s essential that your work is clearly laid out, not as tiny thumbnails, but on a large scale that is easy to navigate, complete with contact details and a small CV or resume of the work you have done in the past and where it’s been displayed.

Building your own site is easy, there are many services, such as 500px, which will provide you with a professional photo portfolio and will also allow you to connect with fellow photographers. Your other option is to set up a photography blog, which you can consistently update with your latest work.

2. Flickr

Your other main option for an online presence is via sites such as Flickr. I found Flickr and the community of photographers on the site extremely useful as I grew as a photographer. I found the groups and feedback sections very helpful for interacting with fellow photographers, receiving positive and constructive feedback on my own work as well as being able to observe the work of others and find inspiration for my own work. It’s extremely easy to use and organize your work and it is a great place to begin when wanting to establish your online presence.

3. Social networks

I’m sure you all undoubtedly have personal social networking accounts, but to what extent do you use them to promote your photography work? Some photographers prefer to construct a work account that is separate to their personal accounts, but either way, it is vital that you connect with people online via social networks.

I know of photographers who receive work offers on a regular basis because of their presence on twitter and I personally have received a large amount of work offers due to the promotion of my photography work on Facebook. Something as simple as posting an example of your work each day, or keeping followers up to date with the shoots that you are doing is a great way to attract interest from friends, strangers and potential clients. Make sure you’ve got all the relevant links on your profiles, to your flickr page, website or blog and direct people to sites where they can view more of your work.

4. Stock photography

Many photographers, when starting out, find it difficult to make photography into a viable career, as working freelance can be difficult and getting work may be slow to start with. One of the best ways to utilize and promote your work is to consider uploading if to stock photography sites, such as Envato’s PhotoDune service.
By having your work on these sites, vast amounts of people will see your work and if it’s right for them, may well use it to promote their business. This not only provides a small amount of income, but also gets your work seen and builds your reputation as a photographer. When working with stock sites, ensure that you read through all the small print to check that you’re not giving away the rights to your work and so you understand the percentage cut from each of your sales.

5. Photography face to face!

Regardless of how great all your online promotion is, you cannot beat meeting someone face to face to discuss and enjoy your work together. There are photography clubs and meet ups happening all over the world.

Some may be a handful of people in a small village, others may be hundreds of people gathered at an international expo. Regardless of its size, it’s great to interact with the photographic community, to share ideas and inspiration and to feed off the excitement and energy that will undoubtedly be shared together.

Keep an eye out for large events put on my photographic publications or manufacturers, or search online for a photography club near you. Not only will you get a chance to chat photography with other enthusiasts, it’s a great chance to network and showcase your work to potential clients.

6. The presentation basics

Once you’ve found yourself the opportunities to meet other photographers and potential clients, you’ll need the means for them to see your work. I find the simplest way to achieve this is by having personalized business cards. One side of them will display an example of my work, the other will contain contact details and a web address at which the recipient can see more of my work. These can be simple and cheaply constructed at sites such as VistaPrint or Moo.

An alternative is to collect your work within a book, which again is easily achievable through a variety of online services. Business cards are essential if you want someone to have the means to get in touch with you, but there is no guarantee that said person will visit your website and see your work. Having a physical collection of your work with you ensures that the person you’re engaging will see something instead of relying on them to visit a website.

7. Exhibiting your work

Many photographers don’t deem their work worthy for exhibiting, but it can be one of the best ways to get your work noticed. Now I’m not talking about trying to get your work up in the nation’s biggest modern art gallery, although we can all dream! I’m thinking more along the lines of asking in local cafes, educational institutions or small local galleries whether they might consider having your work up in their establishment for a limited time.

Ideally, they won’t ask for any money in return and you’ll be able to offer the prints for sale by adding a price and contact details alongside the display. Even if you don’t manage to sell any work, many people will be viewing your work and hopefully enjoying it enough to find out who it’s by!

8. Be pushy!

Once you’ve got a point where you feel your online presence is all in place and you’ve got a good body of work to display, you can begin emailing art directors and photo editors from publications and websites to see if they might consider your work.

Knowing the right people may well get your foot in the door, so utilize any contacts you’ve made to build the relationships required. Send out links to your work to anybody you think might be interested and engage with those you declare any sort of desire to know more about you and your work.

I’m not going to start discussing setting up meetings and displaying your portfolio for magazines, but as I mentioned before, meeting people in person can often provide that needed connection, so don’t be afraid to ask people whether they’d like to meet in person, and be prepared to show them examples of your work.

9. Over to you!

So there we have it, a brief guide on getting yourself noticed. Remember that it is an extremely saturated market and there are hundreds of people vying for the same attention as you. Be patient and keep working hard at both your promotion, but more importantly your photography.

I honestly believe that if your work is good enough, you will be given the opportunities you deserve (as long as you get it out there). Keep pushing yourself, learn new and different techniques, keep your options open, but understand your chosen field of photography and work hard to improve your specialist techniques. Most of all, however, if you are enjoying photography and enthusiastic about it, this will come across in the way you present yourself and your work.

(Resource from Photo tuts+ http://photo.tutsplus.com)

(Check out the original post at: http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/shooting-articles/top-tips-for-self-promotion-and-why-its-so-important/ )

"Humanity" & "Humanity Issues" Research

Brand new semester has just begun, it's getting more and more interesting. We have just got our first task which the topic is about term "humanity". What is humanity?

"Humanity" definition in dictionary

Humanity: noun.

1, the human race; human beings collectively. Synonyms: human kind, mankind, man, people, human beings, humans, the human race.

2, humaneness; benevolence. Synonyms: compassion, brotherly love, fraternity, fellow feeling, philanthropy, kindness, consideration, understanding, sympathy, tolerance.

The condition of being human(wikipedia)

Humanity (virtue)  is a set of strengths focused on "tending and befriending others" The three strength associated with humanity are love, kindness, and social intelligence.

Love: has many definitions ranging from a set of purely biological and chemical processed to a religious concept. As a character strength, love is a mutual feeling between two people characterized by attachment, comfort, and generally positive feelings. It can be broken down to three categories: parent to child, child to parent, and romantic love. Having love as a strength is not about the capacity to love, as such, it is about being involved in a loving relationship.

Kindness: The strength kindness encompasses most related terms that evoke feelings of altruism, generosity, helpfulness and a general desire to help people.

Social intelligence: social intelligence is the most modern of the three strength associated with humanity. The CSV defines social intelligence as the ability to understand relationships with other people, including the social relationships involved in intimacy and trust, persuasion, group membership, and political power.

How I personally understand term "humanity"

The condition of being human is an ability to humans, it's what mankind needs to be a human, which is very characteristic to us humans. There are lots of issues in humanity as well, I personally listed the main issues in humanity that I know.

1, Jealousy: Jealousy causes a big personality change, some people tend to be mentally mad and crazy inside because of jealousy; or else, some people tend to be positive to change themselves into better personality.

2, Avarice: Most of the murders, crimes and tragidies that's caused by humans because of avarice.

3, Hatred: Hatred is darkness deep inside humans' personalities, if all humans tend to hate, the world will be a big mess.

4, Laziness: Most of humanbeings in 21st century have laziness problem, because our world has been developing so fast that the internet, technologies and different technology designs tend to aid humans to do less than before, which causes laziness in us humans.

5, Sins: Term "sin" has been known for a long time since the old history and most of religions mention "sin" in them, sins are mostly caused by humans, "sin" may include lots of negative activities such as murder, betrayal and crimes.

6, Betrayal: Betrayal isn't always negative, it is a matter of losing faith in someone or something.

Humanity's Top Ten Problems

Science at UWA is helping to address the biggest problems facing humanity. In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley outlined Humanity Top Ten Problems for the next 50 years. According to professor Smalley, the biggest problems facing humanity are:

- Energy

- Water

- Food

- Environment

- Poverty

- Terrorism and war

- Disease

- Education

- Democracy

- Population

(Resource comes from The University of Western Australia)

Human Rights and Issues

- Prisoners and people at risk: protect the humans! Prisoners and people at risk are those human rights have been violated or are under threat of violation.

- Poverty and human rights: demand dignity! Everyone, everywhere has the right to live with dignity. That means no one should be denied their rights to adequate housing, food, water and sanitation and to education and health care. Amnesty International documents how human rights violations drive and deepen poverty. People living in poverty have the least access to power to shape the policies of poverty, and are frequently denied effective remedies for violation of their rights. 

- Death penalty: The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state.

- Security and human rights: Amnesty International insists that states must respect human rights in any actions they take in the name of national security or countering terrorism.

- Refugee and migrant rights: Everyday across the world refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons make the difficult decision to leave their homes. War, persecution, environmental disaster and poverty are just some of the reasons why a person might have to leave their family, community or country.

- Torture: Torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment must stop, and those responsible for authorizing and implementing it must be held accountable. In the years since 9/11, the U.S. government has repeatedly violated both international and domestic prohibitions on torture and other inhumane or degrading treatment in the name of fighting terrorism.

- Women's rights: Living free from violence is a human right. Yet millions of women and girls around the world encounter rape, domestic abuse, mutilation and other forms of gender-based violence. Women's rights are an essential component of universal human rights.

- Children's rights: A safe childhood is a human right, across the world, children are denied their human rights. They miss out on their right to education. They are abandoned and left to fend for themselves on the street. They are recruited into armed forces. They are subjected to the death penalty are disappeared, are punished by cruel and inhumane methods and suffer many other forms of violence.

- Censorship and free speech: Free speech isn't so free when it costs your liberty. In countries around the world, the right to express one's thoughts and beliefs is under assault. Everyone has right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas without fear or interference.

- LGBT Rights: Human rights don't discriminate. All people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be able to enjoy the full range of human rights without exception.

(Resource comes from Amnesty International USA www.amnestyuse.com )

Problems of Humanity

- A Quick Outline

I found this article <Problems of Humanity> written by Jason Summers, a philosopher. This article was written while the writer was laying in bed, but I found it very helpful and interesting for my research. It is an outline, not all-inclusive, but it is what he sees recurring throughout human history since the dawn of the first civilizations and what he sees in the newspapers everyday. I'll briefly pick the best phrases and sentences from this article as a reference and talk about it.

Violence

As I understand that violence is something definitely cruel that humans do, but it isn't all about being cruel. "Due to our origins evolving from the first cells, and competing with other life for resources, we inherited a violent nature embedded in our genetics, our emotions, and our mind, these violent instincts are manifest all over. We also deal with wars, nationalism, theft, envy, political creeds and more, whose are all rooted deep in the human psyche and these violent instincts." 
Violence is human nature, but the consequences of violence isn't beautiful, it causes mess and tragedy in the end.

Sex

I personally think that sex is definitely human nature and to these other species as well. Things that are alive need sex to continue a family line and on purpose of not getting extinct in their species. But nowadays "sex" has become something new, it is maybe getting worse or better, but it isn't absolutely good or bad, because there are both pros and cons. I can say that humans now in this world are much more open about sex than the people back in the history, most people were more conserved than people nowadays. In the current time, there are various new things in "sex" such as one night stand sex, orgy sex or 3 some sex. It's good that people are trying new things, but it is not good when the situation can not be controlled.
"Due to our origins in evolution, we all have inherited a strong sex drive. Sex dominates most people's minds, almost entirely. Also emotions of human beings are fickle, this leads to couples constantly changing partners, and homes being broken up, and difficulties for children. Most people are apathetic toward events going on in the world, but if you mess with their lover, their children, their family, their home, or their food, or anything related to these things, they are very likely to get violent."

Mental Weakness and Survival Instincts

Humans are the dominate species of this planet, we no longer have any predators, and that makes us have brains and use them to think to have different minds and thoughts. Everybody in this world has different minds but innately everybody also has a common weakness in these and those various minds, I really appreciate what Jason Summer wrote about it.
"The difficulties and trials this world brings are too much for the rather delicate human psyche. The overwhelming forces of this world tend to damage the mind and leave malfunctioning humans being running around causing trouble not only to themselves, but to others as well. Some examples of this include escapist philosophy and religion, hoarding of wealth either out if various forms of insecurities, greed or fears of an uncertain tomorrow, and more. Since humans have evolved from reptiles they also have an innate tendency to blindly follow leaders. human beings tend to follow tradition which basically embodies the concept 'we are not sure how we got here, but things are OK as they are now, as long as we don't change anything, and just keep doing what we are doing, things should be OK.' This fear makes human society difficult to manage and even more difficult to modify. Humans also fear their own death  so much so that they'll do anything to attain immortal of any sort, they'll also do anything to attain 'eternal life' even id that means adhering to all sorts of irrational beliefs and more. These are rooted in their own evolutionary designed emotions which are designed to keep them alive for as long as possible.

Religion

"In the earliest societies and tribes, religion is very anthropomorphic.  Every deity is human like, with passions similar to their own. Deities are assigned to every role behind what they see.  A deity is behind night and day, why the crops grow, the floods of the river, and more.  Demons are behind sickness and disease, and so on. As human knowledge expands, and the reasons behind the seasons, night and day, crops growing, and so on, come to be known, the deities tend to fade and become historical novelties.  This is because the deities were only invented and worshiped out of fear, but with no reason to fear any longer, the deities no longer matter. And today religion is a sort of catch-all toward things that can’t be explained, and events that are still feared, such as death.  Ultimately, religion is a combination of survival instincts along with fear.  People will worship Jesus on the cross, and believe such crazy things because they still fear death and want to live forever.  People also still wonder about ghosts, and superstitions about demons and haunted areas and things still persists.  As science expands human knowledge, and once the nature of life is more fully explained, and the unknown areas which are now dark become more well lit, these modern religions will fade into historical novelties as well. The main harm in religion is its escapist tendencies, and beliefs in things which are not empirical, leading to irreconcilable conflicts.  People put unquestioning faith in the nonsense out of fear, but once people stop questioning their minds become like hardened dry clay.  Society stops progressing, and they also are unable to learn anything new."
As being grown up, I've barely known much about religions; but I personally think that religions are something for people to believe and put their souls into it, for what I didn't know, but now I know because of fear in the humans' psyche. Believe gods or not it's up to everybody, as long as human beings won't be crazy and obsessed with it.

Lack of Knowledge
This world is getting bigger and bigger, there's always something new everyday waiting for human beings to learn, cause we are the most intelligent animal in this world, but laziness and ignorance are getting worse among the people nowadays.
"It is difficult to learn.  It takes a lifetime just to master one subject.  Understanding a complicated subject matter is a lifelong endeavor, and it seems the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know.  In fact, most knowledge teaches you not how smart you are, but how dumb you are, and how little you really know.  Everything always turns out to be more complicated than you expected.  The more you learn, the more options are available to you.  Humanity’s main problem is most of their time is dedicated not toward learning, but toward reproducing, eating, sleeping, working pointless jobs, and general existence.   Because learning is difficult, and the only method available toward learning is through books, most people learn very little throughout their lifetimes.  They remain for the most part, stupid.  The less educated a person is, the more prone they are to believe superstitions, propaganda, and other exploitative and nonsensical mindsets.  Because a person can only master one subject, and human prosperity relies us all working together effectively, we’re forced to work with one another, though we do so reluctantly.  Unfortunately working together requires intelligence, and most people spend their time worrying about reproducing, eating, and want to spend as little time with books as possible.   Since the majority of the masses are stupid, getting them to progress and move forward, or anywhere for that matter, is quite an undertaking."

Individualism vs Collectivism
"After realizing the benefits of organized society mankind faces an immediate conflict. We have complete anarchy on the one hand, and authoritarian slavery on the other.  Humans have a strong tendency toward independence, and only reluctantly come together to form anything larger than a family or a small tribe.  But complete anarchy is a terrible way of the world, so we form nations and governments.  But being told what to do on every count is also a miserable way to live, so we tend to frown upon dictators, monarchs, aristocracies, and other “elites” controlling our lives on every count.  Freedom versus organization is one of the most difficult problems and has been around since the dawn of the first civilizations.  People naturally want to follow the strong man out of reptilian instincts.  Later society becomes a bit more free, and merchants and the rich start to rise, and grow to power which competes with the king.  Once education rises to a certain level, democracy becomes possible, but how successful it is depends on how educated the masses are.  Communism and socialism seem to fail miserably, as they do not have proper economic incentives, nor the freedom to pursue various dreams and ambitions. In capitalism, a system where your success in it is mainly due to sublimated greed, the ambitious members of society tend to work their way to the top, and upon getting there find things like competition a bother, so bribe off the political leaders, getting special perks, economic protections, price floors, and more, becoming parasitic leeches. As graft and corruption slowly suck the life out of nation, the free society finds itself slowly collapsing back into a sort of monarchical, aristocratic, authoritarian rule.   If the revolution is organized poorly the people end up with a vile dictator instead. But if things play out, the nation gets a fresh new start.  This is why economics and money are so important to understand, but due to the economic incentives, individual groups have more of an incentive to lobby than for the public to constantly be scanning the government for small inside corruption deals.  Because of these incentives, these cycles of clean start, gradual increasing corruption, upheaval, start over, gradual corruption, and so on, seem to be repeating themselves over and over and over."

I personally don't know much about politics, never really was interested in politics until now. Reading these facts about different systems of government opens my eyes and mind. I've many different people from different countries while traveling, and most of them had told me a little bit about their government, I gotta say, there are not many people out there loving their government instead of disliking their governments for being greedy and corrupt. I also have heard a lot of stories about how my friends bribe off the colleges to get education certificate for a good job instead of really studying and learning hard on their own. Educations are becoming very commercialized system and turning into a business to get lots of amount of extra money out of the students, it is my personal experience through where I am studying now and how much I pay for tuition fees and other living fees. It's getting dirty and disgusting in the education systems nowadays, education now isn't about enriching people but about getting more perks and money into their pockets. And it is true.

Economic System
"Having already mentioned capitalism, socialism, and communism, many economic related problems face mankind.   It seems the broader the economic system, and the wider in scope, the more prosperity everyone receives.  Society is advancing faster than our mind can keep up.  We used to struggle out in the fields, now we struggle in the classroom.  Those with weak minds are being left behind and feel they’re being left out.  As technology progresses, manual labor will become worthless. Political slavery may not exist today, but economic slavery is rampant.  Also, the human mind seems to never have enough, and is never satisfied.  It wants the best society has to offer, and will often step on anyone to get to the top.  Politicians seem to be more guilty of this than anyone, as they tend to be opportunists, desperate for fame, full of vain ambitions, and eager to please.  We all suffer as the result."

"we used to struggle in fields, now we struggle in classroom." world is moving forward so fast that we can't imagine, what humans need to survive in the current world is to use their brains and manual labor will be worthless. Now economic slavery is rampant, most of people live their lives for money, to gain more and more money in any immoral methods, for what I don't know. "The humankind seems to never have enough and is never satisfied." this is my favorite sentence in this section, because it is very true. In fact, I've been though so many situations that some people (such as taxi drivers and cops) want to "eat" some extra money from me while traveling and living aboard. An example is here in Malaysia, (no offense to this country, just want to share the experience that I've been through)  I've taken this taxi, the taxi fare was supposed to be 15 RM, but turned out I didn't have change to pay for 15 but 50 RM in my pocket, the cab driver took me downstairs of my loft, he didn't have extra change and there was no place for me to change this 50 RM around where I live, so the cab driver took me to the shops to change, I gave him 15 RM while he's driving me back to where I live, but he rejected my 15 and said "no sorry It's 20 RM because I had to drive you out  to the shops for change and it wastes my gas, so you need to give me 20." I said no because it wasn't entirely my fault, I'm the consumer, he's the cab driver, it's their responsibilities to keep change with them in case the customers don't have change. So in the end, he grabbed 15 RM from my hand and screamed to me" GET OUT OF MY CAR!" So just like that I was dumped in the middle way and I had to walk home. Cruel cab driver, isn't he? Just because of 5 RM which is around 1-2 dollars.
"Give me your money or your life!" Most of crimes happened because using violence, and why the criminals would get violent? Most of the reasons are because of money. Some robberies dare to stab the victims till their death just for their property in their pockets, I believe everyone has heard of this sort of story that happened, because it is a very common crime that's happening in our world everyday.
 And I also have heard a lot stories here from my friends who own cars, the cops here desire money more than anything, if you get some trouble on the way and get caught by the cops, just jam some money into their hands and you can totally bribe them off. This type of things don't only happen here in Malaysia, I believe it happens everywhere in this world, because humanity's greed will never be satisfied!

Environmental Pollution
"This is a modern problem which has only arisen within the past century.  Our actions these days are so contrary to the natural road evolution was on, we are destroying the other life on the planet, and since we depend on them to survive as well, we’re slowly destroying ourselves in the process.  Rain forests are being chopped down for cheap profits.  Pesticides are being used on crops, polluting the water.  Islands of plastic garbage are floating in the Pacific Ocean.  Our environment is really taking a toll and will not sustain human life forever if left unchecked."
There's also this documentary film that I've found on the internet:
http://vimeo.com/6050385. It's a must-watch! I watched the entire film with goosebumps, which embodies that I really got touched by watching this film. 
Humans evolved into the most intelligent animal on earth, they dictate mother earth but don't take a good care of it. Instead of destroying their own home. It is human's sin. And I believe that world will end one day in the future if we don't do anything about it, it will maybe not end in out generation but we are bringing the generations in the future a disaster, and that's definitely a moral issue!

News and Sensationalism
"Because of our inner vile instincts, human kind yearns for things which are utterly disgusting.  We watch movies filled with violence and horror for enjoyment.  We hunt animals for sport.  We’re rather nasty creatures, and even though the world is generally becoming a more and more peaceful place to live, you would n’t think that way watching the news.  Everything is always getting worse, and you’d think everyone was a child rapist, pedophile, mass murdering, stalker, backstabbing, lying, cheating… he news brings people stories they’re interested in.  They deliver what people want to see and unfortunately this is all the worst of everything in the world mixed with a few technological innovations and hero stories.  Unfortunately, the news profits from this psychological tendency, and exploits it in the worst possible way.  "
This is the last paragraph in this article, it tells the real facts about humans now in current time, it is true that the world is becoming worse, media as well. 

 Article by Jason Summers (philosopher): http://www.jasonsummers.org/problems-of-humanity-a-quick-outline/

These are the majority of the problems that humans have, I believe there are lots more dirty, disgusting and dark side of us. It's hard to face these facts as a human, but some stuff that we do really isn't cool. I hope that human beings will wake up one day and get the realizations of the sins that we've done!