"WHAT YOU DO MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT KIND OF DIFFERENCE YOU WANT TO MAKE. THE GREATEST DANGER TO OUR FUTURE IS APATHY."
- DR. JANE GOODALL
Donald Trump declared that if elected
President, he would wage an all-out war against national and global climate
action. On Friday, he went so far as to deny the reality of California’s
devastating drought.
Trump said he would kill the EPA’s Clean
Power Plan and all domestic climate-related regulations. And he said, “We’re
going to cancel the Paris climate agreement” — truly humanity’s best if not
only chance to avoid catastrophic irreversible climate change lasting 1000
years.
If President Trump does what he says he
will, then America and the world will be doomed to decades, or more likely, centuries,
of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change from the synergistic
effect of soaring temperatures, Dust-Bowlification, extreme weather, sea level
rise and super-charged storm surges. These climate impacts will create the kind
of food insecurity that drives war, conflict, and the competition for arable
and habitable land.
Man-made climate change appears to be even
more dangerous: It is happening much faster than cyclical changes in the past,
and the tectonic shifts are happening in unprecedented combinations. Global
warming is melting the Arctic, raising sea levels, driving bugs carrying
diseases like Zika, malaria, and dengue fever into virgin environments, and
making dry places drier and wet places wetter — all at once. The Pentagon now
defines climate change as a “present security threat, not strictly a long-term
risk.”
A President
Trump will have many allies in Congress who will support his ignorance.
The U.S. House of Representatives, however,
has actively acted to prevent the military from considering these risks. Back
in May, the House passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV)
that would have forbidden the Pentagon from using any of its funding to address
the national security impacts of climate change.
For Republicans coal mining and
oil extraction Trumps the threat of global war every time.
OK. I’m good with Shroedinger’s cat as a
way to explain quantum mechanics. But,
really two cats, instantaneously linked yet separated by billions of light
years. WTF?
Until someone opens
the box, of course, and is observed. Then, the cat can't be doing both things
at once. According to quantum mechanics, and specifically the theory of
“superposition,” these particles actually exist in all possible states at the
same time - until, that is, someone takes a measurement. At that point, the
particle falls into a single, known state.
So, the particles
could be decaying, and not decaying, simultaneously. As a consequence, the
poison is being released - and not released. And so the cat is both dead and
alive.
What Dr. Wang and his
team have done is to add another dimension: the concept of “entanglement.” This
proposes that two objects can be intimately linked, even if billions of light-years
separate them, and any change that happens to one will happen to the other
instantaneously, a relationship Einstein once described as “spooky action at a
distance.”
When people lack resources they will do what is necessary to feed their families. In Kenya, these are local issues, not the consequences corporate greed.
Kenya needs to take urgent action to combat degradation of
key forests, for the sake of its environment and its economy, experts say.
The country’s forests, ranging from mountain rainforests to
savannah woodlands, coastal forests and mangroves, are under pressure due to
high demand for land and resources from the country’s growing population.
An estimated 50,000 hectares (200 square miles) of forest is
cleared annually, with a consequent yearly loss to the economy of over $19
million, according to a 2014 report by the Ministry of Environment, Water and
Natural Resources.
A new University of
Washington study reveals why the Antarctic Ocean might be one of the last
places to experience the effects of global warming and human-driven climate
change.
Over the years, the
water surrounding Antarctica has stayed roughly the same temperature even as
the rest of the planet continues to warm, a fact often pointed out by climate
change deniers.
Now, a new study uses
observations and climate models to suggest that the reason for this
inconsistency is due to the unique currents around Antarctica that continually
pull deep, old water up to the surface. This ancient water hasn't touched the
Earth's surface since before the machine age, meaning it has been hidden from
human-driven climate change.
Poachers in South Africa's Kruger Park opened fire on a
patrol helicopter, officials said Thursday, describing the attack as a
"dramatic escalation" in the battle over rhinos hunted for their
horns.
The poachers shot five times at the South African National
Parks' helicopter that was part of an operation to crack down on poaching in
the southern part of Kruger where rhinos have been heavily targeted.
"Quick action by all the team members involved averted
a catastrophe and the helicopter managed to land with all the crew on board
safe," the department of environmental affairs said in statement.
"Four poachers have been arrested and three firearms,
ammunition and poaching equipment recovered."
When Carol Howarth
parked her Mitsubishi in the town of Haverfordwest, Wales, to do some shopping,
little did she know the mayhem that would ensue.
While she attended to
her errands, a swarm of 20,000 bees was drawn to her car. A local man, Tom
Moses, saw the buzzing hubbub and concerned that the bees might be poorly
handled, called in a team of beekeepers.
With the beekeepers on
the job, by the time Howarth returned the situation appeared to be resolved.
But, no. The swarm
kept her in their sights and managed to track her down.
"The next day I
realized that some of the bees had followed me home,” she said. So she summoned
the beekeepers, who arrived ready for rescue.
Biologically, a rat is
unable to vomit because of a powerful and effective gastroesophageal barrier,
research shows. This barrier consists of crural sling, the esophageal
sphincter, and the intra-abdominal esophagus. Researchers found that the
pressure at the two ends of this barrier is greater than the pressure found in
the thorax during any phase of the breathing cycle. This pressure, thus, makes
it impossible for rats to reflux.
While they do lack the
ability to vomit, an integral part of many species’ defence mechanisms against
toxins, rats seem to have adapted by strengthening their first line of defence.
Researchers note that rats have a very keen sense of smell and taste and will
easily avoid foods which might cause a vomiting response in other species. Some
speculate that vomiting has become redundant and lost over time because rats
seem to avoid dangers at the hand of toxins so well. Alternatively, rats
developed a hyper-sensitive food avoidance to compensate for the inability to
vomit. It’s clear at the moment which came first.
Evolution is a incredible thing.
GLTFCA
Conservation is costly and it takes time. What are
we willing to do to save wildlife?
Expanding the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area(GLTFCA) is
critical to sustaining wildlife diversity in Southern Africa.
When researcher
Kristoffer Everatt spotted a movement in the grass while conducting field work
in Banhine National Park in Mozambique in July 2015, he wasn’t sure what it
was. Stalking carefully towards the unknown animal, he finally parted the grass
to stare into the eyes a beautiful black-maned lion crouched about 4metres
away.
“We stared at each
other for a few heart-pounding seconds until I took the plunge and bluff
charged him! He turned away and ran off growling his displeasure into the bush.
He had just killed an aardvark and hadn’t yet begun to eat. I was so pleased to
find him there, in south-western Banhine eating wild meat,” shared Everatt.
The 7000 square
kilometre park in Mozambique’s northern Gaza Province was proclaimed in 1973.
Along with Zinave and Limpopo national parks in Mozambique, Gonarezhou National
Park in Zimbabwe and the Kruger National Park in South Africa, it is part of
the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA).
What will it take to restore these parks?
“Funding and plenty of
it,” says van Lente. “As Mozambique is one of the poorest nations in the world,
there is a lot of competition for funding. As such, “parks like Banhine and
Zinave will be dependent on external funding for a long, long time”.
Daniel G. Nocera, the
Harvard professor who made headlines five years ago when he unveiled an
artificial leaf, recently unveiled his latest work: an engineered bacteria that
converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into alcohols and biomass. One can be used
directly as fuel to power vehicles that run on conventional fuels, while the
other can be burned for energy.
According to a Forbes report, a one-liter reactor
packed with Ralston e. can capture 500 liters of CO2 per day and produce around
2 kilowatt-hour of energy. Because the fuel is destined to be burned, the
captured CO2 is returned back to the atmosphere. Being technically
carbon-neutral, the resulting fuel is more environmentally friendly than
conventional fuels based on petroleum or corn-derived ethanol which has a
questionably positive carbon life cycle.
Excellent article in The Guardian. Saving wildlife starts at the community level. Native poachers are mostly the poor, but the real profits from their work goes to international criminals. In Kenya community activists are working to find ways to rob these international criminals of the first link in the chain that stretches from the killing fields in Kenya to the shops in China and Vietnam.
“She got me out of a mud pool and into a pool of light,” Lotak said of Josephine Ekiru, the chair of the Nakuprat-Gotu conservancy, a community-run conservation area in northern Kenya where the two former poachers now work.
In a pastoral community where women are traditionally expected to defer to their husbands and keep their opinions private, a 16-year-old Ekiru insisted on attending community meetings that were normally the preserve of men, and began trying to reform the men she knew were poaching. But confronting the poachers put her own life on the line.
“First they wrote a letter to me threatening me. The second time, they called in [five men] to me and threatened me. That time they were pointing guns at me. I said I was ready to die but can I tell you some reasons [why she was trying to persuade them],” she recalled.
For 20 minutes she told them they were being used, that they were creating conflict between ethnic groups and were destroying the “treasure” that was their local wildlife.
“One of them said: ‘Don’t kill her’, he dropped his gun. He said, ‘Nobody has ever told us about this.’”
To Ekiru, the answer lies in having local people run the show. “The only future we have for this wildlife is in the hands of the communities living with this wildlife.”
Of course to really end this trade the chain must be broken at every link.
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. It is a day set aside to reflect upon the price of our freedom and to remember those who paid the ultimate price for that freedom - those who gave their lives.
The idea of Memorial Day didn't not arise from any foreign war fought by the United States - not the World Wars nor even the Revolutionary War by which we gained our independence. Memorial Day started as a way of remembering the sacrifices in a war where virtually all the dead were Americans - the America Civil War - 625,000 dead, approximately 2% of the nation's population. From LTC Robert Bateman:
The Mid-1860s are a key period in American history not just
because of the War of Rebellion [Civil War] , but also because this period saw the rise of
"social organizations." Fraternities, for example, exploded in the
post-war period. Many other non-academic
"fraternal" organizations got their start around the same time. By
the late 1860s in the north and south there was a desire to commemorate. Not to
celebrate, gloat or pine, but to remember.
Individually, at different times and in different ways,
these nascent veterans groups started to create days to stop and reflect. These
days were not set aside to mull on a cause -- though that did happen -- but
their primary purpose was to think on the sacrifices and remember those lost.
Over time, as different states incorporated these ideas into statewide
holidays, a sort of critical legislative mass was achieved. "Decoration
Day" was born, and for a long time that was enough. The date selected was,
quite deliberately, a day upon which absolutely nothing of major significance
had occurred during the entire war. Nobody in the north or south could try to
change it to make it a victory day. It was a day for remembering the dead
through decorating their graves, and the memorials started sprouting up in
every small town in the nation.
Every generation of Americans has cause for remembrance. For my generation, our existence is due in part to the survivors of World War II our second most devastating war in terms of loss of life.
Each of the 4,048 gold stars represent 100 service personnel lost in WWII
For my generation there is also Vietnam, a war in which we lost classmates, friends and family to the fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia. And, battle over the war at home divided friends and families as well. The scars of that war are symbolized by the Vietnam War Memorial, which itself is designed as a scar on the landscape that can be closed by the movement of a few steps. Then, all that is left is to remember those who were lost.
58,307 names on the wall
Americans please take some time today to reflect on their sacrifices.
A four year old child, apparently without meaningful adult
supervision gets into a western lowlands gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati
Zoo. To protect the child, zoo personnel
are force to kill the gorilla.
Sadly after this tragedy, PETA jumps in with their anti-zoo
campaign. PETA has no programs in Africa
to protect or preserve gorillas in the wild. You
don’t have any issue with the destruction of the gorillas’ habitat or the
rampant poaching of gorillas from the wild, but you will jump on board this tragedy to boost fund raising. Hypocrisy your name is PETA.
Those are some of the
words the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden used in a contrite explanation
for the death of Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla killed on
Saturday to save a boy who slipped into the zoo's habitat.
The boy, 4, was
released unhurt from a Cincinnati hospital Saturday and the zoo opened on
Sunday. Gorilla World, home to nine western lowland gorillas, was closed.
The boy was in
"imminent danger," leaving the zoo's Dangerous Animal Response Team with
no option but to shoot the gorilla, zoo director Thane Maynard said in a
statement on Facebook. Tranquilizers may not have taken effect in time to save
the boy while the dart might have agitated the animal, worsening the situation,
Maynard said.
The boy apparently
slipped through a fence and fell some 15 feet to a shallow pool in Harambe's
enclosure. Video shot by another zoo visitor showed Harambe dragging the boy
like a rag doll through the water from one end of the habitat to another.
Tragic. Even more tragic is the fact that so many people will send money to PETA instead of to conservation organizations actually working to save gorillas in the wild. Here a just a few of them:
Now that wolves have
returned to California after a nearly 90-year absence, where are they most
likely to live? Will their new territories overlap significantly with grazing
lands and create conflicts with livestock? What kind of proactive strategies
are most feasible for northern California ranchers to implement on their
operations to keep both livestock and wolves safe from harm?
To help us answer
these questions, we partnered with the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of
Environmental Science and Management. The Bren School focuses on finding
science-based solutions to environmental problems, and has a well-earned
reputation as one of the top schools of its kind in the nation. The Bren
Master’s Program challenges students to use real world scenarios to solve
environmental problems faced by an actual client that has a real interest in
the outcome.
Excellent wide ranging interview with Dr. Andy Mack. Dr. Mack spent two decades researching in New Guinea's rainforests.
“Dedicated,
well-trained and competent people are pretty much the lowest common denominator
to all our conservation successes; the opposite is a common denominator for
many conservation failures,” he told mongabay.com. “I am cautious with the idea
of innovation in conservation. Innovation can provide tools for conservation.
Great new remote sensing technology and GIS models are extraordinary tools. But
they do not result in conservation… Conservation results when some person, or
usually group of people, changes their behavior… Many conservation leaders,
organizations, and donors forget this.”
“BIG,” he says,
“rarely works. Big international conservation organizations have Big budgets
supporting Big offices and staff with Big salaries in the United States and
Europe. Per dollar, such organizations accomplish much less than smaller
national organizations in rainforest countries,” he contends. “Many field
conservationists say the best way to kill a good project is to give it a Big
grant. Better to have smaller budgets that are actually secure over longer
terms.”
It was spring 2004.
The air was cool and still, the encroaching dawn light outlined the horizon;
and there, in the heart of California’s Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, was Bernie
Krause busily setting up his microphone.
The soundscape
ecologist recorded the symphony of the forest’s sounds that day: the gurgle of
the gushing stream; the melodic birdsong from sparrows and woodpeckers, robins
and grosbeaks, towhees and wild turkeys. It was a rich and vibrant recording, a
celebration of life and biodiversity.
Krause returned last
year to the same spot in Sugarloaf, located a short drive from his Glen Ellen
home. The details of the recording session were the same: springtime in early
dawn, a microphone and a tripod. But the habitat’s soundtrack had altered
dramatically.
“[It was the] first
spring in my 77 years that was completely silent,” said Krause. “There were
birds. But there was no birdsong whatsoever.” Even the surge of the stream
could not be heard.
Rape and then lie about it. Corporations aren't people, but they are liars.
London Stock Exchange asked to bar a company that is raping the
environment. Seems fair. This is a long read from The Guardian. It is an illustration of how corporations are destroying the environment and wildlife with no regard for the consequences. This example is from Peru, but it is a global issues. Cutting these companies off from funding is a potential way to change their behavior.
Two indigenous Shipibo
men from Peru’s Amazon - Sedequías Ancón Chávez and Robert Guimaraes Vasquez -
paid a rare visit to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) earlier this month. The
reason? To present a letter addressed to Marcus Stuttard, Claire Dorrian and
Umerah Akram from the LSE’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) urging the AIM
to investigate, suspend and bar a company called United Cacao Limited SEZC - as
well as amend its rules and “exact more active oversight” in general.
“The nature of the
crimes which the company stands accused are an important matter for AIM to
address,” the letter states. “Allowing companies listed on AIM to raise capital
to violate other countries’ national laws jeopardizes the “integrity and
reputation” of the market, which is grounds for suspension of a company’s
trading, according to AIM Rules.”
The letter,
accompanied by a 28-page report by the NGO Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA) supported by almost 400 pages of annexes, states that the AIM now has the
opportunity to set an important example:
The
potential precedents set by AIM’s action on this case will have global
relevance for stock exchanges, market actors, the global climate, and our
planet’s population – including indigenous peoples and forest communities most
directly affected by land and natural resource governance. . . Funds raised on
international stock exchanges should not be available for companies operating
in violation of the law, threatening the rights and resources of indigenous
peoples, and causing serious environmental damage.
Partnering with NASA
and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) has launched a wildlife observation program called Snapshot Wisconsin that will be one of
the largest trail camera projects ever deployed.
The DNR will set up
4,000 to 5,000 motion-sensor cameras throughout the state to capture photos of
the state's wildlife, including deer, bears, elk, coyotes, bobcats, badgers and
whatever else triggers the camera shutter. The project will also use images
gathered with remote sensing satellites to how seasonal changes influence
animal movement and from citizen scientists to get a fuller picture of what
animals are where. There will be a crowd-sourced database where the images will
be analyzed for identification by ecologists, resource managers and the public.
It is hell's roll call. Wild chimpanzee numbers in Benin -
none; in Burkina Faso - none; in Togo - none. More yet may join the extinction
list.
The illegal wildlife trade goes far beyond the dreadful
story of ivory poaching.
The market across the world for live apes - specifically
baby chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans plucked from their forest homes in
Africa and Asia - is burgeoning.
Also being traded are the heads and skulls of the great
apes, destined for markets from Nigeria to the United States. Some are used for
black magic, others just as trophies for a mantelpiece.
"The live trade in apes particularly is growing,"
said Doug Cress of the Great Apes Survival Partnership. "There are a few
people in places like the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar who just want a baby chimp or
gorilla in their garden. It adds to their status In China the demand comes from
zoos and safari parks.
"And for one baby chimp taken from the wild, several
adults have to be killed. We work on the principle that 10 adults die for every
baby taken."
Golden jackals are often seen as a pest, blamed for the death
of livestock and wild animals as they move from south-central Eurasia into
northern Europe. But they are in fact saving countries millions of euros in
waste management services.
Considering the jackal population in Serbia, the researchers
estimate that every year they remove 3700 tonnes of discarded animal remains
and 13.2 million crop pest rodents, a service that would cost half a million
euros a year.
Based on the estimated jackal population in the whole of
Europe, the figures could be as high as 13,000 tonnes of animal remains and 158
million rodents, they claim.
Climate change on Mars hasn't be driven by humans, so the time frame is longer. Still pretty impressive.
Mars is weird in this
respect because ice ages on the Red Planet look a lot different than what we’re
used to here on Earth. Unlike Earth’s axis, which stays tilted in a narrow
range of 22 to 25 degrees, Mars’ axis wobbles greatly from 25 degrees all the way
to 60 degrees. Now, going from one extreme to the other takes a lot of time,
but when Mars reaches one of these extremes the equator and poles become
practically reversed. Moreover, the orbit is heavily affected by a
gravitational tug from Jupiter, which pulls it into an oval-shaped orbit. This
way, sometimes the north pole is basking in the sun, while in other millennia
it’s the south pole’s turn.
Right now, Mars is in
between glacial periods. When the poles are warm, the ice migrates towards low
and mid-latitude regions where it can stay stable. Based on predictive models,
Mars’ next ice age will occur in about 150,000 years, Smith says.
High in the Santa
Marta Mountains of Colombia in early 2015, two guards from Fundación ProAves'
El Dorado Reserve found the Blue-bearded Helmetcrest, a hummingbird nobody had
seen for 69 years. The rediscovery of such lost birds is not as infrequent as
one might guess. Finding them, as other ABC-funded expeditions have done in the
past with the Pale-headed Brush Finch and other birds, can be vital to their
conservation. It's hard to protect birds if you don't know where they live.
The International
Union for Conservation of Nature currently ranks at least 24 species in the
Americas as threatened even though the species have no known individuals in the
wild nor surviving in captivity. Most of these species should probably be
considered extinct. But some may still persist, living in areas that are
difficult to search and where few people go.
Swaziland has been accused by one of the world’s leading
conservationists of being a puppet of South Africa in a bid to open the
floodgates to a potentially calamitous legal rhino horn trade.
South Africa appointed a committee to study the idea of
trading horn internationally, which has been banned for more than four decades,
but the government backed away from such a proposal in April.
Days later, neighbouring Swaziland put forward a proposal
for a legal trade, citing the 1,000-plus white rhino poached in South Africa
each year.
Dr Richard Leakey, the chair of the Kenya Wildlife Service
which burned the biggest ever stockpile of seized horn last month, told the
Guardian: “Swaziland will be seen for what is is, a puppet.” Opponents of a
legal trade fear it would stimulate the black market, which is driven by demand
in south-east Asia.
The
wildland-urban interface is often the line between life and death for animals
like bears and cougars. Bears in particular
are easily attracted to areas where garbage is easily accessible. The failure of humans to effectively secure
garbage and other food sources place bears and humans in a situation where the
bear is likely to be killed to “insure public safety.”
Often the
first step is to relocate a bear that has become accustomed to foraging in the
neighborhood trash cans. Unfortunately,
90% of relocated bears return to the neighborhood food sources within weeks of
their relocation. As an end result the bear is often killed.
Several
Western states are trying a different approach to managing the wildlife-human
interface. Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada and California have gone to the dogs for help. Specifically, each of those states are
utilizing Karelian bear dogs as a key component of bear management. In Washington state a team of Karelians work at a variety of wildlife management tasks.
Barking at bears, romping through the
forest, sniffing for poaching evidence, getting petted by a child and maybe
cooling off with a swim in the Pend Oreille River.
It’s all in a good day’s work for Jax, a
1-year-old Karelian bear dog employed by the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife.
“The beauty of this breed is that Jax can be
calm and licking the fingers of a kid one moment and then turn it on when he’s
on the ground scaring the heck out of a bear,” said Keith Kirsch, the Spokane
Region Fish and Wildlife police officer who trains, houses and handles Jax full
time.
The agency’s six Karelian bear dogs are
being used across the state for wildlife research, enforcement and for
conditioning bears, cougars and moose to avoid humans. The dogs also are
ambassadors and conversation starters for public wildlife education.
Karelian bear dogs are considered national treasures in Finland. Bred to assist in the hunting or bear, lynx and moose, they are fearless. Yet, their hunting behavior can be modified and they can be invaluable assistants in many critical aspects of wildlife management,
"They have the genetics to do it all very well,” said
wildlife biologist Rich Beausoleil, the agency’s bear-cougar specialist in
Wenatchee.
Beausoleil handles a Karelian named Cash that’s been trained
for a variety of work. In some cases, Cash will scent bears and cougars and
chase them until they go up a tree so they can be tranquilized for wildlife
study and collaring without having to be trapped.
“Cash has dealt with 500 bears and 130 cougars so far in his
career and saved a lot of staff time,” he said.
Bears and cougars are routinely killed by fish and game personnel when they get to close to human developments. The use of Karelian bear dogs to locate and condition these animals is a safe and humane way to save them.
By the way many of these programs are self-funded. You can help them out here and here.
Buy a shirt or make a contribution, it will make a difference in many lives.
And please consider adding some funds to this longer term project. Check out this GO FUND ME page. Contributions here go to the purchase of supplies and training equipment not available in Namibia. These funds will provide enrichment for many of the animals that can not be released back into the wild for health or animal safety reasons.
Our mission is to conserve the land, cultures and wildlife of Namibia, Africa. We aim to achieve this through encouraging participation, education and innovative activity.
How misguided is the movement to place SeaWorld's killer whales in pens? Pretty misguided and most likely detrimental to the animals. "Free Willy" was a movie, but there was a real whale involved named Keiko. Science, animal behavior and conservation should be the guides.
In a paper that reviewed the attempts to release 'Keiko'
published in Marine Mammal Science the authors concluded:
"The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of
long-term captive animals is especially challenging and while we as humans
might find it appealing to free a long-term captive animal, the survival and
well being of the animal may be severely impacted in doing so." (Simon,
Hanson, Murrey, Tougaard, and Ugarte. 2009).
As stated above, SeaWorld displays 26 whales in the USA of
which only 5 where were obtained by wild capture. The last was caught in Iceland in 1983 over
30 years ago. None of these animals are
suitable for release and as the experiment with 'Keiko' reveals any attempts
are likely to badly fail; a position supported by Jean-Michel Cousteau who
organisation Ocean Futures was directly involved in the 'Keiko' release
project.
Perhaps one of the most irksome comments that come from the
animal-rights community and self-styled marine mammals expert is that of the
use of sea pens.
Of course, it is not the case that marine mammals have not
been successfully house in sea pens, as many facilities of this nature exist
worldwide. Nevertheless, the misguided
view that these facilities are promoted as the panacea to alleged welfare
problems in facilities with closed life-support systems (LSS) is erroneous. In addition, and as is so often the case in
these matters, this subject is more complicated than it appears.
Therefore, it can be seen that once again those protesting
against the care of marine mammals in human care and demanding their release to
coastal sea-pens are at misguided and have not fully considered the animal
welfare implications of such schemes.
When last we checked in on the petro-state
of Alberta, in western Canada, there was a huge wildfire burning down the city
of Fort McMurray, hub of the tar-sands energy revolution—tar-sands being the
poisonous glop various multinationals would like to pump all over the continent
through pipelines in order to maintain our addiction to dead dinosaur juice.
Opposition to our old friend, the Keystone
XL pipeline—the continent-spanning death funnel and current conservative fetish
object—had to do with the inevitability that the pipeline would leak and
destroy some of the world's most valuable farmland. It also had to do with the
fact that the content of the pipeline was the dirtiest fossil fuel ever devised
and that it was a threat to the planet itself if not left in the ground.
The airborne data, supported by further work
with computer models and laboratory experiments, show that 45 to 84 tonnes of
secondary organic aerosols are formed by the oil sands a day. By comparison,
Canada's largest urban area, which includes Toronto and surrounding
municipalities, generates 67 tonnes a day, much of it derived from car and
truck exhaust. "The take-away is that there's more that's emitted into the
atmosphere than we've fully appreciated," said Jeffrey Brook, an
air-quality researcher with Environment and Climate Change Canada who
participated in the oil sands study… Scientists are still trying to understand
the complex health effects those particles can trigger when inhaled, but they
have been linked in previous studies to lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and
diabetes.
Who is doing the cost benefit analysis for this stuff - tobacco industry accountants?
Dozens of the Earth’s most cherished World
Heritage sites are under dire threat from climate change — and some may be
damaged beyond saving, warns a report UNESCO released Thursday.
The agency, alongside the Union of Concerned
Scientists and the United Nations Environment Program, analyzed 31 natural and
cultural World Heritage sites in 29 countries on six continent. The areas range
from America’s celebrated Yellowstone National Park and Venice’s iconic Lagoon
to the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and the Ilulissat Icefjord in Denmark, all
of which could be damaged by an onslaught of climate-related effects.
Ironically, despite the growing threats,
UNESCO only has a $4 million budget to help assist climate-mitigation efforts
for more than 1,000 World Heritage sites. To put that in perspective, Venice
alone has budgeted more than $6 billion to stem the tide of flooding overtaking
the city.
The authors of the UNESCO report are urging
governments and world leaders to do “all that they can to address the the
causes and impacts of climate change,” and conduct more research about
potential impacts to threatened areas from both humans and the warming planet.
University of NSW team led by Professor
Martin Green and Dr Mark Keevers has pushed sunlight-to-electricity conversion
efficiency to 34.5% – establishing a new world record for unfocused sunlight.
Solar energy efficiency has gone up
significantly in recent years, while prices have gone down dramatically making
solar energy more and more plausible as a global renewable solution for energy.
But in order for it to be truly viable, we need to push the limits of
efficiency even more.
“This encouraging result shows that there
are still advances to come in photovoltaics research to make solar cells even
more efficient,” said Keevers. “Extracting more energy from every beam of
sunlight is critical to reducing the cost of electricity generated by solar
cells as it lowers the investment needed, and delivering payback faster.”
“What’s remarkable is that this level of
efficiency had not been expected for many years,” said Green, a pioneer who has
led the field for much of his 40 years at UNSW. “A recent study by Germany’s
Agora Energiewende think tank set an aggressive target of 35% efficiency by
2050 for a module that uses unconcentrated sunlight, such as the standard ones
on family homes.
Less than two weeks after the Thai
government closed its Koh Tachai island indefinitely, the country has announced the closure of another three of its
islands in a bid to save its beaches and endangered coral reefs.
On Wednesday, Thai marine officials said
that all tourist activities will be banned at Koh Khai Nok, Koh Khai Nui and
Koh Khai Nai. All three islands are located off the coast of the popular
tourist trap, Phuket.
According to Thailand's Department of Marine
and Coastal resources (DCMR), natural resources around the neighbouring islands
are fast diminishing as a result of increased tourism.
Contrary to what their name suggests, a
comprehensive new UN report on marine plastics confirms that most plastics
labeled as biodegradable don't break down in the ocean.
We’ve all seen the photos; the grim images
of marine animals tangled up and tortured in the plastic chaos of our detritus.
Some estimates put plastic pollution as the cause of death for 100 million
marine animals every year, while a study from Imperial College London last year
concluded that plastic will be found in 99 percent of seabirds by 2050.
Oil companies are facing an inconvenient truth. Their business model is
predicated on extracting every last drop of oil from the planet despite the
potential for that activity to destroy the planet. It might be hard for the average person to
understand how turning the Earth into a wasteland to insure corporate profits
is the responsible thing to do, but that appears to be the strategy that ExxonMobile has adopted.
Rex Tillerson, the boss of oil giant
ExxonMobil, said cutting oil production was “not acceptable for humanity” as he
fought off shareholders’ and activists’ attempts to force the company to fully
acknowledge the impact of climate change on the environment and Exxon’s future
profits.
Having worked for decades to fund and promote climate change denial, it is obviously difficult for ExxonMobil’s management
to deal with shareholders who suggest that the company needs to have a plan to
mitigate the impact of fossil fuels on climate change. And, more critically to the companies investors,
to recognize that ExxonMobil’s business strategy will lead to a corporate
extinction event as surely as the one that made it possible for dinosaurs to
ensure its current profits.
During a long and fractious annual meeting
in Dallas on Wednesday, Tillerson, who serves as Exxon’s chairman and chief executive,
beat back several proposals to force the company to take more action on climate
change.
The one
thing I know about technological change is that it takes longer to implement
than expected but that once implementation begins, it can become an
avalanche. Renewable energy is moving
from the slow initial penetration to the avalanche phase. So will the energy world of 2040 conform to
Tillerson’s vision.
Tillerson’s presentation at the meeting
showed that Exxon believes oil and gas will still provide about 60% of the
world’s energy demands by 2040, even if countries adopt climate change
proposals agreed in Paris last year.
His comments came after investors urged
Exxon, the world’s largest oil company, with a market value of $374bn (£254bn),
to reduce carbon extraction or at least warn investors about how global
governmental action against climate change could affect the viability of its
fossil fuel assets.
After
decades of denial and the obstruction of climate science, is ExxonMobil a
victim of its own propaganda? If the
company is unwilling to change from an outmoded extraction model and embrace a
new role as an energy business, shouldn’t shareholders be concerned that they
are riding on an oil powered corporate Titanic?
More than 38% of Exxon’s investors rebelled
against the company by voting for a proposal that would have required the
company to publish an annual study of how its profits may be affected by public
climate change policies, following the Paris climate agreement, to limit the
global temperature rise to less than 2C (3.6F).
ExxonMobil and the oil extraction industry will struggle to salvage their companies if they are unwilling to accept their role in exacerbating climate change. The backlash is coming and none is so blind as he who will not see.
A new study has revealed that 13 bird
species—including Indonesia’s national bird, the Javan Hawk-eagle—found in
Sundaic Indonesia are at serious risk of extinction because of excessive
over-harvesting.
The study also finds that an additional 14
bird subspecies are in danger of extinction. The driver behind this crisis is
the enormous demand for birds for the domestic pet trade.
The keeping of birds as pets in Indonesia is
an integral part of the national culture, yet the high levels of demand for
some species have fuelled excessive hunting with the populations of many
rapidly disappearing.
Underdog Entertainment announced today that
award-winning video director Daniel Azarian has collaborated with New York City
roots-rock band Whisperado for the music video of their song, “Mass Extinction
No. 6,” an angry lament for the massive die-off of animal and plant species
caused by the spread of human populations and industries.
"Mass
Extinction No. 6" dramatizes
the collapse of wildlife on our planet with our species' industrialization a
major cause. The video tackles such issues as shark finning, elephant and rhino
poaching, industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and the plight of several
species on the brink of extinction, such as the vaquita dolphin and the
mountain gorilla.
There is a cloud of utter despair that hangs
over both man and beast as the recent rainfall season resulted in almost no
rain leaving the landscape dry and without any life giving grass.
Since late last year South Africa has been
experiencing a prolonged and dreadful drought that continues to have a terrible
impact on both man and animals alike. The SanWild Wildlife Sanctuary (a 5000
hectare wildlife reserve) that is home to a large number of rescued and
rehabilitated wild animals is no exception.
Students from the University of Oregon are
accused of throwing a wild fraternity party at California’s Lake Shasta and
trashing the campgrounds on Slaughterhouse Island.
Images shared across social media showed
garbage, coolers of food, abandoned tents and other objects; some items bore
the University of Oregon logo and others featured Greek fraternity letters.
It was not clear if other schools
participated in the party or if the bash was limited to students from the
University of Oregon. On Monday, the school issued a statement calling the
incident “disgraceful” and saying it did not sponsor the event.
Garamba
National Park is a World Heritage site and a free fire zone for the dregs of
every country in central Africa. The
parks rhino population was eliminated years ago by these groups. Once home to 22,000 elephants, today only 1,300 have managed to survive the onslaught of rebels, war criminals and
poachers. The park has been decimatedby the various groups each intent on
using elephant ivory to help fund their activities.
Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army has
funded its rampage of rape, kidnap and killing through the ivory trade, but
there's a newer, bigger threat.
The park borders South Sudan, the world's
youngest country, which has been tearing itself apart in civil war for more
than two years.Disparate heavily armed rebel groups
regularly pass through, killing the animals, cutting off their tusks and
handing them over to traffickers, who smuggle the ivory across the continent
and on to its main markets in Asia.
The 5,500 square miles of Garamba are patrolled by a force of 100 rangers, supplemented by 50 to 100 Congolese soldiers. In a cash starved country, they have few resources and are routinely out-gunned by the armed groups of poachers they manage to discover.
Shot by elephant poachers, the manager of
DRC's Garamba National Park asked a ranger for help to bind his leg with a
tourniquet to slow blood loss."While we were doing this, I could hear
another person get hit on our right, and then within a few seconds, also hear
another person get hit on my left," Erik Mararv said in an interview with
The Associated Press in Johannesburg, where he received medical treatment.Three rangers - half of a unit that deployed
to the scene of an elephant killing - were killed in the April 23 shoot-out in
Garamba, where armed groups poach elephants for ivory in one of Africa's most
volatile areas.
So a shop in
Hong Kong can sell a carved elephant tusk, elephants and good men are dying. Still they hold on to hope and do what they
can.
“We have lost a lot. We are not winning the
battle today, but we can win the battle, absolutely," said Mararv, 30, who
plans to return to Garamba at the end of the week after getting approval from
doctors to fly. Mararv, on crutches, said the bullet that hit his right leg
"cut my femur bone cleanly" before tumbling out of his thigh, leaving
a "fist-sized hole."
"I was very, very lucky," said
Mararv, who expects a full recovery. A Swede born in the Central African
Republic, he described the rangers who died - Dimba Richard, Anigobe Bagare and
Matikuli Tsago - as "some of our best people."
Two Federal
laws (passed in 2000 and strengthened in 2010) made removal of shark fins
illegal, but did not ban the possession and sale of the fins. Every year millions of sharks are killed only for
their fins. The remainder of the shark
is dumped back into the ocean to die. A 2013 California law made possession and sale of shark fins illegal. A group including restaurant owners, shark
fin suppliers and Chinese American community organizations filed suit against
the state. Monday the United State Supreme Court upheld the California law.
California’s ban on the possession and sale
of shark fins survived a legal challenge Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court
rejected an appeal by Bay Area suppliers and sellers of shark fin soup, a
traditional dish in the Chinese American community.
Federal law prohibits shark “finning,” the
removal of fins from sharks, but does not forbid possessing or selling shark
fins. California lawmakers went a step further with a statute that took effect
in July 2013 and had the impact of removing shark fin soup from restaurant
menus.
Many species of sharks are currently in
danger due to shark finning, including the scalloped hammerhead, which is
endangered, and the smooth hammerhead, which is vulnerable according to the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Between 1.3 and 2.7 million
of just these two sharks are killed every year in the shark fin trade, and the
northwestern Atlantic population of the scalloped hammerhead declined from
around 155,500 in 1981 to 26,500 in 2005. Today, some shark populations have
decreased by 60-70% due to human shark fisheries.
For more
information on the impact of the war on sharks read this report.
