“If we can imagine a horse having two or three explosive spears stuck in its stomach and being made to pull a butcher's truck through the streets of London while its blood pours into the gutter, we shall have an idea of the method of killing whales. The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop for nobody would be able to stand it.”
Harpoons using the same explosive grenade heads employed fifty years ago are being used right now by Japanese whalers to slaughter whales illegally.
Often, the first blast isn’t enough to kill the poor whale. Japanese whaling ships were recently filmed hoisting live whales up the side of their huge industrial ships by the tail, leaving the whale’s blow hole underwater. The helpless whale can only thrash against the side of the ship, desperate for air, until it slowly drowns.
Perhaps even more shocking, this unsanctioned killing is happening in the protected waters of Antarctica’s Southern Ocean Marine Sanctuary, blatantly defying international law.
Here’s why you don’t have to kill a whalein order to study it…
Japan is able to continue hunting whales in such a sickening fashion because it is abusing a loophole in the international ban that permits killing whales in order to conduct scientific research.
But the painful slaughter of whales does not benefit science, whales or people. Why?
Because non-lethal methods to study whales already exist. In fact, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has clearly stated it does not need the data obtained from killing whales: passing resolutions critical of Japan’s research whaling program forty-one times!
Under IWC rules, any meat that results from research whaling must be used. Japan openly sells the whale meat it obtains from its ‘research’ in markets and restaurants: despite the fact that whale meat is often extremely toxic from pollutants and dangerous to eat.
Japanese whaling isn’t about science at all. It’s simply commercial whaling in disguise.
Whales need your help right now more than ever before.
Japan is killing protected whales in a marine mammal sanctuary, selling illegal whale meat and buying votes in an international decision-making body. Please help the world's whales before there’s no turning back.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Whaling Secrets
Déjà vu: from the green revolution to gene revolution
Genetic engineering has sprouted due to the advanced researched conducted by experts. I am really curious on how this works... But unfortunately, this may entail negative effects for our environment.
The Green Revolution was a massive government and corporate campaign to persuade farmers in the developing world to replace many indigenous crops with a few high yielding varieties, dependent on expensive inputs of chemicals and fertilizers.
While substantially increasing crop yields, farmers were obligated to buy hybrid seeds dependent on chemical inputs and extensive irrigation. But more importantly, the Green Revolution destroyed crop diversity by supplanting local integral crop systems that were based on a wide genetic base and multiple use crops. Green Revolution crops displaced local varieties and forced farmers into a vicious dependency cycle.
The insecticides and herbicides that went along with the use of Green Revolution crops caused the loss of complementary harvests that had previously been provided by the paddy fields, such as fish, shrimp, crabs, edible herbs, frogs and wild plants. The loss of these harvests is seldom taken into account when yields of Green Revolution or GE crops are calculated. Genetic engineering of crops is an extension of this flawed paradigm.
Environmental Issues
All things come with a price. In exchange for the contribution of expeditions carried out in the Himalayan range to Nepal’s economy, the environment has suffered tremendously.
As the number of climbers visiting the country increases, it has become certain that the increase in pollution and other negative environmental repercussions will continue.
Dubbed by American Barry G. Bishop as the “highest junkyard in the world”, Mt. Everest has been the home of lost or thrown climbing equipment, foods, medical waste such as syringes and medicines, plastics, tins, clothes, papers, tents, oxygen bottles and corpses. It is estimated that each team leaves behind an average of 500 kilograms of trash per expedition and the garbage is scattered in different altitudes.
The route that is most notoriously known for its trash is on the Southeast Ridge since it is the most popular route to the summit. Another thing is that not all waste can decompose such as oxygen bottles that are also heavy. Usually this type of garbage is thrown into the crevasses that surprisingly show up at the base of the mountain.
With the rise of environmental problems, the Nepalese government, climbers and environmentalists have created solutions that allow the mountain to recuperate. Traces of progress have shown up paving the way to the road to recovery.
http://www.philippine-everest.com/dangers&issues.html
Environmental Effects of Floods
I'm doing a report on the effects of flooding on the environment. Can you help me? What can people do to help ease flooding? I live in an area where flooding hardly occurs; What could I do to help people that live in those areas?
You asked about the effects of flooding on the environment. This is a pretty broad question, but I'll try to provide some answers to what I think you are asking about. First, floods are part of the natural cycle of things. The benefits of natural floods almost certainly outweigh the negative aspects. The problems start when flooding occurs in areas of large-scale human development of the landscape. In areas largely inhabited by people, there are both positive and negative environmental effects of flooding. Floods can distribute large amounts of water and suspended river sediment over vast areas. In many areas, this sediment helps replenish valuable topsoil components to agricultural lands and can keep the elevation of a land mass above sea level. An example of the latter case is the Mississippi delta. Before the Mississippi and associated rivers were controlled in levees in southern Louisiana, the rivers would frequently spill their banks. This processes made the lands of the Mississippi delta. This area is slowly subsiding with time and without the continued replenishment of sediment from river floods, much of it has dropped to elevations below natural sea level. Thus, one could say that not allowing floods is negative for this area. Our society has chosen instead to create a vast and complex system to keep Mississippi waters from reaching these lands. The lands remain dry but each year they subside more, making it ultimately more and more difficult to keep that way. On the negative side, floods disrupt normal drainage systems in cities and typically overwhelm sewer systems. Thus, raw or partially raw sewage spills are common in flooded area. Additionally, if the flood is severe enough, destruction of buildings that can contain a large array of toxic materials (paints, pesticides, gasoline, etc..) can cause the release of these materials into the local environment, which is not good. I'm sure you could imagine other "negatives" similar to those I've just described. Floods disrupt many people's lives each year and personal tragedies due to flooding occur frequently. A wise society, in my opinion, would reap the benefits of flooding and avoid many of the negatives if they would choose to build cities in ways that can accomodate flooding without trying to avoid it. Attempting to go against nature is almost certainly a loosing prospect in the end. Flood prevention is really something left up to cities and towns. If where you live isn't flood prone, maybe there is some other natural hazard that does affect your area that you could learn about and help with instead. As individuals, if we all keep the minimum amount of toxic substances (paints, solvents, automotive fluids, etc..) around our homes, there will be less of these substances to "spill" when any sort of unfortunate natural dissaster befalls the communities in which we live.
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/floods.html
The Earth's Life-support System is in Peril - a Global Crisis
Our planet is changing and many environmental indicators have moved outside their range of the past half-million years. If we cannot develop policies to cope with this, the consequences may be huge. We have made progress. Life expectancy and standards of living have increased for many, but the population has grown to six billion, and continues to grow. The global economy has increased 15-fold since 1950 and this progress has begun to affect the planet and how it functions. For example, the increase in CO2 is 100 PPM and growing. During the 1990's, the average area of tropical forest cleared each year was equivalent to half the area of England. The impacts of global change are complex, as they combine with regional environmental stresses. Coral reefs, which were under stress from fishing, tourism and pollutants, are now under pressure from carbonate chemistry in ocean surface waters from the increase in CO2. The wildfires that hit the world last year were a result of land management, ignition sources and extreme local weather probably linked to climate change. Poor access to fresh water is expected to nearly double with population growth. Biodiversity losses, will be exacerbated by climate change. Beyond 2050, regional climate change, could have huge consequences. The Earth has entered the Anthropocene Era in which humans are a dominating environmental force. Global environmental change challenges the political decision-making process and will have to be based on risks that events will happen, or scenarios will unfold. Global environmental change is often gradual until critical thresholds are passed. Some rapid changes such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet would be irreversible in any meaningful timescale, while other changes may be unstoppable. We know that there are risks of rapid and irreversible changes to which it would be difficult to adapt. Incremental change will not prevent climate change, water depletion, deforestation or biodiversity loss. Breakthroughs in technologies and resource management that will affect economic sectors and lifestyles are required. International frameworks are essential for addressing global change. Never before has a multilateral system been more necessary. Will we accept the challenge or wait until a catastrophic, irreversible change is upon us? No mention of the success that voluntary family planning has been, and how meeting the unmet need for contraception and reducing maternal and infant mortality is vitally important for reducing population growth fast enough.
http://www.overpopulation.org/
Climate Changes and and reasons why they come about
When an area of rainforest is either cut down or destroyed, there are various climate changes that happen as a result. The following is a list of the various climate changes with a brief description of why they come about.
1.Desication of previously moist forest soil
What happens is because of the exposure to the sun, the soil gets baked and the lack of canopy leaves nothing to prevent the moisture from quickly evaporating into the atmosphere. Thus, previously moist soil becomes dry and cracked.
2.Dramatic Increase in Temperature Extremes
Trees provide shade and the shaded area has a moderated temperature. With shade, the temperature may be 98 degrees Farenheit during the day and 60 degrees at night. With out the shade, temperatures would be much colder during the night and around 130 degrees during the day.
3.Moist Humid Region Changes to Desert
This is related to the desicaiton of previously moist forest soil. Primarily because of the lack of moisture and the inability to keep moisture, soil that is exposed to the sun will dry and turn into desert sand. Even before that happens, when the soil becomes dry, dust storms become more frequent. At that point, the soil becomes usesless.
4.No Recycling of Water
Moisture from the oceans fall as rain on adjacent coastal regions. The moisture is soon sent up to the atmosphere through the transpiration of foliage to fall again on inland forest areas. This cycle repeats several times to rain on all forest regions.
5.Less Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen Exchange
The rainforests are important in the carbon dioxide exchange process. They are second only to oceans as the most important "sink" for atmospheric carbon dioxide. The most recent survey on deforestaiton and greenhouse gas emisions reports that deforestation may account for as much as 10% of current greenhouse gas emmisions. Greenhouse gases are gases in the atmosphere that literally trap heat. There is a theory that as more greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere, more heat gets trapped. Thus, there is a global warming trend in which the average temperature becomes progressivily higher.
6.More Desertification
According to the United Nations Enviromental Programme (UNEP) in 1977, deforestation is an important factor contributing to desertificaiton. What is unclear is how fast deserts are expanding is controversial. According to UNEP, between 1958 and 1975, the Saharen Desert expanded southward by about 100km. In 1980 UNEP estimated that desertification threatened 35 per cent of the world's land surface and 20 per cent of the world's population. Recently, groups challenged those conclusions. Some scientists claim that the conclusion were based on insufficient data. Nevertheless, desertification still threatens more and more drylands.
7.Soil Erosion
The relationship between deforestation and soil ersion. Deforestation is known to contribute to run-off of rainfall and intensified soil erosion. The seriousness of the problem depends much on soil characteristics and topography.
8.Other Effects
There many rewards such as clean air and clean water, perhaps the two most important, that forests provide. Rainforests also provide many aesthetic, recreational and cultural rewards. If the rainforests are destroyed, then these rewards dissappear. This has major social repercusions for the entire world.
http://www.earlham.edu/~pols/17Fall96/inneske/effects.HTM
Earth from above: Amazing photos by Yann-Arthus Bertrand
Photographer Yann-Arthus Bertrand showed a new kind of photography. The earth from a different perspective. Here are some of his shots:
Confluence of the Rio Uruguay and a tributary, Misiones province, Argentina.
