Fresh Water

Every once in a while, Mother Nature's spawns are targeted in the means of acquiring reputation and profits. The latest among this never-ending and growing issue turns our attention to dolphins near Taiji, Each year, nearly 2,000 dolphins are stabbed and butchered to death with the use of long harpoons - the bloodbath is unfathomable to a close 1 million victims ever since the fishing (dolphin) season has become popular in Japan's southcoast island.

The whole article about the inhuman slaughter features many humiliating treatment suffered by one our planet's intelligent aquatic animals - we are amazed on how these senile creatures can entertain us through their backflips and "walk with their tail" trick while their respective trainers toss raw meat just to energize their performance. Many may have witnessed grand yet affordable performances hosted by large aquatic circuses and theme parks - none of it makes sense and what are Hollywood actors and actresses are for? What a replacement for entertainment.

There are the positives though: as attached to the article, a film about dolphin massacres may become the eye-opener in which, fishermen out for dolphin meat and blood would be prosecuted with heavy punishment linked to their actions. A compendium of term papers and academic studies contributed to the atrocities committed by selfish fishermen - times are tough and a $500 income from every portion of a dolphin's meaty treasure is not the perfect excuse to overcome poverty nor it is a tradition that must be prolonged.

Cove shows a short video demonstrating on how fragile the lives of bottlenose dolphins - this is a good film that supports a major cause for the preservation of more than thousands of different species of dolphins and a warning to those who hunt them for cash. 

 

 You know, the drinking water become very uncommon. That's why it's necessary to react !

 

  Some actions to do at home

In the bathroom: when you wash your teeth, fill a glass of water to avoid using this one uselessly.

                         when you take a shower and you wash your hair or your body, switch off the water.  

In the toilet: When you are in toilet and somebody wants to go after you, dont press on the button.

In the kitchen: After dinner when it remains some water in glasses, use this water to spray the flowers.

In the garden: Use tanks to get back the rainwater for all the manners

 

I was reading the New York Times the other day when I came across an article about how it is now legal to capture rainwater on your property in Colorado (link below.) Apparently, up until now, it was illegal to capture rainwater in Colorado and it still is illegal in many areas in the Western United States.  This was because it was assumed that the water needed go into the rivers where the water would be captured by a centralizing power for agricultural use and city expansion. Water management was legislated to be controlled by a centralized system that would capture and pipe water great distances, the water could be regulated, moderated and monetized.  It was believed that most of the water that fell on the ground ended up in the groundwater or in rivers, so in the end it would be found and utilized by this centralized system.

Well, like much of the assumptions of the last 150 years that led to such command and control systems, the assumptions were wrong.  Much of the rainwater that fell was actually lost and not captured, so the brave soul who went out to by rain capturing water tanks and pipes to harvest the rain that fell from the sky to water their gardens, was actually doing the right thing.  It is clear that much of what has been centralized in the last century – energy production, food production, and water capture and distribution – needs to be decentralized in order to create a sane and sustainable world.  The need to control resources only benefits the few, not the many, and needlessly damages the environment too.

So I say harvest the water that falls on your house, harvest the sun that falls on your roof and harvest food that you can grow even in a window-box of a city apartment.  It helps connect you to the cycles of life and it also helps alleviate an ailing system that will look to you for direction once it totally falls apart.

Article on the Legalization of Rain Capture
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html

I wrote a blog back in October 2007 about photographic artist Chris Jordan who began a series of digital photographs that present contemporary American culture by way of inconceivable statistics regarding American consumption. In his photographic series, Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, each image portrays a specific quantity of consumption: Plastic Bags, 2007 - Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds; Plastic Bottles, 2007 - Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Jordan portrays these statistics by incorporating them visually in large, intricately detailed photographic prints assembled from thousands of smaller images.

In his new series, Runninng the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture (2009) Jordan depicts mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. The first few pieces in this series depict statistics about threats to the world's marine ecosystems.

Gyre (2009) is the first set of images in this new series which represents the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. The Pacific Gyre is the largest garbage swill floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco and is roughly the size of Texas containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash.

The below photographic image Gyre (2009) is composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic – the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour.

  

                              Actual image                                                                    Partial zoom

  

                           Zoomed in further                                                                  Viewed up close

Next in the series is a set of images called Shark Teeth, 2009. If you have read the 11th Hour Action blog about how sharks are under a global threat and yet may be a key to our survival then you may appreciate the significance of these images, and the serious consequences to killing sharks.

The below images depicts 270,000 fossilized shark teeth, equal to the estimated number of sharks of all species killed around the world every day for their fins.

  

                         Actual image                                                                                        Partial zoom

  

                              Zoomed in further                                                                            Viewed up close

To fully appreciate these photographic images you should really view them directly from Chris Jordan’s website. There are 11 images from the Gyre series, and 5 from Shark Teeth. Plus there are 5 images that depicts 20,500 tuna, the average number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes.

Hi there everyone, my name is Julie Stevens. I'm a consultant for a financial firm, but in my spare time, I love to go green! I've been green for years now, probably going on 5.

I'm not really sure if this blog area is for blogs about me, or ideas, but I threw in a little about both.

I was thinking, has anyone watched Man vs Wild before? In one episode, I believe it was in a desert, Bear puts his coat down, to builds a small, interesting contraption, with some plastic, that collects the fresh dew, and funnels it into his water supply.

My idea is, is there anyway we can do this on a large scale? I think the world could really benefit from a large project like that!

Kisses, Jules

 

LEXUS Challenges Kids to Perform

The Lexus Eco Challenge is a life-changing opportunity for teens across the nation to make a difference in the environmental health of our planet, one community at a time.

The annual Lexus Eco Challenge just began its second year, and it's not too late to participate. Developed with Scholastic, the Challenge is a national competition that invites middle and high school students to devise solutions to environmental problems in their communities through a series of challenge categories: water, land, and air/climate. The student team with the best idea in each category will win $10,000 in scholarships and grants, which go to the students, their schools, and their teachers. The winning teams will then compete for a $50,000 grand prize in a Final Challenge - in all, $1 million in grants and scholarships will be awarded.

Parents, teachers, and students interested in participating should visit http://www.scholastic.com/lexus/to learn more.

American Museum of Natural History
Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future

On Display October 18, 2008 – August 16, 200

If you live in the New York area or are planning a visit to New York City over the next 10 months, you may want to check out a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History on climate change.

Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future, will examine one of the most pressing scientific issues of our time—the massive, human-induced warming of Earth, a phenomenon that could lead to drought, rising sea levels, heavy storms, and other events with potentially dire impacts on the health of society and the natural world. This exhibition will explore the science, history, and impact of climate change, and illuminate ways in which individuals, communities and nations can reduce their carbon footprints.

"Evidence has been accumulating for some time that Earth is warming due to human activity," said Museum President Ellen V. Futter, "but we are only just beginning to come to terms with the breadth of the consequences of this phenomenon, and to learn what we can do to mitigate them. The fact is," Ms. Futter continued, "we do have options; but implementing solutions will require individual, national, and global action. Climate Change will examine both the consequences of global warming and possible solutions to this critical problem."

Climate Change will give visitors a scientific context to help make sense of today's most urgent headlines on global warming. More importantly, the exhibition will inspire visitors to participate in the world-changing discussion on how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The central part of the exhibition will explore the effects of climate change on several separate but interrelated areas: Earth's atmosphere, oceans, land, and polar ice sheets. Scientists have documented a dramatic increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past 150 years—especially CO2 (carbon dioxide)—caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other changes in land use. Climate Change will use realistic dioramas, hands-on activity stations, and dynamic animations to understand the climate's response to the build-up of greenhouse gases and explore the repercussions for today's world and future generations.

One activity allows visitors to investigate raising the sea levels on a dynamic scale, model of Lower Manhattan to graphically illustrate the flooding that would be caused by the melting of ice sheets and warming of oceans. The movements of clouds, ocean currents and seasonal ice that reveal how climate works will be internally projected on digital video globes throughout the exhibition. A ghostly coral reef—a victim of "coral bleaching"—will show how increased CO2 in the oceans and higher water temperatures are killing corals and the communities that they anchor. And a six-foot-tall model that represents one ton of coal will provide a startling visual reminder of each visitor's own carbon footprint: Scientists estimate that every person in the world burns, on average, the equivalent of three tons of coal every year. The exhibition will also explore the options for future energy sources—including coal-burning combined with a CO2 capture and sequestration, solar power, nuclear energy, and wind power.

Climate Change does more than examine a complex and immediate problem—it lays the groundwork for potential solutions, from the personal to the national and global, and shows how these are within our grasp. The exhibition will empower and encourage visitors of all ages to help address the climate change problem by reducing energy consumption in their daily lives, whether by buying energy-efficient appliances, growing their own food, switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, or choosing to walk or take mass transit to get to work or school. Please visit the American Museum of Natural History web site for more information and details.

Source: City Pass