June 27, 2011

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Have you heard of 'deep ecology' ? It is one of the more all-encompassing environmental philosophies, founded by Arne Naess. According to wikipedia, deep ecology is "the philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the biosphere. It provides a foundation for the environmental, ecology and green movements and has fostered a new system of environmental ethics."

"Deep ecology's core principle is the belief that, like humanity, the living environment as a whole has the same right to live and flourish."

Last summer I bought a book called Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings which is a compilation of readings, poems, meditiations etc. While I have only skimmed it, and I'm sure what it has to say is not for everyone, it is still enlightening and a flip through its pages will open your eyes to a very different perspective of the world.

Here is the poem that opens the book:

Spirit of love
That flows against our flesh
Sets it trembling
Moves across it as across grass
Erasing every boundary that we accept
And swings the doors of our lives wide -
This is a prayer I sing:
Save our perishing earth

Spirit that cracks our single selves -
Eyes fall down eyes,
Hearts escape through the bars of our ribs
To dart into other bodies -
Save this earth!
The earth is perishing.
This is a prayer I sing.

Spirit that hears each one of us,
Hears all that is -
Listens, listens, hears us out -
Inspire us now!
Our own pulse beats in every stranger's throat,
And also there within the flowered ground beneath
        our feet,
And - teach us to listen! -
We can hear it in water, in wood, and even in stone.
We are earth of this earth, and we are bone of its
        bone.
This is a prayer I sing, for we have forgotten this
       and so
The earth is perishing

                                - Barbara Deming

This book was published in 1988. That's 23 years ago. This poem is still appropriate today, which is sad. Perhaps a deeper, more spiritual outlook is needed, in which humans see and treat the earth as equal to them rather than something insignificant to be taken advantage of. 

p.s. Did you know that 2011 is 'The Year of Forests' as declared by the United Nations? 

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June 24, 2011

Couldn't resist sharing this video I found - one girl's solution to global warming....

Oh my. While yes, this is hilarious - at the heart of it, it is just terrible. Do people really think this way? Hopefully it's just her. 

Pop quiz - what impact do air conditioners have on global warming?

June 20, 2011

So you'd think being on summer vacation would mean that I have tons of time to write many, many interesting and informative posts here, but sadly I've been extremely busy working two jobs at the moment and enjoying the sun whenever possible. But, despite my little hiatus I have not forgotten about this blog (or my other one) nor the important issues that face us today.

Today the BBC website had, in my opinion, an extremely important article about our oceans. I know I have written quite a bit about the sea and overfishing but this article brings the level of urgency needed to address this issue, in an effective way I have not seen in other articles. 

The beginning of the article states that

In a new report, they warn that ocean life is  "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history" 

The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) will be issuing a formal report later this week on this issue, so be sure to keep an eye out for that (if not, I'll do that for you!). Additionally, the article warns that the cumulative effect and impact of humankind's actions on the environment are "far worse than we had individually realised". In the past, earth has had five "mass extinctions" and it is now believed that we are heading towards a sixth, and at an unprecedented rate.

"So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought."

Not only that, but one change leads to a chain reaction affecting many other aspects of the ocean. So it is not, for example, only increased ocean acidification due to increasing CO2 levels, but then the affect that has on say, coral reels, algae, which then changes the amount of nutrients and food available for other animals in the oceans, and soon enough things are going extinct not only because they can't adapt quick enough to the changes but also because food sources are disappearing. Everything is linked to each other, so it is not a matter of just slowing down carbon emissions, but it must be a combined effort of lowering emissions, raising awareness, stopping overfishing etc.

IPSO's immediate recommendations include:

• stopping exploitative fishing now, with special emphasis on the high seas where currently there is little effective regulation
• mapping and then reducing the input of pollutants including plastics, agricultural fertilisers and human waste
• making sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

 It depresses me to think that we as humans - the, apparently, superior race - have reached the point where we have induced a very probable mass extinction. That our actions of greed, consumption and the 'bigger, better, now-now-now' attitude has led to the point where many of our valuable (yet not recognized as such by most) resources will be eliminated. You'd think that we'd be wiser and have accounted for the fact that our consumption would go faster than the rate at which the resources can replenish themselves. You'd think that now with all information (and highly credible information at that) available to pretty much the entire world, we'd accept it and now start acting to save as much of the oceans as we can, rather than fight it and look for short cuts. I don't think there are short-cuts. Instead, lets face reality and start fixing this mess we've made for ourselves, because there is no one and nothing else to clean it up for us.

all photos are from www.nationalgeograpic.com