And further to the previous entry, one of The Green Man's favourite animals, the Polar Bear, which faces a decidedly uncertain future because of the melting of the polar ice cap, has few friends in the US administration. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, it seems, have been unable to quantify the rate at which the polar cap is melting and, as such, cannot regard this species at vulnerable.
All right, I admit they are cute, and this undermines the previous post, but the "head-in-the-sand" approach to global warming by the US administration is both expected and extremely disappointing.
Without wishing to be anti-American, you guys are the major contributor to this phenonemon. Some spending on a world issue that was not a war would be extremely welcome.
This is a picture of a white rumped vulture, it is a critically endangered animal, however, like many animals that are not cute, it does not enjoy the support of mindless B-grade celebrities. Never-the-less it performs a valuable role in the ecosystem and the reason it is endangered is because of a chemical, diclofenac, which was fed to sick cows. It happens that this chemical causes kidney damage and death in vultures.
Thankfully serving "drug-free", safe carcasses to these endangered birds by Bird Conservation Nepal is bringing them back from the brink of extinction. Thankfully some people in this world look beyond the attractiveness of the animal when deciding whether it deserves to to survive as a species.
It is important for us all to reflect on why we want to save a species and the fact that it is attractive, "cute" if you like, is the most trivial of reasons.
Scientists at College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University have discovered one significant cause of global warming is volcanos. Who'd of thought that spewing 10 million cubic kilometers of magma into the atmosphere would warm things up. Well it did off western British Isles about 55 million years ago raising sea surface temperatures by five degrees Celsius in the tropics and more than six degrees in the Arctic.
The period of intense warming that lasted roughly 220,000 years, well more than human civilisation has been around. Perhaps humans can outlast this current bout of global warming that, pop science at least, thinks we caused ourselves, but it going to be a long wait.
Picture courtesy of Smithsonian Institute.
Scientific American reports that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has issued an edict that scientist are prohibited from making any public comment about the plight that Polar Bears find themselves in.
It seems that if you want to get public funding from the Bush Administration to attend a conference you must agree that polar bears, the melting polar ice cap and global warming will not be discussed.
H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, defended the policy laid out in the memos, saying it was meant to keep scientists from straying from a set agenda at meetings in countries like Russia, Norway and Canada and you can understand why. Obviously none of those three countries will notice the collapse of the polar ice shelf if noone mentions it.
To take one example, on a discussion on "human and polar bear interface." it was forbidden to discuss the receding Arctic sea ice where polar bears live because it had no relevance to the topic. According to Hall, it was a bear management issue and as such discussion of climate change was inappropriate. Yeah right!
The time, it seems, has come for the Bush Administration to place its collective head even deeper in the sand. The Howard Administration don't need to do the same. They have their heads stuck clearly where the sun doesn't shine, vis-a-vis the Bush Administration.
Do you buy your energy from TXU, The Green Man does, and he is most disconcerted to discover that, in the midst of all the concern on global warming they are about to commence construction of 11 new coal-fired powerplants in the US, to the tune of 11 billion dollars. Their 11 plants will produce 78 million tons of CO2 emissions each year for the expected 50-year lifespan of the plants. This is more than entire countries, such as Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. It is also the equivalent of putting 10 million 4WDs on the road or cutting and burning all the trees in a section of the Amazon larger than the state of California
This is being funded by Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup a global axis of environmental irresponsibility.
Well loyal readers I am not dead inspite of making a valiant attempt over the Christmas break via over indulgence in both food and alcohol. I have just come off a big project that has kept me seriously distracted from the important things of life, which are, of course, the trivia such as maintaining The Green Man.
It is bushfire time in southern Australia at the moment with huge fires consuming large chunks of the state in which The Green Man lives (Victoria). Below is a photo from the recent fires in Tasmania which is included not so much for its relevance as its awesome beauty.
The see a larger version click here.
The howl of the wolf at night, it is both chilling and awe inspiring. It seems to be a sound that is targeted at the most primordial part of our brain. Perhaps that is why we hunted and killed them so mercilessly.
The area surronding the town of Banff, Alberta, Canada once played home to wolves but humans hunted them to local extinction. The wolf was not the only animal to suffer from the unbalancing of the ecology that this practice caused. Elks, the principal prey of wolves, flourished to the detriment of many other species. This burgeoning elk population devasted the local willows killing saplings and undermining the welfare of beavers and willow warblers to name but two species that relied on the willows.
Wolves are magnificent wild creatures and their removal from an ecosystem is not only devastating to the balance of the ecosystem but a serious reduction in the quality of wildness. Thankfully for Banff, wolves are resourceful creatures and they are naturally repopulating this area and the balance is returning.
What failing is it in the human psyche that causes us to feel that we must destroy wildness. We repress it in ourselves and we punish any species that forces us to confront the magnificence of wilderness and its great predators. In Australia the eastern grey nurse shark is in even more peril that the Canadian wolf. Admittedly they do eat the occasional person but usually it is a mistake, they mistake us for seals. We must seriously question the value of venegence when it is causing the extinction of the worlds other great predators.
As confronting as you may find it, we are just another animal in the ecosystem and all through evolution we have been food for other animals. What has changed is that technology allows us to deny our animalness and to drive to extinction any other animal that dares to remind us of it.
On 24th May the Victorian Government issued a statement phasing out grazing of cattle in the Victorian Alpine National Park. Grazing is still allowed in the adjoining alpine state forests.
The Mountain Cattlemens Association of Victoria is outraged. Their spokesperson, Simon Turner, said
The decision to remove cattle grazing from the Alpine National Park has devastated mountain cattlemen, consigned a 170 year-old widely loved tradition of destroying delicate alpine flora and undermining the sensitive alpine ecosystem to the dusty shelves of history*
Here is a photo of an alpine herbfield near Mt Kosciuszko in New South Wales, where no grazing is allowed, showing abundant flowering of Silver Snow Daisies, Eyebright and Billy Buttons.
Not much to look at really, they are mostly white flowers and who likes white flowers.
Compare that image with this delightful bog in the Victorian high country that is the result of cattle grazing. It is used by the cattle as a drinking source and wallow and just look at the lovely symetrical pattern that the stock paths make across the delicate heath.
The federal government, gleefully seizing an opportunity to bash their political opponents who hold government in Victoria, is similarly outraged. Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage Senator the Hon. Ian Campbell is quoted as saying
The Man from Snowy River is deep in the Australian psyche. This legend is part of Australia's heritage that simply cannot be lost. It should be noted that these 'men from Snowy River' work just 7900 cattle over an enormous high country area of 340,000 hectares - the equivalent of just one animal every 23 MCGs.
Which somewhat overlooks the fact that The Man From Snowy River was engaged in capturing wild horses and removing them from the Alpine region not grazing cattle there. Let's ignore that, one would presume he is also advocating the restoration and protection of Australias maritime heritage as well, vis-a-vis whaling off the south-west coast.
The Mountain Cattlemen are feeling dispossessed, their heritage is under threat, their whole way of life is challenged. They think of themselves as custodians of this fragile ecosystem. This places them in an excellent position to appreciate the plight and the indignation of the Taungurung clans, the traditional occupants of central Victoria including the alpline region. The Mountain Cattlemen want their way of life, their heritage preserved, their culture maintained in exactly the same way that the Taungurung did when the ancestors of Mountain Cattlemen drove them from their land, herded them on reserves, pursued a program of assimilation that denied them their culture, their language, their identity. The clock has come full circle for the Mountain Cattlemen, and in some multi-generational karma, they are getting a hint of the grief that was metted out by their ancestors.
So what are they doing? Running whimpering to their sycophants in Canberra, like Senator Campbell, who would be struggling to identify the Alpine National Park on a map. When in 1932 William Cooper, an aboriginal from Cummeragunga, wrote to the Federal government seeking land and opportunity for aboriginals as well as representation in parliament do you think he received such sympathetic treatment? Was there ministerial hand wringing at the loss of Australian heritage? I think you know the answer. The Government of the day refused to even acknowledge the receipt of the letter.
The mountain cattlemen have been grazing cattle and abusing this delicate national park for 170 years, which is far too long. Farming and grazing practices have changed a lot in 170 years boys. It is about time you brought your grazing practices into the 21st century.
It is inevitable that anyone who was getting such an excellent free ride at the expense of all Victorians and our delicate environment would be upset when it was taken away so there will undoubtedly be more protests. The Victorian government needs resolve and patience to weather these teacup storms while the dinosaur farming practices of the Mountain Cattlemen either evolve or become extinct. The reward will be a small part of our alpine ecosystem returned to its natural state.
Polititians respond to public pressure, you may like to communicate with Senator Campbell to advocate the resurrection of our whaling tradition or, hopefully, indicate your displeasure at his dinosaur attitudes towards our Alpine National Park. Like any respectible dinosaur he does not appear to have email, you will need to write to him at
Senator the Hon. Ian Campbell
Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT 2600
Similarly, you may wish to indicate your support for the Victorian Governments removal of cattle from the Alpine National Park by emailing John Thwaites, Minister for Environment and Minister for Water
(*statement has been augmented slightly as is the want of The Green Man, read the orginal here.)
Find out more from Department of Sustainability and Environment or Victorian National Parks Association
Buy a book on William Cooper here.
This is a map that shows the presence of malaria in the world. Approximately 300,000,000 people contract malaria annually with 1 million of these people dying. Caused by the bacteria Plasmodium falciparum, this disease has killed more people than AIDS. The effects of Bird flu are chicken feed compared to Malaria.
As you will see from the map the areas of the world most affected are sub-saharan Africa, the Amazon basin in South America, the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. These areas are particularly poor and there is limited access to anti-malarial treatments for sufferers in these areas. Fortunately The Institute for One World Health, the worlds first non-profit drug company is well down the track to developing a near free anti-malarial drug that will be made available in these areas of the world. This is possible, in part, because of a donation of a $42.6 Million Five-Year Grant from Gates Foundation. (Some of the cost of your copy of Microsoft Windows being put to good use.)
The US government also spends a considerable sum on Malaria through a NGO called US Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2005 USAID received US$90m dollars for malaria prevention programs. Disappointingly, Nature reported that the agency spent just 5% of its 2004 funds on commodities such as bednets, drugs and insecticides, and 13% on vaccine research. The remainder was spent on items such as meetings and consultancy fees. That is not to say that all of this money was wasted some of the consultancies were for technical assistance for local communities which is valuable but the imbalance between these more esoteric costs and those incurred directly fighting malarial infections is concerning.
It is important to recognise that this is a treatment for the disease and not an elimination of the cause and it is interesting to speculate on the possibility of eliminating malaria in a similar way to smallpox. Certainly it would eliminate much suffering in the world but it would have one consequence that may be catastrophic for the environment. The Amazon basis has been described as "the lungs of the world" and the African jungle is home to countless rare and precious species. The elimination of malaria in these areas would inevitably see a rapid increase in the devastation of these precious wildernesses. Perhaps the presence of malaria is not a totally bad thing afterall.
Driving to work the other day the radio was on a commercial channel and the hosts were interviewing two winners from Survivor TV show who had joined the "Save The Koala" campaign. An organisation it seems for the protection of the cute and furry.
The photo to the right is of a Grey Nurse Shark (Carcharias taurus), one of the oceans most proficient killers. It is also critically endangered. Sadly for the Grey Nurse Shark it is neither cute nor furry. It cannot rely on half brained minor celebrities from the US for assistance. Nor for that matter can the Western Swamp Tortoise or Mitchell's Rainforest Snail or Golden Sun Moth or even the Bare-rumped Sheathtail Bat, and it is furry.
All these animals are critically endangered as compared to the Koala that, whilst still at some risk, is in plague numbers on Kangaroo Island and Philip Island to name but two of its habitats.
Is it too cynical to suspect that these minor American celebrities are junketing to Australia at the expense of kind hearted but misinformed Americans who think that this is the most important environmental issue Australia has to face.
How about trying to have at least a small amount of compassion for those animals that are not fortunate enough to be cute and furry.
If you are actually interested in Australia's endangered list, click here. The list is depressingly long and it does not contain the Koala.
Today is International Buy Nothing Day.
Make a statement about the glutinous nature of our consumption of the worlds resources. We are heading into a period of traditional excess where spoilt children of all ages are showered with expensive gifts that they do not need whilst much of the world is starving.
We cannot fix the problem of world starvation but we can choose moderate our annual christmas excesses out of respect for the rest of the worlds plight.
Make a choice to abstain, for 24 hours, from exgaging in the consumer society.
A casual glance of the stats shows that one of the more popular posts on The Green Man is "The Facts on Gun Deaths In The USA".
It may be stating the obvious but the reason that guns cause death is because of the introduction of lead into the unfortunate recipients body. This is usually in the form of a solid piece of lead, also known as a bullet. However lead can also enter the body through ingestion and in this form it causes heavy metal posioning. Not nearly as dramatic as a gun shot wound still it can be equally effective in separating the body from the soul.
Donald Rimstidt, a professor in the Department of Geosciences, College of Science at Virginia Tech calculates that 20 million metric tons of lead bullets have been fired in the United States in the 20th century. That's a lot of heavy metal that has been introduced into the US environment. From TV you would surmise that the bulk of this lead is either in cities from shoot outs or in the wilderness from hunting. This is not in fact the case, the bulk of Americans do their shooting on rifle ranges. In 10 years a rifle range accumulates 12 tonnes of lead bullets and a shotgun range 10 tonnes of lead shot.
From an optimistic perspective this environmental contamination is limited because lead does not easily find its way into surface or ground water and contaminates only the top few inches of soil where it lands. Never the less it is still a significant enviromental contaminant and monitoring will be necessary to ensure that the change in the enviromental dynamics from the introduction of all this lead do not have impacts that we have not foreseen.
Read more on Dr Don's research here.
Ooooooh spooky! Yes The Green Man is venturing into "the dead zone" (lowering his voice and switching on the reverb).
The "Dead Zone" lies in the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of America and, as usual, the scientists involved have failed to capitalise on its dramatic capability by referring to it as "The Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone". It has this name because it has virtually no disolved oxygen in the water. Fish, who breathe oxygen, find this disconcerting and vacate the area closely followed by the fishermen.
You can see it on the map below in red and the most commonly accepted cause is nirates flowing from the Mississippi River, the catchment of which is in yellow.
Of course nature can be a fickle thing and just when a nice little academic community had established itself to investigate the phenonemon it seems that it is breaking up. Steven DiMarco, associate professor in the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University has observed
Strong coastal currents can develop and breakup the stratification that causes hypoxia. Another is offshore circulation features, such as eddies, that intrude onto the continental shelf. We think this could break down the hypoxia in the area as well.
It throws some doubt on the hypothesis that the mighty Mississippi is the culprit. Of course a resourceful scientist is never put off by the disappearance of his research topic. As Dr Steve observes
We need to do some further research to determine the specific mechanisms under which hypoxia is created, maintained, and ultimately dissipated
Read more about The Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone at the US Geological Survey Website.
Read more about Dr Steves work here.
When it comes to electricity Victoria likes it black, or at least brown. Our principal source of electricity is our large natural stores of coal in the La Trobe valley. This is causing some angst in the Green community because of fossil fuel emissions, global warming etc. In particular our "man of steel" is declining to sign up to the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions which is cause all sorts of handwringing in the sustainable energy/environmental camp.
The Green Man, whilst in favour of environmentally responsible and sustainable approaches to existence, is somewhat concerned by the use of statistics by the Green movement in this whole debate. Australia has been quoted as having one of the highest emissions per captita (see graph below)
Source Australia Institute.
The reason that this statistic is somewhat questionable is because of the extremely small population that Australia has in comparison with its land size. The problem for the environment is not the per capita output of greenhouse gases but the gross output of greenhouse gases, of which Australia produces relatively few. This is, of course, immensely unfair and from an ideology perspective we may wish to push for a reduction in our greenhouse gases but in an objective assessment of our actual contribution to gobal warming we are a bit player.
To put some perspective on the problem at a gross level, here is the graph redone based on gross output of greenhouse gases.
To cloud the issue even further, even moving to more sustainable forms of electricity generation can backfire as Brasil has discovered. It's Tucuruí dam flodded 1,100 square miles of forest when it was constructed in 1985 to supply hydroelectric power. The environment has responded by spewing millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere courtesy of the decomposing rainforest that was flooded. To add insult to injury the increased acidity in the water that has resulted from the decomposition is endanger of corroding the power generating turbines and the mosiquito increase has necessitated the relocation of a number of villages.
If we are to take a hard line environmental stance on greenhouse gases and global warming then we have to be prepared to look all the culprits and that includes the developing nations. As I indicated above, it is grossly unfair, but it really doesn't matter all that much whether Australia reduces its greenhouse gas emissions or not, we are not a major contributor to damaging the environment this way.
Read more on Tucuruí dam in New York Times.
Read more on Australia's Greenhouse Gas strategy.
That is not a nasty fungal skin infection you are looking at. It is the surface of our own little star, the sun. The roundish black spot, rather than being a few centimetres in diameter is, in fact, roughly the size of Jupiter.
This is sun spot 652, the largest and most dramatic sun spot for some time and we can expect it to have a largely predictable effect on earth, that is, to bombard us with cosmic radiation from solar flares with the associated disruption to the satellite television reception etc.
In the course of which it will cause more global warming than the human population has contributed in the last 50 years. It is important for us to be concerned about our carbon emissions but we need to keep in the back of our minds the insignificance of the contribution that the human population makes to universe.
Read more at SpaceWeather.com
The Cozumel Thrasher (Toxostoma guttatum) is a bird endemic only on the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It appears to have experienced a precipitous decline in numbers since 1988 after Hurricane Gilbert tore through the island. It immediately became rare, but small numbers of the bird were known to exist until it was last sighted in 1995. That same year, Hurricane Roxanne ripped through Cozumel and may have also contributed to the species' decline. Scientists estimate that as many as 10,000 once thrived on the island.
The bird, not seen or recorded by scientists for close to a decade and thought by some to have gone extinct, was sighted last month by a team of field biologists who immediately shot it. Dr. George Wallace, vice president for International Programs at American Bird Conservancy is quoted as saying
It was important to record the sighting and it was the only way we could prove it was not extinct .... up until now
oooh put away that indignation, I was only joking about the "shooting it" bit and, ah, that is a picture of turkey hen, but it might as well have been a Cozumel Thrasher for all you know (and me for that matter).
Anyway everyone is very happy to have sighted it and I am sure it will make an excellent meal for a boa constrictor. Boas were introduced onto the island in 1971 and have spent the last 30 years consuming most of the bird's relatives.
Bradley Adrian Smith, 29, died on Saturday afternoon doing something that he loved, surfing. He died because a great white shark probably mistook him for a seal, interestingly surfers lying on their boards look remarkably like seals from under the water. Great Whites, or White Pointers, do not normally attack humans, we are not on their list of desirable food. This is evidenced by the fact that this unfortunate man was released by the shark, dying later of massive injuries and blood loss on the beach.
In a demonstration of remarkable wisdom and emotional balance for someone who was clearly grieving his brother Stephen said
I don't believe that the shark should be killed just for the sake of what's happened in this situation. I don't believe that (the death of) Brad can be revenged by killing a shark.
The shark in question may have been hundreds of kilometres away by the time that the search was undertaken anyway, they can travel around 200 km per day.
When we venture into the domain of these awe inspiring creatures we take a risk. It is a small risk but it is there never-the-less. Sadly, for Bradley, the dice fell the wrong way. Let us not be too hasty in hunting down and killing the magnificent animal that made this unfortunate mistake.
Those of the readership who believe in a God my like to ponder on whether he has global warming in mind for the earth at this time. Forget the Kyoto agreement on carbon emissions, which embarrassingly Australia has not yet signed. It seems that the worlds peat bogs are taking it upon themselves to spew vast qualities of carbon into the atmosphere.
Before you write this off as an insignificant issue consider that one estimate of the bogs of Europe, Siberia and North America hold the equivalent of 70 years of global industrial emissions and that we have only been pouring carbon into the atmosphere in significant quantities for around 100 years. Chris Freeman of the University of Wales at Bangor, UK says that billions of tonnes of carbon could pour into the air from peat bogs in the coming decades.
The world’s peatland stores of carbon are emptying at an alarming rate. It’s a vicious circle. The problem gets worse and worse, faster and faster.
There has been a deal on conjecture on why this might be so with a number of initial hypothesises now discounted. Chris thinks he has it nailed. The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is actually promoting an increase in the release of dissolved organic carbon from the peat bogs which is converted to CO2 by bacteria in the rivers which then bubbles into the atmosphere. This is creating an ever accelerating biofeedback loop. Recent data from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster, UK shows a 90 per cent increase in dissolved organic carbon levels in Welsh mountain rivers since 1988.
It's not a good time to be investing in a ski lodge at Aspen folks. And some final words from Chris Freeman on the subject.
The rate of acceleration suggests that we have disturbed something critical that controls the stability of the carbon cycle in our planet. On these trends, by the middle of the century, DOC emissions from peat bogs and rivers could be as big a source of CO2 to the atmosphere as burning fossil fuels.
In Victoria where The Green Man lives most of the population lives in suburbia and views itself as safe from bushfires which are a natural feature of the environment in which we live. Even though many live in areas where their feeling of security is quite unfounded they are protected by the management of fire by the government.
Unlike most of these people The Green Man knows both the necessity of fire to our ecosystem and also the terrifying experience of being confronted by a bush fire. The image of a bush fire that people have is typically a daylight one. This is because it is when the news cameras can get good footage. With even the simplest extension of the imagination however will realise that bushfires do not go out at night and magically restart the next day. They burn through the night and few things are more frightening than watching the approaching fire at night.
This is the view from The Green Mans balcony. Fortunately on this occasion it is a fuel reduction burn by Parks Victoria but the glow in the night sky, the smell of burning gum and the discoloured moon are disconcerting when you have experienced the real thing.
See these little fellas. Cute aren't they? Well not to some. To some people they are dinner, they are known as "Bush meat".
Nature has a delightful habit of exacting its revenge however. Nathan Wolfe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland has found that the practice of consuming "bush meat" is a great way of spreading simian diseases through the human population. What's more some of these diseases have a much greater impact on the human population that they do on chimps, HIV springs to mind.
HIV is thought to have crossed into humans from other primates many times over, eventually taking root some 50-100 years ago and spawning today's pandemic. Wild primates are also suspected of triggering Ebola outbreaks and an infection called HTLV that can cause leukaemia.
Sadly, we keep people in Africa in such poverty and ignorance that the bush meat trade is thriving, to the cost of us all.
Read more in Nature.
I think that it can safely be stated that an active volcano is generally regarded as one of your hotter environments. Even so the amount of heat that a volcano puts into the atmosphere is miniscule compared to the heat output of a developed nation such as America.
Robert Wright and Luke Flynn from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu are very interested in this topic and used a NASA satellite to measure the heat emitted by the world's 45 most active volcanoes, which are responsible for the majority of the Earth's volcanic heat. Over a 2 year period these volcanos put out enough energy to power New York for 2-3 months. Compared with the active volcanos it is estimated that America emits 1,000 times the energy into the atmosphere.
Whether we like it or not males are basically expendible. After you have done the business and fertilised sufficient females, or the same female enough times, then, from a perpetuation of the species perspective, your role on this earth is done. Thus it is that recent research by lion researcher Craig Packer of University of Minnesota has found that allowing unlimited trophy hunting of male lions aged five and older has no impact on lion population sustainability.
The first question that springs to mind is how you tell how old a lion is but this is, apparently, quite easy. The colour of the lions nose darkens with age and if a lion's nose tip is more than 50 percent black, the lion is probably at least 5 years old, the researchers said.
The Green Man is firmly of the opinion that men who find it necessary to go out shooting big things are saying more about their insecurities than their manliness. Never the less he grudgingly acknowledges that managed trophy hunting is probably the most effective way of ensuring the survival of wild lions. This is, in part, because economic benefits to the local communities mean that they protect and support the lions, hunters pay up to $100,000 for a safari. Additionally managed hunting reduces the uncontrolled illegal trophy hunting where hunters often take any lion that they encounter.
Will you people please stop ordering "Shark Fin Soup" at your local chinese restaraunt. The practice of catching sharks, cutting off their dorsal fin and throwing them back to die a slow and painful death in the ocean has caused a crash in shark populations worldwide. Oceanic whitetip sharks, once the most common shark in the world, are almost completely extinct, according to a new census. Shark populations generally have dropped by 99% over the last 50 years.
Isn't it interesting that when it comes to fluffy koalas we have all these bleeding hearts wringing their hands but when it is a fish or reptile they show complete indifference. Please get over your ridiculous "Jaws" based attitudes to these magnificent creatures.
When everyone stops ordering shark fin soup fishermen will stop the wasteful carnage of these animals. We can only hope that it will be soon or they will be extinct.
There may be many reasons for not clearfelling the Amazon basin but using global warming as an argument is spurious. The real key to the global warming crisis is Phytoplankton. These microscopic green plants that float in the oceans of the world. They are capable of binding extremely large quanitities of CO2, which is the main contributing factor to the looming global warming crisis.
The trouble is that to do this they need iron, which can be in short supply in the worlds oceans, in spite of the number of battle ships that we so conveniently sunk during that last world cufuffle.
Alfred Wegener Institute of the Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany is experimenting with "seeding" with large qualities of iron to promote the Phytoplankton's ability to bind CO2. This just the first step, the Phytoplankton then have to die and sink to the ocean floor, which seems a bit of a big ask. There is also the problem of the collossal distruption to the ocean ecology that may have a dramatic and negative impact on many species.
The Green Man is not buying any property on Kiribati just yet.
Each day a party of Rainbow Lorikeets comes to visit our bird feeder. Of the variety of birds that drop by, they are not only the most vibrant but also the most gregarious and noisy.
They squabble amongst themselves as they jostle for the best bits of food for that day, their swearing at one another intrudes on the normal daily activities of the household and draws our attention to their colourful presence.
As I move out to photograph them they fly up onto a nearby branch ready to either fly off or return to the food fight depending on my actions.
The issue of which posts will turn out to be popular is a complete mystery to The Green Man. Some are easy to predict, the Spencer Tunick posts always generate some good attention but nudity will do that for you won't it.
One seemingly innocuous post that continues to get hits and comments is this one on the killing of the worlds tallest hardwood tree in Tasmania. You can read more about the tree in question, known as El Grande, on the Wilderness Society site.
Those who frequent the Victorian or Tasmania wilderness areas will know that the tree was a Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus Regnans). It's specific name being derived from the Latin "regnum - to rule". These are truely regal trees that rule over the Victorian/Tasmanian bush, the one in pictured right standing 330 feet.
Visit the original post 
to read some interesting personal comments left by Walter Savige on his families experiences with these magnificent trees.
It seems that few can experience these giants without being in awe. Experience them for yourself next time you are in Victoria by taking a drive up the Maroondah Valley and over the Black Spur. You can get some perspective on their size from the car in the photo to the left.
This is a ring necked pheasant. A "hunting party" lead by US VP Dick Cheney shot 417 of them in Dakota the other day. You can tell a natural woodsman when you see one can't you and they don't look like Dick Cheney!
So how did they bag such a catch? Well they arrived in Cheney's chauffer driven limo, accompanied by several secret service vehicles at a private hunting facility where some sycophantic lacky handed them shotguns then released cage reared birds for them to shoot. Being cage reared these birds were unfit and stood little chance of escaping slaughter.
Obviously he was disappointed he didn't get to shoot someone in Iraq himself. This is a way he gets to do some shooting of things with no risk, afterall he had the secret service agents to protect him in case a pheasant turned on him. Sadly the young men and women he has packed off to Iraq and Afganistan don't have a similar chance of returning home unharmed.
To abandon the satire for a moment, The Green Man thinks it is pathetic that someone in as powerful a position as Dick Cheney feels he needs to slaughter caged birds to prove himself a big macho man. Dick, if you want to pretend that you are the "great white hunter", The Green Man suggests you pull on a backpack, grab a rifle and fishing rod and head out into the wilderness where your mental strength and resourcefulness can really be tested.
Read the press release from The Humane Society on the incident.
Jenny is in the early stages of labour. Being her first child it is an exciting time, the hard bits of child birth are still an academic concept for her. I am sure she'll get through it OK though, she is young and healthy. Naturally the baby she gives birth to will be special, particularly to her.
Her baby may be much more special than she realises. Today, somewhere in a hospital around the country some very round woman is about to give birth to Australia's 20 millionth citizen.
This might not seem many people for a country the size of Australia, we are roughly the size of the USA after all and it has 280 million people. Australia, however, is an arid and fragile country and our existing population has done much harm to it already. Soil salinity is devastating large sections of our arable land and deforestation is causing massive losses of valuable top soil. We are in a draught that has lasted 5 years so far.
Realistically, the sustainable population of Australia may be as low as 6 million people and yet our government is targeting an eventual population of 50 million. Such is the spell of the economic rationalists that we will destroy our country in the long term to keep a strong economy in the short to medium term. How sad.
Have you made yourself rich by investing in property? Perhaps you attended a seminar by Henry Kaye, pictured. For a mere $12,000 you could attend one of his introductory seminars on making yourself rich. The Green Man's first response would be, "Hang on! I am actually going to be $12,000 poorer." and that turned out to be the reality for many of the attendees.
Mr Kay was a company director of over 100 companies and two of them, Novasource and Empower Group, claim that he owes them $2.8 million and $2.2 million respectively. Hmmmm $5 million magically evaporated. The cynically minded might be tempted to suspect it has found it's way into a Swiss bank account. Perhaps the odd Swiss chalet has been purchased, who knows, and, if so, it may have been yet another property decision that was doomed to loose money.
The BBC reports that global warming will wipe out entire sky resorts as the snowline rises 300m. An estimated 37% of all Swiss sky resorts will collapse, as compared to Australia where roughly 100% of sky resorts will collapse, we are not very good at snow even in the coldest of winters.
The Green Man recommends investing in that beach resort that is a couple of miles inland. Before you know it it will be on the shorefront.
Here is a photo of Michael Lawley of the quaint New Zealand town of Taranaki. Actually I haven't been to Taranaki but most of New Zealand is quaint, in the nicest possible way of course, so I presume Taranaki is as well. Michael, who moved there from England 12 years ago, is holding a couple of wind turbines that he has constructed from discarded washing machines of the Fisher and Paykel variety. (that's "fusher and piekel" to you)
Traditionally, people have used car alternators for this type of turbines but they have to rotate at a very high speed. The smart-drive generates a useful amount of power at a very slow speed which lends itself to both wind and hydro applications.
Michael reliably informs us and far be it for The Green Man to argue with him.
Purchasing the old washing machines at $10 a pop and selling his turbines for around $1,000 it is the sort of business that we all wish we had. And he gets to occupy the high moral ground, environmentally speaking, at the same time. Some people have all the luck.
Michael is known for his engineering skills and not his website design skills. A quick trip to hiswebsite will show you why. Better still visit him in person by staying at his eco friendly backpacker hostel next time you are down Taranaki way, you'll find the details on the site.
Image and story via Otago Daily Times who make it impossible to link to the actual story.
Tomorrow is buy nothing day. Plan ahead and participate.
Buy Nothing Day is a celebration of consumer awareness and simple living. It is observed on the day after US Thanksgiving which is America's busiest shopping day of the year.
People in more than thirty countries have made a pact with themselves and, as a personal experiment and public statement, stepped out of the consumer stream for 24 hours.
Hmmm those home grown vegetables, they certainly have a special flavour don’t they? That subtle something in the flavour that distinguishes them for the shop bought varieties. If you live in Chicago that flavour may be lead and that’s very bad.
Chicago has one of the highest rates of lead poisoning in the United States and research undertaken by Northwestern University is trying to find out why. Home grown vegetables have been identified as one of the contributing sources of the lead. Much of the soil's lead contamination comes from deteriorated paint, past use of lead-containing gasoline and industrial air pollution. Lead in soil does not biodegrade or decay. Whilst the bulk of the lead is stored in the roots, making vegetables likes carrots particularly risky, even the leafy parts contain significant amounts of lead.
Lead can harm virtually every system in the human body. Lead is particularly harmful to the developing brain and nervous system of fetuses and young children.
Read more about the research here.
Learn more about Lead Poisoning here.
The Western Chimpanzee is on the Critical Endangered list and so it is extremely good news that Liberian Government announced the protection of more than 155,000 acres of mostly intact forest habitat. This area represents 40% of one of the 15 world biodiversity hotspots.
Scientists estimate that 600,000 western chimpanzees once lived throughout western Africa, but fewer than 25,000 remain. The numbers are expected to drop dramatically, with entire populations forecast to disappear within 10-20 years.
Not just the chimpanzees are beneficiaries of the protection order, the Pygmy hippopotamus, the Liberian mongoose and the white-breasted Guinea fowl are also threatened species that live within this area.
There is a crisis in Ethiopia. The worlds rarest dog looks destined for extinction due to an outbreak of rabies. Of the 500 Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis) that remain 20 have died of rabies and it is expected that more will follow. Stuart Williams, coordinator of the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP) in Addis Ababa is calling for a vaccination program of the remaining animals.
Hope still remains for the survival of the species, a relative of the Grey Wolf that is found through Europe and North America, but it does not look good. Over the past 50 years disease, political instability, and the spread of agriculture have all had an impact on this rare and precious creature. Even now there is reluctance by the Ethiopian Government to undertake the vaccination campaign.
Regular readers of The Green Man will know of his affection for wolves. They are magnificent animals that have shared our hunting grounds over the millenia. It will be a sad day that sees the last of this rare species die.
How much petrol did you use driving to work today? One gallon perhaps, I certainly didn't we have litres here in Australia afterall. If you did use one gallon then you just burned the product of 98 tons of prehistoric plant material.
As incredible as it seems, it takes this much plant material to produce each gallon of petrol. If you extrapolate that to all the petrol used in one year then you come to the staggering figure of 97 million billion pounds of carbon, which is equivalent to more than 400 times "all the plant matter that grows in the world in a year," including vast amounts of microscopic plant life in the oceans.
We haven't been using petrol and oil that long, really only since the start of the industrial revolution 250 years ago. In that time we have burnt the equivalent of all the plants grown on earth in 13,300 years. Of course this is a massive underestimate in time since the earth cannot completely replace it's plant biomass each year.
Clearly this is unsustainable and even ousting Saddam Hussien to get at his oil is not going to keep us going indefinitely.
If you are not from Australia you may not realise that the large distances and small population has meant that, over time, regional variations have arisen in Australian English, one of these is "cocky". In tropical Queensland this is a large cockroach but where The Green Man lives in southern Australia it is a term used to refer to the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. The name arises from a brilliant yellow crest of feathers that these large white birds raise when they are agitated.
We were host to a flock this morning which we greeted with mixed emotion. They are beautiful birds but they are the vandals of the Australian bush, destroying things with their strong, sharp beaks. Our house is made of western red cedar, a soft timber that the cockies particularly enjoy munching on. So whilst they made an impressive sight on the balcony we hope they don't drop by our bird feeder too often.
In 1995 the Grey Wolf was re-introduced into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem with 14 pair being released. Since that time its numbers have been growing steadily. It is a predatory animal that provides carrion for other animals within the ecosystem. Human hunters also provide this service within this ecosystem.
Recent research by scientists from Berkeley and Yellowstone has been analysing the differing nature of carrion provided from these two sources. Human hunters provide carrion predominately for bald eagles and ravens. Wolves on the other hand provided carrion for a far more diverse group of scavengers.
The wolves are making a positive contribution to the biodiversity of this ecosystem but they are not out of the woods yet. (excuse pun) Elements of the relationship between the ungulate population of the park and the wolves are currently dysfunctional arising from the absence of wolves and bears from the park for over 75 years. The Wildlife Conservation Society reports that Moose are failing to acknowledge the presence of large predators in their environment.
It has taken 10-15 generations for moose to loose their wariness of large predators but it may only take one generation for them to regain it. The WCS reports that
Wyoming moose that have lost even one of their offspring to predators may become as savvy as their Alaskan cousins within a single generation, which indicates that mechanisms for predator avoidance are already in place
Natalie Mahowald and Chao Luo of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado modelled the earths atmosphere with specific attention to the amount of dust it contains. Their most likely scenario is that by 2090 our atmosphere will contain 60% less dust than it currently does. This is because of the increase in plant cover of the land masses because of increasing levels of carbon dioxide and global warming.
This may sound like a pretty neat outcome however it does have a down side. Dust in the atmosphere is responsible for reflecting much of the heat from the sun back out into space and, as such, its reduction will see the earth get warmer still. Also the sea's plankton relies on dust as a source of iron and its diminishing will reduce plankton levels. This will have a ripple on effect through all sea creatures.
We have a family of magpies that have been living in the neighbourhood for some years now. Each morning they come to visit to see what has been placed on the bird feeder for them.
Whilst magpies have a reputation for being ferocious and extremely territorial we have established a convivial relationship with our avian neighbours. Each spring we see them loading up their beaks to take back to hatchlings in their nest and later the young birds are brought down to feed from the bird feeder themselves.
If we have neglected to place any food on the bird feeder the male will come over and look in the kitchen door in an attempt to find out what's going on and remind us that they are waiting. His wife is more circumspect and waits on a branch above the bird feeder. This image is of him this morning. We had thrown some bread onto the balcony but he prefers red meat. Having had some bread he was coming over to see if anything better was on offer.
The image of adventurous Alaskan fishermen standing in the shallows of a pristine lake fishing for one of the great eating fish, the salmon, is one of fresh mountain air, crystal clear water and a clean healthy environment. These salmon aren't here all year round though, each year they travel 1,000 kms up streams from the North Pacific ocean. On their journey these days they collect in their systems a veritable chemist shop of pollutant chemicals, the most deadly of which are PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Carnivores such as humans, the great Alaskan bears and eagles ingesting these PCB laden fish are exposing themselves to increased risk of cancer as well as diseases of immune system, reproductive system, nervous system and endocrine system.
The environment from which the fish are exracted may be pristine but it is more realistic to look on these fish as if they had come from the highly polluted waters surrounding a coastal industrial port, which indeed they have. The fish act as bioaccumulators of such chemicals. Even in the polluted North Pacific, PCBs are only at the concentration of 1 nanogram per litre. The PCB concentration found in the fish is 160,000 times this.
The one positive is that industrial PCB emissions have been falling for more than 20 years. In the futute we may see a gradual decline in this problem.
Now, before you switch off, this is not some touchy feely, greenie, tree hugging, leftist piece. Here are some hard facts that we all should be somewhat concerned about.
The worlds oceans have been dying over the last 20 years, they have probably been doing it for longer but we only have data for the last 20 years. Their productivity is diminishing and there are no prizes for guessing where most of the damage is being done; the high population, high technology zones of the earth. In an interesting paper NASA, which is hardly renowned for its leftist greenie politics, has released images documenting the decline. Sea productivity is measured by the rate at which it is binding carbon, that is the activity of plant life, on which all other sea lift depends.
To save formatting problems for my 800x600 readers, click continue reading to view the evidence.
If you are in a hurry then simply click here to watch the sea dying.
If you want more detail view the research at NASA here.
Here is a map of net productivity of the oceans in 1997-2002
Now compare it with net productivity in 1979-1986
The differences are mainly near big population and industry. They are clearly identified in this comparison.
The Great White Shark or White Pointer inspires terror in most people.
This magnificent creature is the result of 400 million of years of evolution. It is the quintessential killing machine.
Humans have a lot of trouble seeing themselves as a food source for other hunters and the Great White personifies their fear. We have hunted and killed these awe inspiring creatures to the extent that they are now endangered.
Is our fear rational? Not really, in the last 500 years there has only been 67 deaths attributed to these sharks arising from 367 attacks. (Compare that with the annual road toll, for example.) The irony is that they don't like eating us and when they do attack it is probably because we are mistaken for a seal. They are such efficient killers that if they liked the taste of human there would have been 367 deaths from 367 attacks.
It is a big world. There is room enough to leave some of it as the domain of these awe inspiring creatures.
The image belongs to Apex, you can purchase a print of this or similar from them at their web site. Click on the image to see more or to buy.
Read more about Great Whites here.
Read about some research on their lack of taste for humans here. (We are too bony apparently)
(Via Jordon Cooper)
There must be few eerier sounds than wolves howling as dusk falls in the wilderness. It is a sound that links us to a time in our development when our integration with our environment was more direct and obvious. Packs of these large carnivores hunted us the way they did other game. Standing in the darkening forest hearing the distant howls of pack members communicating sends a shiver down the spine. It reminds us that we can only pretend to be apart or above nature. Given certain circumstances we could be the prey and not the preditor. It is humbling and healthy for us to be reminded of this from time to time.
Sadly, this is an experience that many in Washington have not had and may never have. In June, the Bush administration announced plans to boost the timber industry on Prince of Wales island, an Alaskan wilderness whose pristine rainforest supports massive spruce, hemlock and cedar trees standing 70 metres high, 6 metres across and perhaps 500 years old. These areas also have an open canopy, so a dense carpet of shrubs and herbaceous plants flourishes beneath the trees. This is the home of the wolves and the deer upon which they prey. Unless there is some miracle this will be another wilderness whose destruction and death our children will mourn.
Well it's the 4th of July and happy birthday, or something, to those of American persuasion who read this blog.
Now for those of you who are not American, like myself, it turns out that this is a big day for BBQs in the US with 76% of BBQ owners utilising their device today. What's more, in an interesting synergy, 76% of American homes have a BBQ.
So what are the implications, as well as saying "Happy July 4th" you can say good-bye to 2,300 acres of forest and hello to 225,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The amount of energy used for BBQing on this one day could power a city of 60,000 people for a year.
I rather enjoy a BBQ myself but it makes you think doesn't it?
Tasmanian woodchippers burning off have inadvertently killed the largest hardwood tree in the world.
The 350-year-old eucalyptus regnans, at 79-metre (260ft), was the largest hardwood tree in the world. It was accidentally 'cooked to death' when a fire started by woodchippers raged out of control.
This story was reported in the Observer in London on June 1st. Clearly it wasn't newsworthy in mainland Australia. We just don't care do we..
