Wednesday 23 November 2011

See You Later

This blog is closed up to a new order. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

Friday 28 October 2011

Mails To The Director

The articles I usually post come from my thoughts or different pieces of news I read from time to time. And as in any job, there are more productive days than others or worse: there are days which are not productive at all. So I take advantage of that more productives days in order to write the posts and let them in a pile for when necessary (it is, days without any idea or nothing to say).

With respect to an article I posted some time ago, Ardorín, a friend of mine, made  a comment who brought to my mind a piece of news  which I had piled. So my friend, here you have a mail which was written to the persone in charge of the newspaper El País. The mail was edited in May 27th, 2007. the author is Nicolás Fabelo González, Galápagos, Madrid, who makes a reflection which I think is very interesting and which should be in the thoughts of everybody.

OUR FAULTS ARE OURS NEVER

Traffic accidents have increased: it's roads fault, missing signposting, weather conditions... but never to blame for people who aggresively or madly drive, never to blame for those who show off driving at 180 km/h; perhaps is better to criticize those who drive according to the law...

Junk TV consolidate its leadership on TV media but it's not our fault. We have to claim on TV chains as  there is no room for cultural programs, maybe we also have to claim on politiciens for not giving a proper answer to this issue, maybe it will be the inherent cultural poverty of the capitalism but... has anybody thought that TV chains behave as markets? It is, they only sell what it is bought... has anybody thought about the gossiping and coarsing spirit of many individuals of our society who being idle in their sofa practise an absolute power on their remote control?

Climate change is worsening: We should claim on transnational  companies, on predator capitalism, the EEUU government, etc, etc... but never claim on those who overuse their SUVs just for a box of Cokes, those who set their heating system at 26ºC or the air conditioning at 17ºC, those who never will understand that winter has been created for being "cold" and summer for being "hot".

Many shameless individuals who have got loaded thanks to the destruction of the environment and spreading around the urbanistic chaos... so we should claim on the world of politics, on the defects in politics which rule the use of the land, on the capitalism rapacity... but never we should claim on those who are far more interested on the last signing of their football team than in the management of their comunity or municipality.

Summarizing: Our fault is never our fault, devil seems to come from politiciens, business people, journalists or from that dark abstraction called "the System".

Moral of the day: we see the mote in others eyes but not the beam in ours own.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Men's Things

Independently some people could think that organic food is something for spoilt guys, there also some other people who state that pesticides and insecticides affect the brain, the liver and the reproductive system. Respect to the latter, there was in 2007 a research carried out by the Copenhaguen Rishospital that stated that the organic food achives men have a 43% more sperm than a normal block. I perfectly know that somebody will think that this is a strange post and with no much message, for not saying nothing at all, but as the article spoke about organic food and I felt like speaking about that... what you see is what you get.

I got the information from a spanish newspaper in 2007, now here you have a simmilar piece of news but in English: Organic Food In Relation To Nutrition.  

That's all for now.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

This Is War

Some weeks ago I remember being working as a volunteer in a project for the conservation of cetaceans somewhere in the North Sea. I also remember having conversation with the people of the team about the consequences of depleting the oceans. The leader of the project made some comments about the increasing number of jellyfish (basically the consequence of tuna overfishing). But this point was not something new to me, in fact, I belong to one of the main countries that the more overfish the oceans: Spain. It's not something new in this country to have in summer news about jellyfish invading our beaches. The point is the way people understand the reality because no many are really aware of what's happening with the tuna population around the world. Things continue happening as some weeks and years ago... the war continues... and the worse is that the problem is getting worse.

Has something changed since 2007 when I wrote the following lines?...

July 3rd, 2007. I could recently read in the newspapers that authorities had declared war to jellyfish... Oh mine!... I continued reading and it seemed that the only real politicians and civil servants worried about the subject were those from the environment agency, in fact they were the only ones who put the finger in the wound: the lack of natural predators has boosted the presence of the jellyfish in our seas (and thanks God we have recently had a reasonable rainy season).

I'm really sure that more than one will have wondered about who is naturally supposed to be pillaging the jellyfish population.The answer is Mr. Tuna and Ms. Turtle. And now the cornerstone is... Where the hell are the tunas and the turtles? Why are their populations so low? Basically there are two answers:
  1. We're fishing tuna four times over the sustainable level. 
  2. Turtles are being jeopardised troughout really questionable methods of fishing.   
Although you can see the shelves of the supermarket plenty of tuna tins, it would be really suitable for you to reduce the consumption of this fish (in fact I left it some years ago). I would like to think that consumers and politicians are going to do their bit but let me doubt about it... Above all because the problem is developing faster than reactions being carried out to fix it.

If only the history didn't repeat as it happened to cod, but I'm afraid that there won't be a happy end, man is the only animal to stumble over the same stone twice. 

Good night.

Monday 20 June 2011

There's Something Wrong


Before consuming some wood or paper... Think twice please...
  • A surface equivalent to a football stadium disappears every two seconds.
  • Non Stop. Every day a surface equivalent to 43,200 football stadiums disappears. Every year a surface equivalent to 15,500,000 football stadiums a year disappears. It would be something similar to the surface of Spain and Portugal together.
  • In the last 80 years we have lost so much forests as in the last 10.000 years and what is worst... the pace is accelarating: in the last 30 years we have lost so much forests as in the last 5,000 years. And last but not least, the loss of biodiversity goes in parallel with the loss of forests.
  • Many forests finishes their lives transformed into toilette paper, packing, wrapping and office paper.

It's up to you.

Monday 23 May 2011

42€ Million To Support Torture

Sadly many people still associate bullfighting with spaniards but that's not the reality of a country. Bullfighting defenders can say that's culture, tradition, art... But culture? Is it a good idea to promote the culture of the violence among our teenagers? Tradition? Does it make any sense to continue torturing an animal which has not threatened the life of anybody? And what's up if bulls for bullfighting dissapear? Absolutely nothing as they are hybrids and have never existed in nature. Art? What do defenders pretend with saying that bullfighting represents the cruelty of life? Why not those who stand for bullfighting as an art go to places where children are dying because of draughts and faemines? That's the cruelest face of life and it has absolutely nothing to do with going to the square with a cigar and the stomach plenty of food and perhaps a bit of alcohol.

What the hell happens in the mind of somebody who enjoys with the suffering of an animal? Perhaps, to be born in an environment where the unnormal becomes the rule is the key.


The lion is not as bad as he is made out to be



Things that not everybody knows


Some more information about the second video: Stop The Subsidies


Thanks honey for the first video :)

Monday 9 May 2011

To Somebody Who Is Bored


Is being somebody potentially bored next weekend? In such case, I leave for them a reflecition made by  Hegel about History; what we were, what we are and what we will be according to our nowadays acts.

"History is like a rivercourse. Every small movement of the water in a certain point of the course is really determined by the fall of the water and its swirls at the top. But it is also determined by the rocks and  the meanders just at the point in which we are looking at".

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Are We Humans More Animals Than Animals Themselves?

Following the thread of one of my posts and thinking once more about the girls and boys who will be the men and the women of the future, I think it's worth watching the video that my friend Leo sent me some time ago. Now every reader should get his/her own conclusions.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

90% Hypocrisy

Once upon a night in which I spent my time having a look at a magazined specialized on fruits and vegetables. Although there are some people who don’t believe it, there are magazines for people from all walks of life. Among all the many different sections there was one dedicated to ecology and I could observe that it was a survey about the degree of concern of Spanish people respect to climate change. Although it could seem unbelievable, 90% of the Spaniards show to be very concerned (I am speaking about the month of June 2007). Should I begin to laugh or to cry? Is anybody pulling my leg? Who on earth has been in charge of carrying such survey and where? Were they collecting the data in an ecologist demonstration? Sincerely, I couldn’t believe it.

With such level of concern things would be very different. Firstly, the use of bicycles would be far greater. Secondly, the fact of driving a car would be far smaller. I wonder if traffic jams would continue being traffic jams. I wonder if so many people would continue doing an irresponsible use of paper, if so many people would continue carrying out an irresponsible use of air conditioning and if many of they would continue travelling and consuming in an irresponsible way. This late on in life I can’t accept people telling they don’t have enough information. We are to be lazy and fat, there’s no way.

Monday 7 March 2011

Bad Gases

So that's what we get with cows and their poohs. They are so polluting that New Zeland won't be able to catch up with the Kioto Protocal because of its livestock. The question is: why such poohs are so polluting? Among other things, they are because they release a greenhouse gas called methane. The point is that this is not new. It is known that some "special rucksacks" are carried by sheep. Such rucksacks inject a substance into the blood which neutralizes the methane, a gas which is twenty-two times more powerful than CO2 with respect to the capacity of warming the planet.

So far everything seems to be bad but as many things in life there are heads and tails. The good thing of the methane is that if well managed we could be able of making a car work. Let me explain it. If we could manage to collect all the gasses of ten cows during a year, we could make a car work for 9,000 kms, maybe you laugh at what I'm saying but it is bussines, really business. If we take into account that a typical gasoline car goes over 10,000 - 12,000 kms, the propose is really interesting which also would allow us to get rid of such a gas and to cut down CO2 emissions by 50%.

Last but not least, this is one of the arguments that people like the writer of this post have used to justify their rejection to eat meat.Here I leave you an interesting reading: Livestock's Long Shadow.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

In May 25th 2007, there was a comment in a newspaper respect to thedraughts forecast which had been voiced by our environment state minister. Such comments accused the minister because such a draught hadn't been as severe as it had been said.

When we speak about climate we have to face stacks and stacks of opinions and as many things in life "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I mean, depending on your position respect a man-made climate change or a natural  climate change, your points of view will difer from others. Man-made climate change is the official theory accepted nowadays but to fail some predictions doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Climate change is a reality which was forseen for some people more than 60 years ago, I would dare to say more, but whose effects, without taking into account how fast they develop, they won't be in the twinkling of an eye. We should be more accurate when speak in terms of time. It is not the same to speak in geological terms than in human life length terms. In fact, climate change is developping so fast, as never seen or at least recorded, that we could speak of important changes during a human life. If we compare human life lenght and geological changes lenght we are speaking about an enormous difference. Such faster changes are already having some visible impacts on fauna and Earth ecosystems which are not having enough time to readapt to the new circumtances. For better for worse, we humans have the ability to adapt as faster as the environment changes (and that's bad because people is not enough concerned to begin to make a change). The question is how long we will be able to keep the rate of change (maybe when we realize is too late).

I think our minister was right accepting the predictions from the IPCC so there is only room for three possibilities: she didn't expain accurately or she wasn't properly understood or people didn't want to understand her message. I think she would try to say thay periods of draught will be longer with periods of rain shorter than nowadays and maybe more intense. Now, more than ever, we should take profit of the smallest drop of water. Waste is not synonim of well-being.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Juan Carlos Císcar

That's the name of a graduate who works at the Sevilla's Insitute for Prospective Technological Studies. In January 14th 2007 the newspaper called Levante published an interview to Juan Carlos with regard to climate change. Among other questions.... Campaigns in order to create awareness on climate change  appeal to the role that citizens play at this issue. Do you think they can do something in order to prevent pernicious effects on agriculture and marine coasts? Something in particular?

Juan Carlos' answer was... Undoubtedly. The problem of climate change is in short a problem generated by we citizens who ask for products which are polluting as a last resort, from using cars to something so common as switching on a bulb.

He commented as well that citizens should be persuaded from polluting activities, e.g. flying,  through taxes..... Fortunatelly in that moment I was not the only one asking people for reducing domestic flights as a first measure... And some good news, in that moment 35% of the companies all over the world were planning to reduce their flights or at least it was in their plans in the short-medium term. How is it possible to find flights at a european level at 30€? Maybe my petitions could be too demanding but I am one of those who think that low-cost flights = a free terrorist attack against the environment. I agree that everybody has the right to flight but in a reasonable way. As we humans sometimes don't have clear ideas about what is wrong or right, a first approximation could be attacking our budgets. He who pollutes must pay.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

"Share" Is The Key


Some days ago I read an article about the otters resurgence in some parts of England. However, such resurgence has shown once more the concept of property that we have respect to the planet. And maybe here we have the key to resolve the problem of cohabitation that we have with the rest of forms of life with which we share the planet. I repeat the keyword: share. We are not only unaware of the point that we human species alone are consuming more than 50% of the resources of the planet. We are so cheeky that have even claimed for the recovery of some species like the one of the otters.

I could understand that someone claims because a certain species is destroying their way of making a living but having someone claiming because on holidays are not going to fish as much as expected is outrageous. This is the case of the otters in England. Maybe the selfishness and blindness of those claimers prevent them from understanding that planet Earth is shared. The otters have the same rights than humans to enjoy the rivers and make of them their way of living. It seems that everybody is wrong except us. I think it's high time to understand that our overpopulation and comsumption of resources should be the first thing on this planet to be under a strict control.

Thanks Rafa for your videos, they show the shameful way of how we deal with Life all over this planet.