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.

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.

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".

Mr. Javier Nart

It could not be in other way, when the talk finished I closed up and congratulated him. Later I made some comments about Mr. Quereda's talk the previous day. Could they both be living in the same world? I liked Javier's talk, surely because our way of thinking was simmilar.

Respecto to the talk, it was started speaking about human rights and, as a universal right we have to enjoy and defend the environment... the line of the contents was changing through environmental issues. It's from here where I will make some coments.

An interesting sentence: when we defend what is not ours we are defending what is ours. The talk raised the social changes that a global climate change would suppose. Conflicts for water that flows through the rivers Eufrates, Jordan and Tigris in the Middle East. Conflicts between China and India because of the river Bramaputra. Respect to China a note for thinking: to produce the same than we western countries, they eat up to 10 times more energy.

There were also some references to population migrations as a consequence of a more agressive climate. Problems could start in Morocco, Algiers, Libya and Egypt. The question is, who is next to these countries? There's no much work in thinking that we spanish are. There were some referencies to the deforestation and the impossibility of living in certain places besides temperatures will get near 60ºC. As you can see, the way of presenting the issue is somehow different to the Mr. Quereda's.

When the talk finished a question-and-answer season was opened. Two people asked how they could do their bit. Coming up next I propose some personal actions I was carrying out in that moment ;)

I would like to finish with quote that Javier raised to finish the talk: We can't complain for anything we don't do to avoid it. And I add up: let's get things clear!

P.S. Maybe someone will think that he can see what I'm up to but in the moment I wrote this post I was a bit fervent with the talk, but it is not a question of somebody seen things in the same way as mine mine, even sometimes I've been told to be a radical... it is a question of showing things, what's more, I have my own smell, I saw things in Mr. Quereda's talk that I didn't like, just personal nuances. Maybe some questions remained unsaid intentional or unintentionally. I think a point of view was given which wasn't related with what was and is happening and maybe neither with what we'll have to face in a no distant future.

Mr. José Quereda Sala

I attended a talk in February 2007 which was given by Mr. José Quereda Sala, a teacher who belonged and belongs to the Jaime I university's climate department and it was the first time that I listened to somebody who was not centered on the energy production when speaking about climate change. And I say that because until then (and now), the emissions of CO2 because of burning fossil fuels were the main cause of global warming.

The teacher raised overpopulation as the main cause of global warming. He said that only by existing a person, he or she is affecting the climate in terms of CO2, methane and nitrate oxides emissions (someway he was right).

As I said, until then, the energy production sector was over the last but not least overpopulation effects besides overpopulation is it itself a big deal. The theory of climate problems because of the energy production sector had been, in the recent meeting celebrated in Madrid, the main point to readdress the fight against climate change. Well, for Mr. José was not a theory but a hypothesis which is not the same...

Taking advantage of the round of questions I asked: Why don't you have into account all the carbon coming from the burning of fossil fuels which didn't existed in the atmosphere and has been incorporated? In other words: We have created a problem where there wasn't any one. One more question: Why your figures on CO2 in the atmosphere along the history don't coincide whith the rest of speakings I have attended and all the documentation I have consulted? Summarising the answer: According to Mr. José everything was pending of revision. Then I thought that all those things he was saying were business, don't you think so? Why not to give this issue the importance it supposedly deceives? But as I think the worst of people I think behind the CO2 there are many oil companies in the shadow... so we're speaking about a lot of money... but a lot of money and interests... Would this man belong to that little group which didn't accept the outlook? Their motives he would have and I had to accept them but not to share. By the way, this man also dropped a comment about oil made from oranges, but as I said in other post, other people has figured and it seems not to be so environmentally efficient. And of course, one of the best quotes during the speaking: Wind-Powered Turbines kill birds... How great! Does anybody know, at this moment on in life, a kind of energy without any impact in the environment? What I think is that we should ask ourselves if before installing the turbines have been a serious study because don't pull the leg ourselves, there are interests even for producing green energy at any price: money is the root of all evil.

Mr. Quereda also commented spaniards can go getting ready if forecasts about increase of temperatures become true: less water because of a decrase in rainfall, less water because of higher temperatures. In other words: it never rains but pours. To get an idea of what could be coming: and increase of 0.5ºC in the mean temperature supposes an evaporation increase of 10% in the place in which we live. And if we want to add fuel to the fire: optimistic forecasts are around an increase of 2-4ºC. So imagine!!

I'd like to finish with a comment Mr. Quereda did and which according to his words, it seemed to be a typical comment in his circle of friends: to make people aware of something the only thing you have to do is to terrorize them. Mr. Quereda, are you aware of the damage you can cause with such a comment? It's not a question of going to the street an begin to cry, commit suicide or rest with our arms crossed regretting ourselves. It's a question of working hard to try to fix as much as possible the problem we have generated. It's a question of working hand in hand, of pulling one's weight. It's a question of changing our way of doing things and establishing a new order. If people are difficult of making aware by nature, your comments are not helping anything at all. Thanks once more.

emcg - Part II

Following one of the posts I wrote in January 2007, here you have some more comments. Inside the rhetoric of politiciens, let's say that some of the guests of the meeting hardly saved the situation. Let's see some of them.

José Manuel Entrecanales, chairman of Acciona. He promised his company would collaborate to reduce greenhouse houses by 1% in 2030. Obviously, in that moment 99 companies like his were missing...

Cristina Narbona, minister of environment (in that moment). She promised Spain was not going to promote nuclear power. She simply said we were going to keep what we had in that moment and divert investments to clean energies. Should we trust her?

Graham Smith, deputy chairman of Toyota in Europe. He tried to convince us that his cars were the cleanest or the most eco-friendly in the world. The question now and then is: Can everybody afford a car costing 24.000 euros? Politiciens know that "green" sells but, is not there any kind of subsidy? At this point, give us the devil his own due: if in that moment I wasn't misinformed, Toyota was the car maker which invisted the most in environmental questions. For this reason, I think the people who could afford a hybrid should bet for Toyota's. But now the most important question: Who speaks about a so cheap vehicle like a bycicle? I think nobody at all. Crass error. The charity PEDALIBRE from Madrid was given only three minutes. Does anybody know a vehicle more efficient than a bycicle? Does anyboy know that a bycicle takes profit of 90% of the energy used to move it?

Esteban González Pons, minister of territory in the Valencian Community. He tried to convince us with something called as "juice-oil", that was the panacea... But there have been some people figuring and all that glitters is not gold. We appreciated his try of selling us a "beautiful world", but things are not easy come.

Juan Eduardo Santón, Valencia's innovation city councillor. One of the few that contribute with real solutions: 25% of the buses of the city were working with biodiesel that allowed recycling 800,000 litres of cooking oil a year. 90% of the water for washing the buses was being recovered and maybe in the mean term a project related with hydrogen, obtained from solar energy, would be carried out at the natural park of the Albufera.

And to not go on and on, I finish with the last paper which next to the last one, seemed to make the audience mad. There were some missing hints among some speakers but I thought there was no place to happen that, for those things there were better places. But then came the best. It seemed that Mrs. Cristina Serrano, secretary of territory at the valencian government, was against the prospectings for looking for oil in the coast of Valencia just as the installation of desalination plants, all of it in clear reference to her politic adversaries. I thought such a behaviour was a complete act of hypocresy, independently I was in favour of such mesures, besides at that time on she and her "coleagues", in some way or other, had and were allowing the destruction of our coasts. And if that wasn't true, any one could go to Brussels and ask for all the reports about the destruction of the valencian coast. Mrs. Cristina, I think is good of you to have eagle eyes on alien issues but be careful because your faults are not precisely small. Mrs. Serrano, keep in mind that you have to practice what you preach and, if you don't agree with me, you can ask lots of citizen platforms that were being created to fight the destruction I speak about. Mrs. Serrano rememeber: Where there's smoke, there's fire.

And now, almost three years later and after being submerged into the crisis for some time, where's all the money generated during "the brick bonanza"? How many times was your government warned we couldn't keep such a pace of growing and destruction?

People We Love :: Peter Marshall

From time to time I like speaking about anonymous (or at least not very famous) people who are making a difference and are not as frequently as we would like in the news. Here you have and example that I found in the magazine Yes!

People We Love :: Peter Marshall by Madeline Ostrander

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Never's too Late to Mend

From time to time I surf the web looking for information which I think is worth spreading it. One example of it is the trailer I leave here. I roughly bought the film a year ago from amazon.co.uk. Sadly, stuff like this arrives to Spain late, very late or never, the reasons? Who knows!  Anyway, if you decide to buy it on line, take into account your DVD zone, to Europe I think is 2, otherwise you won't be able to watch the DVD. 

If you want to know my opinion, I liked it more than "An uncofortable truth". 

Sever Suzuki - You Are What You Do and Not What You Say

One of the aims of this blog, is giving knowledge of the people who are able of  doing something for this blue ball, lost somewhere in Universe, and make of it a more worthy place to live. In this way, today is the turn to Sever Suzuki, who in spite of being a teenager in the video, more than one who was in the room was uncomfortable, or at least something inside them began to move before such an amazing speech. I'm not going to give you more explanations because when you listen to her, you will get the message, it is, the point. In another words: the message is excellent.

The same thing that happened in such room, I hope to be happened at least with one of you when watching the video.

Thanks

My words today are for a wonderful person, they are for the late Félix. His documentaries were the most watched TV programmes in Europe in the late seventies and at the beginning of eighties. Thanks Félix for having taught us so much, for having opened the eyes of several generations, for having being so special, for having us to move before the howl of the wolf. Thanks for being existed.

Today, nobody has covered your absence, lots of years will be required for a person like you, but the most important thing is that you are alive in our hearts. You left some seeds before leaving and you are the reference for them because, as I said before, you live in their hearts. See you my friend.