Thanks Mr. Bush

The Bush ad­ministra­t­ion “is forc­ing the po­lar bear to sink or swim”.



Rep. Ed­ward Markey, D-Mass., chair­man of a House com­mit­tee on glob­al warm­ing.

Cigarette Butts

A vice that I hate a lot is smoking. I hate that damned smoke that many times passes long my face but, what the most I hate, is that unconscious habit, or not, of throwing away the butter, not being important the place in which someone is, of course. It doesn't matter at all whether we are in the city or in the countryside, the action is always the same: from the mouth to the hand and from the hand to the ground. Was the butter here before you arrived? Your waste is yours not mine nor from the others, I don't want to share your waste and nor the others, and of course, forests are not guilty for being you a filthy person. We are already doing enouhg smelling your smoke.

In my city, all litter bins at the streets have a little piece of metal to put out your cigarette and, if there isn't, is not my business but yours. In this case, you have to put out your cigarette crushing it with your foot and the following action would be to throw it to the litter bin. It could be room for another possibility, there aren't litter bins!!!! My God!!! It's easy, take the butter and put it inside your pocket. I have some acquaintances that do that, in fact they're being responsible for their waste. The last straw is to see somebody throwing his/her butter through the window, what kind of education does he/she have? Aren't there any ashtrays in the cars nowadays? Neither is my fault in that case. If you don't want to get dirty your car neither get dirty our streets. The car is yours but streets are from everybody so that's the problem, and things which are from a lot of people are not looked after, as so many another things.....

Smoker, three messages for you:

1. Your butter and cigarette boxes get dirty OUR environment.
2. Your butter is not easy to be recycled, have you thougt about it? It will take a long time to be recycled and maybe it will be eaten by an animal causing his death.
3. If everyone of us threw away a butter, that would be translated into 6600 million butters, but the worst thing wouldn't be that, perhaps, the worst thing would be that they would fire our forests.

EOF.

Coltan, Congo coffins?

Some time ago, I promised to my friend Paqui to comment some things about how the irresponsible consumption of mobiles had, has and will have, if nothing stops it, its repercusions in the environment and so far they don't seem to be perceptible to this very well-off society. I don't properly know the reasons, but maybe because of comfort, indifference or another unknown question, many people don't want to speak about some subjects because they say they go bad, but, as somebody said once: no to think in what you go bad is what hurts you.

From time to time you can see ads to change your "old" mobile for free. For sellers it will be a good thing but not for the environment. One thing annoys me: when somebody says to me that my mobile is as heavy as a brick..... go to hell!! Let's continue because I'm getting angry....

According to figures in Spain in August 2006, the mean of mobiles updating was one a year to the 59% of population and in that way, we accumulated a mean of 3.7 mobiles per person. Respect to recycling the device, it is the best option to get rid of it, but we have to take into account that we need energy and we still depend the most on fossil fuels, so you continue polluting.... A lot of plastics are impossible to be recycled because they are polluted by some of the metals that the mobile contains, but it is a minor problem because what it's really important is to recover half-precious and strategic metals. So let's see, what's the relation between this and Congo? That among those half-precious metals is coltan.

Coltan is a compound which presents a lot of resistance against heat and that extends batteries life. 80% of the coltan comes from Africa and the worst is that it comes from high conflictivity places as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last figures I've got, say that more than 10.000 miners are working under subhuman conditions to extract coltan clay. In 2003, in response to several reports on injustice, corruption and violence, the most important mobile makers got measures to prevent that the coltan they used didn't come from Congo (in this way, I sent an e-mail to Nokia and nobody answered... did it get lost?). If I haven't misunderstood, 27 companies were accused of importing coltan from Congo, it is not strange.... the mobile makers want to reduce costs at any price, I suppose, and it seems that what it's happening in Congo is not a big deal... The question is that they can sell cheaper and get more benefits.

According to what I'm seeing I understand that the message is: we need progress at any price. What the hell does it mean for you that mines are run by guerrillas? The question is that belgian, dutch and german companies are feeding the subject. Some time ago BBC reported that in some places of Congo, childrens and farmers were obliged to work in mines, but it's not only a human rights problem but also an environmental one. As we know, miner industry is very agressive not only by sight but also in this case Kauri Bieja and Okapi National Parks have been invaded, destroying ecosystems and sensitive elephants and gorillas populations. In 2003 companies as IBM, HP, Compaq, Nokia, Ericsson or Siemens were involved. As you can see gold, oil and water would be comparable to the coltan because from a mobile, the internet or sending a rocket to the space... the coltan is necessary.

Another alternatives to the coltan have been taken into account, alternatives like copper... but it seems not to be as effective as the coltan, or litium, which is monopolized by two companies so it supposes high prices, and in that way, we have to remember that mobile makers only want to cut down costs....

Well, four things to finish:

1. Try to take profit of your mobile as long as possible.
2. Recycle your mobile when you want to get rid of it. Here an example.
3. Environmental costs should be reflected in the final price of the devices.
4. Watch the following video... something much better than my words.
   

EOF.

Alicia Silverstone and PETA

Low Cost Flights? Part II

From time to time I have to refresh my memory respect to the harmful that flights are. Here I summarize you, because of royalties, a post sent by a reader to a spanish magazine whose name is CNR. You can find the writing in the 114th number in August 2006. I imagine you can find the report in the previous number.

OK, so, let's go.... The sender expressed her outrage when she realized that flying 1000 kms pollutes the equivalent to the bills of a whole year on electricity, heating and land transport during two and a half years. When she thought of the damage that an irrational usage of planes cause to the environment, she wondered whether it's worthy to live thinking about your daily acts to cause the smaller damage to the environment. Is it worthy to recycle, switch off lights or ride a bicycle? She compared the situation as giving aspirines to a terminal patient.....

By the way, the article had an excellent title: "Flying to the abyss". In the moment I wrote this post in Spanish, it was an update on CO2 emissions and those from the transport seemed to have increased. No long time ago, the transport emissions represented a 15% of the whole, in that moment it seemed that it got 25% even there was some survey which pointed to 40%. In any case, it seems that aviation was and is increasing its emissions year after year, so it should be a must for many people to get a plane as much once a year. By the way, domestic flights please do not. In Spain we could do it, perhaps... with an exception... Canarias Islands.

More about Canada's Slaughter

Faster than Expected

Just as we get more knowledge about past climate and how the biosphere works and just as we get more powerful computers to mix all these things and make them to run together, we realize once and another that changes are happening faster than we thought last time. The British Antartic Survey released the following information some days ago.

British Antarctic Survey has captured dramatic satellite and video images of an Antarctic ice shelf that looks set to be the latest to break out from the Antarctic Peninsula. A large part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is now supported only by a thin strip of ice hanging between two islands. It is another identifiable impact of climate change on the

Antarctic environment.

Scientists monitoring satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf spotted that a huge (41 by 2.5 km) km2 berg the size of the Isle of Man appears to have broken away in recent days - it is still on the move.

Glaciologist Ted Scambos from the University of Colorado alerted colleagues Professor David Vaughan and Andrew Fleming of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that the ice shelf looked at risk. After checking daily satellite pictures, BAS sent a Twin Otter aircraft on a reconnaissance mission to check out the extent of the breakout.

Professor Vaughan, who in 1993 predicted that the northern part of Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if climate warming on the Peninsula were to continue at the same rate, says, "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened. I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread - we'll know

in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."

Jim Elliott was onboard the BAS Twin Otter to capture video of the breakout for Vaughan and colleagues. He says, "I've never seen anything like this before - it was awesome. We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage. Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble - it's like an explosion."

The breakout is the latest drama in a region of Antarctica that has experienced unprecedented warming over the last 50 years. Several ice shelves have retreated in the past 30 years - six of them collapsing completely (Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.)

Professor Vaughan continues, "Climate warming in the Antarctic Peninsula has pushed the limit of viability for ice shelves further south - setting some of them that used to be stable on a course of retreat and eventual loss. The Wilkins breakout won't have any effect on sea-level because it is floating already, but it is another indication of the impact that climate change is having on the region." Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado says, "We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up."

Here you have some things that were told on TV.