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.

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.

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.

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.

A Message From Music

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.

"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.