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.

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.

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 :)

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".

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.