How about some environmental discussion today? I’m pretty serious about protecting the environment and not wasting needlessly. I try to protect our natural resources and don’t buy stuff that I don’t need. I have EcoBags that I take to the grocery so I can reuse them, instead of throwing away yet more plastic bags. I am, in the short run, selling my car to get another one that is easier on gas and, in the long run, would like to be able to primarily walk or bike to get where I need to be. That’s a couple of easy ways for me to protect the environment. As I’ve said before, whether anthropogenic global warming is true or not, we can all agree that pollution and the destruction of natural habitats is a bad thing.

There’s one thing that irks me to no end, which is related to the first article below: driving through areas that were rural just a few years ago and now seeing housing developments. I mean, it would be a shame to have some land actually look like…land. Is there no hope for maintaining at least some areas of the world that are pristine and undeveloped, places where you can smell fresh air and not hear human-made noise pollution?

Anyway, here are a few articles I’ve come across recently.

Where Do The Buffalo And Elk Still Roam?

Less than twenty-one percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface still contains all of the large mammals that used to occur there 500 years ago, according to a new study.
….
Geographically, Australasia fares best, holding 68 percent of the large mammals it once held, while Indomalaya - including such countries as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand - fares the poorest with only 1 percent.

That means that there is still hope for preserving some of the world to protect biodiversity. I doubt I need to mention that protecting the world’s ecosystems is as important for human life as it is for the animals that live there.

This article, The plastic killing fields, is much less positive.

In one of the few places on Earth where people can rarely be found, the human race has well and truly made its mark. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies a floating garbage patch twice the size of Britain. A place where the water is filled with six times as much plastic as plankton. This plastic-plankton soup is entering the food chain and heading for your dinner table.
….
As he looked out at what should have been a clear blue ocean, Moore saw a sea of plastic. As far as he could see, day after day, were bottles, wrappers and fragments of plastic in every colour.

You really should just read this whole article. It’s not exceptionally long, only about three pages, and is quite illustrative of what our “use it and throw it away” consumer culture is breeding. Contrast it with trying to save the ecosystems above.

And just so we’re not completely negative today: Patterns in Nature: Sea Stars. Check out these great pictures of sea stars. This one is my favorite. It reminds me of one of these.
purple-sea-star-696734-ga.jpg


If you enjoyed this post, share it on StumbleUpon or Health Ranker (or both!)


Print This Post Print This Post

Tags: , , ,