Enough is enough, Sir David Attenborough!

Sometimes, even the most steadfast intellectuals "lose" it.

This is David Attenborough, the face of modern naturalist documentaries, such as Life on Earth series, Planet Earth and Life (you could consider watching the Secret Life of Plants, it's really fascinating) saying that he's had it with denial in US:

[it is] extraordinary that one of the wealthiest, materially advanced societies in the world can support irrational myths in that way,” he said. “That they should do it privately is up to them but since what they do effects that whole world it’s pretty serious that they should not accept that humanity has been responsible for these changes that are absolutely evident to everyone else.”

From: Sir David Attenborough: Enough With the Creationists and Climate Change Deniers! | The Daily Beast, 11.2.2014, link here.

Now, I'll just quote the same source: 'Attenborough has made a career of resisting controversy, often describing himself as “a reporter” with no views of his own.'

Though to be honest, one thing is for sure: changes can be seen (or is part of it also the Baader-Meinhof effect as we talk about them more?), but the causes and the extent of those drivers is still debated. And debate is generally good.
  But if the debate is potentially artificially generated by those who stand to lose the most, or when the "debate" and the controversies encourage the stalemate, then well, you do need a change.

Because, you see, it's not about the butterflies anymore. It's about us. All of sentient and non-sentient (?) beings on this planet that were "raised" in a certain climate, with certain food sources and certain living environments. When all of these what used to be certainties change ... you've got yourselves a problem humanity.
  And I am saying humanity, as 'life [on Earth] will find a way'. It just may be that the Earth of tomorrow will be w/o the human species.
Meh. I'll just go eat my sandwich, pray excuse me.

[Addendum] {funny}
Sir David Attenborough's describes Olympic curling, in his signature voice & approach. This is golden.

Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=777_1392789840#OwKmCtFhm93oPcPl.99

They are all different.

From a blog I recently read due to its environmental outset, I re-post a part that I've found holds time and time and time again. I just say: human. We're all human. (And the bunch of stuff that comes with it.)

"Trying to determine the impact on the indigenous people reminded me of when I lived in Germany, and people would ask “What are Germans like?” That’s sort of like asking “What’s an American like?” Well, are we talking about someone living in Texas, New York, or Minnesota? Is the person rich or poor? Are they religious? What is their political affiliation? It turns out that Germans, Australians, South Africans – and every nation in the world – has people that shouldn’t be stereotyped. So I would say “Germans are like everyone else. They are all different.”"

I tell that story because that’s the impression I developed after trying to determine the impact of oil sands development on First Nations groups. Some hate it. Some love it. Many work for the companies we visited. Development has brought wealth to some. On the other hand, some don’t like the infringement on their historical lands, and they don’t like the environmental implications. Certain tribes would favor development, and certain tribes wouldn’t. And within those tribes will be individuals who feel differently about it. Some of that will come down to whether there is a sufficient financial benefit relative to the downside. It is not that different from other energy projects. There are always people on both sides of the issue. And if you are being impacted negatively but not compensated financially, you are going to be against.

My point is that it isn’t a black and white issue.

From: Energy Trends Insider

Lagom - just right

Lagom (pronounced [ˈlɑ̀ːɡɔm]) is a Swedish word with no direct English equivalent, meaning "just the right amount".

(From Wiki, here.)

Got it from the talk of Robert Costanza at TEDxUVM (2010), one of the authors of the now famous Nature article titled The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital (link). Which raised a whole haloo around the globe due to its implications and propositions.

I think the new economy could be named Lagom economy. Look here (source 1, Wiki):

"The Lexin Swedish-English dictionary defines lagom as "enough, sufficient, adequate, just right". Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation", "in balance", "perfect-simple", "optimal" and "suitable" (in matter of amounts)."

Wouldn't that be something? An economy in balance, where everyone has just enough? [Yeah, you might have to work extra for that boat, cause I don't think it's considered just enough for your livin'.]

Globalne ... spremembe in Manca Smolej

... ter 200. post! Jeeei.

  Na blogu od Mance Smolej, COSMO maturantke (gee, I hate... no, dislike that word) je zaslediti tudi omembo mojega imena;) Wiii ...
No, nekaj stila pisanja boste verjetno prepoznali, ker so ... "resnična čustva, prelita na papir".

Mesečni izziv
Manca Smolej12. maj 2010
Manca Smolej: Globalne ... spremembe.

Med taborniki je, kakopak, tudi nekaj biologov oz. študentov biologije. Zadnjič sem ob pogovoru z enim izmed njih (Aljo) pomislila, da je morda nekaj na nas ljudeh, kar nas dela tako vzvišene od drugih organizmov. Aljo mi je namreč ves besen razlagal o spremembah, ki jih ljudje povzročamo na planetu in o tem, kako le-te vplivajo na življenje na njem, na različne živalske in rastlinske vrste. To je naše zaupanje vase, naš egoizem! Kdo pravi, da tigrica ne čuti, če ji zasadijo injekcijo z pomirjevalom pod kožo in ko se zbudi, je nekje daleč stran, za nekimi rešetkami in ločena od svoje ljube savane ali gozda, ostalih tigrov in po možnosti celo mladičev.

Let it thaw, let it thaw, let it thaw (Kobenhavn, pt 2)

The weather INSIDE is frightful,
but the FIRE, oh, it's so delightful;
since we've no place to go,
it don't snow it don't snow it don't snow (anymore).

When we finally kiss goodnight,
I'll hate going out in the storm,
but If you only held me tight,
now it wouldn't be oh, so warm!

The Kobenhavn conference is frightful,
but the fire ... it's so delightful,
since we've no else but coal,
let it thaw, let it thaw, let it thaw?

Degradable plastic bags

Didn't entirely check and surf the site, due to the lateness of the hour, but it should check out.
They even have concession guys doing it in our little country.
http://www.degradable.net/index.shtml

All the ... small thinigs ...

While going back through some of the drafts for the posts, I stumbled, like a wee drunken dwarf, upon the following lines:

This will be a rather cheesy post. I will talk about love.
Not really, actually. Love needs no taking about. Just as life and moral and ethics and ... money .. need no talking about. Everyone can fall in love. And everyone can loose their beloved. It's called Time, also knowns as: Life.

Read, educate ... think. And you will KNOW.
Know naught and ask, consult the Uncle Google and do many things, apart from deep thought and self-searching, not exercising any empathy on the fellow beings .. (see, it's not just us, humans I'm talking about.)

...
(we go back to the future, ie, to the present (what a lovely word at this time of year;) and continue thus: )
A funny thought just struck me yesterday: just of the Animal kingdom or tszar-dom, or phila or whatever, in the Phillum Crustacea (crabs etc.) there are know approx. 67.000 known species.
NOW. ... For the fungi ... numbers get even better (and wetter?): I think we heard last year they're estimating the numbers to be 4 million (of the wee fungi, yes, Mycotina).
NOW ... of the 250.000 plant species (and more are being discovered, the only setback being the demolition and degradation of the natural world, a small thing, don't you fret a bit) ... of the uknown number of Microbiota, microorganisms (new are being discovered every day, ... and nobody knows, where the number will stop, since we're melting (AAAAA, I'M MEEEELTIIING, MELTING!!!) the unimportant icebergs and the whole continents, apparently (here: for one of the numerous articles on the subject)

new microbes are being cast, demons from the ancient past (when WE were but strains of forming DNA in one of the ancestors, lurking and hiding out in the undergrowth), unto the light of the New Days.
And NOW, consider this:
Homo sapiens is but ONE (1, let me spell it out for us: o n e ) of the species, of the myriads of different life forms, living on this used-to-be-blue-and-green-planet we could once call home.
But ... it's not all so dark, I know, I know.

Thus - love. Another concoction of proteins, enzymes and superfluous fluids, running through our bodies, unknowningly turning us into subjects of our hearts' desires.
Making us addicted to the mere sight of those we cherish and love the most. Making us suffer almost undurable pains, because we are not with whom we'd want to be (if that is the case). Painstakingly tearing away the fibers of our hearts until they are instantly healed back when we are together. But cracks remain .. And through them, the very essence of our beings seeps, the pigments of imagination, writhing on the cold, cold eeyrie air of the reality.
...
For hearts fear the world .. and it's coldness. Not often are they willing to expose themselves to the whims of chance, that brutal Mistress of the Words and Words ...
I'm off with the fairies, I guess, so I'll just stop.

Anyways, folks, wish you the very best of what's left of the 2008
and
"Farewell, wherever you are, till your eyries receive you at the journey's end."

Lets eat seasoned fruit!

Yeaaaa! People are finally getting it (see bellow): and I would gladly cut down on pineapple usage if this sort of law was put into debate. Gladly. I don't NEED to eat cherries in the mid-january. It's nice, especially the romantic/erotic potential it holds, but hey(!) I would give it all up for mummy (Earth;).

Gordon Ramsay has reportedly ordered that chefs should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which aren't in season at the time.
Ramsay claims he has already spoken with Prime Minister Gordon Brown about the food issue, and believes it would cut carbon emissions because less food would be imported.
source: http://www.media-mentor.co.uk/news/media-training-news/ramsay-dictates-what-we-eat-in-restaurants

Eco-blow --yupi

Okolju prijazne bombe
Četrtek, 29. maj 2008 05:37

Nemški znanstveniki razvijajo nove oblike eksplozivov, ki bodo močnejši in hkrati varnejši za uporabo kot TNT in ostala običajna eksplozivna sredstva, prav tako pa bodo okolju prijazna.

TNT, RDX in ostali eksplozivi, ki se pogosto uporabljajo v vojaške in industrijske namene, običajno pri detonaciji povzročijo sprostitev strupenih plinov, ki onesnažujejo ozračje. Prav za prav so ti eksplozivi toksični že sami po sebi in pogosto se zgodi, da ekstremno nevarne snovi tudi brez eksplozije
pronicajo v okolje.

Po drugi strani so takšni eksplozivi tudi precej nevarni za uporabo, saj so močno občutljivi na fizične šoke, kot so udarci in iskre.

Za dosego večje varnosti pri uporabi in razvoj okolju prijaznejših eksplozivnih teles, so nemški znanstveniki svoje raziskave usmerili v nedavno odkrite materiale, imenovane tetrazoli.

Tetrazoli večino svoje eksplozivne energije črpajo iz dušika in ne ogljika kot na primer TNT.

Majhne bombe, ki so jih naredili iz omenjenega materiala, so tako manj dovzetne na vplive iz okolja, s čimer je precej zmanjšana nevarnost neželenih eksplozij.

Prav tako pa so laboratorijski testi pokazali, da je nova vrsta eksplozivov silovitejša kot TNT in RDX. vir: http://novice.svarog.org/?Novica=3513

Hm ... še dobro, da če se bomo izbrisali PREJ dol s te modre pike, preden se nas bo otresel planet sam, potem bomo vsaj ta zadnji korak naredili bolj ekološko ... Can't believe it.

The Animal planet (animals save the planet)

One link I gt these days you simply got to see: nice - humorous and witty videos of animals made of play-doh, doing stuff they shouldn't be doing, stuff we're doing ... and should.
So to go to the videos page: click here.

turn on the speakers!

To figure out what you can do, straight away, is what green people and orgs are sounding for years now: reduce electricity and water consumption, drive a bicycle or walk, use renewable resources, recycle, energy-saving light bulbs, new insulation, ya-di-ya-di-ya.
Check out the bear and the penguin and the hippopotamus! The eels are quite wicked as well;)
I'll finish almost like in that song: "Save you, save me, save us together, ... naturally!"

Ohranjanje planeta ... in samih sebe

Vsake toliko naletis na netu na kaj res fletnega. No, definicija "vsake toliko" je seveda odvisna od tega, kako pogosto in kako dolgo si na netu. Sploh pa v dobi interneta in kabla je to postal (na žalost?) relativen pojem.
Funny, though: ko smo bili mi otroci (no, niti tako star nisem!) smo dejansko imeli domače številke od nekaterih svojih sošolcev, se kdaj poklicali in kar je še več, šli do njega ali nje domov, fizično pozvonili na zvonec ... in .. ta-daa, počeli nekaj skupaj. (Ok, saj smo bili tudi mi povsem navdušeni nad računalniki in smo viseli pri sošolcih, ki so jih ravno takrat dobili (486-ke ali celo prve pentiume), a starši so vsaj imeli toliko moči (/nadzora/volje/želje), da so nas po nekem času spodili dol s kompjutra.)

No, pa da ne bom utrujal in moraliziral: spodaj slika in povezava do tega, kar sem dejansko želel objaviti in napisati oz. deliti s svetom.

"Did they ever ... fit together?"

Enough said on the subject, just summat for yeh to ponder about:
(Like Al Gore points out in his An Inconvenient Truth):
..."did they ever like, fit together?";)

go wild ... literally;)

Yup - everybody's doing ... it, so why not you?

"Biti zelen, je postala pomembna tržna niša oz. dodana vrednost podjetja. Dejansko, če sledite spodnjemu linku, sem naredil BANKI HSBC reklamo --- zakaj? Ker so bolj zeleni in ker sem tudi jaz bolj "zelen" in je meni to npr. pomembno + še en razlog več, da ostanem pri njih.

To be green has become a major market niche, ie, added value in the sense that if a company can offer me, as their customer, a viable option of "being green" thorugh them, to me, they have gone up a scale. Take a look at the bank HSBC's Go green option.

Funny, though, how things coincide - hm... "you're green - wau! So are we! Come and spend money with us!!!":))) So do not be hoodwinked by these .. modernday-dirtycapitalism-hipocrisy. The bigger wave has yet to come. Unfortunately.

But still: this week's special: GO WILD with BBC, which is supporting BTVC and the Wildlife Trusts across the lands.

Have fun, kids:)

Live Aid/ EARTH concerts

... I signed and I belive ... did you? DO you?

I PLEDGE: ...

Več na: www.avaaz.org
SIGN the damned thing!;)) Else we perrish soon ... -er ... :) :( :)))

Se ponavljam, ampak: Ko bi vsaj vsi na svetu razmišljali indijansko. Wikipedia: Cree prophecy. oz:

"Sólo después que el último árbol haya sido cortado,
Sólo después que el último río haya sido envenenado,
Sólo después que el último pez haya sido pescado,
Sólo entonces descurbirás que el dinero no se puede comer."

The whole world's a stage ... eee ... boiling pot

Kot sicer ITAQ vemo vsi (do we/they really?), se naša ljuba mala neugledna modra pega prahu vedno bolj očitno pregreva.

Kot bi rekel Douglas Adams: /.../ an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and ...

S tem nenako nisem povedal nič novega, bom pa izpostavil en problem, ki sva ga danes/včeraj skupaj z dechvo ugotavljala v Pe~nasu: mediji in politiki in vsi, problematizirajo neke teme (pustimo to, da delajo to seveda zaradi gledanosti=denarja od oglaševanja oz. podpore volilnega telesa, ob strani) ampak najhuje je to, k so privzeli neko morbidno držo, s katero naj bi kao pokazali svoj/naš prav in intelekt.
In zakaj je to problem? Because after the statement, they simply dismiss the PROBLEM in the lines of:'Well, it's all going down the drain, anyway/what can there be done? / it's here.' Ja, iiiiinnnn? What, we gonna just sit here and wait for the effects of our past deeds to affect us and everything else as well?
Ja, NE, ane! We fight. We die. We die proudly. ;)
A little big man statement:Today is a good day to die.

Old Lodge Skins: Come out and fight! It is a good day to die! Thank You for making me a Human Being! Thank You for helpin' me to become a warrior! Thank You for my victories, and for my defeats! Thank You for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further! You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather. And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight. And I ask You for the last time to grant me my old power to make things happen.

Problem bo samo en ... ko bo RES vroče, si bomo vsak dan želeli, da bi bil "lep dan za smrt".

(pa brez zamere, Niet-i:)

Ko bi vsaj vsi na svetu razmišljali indijansko. Wikipedia: Cree prophecy.

From Big Chief to ... apples?