(Source: magnumthemagnificent, via nocarbon)
How renewable is renewable energy?
The winning photo in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
On first glance it looks bizarrely beautiful with the shades of brown, the symmetry and posture of the pelicans, the feel that it’s staged and the fact they’re looking out at you……but actually it’s a sad snapshot of the environmental impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Spaniard Daniel Beltra was in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, photographing the extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He was mainly shooting aerial photos of the attempts to clean up the spill, but this photo was taken at a rescue centre in Fort Jackson, Louisiana.
Birds die by the thousands in large spills, as they instinctively try to clean themselves and then die from having ingested the oil. It adversely affects their digestive systems and they can subsequently starve. To compound their problems, the feathers lose their natural water-repellent and insulative qualities, and the birds can die from cold. All in all, it’s a hideous way to go.
When these birds were photographed, they had just gone through the first stage of cleaning. This involved spraying them with a light oil to break up the heavy crude oil trapped in their feathers. The resulting smelly, mucky residue dripped from the birds’ plumage on to a white sheet.
While the photo might look elegantly staged, it was in fact grabbed in the briefest of opportunities so as not to cause any further stress to the birds. Daniel told the BBC:
“There was a closed door on the box. Every so often it would be opened and a bird would be taken out to be cleaned properly. I had a 35mm lens and when that door was opened, I would look in and grab three or four shots. The intent was not to disturb them any more than was necessary.”
Daniel mentioned that more than 6000 dead birds were recovered, but I don’t know whether that’s just by the one centre in Fort Jackson or across the whole of the Gulf of Mexico. Whatever, it’s a lot.
And it’s not just that one oil spill that causes problems for the Gulf of Mexico. Take a look at this map of reported spills in just one year!
(via nocarbon)
This is seriously useful stuff 3M… Kind of stuff that is welcome.
It really counts… Even if you could avoid just one Plastic Bag. Please say No to PLASTIC BAGS.
Featured in Communication Arts’ 2011 Design Annual, this print ad was created for the Centre for Science and Environment by design agency Equus Red Cell. The copy on the bottom reads PLASTIC BAG USE IS A CAPITAL OFFENSE. The ad is brilliant and barely needs any explanation at all. I love the simplicity, the attitude and the messaging.
(via nocarbon)
240,000: Number of plastic bags consumed worldwide every 10 seconds
1 billion: Number of plastic bags Americans use every year
30,000 tons: Landfill waste created from plastic bags each year
Less than 1 percent: Amount of plastic bags that are recycled
$4,000: Cost of recycling 1 ton of plastic bags
$32: The amount that recycled product can be sold for
Read more about our garbage by the numbers.
(Source: mothernaturenetwork, via nocarbon)
"The organism and the environment are not actually separately determined. The environment is not a structure imposed on living beings from the outside but is in fact a creation of those beings. The environment is not an autonomous process but a reflection of the biology of the species. Just as there is no organism without an environment, so there is no environment without an organism."
— Francisco J. Varela, Evan T. Thompson, Eleanor Rosch ( The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience)
Environment & Growth
Today on TimesNow debate Mr. Rahul Bajaj & Mr. Mohandas Pai were blaming the government for not allowing coal mining in the forest areas. One of them objected to Mr. Jairam Ramesh not allowing coal mining to take place in the forest areas. They were talking about “striking a balance” and “inaction”.
Sorry dear Industrialists, protecting forests is not inaction & allowing coal mines to destroy forests is not action. Sure we need power but we need clean power that doesn’t destroy our forests, pollute our environment or displace millions of people.
Whenever the industrialists want to grab land or encroach already shrinking forests, they talk about “impediments to growth” & so called “striking a balance”.
By the way, what does striking a balance mean? Where do we strike a balance if we only want to grow all the time, endlessly?
Who stands for forests? Who stands for wildlife? And what growth are we talking about? Growth like an outburst of Ebola that consumes everything destroying itself at the end?
Foolish or smart we must protect the Forests.
