The real reason for the BP oil spill

What can I say? Selfishness isn't bad. Neither is water. We need both to survive. When we have too much of either there starts to be big problems.

Happy Biodiversity Day!

It's International Biodiversity day today! It's also the year of Biodiveristy. Of course everday is a biodiversity day. So what is it? The UNU university mentions that Biodiversity, "the earth's diversity of habitat and species — is vital for sustainable development, societies, and culture. Yet, like the climate, it is being lost more rapidly than ever before and this loss is most affecting the poor. Unlike climate change, the urgency, scale and impacts of biodiversity loss are poorly understood and the political will to tackle this issue is weak."You can't buy nature as a whole, just what it produces. Nature is not easily replacable.

Biodiversity is important to New Zealand too. As DOC mention: "New Zealand has a vast wealth of unique animals, plants and ecosystems, but we also have one of the highest percentages of threatened species in the world. We have much to lose so we need to do more to protect them."

Biodiversity is important for our food supply as well. It was one of the reasons for the Irish potato famine and it protected rice growers from the grassy stunt virus. 80% ofo ur food comes from 20 plant kinds, however we have 40,000 plants and animals we use as food. Diverse food gives diverse nutrition, which is important for our bodies to stay healthy. For instance Vitamin C that comes from kiwifruit, oranges or even other animals.

A report that's come out of the UN tells us that natures animals, trees and oceans are under threat. It's the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, which is produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The secretary general BAN Ki-Moon has a good summary(p. 3): "[T]he principal pressures leading to biodiversity loss are not just constant but are, in some cases, intensifying... In several important areas, national and international action to support biodiversity is moving in a positive direction. More land and sea areas are being protected, more countries are fighting the serious threat of invasive alien species, and more money is being set aside for implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, these efforts are too often undermined by conflicting policies. To tackle the root causes of biodiversity loss, we must give it higher priority in all areas of decision-making and in all economic sectors."

In the report has been a discussion of tipping points. A point where it's difficult or impossible to recover these ecosystems. They are:

A - The dieback of large areas of the Amazon forest, due to the interactions of climate change, deforestation and fires, with consequences for the global climate, regional rainfall and widespread species extinctions.

B - The shift of many freshwater lakes and other inland water bodies to eutrophic or algae-dominated states, caused by the buildup of nutrients and leading to widespread fish kills and loss of recreational amenities.

C - Multiple collapses of coral reef ecosystems, due to a combination of ocean acidification, warmer water leading to bleaching, overfishing and nutrient pollution; and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of species directly dependent on coral reef resources.

Biodiversity is something you can get involved in .

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed” - Charles Darwin, father of evolution.

Art and Science, can they solve the issues together?

I was watching TV3's The Nation after attending the dawn service in Christchurch the other week. It mentioned a enviornmental project called Dialogues with Tomorrow. I was interested so I did some digging.

Now Future is a partnership between Sophie Jerram and Dugal McKinnon. It's about projects lead by art that investigate core issues in sustainability and ecology. It also aims to create a greater partnership between humanity and the enviornment. One of these projects is Dialogues with Tomorrow. It brings together artists and scientists to develop and exchange ideas to help solve enviornmental problems.

In two days it will be the 51st anniversary of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures lecture. This served as inspiration for Now Future. C.P. Snow was concerned that Science and Art were become further apart and their cultures weren't working together anymore. This would have detrimental effects for both of them. Fortunately today these cultures are working more together than they use to. Now Future is an example of this as well as the inventions and insights that have occured in recent years.

Art and science don't work seperately, though it sometimes might seem that way. Just look at Galileo and Einstein. Einstein's book, The World as I See It has some beautiful writing and artistic thought. Galileo had hundreds of inventions and ideas. They have displayed that art and science work together to imagine logical ideas. Though art and science see the world in different ways, they help eachother to see things they normally wouldn't see. If we wanted to be general, we could say science deals with logic and art deals with imagination.

As humans we have two hemispheres in our brain. Our left hemisphere and our right hemisphere. These affect our learning and thinking in different ways. Our left hemisphere is logic or science-orienated and our right one is imagination or art-orienated. Jill Taylor can give us understanding into the full world of both these hemispheres. In 1996 she suffered a massive left brain hemmorage. As a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist her recovery was difficult but gave her keen, imaginative and logical insight into these hemispheres.

She has said that we have two parts and that our imagination is a method for peace on this earth. "I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be." Seeing as how she had to use her left brain for her explanation, it shows that she doesn't believe in abandoning logic. Logically understanding how we can use our imagination for peace is essential achieving peace.

"We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world." - Jill Taylor

Worrying, disturbing oil spill in America

On Earth day an oil rig sunk in the gulf of mexico. There are around 5000 barrels of oil being released into the ocean each day. From Stuff/Associate Press:

An oil spill that threatens to eclipse the Exxon Valdez disaster is spreading out of control and drifting inexorably toward[s and is already at] the Gulf Coast of the US, as fishermen rush to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.

"It is of grave concern," said David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling... The oil slick could become America's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life. "

The spill was both bigger and closer than imagined - five times larger than first estimated, with the leading edge just 5km from the Louisiana shore. Authorities said it could reach the Mississippi River delta by Thursday night (Friday NZT).


From The Wallstreet Journal:

The slick was expected to make landfall at any time. The spill could turn into one of the biggest in U.S. history. An estimated 5,000 barrels a day of oil are flowing from the well, and officials said it could take up to 90 days to cap it, making for volumes that could exceed the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska and a 1969 accident in Santa Barbara, Calif.

People along the Gulf Coast braced for environmental damage and disruption to businesses, such as the rich shrimp and oyster fisheries along southern Louisiana. President Obama said he will commit "every single resource" the federal government had available to combat the spill, as the military began mobilizing Thursday to help prevent environmental damage.

"Regulators will want to understand how this occurred and quite reasonably wish to introduce additional regulation, if that's appropriate, to prevent it happening again," Chief Executive Tony Hayward told The Wall Street Journal. "You certainly won't see BP standing in the way of that."


An eco system, a regions industry and source of employment practically destroyed overnight. Not to mention the lives lost on that rig. This is a terrible tragedy. BP is going to receive a huge backlash for this. The plane has crashed, we can find the fault but the damage is done. This is all the more reason to find cleaner alternative energy systems and make oil companies more accountable.