http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment en Environment Environment Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:09:00 +0200 daily 1 They have become the scourge of our planet - perhaps mankind's worst contribution to our environment. Plastic bags. They are found everywhere on earth. Hooked in the bushes and trees, scattered over parking lots and open spaces, lying up against the fence where the wind took it. Take a look at a construction site - it's had to find the concrete and steel among the plastic bags.  Look at these numbers from one of the world's smallest and most well developed countries - Israel. In one year each Israeli citizen uses more than 730 plastic bags! More than 2 every day. Based on this statistic, they are using more than 14 million bags per day and 5 billion bags a year!  Those bags typically take up to 500 years to bio-degrade, yet each bag is only used for an average of 25 minutes. It is estimated that 28% of all garbage in Israel comes from plastic bags.  Surely there is an alternative. What did we do before this awful invention? I remember that there were brown paper... Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:09:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-shall-I-do-with-this-plastic-bag/22/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-shall-I-do-with-this-plastic-bag/22/ I have two dogs, Black Lab mixes.  They're both crazy.  But Mica, she is out of this world.  Sometimes we take them to the fish ponds where we live and just hang out.  Generally they go swimming, run around, and chase random things. Last week they went to the ponds with a friend and began their normal hang out and have fun routine.  All was normal until Mica decided to chase a mongoose.  This wasn't just any mongoose, this was a black belt Shao-lin master, and it would not take the easy way out and run away.  No, no.  This mongoose master whooped my dogs butt.  When my husband and I arrived home, we came upon a red porch and a very unhappy Mica.  The first thing my husband said was, "I hope she at least killed the mongoose".  The next day we took her into the vet.  There we fought a battle of epic proportion while trying to staple the wounds on her face.  Finally the testosterone in the room listened to what I had repeated about fifty times, that if... Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:55:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/My-Dog-and-the-Shao-lin-Mongoose/21/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/My-Dog-and-the-Shao-lin-Mongoose/21/ I wonder what the world was like on the eve of its greatest invention - the wheel? Was it poised breathless, knowing that human life was about to change dramatically and forever? We should be breathless in the same way now - we should also be poised on the brink of another invention that will change our world, and us, dramatically and forever. We will recognize the invention when it arrives - we have been waiting for it, we are ready for it, and we know exactly what to do with it, just as our ancestors knew instinctively how to put the wheel to work. There will be no dithering. The invention, quite simply, will be a substitute for water. I grew up on the continent of Africa, which no longer has water. It had plenty when I was young. We played in it, swam in it, wasted it, let the faucet run, washed the family car with the hose pipe and watered the garden mercilessly. We built buildings in huge reflecting pools and scattered public fountains around our town. Today, Africa is a continent of... Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:19:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/No-Water-Anywhere/20/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/No-Water-Anywhere/20/ As the world population grows, our individual share of the world's water shrinks and soon everyone will be at risk. Wake up on Monday morning, leap out of bed; uh uh, no shower today - I'm due for one on Thursday. Half a cup of coffee and dash off to the office. There I am allowed one cup for the day and the water cooler is under supervision. Dinner is almost dry; I downed my month's beer ration by the tenth.  Next thing we know is that there will be illegal "water running" across state lines and from country to country. The unscrupulous will build illegal pipe lines and tap into anyone else's exposed and available water supply pipes. The price of water will rocket as it does for any commodity in short supply and a black market will develop. "Hey, Mister, I have fresh water! Twenty bucks a liter?"  After that, or perhaps it is already happening, the conglomerates will start building desalination plants and buying up lakes, dams and rivers in order to... Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:23:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-Price-a-Glass-of-Water/19/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-Price-a-Glass-of-Water/19/ Have you heard about this new gadget that can save your sanity? The cellphone jammer! You get on the bus/train/tram and the guy/girl next to you starts yakking on his/her cellphone. There are no other seats available and you are stuck listening to one side of some stupid conversation. You can't read or concentrate on anything, so you sit stewing, wishing you could press the eject button and launch the talker into space. Well, it seems that now you can with this new gadget called a cellphone jammer. All you do when your nerves reach breaking point is slip your hand into your secret pocket where the jammer is resting. Press on the button and you cut his/her phone call instantly and return to a quiet world. This is not a joke. The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States, prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of... Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:34:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Oh-for-some-peace-and-quiet/18/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Oh-for-some-peace-and-quiet/18/ Years ago our young children used to sing a song  "In China people plant the rice, plant the rice, plant the rice". Now I am in China, admittedly only for a week and that's not what the people in China are doing! The people in China are smoking. I am attending a conference in the northern city of Dalian, a huge seaport and a rapidly developing city with a population of 6 million people. Walking downtown here is like walking down the streets of New York between the soaring glass tower blocks to the sound of hooting cars and screeching brakes.  And everyone is smoking. There were tea breaks at the conference and at the first break I dashed out of the hall to grab a cup of coffee, took one breath and dashed straight back in again. The air was blue with smoke. I couldn't breathe for cigarette smoke.  The conference consisted mainly of Americans and Chinese. A few of the Americans smoked and all of the Chinese smoked. In the hotel dining room and in restaurants there are Chinese... Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:32:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/In-China-people-smoke-smoke-smoke/17/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/In-China-people-smoke-smoke-smoke/17/ I love this weather.  I know that it is probably the effects of global warming, and I know that lots of places have been suffering because of the crazy weather, but me, I am living it up while I have it! Where I live, it is normally really hot at this time of year, and each year, I get really homesick for my family's home in the States because there they get all four seasons.  Here it is normally summer and winter (which in my opinion is more like fall). But now, wow, it's amazing.  The past few day have had a wonderful breeze and I could even go outside in pants (normally I'm too hot).  But the best thing happened this morning.  It rained!!!  It rained!!!  It never rains at this point in the year, the rainy season starts in mid to late October.  Last year it only rained a few times all season (till the rainy season ended and it then rained a bunch of times- global warming for you). The thing is, it didn't only rain this morning, it was chilly too!  I left... Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:24:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/It-s-Raining-Mener-Rain/16/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/It-s-Raining-Mener-Rain/16/ As time has gone by, I have begun to realize more and more how much stuff I throw away that I should have recycled.  I don't even do it on purpose, I hate knowing that I waste lots of stuff.  I know that part of it is the simple fact that I am a bit lazy (the bigger part being that we don't have good recycling programs where I live, and have very few options of what to recycle- paper, plastic, and in some places glass bottles.  That's it). I hate it when I walk over to the trash can to throw something away and all of a sudden the little voice of conscious in my head says, "You could recycle that". I saw a news program not too long ago that showed the Japanese culture of recycling.  They recycle almost everything; they have something like 50 different choices of what to recycle.  And the Japanese are so socially aware, that they are happy to recycle and make a difference in helping the world. It makes me feel proud to know how much fellow people care.  I... Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:43:37 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Stop-being-Lazy/15/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Stop-being-Lazy/15/ I guess fish can stink...even in the water! I learned something interesting the other day that I would love to share with you.  I don't know if you remember way back when, that I discussed the destruction of the world's coral reefs which is partially due to our need to scuba dive around and also to touch these extremely fragile environments.  What I learned was that something else that has also added to this destruction, and I learned that this problem is actually being fixed (albeit slowly).  In places, for example,  like Eilat, Israel, and Aqaba, Jordan which are at the northern most tip of the Red Sea, there are amazing coral reefs (well more like used to be, as over 60% have already been destroyed, mainly by tourism).  In the past the fishing industry would put large cages in the water as well.  The issue, it was found, was that these cages were actually polluting the waters and adding to the destruction of the coral reef as well many other things, I'm... Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:32:55 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/A-Not-So-Fishy-Future/14/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/A-Not-So-Fishy-Future/14/ What we don't know... does scare the pants off of us! I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me a few years ago.  My sister and I lived together in Melbourne, Florida, and one day we went to Sebastian Bay, a man made inlet in the mid-east of the Florida peninsula, to learn to surf and to enjoy the beach.  I made a failed attempt at surfing and when our friend took back his surfboard, my sister and I decided to take a swim. After swimming way past the level where we could touch the bottom, we heard the lifeguard's siren go off.  We looked back, saw that it wasn't for us and continued swimming.  A few seconds later it went off again.  I looked back and saw that he was beckoning us back to shore. Reluctantly, we began our return to the beach, my sister in front.  After a few moments of swimming, I looked back to see the fin of a shark, which I figured at three to four feet long, gliding right past where my sister and I had ... Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:42:44 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/A-Near-Kinda-Sorta-Death-Experience/13/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/A-Near-Kinda-Sorta-Death-Experience/13/ What makes us so uncaring about the global predicament? Lately I have been hearing people talk about what is going on with our world, and it is driving me crazy! We were having a discussion the other day about the ridiculous flooding that have been going on in England, the heat waves that have been hitting us and other abnormal things going on in our world.  People are now saying, "Well, that's global warming." Yeah, it sure as heck is global warming, but how do you take it so casually?  People act as if this is the most natural thing in the world that global warming is occurring now at an accelerated rate.  It is as if they are not at all worried about the devastating effects, which we are already seeing as I write this (Exhibit A:  Flooding in England. Exhibit B: Melting Icebergs.  Exhibit C: Melting Himalayas). So why are we so nonchalant about this ultra important issue? I've come up with three conclusions.  The first is... Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:37:33 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Keep-on-Flooding/12/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Keep-on-Flooding/12/ The other day I was struck with reality in a battle of weight vs. survival...as always, I lost. The other day, while volunteering at a summer camp, we decided to have a "cooking day".  The idea was fabulous; we would make salads, and pita bread snacks together with the children, and feast on it all together.  I was working with a group of children going into second grade, so it is obvious that these kids are pretty young.  In the beginning of the day, one of the girls came up to me and informed me that she would not be eating the pita as it is fattening.  I was a bit taken aback and asked her why she cared whether the pita was fattening or not.  She told me that she was fat and she needed to go on a diet.  I was pretty bothered by this, and asked her if she thought I was fat to which she immediately answered yes (this ruined my argument to her that I eat everything I want and am still skinny due to the fact that I walk).  I didn't know what else... Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:12:59 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Am-I-Fat/11/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Am-I-Fat/11/ by M.L.   My sister is a professor of Biology.   She does research in addition to teaching graduate students who are working for their doctorates.   Her specialty is – get this – the social behavior of spiders.   I always wondered why anyone would want to study the social behavior of spiders and to what purpose such knowledge could be put.   Well, something really unusual has come out of her research and that of her students. One of my sister's students has been working on a project which is gaining tremendous interest in the field of agriculture:   using spiders on fields of crops instead of pesticides. It seems that there are certain species of spiders – I have no idea of their names – that feed on the mites and insects which destroy food crops.   Letting loose a few thousands of these spiders in a field of wheat, for instance, will allow the farmers to stop using pesticides to control the destructive insects. Think of... Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:06:28 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Spiders-instead-of-Pesticides/10/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Spiders-instead-of-Pesticides/10/ The tourist industry better catch on to this quickly, before it all dissapears! It looks to me like the name of the game is no longer eco- tourism, but global warming tourism.  The latest fad in tourism is brought to us by our very own?.icebergs!  Yes, let's hear a round of applause for this latest money making machine! Thanks to the decision of some renegade icebergs, we no longer need to go all the way to the poles to experience their splendor, why, they have traveled the long and difficult journey, 2000 miles south, just to save us the hassle of going all the way to them! Thank goodness for global warming ladies and gentlemen, for without which, many of us mere mortals would have never had the experience of floating icebergs, especially at such a close distance!  What, pray tell, could be more exciting!  The wonders of the world are coming right to us! Funny how countries like Greenland are making a killing, and tourists like me are spending... Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:50:40 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/The-newest-form-of-tourism/9/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/The-newest-form-of-tourism/9/ From my Friend L.M.: I suppose it’s an indication of our good intentions - we are destroying the planet by trying to improve it. On any day of the week you can see a new profession operating in the streets. He - it is usually a he - is involved in the beautification of our environment. I call him a “Show, Blow and Go men”. He arrives, he blows stuff around and then he leaves. They are not gardeners, but rather external cleaners. They walk around with petrol driven blowers on their backs and holding the exhaust pipes in their hands, their function is to clean by blowing the dirt, leaves and dry grass from one property to the next. Besides the noise they generate which must inevitably lead to their own deafness, all they are doing is moving stuff around. Occasionally you may see one of them sweeping the pile of dirt they manufacture into a pan and then into a bin, but mostly they just blow it into the next door property. So far so good, but they’re doing something much more harmful.... Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:32:38 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/The-Show-Blow-and-Go-Men/8/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/The-Show-Blow-and-Go-Men/8/ The plant I never needed, until I did. I have this plant.  Well maybe had is a better word for it.  I got it from my mother- in- law, healthy, in perfect condition, straight from her garden to mine.  It was a beautiful plant. It sat for a few days, unplanted, as I needed to weed and clear out my garden, which I had left untouched since we moved in 7 months ago.  Finally, I basically cleaned out the garden, enough to see the beauty that lie underneath the weeds, and planted the gift from my mother-in-law. At the time I planted it, there was a kitten being raised under a huge bush in front of which I had planted the gift.  The first day I took my dog for a walk after planting, she ran over to try to find the kitten, and knocked the plant out from its new home.  After the walk, I replanted it. The next day, the scene repeated itself.  And the next, and the next, until I finally got sick of replanting each time anew, and just left it?promising I would... Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:08:49 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/This-plant/7/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/This-plant/7/ Coral reefs are in serious need of a vacation! Our coral reefs are in serious danger.  This time, the boogeyman that is hurting the reefs, probably doesn't even realize what he is doing? Although pollution and fishing are some of the major problems that the coral reefs are facing today, another serious cause of the destruction of our coastal coral reefs is our desire to see them and enjoy their beauty. Coral reefs are like little bustling cities- there are a million and one things going on at all hours of the day.  Lots of different creatures make the coral reefs their home.  But the reefs are extremely fragile?they are basically one very condensed ecosystem. So what are we doing that is causing so many devastating problems? Snorkeling and scuba diving.  When we swim down to visit the reefs whether by scuba diving or snorkeling, we add to the destruction of our reefs by touching and taking things from them; but the majority of damage comes... Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:04:19 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Killing-me-softly/6/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Killing-me-softly/6/ Trash is not what makes the beaches beautiful!   It is a wonderful experience to enjoy nature such as beaches or forests, but all too often people forget the pristine environment they are in and litter. Although the prevalent thought is basically that one person's litter won't make difference, but that is simply not true.  Even if it is just aesthetically, a clean place is a beautiful place.  Plus, it is not normally one person who litters; it is one, then another, then another? Just think of any natural place that you went to, where people had littered?it dampens the experience. There are some great things that we can do, apart from the obvious of not littering which can make an immediate and satisfactory difference in your world.  You can organize a group of people or go by yourself to clean up an area.  When you finish, you can rest assured that you will love the difference it makes.  Have fun with it, make a picnic, take... Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:03:38 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Don-t-litter/5/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Don-t-litter/5/ Raise your motivation...take advantage of the great things the world has to offer!  You know, in order for us to be willing and to want to help to make a difference in the world, we need to help ourselves. Yes, I mean that sometimes we need to be selfish. I'm not talking about the nasty selfish, where we try to take everything for ourselves and don't think about others. I am talking about the kind of selfish where you take advantage of all of the great things around you. Maybe take a break from the 24/7 saving the world that I know all of you, my loyal readers are doing, and just enjoy the world for a while. Think about it: there is no better way to gain enthusiasm for something than to enjoy it, right? If you don't take the time to enjoy what it is that you are working towards, you eventually will run out of steam, and lose some of that will to help the world around us! So take a break, be selfish! Today, for example, is hot as hell, so I am going to take... Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:18:44 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Take-Advantage-of-All-that-You-Deserve/4/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/Take-Advantage-of-All-that-You-Deserve/4/ Simple things we can do that truly go the extra mile! So what can we do?  What's amazing is that it is the little things! I recently read an article in Glamour that had a large section on things that we can do to make a difference and help the Earth.  Some of the items that I am listing are from those articles.  There are so many small things that we can do, that barely impact our daily schedules, which make a huge impact on the world.  Some of these are so simple that it is even funny that we haven't been doing them already.  So, without further ado, a list of small actions that make a big impact: 1.  Re-use your plastic bags, or, even better, when grocery shopping, use a canvas bag (If you live close to your supermarket, make it a double good deed and walk or ride a bike). 2.  Print on both sides of the paper or use the blank side for scrap paper when you are through with it. 3.  Unplug electrical items that are not in use, you are paying for... Sun, 27 May 2007 13:08:09 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-to-Do-What-to-Do/3/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/Environment/What-to-Do-What-to-Do/3/