02008-09-03 | Environment, Nature
Putting nature in Ecuador’s constitution – Los Angeles Times
This month, Ecuador will hold the world’s first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, whether to endow nature with certain unalienable rights. Not only would the new constitution give nature the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution,” but if it is approved, communities, elected officials and even individuals would have legal standing to defend the rights of nature.
Inclusivity is the buzzword (((at least I think so))) for the next decade. And we can’t stop at finding ways to include marginalized people, we have to include animals and indeed the whole ecosystem if we are to survive. We cannot let anybody mess with the ecosystem (((and our great grandchildren’s world and well-being))) without notice. I read that last sentence from the linked text above and have to applaud it.
02008-04-22 | Environment, Nature, World
Worlds oldest living root system
Roger Kennedy brought this story to my attention about a spruce that was nearly 10,000 years old on the mountainous border between Sweden and Norway. As it turns out the trees themselves last several centuries, but their root systems live on. It is postulated that the root system of the one pictured above basically started at the end of the last ice age, and has lived on in the harsh and isolated landscape ever since. As the Bristlecone adage goes “adversity breeds longevityâ€.
(Via Long Views)
02008-03-11 | Nature, World
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Japan denies whaling allegation
Japan has denied paying for delegates from small states to attend international whaling negotiations. The statement follows a claim from the Solomon Islands that Tokyo had usually funded its attendance at meetings of the International Whaling Commission.
Anti-whaling campaigners have accused Japan of vote-buying to support its bid to end a ban on commercial whaling. In recent years, a number of small countries have joined the IWC, many with little history of hunting whales.
One of these countries, the Solomon Islands, was conspicuously absent from a meeting called by the commission in London last week. The islands’ Prime Minister, Derek Sikua, said on Saturday that his country had not attended because it no longer wanted to accept Japanese assistance. He said Japan had usually paid for the Solomon Islands to go, although he did not say how much money was involved.
02008-02-08 | Nature
Turtle tracked on epic 13,000-mile journey – Times Online
A turtle has been tracked on an epic journey almost 13,000 miles long to notch up the greatest distance yet recorded for the marine creatures.
The journey took the endangered leatherback turtle 12,774 miles (20,558km) from a beach in Indonesia to the west coast of the USA and part of the way back again.
It is likely that the swim would have been even more impressive had the satelite tagging device strapped to the turtle been able to continue to transmit data after 647 successive days. The battery ran out close to Hawaii.
During the journey the leatherback dived as much as 1,000 metres (3,300ft) beneath the surface of the waves into complete darkness.
02008-01-18 | Nature
Long Views » Blog Archive » The century palm
“It’s spectacular. It does not flower for maybe 100 years and when it’s like this it can be mistaken for other types of palm,” said Mijoro Rakotoarinivo, who works for the London botanical gardens in Madagascar.
“But then a large shoot, a bit like an asparagus, grows out of the top of the tree and starts to spread. You get something that looks a bit like a Christmas tree growing out of the top of the palm,” he said.
The branches of this shoot then become covered in hundreds of tiny white flowers that ooze with nectar, attracting insects and birds.
But the effort of flowering and fruiting depletes the tree so much that within a few months it collapses and dies, said [Dransfield].
02007-08-22 | Environment, Nature, World
Arctic Ice at All-Time Low
Just last year the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Serreze said that the Arctic was “right on schedule” to be completely free of ice by 2070 at the soonest. He now thinks that day may arrive by 2030.
Another article and more links can befound here. Seems to me that, unless you are planning on leaving this planet soon, this is not the time to discuss whether Global Warming is largely man-made or a natural occurrence. That would be like discussing how a fire started instead of trying to put it out or cutting off your finger and discussing why that happened rather than grabbing the finger and running to the hospital. There are things we can do and we better start this summer.
But my hunch is that people will let things slide until…. well, until people see their own investments in danger – see the illustration from Vanity Fair – real estate and industry in major cities on the coast, beach-front property in Florida and elsewhere…
