is an amazing animal that has the appearance of a plant and is known as the Gorgonian, or more commonly referred to as a sea whip or sea fan.
Its branching rays resemble the head of mythical monsters - the Gorgon, with snakes instead of hair. Hence it got its name.
The Gorgonian feeds on small particles of plant and animal organisms or their excreta, and is found throughout the tropics and subtropics and therefore is likely one of the marine species currently under threat by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ?
You may not find the music track of the video very appealing and it seems somewhat unusual if not down right obtuse to the listing glide of the fonds of the sea fan, but you can simply turn the sound off !
Alabama resident John Wathen together with volunteer pilot Tom Hutchings, from the Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies made a flyover video over the area where the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank.
This polluting environmental disaster of unimaginable proportions, will no doubt go down as the largest and worst oceanic oil and gas spill ever - the gulf appears to be bleeding a red mass of floating goo. One estimate suggests "that the volume coming out of the hole is in the order of 4 barrels per second (around 350,000 barrels per day."And to think, a $500,000 switch could have prevented this, phew !
But wait there's more - The Natural Gas emissions are astounding as well.
"The Natural Gas doesn't just bubble to the top of the ocean and release into the air. It is absorbed into the water, like air is absorbed, and actually creates oxygen depletion. Hence, the emission of natural gas of these volumes into the sea is producing a significant area of Oxygen depleted water in the Gulf of Mexico which may be very large threat to fisheries and other wildlife in the area." VIA
As you watch the close up video of the hole remember the pipe is 5 feet in diameter. Watching this makes me shudder with disbelief, and shudder even more wondering if the hole could Embiggen anymore ?
Hey, without wishing to be alarmist, but what is going to happen when the hurricane season emerges ? Maybe help create habitat destruction of an immense order ?
Read more of the latest stories about the Mexican Gulf oil spill here.
But if you thought that this horrific accident was the first by BP oil, than think again. Science & Soul one of my blog roll friends shares with us his insightful history of the environmental diasters that BP oil has in the recent past, festooned upon the American continent.
Since Primatologist, Jane Goodall in 1960 observed a chimpanzee trimming a blade of grass and poking it into a passage in a termite mound to extract his meal, humans could no longer claim to be the only tool-making species. Her findings led scientists to redefine how they looked at the relationship of humans, chimps and other animals.
"Now, looking back, I am struck at how much they resemble us: their gestures, elaborate cooperation, the relationships of families. There is not a sharp line dividing us from the animal kingdom. It is blurry and getting blurrier."
Goodall worked largely in isolation until 1986 when at a conservation conference in Chicago, she realized that the fate of the chimps was tied to larger problems: habitat destruction, human population growth, poverty, demand for natural resources, intensive farming, illegal poaching for meat, pets and medical research.
Its likely that Goodall witnessed chimpanzee's, as this video shows, fishing for termites by taking and modifying twigs to fish for termites within their hard nests.
Aye-ayes are found only on the island of Madagascar. These quirky looking creatures may not look like primates at first glance, but they are related to chimpanzees, apes, and humans.
Aye-ayes are dark brown or black and are distinguished by a bushy tail that is larger than their body. They also feature big eyes, slender fingers, and large, sensitive ears. Aye-ayes have pointed claws on all their fingers and toes except for their opposable big toes, which enable them to dangle from branches.
The video shows an aye aye finding wood-boring insect larvae moving under the bark by tapping on the tree, listening for hollow sounds, then breaking the bark with its jaws and uses its longer middle fingers as tools to extract its tucker.
Although the aye-aye, are now protected by law, they have become critically endangered, because of two main reasons. The local native population believe coming across one of these unique primates means they have been cursed with an omen of ill luck. The native folk law dictates, that the bad luck disappears only upon slaughtering the critter. Secondly as in many developing third world countries with an expanding population, forests are felled for cash and to create more cultivation opportunities.
As if the environmental disaster currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico weren't enough of a man made catastrophe then watching this shameful story of the havoc and horror we have created with our everyday use of plastic. Plastic bottles, plastic cups and tops, bags plastic packaging
Seriously. Plastic lasts forever. plastic never biodegrades. Yet we use untold amounts of it to make disposable objects that we discard after a short period of time, sometimes just minutes, or a few hours. This is not merely hazardous and cruel to all marine species but contributes greatly to the more broader problem of habitat destruction on an immense scale.
And as if that weren't enough check out the recent BBC video report on how oceanic plastic debris is turning an Hawaiian beach 'into plastic'.
You may ask just how might the world turn this form of pollution and killing of wildlife around ? Well, fifty years ago, every glass bottle you bought at the shop could be exchanged for a little money, Thus one idea we can almost put into immediate action, might be to put pressure on policy legislators to make every product consumed in plastic, refundable !
Retired Queensland academic and marine industry researcher Gary Fooks says;
"Outboard engines are doing far more environmental damage than the oil spill from the container ship Pacific Adventurer... (and) ..weekend boaties using old technology two-stroke engines on their outboards dumped more than 3000 tonnes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the form of fuel and oil each year into South-East Queensland waterways.." Source
Thus it stands to reason that small boat or yacht owners ought look at swapping out their gasoline outboard motors for carbon free electric power units, specifically in the light of the video here of the Re-E-Power Electric Outboard. The companies website carries all the information a boatie would need to purchase and install one of their kits.
Although the units may seem somewhat expensive, the short term benefits of the electric drive provides instant torque and cheaper fuel especially if one utilizes a solar or wind powered generator. Whereas the benefits in the long term are no smelly or fire hazard chemicals to deal with or carry plus helping make the marine ecology are healthier place.
Whilst researching this post, I found this amusing electric powered recreational barbecue party boat.
Casey Beck and Austin Blair, from Tufts University, show in this video the devastating affects that climate change, and the worlds rising sea level is submerging their island country, the Pacific republic of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas).
"Over the past 40 years the villagers have seen the sea rise, storm surges become more frequent and spring tides more forceful."
This small, central pacific nation, made up of 33 coral atolls, is one of the lowest lying nations in the world and is especially vulnerable to high tides and the rising sea level.
"The average i-Kiribati [Kiribati inhabitant] certainly thinks it's getting hotter," says Emil Shutz, a former government minister who now runs tours for the country's few recreational visitors. "Ten years ago they could fish all day in a tinnie, but not any more - it is just too hot."
Not only Kiribati, but also Tuvalu, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands and the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea are all presently experiencing the same continuous gradual submergence of their homelands due to rising sea-levels.
The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, has told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program he's concerned by the negative outlook for the Copenhagen talks. Source
Recently a friend returned from a working holiday in Romania and wrote me that he never saw the sad condition of the downstream section of the Argeş River. But here in this video we see one mighty impactive outcome caused by improper regulation of the environment.
"I actually traveled beside that river but upstream in the Fagaras mountains (from Curtea de Arges to Victoria) - it's dammed further upstream about 20 km before you cross the Transfagarasan pass at Lake Vidraru. So I didn't see the polluted part of it. There are lots of places in Romania which leave a lot to be desired in terms of concern for the environment. You see a lot of plastic just strewn everywhere - especially bottles and shopping bags etc. I can imagine after winter when the snow melts and runs off a lot of that plastic & rubbish ends up in the rivers."
We must remember that this video only shows the flowing surface of the Arges river, and at best, we can only imagine what types of habit destructing chemicals may also be fettered within it. I think its likely that we may have forgotten that there are enormous ranges of petro-chemical plastic bottles floating around the rivers and oceanseverywhere, huh ?
Eco adventurer David de Rothschild is in the process of building a boat made entirely of recyclable plastics with the technology needed to sail 10000 miles across the Pacific.
"A highlight of the trip will be a visit to a region of floating plastic trash and particles known as the Eastern Garbage Patch. De Rothschild and his team will collect water samples to study and, using a satellite phone, post photographs and video clips on the Web site of Adventure Ecology, an environmental organization that he founded. His goal is to call attention to the perils of ocean polluting and to suggest a solution: waste as a resource" read on
Here, in this video de Rothschild and members of the crew talk about the building of the boat, at Pier 31 in San Francisco, California, using compressed co2 gas inside plastic drink bottles for the hull.
I hate to think that this vessel doesn't break up during a hurricance,cyclone or stormy weather. He does however say in an interview, that;
"when we all arrive safely in Sydney, finger’s crossed, the entire vessel will be broken up and each element wherever possible will be up-cycled into another product or developed into another use. It would entirely defeat the purpose of the expedition if we were to dock and leave the boat to the chipper."
Gunter Reck Professor of Ecology and Galapagos resident, experienced first hand from 1973 when the total population of the island was 4,000. Now there are more than 60,000 tourists and 20,000 citizens. Professor Reck documents in this video the destruction wrought by overpopulation in the Galapagos Islands.
Overpopulation is the big pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. Where Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution, presenter Andrew Marr warns that The Galapagos islands, are faced with a multi dimensional set of problems, habitat destruction, lack of basic resources, significant lack of waste and sanitation management for the islanders, to name a few.
"Speaking at a dinner at Christ's College, Cambridge, to mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Mr Marr warned that the islands' habitats face ruination unless human development leaves space for the wildlife."
happens, as is evident in this video, to a huge number of marine and bird species like the Stingray pictured here, strangled by fishing tackle. Similarly far too many seabirds consume and suffocate having ingested on a feast of plastic pellets, bottle caps, polystyrene, et al.
The issue of plastic contamination in the ocean is rapidly gaining a lot of attention. The repercussions are first and foremost affcting the ocean’s eco-system. Beyond that, plastics function as a magnet for chemicals such as PCB’s in water. Fish which swallow both the small and large bits of plastic, ingest the chemicals, and in-turn are ingested by humans.
Is one of the rarest felids in the world with an estimated 27 to 32 individuals remaining in the wild (2007 snow track count).
“At the beginning of the past century, the Far Eastern leopard was a common species in the southern parts of Sikhote-Alin and in some Khanka lake areas. Right now it roams only in south-west Primorye. About 5000 square kilometres of land in the south-west Primorye region, close to the border between Russia, China and North Korea, were transected for the census and tracks left by the leopards in the snow were counted. Scientists were able to determine the number of the leopards by examining the shape, size and patterns of the tracks as well as determine the direction and time of the animals’ movements."
Some oceanic travelers recently stumbled upon and reported seeing a Texas-sized "island" of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, this led to some enterprising dudes organizing a reconnoissance mission to where the trash was drifting which turned out being off the West cost of America where limitless volumes of plastic scraps are dispersed throughout the area, hopelessly entangled with the natural environment.
The picture of the map shows the vortex of currents where the trash apparently accumulates and so its quite likely that most of the other oceanic currents in the world will have similar outcomes.
While most Governments of the world are attempting to address the dramatic increase of noxious gases into our breathable atmosphere the worlds climate continues incessantly to deteriorate.
Climate change however is only one piece of a comprehensively much larger dynamic of our lifeworld as is outlined here.
If however you would appreciate learning more about our climate then here is an excellent online tutorial produced by Oxford University on how scientists actually do their climate prediction, why it’s not the same as weather prediction and why they are so confident about some answers and not others.
..... of "Expansion Pack" videos, answering every single criticism, objection, "What If," "How About," and "You Missed a Spot," to this video........ then try to poke a hole in the argument.
And if you can't, then you may find yourself with a strong agitation to do something about the potential threat. In my experience, the only way to calm that agitation is to act on it.
New Zealand scientists have found a bacterium, named Methylokorus infernorum, that feasts on methane, considered the second most abundant greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide. Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas. A scientist quoted in the article stated that a cubic meter of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane.
Yes I've always believed that if something is made on earth then there's bound to be an agent or thing in the earth that will enable it's destruction (cf posted a blog inwhich Russian Scientists seem to have discovered a new mineral that totally neutralizes radioactively charged water )
Nevertheless is a showcase of ideas, inventions and creative inventiveness of individuals, groups and companies, concerns for things green that can help change a polluted and climate disrupted world. Also of interest is the harm that human penetration and exploitation is doing to the world around us especially habitat destruction and species extinction.
