It is about time we realise this world is overpopulated

Below is a great little (artistic) video that explains in simple words how the world's human population came to reach 7 billion souls a few weeks ago.

It was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West. As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. U.N. forecasts suggest the world population could hit a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100 before beginning to decline. But exact numbers are hard to come by — just small variations in fertility rates could mean a population of 15 billion by the end of the century.

Mass tourism can harm fragile reef ecosystems

Indonesia offers some of the best diving spots in the world. But these reefs are under a lot of pressure, from pollution to overfishing, and now by mass tourism that brings hundreds of inexperienced divers underwater. It is not only dangerous for the divers, but they inadvertedly harm the reefs, breaking corals with their fins, leaving traces of sunscreen in the water and disturbing resting animals.

The video below shows the Mola Mola fish, famous for it's pokemon shape, resting in Crystal Bay, one of Bali's top diving spots. The fish comes here to use the cleaning stations, where other fish and invertebrates come eat the parasites off the Mola Mola's skin.

Then the divers, as many as a few dozens at the same time, invest the area and scare the fish off.

Source:
http://underwaterfestival.org/videos/video/39/

The Catch, the Story of The Tokyo Two

The video below retraces the story of the two Greenpeace anti-whaling activists Toru Suzuki and Junichi Sato, surnamed the "Tokyo Two".

As part of an undercover investigation where they successfully revealed evidence of commercial whale meat, they were accused of stealing and arrested.

They have been facing trial for nearly two years in Japan before receiving a one-year jail sentence earlier this year.

In 2008, Junichi and Toru exposed a scandal involving government corruption entrenched within the tax-payer funded Japanese whaling industry. They are on trial for theft and trespass, and the prosecutor has asked they be jailed for one year and six months.

It is not just Junichi and Toru's liberty that is at stake here - it is the fundamental right to peacefully investigate and expose corruption, to challenge authority and to do so without fear of persecution.

Greenpeace

Watch The Catch

Cane toads, the slow invasion of Australia

Predator species have been introduced by humans in new environment since centuries. Sometimes purposely like in the case of rodent control, or sometimes accidentally. In either case, the introduction of another species is never good for the environment as it always has negative and serious consequences on native/endemic species and ecosystem balance. For example, humans have introduced Polynesian rats in the islands of Hawaii in order to control insect damage on local agriculture. Unfortunately the rat population grew far too much and when it began harming the environment, humans (them again!) introduced the Indian mongoose (Herpestes auropunctatus) to eat the rats. However, a new issue rose: Mongoose preferred feeding on bird eggs! As a consequence, the Hawaiian goose came close to extinction and rats kept on damaging sugar cane plantations.


This was in 1883, but we still haven't learned the lesson and find ourselves repeating the errors of the past. This is the story of the cane toads of Australia. Originally from Central and South America, the cane toads were introduced in Australia in the 1930's in order to control the invasion of beetles damaging here again sugar cane plantations. The population of cane toads grew exponentially and spread across most of Queensland and now reaching Darwin in the Northern Territory as well as the north of New South Wales. Not only damaging local ecosystems, cane toads have a toxic gland on their back that they use as defense when attacked. Local animals such as snakes and crocodiles feed on other amphibians and die when attacking cane toads.

From 62,000 toadlets introduced in 1937, the Australian population is now estimated to over 300 million toads. Sadly enough, the cane toads never solved the beetle issue as plantations did not offer the right shelter for these toads during the day...

Below is a very interesting 5-part documentary entitled "Cane Toads, an UnNatural History". Enjoy

Read the rest of this article

WildAid Videos to Save the Tigers

WildAid is an NGO acting through various programs in China, India, Canada and the Galapagos. In 2010, their focus is on saving the wild tigers. With only a few animals left in the wild, the different tiger species are under very high extinction threat. The reasons behind the decrease in their population is all related to human activities: Destruction of their natural habitat and poaching. Their meat, bones and other body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine and their skin is sold at very high prices. Some people still believe that consuming Tiger body parts will give them strength. Please watch and share the few videos below made by WildLife.
Don't let the year of the tiger be the last year of the tigers

Tiger farms

Read the rest of this article

I’d Rather Wear Fur than go Naked

"I’d Rather Wear Fur than go Naked" - It is with this shocking statement that the French designer Quentin Veron introduced his latest collection during the Paris Fashion week a couple weeks ago. In the recent years, many organisations endorsed by celebrities have been fighting hard to ban fur from being treated as a fashion element, especially when animals are killed in cruel manners. Some of the major designers such as Channel have set the right example and now use synthetic fur which resembles exactly to the real one. Unlike popular beliefs, what used to be low quality is now as good if not better than natural fur, and no animal is harmed in the process.

PETA: I'd rather go naked than wear fur

The slogan used by Veron is in contrast with the PETA campaign against animal cruelty "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" (see PETA banner ad).

Not everyone will agree with me but I believe this kind of behavior is pure and simple provocation. There are other ways to get a couple of weeks of temporary fame/buzz. I'm gonna sound a bit harsh on that one but Quentin Veron IS a loser! I don't dislike his collections, I just hate that childish behavior. Below are a few pictures of dead racoons, foxes and minks.

Read the rest of this article

Hundreds of Nuclear Bombs Lost in the Wild!

I stumbled upon a few articles today mentionning surprisingly high number of lost nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs were invented in the early 1940's and have known many incidents since then. Many bombs have been lost when bombers crashed at sea, when navy boats collided or when nuclear submarines needed to be abandonned.

The most recent incident dates back to the year 2000 when the Kursk, a Russian submarine, encountered a terrible accident in the Barents Sea where all crew members drowned. This was the 7th nuclear submarine to be lost at sea (5 Russians + 2 Americans).
In total, it is said that there are so far 92 known cases of lost nuclear bombs around the world (15 of which we have an approximate idea of the location). Some of which could also be hiding in your backyard or farm field! This figure would be different in reality as I am certain some have been retrieved by now, but other cases might have not been reported for safety reasons. Some rumors raise that number to several hundreds.

Read the rest of this article

It's a fact! Military Sonars Kill Whales

As technology evolves, we humans have developped increasingly powerful sonar equipments. They can be used to seek enemy submarines or off-shore petrol reserves. But these devices emit very intense sounds that disturb the orientation and communication between the sea creatures. After numerous military exercises, many whales, dolphins or other sorts of porpoises ended up washing up on the shores and later died of the diving disease, symptoms that would naturally never occur on these animals.

Below are three videos that explain the issue in more details.

Ex-Refinery Sabotage leads to Major Oil Spill in Milan

On Tuesday (23/02/2010), an ecological disaster occured in the small town of Villasanta near Milan. A sabotage in what used to be a petrol refinery, led to a leakage of over 1,000 cubic meters of petroleum in the Lambro, a small tributary of the Pô. The toxic waste started streaming down towards the main river in what was going to be one of the major ecological disasters in Italy in the recent years. What is even more shocking is that this was done purposely by someone whose intentions were far from being environmentally-friendly. Strangely, this did not have much media coverage although the impact on the environment has already been evaluated as "dramatic". Below is a little selection of photos describing the scene.

Read the rest of this article

"The End of the Line" documentary film trailer

Here is another very interesting documentary I forgot to mention on my 5 must-see recent documentaries article. The End of the Line deals with another serious issue affecting our oceans and that we are directly responsible of: Over fishing.

We humans are fishing more than we need, and more than we should be. The few existing quotas are not always respected and species have nowhere to hide in order to regenerate.

Our behavior will lead to a scarcity of existing fish stocks and the disappearance of endangered species, but also the rise of health issues and danger for populations relying solely on fishing to feed.

Read the rest of this article

140 kg Endangered Bahaba fish sold for over US$500,000

A +50 year old Bahaba fish was caught on the 2nd of February in the South China Sea by fishermen. The rare fish measured 1.5 meters long & 0.5 meter wide and weighted 140kg. This species of fish, endemic to China, is classified as a Class II protected animal in this country, meaning that it is at a high risk of extinction. Fishermen in the region are complaining that they catch more floating garbage than fish in their nets, making this catch even rarer.


Although the Bahaba is critically endangered, Chinese medicine recognizes that its swim bladders are meant to give special power to those who consume it. It does indeed contain protein, fat and colloidal substances, but it won’t magically fix your liver or kidney like some people may think.

Read the rest of this article

Japanese whaler sinks activist ship Ady Gil

The Ady Gil was a powerful trimaran originally designed to break the record of the shortest time to circumnavigate the globe. Although its two attempts did not achieve their goal, the ship remained a truly unique in its genre. High technology, speed and stealth made it the perfect match to complete the anti-whaling fleet of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in tracking illegal Japanese whalers in the Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Territorial waters.

On January 6th, it made the news but unfortunately for a sad reason. While supervising one of the Japanese vessels, the MV Shōnan Maru 2, a collision occurred between the two ships. The $2 million 18 ton vessel did not survive the 500 ton whaling ship's hit and reportedly sunk the next day.

On the video below are shown 3 different angles of the collision. We clearly see that the Ady Gil crew was relaxing on the deck, far from expecting what was soon going to happen. When they realised the Japanese ship changed its course heading straight for them, time was too little to react, especially when you know that the boat had to maneuver forward, through the Japanese ship's collision course, in order to escape.

Read the rest of this article

"Who Killed the Electric Car?" - Documentary Film

The Toyota Prius has revolutionized the automotive world in 2001 by being the first mass produced hybrid car and sold over 1 million since. For your information, a hybrid car is a car that uses two or more sources of energy, usually electric and petrol, but can be used with hydrogen, natural gas, solar power, etc. Although it has known a slow start, it is now becoming a trendy yet vital step forward in our industrialized societies, especially with the rising concerns about climate change.

The Prius, thus a commercial success, still uses gas. I can't help wandering how in 2001 a hybrid car consuming gas is considered as an innovation while back in the mid 90's, fully working electric cars were working perfectly?

Well, the answer relies in the documentary below, Who killed the electric car?. This documentary was produced in 2006 and explains in details how the powerful petrol and automotive lobbies, along with the US government, put a full stop to the commercialization of the General Motors EV1 car (picture above). I'll let you judge by yourselves. Enjoy this 1,5h documentary film (divided in 10 episodes).

Read the rest of this article