A fine day for shooting elephant

 See it yonder, by those trees.

Now to sneak up on it, ready to shoot.

What a beast! Wouldn't that head look fine mounted on the wall?

And with the final shots, the elephant is captured in pixels for eternity.

IPCC's evil CO2 mantra

I can't believe people are still making up this nonsense:

The IPCC's catastrophic AGW hypothesis - and the entire climate change alarmist community - is getting hammered from all sides by the growing research that points to natural climate variation (ie, oscillations, patterns, cycles) being the principal causes of warming since the 1950s.

The latest evidence is coming from satellites that monitor the world's clouds and energy inflows.

As the adjacent charts depict (information derived from the RSS and CERES satellite datasets) at least one-third of ocean heating could be explained by the simple change in cloud cover over the oceans for a recent 20-year span.

Combine this natural cloud-induced warming with other earthly/cosmic/solar factors, which also would contribute to the modern warming trend, and it does not leave much of the recent modern warming being a direct result of the IPCC's evil CO2 mantra.

Source: http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/10/evidence-mounts-that-natural-climate-change-is-responsible-for-major-portion-of-modern-warming.html

What's worse is people are gullible or desperate enough to believe it.

Sea Snake

Reposting of an old blog post:

Back to the renewable energy theme, this time with the Pelamis Sea Snake.  The amount of electricity generated by this technology will be variable to a certain extent depending on the swell of the sea but it is likely to be more constant than wind energy and (hopefully) its variability will beat to a different rhythm.

The first film shows how the wave motion is converted to electricity and the second shows the first fully commercial implementation of this device at Aguçadoura n Portugal.

Shark Attack

Image via: Joe Chernov

Virunga - Draw the Line

Since news of Soco's intention to drill in the Virunga National Parkin the Congo broke on the 1st of August, the big hitters have stepped up to the mark in the form of a WWF campaign to prevent oil exploration going ahead.

Some may argue that the revenue earned from oil exploitation will help develop local communities.  Given the political situation in the country, local communities are likely to be treated as poorly as those in the Niger Delta by the large oil companies. As centrepiece of the campaign, WWF have published a report which shows the value of the reserve ($350 million/year) based on eco-tourism and other sustainable developments without the need to extract oil.

Please support this campaign by signing the WWF Draw the Line petition here.  At least 94,348 people have signed it already, will you be 100,000?

http://www.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/virunga/

GM rice approval 'edging closer'

GM Rice Approval 'edging closer'

Scientists in the Philippines are weeks from submitting a genetically modified variety of rice to the authorities for biosafety evaluations.

This is an ethical minefield.  The rice in question is Golden Rice which has enhanced Vitamin A. Will this genetically modified rice really address the problems of malnutrition? If there is a chance it will reduce malnutrition, what right do we over-nourished Westerners have to stop it, despite the risks to the environment?

There are obviously other, better ways of tackling malnutrition while so many developed countries waste tremendous quantities of food. Ways which cover a broad spectrum of nutrients rather than focusing on only one vitamin.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23581877

Related Posts:
Aphid Resistant GM Wheat
The Time is Right for GM Crops
Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?

Leaping Bengal Tiger Numbers

A good news story as the number of wild royal Bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198, a 63.6 per cent rise in five years. The only down side is the increased number of villagers killed by Tigers.

Royal Bengal tiger numbers in Nepal leap to 198 via The Independent

Oil Threat to Virunga National Park

Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the last refuges of the mighty Mountain Gorilla. Decades of civil war and armed resistance had taken its toll on gorilla numbers but the latest threat is resource exploitation, oil in particular.

'Oil threat' to Africa's oldest park via the BBC

The forest in the Congo basin is second only to the Amazon and is one of the planet's lungs.  It must be protected at all costs. But the DRC is a desperately poor country and its fragile government does not have control over many parts of the country.  We must therefore provide viable and sustainable alternatives to widespread resource exploitation.

Time

We can't stop it.

We can't buy it.

We can't make more of it, no matter how many rare and precious resources we use.

We are all equal in that we all have only twenty four hours of it in a day.

And there lies the problem.

Work has been taking me away from home more often over the past few months so when I am at home I want to spend more of my time with family and friends.  Something has to give.

It is the EcoWarriorMe blog that has suffered most and, unfortunately, it looks like I will have limited time and opportunity to research and write posts for the next few months. This does not mean that I have given up on the environment. I will continue to campaign and raise awareness of issues and most importantly try to live a greener, more sustainable life. 

EcoWarriorMe Express contains a mixture of shorter posts and filtered feeds from other sites relevant to energy, climate change and conservation. 

As always, all comments are welcome.