Is Everything on the Planet For Sale?
As I type this post, the International Whaling Commission is in talks about whether or not to lift the 24-year old moratorium on commercial whaling. A wide gulf between anti-whaling nations and the three main whaling countries (Japan, Iceland and Norway) means that reaching an agreement may be impossible. If this happens and international consensus cannot be reached, management of worldwide whale populations will be left in the hands of the hunters.
A New York Times article has more news on the talks, including Japan’s attempts to use aid money to buy support from poorer nations. From the article:
The talks were plagued by feelings of mistrust, after reports in The Sunday Times of London that Japan had been using offers of aid to effectively buy the support of poor nations’ fisheries officials. The newspaper executed a sting operation in which officials of several nations were caught discussing on hidden cameras the price of their support.
Americans who watch the show Whale Wars are familiar with Japan’s attempts to exploit loopholes in the international ban in order to secure a supply of whale meat for the nation’s seafood delicacies. Because of this, precious and unique species are being threatened with extinction.
What we lose in the discussion about population maintenance and catch quotas is that humans are continuing to butcher the largest mammals on the planet to satisfy our taste buds. There is no blubber shortage, and we are not left in the dark because our whale oil lamps are running out of fuel.
It is a matter of taste, pure and simple.
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If you like this then please subscribe to the Our Willow Is Gone
Until yesterday, there was a huge willow tree on Columbia Road between the road and the beach. There was nothing like it from Castle Island to UMass. It shaded and cooled us, and it was a haven for birds. It gave me a jolt of pleasure every morning I ran by it. I marveled at its gracefully twisting trunk and deeply veined bark and at the grace of its boughs festooned with thousands of strands of willow leaves.
Every living thing has its time to die. This hundred year-old tree met its end through a lightening bolt yesterday afternoon. While it is sad to lose such a magnificent tree, what turns this event into a tragedy is to know that there will never be a tree that large on Columbia Road again. The average tree planted today in Boston lives seven to ten years, according to the City of Boston Parks Department. Part of the reason the trees aren’t growing is that pollution from car exhaust and other sources creates ground-level ozone, a pollutant that damages the DNA of trees and causes cancer and asthma in humans.
Some studies have shown that tree growth is reduced by 30-50% in high-ozone years. Even outside urban areas, scientists estimate that ozone pollution has reduced tree trowth in northern and temperate mid-latitudes by 7% already, and we are headed to a 17% reduction by 2100. But a scientist is not needed to see that we are losing our trees here in Boston, including our hundred year-old heritage trees. In the future, our children may not see trees the way we do today. For them, a tree will be a spindly, stick-like plant about twenty feet high. When you tell them that there used to be huge trees that you couldn’t put your arms around, they will smile politely and nod, just as we nodded when our great-grandfathers told us about the herds of buffalo so large that they extended as far as the eye could see.
Six trees are slated for removal in Andrew Square
Although we can’t do anything about the dead willow, there is a tree less than a mile away that we can save if we all work together. It is the largest tree in Andrew Square. This tree has provided shade, cooling, and cleaner air to thousands of passersby over the decades. It is now slated for removal as part of the Andrew Square renewal project. While the project does provide for planting new trees, these trees will simply join the ranks of the hundreds of others that the city has planted that wither, die back, and then die over the next few years. I am not aware of any money provided for maintenance and no money provided for replacement if the trees die.
Fiddling While Rome Burns
Even if it’s not true that Nero played a lyre while watching the Great Fire of Rome, there are many historical cases of human inaction and apathy in the face of impending doom. I’m not sure if President Obama and BP CEO Tony Hayward have been playing musical instruments as they watch massive quantities of oil gush from the Deepwater Horizon. But this disaster proves that Americans are unable to take even the most basic precautions to protect our planet. I thought that surely we would take this oil spill seriously by declaring a state of National Emergency and by deploying all available resources to stop the gusher and remediate the damage. Instead, we are waiting, lawsuits in hand, for someone else to fix the problem.
President Obama – Please do more!
Dear President Obama,
Everyone I know is sickened by the oil spill. Why does it seem that our government is not doing enough to clean it up?
I don’t care whose responsibility it is! Can’t we step-up the involvement of the armed forces? What about other oil companies?
Instead of arguing about responsibility. we should be uniting to fight this catastrophe.
Sincerely,
Susan Labandibar
“Can I quit now?”
The morning that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, causing a fatal levee breach that claimed the lives of 1,200 people, Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) chief, Michael Brown, wrote an email to his public affairs department joking: “Can I quit now? Can I go home?” Anyone with a real background in emergency management knows that it is critical to react quickly, and with all possible intensity, as soon as the crisis emerges.
I’m afraid that Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum, also felt like burying his head under the pillow, as the oil leak crisis continues to escalate out of control, with 4.2 million gallons of oil already spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
As for me, after three weeks of waking up at night with anxiety attacks about this blow to our environment, I am ready to hammer Mr. Hayward (and President Obama) with some of the questions I ask as when I manage a crisis in my own business, where we are responsible for keeping our customers’ servers up and running 24/7:
Mr. Hayward:
How many people should develop solutions for stopping the leak? Are other oil companies jumping in to help BP, producing solutions in parallel?
How do we know that all available technologies are being brought to bear, regardless of whether they are proprietary, and all experts in this field have been consulted, regardless of their location or employer?
Is cost a limiting factor in the efforts to stop the leak? Are there solutions, such as using tankers to siphon oil-contaminated water from the spill area for treatment, that are currently not being implemented because of cost?
Is BP working with all possible speed on the relief well? Why only one relief well?
What happens if BP’s efforts to drill another well suffer a setback? Would another company be able to drill a second one, and potentially faster?
President Obama
Who is representing the interests of the public in this matter? Who is verifying BP’s statements?
What else is flowing out of the well besides oil? Are gasses such as SO3 flowing out of the well, contributing to ocean acidification?
Why can’t the government get involved in the efforts to stop the flow? Isn’t this a matter of national security?
Are there solutions available to the government, such as oil dispersal at a low depth with submarines, that are not being implemented?
As concerned citizens, we must not continue to let this crisis unfold. Instead of finger-pointing, we need an all-out effort to resolve this problem. Please contact Mr. Tony Hayward’s office at BP and the White House.