Inform, learn and act.

This site provides information about our planet Earth, animal welfare, environmental issues, permaculture, among some other things, with the objective to promote and raise awareness of these topics.

[pictoline]

El más reciente reporte de la ONU sobre cambio climático ha vuelto a encender las alarmas: puede que estemos ante la última oportunidad de hacer algo para evitar una catástrofe ambiental 🌎🔥😥

[loversdreamersandyou]

[bobbiethemonte-blog]

[rjzimmerman]

National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen said he and his crew were "filming with tears rolling down our cheeks."

One minute video……the phrase at the top of the video, “heart-wrenching,” is the only phrase I can think of to describe my reaction.

This is a screen shot of the part that made me gasp:

The photographer, Paul Nicklen, is a world famous photographer whose work we frequently see in National Geographic. This is his caption for the photo:

“My entire Sea Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear. It’s a soul-crushing scene that still haunts me, but I know we need to share both the beautiful and the heartbreaking if we are going to break down the walls of apathy. This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death. When scientists say polar bears will be extinct in the next 100 years, I think of the global population of 25,000 bears dying in this manner. There is no band aid solution. There was no saving this individual bear. People think that we can put platforms in the ocean or we can feed the odd starving bear. The simple truth is this — if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and entire polar ecosystems. This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days of this moment. But there are solutions. We must reduce our carbon footprint, eat the right food, stop cutting down our forests, and begin putting the Earth — our home — first.”

[gentlesharks]

Why do sharks attack?

A lot of arguments I get from people when talking about shark conservation is: “But wait, sharks attack and kill people all the time! They’re violent!” Nope. In fact, the average amount of shark attacks that happen a year is 16, with majority not even being fatal. Like all animals, sharks never attack without a reason.

Your chances of being attacked by a shark are just one in 11.5 million. It is easier to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, killed by a cow, killed by a falling coconut, or get killed by a vending machine than it is to get attacked by a shark.

Here’s a list of things that may cause a shark to check you out or attack you:

Bright clothing. Sharks have sensitive vision, and see colors differently than we do. Bright or colorful swimsuits can resemble a fish or some other prey. And when you’re splashing and swimming, you very much look like prey in distress, which is a quick meal for opportunistic hunters like sharks.

Jewelry. Shimmery jewelry like gold and silver look like scales from a big fish. A shark may get curious and check you out.

Splashing. Sharks have special organs in their snout called Ampullae of Lorenzini, which are small, jelly filled pores that act as electroreceptors. These organs are sensitive to movement, and can even sense splashing from miles away. Excessive splashing resembles a large fish that’s in distress, which is another easy meal.

Surf boards. Sharks may be sensitive to colors, but they don’t have the best sight in the animal kingdom. A human being on a surf board looks like a seal to a shark. Seals are a Great Whites favorite prey, and they will certainly check you out. Here’s an example of how this looks to sharks from below.

Territory. Some sharks are known to claim large areas of water and reefs. Simply swimming in these areas can agitate a shark. Be aware of where you’re swimming.

Smell. Sharks have a very good sense of smell. They can be attracted to the smell of blood or even the smell of a restaurant you ate in. Blood, again, resembles a fish that has been injured.

Curiosity. Sharks are naturally curious. They do not have hands to touch you with, they explore and check out things with their mouth. A shark may nibble your foot to check you out, not eat you.

What to do if a shark is near you or nibbles on you:

Stay calm. This is the best thing you could possibly do. A shark will remain calm if you do as well.

Move slowly or not at all. Slow, gentle movements keep the shark calm. Fast, panicked movements scare the shark and provoke it, this is when a shark may attack you in self defense.

Don’t hit the shark. Unless the shark is full on attacking you, keep your hands off of it.

How to fend off an aggressive shark:

It’s said the best way to fend off an attacking shark is hitting it’s head with your fists. While this is one way, it’s not the most effective. Hit these areas instead

Eyes. Use your fingers and thumbs to pierce the eyes. The shark will immediately back off and swim away, this is a time to escape.

Gills. Shove your fingers into its gills. The gills are the sharks only way of breathing. The shark will back off and swim away.

Snout. The snout is the most concentrated area of electroreceptors. Use your fingers or fist to aggressively rub this area. This will temporarily put the shark into a state of tonic immobility.

Things to remember:

You are in their territory when you swim. They were here first. In fact, they’ve been here for over 400 million years.

We kill over 11,417 sharks AN HOUR. Finning, fishing, and consumption of seafood all contribute to the killing of sharks.

Without sharks, the world would essentially fall apart. Sharks play one of the biggest roles in the oceans ecosystem. If they’re gone, the ocean is effected, and when the ocean is effected, we are too. Check out this video that explains how important sharks are.

How do I help?

Avoid the consumption of seafood. Hundreds of sharks are killed in the process of catching fish. While this isn’t intentional, it’s a big problem. Be sure to purchase fish from sellers that protect sharks.

Avoid “scary” shark movies. It is so important to educate people on the effect these movies have on shark populations. 

Avoid cosmetic products with squalene. Squalene is a low density compound found in the liver of sharks and other cartilaginous fish. Recently it has become a trend for sharks to be hunted to process their livers for the purpose of making squalene health capsules. Squalene is often a common ingredient in lipsticks.

Research. Find shark activism groups and petitions. Participate in whatever you can.

Make them one of your interests! Sharks are amazing, and there’s over 400 kinds of sharks to learn about. Knowledge can encourage others to protect sharks as well.

[rjzimmerman]

In this July 16, 2017, photo, the sun rises on a “ghost forest” near the Savannah River in Port Wentworth, Ga. Rising sea levels are killing trees along vast swaths of the North American coast by inundating them in salt water. The dead trees in what used to be thriving freshwater coastal environments are called “ghost forests” by researchers. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)

Excerpt:

They’re called “ghost forests” — dead trees along vast swaths of coastline invaded by rising seas, something scientists call one of the most visible markers of climate change.

The process has happened naturally for thousands of years, but it has accelerated in recent decades as polar ice melts and raises sea levels, scientists say, pushing salt water farther inland and killing trees in what used to be thriving freshwater plains.

Efforts are underway worldwide to determine exactly how quickly the creation of ghost forests is increasing. But scientists agree the startling sight of dead trees in once-healthy areas is an easy-to-grasp example of the consequences of climate change.

“I think ghost forests are the most obvious indicator of climate change anywhere on the Eastern coast of the U.S.,” said Matthew Kirwan, a professor at Virginia Institute of Marine Science who is studying ghost forests in his state and Maryland. “It was dry, usable land 50 years ago; now it’s marshes with dead stumps and dead trees.”

It is happening around the world, but researchers say new ghost forests are particularly apparent in North America, with hundreds of thousands of acres of salt-killed trees stretching from Canada down the East Coast, around Florida and over to Texas.

[gallows-walker-deactivated20170]

[vero-in-technicolor]

[todropscience]

THREATENED RIVER SHARKS REDISCOVERED AFTER 45 YEARS

Scientists recently discovered two species of shark river after analyzing the DNA of these fishes in a market in Papua New Guinea. These represent the first records of both species in the country since the 1960s and 1970s and highlight the lack of studies of shark biodiversity.

The river sharks (Carcharhinidae: Glyphis) are a relatively poorly known group of sharks with patchy distributions in tropical rivers and coastal regions of the Indo-West Pacific

The fact that adult speartooth sharks (Glyphis glyphis) , a large apex predator, have thus far gone unnoticed highlights the rarity of river sharks which combined with their occurrence in remote, poorly-surveyed regions, have resulted in Glyphis species being some of the least known sharks

Despite their large size, they are not considered a danger to humans due to their extreme rarity. Experts believe there are less than 2,500 mature individuals of this species in the entire world, and no more than 200 in any one local population.

Photograph: Freshly caught specimen of New Guinea river shark (Glyphis garricki)

The New Guinea river shark, which is generally slightly larger, is even more rare. Fewer than 250 mature individuals are believed to exist.

Image:  Freshly caught adult males of speartooth shark (Glyphis glyphis)

reference:  White et al 2015 Rediscovery of the Threatened River Sharks, Glyphis garricki and G. glyphis, in Papua New Guinea. PLoS ONE

[angelaesmyth]

[pionicorg]

Sprinting towards extinction? Cheetah numbers crash globally

a

[natureisthegreatestartist]

[purplebuddhaproject]

[mindblowingscience]

Climate Change is acting much faster than many have expected. Global sea ice is in a free fall compared to all other years on record.

Related article:

The North Pole is an insane 20 C warmer than normal as winter descends

[allthecanadianpolitics]

While we’re on the topic of Climate Change, this post and article is worth reading (from my science blog above).

[infiniteglitterfall]

That’s 36 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it should be at this time of year. I’m especially troubled because my Actual News-Reading Friends are reacting to this with “wait but is that normal, or is it actually global warming?”

Which means that sources like the Washington Post are doing a terrible job of explaining what this actually means. Which is probably a huge part of why people are generally not very concerned about climate change, especially not compared to how bad the situation actually is.

The graph above shows that every single year on record, the amount of ice in the sea has grown and melted at about the same times and in the same amounts. Except this year, when suddenly, instead of a bunch of ice forming in fucking winter, it’s… Not. It’s remaining at summer levels, basically.

This is not just part of global warming, it IS global warming. This is the core of the whole thing. The amazing amounts of carbon dioxide that we’ve been dumping into the atmosphere at an increasing rate for the past 100 years have been trapping more and more heat inside the atmosphere.

This has finally reached the point of Horrible Vicious Cycle. Because when it gets too warm, the polar ice caps melt.

When they melt, the oceans become much warmer and more acidic and can’t sustain life well.

When the oceans get warmer, they stop helping cool the atmosphere. Having large bodies of cold water lying around is GOOD if you want an area to be cooler. Having large bodies of warm water lying around does fuck all for cooling anybody down.

The less the oceans help cool things, the more our carbon emissions affect the atmosphere. Because they’re no longer partly being counteracted by the oceans.

Which means global warming accelerates.

Which means ice melting accelerates.

Which means the oceans get even more fucked up.

Which means global warming accelerates even more.

The reaction to this should not be “wait but is this just a thing that happens, the newspaper didn’t really say,” it should be a massive, front page, global headline of “OH FUCKING SHIT.”

[americasgreatoutdoors]

Happy Manatee Awareness Month! These gentle giants – nicknamed “sea cows” for their diet of seagrass and other aquatic plants – can reach lengths of over 14 feet and weigh more than 3,000 pounds! Early explorers once mistook manatees, which have large, spoon-shaped tails, for young women, fueling legends of mermaids. Photo at Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Florida by Keith Ramos, USFWS.

[futurismnews]

100 Nations Sign a Declaration Calling for Banning of Extremely Potent Greenhouse Gas

[mindblowingscience]

Rising Sea Levels Swallow 5 Pacific Islands

And more could soon follow because of climate change.

Scientists’ warnings that climate change will cause rising sea levels to swallow large swaths of land is playing out in the Solomon Islands.

At least five islands there have plunged completely below the ocean’s surface over the past several decades. Numerous others in the South Pacific island nation appear to be headed for a similar fate, a new study has found.

“It’s a perfect storm,” co-author Simon Albert of the University of Queensland study told New Scientist. “There’s the background level of global sea-level rise, and then the added pressure of a natural trade wind cycle that has been physically pushing water into the Western Pacific.”

This sovereign island nation northeast of Australia is no stranger to the threats that man-made climate change has brought on. The “global sea-level rise hotspot“ has seen ocean levels rise 7-10 mm per year — three times the global average, according to the study.

And what’s happening in the Solomon Islands may be a dark preview of what the future has in store for island communities and coastal cities around the globe.

Albert and his team analyzed aerial and satellite imagery of 33 islands dating back to 1947 for their study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. They found that five — Kale, Rapita, Rehana, Kakatina and Zollies — along the northern coast of Isabel island have vanished, most of them as early as 2002. Six others, including the inhabited island of Nuatambu, are “experiencing severe shoreline recession,” they found.

Continue Reading,