Satish Kumar "Earth Pilgrim"

TheTamshee: has just read an inspiring article by Satish Kumar The editor of Resurgence magazine has some wise words for the governments of this world. "Climate stability is straight and the solutions are simple, but scientists, economists, industrialists and polititcians are hell bent on making them complicated" Trees Are The Answer" any fool can make things complicated, it requires a genius to make things simple. E.F. Schumacher

Spider "DavidBowie"

Photo: Senckenberg Museum of Natural History

The Heteropoda davidbowie has been discovered in Malaysia. It is distinguished by its large size and yellow hair, and is only found in parts of Malaysia. Bowie was apparently selected for the honour because of his musical contribution to arachnid world – the 1972 concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Peter Jäger, the German spider expert who discovered the Heteropoda davidbowie, said that naming spiders after celebrities helped draw attention to the marginal status of many species as human activity destroys their habitats.
Environmental authorities have traditionally proved reluctant to include spiders on lists of endangered animals, but campaigners like Mr Jäger argue that their decline undermines nature's genetic diversity. “It is working against time,” he told The Observer. “We are also quickly losing genetic resources that have evolved over more than 300 million years.”
Last year the Rameshwaram Parachute Spider was among thousands of creatures included on a "red list" of endangered species complied by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Less than 500 of the spiders are though to remain, as their woodland habitats on the Indian island of Rameshwaram, close to Sri Lanka, are cleared to make room for hotels and tourist resorts. TheTamshee: doesn't like the look of the spider but Bowie was my all time musical hero. Aladdin Sane being the first album i ever purchased.

PM Life Saver

Picture by Ian Macnicol

A lifesaver wearing a Gordon Brown masks jogs along the beach. Oxfam is calling on the Prime Minister to be a lifesaver and lead the way on climate change ahead of UN climate talks in Copenhagen. TheTamshee: reckons that our PM has already used up his 9 lives

Alexandra Cousteau

TheTamshee: read a cracking article called Back to the Ocean, by John Dyson. It plotted the rise of Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau, grandson/daughter of the legendary scuba diver, Jacques. check out the links, Blue Legacy and Expedition Blue Planet for some wise words from an exceptional woman "Blue is the new Green" water will be the big issue of the next 100 years. Water shortages and water wars are just around the corner, having a much bigger effect on our lives than climate change"

Rainbow Warrior III

Making Waves: an artist impression of the new Greenpeace Eco Warrior sail vessel
TheTamshee says: Greenpeace has followed the latest environmental trend and bought a new hybrid to replace an ageing run about. The pressure group, which has previously converted older vessels, has penned its first newbuilding at Fassmer Shipyard in Germany. Its Rainbow Warrior III, a sailing ship which will switch to diesel-electric at low wind speeds, will hit the water in 2011 to coincide with Greenpeace’s 40th anniversary.

Forest Crime "Palm Oil"

Greenpeace activists protest against a shipment of Indonesian palm oil en route to Rotterdam by painting "Forest Crime" on the side of the palm oil tanker Isola Corallo. The tanker is transporting a consignment of 29,000 metric tonnes of crude palm oil from Indonesia's largest palm oil producer, Sinar Mas, to Europe which has already been a subject to a Greenpeace action six weeks ago in the port of Dumai in Sumatra, Indonesia.
Greenpeace's "Forests for Climate" funding mechanism for forest protection was presented at the Poznan climate talks earlier this month. The document is a blueprint for the international community to establish funding for tropical forest protection as one of the major steps in the fight to curb climate change. Countries like Indonesia are hoping to get financial compensation for their attempts to reduce deforestation, meanwhile Sinar Mas's expansion plans include the conversion of almost 2 million hectares of pristine forest in Indonesia's Papua provinces as well as further forest clearing in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

HMAS Yarra

THE navy has been called in to find chemical-filled containers lost overboard from the cargo ship responsible for the massive oil spill off the Queensland coast. Deputy Premier Paul Lucas said the navy mine hunter HMAS Yarra would use its high-tech equipment for the operation after government efforts to find the dumped cargo using its own vessel and a Dornier aircraft had failed. “HMAS Yarra will arrive here in the next few days to locate the 31 containers that went over the side of the vessel when it had its incident last week,” Mr Lucas said. “Obviously there's a real concern to make sure that we can find these containers. There has been strong public concern about the ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that can be used to make bombs, and its environmental impact, which causes algal bloom in high concentrations. The retrieval would also prevent trawlers becoming “snagged” on the six-metre containers. The clean-up hit its own snag today when workers ran out of bags to dispose of the oil. Mr Lucas said he was at a loss to explain the situation but 20,000 bags would arrive by barge to Moreton Island tomorrow morning. “I don't know how they could run out of bags and I've asked that question myself,” Mr Lucas said. Despite the hiccup, about 50 per cent of the spill had been cleaned from the 60km of spoiled coastline. But the effects were already felt, with droves of tourist bookings cancelled after images of the oil-laden beaches were transmitted around the globe. Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said once the beaches were in the clear a mass campaign would give visitors the message that the Fraser Coast, Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay were open for business. The Federal Government has pledged $2 million for local community groups and natural resource management bodies to continue cleaning up the Moreton Bay wetlands and coast. “There is significant effort being made right throughout this region to get the clean-up concluded and to ensure that we protect the environment as best we can from significant, long-term damage,” Environment Minister Peter Garrett said in a statement. Meanwhile the captain and crew remain on board the Pacific Adventurer, which is docked at Hamilton in the Brisbane River. Maritime authorities, accompanied by police, handed the captain legal papers on Sunday directing him to remain on the ship while investigations continue. The shipping company, Swire Shipping, is facing a multi-million dollar clean-up bill in addition to possible fines of up to $2 million. The ship is to stay in dock until there is an outcome to the investigation.

Polarstern "Oceanography"

The Indo-German iron fertilization experiment LOHAFEX (LOHA is Hindi for iron, FEX stands for Fertilization EXperiment) will be carried out from the German research vessel

“Polarstern” in the southwest Atlantic from 7th January to 17th March 2009. The interdisciplinary team of 48 scientists on board “Polarstern” will closely collaborate in monitoring the algal bloom expected to grow in the fertilized patch of the ocean and studying its effects on the chemistry and biology for at least 45 days.
The results of LOHAFEX will be of great interest to both ocean ecologists and geochemists because the minute, unicellular algae suspended in the sunlit surface layer known as phytoplankton not only provide the food sustaining all oceanic life but also play a key role in regulating concentrations of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere.
Background
The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica is rich in the nutrients nitrate, phosphate and silicon but phytoplankton growth is limited by the supply of iron which is a crucial ingredient of all organisms. Iron is highly insoluble in sea water, so, unlike the other nutrients, is quickly lost in sinking particles. Addition of trace amounts of iron to these waters, whether from natural sources (contact with land masses and via settling dust blown of the continents) or by artificial iron fertilization (from a ship releasing dissolved iron sulfate to the surface layer), results in rapid algal growth leading to development of phytoplankton blooms.
Phytoplankton grow by taking up CO2 dissolved in sea water and converting the carbon into biomass (organic matter). Because the CO2 sdissolved in the ocean’s surface layer is in equilibrium with the atmosphere, blooms cause a deficit which is compensated by uptake from the atmosphere. The fate of the bloom biomass determines how long this CO2 is retained in the ocean. If the organic matter is recycled by bacteria and zooplankton - unicellular protozoa and a variety of small animals that graze on phytoplankton - within the surface layer, and the iron selectively lost, then the CO2 taken up is returned to the atmosphere within months. However, the organic particles in the form of phytoplankton cells and zooplankton faecal material that settle out of the surface layer sequester CO2 for longer time scales depending on how deep they sink. Carbon transported in particles that sink below 3,000 m is sequestered for centuries and the portion buried in the sediments for much longer.
Five iron fertilization experiments in the Southern Ocean have created phytoplankton blooms but only in the previous experiment EIFEX carried out from Polarstern was it possible to actually follow the rain of particles sinking through the underlying deep water column because the experiment was carried out in the closed core of a stationary, rotating eddy. LOHAFEX will also be conducted in a pre-selected eddy but the size of the patch will be twice as large – 300 km2 fertilized with 20 tonnes of iron sulfate. EIFEX had to be terminated after 35 days while the bloom was still growing and sinking but LOHAFEX will last 10 days longer and quantify the amount sinking to depth more accurately.
Another goal of LOHAFEX is to study the effects of iron fertilization on the zooplankton, in particular the shrimp-like krill, which is the main food of Antarctic penguins, seals and whales. Stocks of krill have declined by over 80% during the past decades and their response to the iron-fertilized bloom will indicate whether the decline is due to declining productivity of the region for which there is evidence. Thus, large-scale iron fertilization of the krill habitat could well help in boosting their stocks to their former high densities and facilitate long-term recovery of the decimated great whale populations. TheTamshee says: this research program is fascinating, you have got too take your hats off to the scientists who think up these worthy concepts - I certainly hope it is a great success - time will tell.

Pintail, Heron "Part Two"

The "Nuke" vessels Pacific Pintail and Pacific Heron with there massive cargo of MOX ( mixed oxide, plutonium & Uranium fuel ) continues on it's journey around the Cape of Good Hope. The ships were heavily armed and protect by specially trained British forces while entering South african waters as they make there way from France to Japan. The 1.8 ton cargo of MOX fuel - enough to make 225 nuclear weapons

poses possible contamination and security risks and is another example of the dangers of nuclear energy - not only is the shipment unnecessary and insecure, there is no evidence that the containers carrying the fuel are safe from accidents. MOX fuel ia an alternative nuclear fuel made up of a mixture of uranium and plutonium. This shipment is a reminder to the South African government that the health and environment risks associated with nuclear power are real, and that taking the nuclear route in power generation is not the solution to reducing climate change emissions. Nuclear power will provide too little, too late to address climate change and it is a dangerous distraction, sucking billions of Rand in funding, away from the real solutions which could already be implemented today. TheTamshee says: MOX shipments are simply not worth the risk, they are a major terror target and pose an enormous threat to the environment of all countries en route.

Pacific Pintail "Nuclear Waste"

An anti-nuclear group has urged the South African government to make sure that two vessels carrying what is reportedly the biggest ever shipment of plutonium stay out of its waters.
"What we don't want is an accident at sea where we as a country have to carry the consequences," said Mike Kantey, chairman of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy, on Tuesday. The heavily armed Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Heron left Barrow-in-Furness in the north-west of England last week. They will collect their freight - a load of MOX nuclear fuel containing what environmentalists say are 1800kg of plutonium - at Cherbourg in France, then head for Japan. The route around the Cape is one of a number of possible routes the ships -which have been barred from the Suez Canal - may use.
In previous years the Pintail has used the Cape route when carrying nuclear materials. Kantey said Cane called on the government to ensure that the vessels stayed outside South Africa's 200 nautical mile economic exclusion zone.

Chain of events, the high level nuclear waste was transported by road haulage truck via the public highway system from the reprocessing facility at Cap La Hague to Cherbourg, France. After weeks of campaigning to stop highly radioactive waste from being shipped from France to Japan, Greenpeace launched an all out effort to prevent the transport vessel Pacific Pintail from being loaded for departure.

Greenpeace activists joined dozens of local French citizens in protesting the import, reprocessing, storage and disposal of nuclear waste in their community. Together they built a monument representing the nuclear waste left behind in France as part of this deadly plutonium trade

Greenpeace vessel, MV Moby Dick arrived in Cherbourg to provide a public platform for protest against reprocessing at La Hague. On the 23rd February, activists on board the Moby Dick, and four inflatable boats, moved to the docking area of the port of Cherbourg and placed themselves between it and the "Pacific Pintail" moving in to recieve its dangerous cargo. For 30 minutes the Moby Dick and its crewed inflatables delayed the docking of the freighter and prevented the plutonium waste from being placed on board.

The protest ended when a French military tug boat rammed the "Moby" and French naval commandos boarded the vessel, cut its anchor line and towed the ship out of the Cherbourg harbour. The inflatable boats were seized and removed from the area by commandos. Ten protestors were arrested, one injured and four left on the Moby Dick which was tethered to a buoy outside the harbour.

The Pacific Pintail, operated by Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd. (PNTL) of the UK, arrived in Cherbourg under cover of darkness to load its cargo of some 14 tonnes of plutonium waste. The first shipment contains 28 glassified blocks of highly radioactive nuclear waste in one large packing container. The material is so intensely radioactive that a person standing near a single unshielded glass block would recieve a lethal dose of radiation in less than 60 seconds.

Greenpeace crew were waiting on board a second vessel, the "Solo" and met the "Pintail" when it departed the harbour. They continue to track the shipment to alert countries along the route of the potential danger. Despite legal efforts to stop Greenpeace from tracking this shipment of nuclear waste, they will continue to shadow the vessel for as long as is possible en route to Japan.

TheTamshee says: Governments need to act responsibly, the first shipment to Japan in 1999 ended in fiasco after the producer, UK state company British Nuclear Fuels, admitted it had deliberately falsified vital quality control safety data. After an 18,000-mile voyage, the rejected fuel was shipped back to the UK. Two more cargoes, one delivered in 1999, the other in 2001, were opposed by local citizens and regional governments. Both shipments remain in storage with no prospect that they will ever be used. Enough already, stop the Nuclear madness!

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist now living in Penpont Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects, to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole." Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing for his ephemeral works. Andy was also the subject of a 2001 documentary feature film Rivers and Tides, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer. TheTamshee says: I admire the talent of this earth sculptor with a particular liking to the photography. "Goldsworthy's approach is to keep it simple, almost routine. All work, good or bad is documented. He uses standard film, lenses and no filters. Taking the photograph is not a casual act. It is very demanding and a balance is kept in which documentation does not interrupt the making. Each work grows, stays, decays - integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit in that moment. A drawing or painting would be too defined. The photographs leave the reason and spirit of the work outside. They are not the purpose but the result of my art" As Yves Klein said of his monochrome paintings: 'They are the left-overs from the creative process, the ashes. Andy's pictures, after all, are only the title deeds to his property which he has to produce when asked to prove that he is the proprietor. See title link to view some creative work with -Green patch (Elm) Leaf patches made by finding leaves the same size tearing one in two spitting underneath and pressing flat onto one another, Middleton Woods, Yorkshire