All for One… (Video)

The latest YouTube video from the World Wildlife Fund seems an appropriate follow on to yesterday’s post.

Enjoy!

Kudos to the Central Park Zoo!

We took the kids to the Central Park Zoo today, where they had an absolutely wonderful time.  I was happy to see great attention paid to the dual themes of wildlife protection and climate change.  If we can stem the tide of climate change long enough to pass the baton to the next generation, I’m certain that they’ll be better stewards than we have.  (And I won’t hold it against them if they decide to turn that baton on us…)

The shot below is from a set of stairs inside the zoo.  The whole place is done up with quotes and poems of the same ilk.  It was a pleasure to behold.

If you liked this, you might want to check out my last post on Al Gore’s latest piece for Rolling Stone magazine:

Al Gore’s Beautiful Polemic

Posted from WordPress for Android

The Killa From Wasilla?

Photo by: smiteme

That Dog Don’t Hunt|Malia Litman’s Blog

I came across an interesting story this morning that I had to pass along.  I can’t attest to its veracity, but think it bears repeating so that those who can might.  The author’s decision to use the words of Levi Johnston certainly lowered my expectation that it will be proven true.  The passage below is from Malia Litman’s Blog.  Litman, author of  “Rebuttal to the Rogue,” claims to have found evidence that Palin is lying about her hunting exploits.  Either that, or the “Killa From Wasilla” is just hunting out of season and without a license.  Either way, should the claims prove true (I sure hope they do!), it will be time to close the book on the Looney Tunes chapter of American politics.

Drop the Chalupa

Photo by: neilalderney123

Sen. Lincoln’s Farm “Aid” Plan Falls Flat | Sustainable Food | Change.org.

The link above got me thinking about the troubled state of farming in the U.S.  While my knowledge of U.S. farming is admittedly cursory, I’m pretty certain the systems in place are overwhelmingly screwed up as they reward one thing alone, size.  Subsidies guarantee that the larger a farm becomes, the greater its rewards.  This distorts production by removing market demand from the picture.  Rather than creating positive incentives (hard work) for farmers to produce a variety of nutritious foods, we give them perverse incentives (easy work) to produce a handful of crops which deliver questionable benefits.  Industrial farms chase these incentives which align with corporate America’s short-term profit agenda.  This big bank take little bank approach has led us to a point where a few companies control much of our food system.  We’ve literally put all of our eggs in just a few baskets, which puts them all at greater risk of spreading toxins and disease. (I’ll tackle this part of our food chain at length in a future post.)  Producing these highly subsidized food products creates incentives for those with limited budgets to consume these foods.  Subsidizing these crops makes them more affordable for consumers which creates a downstream “tax” as they are typically unhealthy.  

Dolphin Season opens in Taiji, Japan

Photo by: Jesslee Cuizon

News of Japan’s dolphin hunting season seems to be everywhere this week, but here’s a quick rundown for those who’ve missed out.

Japanese “fisherman” catch thousands of dolphins of which a small number are sold to aquariums and theme parks like Sea World.  They butcher the rest of the catch and sell it as seafood.  (The six-month season, which started September 1st, claims an average of over 20,000 dolphins annually.)  Dolphins have unsafe concentrations of mercury in their bodies due to sitting at the top of their food chain.  This makes the meat unsafe to eat, as well as being highly unethical to most.