Defending Whales: Is South Korea deliberately netting whales?

Posted by Page (in Seattle)

Click for larger
Minke whale.
(Click to enlarge. Photo credit: NOAA.)

For many years, we’ve known that one of the major threats to the endangered near-threatened minke whales is bycatch, where the whales are caught in nets meant for other fishing purposes. In fact, back in 2005, Greenpeace bloggers in South Korea witnessed the butchering of a young minke whale caught as bycatch (photos, story).

In South Korea, it’s legal to sell whale meat from whales caught as bycatch. One minke whale can be worth as much as $100,000, so you can imagine what the fishing industry is suspected of doing.

That’s right. Deliberately netting minke whales.

Continue reading Is South Korea deliberately netting whales?…

Defending Whales: Is South Korea deliberately netting whales?

Posted by Page (in Seattle)

Click for larger
Minke whale.
(Click to enlarge. Photo credit: NOAA.)

For many years, we’ve known that one of the major threats to the endangered near-threatened minke whales is bycatch, where the whales are caught in nets meant for other fishing purposes. In fact, back in 2005, Greenpeace bloggers in South Korea witnessed the butchering of a young minke whale caught as bycatch (photos, story).

In South Korea, it’s legal to sell whale meat from whales caught as bycatch. One minke whale can be worth as much as $100,000, so you can imagine what the fishing industry is suspected of doing.

That’s right. Deliberately netting minke whales.

Continue reading Is South Korea deliberately netting whales?…

Greenpeace – Making Waves: Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling!

Posted by Dave (in Ireland)

The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time.

As a committed Whale Defender, we need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.

“The 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has begun its preliminary meeting in Anchorage ahead of the key decision making week from May 28th – 31st. Your delegation will be representing not only your government, but your electorate. We ask that you ensure that your delegation is briefed to vote for whale protection at this important meeting.”

Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling »

Greenpeace – Making Waves: Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling!

Posted by Dave (in Ireland)

The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time.

As a committed Whale Defender, we need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.

“The 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has begun its preliminary meeting in Anchorage ahead of the key decision making week from May 28th – 31st. Your delegation will be representing not only your government, but your electorate. We ask that you ensure that your delegation is briefed to vote for whale protection at this important meeting.”

Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling »

Defending Whales: Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling

Posted by Dave (in Ireland)


© Innerspace Visions / James D. Watt

The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time.

As a committed Whale Defender, we need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.

“The 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has begun its preliminary meeting in Anchorage ahead of the key decision making week from May 28th – 31st. Your delegation will be representing not only your government, but your electorate. We ask that you ensure that your delegation is briefed to vote for whale protection at this important meeting.”

Tell your government that you vote NO to commercial whaling »

Primary Forest Protection and Old-Growth Restoration Key to Solving Climate Change

As a forest conservation activist for 18 years, who later also became a climate change advocate for the past 9 years, it is so gratifying to see recent widespread acceptance of what has become Ecological Internet’s central message — large, connected ancient primary and old-growth forests are a requirement for stopping climate change and achieving global ecological sustainability. Global survival depends upon the Earth’s last 20% of natural, primary forests remaining intact and totally protected as “global ecological reserves” with fair payments for avoided deforestation. Indeed, humanity has overshot the amount of natural forest ecosystem that can be developed while sustaining biogeochemical processes upon which all life depends and maintaining an operable atmosphere. Thus, we promote restoration ecology to expand ancient forests, “rewilding” remnant forests into old-growth habitat in a targeted manner.

While ecological science highlighting the necessity of maintaining ancient forests to fight climate change (amongst other things) has strengthened; sadly mainstream environmental groups cling to failed policies of “certified, sustainable” logging of these ancient life giving wonders. World Without Forests (WWF) is the primary culprit. Given we have already lost too much ancient forest to maintain the Earth’s climate, and that selective first time logging certified or otherwise releases carbon and forever limits carbon sink potential; it is not enough to protect half of the Canadian Boreal — as a consortium of big money logging apologists propose. Nor is it enough to cut tropical deforestation by 50% (both presented below).

Defending Whales: Japan, Give Portugal a Chance!

Posted by Dave (in Ireland)

Here’s a video put together by a bunch of busy whale defenders that met online on whales.greenpeace.org – they got together in Lisbon, Portugal, and marched down the Japanese embassy to protest against Japan’s plan to wrest away the hosting of the 2009 International Whaling Commission meeting. What fantastic work!

Here’s the campaign idea: Japan; Give Portugal a Chance!»
Here’s a blog by one of the activists, Francisco Gonçalves »

GIFT THE EARTH 2007: EI’s $60K Mid-Year Fund Raiser

Support Ecological Internet’s Highly Successful Biocentric Campaigns, Knowledge Tools and Commentary

Funding Appeal #1 – What EI and You Have Done Recently
http://www.climateark.org/donate/
By Dr. Glen Barry, President, Ecological Internet

It is the time of year (every mid-May and November) when we ask network participants to “Gift the Earth” by supporting Ecological Internet’s (EI) efforts to pursue and achieve global ecological sustainability, one successful campaign at a time. EI’s efforts are largely funded by small individual donations, which as a 501c3 non-profit, are tax-deductible. EI simply must raise $60,000 over the next month and a half to remain operational and cover core computer, network bandwidth and staff costs. Could you please help EI continue its unique brand of grassroots global ecological activism by donating now what you can afford at http://www.climateark.org/donate/ ?

The good news is one donor has already given $10,000 to “prime the pump” — so we are already 17% to the goal — and another individual donor has given $25,000 to serve as a matching grant — doubling all donations of any size up to $25K. You give $100, EI gets $200! So it is up to YOU and the 25,000 other people in our email network, and the over one million people that use our web sites a month, to help EI raise the last $25K as small donations. Are you up to the task? Will EI survive? Can we get this done swiftly and then get back to saving the Earth? All sizes of donations — from $35 to $10,000, or what you can afford — are needed and appreciated.

What a year it has been thus far. As you know, EI is not interested in mamby-pamby feel good do nothing conservation — we are the only internationally active group in the world espousing necessary but difficult policies based upon ecological science that are sufficient to sustain the Earth; such as ending ancient forest logging, closing coal power plants, and dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions (more on campaign goals at http://www.climateark.org/campaigns/). Nonetheless, together EI and you have been the main player galvanizing major conservation victories in Brazil and Ecuador’s rainforests, and we have participated in much needed positive climate policy here in the US (see http://www.ecoearth.info/kudos/).

Add fuel efficiency by adding brains to your car

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I like the news in this article from Breitbart, but I don’t think the way it is presented is ultimately very helpful.

First, the news: a study released last week found that vehicles with telematics – communication devices that exchange information with a network about traffic and can help the driver change their driving style to avoid stop-start conditions (something like this) – deliver fuel economy on par with hybrids. Depending on how far ahead the telematics is programmed (60 seconds, 180 seconds), the fuel efficiency of the non-hybrid vehicles increased up to 33 percent (compared to 15-25 for the standard hybrids).

But why is the presentation of this information described as a competitive one of hybrids vs. telematics.
Saving fuel and driving smarter are not an either/or situation. Yes, it’s useful to use this type of comparison because a lot of people understand the hybrids = fuel savings equation. But considering that this study was done by engineers at Australia’s University of Melbourne, it seems like a no brainer to also figure out the potential fuel savings of a hybrid with telematics, don’t you think?

[Source: Breitbart]

 

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