Monday, October 31, 2011

Elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live

30 questions to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live:


1) Point north. [Recommendations for answer methods]
2) What time is sunset today? [Recommendations]
3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap. [Recommendations]
4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water? [Recommendations]
5) How many feet above sea level are you? [Recommendations]
6) What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom here? [Recommendations]
7) How far do you have to travel before you reach a different watershed? Can you draw the boundaries of yours? [Recommendations]
8) Is the soil under your feet, more clay, sand, rock or silt? [Recommendations]
9) Before your tribe lived here, what did the previous inhabitants eat and how did they sustain themselves? [Recommendations]
10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available. [Recommendations]
11) From what direction do storms generally come? [Recommendations]
12) Where does your garbage go? [Recommendations]
13) How many people live in your watershed? [Recommendations]
14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood? [Recommendations]
15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice? [Recommendations]
16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move? [Recommendations]
17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water? [Recommendations]
18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past? [Recommendations]
19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)? [Recommendations]
20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put? [Recommendations]

21) What was the total rainfall here last year? [Recommendations]
22) Where does the pollution in your air come from? [Recommendations]
23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today? [Recommendations]
24) What primary geological processes or events shaped the land here? [Recommendations]
25) Name three wild species that were not found here 500 years ago. Name one exotic species that has appeared in the last 5 years. [Recommendations]
26) What minerals are found in the ground here that are (or were) economically valuable? [Recommendations]
27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated? [Recommendations]
28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?   [Recommendations]
29) Where is the nearest wilderness? When was the last time a fire burned through it? [Recommendations]
30) How many days till the moon is full? [Recommendations]
The Bigger Here Bonus Questions:
31) What species once found here are known to have gone extinct? [Recommendations]
32) What other cities or landscape features on the planet share your latitude? [Recommendations]
33) What was the dominant land cover plant here 10,000 years ago? [Recommendations]

34) Name two places on different continents that have similar sunshine/rainfall/wind and temperature patterns to here. [Recommendations]

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Nice Docmentary on the Elwha

Unconquering the Last Frontier This documentary covers the removal of the Elwha dams and the hard work done by the Klallam tribe, Park Service and local residents that made it possible...

Unconquering the Last Frontier from Robert Lundahl on Vimeo.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Deforestation of the Vital Papua New Guinea Rainforest

In East New Britain, Papua, New Guinea, indigenous people are being intimidated for protesting a massive land grab that is taking place. Indigenous people there still retain control over their land, and only 3 percent of the country is controlled by government or private interests, until recent leases that assign almost 20 percent of the remaining forests to agriculture leases.
The government has taken a controversial role in allowing more "Special-purpose Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs), where the government leases the land, and then sub-lets it to corporations. In recent months, groups have called for inquiry, and an investigation can determine if in fact these leases facilitated by the government are in fact just an avenue to allow logging and agriculture companies access to one of the largest remaining expanse of rainforest in the world.
Palm Oil companies want to log the forest to use the land for plantations. These private interests involved in the efforts toward deforestation involve a giant Malaysian business conglomerate called Rimbunan Hijau. They have been paying police to threaten and intimidate protesters. These security guards wear uniforms that indicate they're with a company called Gilford Limited, which is suspected to be a front for this conglomerate, has obtained a permit to clear the area, but local villagers say the lease was obtained without their consent.
One international organization that has a presence in Papua New Guinea also has local chapters in many corners of the world is Friends of the Earth. This group does a lot to support the empowerment of indigenous peoples, helping them to organize at the local level to hold back the onslaught of "for-proft" development of corporations that may not be required to act with concern for the environmental impacts of their activities, particularly in the developing world where most of the earth's unspoiled landscapes are found.

Deforestation is a concern to me because I love wild places, and believe that we should have the smarts and the ability to find alternatives without destroying the natural environments, but "moneyed" interests make decisions that affect people in far-away places where they don't (yet) feel the impacts of the destruction they cause. The forests of the world are carbon sinks – the lungs of the earth, if you will, that are being depleted and contributing to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere and climate change/current global warming trend. The destruction of forests is the "H"in HIPPO, the number one contributing factor to the extinction of species on earth.
A very neat site that has a lot of information and resources is Wilderness.net, so i thought i'd share that link here as well.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-11/png-police-reveal-crackdown-financed-by-loggers/3496032
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/massive-land-grab-of-papua-new-guineas-remain/blog/37337/?
Global Corruption Report 2011: Climate Change Hypothetical offsets Carbon trading and land rights in Papua New Guinea, Sarah Dix (Transparency International Papua New Guinea) 345-347
utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_network&utm_term=19_10_11_1330&utm_campaign=forests
http://www.foei.org/
http://www.wilderness.net/

Sunday, October 16, 2011

USA is 39th worst out of 136 nations in Disparity of Distribution of Income

Rank
country Distribution of family income - Gini index Date of Information
1 Namibia
70.7
2003
2 South Africa
65.0
2005
3 Lesotho
63.2
1995
4 Botswana
63.0
1993
5 Sierra Leone
62.9
1989
6 Central African Republic
61.3
1993
7 Haiti
59.2
2001
8 Colombia
58.5
2009
9 Bolivia
58.2
2009
10 Honduras
57.7
2007
11 Guatemala
55.1
2007
12 Brazil
53.9
2009
13 Thailand
53.6
2009
14 Hong Kong
53.3
2007
15 Paraguay
53.2
2009
16 Chile
52.1
2009
17 Mexico
51.7
2008
18 Panama
51.0
2010 est.
19 Papua New Guinea
50.9
1996
20 Zambia
50.8
2004
21 Swaziland
50.4
2001
22 Costa Rica
50.3
2009
23 Gambia, The
50.2
1998
24 Zimbabwe
50.1
2006
25 Dominican Republic
48.4
2007
26 Peru
48.0
2009
27 Singapore
47.8
2009
28 Madagascar
47.5
2001
29 Nepal
47.2
2008
30 El Salvador
46.9
2007
31 Ecuador
46.9
June 2010
32 Rwanda
46.8
2000
33 Malaysia
46.2
2009
34 Argentina
45.8
2009
35 Philippines
45.8
2006
36 Mozambique
45.6
2008
37 Jamaica
45.5
2004
38 Bulgaria
45.3
2007
39 United States
45.0
2007
40 Cameroon
44.6
2001
41 Iran
44.5
2006
42 Cambodia
44.4
2007 est.
43 Uganda
44.3
2009
44 Macedonia
44.2
2008
45 Nigeria
43.7
2003
46 Guyana
43.2
1999
47 Nicaragua
43.1
2001
48 Kenya
42.5
2008 est.
49 Burundi
42.4
1998
50 Uruguay
42.4
2009
51 Russia
42.2
2009
52 China
41.5
2007
53 Cote d'Ivoire
41.5
2008
54 Senegal
41.3
2001
55 Venezuela
41.0
2009
56 Morocco
40.9
2007 est.
57 Turkmenistan
40.8
1998
58 Georgia
40.8
2009
59 Sri Lanka
40.3
2007
60 Mali
40.1
2001
61 Tunisia
40.0
2005 est.
62 Jordan
39.7
2007
63 Turkey
39.7
2008
64 Burkina Faso
39.5
2007
65 Guinea
39.4
2007
66 Ghana
39.4
2005-06
67 Israel
39.2
2008
68 Mauritius
39.0
2006 est.
69 Malawi
39.0
2004
70 Mauritania
39.0
2000
71 Portugal
38.5
2007
72 Moldova
38.0
2008
73 Yemen
37.7
2005
74 Lithuania
37.6
2008
75 Vietnam
37.6
2008
76 Japan
37.6
2008
77 Tanzania
37.6
2007
78 Indonesia
36.8
2009
79 Uzbekistan
36.8
2003
80 India
36.8
2004
81 Laos
36.7
2008
82 Mongolia
36.5
2008
83 Benin
36.5
2003
84 New Zealand
36.2
1997
85 Bosnia and Herzegovina
36.2
2007
86 Latvia
35.7
2008
87 Algeria
35.3
1995
88 Albania
34.5
2008
89 Egypt
34.4
2001
90 Poland
34.2
2008
91 United Kingdom
34.0
2005
92 Niger
34.0
2007
93 Azerbaijan
33.7
2008
94 Croatia
33.7
2008
95 Switzerland
33.7
2008
96 Kyrgyzstan
33.4
2007
97 Bangladesh
33.2
2005
98 Greece
33.0
2005
99 France
32.7
2008
100 Taiwan
32.6
2000
101 Tajikistan
32.6
2006
102 Canada
32.1
2005
103 Spain
32.0
2005
104 Italy
32.0
2006
105 Timor-Leste
31.9
2007 est.
106 Estonia
31.4
2009
107 Korea, South
31.4
2009
108 Romania
31.2
2008
109 Netherlands
30.9
2007
110 Armenia
30.9
2008
111 Pakistan
30.6
FY07/08
112 Australia
30.5
2006
113 European Union
30.4
2009 est.
114 Montenegro
30.0
2008
115 Ethiopia
30.0
2000
116 Kosovo
30.0
FY05/06
117 Ireland
29.3
2009
118 Cyprus
29.0
2005
119 Denmark
29.0
2007
120 Slovenia
28.4
2008
121 Serbia
28.2
2008
122 Belgium
28.0
2005
123 Iceland
28.0
2006
124 Ukraine
27.5
2008
125 Belarus
27.2
2008
126 Germany
27.0
2006
127 Finland
26.8
2008
128 Kazakhstan
26.7
2009
129 Austria
26.0
2007
130 Slovakia
26.0
2005
131 Luxembourg
26.0
2005
132 Malta
26.0
2007
133 Czech Republic
26.0
2005
134 Norway
25.0
2008
135 Hungary
24.7
2009
136 Sweden
23.0
2005