WTF?

Dikutip dari komitmen2 lingkungan beberapa parpol...
(cf. http://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/id/Pemilu/)

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"Menghentikan semua proses konservasi kawasan hutan lindung untuk menghentikan perusakan hutan"

WTF??????

Tell me that's a typo...

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"T: Pendapat anda tentang moratorium dan setujukah anda tentang moratorium?
J: ****** (nama partai) bukan setuju lagi, tapi sangat setuju sekali. Karena itu merupakan nafasnya seluruh penduduk di suatu negara. Dan sebenarnya karbon kita bisa dijual ke luar negeri karena hutan Indonesia merupakan salah satu hutan yang terbesar di dunia."

dude... do you even know what a moratorium is??????

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an hour of darkness

So it's earth hour today... reduction of energy use from 8.30-9.30

many are saying, "what's the point? It's just some idealistic symbolism"

I don't think so though... Even though the energy saved is pretty insignificant compared to the normal energy use, especially considering it's just for an hour, i think think this act shows what we would be able to do, if only we are willing to do it...

Though I agree there's the point that we are willing to do it only because it is still convenient for us to do it... but at least we still have some will to do it, no?

Better than nothing I reckon... especially considering we'd have to settle for less and less as time goes by...

and probably a good reminder on what may happen when it all finally comes tumbling down...

last laugh...

Who'll be having the last laugh?

Sometimes I just wanna see those ignorant fools to harvest what they have sown...
Let's see what they will say when the crap hits the fan...

Then we'll see who will have the last laugh...

Though whoever that may be... The laugh will definitely be a dry, ironic one... laughing at ourselves as a whole...

pfff..... you know what? why bother... why do I even effin' bother...

If they are right, well good then...

otherwise... fare thee well... we've had our 15 minutes...

next would be the age of the microbes or thermophiles maybe?

feeling sooo doomsday-ey lately...

naze kaaa????

Hmmm, haven't written for a while... i don't think anyone actually read all this shit i wrote here... but anyway, who cares, just want to write it out...

Sometime i get really depressed when i think about all this mess we live in... honestly though, is there a point?...

does anyone who actually would make a difference still care...

yea yea, i know i always spout the "everyone can make a difference" crap... but do i even really believe it?

it's money that talks after all... money and power.... and usually when you have plenty enough of money, then you'll have power...

so are we a doomed race after all then... is sustainability just a far-fetched dream?

is it really impossible for us (or at least our current society) to co-exist with nature...

will we reach a techno-utopia, where the engineer's dream of creating machines that would sustain our existence on the planet be achieved?

Or will we fall into dystopia, and try to cling on to the slim hope of existence as the natural world around us crumbles....

coz to be honest... reaching a green utopia looks more and more impossible as time goes by...

...grim is our future... and i'm becoming depressed...

why am i studying environmental science then? dunno... the "feel good" factor i guess... the shrinking idealist in me still trying to hold on to that last glimmer of hope...
and well, who knows... as society starts to crumble in the face of gaia, my knowledge may be of some use...

pragmatic conservationism... yes... i think i hold this view now...

since trying to conserve everything seems to become more and more of a lost cause... then better focus on those that you might actually be able to conserve...

...sliding down the idealism-realism scale...

and does anyone who matters give a shit? meh, who cares...

~doomsaying~

Don't worry guys, the earth is not in trouble, despite of global warming and climate change and mass extinctions and resource shortages, the earth would not be affected...
Might as well throw in some volcanoes blowing their tops, or an asteroid collision or two, the earth would probably continue existing...

Because contrary to what you may think, the earth is a survivor... It has survived numerous global disasters (ice ages, asteroids, etc...) and went through numerous mass extinctions... So don't worry about the earth =)

Humankind and life as we know it, on the other hand, wouldn't probably survive for long if the current trend on the face of the earth continues...

So... we probably wouldn't need to save the earth (I doubt we would be able to even if we seriously tried), what we need to do is to save ourselves and our ecosystem (the living environment where we live in).



There is no way in heaven or 'the other place' that mankind would be able to convert the environment into a pristine state, not even if tomorrow suddenly all nations decide to go "green", the damage has already been done... What's left to do now is damage control, and try not to exacerbate it...

How can you help, you might ask? By doing little things that you can do. Turn off the lights when you're not in the room, take cold showers (or take less showers =P), etc etc, anything you can do in your household or around you.
Because every little thing counts, for every big thing starts from something small =)

the return ~ mk.II

Whoa, haven't posted here for ages...
so yeah, i'm back =)
Decided to utilize this blog for my 'eco-enviro-rants'
and keep using fster blog for random posts (so probably posts on this blog will be few and quite far in between, depending on my mood)...

oh yeah, just in case you stumbled into my blog while browsing for eco-articles on the net, allow me to introduce myself

I'm Nara, a cetacean lover (hence the name of the blog) who studied marine biology & ecology in wellington, NZ. I'm actually from Indonesia though. My interests include (yep you guessed it) biology and ecology and the environment, I also enjoy reading japanese comics/manga online (umm, to save papers, lol) and strumming my guitar (just started learning to play it) while singing. Oh, I love watching documentaries on TV, and a big fan of mythbusters (i find their approach to scientific testing amusing).

When I'm bored, I tend to rant about things on my blog, often about the environment.

nuff said for now...

oh btw, i'm currently back in Indonesia, couldn't find a job back in welly so decided (err... semi-forced by the NZ immigration) to come home, and... yep... still looking for a job...
(this is for those employers out there, if you need a hard-working, eco-friendly, scientist/educator wannabe, give me a shout!) ;)

also currently applying for a scholarship (master in environmental science, policy & management), still waiting on the result of my application, so wish me luck =)

okay, on to the rants!!!

a minor inconvenience? or a wake up call?

Finally got around to watch An Inconvenient Truth just now...

Oh my God........... Even though I am already aware of all the issues presented in the movie beforehand, I am still stunned as I watched it...
I never realized the true extent of the problem...

I've always (wrongly) assumed that everyone would probably have some idea on what is happening all around us, every single day... Boy was I wrong...

But could this be the end of humanity???......
Maybe not... It seems that Al Gore may have exaggerated and hyperbolized some of the contents of the movie...
But I have to say, it is indeed a great way to convey the message, and if it does not send alarm bells ringing in any right minded person, I doubt that person has the right to be called "right-minded"...

ACT NOW!!!
At least start by watching the movie, don't worry, it's presented in such a way that common people without a scientific background would still get a grasp on it...

and no, I'm not writing this to promote the movie or anything like that (hey, I don't get paid for doing this)... I just want as many people to realize what's going on... I'm doing this in my conscience as a human being, as a resident on this planet, as a part of the biosphere...

Hopefully I can make a difference, even if it's only a tiny bit... Every single act counts...


*one thing that kinda popped up in my mind when I watched...

We ecologists know of a phenomenon called "carrying capactiy" or termed as "K". Basically, a habitat has a finite carrying capacity, in which it can only support a certain relative population of organisms in it.

When the population exceeds the carrying capacity, the habitat cannot support it anymore, and an internal mechanism will drive the population down towards that maximum population limit (i.e. by famine, disease, etc), and the maximum population limit will fluctuate around the carrying capacity.

(okay, I have to say thanks to Dr. Kevin C. Burns for his BIOL214 lecture, lol)

I should probably also point out that human population is growing exponentially, especially in the past few decades... Since the main barrier on our population growth used to be war, famine, disease, and space...

But with the advent of our current technology, famine and disease have recently become more of a localized barrier instead of a universal one, and even though there are still war fought on the face of the earth, they are also localized in certain areas, and do not limit the global population growth.

And that leaves us with space, and this is the main limit on human population... However, human have begun to colonise places on earth which may not have been supposed to be colonised in the first place, and the result of this colonisation have left a scar on the face of the earth...

Now, when I watched the movie, I started thinking, does the human population on earth have neared, or even exceeded, the earth's carrying capacity?

Does the biosphere cannot longer support our exponential growth rate? Could global warming and climate change be the earth's mechanism of driving our population numbers down, or at least limiting our population growth?

For if this is true, we are probably on the verge of a massive die-off of human populations......*

I'll end this post with a quote from Sir Winston Churchill (also quoted in the movie)

"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is"

flood

Was watching RCTI earlier today at KBRI, the news was on, and as I expected, the main issue is still about the flood. If you haven't heard yet, Jakarta is currently experiencing a huge flood, comparable to the one that happened 5 years ago. This time, it is said to cover about 70% of Jakarta's surface. I really feel sorry to those who are suffering from it, and pray for their well being.

However, one thing that really disturbs me is that when they interviewed the governor and some other important people from the government, most of what they had to say consisted of finger-pointings and blaming others for past mistakes and what that should have been done that would have prevented this from happening. While I acknowledge that some constructive criticism is invaluable, and that correcting past mistakes would help them prepare for the future (which is what they SHOULD have done better after the 2002 flood), this should be done AFTER things have settled down, finger-pointing at this moment would NOT help anyone!!! If anything, it would make things even worse, making people who should be working together to find a way out of this into hating each other (probably hate is not the right word here, but I can't think of another word at the moment).
Though I have to admit that I did not follow the whole story of the disaster, since I only got most of my news from the bbc website, but still, I believe that creating more animosity in the middle of a disaster won't do any good...

Just giving some opinion...

ANYWAY on other issues... I just moved to a new place a couple of weeks ago, and it's been quite nice here. I'll tell a bit more on this probably in my next post :)