An endangered Right Whale is dead off the coast of Florida after being slashed repeatedly by a boat propeller:
To save these most endangered of the large whales, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service is reviewing proposals to limit ship speeds near ports or within whale areas and to reroute shipping lanes, which has already been done in Canadian waters. Some cargo companies say that their large ships are hard to maneuver at slow speeds, though, and tour companies have said speed limits would kill their business, the Associated Press reports.
Al-qaeda now looking for blood in Somalia, because they can not satisfy their thirst in the Middle East.
I am African, I am Ghanian, I am Akan, and I am human. But do Americans see him for who he is? And why don't we look harder?
No matter what we claim, it is still and only about religion in this country, first and formost.
The UN can not save the Sudan, not when some peacekeepers prefer to bring more horrors instead:
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said on Wednesday that U.N. peacekeepers and civilian staff were raping and abusing children as young as 12 in southern Sudan. The paper said it had interviewed 20 young victims in the south Sudan capital Juba.
New Orleans has become America's Baghad, even though no one wants to admit it. (And oh Jenny D., how sorry I am for your lost friend.)
2007 will be the hottest year ever, a polar ice shelf has collapsed, and if we fail to act now the planet could change forever:
"If we follow business as usual, and we don't get off this course where year by year we're getting larger and larger emissions of CO2, then we'll have large sea-level rises this century and I think that will become more apparent over the next decade or two," Dr Hansen said.
"The last time it was 3C warmer, sea levels were 25 metres higher, plus or minus 10 metres. You'd not get that in one century, but you could get several metres in one century," he said.
"Half the people in the world live within 15 miles of a coastline. A large fraction of the major cities are on coastlines. And the problem is that once you get the process started and well on the way, it's impossible to prevent it. That's why we need to address the issue before it gets out of control."
Many species of animals and plants are not going to cope with rising temperatures, which are causing isotherms - lines of equal temperature - to travel polewards at the rate of 50km a decade, compared with the average rate of species migration of 6km per decade.
"Those species at high latitudes have no place to go to. Many of them will be in trouble. They will effectively be pushed off the planet," Dr Hansen said.
And still there is Iraq and Afghanistan and a Congress that must listen but historically does not, and a culture that honors celebrity above all others and a world that is spinning and spinning and spinning away from our last hope of control.
Does it matter that I resolve to use my bowflex more often, do pilates regularly, eat right and work harder at maintaining my weight? Does my resolution to finish one book by March 31st and start another the very next day mean anything to whales and polar bears and the Chinese river dolphin? Do all these plans for self improvement, all these promises on talk shows and magazines, all these heartfelt conversations between mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, husband and wives about a new start, a new plan, a new approach to living really matter?
We can not push ourselves away from the table when we are full, tell me please, how dare we think we are able to save the world?
I write a check for Amnesty International and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Heifer International, and the NRDC, and Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society. I co-sponsor a scholarship in my father's high school, in his name, for a student eager to learn. I adopted my latest pet from the Humane Society and joined the Australia Zoo and the Wolf Conservancy. I vote and I write letters to my elected officials, I let them know that I will not be silent on stem cell research, on the environment, on civil liberties, on peace. I reach for a book on the nightstand beside me and I resolve to continue to learn, continue to share that knowledge, continue to try.
I open the book, I turn on the computer, and I write. I reach out to the world and I have a voice. It's so small what I can do, what all of us can do.
A Right Whale has died off the coast of Florida, I remember him today; I remember why he matters.
