I just thought I'd share this quote with you all:


“There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people.  That comes afterward, when you've worked on your own corner.”
Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop

I used it as part of a presentation I had to do for class. It was on the subject of accepting responsibility for our impacts on the Earth system, both biophysical and socio-economically. Once we can do this, then we can rise to the challenge of trying to amend what it is we are doing wrong. I believe that if you accept responsibility as an individual then you can work on your own corner of the universe and help change the rest.
Also, Aldous Huxley is the bees knees.

:)

Cartoons

I've been neglecting this blog quite a bit. Seeing as I am now at uni studying environmental and sustainability issues I should have more material to contribute.
I thought I would share these sustainability cartoons I came across when preparing for a presentation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/jul/23/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange#/?picture=335854759&index=1

This is one of my favourites:

I've also found some others around the internet that I quite like:

Here's one Tom Fishburne:

Visit his flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandcamp/

The Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary

My teacher showed me this great video and we used it in an assembly presentation (still on the theme of plastic in the ocean):

Calculate your Carbon Footprint

We all know that excessive greenhouse gases are bad... obviously. But how much are you responsible for? Do you need to change your lifestyle? How can you lower your impact? Find out here at: The Footprint Network

Photo of the Week #2

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, I thought this was an appropriately cute winter photo:

This image is from a gallery on BBC Wildlife's website (http://www.discoverwildlife.com/gallery/animals-snow-photo-gallery). Did you know that during winter, adult red foxes can be found curled up and completely covered in snow?
Wishing you all a Happy Holiday!

Photo of the Week

I'm now going to introduce Photo of the Week to keep me posting on this blog regularly. It seems that I forget about it for a few weeks and then I publish a bunch of stuff. Browsing on National Geographic's website I found this one:

Link:http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/10/gulf-oil-spill/gulf-spill-photography 

To continue with an ocean sort of theme, I chose this image because of the contrast between the white sand and the grimy brown oil sludge washed up on the shore. This is a photo of Orange Beach, Alabama after the Gulf Oil Spill, otherwise known as the Deepwater Horizons spill.

Here are some ugly facts about this spill:

• It is by far the world's largest accidental release of oil, spilling 5 million barrels (almost 795 million litres) of oil (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03spill.html?_r=1 )
• It killed 605 sea turtles, 97 mammals, 6104 birds
• This will impact 400 species of wildlife and fish that are part of the Gulf ecosystem
• The Gulf produces around a fifth of total US commercial seafood and three quarters of its shrimp 

Source: http://www.nwf.org/Oil-Spill/Effects-on-Wildlife.aspx

Effects of Plastic on Ocean Wildlife

Here's some information about the effect of plastic on ocean wildlife that I put together for a poster. This poster was for a project to raise awareness in my school about plastic and the ocean. We also sold fair trade hot chocolate to get people's attention and donated the money to the Marine Conservation Society for their adopt a turtle project.

Many animals, especially albatrosses who feed plastic to their chicks, die from ingesting plastic. Due to its longevity (it can take up to a thousand years to break down completely!) and once the dead animal has decayed, the plastic will return to the environment as a threat to other marine animals.

Info: http://plasticbags.planetark.org/about/wildlife.cfm

Photo: http://www.tripdance.org/IMAGES%20Web/Poisoning%20the%20Well/Sea-Plastic-LN-PG5oct05a.jpg

The leatherback turtle has survived the extinction of the dinosaur only to be threatened by our carelessness. They are now listed as critically endangered. Feeding mostly on jellyfish, the leatherback is likely to ingest plastic bags or other forms of plastic. This then gets caught in their digestive tract, blocking it and potentially resulting in the turtle starving to death.

Info: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315224258.htm

Photo: http://www.mcsuk.org/images/beachwatch/press_images/turtle_plastic.jpg