Japan, stop killing Bluefin tuna!

In Japan the Bluefin tuna is particularly prized (a single large fish can fetch more than $ 100.000). 
The large demand in this country led to aggressive fishing practices and the populations today are a tenth of what they were in the 1950s. 
The decline is faster everyday because of open-ocean pens where wild juvenile tuna are put: these animals are removed from the wild before they have spawned and this is deleterious for the survival of the species. 

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bluefin-tuna

We're destroying our source of survival. WATER POLLUTION.

As teachers have always told us since the very first years of school, water is essential for life. They taught us the water cycle, that it covers 71% of the earth's surface, that it makes up 65% of our bodies. 
Now, water is becoming increasingly polluted and this is a threat to our health, to the fertility of the soil and to the survival of wildlife. 

Water pollution is the result of human activities. 
The water we daily use in our houses and industries is taken from lakes, rivers and from the underground and, after we have used it (and contaminated it) most of it returns to these locations. 
If this waste water is not treated before it is discharged into waterways, then serious pollution will be the result. 

To prevent water pollution we should remove the pollutants before the water gets back into the environment. 
When the polluted water of the rivers arrive to the sea the nitrates and phosphates create beds of green algae and produce periodic catastrophic loss of marine life. 
In the 60s the Thames was biologically "dead"...nowadays the quality of its water is better. 

This situation is worse in the developing countries, where environmental policies are often almost non-existent and hazardous substances are used in the industrial processes and then poured out into lakes and rivers. 
Lots of people in these countries die because of the contaminated water and many ecosystems have been or are being destroyed. 

(Thanks to Lorenzo S. for helping me writing this post) 

GREENHOUSE effect. We have to stop it. And we have to start NOW.

125.000 years ago in Europe there were lions and elephants; at that time the temperatures were 3 Celsius degrees higher than today and forests covered Greenland. 
Soon, it may be 3 degrees hotter again but this time the change isn't happening naturally. 
This all is happening because of pollution...and it is happening very quickly. 

Pollution sends 4 main "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere. They are: 
- Carbon dioxide (CO2)
- CFC (chloro-fluoro-carbons)
- Methane 
- Nitrous oxide 

CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas and it causes half of this problem. Nearly 6 billion tonnes of it enter the atmosphere every year from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil). An extra 1,5 billion tonnes each year come from the burning of rainforest trees; normally, trees absorb CO2 but there are less day by day. 
Methane and Nitrous oxide come from fertilizers, cow's stomachs and rubbish. 
CFC are very dangerous, each one can trap 10.000 time more heat than an atom of CO2...and they don't just stay in the atmosphere, they destroy the ozone layer! 

The greenhouse effect causes enormous damage to the earth and its inhabitants: the sun's rays reflected on earth can't easily get out of the atmosphere, causing a rise in the level of temperatures; this provokes the melting of the perennial ice, causing a rise in the sea levels and the desertification of lots of areas of the planet. The oceans' temperature increase causes always more frequent devastating atmospheric phenomena. The knock-on effects produced are dreadful. 

So...HOW CAN WE STOP IT? 

- Stop using fossil fuels 

- Preserve rainforests beacuse the earth needs more trees, not fewer

- Use renewable energy, now at 20%. To slow down the greenhouse effect that number must rise to 50% in the next 15 years

- Totally ban CFCs in all the countries of the world

(Thanks to Lorenzo S. for helping me writing this post)

Towards sustainable agriculture...

A growing movement emerged during the past two decades whose aim is to promote practices that contribute to solve many environmental and social concerns. 
Sustainable agriculture consists in reducing (but not eliminating) the use of chemical products, developing integrated farming systems. This all received considerable attention from researchers, who see it as a compromise between conventional and organic farming. 

Sustainable agriculture has within it three main goals: 
- to improve agricultural production and systems;
- to fulfil farmers' needs and lifestyle choices;
- to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 

"Sustainable rural development must become a key priority for the European Union. Public health must not be endangered. It is more important than commercial interests." (Franz Fischler, 1996)

(Thanks to Lorenzo S. for helping me writing this post) 

Lest we forget...2010, catastrophe in the Gulf.

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. 
On April 22, the rig collapsed causing the worst spill in U.S. history (and maybe the world's). 
Despite all the attempts to stop the mile-long pipeline, oil inundated delicate wetlands, smothering plants and wildlife. 
Beaches closed and fishing grounds were shut down. 
The environmental, economic and political repercussions spread well beyond the oil-slicked surface of the Gulf...

The journey of Sky, Amber and Scout: Disney Nature's "Bears".

After "Earth", Disney amazes again with an extraordinary documentary about the life of an Alaskan bears family and their incredible habitat. 

The journey of this mama-bear and her two cubs starts at the end of winter in the mountains, going down to the coast looking for food, facing the thousands of troubles and threats of the wild life. 

This documentary also shows the life of the other Alaskan bears and of other species surrounding them like wolves, American eagles, salmons ecc. 

I strongly recommend to watch it to all the people who (like me) are spellbound in front of the uncontaminated nature and the magical shows that it can give. 

INDONESIA: deforestation champion.

The magazine "Nature climate change" published a report about deforestation which revealed that Indonesia has a double deforestation rate compared to the Brazilian one and so it has become the greatest forests destroyer in the world : 840.000 hectares (compared to 460.000 hectares destroyed by Brazil) of primary and uncontaminated forests.

But there are good news... The winner of the latest political elections, Joko Widodo, has announced a plan to preserve the forests. We hope they won't remain just words...