Pesticide leaking from shipping container at Moreton Bay, Brisbane

“A man is in a serious condition in a Brisbane hospital after a dangerous pesticide leak in a shipping container at Fisherman Islands at the Port of Brisbane.” The toxin “is believed to contain the chemical endosulfan”.

This highly toxic POP is banned in the EU and other countries, it is very persistent in the environment.” Endosulfan is a very toxic chemical for nearly all kind of organisms. Endosulfan has the potential to cause some endocrine disruption in both terrestrial and aquatic species. Endosulfan causes neurotoxicity and haematological effects and nephrotoxicity.”

The organochlorine pesticides came from “a leaking shipping container” on Fisherman Islands (map, pdf) which is surrounded by the Moreton Bay Marine Park.

The Bay Journal reports on the 'rapid crowding' of Moreton Bay in the Port of Brisbane.
Already there are a lot of threats to the Moreton Bay Marine Park .There are more horror tales of a 'A Primeval Tide of Toxins' in Moreton Bay.
Hope, the man makes it and the abundant marine wildlife and birds are not harmed.
Links:
- "The European Commission has proposed to amend the annexes to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants by adding endosulfan, a neurotoxic organochlorine insecticide."
- Moreton Bay Marine Park

The Nullarbor - from diversity to BIG monotony

The Nullarbor is the world's largest piece of limestone.The vegetation consists mainly of “ bluebush and saltbush plants, hardy shrubs that are drought-resistant and salt-tolerant." The area is arid and almost treeless. The karst stretches over 200,000 km² (77,200 sq miles). Some of the “the worlds largest semi-arid cave karst system ” is protected by National Parks.

Aboriginal people have occupied it for 1200 generations, “compared with a maximum of 8 generations of European occupation.” The Nullarbor Plain has many indigenous historical sites, five known cave art sites and numerous hand stencils (pdf). Preserved meteorites are in the area.

Additionally the fragile limestone caves have been found to be an “palaeontological "treasure trove" “ of extinct marsupial lions.
The Great Australian Bight “receives very little...runoff “ and is home to whales, sharks, albatrosses, leafy sea dragons.

The most recent occupants (and visitors) tend to be only mobile in motor-cars. "Most people try to traverse the [Nullarbor] journey as quick as possible and they just endure it..” Maybe this is not a remark about the Nullarbor, but about a way of perceiving the environment (in Australia) when racing to get to 'it' or 'getting away from it all'. Knowledge and a positive disposition to the land (scape) would probably aid 'seeing'/understanding. The inability to see 'country', makes Australians pop BIG artifacts into the landscape, usually after it has been shaved. Then there is a reason to travel to 'it' and pay for 'it'.

The answer to the 'unused space' of the Nullarbor is to put “the world's biggest golf course” on top of it. It will be “ three times the size of Japan, twice the size of Texas.. 1,300 kilometres across the Nullarbor Plain”. “..Hopefully this is the catalyst for actually slowing people “ are the hopes of the tourism industry.

Already impacts by increasing visitor numbers is resulting in damage. The N.P. is the size of Tasmania and enforcement is limited by staffing. Golfing is associated with huge water needs and mostly toxic run offs. This would impact significantly on the diverse marine and terrestial flora and fauna of the area.

Could the Federal Government not fund its unique natural assets, instead of furthering another unsustainable venue, that might eliminate what is special about Australia. Local or o.s. tourists are unlikely to visit such a venue. Keep the natural, indigenous, paleontological heritage of the Nullarbor plain as an asset.

Ecological Communities - A Biological Survey of the Nullarbor Region, S.A.gov
The Nullarbor Plain - world’s largest limestone karst landscape, The Wilderness Society
Great Australian Bight, BBC documentary
Cave art in Australasia, Robert G. Bednarik
Image: Eora handstencil on Sydney sandstone

Skinning the Earth for Food

Mining the soil, the interface between the atmosphere and the lithosphere is unsustainable.
David Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences claims that skinning the Earth for food also constitutes an 'erosion of civilisations' in his book 'Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations'. "Soil loss through conventional agriculture is in a range of 10 to 100 times greater than the rate at which soil is created...We are skinning our agricultural fields"
Previously human populations could just move on to some one's elses land and continue their 'agri-culture' there. With 6.6 billion people today unable to embrace a paradigm shift with respect to food security, there would have to be another planet to 'harvest' elsewhere.

Toxic waste from Australia to Germany

The once prestine bay in Sydney, called Botany where British colonialisation started off, habours highly toxic waste form the industrial age. To 'keep Australia clean and beautiful', they are planning to off-shore their industrial waste to Germany.
“Orica Australia is proposing to export 22,000 tonnes of highly toxic hexachlorobenzene (HCB) waste to Germany. The waste is supposed to be incinerated in Leverkusen, Dormagen, Herten and Brunsbuettel. Two of the incinerators are run by the Chemical company Bayer.” “Orica, the $5.4 billion parent company of Dulux, Cabot's, Selleys, Yates and Thrive, and the world's biggest maker of explosives, owns the waste, and says it cannot be properly destroyed in Australia.“
Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
Petition against in Germany, Bund-N.R.W.
Image: Graffiti, Berlin

Lyrebird corroboree in Eora land

Once there was a place where people incorporated the sound of collaborative frogs and birds gatherings into their songs. The human ceremonial aggregation, known as corroboree belonged to the oldest living cutures in the world. Many of the indigenous Australians lost their lives with the British invasion in 1788. “By the 1840s, most of the Aboriginal people had disappeared from Pittwater and their traditional lands had been taken over by white settlers.”

Some years ago I heard a lyrebird mimic corroboree-sounds in this Sydney national park. The memory must have passed on, although the dominant sound now is a ubiquitous rage of the (petrol) machinery over the land and ocean of contemporary Australia. This was a one-off magic space-time. The superb lyrebird can be heard sounding the new motorised racket of chainsaws, 4x4s and of course the Australian mowers starting up. It still engages in the mimicry of the remaining other birds that the packs of dogs from the subs have not yet mauled.
Do watch this wonderful creature on this video, presented by D. Attenborough:


Updates in soundscapes
29.12.2011
Captive lyrebird mimics the sound most prevalent in Australia: Construction work, drills, hammers and saws. ( video ) The bird has been in captivity for 20 years. Maybe noise pollution and vibration put an end to his life at age 32 abc 29122011 

29.05.2014
Now they imitate the sounds of chainsaws, car alarms, camera shutters, video games and crying babies Treehugger, odditycentral


20.05.2015
Lyrebirds imitating paper mills and trains sounds,  Don Watson on soundcloud

Our Plastics in our Oceans - video

To visualise the previous post on ocean pollution, this video is worth watching.
The Algalita Marine Research Foundation depicts the problem of marine debris in our ecosystem.In the video entitled "Plastic Debris, Rivers to Sea" it is claimed that "80% of marine debris is land-based and 90% of floating marine debris is plastics."

Hack, mix, distribute and eat – your plastics

Since the beginning of time human beings have utilised the 71 % of the Earth's watery surface to dump their rubbish. What has changed, is the massive population and the nature of the artificial anti-products that are now disposed in the world oceans by individuals and industry. Apart from the cost-effective discarding of 'millions of tonnes of sewage and toxic waste' gigantic amounts of plastic is added. ”80% of marine debris originates from land based sources.” Just the plastic alone floats for hundereds of years on the surface and is distributed/ 'flushed' with the ocean currents to all corners of the globe (map). With time the pellets of domestic and industrial waste develop into ever smaller particles. They are given the cute term: 'Tears of the Mermaid'. These toxic, microscopic particles then enter living organisms in the ocean at all levels. They remain and accumulate in the aquatic and terrestial living beings.The degradation of the entire food-chain is the inheritance left behind.
The issue is unfortuntely not sufficiently important to act on, there have been various reports over the years – all in wane. Some attention is generated now as there is a financial impact on large boats having trouble getting thorough the plastic debris.
More on causes and effects
Disposable Oceans, Greenpeace
Mother Jones defending oceans

Visualising mass consumption

The photographic art of Chris Jordan depicts Grand Canyons of anti-products heaped up. 'Intolerable Beauty' is a documentation of (American) mass consumption. Fictions of certainty are dislodged in 'Kartina's Wake'. Worth viewing.

Wasting water as a life-style

Water - the clear, colourless, odourless, tasteless liquid was once generated by the primordial atmosphere of the Earth and also might 'have originated from the outer parts of the solar system' as well. Life dwells in the wet of the biosphere. Diversity has been sprouting in it for over 4 billion year of evolution. Early humans attributed a sacred nature to this substance.

Today's demand by an unsustainable population for a finite supply of fresh water has brought about a water crisis. Megaprojects attempt to wring more of that profane liquid from the water cycle for the sole use of (some) Homo Sapiens. It is a nonrenewable ”resource that is finite in quantity and is being used faster than its ability to regenerate itself.“ Degradation of the biosphere and resulting desertification are the results of such 'harvesting'.

With great optimism they continue to build fantasy-cities in deserts. The life-sustaining liquid is siphoned off from somewhere-land nearby. The many bathrooms and pools of lawn-framed McMasion-sprawl, celebrate wastage as a life-style. Motorised 'water sports' on drinkable water, washed cars and green golfing turf are still the norm.

All our undesirable anti-products are flushed into the hydro-cycle. Most toxins and actions remain imprinted, as some claim, in the 'memory' of H20. This body of water gets re-cycled through living bodies.

Now that the 'water boom' is over, it is claimed that only the private sector will know how to manage sustainably the remaining resource. Turning the remaining essence of life into a commodity restricts the last drops to the ones that can pay, leaving not a drop for the ones to come or other species. The wars for water will be fiercer than the ones for oil.
On ice crystals
On crystals & audio
Siphoning off ponds
State of major rivers
Effects on saliva from mobile radiation

Strawberries costing the Earth

Huge strawberries were on offer at the market yesterday. The WWF is calling to boycott this Spanish produce, because their cultivation is leading to an "environmental catastrophe". The majority are grown around the national park Coto Donana. Germany and France are the largest importers of this water intensive and polluting crop. WWF claims that ”that strawberry cultivation is highly polluting, resulting in 4,500 metric tons of plastic waste each year and pesticide pollution.“ If you buy them before April, they are most likely destroying the Iberian natural milieu.
Graffiti:Berlin_mitte

Ivory mobile, disappearing species, climate comforts

- On the gadgets market, the latest ivory-clad Nokia is sure to be a trophy. Maybe exemptions have been made for this casing.

- Rare rhinos are disappearing in Nepal. There are still 26 one-horned Rhinoceroses left to be possibly pulverised into aphrodisiac.

- A new species of fish called: By-Product has been discovered. Despite plundering the oceans, there are still wonderful fish remaining, even in the deep oceans.

- The record temperatures of a world burning up can not be alleviated by artificially creating cooled habitats for Humans. It has been found that their air-conditioned urban places of aggregation have a raised temperatur of 1 to 2ºC.

Human-caused mass extinction for a healthy economy

The extinction of dinosaurs opened up a niche on the Earth for mammals to take up the vacant real estate. Within a blink of time Homo sapiens evicted most of Earth's plants and animals out of their homes. 150 species a day have to exit this planet because of human action.
They talk, and are worried, that the 'biodiversity treasure trove' will be soon scooped empty and the global economy might be hurt. Putting a negative monetary value on climate change alone does get Homo S. thinking...
Image: Ivory at the Berlin flea-market, depicting European heroes o.s.

What plants we tolerate in our urban parks

A study about urban parks has found that "Increasing human population is significantly related to decreasing native species and increasing nonnative species...Higher levels of human disturbances such as trampling, air pollution, or arson have more of a destructive effect on native species.” The goal to feature biodiversity in the urban wilderness fails as only tough and introduced plants survive the “repeated human disturbances”.

Fairy Penguins killed by toxins

25 Fairy Penguins in captivity died of an “unidentified toxin”. It “ injured the brain, the kidney and the liver”. But first they were renamed from Fairy Penguins to Little Penguins to not offend the paying families..

Australian birds killed by lead

Thousands of native Australian birds died from ”lead levels up to 10 times higher than a fatal dose.” The toxin lead is cumulative and leads to severe seizures. The human manufactured catastophic event took place in Esperanca, W.A. The area planned “...to ship around 84,000 tons of lead in concentrate from the port to its Chinese customers this year....Lead exports from the port were suspended March 12 after testing of dead birds in the region found a number died of lead poisoning.“
The concerned residents now have their water checked. But as usual "no evidence" can be found...and there is an eerie bird-less silence.
The Canary in the mine...
Lead fact sheet, gov.au
Birds Australia
update:The birds started dying three months ago, ABC
update: 22.3. An expert found that the lead carbonate 'poses a hightened risk to human health'.

Slaughter by mouse click

Remote-control cyberhunting of wildlife is taking place as a pay-per-view slaughter.
Graffiti: Berlin

Extinct species exhibition

Eliminating the wealth of biodiversity and racing to cut the last branch (one is sitting on).Unable to learn and act. The floating skeleton is not yet in a history of science museum,'Habibi', by Adel Abdessemed at this stage was an event in Berlin. A video of the floating art-work can be found here.
Sculpture: 'Habibi', Adel Abdessemed, Berlin 2003