Turning Hippos into Valentine Roses

For some time it has become established to show 'love' by giving flowers and other presents to intimate partners. A date dictates when this act of affection should take place. While the x-mas lights are still dangling from houses, another 'festive season' is placed on the agenda.

The tradition of Valentine's Day is a predominately anglophone custom, but has spread to other industrialised nations. The day was no invention by the floral industry, but has its roots in a middle age poem about the "game of love" that Geoffrey Chaucer presented to his king. Saint Valentine's Day as a Christian celebration goes way back.

So where do the tonnes of bouquets come from?
Most OECD countries have rationalised their gardens away with high density. If some green spaces are allowed to exist, they must be a lawn monoculture with tidy topiary box hedges. Herbicide will not allow any flowers to appear between the cracks.

Long stem blood red roses and other cut flowers are being flown in, cooled and plastic-wrapped from far distant lands. Many are grown in the country where hippopotamuses splash about in the lake and flamingos wade on the shores.

"Kenya's Lake Naivasha is one of the most perfect places to grow flowers—at a high altitude, with plenty of water and sunshine. And flower farms employ people and generate income. [But] they are also big water and pesticides users." (source)

"The flower farms provide cut flowers for export, of which 97 percent end up in bouquets in European cities." (source)

Locals are turned into paupers, virtual water flows into a commodity stream and deprives humans and wildlife of their habitat. Left is polluted water and a pesticide legacy.

In the 'developed world' a possibly toxic floral arrangement might grace the dinner table. The plastic wrapper is discarded and the CO2 impact of the air-freight flowers is forgotten.

The by now established public culture for mourners to place large bouquet memorials of flowers as a gesture of condolences could also be reflected. Mother's Day is another such event.

It might be a better idea to donate the resources bestowed on the flower industry to the protection of wildlife and its habitat or any other ethical purpose you see fit.


IMAGES
Flamingos in the Palais Rose in Vesinet, Giovanni Boldini
Hippopotamus, Brehms Thierleben
(Garden) Roses, Lovis Corinth

Depriving Other Species of the Right to Live on Earth

Depriving other species of the right to a habitat on planet Earth:

The Polar bear and the Pacific walrus in Alaska are disappearing due to our actions.

"Both species are imperiled due to the loss of their sea-ice habitat due to global warming, oil and gas development, and unsustainable harvest...Polar bears and walrus are under severe threat, and unless we act rapidly to reduce greenhouse pollution and protect their habitat from oil development, we stand to lose both of these icons of the Arctic"

Via Center for Biological Diversity (2009, June 19). Polar Bear And Walrus Populations In Trouble, Stock Assessment Report Suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 20, 2009

The report by the Marine Mammals Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the walrus and the Polar bear.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Study of the landscape, natural resources, and natural hazards of Alaska
The Cryposphere Today

Image: American Photographer, 1898 Alaska Goldfever stampede via Zeno

Water and Desalination Factories by M. Barlow

Maude Barlow speaking about water and desalination plants in May 2008.

"Desalination plants will ring the world's oceans, many of them run by nuclear power; corporate nanotechnology will clean up sewage water and sell it to private utilities who will sell it back to us at a huge profit; the rich will drink only bottled water found in the few remote parts of the world left or sucked from the clouds by machines, while the poor die in increasing numbers. This is not science fiction. This is where the world is headed unless we change course."

Her book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water – (October 16, 2007) is a very readable and an informative insight on the expropriation of water. From water as a right to water only to be delivered in the commodity form for those who can pay.
There are also more videos of her talks
- Door Wide Open for Private Investment in the Water Industry, Department of Water and Energy, NSW gov. au, 080808

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.