Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Jahn]

We cultivate our wolfs. Happy if it comes a pair from Finland or Russia over to us.The situation is better now than what it was some decades ago. In 1992 we had less than 20 wolfs left but now, thanks to heavy restrictions on hunting and natural inflow we will have about 200 the coming years.

[erik]

Well, in North America they have 4,7 hectares to support the life standard of one person, in India they have a half tennis court feeding one person. Nordic countries are clearly countires with very high life standard, but do you really think Sweden does not consume its nature? C'mon, it is clear as clear as daylight that Nordic states have ecological footprints among top ten-top fifteen in the world.

[Jahn]

All this can be calculated in energy terms and some has tried to estimate use of resources in the equation of Ecological footprint where the Western societies use more per capita than not so developed countries etc. You probably know all this.

We travel a lot because it is a long distance country. And as I wanted to say before that our ecological foot print is above average for most countries - but - and that is a big but we are leading in recycling, using biogas, windmills for electricity and above all we have - thanks to nature - very much green electricity from water.

[Jahn]

do you really think Sweden does not consume its nature?

There is no good transferring system for ecological use (misuse) - so we have problems. But Sweden is rich in many ways and if this global warming continous in a somewhat structured way you will soon be able to buy wine from Swedish vineyards.

One of our greatest assets is the woods and therefore much efforts are spent on them. The greatest problem is about the water quality.

[tommy2]

We cultivate our wolfs. Happy if it comes a pair from Finland or Russia over to us.The situation is better now than what it was some decades ago. In 1992 we had less than 20 wolfs left but now, thanks to heavy restrictions on hunting and natural inflow we will have about 200 the coming years.

Jahn, recently viewed on the Discovery channel about how the environment of our Yellowstone National Park has changed since wolves were replanted there a couple of decades ago after being nearly exterminated about 40 - 50 yrs. ago by ranchers.  Now that they are back the populations of moose, deer, elk, rabbit, mice, etc. are back down, which means more vegetation growth for migrating and nesting birds of many species.  With more vegetation there is less erosion of the land and rivers are running deeper, making the fish populations increase.  With all this and more us humans are realizing a little at a time here in the U.S. just how much we impact our ecology by one "little" less than logical and un-thought-through decision.  

Thank heaven these wonderful creatures are back on our protected species list.

Also, CNN has been running this series, "Planet in Peril", which is quite astounding, with regards to how the globe is actually warming up right now and all the unbelievable affects upon it from various sources.  Hopefully, all this change over the last decade is a normal and cyclic phenomena.  The next generation will surely have its hands full, don't you think?

t2

t2

[Jahn]

Nope, not buying this reasoning - if you do not consume your own nature and resources, then these resources come from elsewhere. Makes little difference if it is Swedish forest of rainforest. It is just pure physics.

Of course we are a bad guy. On all the things we buy, clothes, tools, kitchen stuff it says: Made in China. I was just saying that we increase our nature resources here, we do not cut more than what we export.

[Jahn]

Jahn, recently viewed on the Discovery channel about how the environment of our Yellowstone National Park has changed since wolves were replanted there a couple of decades ago after being nearly exterminated about 40 - 50 yrs. ago by ranchers.  Now that they are back the populations of moose, deer, elk, rabbit, mice, etc. are back down, which means more vegetation growth for migrating and nesting birds of many species.  With more vegetation there is less erosion of the land and rivers are running deeper, making the fish populations increase.

That is good news! Balance, and everything get in order.

Hopefully, all this change over the last decade is a normal and cyclic phenomena. 

I am afraid not dear Tommy,
this is it ...

                                    ~.~

[nichi]

Adieu, adieu kind friends, adieu (yes, adieu)
I can no longer stay with you, stay with you,
I'll hang my harp on the weeping willow tree,
And may the world go well with thee.

Groups to Monitor Whales in Beaufort Sea
By DAN JOLING (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press

November 06, 2007 7:57 PM EST

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Endangered humpback and fin whales swam hundreds of miles north of their usual habitat this summer in what environmentalists say is another sign of the effects of global warming and the shifting Arctic ecosystem.

Humpbacks were spotted over the summer in the Beaufort Sea east of Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States, and last year in the Chukchi Sea, west of the Beaufort and north of the Bering Strait, said Robin Cacy, a spokeswoman for the federal Minerals Management Service.

The agency oversees lease sales for offshore petroleum drilling in federal waters, including sales scheduled for 2008 in the Chukchi Sea and 2009 in the Beaufort Sea.

Some of the whales were spotted by observers involved with the oil industry, others by observers involved with barge traffic.

Cacy also said fin whales were detected this summer by acoustic monitoring in the Chukchi Sea, more than 300 miles north of their normal range. Both humpback and fin whales normally stay south of the Bering Strait in Alaska waters.

Environmental groups are calling for more study of the endangered animals' habits before industrial activity is allowed to expand off Alaska's northern shores.

No one was expecting humpbacks near the activity connected to Outer Continental Shelf lease sales, said Brad Smith, a protective resources biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

"We didn't anticipate that they'd been encountered in any of the OCS exploration activity that we're doing this year," Smith said.

Minerals service spokesman Gary Strasburg said a sighting of an endangered species in a new area would not mean an immediate change in how the agency regulates petroleum exploration. It will take more time to determine whether the presence of humpbacks is a trend, and if so, for the agency determine the appropriate response, he said.

Brendan Cummings, ocean programs director for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said the humpback sightings may indicate a recovering population expanding its range - or desperate animals in search of food.

Deborah Williams, a former Department of Interior special assistant for Alaska and now an advocate for finding solutions to climate change, said the presence of humpback and fin whales so far north has significant implications.

"We now have even more compelling reasons to protect the Arctic Ocean and the species dramatically affected by climate change," she said.

Other species that use the Chukchi Sea are behaving differently because of climate change, Cummings said. He cited gray whales seeking new feeding areas, and walrus congregating on Alaska's northwest shore this summer instead of on pack ice that had receded far beyond the continental shelf.

"It looks like the populations are suffering from it," he said. "All signs point to global warming. That would be the first suspect of why the whales are there."

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in December proposed listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Environmental groups had filed a petition stating that polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century because their sea ice habitat is melting away due to global warming. A final listing decision is due in January.

Sheela McLean, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service in Juneau, said humpbacks range widely and have been previously spotted on the Russian part of the Chukchi Sea. However, humpbacks are not usually associated with pack ice, so sightings farther north might be shifts in distribution caused by climate change, she said.

This year was a record low year for pack ice. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder in September recorded 1.65 million square miles of sea ice. That's 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000.

Permits issued in 2007 for exposure of marine mammals to noise from seismic activities in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas covered neither humpback nor fin whales, said Smith, the fisheries service biologist. He added, however, that whales including grays and bowheads are covered, and that adding the other species might not increase the conditions placed on exploration.

The sensitivity of bowhead whales, which remain close to sea ice and are hunted in limited numbers by Eskimo whalers, is considered equal to or greater than the sensitivity of humpbacks, Smith said.

Cummings does not agree with that assessment of humpbacks - or with the government's protective measures in general.

"These are animals that are entirely dependent on sound," he said of humpbacks.

Permits issued don't take into account the federal government's own research indicating how easily whales can be deflected from their intended paths, Cummings said. The noise could have consequences for whales' feeding behavior, especially mothers migrating with their young.

"We don't believe that permits issued to date in the Beaufort Sea comply with the spirit or the letter of the Marine Mammal Protection Act or the Endangered Species Act," Cummings said.

Full-grown humpback whales average more than 40 feet long and weigh 25 to 35 tons. Fin whales are longer and more slender, growing to nearly 88 feet - second only to blue whales.

[erik]

...for the first time in Finnish history.
So it is contagious - blaming others for one's troubles...and shooting the bloody bastards for that good...
Some people in this country say that one just cannot escape the 'most democratic culture in the world' anywhere any more...

Fatal shooting at Finnish school

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7082795.stm

Eight people have been killed and at least 10 others injured in a shooting at a school in southern Finland, police have said.

The incident took place in Tuusula, some 50km (30 miles) north of the capital Helsinki.

Finnish police said an 18-year-old man killed five boys, two girls and the female principal of Jokela High School.

The gunman shot himself in the head and is in hospital in a critical condition, police said.

About a dozen other people are being treated for injuries. Police have not identified the gunman but a teacher said he was a student at the school.

Police responded to a call made at 1144 (0944 GMT) and made contact with the gunman when they arrived at the school 11 minutes later, said Timo Leppala, the officer in charge of the police operation.

"Police ordered him to surrender, to which he answered by shooting towards the police," Mr Leppala said.

He described a scene of chaos with students jumping from school windows and running for shelter as more police arrived.

It is not clear when the gunman shot himself in the head.

 Police said he was armed with a .22 calibre pistol for which he obtained a license on 19 October. He did not have a criminal record and "was from an ordinary family," a police spokesman said.

A Tuusula municipality spokeswoman said the gunman opened fire during a lesson at Jokela secondary school, which has 400 pupils between 12 and 18.

'Ran in opposite direction'

Kim Kiuru, a Jokela teacher, said the head teacher announced over the school public announcement's system just before noon (1000 GMT) that all students should remain in their classrooms.

"I stayed in the corridor to listen to more instructions having locked my classroom door," Mr Kiuru told Finland's YLE radio.

"After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small calibre handgun in his hand through the doors toward me after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction."

"It felt unreal - a pupil I have taught myself was running towards me, screaming, a pistol in his hand."

Mr Kiuru said he saw a woman's body as he fled the building. He said he then told his students to "jump out of the windows... and all my pupils were saved".

YouTube video

A video called "Jokela high school massacre 11/7/2007" was posted on the YouTube website by an 18-year-old man during the past two weeks.

The video shows a picture of a building by a lake and two photos of a young man holding a gun.

Going by the username Sturmgeist89, the person who posted the video calls himself a "social Darwinist" who would "eliminate all who I see unfit". "Sturmgeist" means storm spirit in German.

The video has now been removed from the website and police have not yet commented on it.

He had also reportedly posted on another website a rambling manifesto.

In it he said: "death and killing is not a tragedy... Not all human lives are important or worth saving."

He wrote that he was acting alone and nobody is to blame for his actions. "This is my war: one man's war against humanity, governments and weak-minded masses of the world."

[Jahn]

...for the first time in Finnish history.
So it is contagious - blaming others for one's troubles...and shooting the bloody bastards for that good...
Some people in this country say that one just cannot escape the 'most democratic culture in the world' anywhere any more...

Stormgeist89
That was MSN name on the guy  that killed six schoolmates, one nurse and the headmaster in Finland the other day.
He was one year younger than my kids (from -88).
Innocence among the kids is gone.



 

[erik]

I wonder about that rage - shoot the bloody laughing bastards! It sounds like spirits are having a field day in these trotured and twisted minds. Where do they come from? How do they get access to these minds? Mass culture? Hollywood?

[Jahn]

I wonder about that rage - shoot the bloody laughing bastards! It sounds like spirits are having a field day in these trotured and twisted minds. Where do they come from? How do they get access to these minds? Mass culture? Hollywood?

This type of murder is only the collective dysfunction in manifestation.
It is built on alienation, hate and a bulk of misperceptions. Teenagers of today are under a heavy pressure and to take a extreme position build the ego ID. They believe in their dysfunctional ID and are able to manifest.

One professional investigator from the Police said that they are good to shoot, even better than the usual cop or officer. That their hit rate for each bullet is much higher than average is because they have trained in these war games. The step to real guns is little and therefore they are that good of killing ... sad that is ... I think.

[erik]

Computer games? Well, well, well. I forgot about these. They are a good method of turning human being into an automaton fired up by couple pretty basic emotions.

These automatons are a wet dream of many politicians. Simple to rule, easy to keep satisified.

[Michael]

I feeling depressed tonight - been reading The Guardian again. Julie tries to not read it.

really, i can't see any hope for this species. i know there are bright spots, but they serve to only mask the growing dark spots.

honestly, Iraq is more than a disaster - it is perhaps the greatest living nightmare on our planet, and what do the people of the 'western' countries care?

we are facing very nasty stuff, from many directions.

OH well... into the valley of darkness...

[erik]

I feeling depressed tonight - been reading The Guardian again.
...
OH well... into the valley of darkness...

I try to stick to a specific type of optimism.

"Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death . . . I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing."

was written on the gates of Kadena air force base that operated these planes:



There was also that English merchant navy sailor who has gone to history from the convoy PQ-17 during WW II. When his ship was sunk and he was in the icy water of North Sea (and had about 1-2 minutes of life left), one warship passed him (and could not stop because of the onslaught of German air force) that sailor shouted:

'Ahoy, ship! Which bloody way I have to swim to get to Murmansk?!'

(he had hundreds of miles to go...)

I guess that's pretty much all one can do given the circumstances (but there are more examples of a spirited approach to the inevitable that I admire ).