karum kurangu ...
continued ...
one is the nature of consciousness and of mind. these are biological subjects, and they're phenomena not just limited to human beings, since we can see their early origins in other vertebrates, particularly the other primates.
another principal domain in biology that is still largely unexplored is the assembly and maintenance of ecosystems. how do ecosystems - assemblages of plants and animals - live more or less stably for an indefinite period of time ? how do they come together in the first place ? how are certain species chosen to enter that community ? how do they manage to survive ? and how does the ecosystem fit together in a way that provides stability ?
the two great goals of the 21st century are, first, raising people around the world to a decent standard of living, and second, bringing as much of the rest of life through with us. if we can do this, we will obtain the kind of better world that people everywhere believe should be our major human purpose.
today, we do not know 90 percent of the kinds of organisms that exist on this earth, what would knowing almost all mean for us ? it would mean that for the first time we would know all of the life forms including bacteria around the world. we would understand potential disease organisms, as well as the fundamental bacterial elements of ecosystems, the very primitive but elementary organisms that form a large part of the base of the ecosystem. right now we don't even know what the majority of organisms are doing. cataloguing all of the world's species we would have a huge reservoir of knowledge from which to draw genes for transgenic changing of crops, development of new pharmaceuticals and understand sustenance of life.
first ! ... we need to safeguard what we have ... and it's practicable, it is not at all expensive, conservation international convened economists and biologists two years ago in order to estimate how much it would cost to save the rest of biodiversity. it turns out that in order to save the world's 25 hottest hot spots, those places where you have the greatest endangerment to whole ecosystems with large numbers of species and then add the cost of saving the core wilderness areas of the great tropical forests of the congo, the amazon, and new guinea, it would cost one payment of about $28 billion. that's one tenth of one percent of the annual economic output of the world !
posted by wildpic at 9:35 PM
15 Comments:
Excellent information and thought, Suresh. You are a good teacher.
hello george ... it all works only when the teacher teaches teachers to teach teachers ... its a beautiful world, to rationalise, it is wonderfull to live ... to continue ...
the Drive is fine the spending is fine, but for how long ?
this planet has other ideas.
Nature cannot be controlled, we cannot predict earthquakes we cannot predict tsubamis. One tornado damages hundreds of trees.at a time
so is with other natural calamities. these are not caused by human folly.
The planet is managing itself well
What ever we do, we don't alter a thing. We are only fooling oursellves.
the planet is laughing suresh!
Terrific picture
sorry I forgot suresh
Our planet has the capacity to heal itself, what ever damage we may cause and do nothing about it.
Doing something is a good idea
I wonder if you are familiar with/involved with the All Species Foundation?
www.all-species.org
they are on a drive (similar to the one that broke the human genome) to identify all existing species. of course it is urgent, since what dissapears before we notice it
a) cannot be saved (duhh)
b) will have impacts that we won't understand
of course, the core of the project is preservation. What is unusual is that it is calling on "people" to participate and harnessing the power of intelligent but non-specialist, non-professionals ( like the backyard scientists of the 1800's in England, only internationally) to accomplish the discovery/catagorizing etc.
Unique: the information flow that enables non-professionals to participate.
really good stuff!
rauf, yes we do have natural calamities but none can match what we doing. ours is in thousand folds.
if we stab one of our neighbours, may be ! its fine but imagine waging a war on all of them ... like your milk man, electricity man, sewage cleaner, garbage disposer ... its a disaster ... they all may return by other means, but its a long way to heal, before that we have to shift.
if u hurt someone with your nails, one will heal in a bit but thrashing him to death ... theres no turning back.
yes the earth will heal, but we will be long gone before that happens. all this conservation and protecting our environment is for the good of human kind ... in the long run.
the planet might be laughing at us cos we love suicide ...
we have to also ask ourselves how the ecosystem has managed so beautifully to sustain and evolve for so long ? dinosaurs went extint, only certain models but they adapted to become so many beautifull lizards and lovely birds ...
we have no lineage ... we stand alone ... wanting and waiting to commit suicide ...
hello hayden ... thats some wonderfull info, thanks so much... checked the site, i was only partly aware of it. am so glad theres some progress in the field of conservation, starting with, cataloguing our inventory of species ...
it is important the scientific community forms partnerships with semi-professionals and other contributors.
http://tolweb.org/
is another site thats doing similar work ... check it out.
thanks so much again hayden ...
see ya soon ...
Suresh,
I have mentioned in some blog that except for whales in certain condition no other animals have suicidal tendencies.
we humans do.
This planet has frozen before, freezing along with all forms of life except green algae' and cyano bacteria. We are the descendants of them, the second life.
giving an exaple i have explained in some blog how the planet heals itself.
I have not suggested anywhere that damaging the eco system is alright.
if we stab one of our neighbours, may be ! its fine but imagine waging a war on all of them ... like your milk man, electricity man, sewage cleaner, garbage disposer ... its a disaster ... they all may return by other means, but its a long way to heal, before that we have to shift.
I don't understand the relevance of this statement. This is a bad example. I do not understand who is waging a war on the eco system or the planet. This planet has been plundered right from day one.
by each one of us.
sitting on a wooden chair sleeping on a wooden cot, enjoying electicity, and faster travel i have no right to say ' save the eco system.
i have added in the end doing something about this is a good idea.
humans must accept deep down that we are self-destructive. only then can we start to change. that a few billion dollars is all that is required to save the world is an eyewash that we should not fall for.
Awww, looka that little monkey.
rauf: I have mentioned in some blog that except for whales in certain condition no other animals have suicidal tendencies. we humans do.
me: rauf ... we still don’t know exactly why whales perform such acts, some scientists say it could be our radio waves influencing, some say its a mis judgment by its leader of the group. we also don’t know if any other species commits suicide, due to lack of studies and evidence. yes we do.
rauf: This planet has frozen before, freezing along with all forms of life except green algae' and cyano bacteria. We are the descendants of them, the second life.
me: big bang has happened many times before and it will happen many times again ... nature has no problem synthesizing newness and improving all the time.
rauf : giving an exaple i have explained in some blog how the planet heals itself.
me: if our planet doesn’t exits its ok for nature. a 5 km wide meteor colliding onto earth will end all life forms, and the possibilities of it happening is enormous, does that fact make us party hard all day and stop feeding our dogs and cats ?
rauf: I have not suggested anywhere that damaging the eco system is alright.
me: you have not rauf, but your suggestion that things will be all right and it will heal itself denotes its ok to damage to any extent.
me: if we stab one of our neighbors, may be ! its fine but imagine waging a war on all of them ... like your milk man, electricity man, sewage cleaner, garbage disposer ... its a disaster ... they all may return by other means, but its a long way to heal, before that we have to shift.
rauf: I don't understand the relevance of this statement. This is a bad example. I do not understand who is waging a war on the eco system or the planet. This planet has been plundered right from day one.
by each one of us.
me: what i meant by that example is, 'tiger' creates fear of the jungle so that we don’t simply go in cut all the wood we want also keeps a limit on the herbivores overgrazing the jungle clean, therefore its the 'watchman'... now we have almost wiped/killed the fellow ...
similarly, our hyenas and vultures that are the garbage cleaners and scavengers have gone extinct ...
good bye the sprinter, indian cheetah (30 yrs back)
our great pied hornbills, the gardeners of our forests dispersing large seeded magnificent trees are almost gone ...
our symbol of strength the great Asian elephants who roamed in 100's of thousands reduced to a mere few thousands, that too in fragmented populations and genetically degenerate due to all the virile massive bulls being shot for their ivory ... they are the bulldozers 'corporation fellow' of our forests who clears thickets and bushes for the rest of the small mammals to move around.
i can go on listing but we are waging a war on ourselves, denying clean sweet mineralized water, air and the web that creates it, also the sanity and clarity ONLY NATURE CAN PROVIDE ... we are waging a war on our planet and the dear ones who might out live us.
rauf: sitting on a wooden chair sleeping on a wooden cot, enjoying electicity, and faster travel i have no right to say ' save the eco system.
me: we all consume, yes, but we also have the technology to manufacture using sustainable methods and not purely govern things by convenience and cost based on face value and availability. so how do we contribute ? to start with ... by being aware, thru spreading awareness, by being conscious of our actions ... this whole conservation and sustenance is not an individuals dictation but of a collective awareness for a want, to build a better society that is sustainable.
personally, apart from so many direct and indirect consequences ... am angry for having my photo opportunities denied and the sheer beauty of looking at all those lost animals and trees ...for ever. i don’t want my clarity and sanity robbed, that i derive only from nature ...
rauf: i have added in the end doing something about this is a good idea.
me: rauf, this is the statement that really made me go bizzzz ... 'you' after saying
" The planet is managing itself well What ever we do, we don't alter a thing. We are only fooling ourselves. Our planet has the capacity to heal itself, what ever damage we may cause and do nothing about it." ...
then saying, " Doing something is a good idea " ... sounds like, " you are stupid, but if u insist then fine do something "
I sincerely thank you for your comments rauf, it helps me understand and explain the situation better.
humans must accept deep down that we are self-destructive. only then can we start to change.
yes chinna, i totally and completely agree with you on your take. About the figures that i mentioned, it is not some half boiled scientists who have derived those, but some eminent scientists of our time, am also not disqualifying their limitedness.
but the point here is for eg, the sanctuary that I visit often is not being able to fund their anti-poaching squad of 12 people patrolling the entire 1000 sq km and it has proved to be of tremendous help in the past. The whole operation would cost about Rs 3,00,000 per annum, a small amount but could do wonders with the protection of the forest. Usually poachers avoid if they see any human activity since they need to stay for a week or two to plan and gather enough poach able material. So lets not underestimate the need for small initiations that make massive changes. If at all its an eyewash, we need it more than anything, to see whats going on.
thanks for your comment chinna, it gives me a great chance to explain.
hi david, yep ... hes awesome isnt he ? he must be an adult male by now.
only 3 lakhs. let's start a collection. i'll put up 5000 rs.
i'm all for these grass-roots, bare-foot kind of conservationists.
not the cats who always arrive to save the world in their big suvs.
these scientists are like consultants in big business. blowing millions proving what everyone knows.
also i believe you cannot save the world by force. the idea of taking things by force is the problem.
ohh chinna .... so wonderfull to hear those words, fantastic !
i do know what u mean , indeed many a times fancy research reports after having spent millions, clearly state the obvious. then nothing gets done on the field.
i do beleive in the grass root bare foot conservation which is what i personally practice.
one, by being a link between the actual facts that i see on the fields so remote no official ever goes there and hear thru the tribals, low level forest staff and debate on relevant conservation methods to the top officials, lots of times have acted on it positively.
two, i personally buy gear like shoes, rain coats, torches, sleeping mats and give it to the tribal anti poaching squad and fire watchers.
three, i beleive in education and awareness, thru my pictures which i give free to all schools, educational ngo's, scientist students etc ... beauty to a large extent can be an ambassador to conservation than brute force.
chinna, am delighted and happy with your offer to help, will let you know soon whats necessary, u can buy them yourself and give it to them yourself. also we could take care of their field provisions like food.
cheers. take care, will be touch.
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