thedailywhat:

Extinct Species of the Day: The West African subspecies of Black Rhinoceros was declared officially extinct today by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

According to the conservation group, a survey of the animal’s natural habitat has yielded no living specimens, leading to the assessment that the last members of the subspecies had died.

In its report, the IUCN blamed “a lack of political support and willpower for conservation efforts” as well as commercial poaching for the Western Black Rhino’s extinction.

It warned that two other rhino subspecies, the Northern White Rhino and the Javan Rhino, were either perilously close to disappearing, or already extinct as well.

A large scale effort by the WWF to save the remaining Black Rhinos is presently underway. Current estimates suggest that a mere 4,240 Black Rhinos remain in the wild.

Watch a black rhino being transported by helicopter to a new range in South Africa’s Limpopo province below:

[ap / wwf / photo: greenren.]

Think Little. A chapter within A Continuous Harmony written by Wendell Berry. It is also a way of thinking and living that can transcend multiple concepts, social movements, environmental crises, etc.

“What we are up against in this country, in any attempt to invoke private responsibility, is that we have nearly destroyed private life. Our people have give up their independence in return for the cheap seductions and the shoddy merchandise of so-called “affluence.” We have delegated all our vital functions and responsibilities to salesmen and agents and bureaus and experts of all sorts. We cannot feed or clothe ourselves, or entertain ourselves, or communicate with each other, or be charitable or neighborly or loving, or even respect ourselves without recourse to a merchant or a corporation or a public-service organization or an agency of the government or a style-setter or an expert. Most of us cannot think of dissenting from the opinions of the actions of one organization without first forming a new organization. Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism. Dissenters want to publish their personal opinions over a thousand signatures.”

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

If you want to see the world change, don’t petition your government or speak gospel or tell your neighbors or complete strangers how to live until you live the life you preach. If you want better water quality in your neighborhood, start treating the water in your own home with more respect. Conserve it. Don’t pour chemicals down the drains. Treat water like you would treat a precious child.

If you want to see soil and farming regulations implemented that would protect the local environment, start treating your own soil in your own lawn the way you want the farmers to treat their soil. Be aware of the chemicals you are putting on your grasses and gardens. How are you treating your lawns? Are you respecting your patch of Mother Earth?

Think Little

I want this kitten!!

(Source: keengathering)

Where does your water come from?

How is it treated?

Do you try to conserve water?

Water is one of the things that almost every living creature on this planet needs. On top of that, water’s chemical properties give the Earth, and us, the various climates we live in. It makes up most of the Earth and makes up most of us. Water is essential for food growth, crops and livestock alike. It is mandatory for proper cell work within your body. It cools us, it cleans us, it replenishes us.

How much do you know about your water?

trusting desire, starting to learn. (clipped to polyvore.com)

Most people learn to walk within the first few years of their lives. Once you step out on a boat, those skills that were learned, honed, and mastered over the years are completely Gone!

The motion of the ocean is not a natural motion for the linear joints of us humans. The ocean has a sinusoidal motion (which essentially means wavey motion but in a much more sophisticated way), which doesn’t work well with vertical knee joints. Watching the professional crew walk and stand aboard the ship amazed us students. We couldn’t figure out how they could walk so well without falling over or banging into things.

Us students eventually learned that the crew was gimbaling their body in order to compensate for the waves and swells of the waters. Gimbaling is the term used for when the boat moves in certain directions, the gimbaled object (table, person) rotates around an axis in order to stay stable. The dining tables aboard the boat were gimbaled to allow the plates and platters to avoid being spilled all over the soles (floors) of the ship.

After getting used to standing vertically without massive amounts of nausea, my fellow students and I learned to gimbal ourselves with the axis of rotation being around our ankles and our hips. By the end of the trip everyone aboard was able to stand in one spot on deck and be able to lean our bodies this way or that as the boat rolled around in the seas. We were all quite proud of ourselves that we could do it too. Obviously there were still times when we would be slammed into walls below deck (or into the chief scientist as he is eating breakfast…), but overall we gained our sealegs and maintained them…

…Even when we didn’t need them. When we stopped at Midway Island, everyone realized that we all still leaned our bodies in small circles when we were sitting at the main saloon (dining area/”common room”), even though the boat was hardly moving at all. Luckily, it seemed that most people could walk fairly normally when we got off the boat to explore the island and when the boat docked up again in Honolulu.

Since this won’t take an entire blog post, I figured I would mention sleeping with walking. No, no one slept walked-although that would have been funny. The boat, and the ocean, continued to move even when we needed to sleep. Since we were vertical we couldn’t gimbal ourselves; we were horizontal…which means we rolled. All of the bunks had 3-4” lips on the edge of them to prevent people from spilling out of their sleeping quarters. If the seas ever got rough though, bracing was necessary before shut-eye could occur. Bracing generally included either a crooked form of a spread eagle or cushioning yourself within your bunk with luggage or clothing. It made for some interesting/irritated stories at breakfast.

So walking and sleeping have been covered. What shall I do next? Cooking aboard a vessel? Midway Island? Science projects? Hmmmmm…..