Tristan Friedrich Schmid’s take on the brave new world: news, music, technology, film, culture, activism, politics, reviews, the environment, etc…
Could plastic be the worst kind of petroleum-related disaster, even worse than the oil spills we’ve all grown to know and love?
Take a trip with VBS.tv in the video above to visit the North Pacific Gyre, an area bigger than Texas where much of our trash ends up floating around, where it kills wildlife and likely makes its way back to us. Nothing like a little Bisphenol A in our systems!
According to this Wired.com article, global warming might not only be causing extinctions, water shortages, and hotter days: it might also be causing depression. According to philosopher Glenn Albrecht, his fellow Australians have shown increased symptoms of depression as their country has changed for the worse due to global warming. Albrecht calls this “solastalgia”: a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home.
The article mentions that though many of us are modern globe-hoppers with all kinds of gadgets to keep us in touch with our family and friends at home, we’re still closely tied to where we live — we haven’t evolved that much.
I can see the effects of global warming, or at least its causes, where I live: polluted waters, warmer days, dirtier skies. And I know for a fact that these things don’t make me happy.
For anyone that doesn’t believe killing whales is cruel and that the Japanese have a cultural right to do so, Tony Long at Wired has a good editorial you should check out. The barbaric practice is far from being relevant today, and Long makes some good points. An exerpt:
“This isn’t about culture. Like almost everything else in the world that stains the human spirit, this is about greed.
Whaling, as practiced by the nation-states, has always been a purely commercial venture. In the Age of Sail the industry grew out of economic necessity. When a whale was killed all of it was used — as food, as lamp oil, as lubricant. Whalebone was used to make corset stays and scrimshaw. Blubber was used to make soap and cosmetics. A single whale — remember, we’re talking about the largest animal on earth — could produce a lot of stuff and that meant a lot of money. Continue reading ‘Japanese use “culture” as lame excuse for barbaric whale hunting’
Yay! Finally, some scientific evidence to show that it’s not my fault that I can’t find anything in the fridge or cupboard until I ask my wife! This terrific article at the UK’s Daily Mail offers scientific explanation for:
- why men can’t find anything they’re looking for around the house (hint: it has to do with men’s primordial hunting skills and biology.)
-why men wait until the last minute to do their holiday shopping (hint: it has to do with men’s primordial hunting skills and biology. We go for the kill and then go home.)
- why women are good at wrapping Christmas presents and men aren’t (hint: it has to do with men’s primordial hunting skills and biology. Our eyes are better suited for long-range tunnel vision, good for sighting prey.)
- why women are better at multitasking than men (hint: it, um… doesn’t have to do with hunting)
