EcoWorldly

German biologists have discovered an hitherto unknown ant species, believed to be the oldest on the planet, deep in the Amazon rain forest.

Field researchers from Karlsruhe’s Natural History Museum who made the discovery near Manaus, Brazil, say the species, which resembles miniature wasps and looks like no other, may date back around 120 million years, according to Reuters.

Martialis heureka, nicknamed the “Ant from Mars” due to its unusual features and heureka from its surprising discovery, the ants themselves are eyeless, pale in color, subterranean, and predatory, according to Wikipedia.

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In early 2008, Tsitsi Madavo, 67, was forced to abandon her village after a severe hailstorm hit Muzabarani, a village in central Zimbabwe, destroying her three huts, crops and livestock.

Every year, as in Muzarabani, environmental excesses around the world force millions of people to abandon their homes in search of places that are perceived to be safer. The impact of extreme weather will be felt more heavily among the poor and marginalized people.

Since time memorial, climate change processes have devastated human settlements, resulting in untold human suffering and vulnerability to poverty and disease.

As the world increasingly grapples with the phenomena of climate change, there are fears that it will lead to the internal or international displacement or refugee situations. There is scientific evidence that the number of people killed, injured or displaced as a result of unpredictable weather patterns has been on the rise in recent decades. Read the rest of this entry »

Too often, volunteering abroad seems to come with a big price tag. If you’ve looked into international volunteering programs, you’ve probably noticed that most of them expect you to pay through the nose just to volunteer your free time and effort. These programs have their merits. However, if you’re living or traveling abroad and willing to go out on a limb, you can find great international volunteer opportunities without the cost.

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Over one billion people - 18% of the world’s population - lack access to safe drinking water worldwide. Only 56% of Africa’s 800 million population have access to clean water. About 700 million people in 43 countries are affected by water scarcity, according to the UN.

In another few years - in 2025 to be precise - the number could swell to 3 billion driving back gains in the fight against poverty and under-development, otherwise known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

For many people around the world, safe drinking water is a scarce resource and out of necessity, they resort to what’s available - polluted water.

But contaminated water isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly. Some 1.8 million people die every year of diseases like cholera, caused by poor sanitation. Tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable.

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These facts may surprise you:

1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water.*

There are over 116,000 human-made chemicals that are finding their way into public
water supply systems.*

Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil.*

Flow, a new film about the implications of the world water crisis, can help you wrap your head around those dismaying figures. The film, which opens tomorrow, investigates the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with a careful attention to politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Stories are told about how water has changed people’s lives and health, communities’ economies, and corporations’ bottom line. Throughout the film, we are asked to ponder “How did a handful of corporations steal our water?” and “Can anyone really own water?” For centuries water has been called “blue gold,” and after this film you will understand why.

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This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.

What does that mean? According to documents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office August 28, the Google water-powered data center will be - a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.

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Mark Twain once said, “Whiskey is for drinkin’, water is for fightin’ over.” In Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary, FLOW, which opens this Friday, the global battles to own, protect, and understand water are virtuously examined. Experts have labeled the world water crisis the most important political, social and environmental issue of the 21st Century, and with 3,900 children dying every day from water borne diseases caused by the lack of access to clean water, one can see why this is a critical issue.

In our conversation, Irena Salina shared her thoughts about the spiritual nature of water, the Earth’s fever, and what needs to be done to alleviate the crisis:

You spent five years making this film. Why do you think it’s so important for people to care about water?

The earth is made of almost 70 percent water, and we are made of almost 70 percent of it. Without it, we won’t exist. From the moment we are born, to when we are adults we are surrounded by water and it is one of the main things we need to live. And we need clean water because ever 8 seconds a child dies from diseases from unsanitary water. There is so much to water and most people don’t know about it.

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Christopher and Kerri are a couple and social justice teachers out on a mission. Since the beginning of September 2008, they have been on a unique 30-day experiment on food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty and social psychology - trying to live on a one dollar a day diet.

But this insightful challenge - in their own words - to help us better understand and teach about a variety of concerns, could have been more interesting if it was broader in perspective.

Instead of trying to spend just a dollar on food daily from their comfort in Encinitas, California, where a tub of toothpaste costs $4.99, they should have enlisted a family in, say, Chittagong, Bangladesh or Turkana, Kenya, and asked them to survive on a dollar a day.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a scientific body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UNEP celebrated twenty years of its existence on the 31st of last month. At its 29th session, the IPCC re-elected by acclamation, its Chairman Dr. R.K. Pachauri to a second term. A new IPCC Bureau and Task Force Bureau were also selected in the process.

Last year had been glorious for the IPCC and for climate change research and action.  Especially historical was the 10th of December, 2007 when the IPCC (and Albert Arnold Gore Jr.) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”.

It is thus not too surprising, that the then Chairman has been re-elected, unopposed, for a second term by the IPCC.

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Mbonisi Tshuma, 23, eats meat almost every day of the week because he says a meal without meat is just not good enough.

“A meal without meat never tastes good that is why I eat meat everyday - meat is good, my friend,” he said.

Asked whether he would consider becoming vegetarian, Mbonisi said he would do so only if a gun were pointed to his head.

Like Mbonisi, many people around the world eat meat because it provides convenience, pleasure and in an age-old habit. Little do these people know that adopting a vegan diet could be one of the best ways to respond to what one writer refers to as arguably two of the world’s most urgent social issues: climate change and the food crisis. Read the rest of this entry »