Earth – Page 9

You say you want a revolution. Well, you know, we all want to change the world.

February 24, 2016 — leslie dean brown

As I sit and write this, Forbes magazine talks about who they think the next trillionaire is going to be. I should probably stop visiting the Forbes website. But you know what they say. Know your enemy…

BUT it’s not just them. There are all kind of predictions going on. The Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse reckons there will be 11 trillionaires within the next two decades¹.

They have the nerve to say it’s not a ‘prediction’, they make one, and then call it their best estimate. Nice.

Two generations ahead, future extrapolation of current wealth growth rates yields almost a billion millionaires, equivalent to 20% of the total adult population. If this scenario unfolds, then billionaires will be commonplace, and there is likely to be a few trillionaires too – eleven according to our best estimate. [source]

So. What do I think about that annual report? Firstly, as far as annual reports go, I think it has a beautiful design. I used to look at the numbers first, now I look at the design.

Getting back on track, the trouble with traditional economics is that “shit happens”. If shit didn’t happen, dinosaurs would still be roaming this Earth. Even they weren’t so bold as to make predictions.

You know the thing about predictions? Predictions are unpredictable.

I think it’s more than a little naïve to think that [Read more…]

The whaling debate

January 26, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I think part of the trouble is that migratory species of animals do not ‘belong’ to any one individual country. Countries will always have differences of opinion; therefore all migratory species should be off-limits to hunters.

Whales don’t technically belong to Iceland, Australia, New Zealand or anyone else. And that’s just one of the reasons that they should be spared… because if Icelandic whalers can claim that the whales are ‘theirs’ to do with as they please, then Tongans too can claim that whales are born in Tongan waters and are therefore more ‘Tongan’ than ‘Icelandic’.

I’ve noticed that Icelanders keep referring to chickens, goats, cows and pigs. But none of those animals really migrate, do they? No. They do not cross vast oceans from one side of the planet to the other. Here’s my second point and it doesn’t have anything to do with factory farming, killing chickens, fish, goats, cows or pigs. Let’s forget Iceland for a moment for this analogy to be a bit more objective…

Can you see how if any country (X) started to hunt Japanese cranes in ‘Japanese’ air space that that would annoy Japan? As you know, migratory cranes are endangered. They are also very special to Japanese people in their culture and believed to bring good luck. They have a tradition of folding 1000 cranes. Now just imagine that country X goes there and kills a lot of them. The poor birds take a long time to die and suffer immensely at the time of death. Now imagine that ALL the other countries were totally against country X hunting cranes but they still kept doing it. And now just imagine that country X says to Japan: “no, but it’s okay, we’re hunting them sustainably, we only catch 333 per year.” [Read more…]

The ultimate rant from an environmentalist.

January 4, 2016 — leslie dean brown

So I was signing a whole bunch of petitions on care2 just now and came across this text written by a man named John Smith, which was left as a comment!

I don’t believe in any form of god, but I think this man is at his wit’s end already and I know exactly how he feels. I thought I’d save it for the sake of posterity, and to hopefully encourage some of you [Read more…]

Blue Moon of Josephine.

November 15, 2015 — leslie dean brown

We estimate that 3.4 billion individuals – or 71% of adults worldwide – have wealth below USD 10,000, while the group of millionaires, who comprise less than 1% of the global population, account for 45% of total wealth.[source]

SO. It seems the rich are indeed getting much richer. There is a truly massive gap in the distribution of wealth and it just keeps getting wider and wider and wider.

I’ve had most of this post sitting in draft format for quite a while. But just today, I learned that Joseph Lau, the billionaire Hong Kong real-estate tycoon, paid a record-breaking US$48.4 million for a cushion-shaped internally-flawless fancy vivid blue-coloured diamond, called the “Blue Moon”. He named it “Blue Moon of Josephine”. And he bought it for his seven year old daughter.

For his seven year old daughter! [Read more…]

How to spot fake plastic.

July 31, 2015 — leslie dean brown

Cellophane is a biodegradable polymer based on cellulose. It’s made from renewable resources and it is compostable. They only problem is getting a hold of the stuff…

BLOODY hell I am starting to get annoyed with humans. No, not the delightful young lady one in the picture above. I’m only using her to get your attention. Rather, I’m referring to all the blasted cretins on ebay like this one who are now selling ordinary polypropylene rolls, sheets and bags and claiming that they are cellophane.

Kindly stop selling your junky cheap-shit plastic and palming it off as cellophane. Real cellophane burns. It doesn’t melt. It doesn’t shrivel up into a little goopy ball of muck when you heat it. It is supposed to deteriorate naturally and that’s why we buy it. It degrades and because of that, it’s better for the environment. [Read more…]