Plastic – this wonderful light material, that comes in so handy in our daily lives, does not just fill up billions of landfills worldwide, where it takes 200-400 years to decompose, but is also carried out to sea via rivers where it ends up floating in collections of ever smaller getting pieces in several places in the oceans.
The biggest of those garbage accumulations at sea with “… roughly the size of Texas [one could also say France], containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash…” (source: http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org) is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and with this it is the biggest rubbish dump on earth. No need to go and look for it on GoogleMaps (as I did), because of it being broken into small pieces it cannot be seen via satellite..
In some areas the density of plastic particles (and sometimes toxic ones) is 7 times higher than plankton. Fish consider it as a (quite possibly not so healthy) food source and also birds eat the small plastic pieces. Some die while others are eaten and so the plastic makes its way up the food chain..
Ideally of course the whole plastic should not ever make it into the oceans in the first place and maybe one day this will be made a priority (with lots of wishing and hoping..), but until then reducing the amount of plastic bags, water bottles and other throwaway plastic gadgets is the way to go.
Nature is pretty to look at, nature is an inspiration for science, nature provides a lot of things that would cost us dearly to do by ourselves or would frankly be impossible to do at all.
Think about the bats that eat mosquitoes (up to their own body weight each day), worms and slugs that recycle organic waste and loosen the ground or bees that fertilize our crops..
Now, some of them are in a bit of trouble, the bats in Belgium have troubles finding caves to hibernate over winter and the bees are globally on a very steep incline because of use of pesticides. They are pollinating 90% of our plants! And “Multiple scientific studies blame one group of toxic pesticides for their rapid demise..”
As for the bees there is something you can do for them.. Avaaz, a global web movement, which helps enforcing environment friendly policies through petitions, is currently collecting signatures to hopefully provoke a global ban on pesticides. I signed already, why don’t you sign it as well? http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/
Ok, now seriously:
“The oceans and seas are a source of life on our planet. They cover almost three quarters of the Earth’s surface and contain some 90% of the biosphere. Their protection is essential to the future of our planet. Pollution of our seas and destructive fishing practices are anathema to that. Our oceans and seas also play a strategic role in sustaining climate and weather patterns, distributing solar energy, and absorbing carbons.” (Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas)
Three quarters of fishing grounds are almost depleted. Rising water levels inflicted by global warming are threatening sensitive corals and low lands. Now I won’t blog more about it as others can do this better. Here a good overview by a member of the Ocean Project and here more on the topic by the following organisations UN, the European Commission or GreenPeace. You can sign a petition with GreenPeace on protecting 40% of the world’s oceans as marine reserves.
The Ocean Project has a list of events around the globe, nothing though for Belgium. However, Sunday June 7th is la Fête de l’Environnement 2009 organised at Parc Cinquantenaire by Bruxelles Environnement, where you can meet actors of the environmental field. The Brussels Aquarium will also have a stand there. In the evening there will be a free concert.
When I arrived at the end of rush-hour all the Foe-members in the station-hall were in conversation with people passing by, mainly explaining the aims of the campaign. Above the general stairs you could see a big screen showing the Big Ask Film .
Some passengers took time to see the film. Afterwards they asked the Foe-members what The Big Ask stands for. A lot of people filled in the Big Ask postcards (more than I expected!), which FOE will send to the decision making Belgian politicians concerning climate issues.
Politicians from right and left-wing parties came especially to this event in order to talk about the aims of the campaign. On the picture below you’ll see the co-chairman from Ecolo Isabelle Durant, together with members from mother Earth, the Flemish FOE-movement. Another Ecolo politician who took time to talk about the aims and strategies of The Big Ask campaign was Evelyne Huytebroeck, the environment minister in Bxl we met on the ecoloj meeting in march. Other parties present were the flemish socialists (SP-A) and the Flemish Liberals (VLD).
It takes my interest as the campaign is focussing on a clear legal pressure towards politicians on national and EU level.
A few weeks ago I went on a night walk with the local group of Friends of the Earth in Brussels. The activity was organized in the spirit of Earth Hour 2009 – an action initiated by WWF on March 28th 2009.
This was the core message of the campaign:
Our walk in Brussels went on for 3 hours through the local forest area Forêt de Soignes. 3 hours in the dark in the middle of a forest; looking at star signs with a group of like minded environmentalists – What’s a better way of spending the ‘earth hour 2009′?
The walk in any case was a success and it would be a surprise if Friends of the Earth Brussels would not continue organizing enjoyable walks and awareness raising events here in Brussels. Thank you for the nice evening. › Continue reading
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