Images by Chris Jordan of dead albatross chicks on the Midway Atoll have been spreading around the web. The disturbing images show the decomposed bodies of the chicks with numerous pieces of plastic in their stomaches.
If you are wondering how so much of our plastic and other waste finds its way into the middle of the Pacific, check out this excellent infographic from 5WGraphics. It shows where a lot of the garbage ends up due the ocean currents.
The approximate epicentre of this garbage patch is 4000km east of the Midway Atoll (see Google Map). Considering that albatross have been tracked to fly around 40,000 kilometres in a period of 90 days (source) to get food for their chicks then this dump is well within their range.
On 23 Sep 2009 we will be having a Twitter-driven online event called: “What a Difference a Day Makes”. The idea of the event is to a) have a global chat about the ig enviro issues and what people are doing to address them, and b) what WWF staff are working on in their day to also address those issues.
Anyone can join the conversation by using the hashtag #wwf24. More here: http://panda.org/wwf24
Help Borders raise $200,000 for the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal. Bring in your second hand good quality books or purchase a new book to donate.
Borders will match the retail price of all donated books up to $200,000, which will go directly to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
Borders will donate all books to schools and libraries in fire affected communities.
A dedicated area for book donations will be provided in store from Monday 23rd February 2009.
My friend Marty O’Neill at Austcare* is helping them re-jig their library and remove a number of multiple copies of various books, periodicals, magazines etc. Anyone interested in picking up human rights & international development related material let me know and I’ll put you in touch. Please pass it on if you know anyone who would be interested in these resources.
Some of these are:
the Journal of Mine Action (2000-2008);
Human Rights Watch (2000 on);
various UN publications on Development;
various copies of the magazine “Focus” from AusAID, the Australian Government’s
Agency for International Development;
If any of you want some copies of these or similar publications, please let me know over the weekend and I will keep them and send them to you. I am the one doing some culling and removal of these items from the library.
* Austcare, the Australian-based non-profit organisation deals with refugee situations overseas, especially those of IDPs - Internally Displaced Persons - like the tsunami victims from Aceh, people in Afghanistan, Gaza and the West Bank, other occupied Palestinian territories, Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka, Darfur in the Sudan, Bangladesh and also landmine victims in Cambodia and parts of Africa.
Ira Glass is the host of an American radio programme called This American Life. I came across this excellent YouTube series (posted by kentj1) a little while back and have visited it again several times. In these videos Ira talks about the craft of storytelling and you can tell he knows what he is talking about because he is so enjoyable to listen to. I have put the 4 videos together in a single playlist so they run together at around 17 minutes.
Just came across this great website Tag Galaxy, thanks to the Socialfish newsletter. It is another fun way to explore and display photos from Flickr. Enter a tag and it creates a “galaxy” based on the tag and associated tags. Bit hard to explain, you’ll just have to check it out. It is similar to the Tiltviewer application by Airtight Interactive that you can use to embed Flickr images on your website based on tag, profile or group. We used Tiltviewer Pro here.
Here is a tag galaxy with the tags: “tropical+flowers” (I wanted something with colour).
Just came across an ad in Wired magazine for Conservation International and their new campaign called “Lost there, felt here”. I was struck by the image depicting the rainforest as lungs. Definitely not a new analogy but it was well designed. My current favourite tee from Red Bubble also uses the lung analogy to good effect.
I had a look at the CI website to learn more about the campaign. They have put together a very nice Flash app which allows the user the purchase/donate virtual square acreage of rain forest. Again, not a new idea (WWF have done similar with WWF-Canada’s award winning ‘Share the Sky’, which is no longer active, and WWF-Finland’s Sademetsän sankarit). But CI have done a nice job of presentation. Then to boot they have created a great short video with Harrison Ford. I thought it was going to be another celebrity talking head, but instead it is very clever and funny.
Cartridge Recycling:
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millipo18:
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