Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 6, 2008

Bowhead Whale Could Slow US Plan for OffShore Oil Drilling

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Tomorrow the residents of Barrow, Alaska, a town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, will vote for a new mayor.    According to at least one report whoever wins will potentially impact the ability of the US to fast track its plans for energy independence through offshore oil drilling.

While both the current mayor, Edward Itta, and his rival and former Mayor, George Ahmaogak, are pro-development and have supported the oil industry, the incumbent Itta is against off-shore drilling.

Mayor Itta claims to be concerned that off-shore drilling will potentially scare away the bowhead whales which are still considered “culturally and nutritionally” important to his community of predominately Alaska Natives. 

There is also the issue of whether offshore drilling, as opposed to onshore drilling, will cut his municipality out of a share in the oil revenue.   Indeed could the whales be a convenient excuse for keeping oil exploration and revenue in the municipality?

In nearby Canada, hunting of bowhead whales is also still considered culturally important.  

In August, The Bowhead Whale Music Festival in Nunavik coincided with the signing of an authorization from Canada’s federal department of fisheries and oceans to kill a single whale.

[Image via IceClass removed February 5, 2009, because of copyright issues.]

Mobile Phones to Track Carbon Footprint

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I gather there are three ‘things’ now shared by most communities on this earth: keys, money and mobile phones.   So with the development of new software that enables mobile phones to track our carbon footprint, well, perhaps we can each soon be individually allocated a carbon credit by the United Nations? Read more here.

Counting Cows In Outback Australia

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A Queensland jackeroo   (‘jackeroo’=cowboy, Australian version!)   is overseeing his herd in remote territory when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a designer suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, ‘If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?’ 
 
The jackaroo looks at the man, obviously a yuppie   (‘yuppie’=A young city or suburban resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent lifestyle) , then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, ‘Sure, why not?’ 
 
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite tha t scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . 
 
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, ‘You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.’ 
 
‘That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,’ says the Cowboy. 
 
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. 
 
Then the cowboy says to the young man, ‘Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?’
 
&n bsp;The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, ‘Okay, why not?’
 
 ‘You work for the Australian Government’, says the Jackeroo.
 
 ‘Wow! That’s correct,’ says the yuppie, ‘but how did you guess that?’ 
 
‘No guessing required.’ answered the jackeroo. ‘You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used all ki nds of expensive equipment that clearly somebody else paid for, You t ried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows … this is a flock of sheep. Now give me back my dog.’    

[via Denis Barrett]