Adlocutio

Usually the one animal I fear the most is Homo not-so-sapiens, sapiens-oh-really?!

Anyway, I watched this movie thanks to my best friend (I must say, you really know how to feed me the things I relish!). It’s really, really, really, really wonderful! It’s breathtaking and mind-opening. I have seen a lot of documentaries about sharks before (believe me: a lot indeed) but nothing as comprehensive, informative, complete, artistic, real, and mind blowing as this.

Allow me to change to a more agressive self. I won’t bite. Besides everything else we can see happening around us everyday, this movie is one more evidence that humans lost it (their minds, I mean). For those who usually have a hard time getting my point about something I just have to say this: I know I am right and I am not stopping. If that scares the h**l out of you don’t walk with me. Others will. For starters, I never asked for anyone to embark in this journey with me. But Gaia did. And Gaia is not giving much more time. I know some things are dead wrong, I know some things are right.

You know it too. That strange feeling you have in your heart and stomach when you see certain passages of this and other movies, for example? That’s your mind shaking you, telling you the things you refuse to admit because you are emotionally imature to be honest with yourself. You admit nothing except maybe a bullet on your skulls.

Stoping the deal on shark fins, shark soup and other products would not compromise the new plasma screen for your living room, your precious ever so bigger house, the new AC system and the social status given to you by the new BMW model. You know what? You can even continue to be the same selfish bastard and not letting go of anything and not value anything you already have.

Change it’s just a matter of imagination. If you can’t go over a fence, go around it. Create a new trade on other stuff. Stop being brain lazy.

Above all, if you can, PLEASE, watch this:

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s the website! By the way, by watching this movie you’ll be helping.

It worries me.

a) We lower carbon emissions using bio fuels. We increase them when we produce them. Can someone give me correct numbers on how much we lower the emissions by the use and how much we increase the emissions by producing the bio fuels?

b) Deforestation is a huge problem as it is. To produce the vast amounts of corn, cane, or other culture needed to produce fuel we would need to dramatically increase areas without forest and natural ecosystems;

c) To produce bio fuels I’m assuming we would use even more pesticides and other harmful chemicals with all the known problems associated with this use, affecting more rural and forest terrains and populations;

d) If we go there how to stop the prices of food to go up dramatically? Let’s face it, if I produce cane or corn and there’s a bigger demand for those products I will increase the price. If I trade on those products I will increase the prices. If I stock those products and distribute them I will increase their prices. Offer and demand at its best! Possible result: vast populations in different areas of the planet starving. A very strong increase of food prices in developed countries… and yes, there is famine in develop countries too, and yes the majority of populations of some developed countries have a very hard time just to survive; By the way, are there really such things as developed countries??? Oh, yes! By comparison!

e) All this without the benefit of lower fuel prices. Taxes apart, the constant demand for grain to produce fuel would exhaust the lands. The constant demand would keep fuel prices high anyway. The demand for fuel never stopped to increase. At a pace not compatible with the finite land resources available to produce bio fuels.

f) It seems to me we have been paying too little for too long for fuel and incentivised the excessive use of fuel. We are used to wasting. We use a car to go the cafe next door; we use a car to drive inside cities with good public transportation. We need to face the fact that fuel is a very scarce resource and we should use it in the strictest needed quantities. It’s not a matter of if it pleases us, if it comes in handy. We have to decide: do I really need to use the car this time? Do I really need to use the car on all the course of the travel? Do we still even remember how it feels like having dirt or sand or grass under our feet?

I searched for the opinion of Greenpeace and this is their stand on bio fuels. By the way, I completely support Greenpeace’s view. The aim should be better technology that reduces the emissions and not solutions filled with problems without answers. We need to get power without emissions, power with efficient use of fuel. Not just switching one carbon based fuel for another equally carbon based. Here’s what they have to say:

“Bio fuels are very problematic. In many cases they do not contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions due to the emissions caused by their production, often related to land use and deforestation. The availability of real sustainable bio fuels is limited and preference should be given to using them for power generation which is a more efficient use of these fuels.”

Therefore, next time you hear someone talk about bio fuels: be suspicious, be very suspicious.