living

Epic Voyage
The Plastiki and crew have reached the end of their epic voyage which has taken them through the Pacific Ocean on an 8,000 nautical mile adventure lasting over 130 days. On Jul 26, 2010, 'plastiki' reached its final destination, sailing its way into Sydney Harbour, bringing with it a warning on pollution & on plastic waste in the oceans.

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The Plastiki is a distinctive, one-of-a-kind 60-foot (20m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products.The craft was built using cradle to cradle design philosophies and features many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generators.

On March 20, 2010, the sailing vessel set off from San Francisco, California with a six-man crew, including David de Rothschild, to sail across the Pacific Ocean. The expedition projected landfall in Sydney, Australia and included plans to visit several sites en route of ecological importance or which were susceptible to environmental issues caused by global warming, for instance the current sea level rise, ocean acidification and marine pollution.  read more »

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World's First Ban on Shark Fin Makes Hawaii Global Leader in Shark Conservation
HONOLULU, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of the State of Hawaii becoming the first jurisdiction to ban sales of shark fin soup, local and international conservation groups praised the ground-breaking move as a first step to halting the decimation of global shark stocks.

Fins from up to 70 million sharks a year are used for shark fin soup often with the bodies of the animal dumped overboard dead or alive. In a recent study the world's top shark scientists (IUCN Shark Specialist Group) reported that of 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays 32% are "threatened with extinction," primarily due to overfishing. In addition, 24% were "near threatened," while another 25% could not be assessed due to lack of data. Yet only 3 species have any kind of international protection and the UN CITES convention recently declined to take any action due to opposition led by Japan.  read more »

Tree of Life
The Tree of Life in Bahrain is one of the world's loneliest trees. The mesquite tree sits at the highest point in the barren desert of Bahrain, hundreds of miles from another natural tree and is thought to have tap roots reaching hundreds of feet down to aquifers. The exact age of the tree is unknown though it's generally believed to be more than 400 years old.

Montezuma Cypress: The Tule Tree
The Tule Tree, or El Árbol del Tule, is a Montezuma cypress tree on the grounds of a church in Santa María del Tule in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It measures more than 119 feet around but is only 116 feet high (To put that in perspective, the General Sherman is 275 feet high and 102 feet around). It's believed that the tree is about 2,000 years old. Local legend holds that the tree was planted 1,400 years ago by a priest of the Aztec storm god. According to National Geographic, it is the inspiration for an annual festival in Oaxaca celebrated on the second Monday of October.

Quaking aspen: Pando  read more »

Meghan McCain has come out against the controversial Arizona anti-illegal immigration law, despite her father's - Sen. John McCain - clear defense of it.

A demonstrator is taken into custody for blocking a street at a federal detention center in Broadview, Ill., to stop deportations from being carried out. Some protesters chanted “Illinois is not Arizona”.

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It's McCain vs. McCain. Meghan McCain criticizes Arizona's anti-illegal immigrant law, as dad Sen. John McCain defends it. As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) makes the rounds on television, standing up for the Arizona immigration law that has sparked protests and outrage nationwide, his daughter calls it "a license to discriminate." "Let me say up-front that I do not support the bill that was signed by Governor Jan Brewer," Meghan McCain wrote in her Daily Beast blog on Wednesday. "I believe it gives the state police a license to discriminate, and also, in many ways, violates the civil rights of Arizona residents."

Sen. McCain, however, feels the law will not become corrupted, as his daughter fears. "I do not want any discriminatory behavior, and I've talked to a group of lawmen," the senior senator from Arizona said on CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday. "They think they can implement this law without racial profiling."  read more »