Articles by Biodiversivist

More ideas needed

Here's a recent story of how two poachers, while posing as tourists, managed to slip away just long enough to kill a couple of rhinos and cut their horns off.

National Geographic has this story about the discovery of a critically endangered male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia. Problem is, that horn sure would make a nice dagger handle. It is just a matter of time now before the locals find out one is there.

This problem has been discussed a few times in letters to Science magazine: Biologists report finding an endangered species only to lose it again to collectors and poachers who learned of its whereabouts from the same report. This profit motive thing is powerful. Maybe we should be looking harder for ways to use it to protect what remains.

Can you ‘murder’ a chicken?

The word murder generally applies to people killing other people. 99.9 percent of all violent deaths to human beings are wrought by other human beings. The individual human being we look at in the mirror every morning is cooperative, caring, and kind. As a species however, our propensity and capacity to cooperate as a group to go after other groups is nothing short of monstrous. The fossil record indicates that this has apparently been true for many thousands of years now.

Using the word "murder" to describe the act of a human killing a non-human does not sit well with me. It is a special word that shocks and should be reserved for when one human deliberately takes the life of another. The use of it by animal rights activists to describe the killing of a farm animal is demeaning people. It puts farm animals on the same level as my children. Using that term in such a manner may be counterproductive.

It also isn't used when one animal "murders" another, for food, out of anger, or just for fun. Animals kill each other for all of those reasons.

An odd perspective on food — mine

From an interesting article in Slate:

... we're getting fat. Not just the United States or Europe, but the whole world. Egyptian, Mexican, and South African women are now as fat as Americans. Far more Filipino adults are now overweight than underweight. In China, one in five adults is too heavy, and the rate of overweight in children is 28 times higher than it was two decades ago. In Thailand, Kuwait, and Tunisia, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are soaring.

My oldest daughter spent last summer in Paraguay and was fed beef all day long. She could hardly find a green vegetable. She also learned that there are a lot of overweight Paraguayans.

A home-built electric bike is working like a champ

I've been putting a lot of miles in on my bike, which has also been enhancing my MPGPP. I continue to use the lead acid batteries that came with the kit because I don't want to see them go to waste. Since they weigh practically nothing, I carry two lithium battery packs as spares for when I over-extend the lead acids. I'll use the lithium packs full time after the lead acids give it up -- the sooner, the better.