two pics from latest trip and two for guessing what they are

This incense is under threat according to news i heard, the Boswellia Sacra tree produces incense when tapped like a rubber tree. It grows in north East Africa, Yemen and Oman. Cited causes of decline are climate change, over tapping and over grazing.

From Yellow taxi, ” well you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone”, and Elton ” its sad. so sad, its a sad sad situation”  its all in the songs but we don’t learn from them or any other medium.

Been trying to get the Science magazine that has an article on the plight of sea birds, heh seems we are over fishing the oceans, who will eat the last sea caught white fish, in a supper?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change

we have had 17 conferences of the parties (COPs) on climate change, many more than i had thought, so where are we on controlling harmful emissions? I would say deadlocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist

A flickering light of hope from a Danish Candle? well I’m sceptical about that now, where to turn?

no leadership, single malt and a single fish sir?

Seems to me that politics and economics are failing each other and the people it is meant to help prosper, hence the  99% demonstrations. The system has failed and is failing, I do not believe the Euro zone will cohere to a unified whole all acting for the “zone”, in the UK the pension costs are a tad below 6% of GDP, in Greece they are 12% and in Italy they are 14%, can you see the rest of the Euro zone paying for that? or can you see the people of Greece and Italy taking a hit on their promised pensions? This is just one example of many of the fiscal fractures over which plasters are being stuck down with rhetoric.

Why is it so difficult to predict what will happen? it’s Global, interlinked, a woven web, relies on confidence, will not rely on altruism, money is a commodity, it must make more money for those who have it and control it. The market place will suit the market place, that’s why we have institutions and companies that are too big to fail, a global political failure now well observed. The purpose of this post? frustration at politics and economics and failure of it to work for the people or be understood to the extent that measures can be taken to make it work.

Those cynical and or wise could postulate that “who said it should work for the people?” at some point if it does not, it will fail anyway, especially with the new democracy of social internet sites, just look at Moscow and the peoples reaction to the recent election.

What is chinas economic model? for it has lifted 627 million people out of poverty, unprecedented in human history, India another billion person economy has the largest difference between rich and poor, a system that democracy (with corruption) seems to develop. Russia I have never understood but appears to be like India, super rich, and queuing poor, again with corruption.

In this global inter-weaved market place, if Brazil, India and China don’t buy our goods or services, we will be in decline, which I believe will happen anyway due to the UK’s governments cuts and not trying to grow the economy. What can I say, another failure!

This is a belated birthday gift as I just couldnt finish the damn thing in time (probably because I didnt start it early enough). Its still a work in progress however so updates will be fairly regular!

Ive also upgraded to the latest version and done all your plugins too.

When you see a crowd of photographers around a celeb or person notorious, you see/hear many £k’s worth of cameras on multishot or continuous shot. I just wondered about the number of photos now taken daily in the  digital age? Most phones have cameras, ipods, tablets all take photos. Lets have an estimate just to get a number, lets say a quarter of the population have a means to take a photo, 7 billion/ 4 = 1.75 billion and they take a photo at least once per week, that’s 91 billion annually, and for a range say once per day that’s 638.75 billion annually!! That is a staggering amount of photos, to take, to review, to select. Those of us who do exactly that, take, review and select,  will be cursing the luck of  the photographer of the dragonfly above, taken on Arran in October 2011, with as CH says “a diddy camera”. Well I have stuck various cameras at dragonflys and to me this is a beauty, it just shows you what you can achieve if the light and camera settings are right. My Wife was ushered in to admire this pic and was so taken by the wing pattern that it will no doubt cost me plenty in art materials to “do something” with the design. She is presently knitting, hasn’t done that for years!!

Now worried.

On leave from the Shetlands, the mist at home lifted, the sun came out and I wheezed up Kinnoul hill in Perth. Heard long tailed tits with blues and greats, a pair of jays and a buzzard. Saw ravens,  longtailed tits, jackdaws and a peregrine that obligingly went into a stoop over Barnshill and disappeared from my view. Meanwhile I was snapping with my panasonic DMC FZ7 and my Canon EOS 550 D, you can see the comparison above, the canon shots are on top and the brighter less real shots are the panasonics below. The canon camera to my mind produces the real light and colours, the f stops and the shutter speeds are similar to both cameras on a p setting, but what a difference, note on the landscape pic the canon picks out the Lomond hills where the panasonic does not. could be unfair to compare a panasonic 7Mpixel against a DSLR 18 Mpixel, but you would have thought the reproduction of the scene would have been similar in colour with the panasonic  lacking in detail. I am surprised, and need DSL to explain.

This link to Newsweek Scotland woke me from the reverie of warm downy cosiness, minute 18 to 36 is the poignant part. Nothing less than the downfall of the euro zone. The reason I bring it to your attention it is that I believe it, and I am not so sure why, perhaps it is because I believe politicians (in general) do not understand economics. The non control of the banking system is testimony to even the monetary erudite Mr Brown’s failure to understand the system, he understood how to fix it, just as well. But what this 18 minute interview does is explain the teetering domino that is Greece. And do not forget if the Ireland domino defaults (after Greece) our major banks will fail due to the debt held, and not repaid.

Words waiting

Hidden on closed pages

Latent power, latent influence

Just words; waiting

Waiting to be read

Waiting to be understood

Poetic words; patiently proscribed

Novel words; creative

Factual words; educative

But just print on a page

In your language

Waiting to be read

Waiting to be understood

use link, and yes there are probably too many climate warnings and failed global meetings for this or any other disaster climate warnings to be heeded. But surely there is now ( apart from G W Bush and followers) a realisation, in the West,  that the planets climate is changing, it is more unpredictable and the cause is rising CO2 levels.

From the failed global meetings, emergent nations are not going to voluntary reduce their economic advancement in line with the the emerged nations wishes who have obtained economic strength by the present levels of CO2. They are on the economic up and we are in realisation mode regarding sustainable human economic presence on this planet. Well not all of us but enough.

Problem; getting a large committee to agree

Problem; the committee has divergent objectives

Solution? who knows, but we all live on this third rock from the Sun and when that life risk is eventually and unequivocally brought to a final cause, the solution will have gone past the tipping point.

Is sustainable growth just a concept and on global terms an illusion?

good news?     the planet will survive, we will not, as presently configured.